/ ANECDOTAL >. 
 ^REMINISCENCES/ 
 
 SIR GEO. DUCKEl'T 
 BART
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 ANECDOTAL 
 
 REMINISCENCES 
 
 OCTO-NONOGENARIAN 
 
 SIR G. F. DUCKETT, BART., 
 
 Knight of the ist Class of the Saxe Ernestine Family Order; Knight of the Order of Mi 
 Saxe Coburg-Gotha ; Officer of Public Instruction in France; Great Gold Medallist 
 " Science and Art " in Austria and Germany ; French Emperor's Gold Medallist ; 
 Gold Medallist of the French Republic for services rendered to Arch;eology ; 
 Corresponding Member of the Society of Antiquaries of Normandy ; and 
 Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. 
 
 he visto contra el bueno la boca impura de la atroz caluinnia 
 
 lanzar impunemcnte sit veneno. 
 
 TANCREDO, acto iii. 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY T. WILSON. 
 
 1895.
 
 TO THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 MY MOTHER, 
 
 DAME ISABELLA DUCKETT 
 
 (Boy n 1781. ob. 1844.;
 
 1811-1856.
 
 STAT SUA CUIQUE DIES: 
 
 I HAVE been asked to write sundry reminiscences of 
 a long life by one or two charming young ladies, 
 and by one or two most agreeable ladies of maturer 
 age. We all know the influence of the female sex 
 upon mankind, so this will account for my compliance, 
 though I am fast becoming blind, and I knpw not the 
 time of my departure. Egotism is part and parcel of 
 personal memoirs or autobiography, and cannot in any 
 way be got rid of or avoided ; a remark made at the 
 outset in order to unburden my conscience of an other- 
 wise unpleasing characteristic. 
 
 That " every dog must have his day," is an old say- 
 ing, and a rough translation of the heading motto, 
 nevertheless, if in that day more than ordinary occur- 
 rences transpire beyond the usual hair-breadth escapes 
 of life, it may be worth while to perpetuate their memory 
 and commit the same to paper. Above all, however, 
 in noting the events of a long life, it behoves that indi- 
 vidual, whoever he may be, to be thankful that he has 
 been spared to recognize the finger of God in all things, 
 and that also, for some good end, believing that the fate 
 of man is known before ; that nothing happens to any 
 one by chance ; some being born to honour, others to dis- 
 honour ; and that as Scripture tells us, " no sparrow falls 
 to the ground " unknown to our Heavenly Father : that 
 even " the very hairs of our head are all numbered," so
 
 the thorough acquiescence in the belief that " known 
 to God are all his works from the foundation of the 
 world " must most assuredly be admitted. 
 
 But some one may remark, in what way has the life 
 of the writer of this memoir materially differed from the 
 ordinary life of any other. The answer is, that brought 
 up with great expectations, he became involved in the 
 ruin which overtook his father just as he came of age, 
 a fact which may have somewhat hastened that event, 
 nevertheless, the ruin was so complete as to leave him 
 face to face with beggary. The why or wherefore of 
 the event, and how it came to pass, concerns the history 
 of another. 
 
 The first matter of any historic interest which I can 
 call to mind, is that when at school at Putney, and ill 
 in bed, I heard some one say that the Princess Char- 
 lotte had just died. As her death took place in 1817, 
 I must have been just six years old at the time, having 
 been born in 1811 ; an early age for a boy to be at 
 school, but it was fraught with one advantage, that it 
 made me in early life a year at least in advance of my 
 age. Contemporary with this is another incident. I was 
 at Brighton at a part since known as Kemp Town, but 
 at that time not extending beyond the Royal Crescent. 
 The cliff had no railing to protect passers by, and grass 
 grew along the edge the whole distance. My sister was 
 on a donkey ; the servant-maid must apparently have 
 left it to its fate, and the animal making for the grass at 
 the edge, I stopped it just as it was on the point of 
 commencing operations. I never got praise, that I 
 remember, for this feat, for the servant, possibly for
 
 good reasons of her own, kept the matter to herself. It 
 was, however, (though I say it, who should not say it), 
 a nice and manly act in a boy of that age. A man who 
 records the events of his life must necessarily be egotis- 
 tical as already observed, and it cannot be avoided. 
 
 In 1818 I went to a school on Wimbledon Common, 
 not far from a site known as " Caesar's Camp," under 
 the Rev. Joshua Ruddock. His wife had been, as far 
 as I remember to have heard, a nursery governess in the 
 Duke of Somerset's family, if not in some other of 
 equal importance. This must account for the fact that 
 with the exception of myself and another, the boys 
 without exception, belonged to the noblesse. It may be 
 as well to recall their names. Lord Edward Thynne, the 
 Earl of Kerry, Lord Dalmeny (father of Lord Rose- 
 bery), Charles Bennet (now Earl of Tankerville), Fred. 
 Robinson, son of Lord Grantham, Lords Archibald 
 and Algernon Seymour (afterwards Dukes of Somerset), 
 William Cowper (afterwards Lord Cowper-Temple), 
 Robert and Edward Curzon (sons of Baroness de la 
 Zouche), Duncan (afterwards Lord Camperdown), and 
 Ponsonby (afterwards Earl of Bessborough). Of these 
 Robinson, Bennet, and Robt. Curzon (afterwards Lord 
 Zouche), were my friends, but none of them are now 
 living, save the Earl of Tankerville and the Duke of 
 Somerset. The Rev. J. Ruddock showed but little. 
 His idea of exercise was original, namely, in a tax-cart 
 without springs whereby to increase the jolting. His 
 death was announced one morning to the assembled 
 boys, and I for one left the school at once for Harrow 
 in 1820. At this school I obtained the prize for good
 
 4 
 
 reading, and the best translation of one of the Fables of 
 Phoedrus. 
 
 I remember shortly after this, from the drawing-room 
 windows of the house in Sloane Street, rented by my 
 father, to have seen the Life Guards marching past to 
 their drill ground for field exercise, then almost fresh 
 from Waterloo, and the occupation of France. This 
 ground formed at that time the open unenclosed com- 
 mon or fields, now covered by Eaton Square, Eaton 
 Place, and I know not how much more of Belgravia. 
 Wormwood Scrubbs did not, until long after, supply 
 its place. As to localities, I remember to have heard 
 my father say that he remembered Grosvenor Square a 
 farm ; and I myself, well remember Tyburn turnpike, 
 which ended all things in that direction up to the now 
 disused burial ground. 
 
 My tutor at Harrow was the Rev. W. Drtiry, the son 
 of Mark Drury, under the Head Master, Dr. Butler 
 (afterwards Dean of Peterborough). The Drurys were 
 one and all Masters at Harrow, and included Henry 
 Drury, cousin to the above William. Of the Wimble- 
 don boys, Fred. Robinson was the only one who came 
 to Harrow, and he also came to Win. Drury's, and it 
 was stipulated, by his mother (I think), that he should 
 be in the same room with " little Duckett." I am not 
 sure about Dalmeny. During the three years that I 
 was a Harrow boy, I seem never to have gone beyond the 
 "shell," a very considerable time being passed in the 
 third form. These small boys were the only school 
 "fags," for unlike Eton, fagging was not allowed. In 
 that capacity I had unpleasant encounters with one
 
 sixth form boy at the same boarding house, named 
 Gal vert (afterwards Sir Harry Verney), with whom the 
 toasting fork was the usual instrument of asserting 
 authority on my stretched out band. Beyond being 
 " tipped " on Speech Day by Lord and Lady Grantham, 
 there is nothing very worthy of note, save perhaps the 
 following. I do not know how many other boys under- 
 took the task, but I remember to have repeated one of 
 the Eclogues of Virgil (I forget which) from beginning 
 to end, without missing a word. I certainly could not 
 perform that feat now. For this performance I ob- 
 tained a prize book, " The Domestic Customs of the 
 Romans," for which my father paid, I will not of course 
 say, more than double its value. What Harrow may 
 now be I don't know. I never had any children to 
 send to any school, but it required " purging " in those 
 days, when " rotten boroughs " and jobbery of all sort 
 were paramount in everything handed down from the 
 two preceding centuries. Can one now say On a change 
 tout cela with any truth, when " nepotism " still goes for 
 much ? 
 
 There can be no doubt that the ill a boy learns at a 
 public school far exceeds any good he acquires, and I 
 may as well relate the following. A boy named San- 
 som and myself agreed to break out at night and go up 
 to Vauxhall. It was the custom at that day to go there 
 in evening dress. Accordingly with light dress shoes, 
 then called pumps, Sansom and I sallied forth. We 
 had, in order to avoid the street, to pass through the 
 garden of Mark Drury, in order to get over the park 
 paling and fence of Lord Northwick's park. A deep
 
 ditch on the other or park side of the fence was quite 
 unknown, so that the consequence was, that both my 
 pumps came off and stuck in the mud. This of course 
 in the dark was a very pretty state of things. It was 
 impossible to go on, and equally dangerous to recede, 
 but the latter was the only alternative. How I ever 
 got back through the garden in question, obtained 
 fresh shoes, and made a bold start for the street, and 
 found the tax cart at the bottom of Harrow Hill, which 
 was to take us up to Vauxhall, is a mystery to the 
 present day. This illustrates the badness to which 
 youth is exposed, being an instance (the first with me) 
 of those "wild oats" which it is frequently expected 
 to sow. 
 
 Whilst on the subject of breaking out, I am reminded 
 of a case in which I was let out of a window by Bering 
 (the present Sir Edward). I held on to his wrist as far 
 as he could reach, when I let go, and came safely to the 
 ground with a drop of about twelve or fourteen feet. 
 The boys used to poach and catch perch in Lord North- 
 wick's park, as soon as the day broke. I know no man 
 whose face has undergone less change than Sir Edward 
 Dering's, up to the last ten years. 
 
 Mark Drury and his son, became (I heard), involved, 
 after I left Harrow, and found themselves safe at 
 Brussels. In the third form with me was a boy named 
 O'Brien. He was about my own age, say nine or ten, 
 and was afterwards known as Stafford O'Brien, of 
 Blatherwick Park, in Leicestershire. I never met him in 
 after life, but the verses he composed on Wm. Drury, 
 still in my possession, show the greatest talent for one 
 of that age. I remember the lines perfectly.
 
 In relating my Harrow life, I am jotting down matter 
 without regard exactly to date, but which transpired 
 during the three years I was there. In this way I 
 remember a feat I there performed, and that was in 
 running to the first mile stone and back, whilst the bell 
 was " ringing for school." As the bell rang for a 
 quarter-of-an-hour, the time so occupied was fifteen 
 minutes, but I dare say many another man or boy has 
 done quite as much, for when I was in the 82nd, a sub- 
 altern, Wykehain Martin (Leeds Castle), walked five 
 miles within the hour, accoutered in the full marching 
 order of a private, coining in cheered by the men. This 
 fine young fellow who was lost in the " President," 
 was something under six feet. 
 
 Part of the Harrow system was, and still is, I pre- 
 sume, to compose nonsense-verses, though there is a 
 doubt in one sense, as to the case I am going to relate, 
 because the epithet applied equally to verses of the other 
 sort. In order once to make a line scan, I took out of 
 the " Gradus ad Parnassum," one of the many epithets 
 applied to Achilles, and that in question was " stultus," 
 for some unwise act which that hero of antiquity had 
 committed, for we all know that no mortal "omnibus 
 horis sapit." With all imaginable respect for him, how- 
 ever, I must have thought, that he might as well have 
 the benefit of it, so down, therefore, it went "stultus 
 Achilles." On this conveniently-scanning epithet, Win. 
 Drury's remark to me, was both admonitory and retort- 
 ing "I suppose, said he, laying due emphasis on the 
 word " stultus," " you judge of others by yourself." 
 
 Boys, no doubt, are very wicked, bad, and un-
 
 6B 
 
 governable, and I remember once or twice a plot for 
 "eating out" our tutor, an expression old Harrovians 
 will understand. Such a plot came off on one occasion, 
 and I and another boy, above all others, asked for 
 repeated "helps" of beef. William Drury was in the 
 dining room, superintending the eating up of his pro- 
 visions by his locust-pupils ; he could stand it no longer, 
 so he came up to us and gave us a box on the ear. 
 This he had no right to do, castigation being the special 
 privilege of the Head Master ; moreover he was a tall, 
 stout party, so what he did in that way was not child's 
 play. The reminiscences of early life are more indelibly 
 impressed on one, than those of after-life, so in addition 
 to the foregoing, I remember on one occasion some 
 Anabaptists who made too free use of our dubious piece 
 of bathing water, called " Duck Puddle," to carry out 
 their baptismal ceremonies, were set upon and knocked 
 about, going away both wetter and less sightly than they 
 came. Still those were the sort of lads w r ho formed, 
 and whose forerunners had formed the stuff which made 
 up our " leaders of forlorn hopes," now an entirely by- 
 gone term ; boys who would stick at nothing, and knew 
 how to behave in the day of action. Do the English 
 now require a poet to inspirit them, as Hahn did the 
 Germans ? 
 
 There is no accounting either for tastes or fashions, 
 for on the " breaking up " of school, on arrival of the 
 usual holidays, a custom prevailed for boys to turn out 
 in "top boots and knee breeches." Whilst I commit 
 these words to paper, the very idea seems at once un- 
 meaning, still in that style of garb, the grand object was
 
 6c 
 
 to get first up to London. The journey was performed 
 in the postchaise, now only known by name, and to 
 attain that end the post-boy galloped nearly half the 
 way. Clinton Dawkins (afterwards Private Secretary 
 to Lord Aberdeen), on one occasion performed this 
 senseless exploit with myself. I met his widow upwards 
 of sixty-seven years afterwards, whilst tenanting a house 
 in Oxfordshire. 
 
 Whilst I pen this part of my reminiscences, the 
 " Harrow Register," long in hand, and just published, 
 has reached me. Among other names is that of 
 Anthony Trollope, the novelist. I had not been aware 
 that the miscomfort of his school days had been so 
 known, or thought worthy of record ; the book in 
 question, however, states the fact, p. 88. He and his 
 brother, or perhaps he alone, was pounced upon by 
 boys to repeat his " pedigree," whenever they met him, 
 and usually after each repetition the repeater received 
 a kick, more or less innocent, more or less severe. For 
 a little defenceless boy this state of existence must have 
 been a sore trial. The first lines of his pedigree still 
 din in my ears, deduced as it was from " Tally-Ho Sha" 
 the Norman (who) came over with William the Con- 
 queror," and whose " descendant a little time after 
 killed three wolves," (looking as though the head of the 
 family had tally-ho'd the three wolves, which the des- 
 cendant exterminated). " Trois being the French for 
 three, and loup the French for wolf, the name was called 
 " Trois loups," and after many contractions, our name 
 became Trollope." These were the ipsissima verba of the 
 same, but before the recital of the final word, the boy
 
 made himself up for a " bolt," so as to avoid the kick. 
 I was once caught in the act by his mother, for Mrs. Trol- 
 lope rented a house just out of Harrow, and witnessed 
 the whole ceremony, either being in ambush among the 
 laurels, or in some other way. She reported the matter, 
 and I got a moderate reprimand from my tutor. It 
 would prima facie look very much as if my conduct in the 
 pedigree line had neither been forgotten nor forgiven, 
 though, of course, a purely accidental coincidence, for 
 the same person, afterwards in the Post Office, was sent 
 to investigate one of the many outrages which occur in 
 Ireland, a country partaking of the character of the 
 Marches of Wales, in which " The King's Writ did not 
 run," being nothing more or less than the forcible open- 
 ing of a sealed document by the magistrates. I remem- 
 ber that he called, but I must have been absent, or out 
 shooting, for I did not see him, but he saw the Priest, 
 and the Priest's mother who kept the Post Office, to 
 whom the letter was entrusted, and reported the out- 
 rage in such a way that the General Post Office took a 
 view of the case, altogether in direct opposition of the 
 facts. I do not for a moment say that he did the same 
 unwarrantably, for in cases in which the " end justifies 
 the means," truth is disregarded, and so the Post Office 
 emissary heard but one side of the case, and reported 
 accordingly. The Lord Chancellor, however, took a 
 very different view of the matter, and gave the magis- 
 trates a most severe reprimand, and that, one of them, 
 the late Lord Lifford, told me privately. This is some- 
 what of a digression, but not the only one likely to occur 
 in these pages.
 
 Poor Fred. Robinson, who grew up to be a very fine 
 broad-shouldered man, with whom I was afterwards at 
 Christ Church, Oxford, died prematurely about ten or 
 twelve years afterwards ; he probably over-grew his 
 strength, and had the seeds of delicacy in his frame. 
 He, I, and another boy, whom I forget, were one day 
 " out of bounds," firing pistols in a field. Suddenly a 
 tall country rustic came upon us ; he had been watch- 
 ing us. We ran for our lives ; Robinson fell, and was 
 taken prisoner ; I got clear away. The man said to 
 him, "Oh if I could only have caught that little fellow 
 in black," being then in mourning for my grandfather. 
 
 One or two reminiscences more here, and I have done. 
 My father living in Herts, I used to get leave to go home 
 on a half holiday (Saturday), so as to return by " school 
 time " on the following Monday. For some unexplained 
 reason, I used to ride there and back with the groom 
 on my sister's pony. He was a perfect picture of a 
 diminutive, and what is known as an entire horse. His 
 strength was great, and his temper bad, but the boys all 
 flocked around him to admire his sleekness and form 
 whenever I made my appearance before Mr. Drury's 
 boarding house, in time for early morning school. 
 Whether any boys of my time attained to any eminence 
 I am not able to say, beyond Wordsworth, who became 
 Bishop of St. Andrews, Manning (the Cardinal), who 
 had been Archdeacon of Chichester, and Merivale. 
 
 The oak panels of Harrow schoolroom are (or were) 
 worthy of note. Boys of all sorts, whether afterwards 
 to become celebrities or the reverse, carved their 
 names on the same. Byron's name was said to have
 
 8 
 
 been carved by himself. The Lord Mayor in 1891 
 gave a Harrow dinner. I was myself the senior guest 
 on that occasion, though Sir H. Verney and Sir Edward 
 Bering, both much senior to me, were not present. 
 
 My father was renting at this time Theobalds (not 
 the park), belonging to Sir George Prescott. The 
 latter had been a Royal residence in the time of James 
 I. A piece of water in the grounds contained some of 
 the largest carp I ever remember to have seen. The 
 Waltham Abbey waters were about ij miles distant, and 
 I must not overlook two matters which occurred just 
 about the time I was leaving, or had quitted Harrow. 
 The first is the fact of my having caught a spent salmon 
 in the said Waltham Abbey waters. These cuts, rivers, 
 and so forth, used to hold abundance of pike. I was troll- 
 ing with snap-tackle on one occasion in company with 
 the officer of Engineers then in command of the pow- 
 der mills, at a part called " Newton's Pool." I hooked 
 a good fish, but had little idea of its being other than 
 a pike. At length, however, it was brought to land, 
 and turned out to be what I have said, a spent salmon. 
 It must have been there a long time, and had lost all the 
 attributes of a salmon, in fact looked like a long thick 
 eel, or something resembling the sea fish ling, but less 
 thick. " Now George," said Colonel Boteler, the 
 officer in question, " let us measure the fish on the butt 
 of your rod." ; it measured two feet eight inches. The 
 marvellous part of the matter is, how could such a fish 
 ever have got up the Lea from the Thames. There are 
 endless locks to pass on this navigable river I can not 
 say how many but there the salmon had got, and few
 
 naturalists could exactly determine what length of time 
 it would take for a salmon to acquire that peculiar 
 figure, long and lanky, as I have said it was. It could 
 not have gone beyond the said " Newton's Pool," which 
 put an end to all things on that branch of the Lea. If 
 in good condition, a fish of that length would have 
 weighed at least thirty pounds. 
 
 The officer just alluded to, was a distinguished 
 Engineer Officer, and had served under the Duke of 
 Wellington during the entire Peninsular war, and from 
 his special calling at all the siege operations undertaken 
 by that commander, including Burgos, Ciudad-Rodrigo, 
 St. Sebastian, &c., and in fortifying the lines of Torres- 
 Vedras, the master-piece of the war. He was a con- 
 stant visitor at our house, and was lost in returning 
 from Carfada some ten or fifteen years after his Wal- 
 tham Abbey command. This reminds me of another 
 military man, an old Indian General named Osborne, 
 whose services went back far into the last century. He 
 had been a Captain in a Sepoy Regiment at the siege of 
 Seringapatam, and its capture in 1799. My father 
 enjoyed immensely to hear all these two men had to 
 narrate. But where were their distinctions for such 
 services ? Every thing is now overdone, and done more- 
 over in the wrong way. The longer I live, the more I 
 am led to doubt, whether the men of this country will 
 ever be able to retain what their forefathers conquered, 
 and vice-versd that the present race would never have 
 been able to conquer what their forerunners overcame. 
 No doubt some reader, fresh from school, will simply 
 dub me as " laudator tempons acti;" nevertheless, when
 
 IO 
 
 women drive tandem and four-in-hand, have not men 
 slunk into the shade ? 
 
 The second matter, which was of great public 
 notoriety at the time, was the trial of Thurtell and his 
 associates, before Chief Justice Parke, at the Hertford 
 Assizes, for the murder of Wear. The particulars are 
 in print. The whole crew were a set of low gamblers 
 or worse, and Wear, one of them, had won money. 
 Thurtell shot him whilst leaving London in a gig, 
 somewhere near Elstree. The body was thrown into a 
 pond. Three of these men were tried. My father had 
 been High Sheriff for the County either the year pre- 
 ceding their trial, or was so in that year, I have quite 
 forgotten, but the Under-SherifF, Mr. Nicholson, father 
 of the present Sir Richard Nicholson, put me in a place 
 close to the dock, so near, indeed, that I could have 
 almost touched Thurtell, who was on the right of the 
 three prisoners. I must have principally watched the 
 faces of these men, for I remember nothing of the 
 evidence, and I can recall their looks as if it were only 
 yesterday. Thurtell was a strong built fellow about 
 five feet nine inches high or more, and had irregular 
 features of a rather low type ; Probert next to him, 
 was a taller man and rather better looking, and had 
 curly hair ; next to him was Hunt, a short man and 
 dark, something like a Jew. Thurtell was sentenced 
 to be hung, Probert having turned King's evidence ; 
 and Hunt was transported for life. The ruffian Pro- 
 bert was hung for horse-stealing about twelve months 
 or two years afterwards. 
 
 In 1824-5 I passed to a private tutor in Beds, the
 
 Rev. John Taddy, and in 1827 left him for Germany. 
 Mrs. Taddy, on one or two occasions, selected me to 
 drive a sort of open or outside car. The construction 
 of the vehicle was highly faulty, for on one of these 
 occasions, on turning off the road somewhat too sharply, 
 I upset the whole concern, Mrs. Taddy, three children, 
 and maid. I got off with the loss of my shoes, and was 
 deposited with the rest on the grass of Ickwell Green. 
 
 In looking back, it is singular to observe how, with- 
 out any plan or intention, I seem to have been mixed 
 up with Frederick Robinson. That magnificent place, 
 Wrest Park, belonged at this time to his father (or 
 rather to his grandmother, Lady de Grey). Blunham, 
 which was in the adjoining parish, was in the gift of 
 Lady de Grey, and here Robinson once or twice came 
 to stop with Mr. Beechcroft, the incumbent. As a 
 matter of course, he came over to see me, and it was 
 decided between us, that I should find my way to 
 Wrest ; this accordingly took place. There was a 
 great assemblage of different sorts of people, who dined 
 or pic-nicked in the grounds. The pieces of water were 
 drawn, and some of the largest pike I ever saw in my 
 life were caught. 
 
 I had (after a time) for my companion at Northill, a 
 boy, Cecil Turnor, son of Edmund Turner, of Stoke 
 Rochford, near Grantham, in Lincolnshire. I shall never 
 forget his first appearance on arrival. He had been ex- 
 pelled from Sandhurst, as a ringleader in a mutiny or row, 
 and the Duke of York had forbidden him ever to get a 
 commission. His hair was cropped to a shortness un- 
 known to any but Sandhurst boys of that day. I never
 
 came across any man in after life for whom I had greater 
 regard. He grew up to become one of the handsomest 
 men "about town," and a great roue, universally popular, 
 and beloved by many, and by myself for one. He never 
 married, and afterwards became a Plymouth Brother ; 
 cut the so called world, and shut himself up for twenty 
 years or more at Malvern, and for some years after- 
 wards at Cheltenham, where he died in 1888-9. I was 
 at Malvern in 1874. My dear old friend was difficult to 
 catch, but his servant named an hour in which I might be 
 able to do so. He still wore the high collar and dress 
 of his palmy days, which of course made him an object 
 of some curiosity. He had in every sense become 
 what is known as a " Saint," and was perfectly happy 
 and resigned to his seclusion and lot. We had a drive 
 or two together in his pony cart, and though strict and 
 tight laced as he was on subjects connected with the 
 outside world, he could not help giving me an account 
 of a celebrated run he had had with the Quorn in 
 Leicestershire, going into all the details of a good galop 
 across country. All at once he stopped, saying, " I 
 really must not go on in this way." 
 
 This digression brings me to my first escape in life, 
 one such as few survive, and miraculous in its result. 
 Whilst at the said tutor's, and at home in London for 
 the Easter holidays, it happened that on the Sunday of 
 the 26th March, 1826, I rode a horse of my father's 
 in Hyde Park. It was the fashion to ride on Sunday 
 in those days. The horse was only fit for driving, and 
 by no means one to be selected for the saddle ; more- 
 over I was light, and the horse was strong and power-
 
 ful, and had done a good deal of work probably. He 
 had a habit of " slipping his collar," and getting to the 
 bean chest in the stable. This trick he had played on 
 the night of the day I rode him. During my ride in the 
 Park I met an old Harrow boy named Davis, whom I 
 afterwards knew as Captain in the 52nd at Gibraltar. 
 Rotten Row was quite unenclosed in those days, with 
 grass on either side, and separated from it only by a 
 sort of low ditch or grip. Somewhere towards the top 
 at Kensington Gardens, I thought we were both riding 
 slowly, when I put my horse into a canter. The brute 
 bolted, and in leaving the grass put his forefeet into the 
 grip skirting Rotten Row from the road, fell, and broke 
 his neck, killing himself on the spot. I was thrown 
 over his head and fractured my skull. The extraordi- 
 nary part of the accident was, that I retained a perfect 
 knowledge afterwards of putting the animal into a 
 canter, but remember nothing, not the slightest, of the 
 fall. The only thing which I can remember is, that I 
 found myself in bed being bled, when I again swooned 
 away. The accident was witnessed by a gentleman and 
 lady who were walking, and afterwards called at my 
 father's and narrated what they had seen. The boy 
 Davis lived it would seem in Portland Place. He accor- 
 dingly rode' away to seek out my father's address in the 
 Court Guide. As for myself, I was left lying in a state 
 of unconsciousness with the dead horse. After some 
 ]ong time, the news went forth that a gentleman had 
 met with a serious accident in Hyde Park, but no one, 
 though a large crowd had collected, knew aught about 
 me. My father's house was then in Park Lane, about
 
 14 
 
 ten houses from the Marble Arch end. His coachman 
 happened to be standing near the house, and seeing 
 many persons running, asked what was the matter. On 
 hearing he joined the rest, and was the first to find me 
 in the state described. By that time the Blues or Life- 
 guards had sent a stretcher to take me to St. George's 
 hospital, but it would seem that the servant had given 
 notice to the family at home of the fearful accident, 
 and a medical man arrived with a hackney coach, not 
 at that day permitted within the gates, in order to 
 remove me. This was an accident such as few men 
 survive, indeed not one out of a million. The fracture 
 it would seem was of such a kind, that the skull was not 
 depressed which would have required trepanning ; on 
 the contrary, the fractured portion was " elevated," thus 
 pressing in no way on the brain. A great quantity of 
 serum or fluid escaped, and formed between the skin 
 and skull, which required great skill to disperse. Sir 
 Benjamin Brodie, and Mr. Powell, a surgeon under him, 
 treated the case, and with great medical care, after some 
 months I was restored. The truth is, that I believe from 
 the elevation of the skull, the brain had more room to 
 develop itself, for I no doubt became a sharper boy, as 
 far as my intellect was concerned, than before the 
 accident. It is moreover noteworthy that the fall 
 never made me timid as a rider in after life, or in any 
 way took away my nerve. Herein also lies a parody. 
 The boy whose life hung on a balance outlived all his 
 family, and is quite as much a G.O.M. (in his way), as 
 many another, or even as the celebrated statesman so 
 called. As regards the medical treatment of the fract-
 
 15 
 
 ure, had the skin been punctured and the serum or fluid 
 allowed to escape, I should have died. The dispersion 
 was effected by constant application of spirit. 
 
 It was in May, 1827, the year following this event, 
 that I left England with my father, and the son of our 
 Vicar at Roydon, in Essex, who had just been ordained, 
 and had been selected to go with me as tutor. I 
 remember the Duke of York had just died, and all 
 gentle people were assumed to be in mourning. It was 
 either at Boulogne (or Calais), I forget which, that my 
 father bought or hired a large heavy close carriage, with 
 driving box and rumble behind. He was full of anec- 
 dote when we reached Charleroi of the Waterloo cam- 
 paign, as to the route the retreating army of Napoleon 
 had taken, and how the cry burst forth on all sides, 
 " la garde Imperiale est abimee." We uniformly dined at 
 different tables d'hote, at which my father, excellent in 
 French and German, talked for himself and for us. We 
 never failed whilst in Belgium, to visit the churches, 
 which made some impression upon me, and in that way 
 we visited the Cathedral at Cologne, for our route 
 passed along the banks of the Rhine as far as Mayence. 
 At Wiesbaden we had a disturbance with some driver of 
 a cart, who ran against our carnage. My father called 
 the man a " Spitzbube," which appears to have been an 
 indictable offence, for he summoned him before some 
 magistrate or judicial official. Before arriving at Frank- 
 furt I was caught in a thunderstorm which drenched 
 me to the skin, for I always, by preference, sat in the 
 rumble behind. I mention this as the first experience 
 of a German stove, which on our arrival was ordered to
 
 i6 
 
 be lighted, and gave me the, first insight of its drying 
 capabilities. By way of Fulda and Eisenach, the high 
 road from Frankfurt to the north, we at length reached 
 Saxe Gotha, where I and my tutor were to be domi- 
 ciled. We alighted at the " Three Moors." My 
 father's title of baronet was soon converted into " baron," 
 and as in Germany the son bears the title of his father, 
 during my whole sojourn at Gotha, I was uniformly 
 so called. My tutor, who was in Dean's orders, was 
 always styled " Mr. Deacon." He was an excellent man, 
 without any religious cant, but extremely shy, and to his 
 credit he forced me to go into society, in which he him- 
 self did not wish to figure. I was nominally attached 
 to the Gymnasium or Public College of Gotha, but 
 attended no lectures, the College Professors giving me 
 French and German instruction at our own apartments. 
 Gotha lies on the main road from Leipsic to Frankfurt 
 and the Rhine. With the hotel keeper of the " Three 
 Moors," the rout and retreat of the French army in 
 1813, after the memorable battle of Leipsic, was a 
 never-failing and endless topic, for Napoleon had halted 
 here for a short time. It was no doubt a matter never 
 to be forgotten, for that army in its retreat from Mos- 
 cow, which had fought its way back, made its last stand 
 at Leipsic. Here it received its coup de grace, and as far 
 as I know, it from that time became a case of sauve qui 
 pent. It was here at the " Three Moors " that Napoleon 
 took a few hours rest on that memorable occasion ; and 
 the animated way in which the host related the helter 
 skelter of the fugitive French, and the memorable fact 
 of Napoleon's short halt at his hotel was remarkable, but 
 like all other stories, improved by successive repetition.
 
 17 
 
 This evidence is important, though probably over- 
 drawn, still the rout of the French after Leipsic is an 
 historic fact. Their defeat at that battle was much due 
 to the defection of the Saxon troops, and their going 
 over from the French to the Allies on the igth October, 
 enabling the latter to turn the guns of this contingent 
 against them, consisting of sixty pieces of artillery. 
 
 My father, who had been brought up in Germany 
 after quitting the Charter House, first at the <( Ritter 
 Akademie " at Liineburg, and afterwards at Brunswick, 
 and had figured on occasions at the Ducal Court of 
 Brunswick, impressed his wish upon the Director of 
 the Gotha College, that I should be presented to the 
 reigning Duke. It was only occasionally that he came 
 to Gotha, but in due course His Serene Highness held 
 a levee at one of the Summer Palaces, which I attended 
 under the protection of the College Director, the cele- 
 brated Doring, renowned for his knowledge of Greek 
 and annotator of the Greek Plays. This was my first 
 debut at a Court, and I acquitted myself very badly, and 
 naturally so, for I was far too young. The Duke's 
 innate bonhomie forgave my gaucheries, and on subse- 
 quent occasions had a kind word to say to me en passant. 
 The Duke was a moderately tall man, very upright, 
 with a great deal of military bearing. He had married 
 the daughter of the Duchess of Saxe-Gotha and Alten- 
 burg, and was father of the late Duke Ernest II., and 
 Prince Albert, the Queen's Consort. The Duchess, 
 who was a daughter of the Elector of Hesse Cassel, 
 resided constantly at Gotha. The Duchess Louise had 
 been separated from the Duke the very year of my
 
 i8 
 
 coming to Gotha. She died in 1831 at Paris. I was 
 too young to enter into any of the circumstances of 
 what had then become public, and knew nothing further 
 than that such separation had occurred. 
 
 In the neighbourhood are three castles in ruins, called 
 " the Three Gleichen," perched on the summit of three 
 eminences or hills, and forming together a sort of equi- 
 lateral triangle, in about the same state of ruin and very 
 much resembling those on the Rhine. These Mr. Hood 
 and I visited on horseback, indeed we rode a good deal, 
 but principally in the direction of the Thuringian forest. 
 At a gorge or entrance of it lies Schnepfeuthal, a place 
 of great resort to the people of Gotha, especially during 
 the time of the festivities known as " Vogelschiessen." 
 There was really no road to it at that time (or Chaussee) ; 
 it was simply an up and down country track, unfit even 
 for a waggon. Soon after our arrival at Gotha, the 
 place was visited by a thunderstorm, the worst that I 
 can recall, and I note it for that reason. We occupied 
 apartments at the house of the Director's daughter, a 
 little way out of the town. Our German tutor (Heinrich 
 by name), was a young divine, and eventually married 
 the daughter, and became Director of the College. Our 
 French tutor was an emigre, named Millinet, a very 
 jovial hearty fellow, and I have to thank him for cor- 
 recting some of my Anglican French pronunciation. 
 He had been in the suite of Prince Bliicher, and so 
 attended that great gathering which took place in 
 London after Waterloo, when the Emperor of Russia, 
 and King of Prussia came over. In what way I first 
 became acquainted with the Duchess of Gotha's Dame
 
 19 
 
 w, I quite forget. She was the widow of a 
 
 in General Officer, who fell in the wars of 
 
 ion, Madame de Briixen, and probably between 
 
 md fifty. Her knowledge of English was very 
 
 1, but she sought to improve it by making me 
 
 id holding conversations, such as they were, in 
 
 mguage. She also sent me communications in 
 
 I as to what I ought to do, in attending the 
 
 ss's Court at fixed times. When I look back on 
 
 st, I am astonished to think that a boy of my age, 
 
 , should have been capable of appearing at Court, 
 
 consider it a great favour that I was tolerated. 
 
 ne de Briixen was always very empressee in acknow- 
 
 g our salutation when we met her driving with 
 
 uchess. The equipage consisted of four horses, 
 
 vo leaders being under charge of a postillion in 
 
 with silver lace livery. The daily drive seemed 
 
 round the outskirts of the town. Without excep- 
 
 Sunday afternoon was always the day on which 
 
 uchess received her Ministers and gentlemen of 
 
 'ourt. I remember on one occasion she acci- 
 
 lly dropped her handkerchief, which a gentleman 
 
 ; Court picked up, and handed to her with infinite 
 
 . I was invited one evening to a Court reception, 
 
 ich tables were brought in for whist, ombre, or 
 
 such game of cards. I was told off to play with 
 
 nk) the Countess of Wangenheim. I knew about 
 
 ^ ~.ucb of the game as a donkey, and as it was for 
 
 money, the lady was awfully angry and disgusted at the 
 
 reckless style of my play, and the loss of her money. 
 
 But what with one thing and another, we passed our
 
 i8 
 
 coming to Gotha. She died in 1831 at Paris. I was 
 too young to enter into any of the circumstances of 
 what had then become public, and knew nothing further 
 than that such separation had occurred. 
 
 In the neighbourhood are three castles in ruins, called 
 "the Three Gleichen," perched on the summit of three 
 eminences or hills, and forming together a sort of equi- 
 lateral triangle, in about the same state of ruin and very 
 much resembling those on the Rhine. These Mr. Hood 
 and I visited on horseback, indeed we rode a good deal, 
 but principally in the direction of the Thuringian forest. 
 At a gorge or entrance of it lies Schnepfeuthal, a place 
 of great resort to the people of Gotha, especially during 
 the time of the festivities known as " Vogelschiessen." 
 There was really no road to it at that time (or Chaussee) ; 
 it was simply an up and down country track, unfit even 
 for a waggon. Soon after our arrival at Gotha, the 
 place was visited by a thunderstorm, the worst that I 
 can recall, and I note it for that reason. We occupied 
 apartments at the house of the Director's daughter, a 
 little way out of the town. Our German tutor (Heinrich 
 by name), was a young divine, and eventually married 
 the daughter, and became Director of the College. Our 
 French tutor was an emigre, named Milliner., a very 
 jovial hearty fellow, and I have to thank him for cor- 
 recting some of my Anglican French pronunciation. 
 He had been in the suite of Prince Bliicher, and so 
 attended that great gathering which took place In 
 London after Waterloo, when the Emperor of Russia, 
 and King of Prussia came over. In what way I first 
 became acquainted with the Duchess of Gotha' s Dame
 
 19 
 
 d'honneur, I quite forget. She was the widow of a 
 Prussian General Officer, who fell in the wars of 
 Napoleon, Madame de Briixen, and probably between 
 forty and fifty. Her knowledge of English was very 
 limited, but she sought to improve it by making me 
 call and holding conversations, such as they were, in 
 that language. She also sent me communications in 
 writing as to what I ought to do, in attending the 
 Duchess's Court at fixed times. When I look back on 
 the past, I am astonished to think that a boy of my age, 
 fifteen, should have been capable of appearing at Court, 
 and I consider it a great favour that I was tolerated. 
 Madame de Briixen was always very empressee in acknow- 
 ledging our salutation when we met her driving with 
 the Duchess. The equipage consisted of four horses, 
 the two leaders being under charge of a postillion in 
 green, with silver lace livery. The daily drive seemed 
 to be round the outskirts of the town. Without excep- 
 tion, Sunday afternoon was always the day on which 
 the Duchess received her Ministers and gentlemen of 
 the Court. I remember on one occasion she acci- 
 dentally dropped her handkerchief, which a gentleman 
 of the Court picked up, and handed to her with infinite 
 grace. I was invited one evening to a Court reception, 
 at which tables were brought in for whist, ombre, or 
 some such game of cards. I was told off to play with 
 (I think) the Countess of Wangenheim. I knew about 
 as much of the game as a donkey, and as it was for 
 money, the lady was awfully angry and disgusted at the 
 reckless style of my play, and the loss of her money. 
 But what with one thing and another, we passed our
 
 20 
 
 time very happily at Gotha. The Duke on one occa- 
 sion had an open-air souper in the Orangery, below the 
 great Ducal Castle, Friedenstein. I remember his 
 leading out, when the entertainment was over, the 
 Princess Hohenlohe, followed by Prince Leiningen 
 leading her sister. This al fresco style of thing could 
 never take place in that foggy damp climate of Eng- 
 land ; I remember the whole Orangery was ablaze with 
 lights. 
 
 I had to undergo a very trying ordeal on one occa- 
 sion. It was on the Duchess of Gotha's birthday. All 
 who were of that position had to go and make their 
 bow, and whatever speech they were capable of putting 
 together. My French Master, who I dare say took 
 good care to let out that he had concocted a fine 
 effusion for me to use on the occasion, drew up some- 
 thing in French. It would have been far too long 
 winded for a perfect French scholar, but for me quite 
 beyond my years or abilities. I got through my task, 
 though to the Duchess I might as well have tried to 
 speak in Hebrew. I remember the ending was my 
 desire to add " mes vczux les plus sinceres a ceux de toute la 
 Cour" All this speaks much in respect of forbearance, 
 for now that I have gone through my life's journey, I 
 doubt whether with my temperament, I could have 
 stood or endured what passed, had I been in the same 
 exalted position. 
 
 I cannot call to mind the month, but it was during 
 a combination of birthdays, that an English lady, Mrs. 
 Langford Brooke came to Gotha with her son. She 
 was well acquainted with the Duchess's lady-in-waiting,
 
 21 
 
 and was bound for Weimar, at which certain Court 
 festivities were to take place in honour of the natal 
 days of some of the Grand Ducal family. She took me 
 in her carriage to Weimar to attend the same. The 
 young Grand Duchess of Weimar, as she was then 
 styled, was sister of the Emperor of Russia, and 
 remarkable for her complexion and looks. Weimar, 
 which possessed Goethe at that time, was stocked with 
 young Englishmen, figuring at Court in English uni- 
 forms. I remember one of them, Francis Seymour, 
 afterwards about Prince Albert, and eventually Marquis 
 of Hertford. Mrs. Langford Brooke must have made 
 some stay at Gotha, for skating was going on, and her 
 son was a very bad performer, and she admired my 
 better execution in that way. I was afterwards with 
 him at Oxford, when he was a gentleman commoner of 
 Corpus. 
 
 There are few countries, save the United States, in 
 which fire is more to be dreaded, or was at one time 
 more prevalent than in Germany. Opposite to our 
 house at Gotha, was a large timber yard and carpenter's 
 establishment, separated only from it by some water, in 
 which timber was placed to season. One night my 
 Tutor awoke me. The timber yard was in a blaze, and 
 had the wind been from it instead of the reverse, 
 nothing could have saved our house. During the time 
 I was at Gotha, an entire village just outside the town, 
 on the road to Erfurt was burned to the ground, not a 
 vestige of a dwelling remained. 
 
 Before leaving Gotha I did not omit to visit Eise- 
 nach, celebrated for the Castle in which the Elector
 
 22 
 
 of Saxony harboured Luther to put him beyond the 
 power of his enemies. The chapel in which he per- 
 formed the service ; the table on which he is said to 
 have translated the Bible ; with ink stain caused by his 
 throwing the inkstand at the Devil in the shape of a 
 buzzing fly, were all to be seen, as they still are I 
 suppose at the present time. 
 
 During the time we were at Gotha, Mr. Hood and I 
 went to Dresden, but confined ourselves as a rule to 
 Gotha and its surroundings. His father, the Roydon 
 vicar, of whom I have spoken, died during the time he 
 was with me, and this for domestic and pressing reasons 
 obliged him to go to England about the spring of 1828. 
 
 Some years afterwards I passed through Gotha in 
 returning in 1840 from Berlin to England. I was then 
 in the army, and had been attending the " Huldigung " 
 festivities on the accession to the throne of Frederick 
 William IV. Schafer (the host of " The Three Moors," 
 at Gotha), was still at his post, and the conversation 
 turning on my first acquaintance with it, one of the 
 passengers, whom I had seen at Court at Berlin, re- 
 marked : " Oh, here it was that you learned to speak 
 such good German." But what is there, that has not, 
 and will not pass away. This to me linguistic ability, 
 has become more than rusty ; fifty years have had their 
 effect. Schiller it is, who says : " es weinen die 
 Gotter, es weinen die Gottinnen alle, dass das Schone 
 vergeht, und das Vollkommene stirbt "but on things 
 human, one may moralize for ever. 
 
 I was occupying on this occasion the coupe of the 
 Eilwagen or Diligence. A German Professor who was
 
 23 
 
 also returning to his post at Bonn or Heidelberg sat 
 next to me. This was thirty years before the promenade 
 d Berlin, and its victorious result for the Germans, but 
 he was beyond -measure irate with the French, and as 
 one of the class who play a higher political role than 
 the same-named individuals in England, spoke very 
 authoritatively. Should France, said he, ever disturb 
 the peace of Europe again u we will have her par- 
 titioned." He very little foresaw the revenge his 
 country was destined to have for Jena, and other 
 degradations which Germany, but especially Prussia 
 longed to obtain. Those were the days I fancy, of 
 Hahn's poetical aspirations, viz. of " Strasburg, and Metz, 
 and Lorraine " ; nevertheless, the French are a very 
 great nation ; second to no other in the art of war, and 
 foremost in the arts of peace ; difficult for a foreigner to 
 understand, and as difficult for any but a " Napoleon " 
 to govern. 
 
 I remember it was on the ist of May of the year 1 828 
 that I left Gotha, in charge of a voiturier, for Dresden. 
 I really had learned very little German as long as Mr. 
 Hood, my tutor, was with me, but now I made good 
 progress, and take credit for the way in which I fol- 
 lowed my father's directions in respect of masters. The 
 routine occupied about six hours each day. First came 
 the Professor of German, then the French Master, who 
 had been an officer in the French army, then the 
 Dancing Master, for my father insisted very much on 
 that accomplishment, though from my serious accident 
 I was forbidden to waltz. This ended with the Draw- 
 ing Master, but I am ashamed to say, that I generally
 
 24 
 
 utilized that hour in general conversation and chess 
 playing. The Terrace of Briihl, overlooking the Elbe, 
 the Catholic Church, the Opera, and Picture Gallery, 
 were all attractions then and since. There were four 
 or five young Englishmen, all much older than myself. 
 One was Jekyll, the son, I believe, of Joseph Jekyll, and 
 another Bigge, afterwards at Oxford, and subsequently 
 Archdeacon of Northumberland. During the early 
 part of my stay here, Lord Northampton died, and his 
 remains were taken by boat down the Elbe to Ham- 
 burg. I remember making the acquaintance here of 
 Baron and Baroness Maltzahn. The latter was an 
 English woman, sister of Paulet (Powlett ?) Thompson, 
 created Lord Sydenham. Some years afterwards when 
 I had left Oxford in 1831, I met her at Pyrmont. She 
 was with her children, and I think was " separated " 
 from her husband, but I may be mistaken. 
 
 The time at length arrived when it was settled that I 
 should quit Dresden, and join my mother and sister in 
 Paris. This would have been in the August or Sep- 
 tember of 1828. I went by a voiturier to Strasburg, and 
 from thence by diligence to Paris. Here I put up at 
 Meurice's, and was actually a whole day at the hotel 
 before I discovered that my mother and sister had 
 already been occupying apartments in the same hotel 
 for some days. Before I made this discovery, it came 
 over me, boy though I was, to hire a cabriolet. I 
 certainly had never driven a horse in my life, save in 
 a sledge at Gotha, and at my Bedfordshire private 
 tutor's, so the first thing that I did was to collide 
 with a waggon in the Rue St. Honore. I should
 
 25 
 
 have heard more of damage and the pecuniary result 
 had I been alone, but I take it payment was made by 
 some one, and no more said about it. The English 
 were fearfully unpopular in France in those days. 
 They are so now, and ever will be, as long as the 
 vulgar British snob asserts his independence in the 
 odious manner so thoroughly his own. I very well 
 remember a female flower vendor saying quite audibly 
 to my face : " Que les Anglais sont imbeciles. 1 ' A play was 
 going on every night at Paris at the time "Les Anglais 
 pour rire." It was really not at all bad, and very 
 ridiculous, as the portraying of John Bull must always 
 be in the hands of a Frenchman. 
 
 My father w r ho was a great fencer, and acquired the 
 art of using the straight sword in France and Germany, 
 commissioned me to bring home two or three foils, 
 known as fleurets a violon, not then known, or at least to 
 be had in England. His reputation as a swordsman 
 was so acknowledged, that some of the boys at Harrow 
 used to ask me if my father " did not get up at night 
 and fence with the bed post." 
 
 Steamboats in 1828 used to ply between Dieppe and 
 Brighton, and landed their passengers at the Chain 
 Pier ; a fact impressed upon me from the amount of 
 sea-sickness I endured. 
 
 My father had no wish that I should sacrifice my 
 Latin and Greek for modern languages, so on returning 
 to England in that year it was decided, that I should go 
 again to my private tutor in Beds. I soon quitted 
 him for the Rev. Brooke Mountain, at Hemel Hemp, 
 stead, with whom I stopped until I went to Oxford,
 
 26 
 
 He was a very different sort of man to my previous 
 tutor, and was son of the late Bishop of Quebec, a post 
 which his brother held also at that time. Here again 
 Fred. Robinson, who had gone up to Christ Church, 
 had also been ; a fact which I never knew till I went 
 there, Sir Astley Cooper, who lived in the neighbour- 
 hood, having originally mentioned this tutor to my 
 father. At the same time with me was Henry Cole, 
 Lord Enniskillen's son, and Robinson's cousin. He was 
 assumed to be preparing for the army, but this consisted 
 in dipping into Napier's Peninsular war, and otherwise 
 doing nothing. He had been at Harrow, was a wonder- 
 fully fine grown fellow, and subsequently went into the 
 7th Hussars. He entered Parliament, and was for 
 many years M.P. for Enniskillen (or Fermanagh, I 
 forget which). The Coles of that day were a tall race. 
 I bought a horse of him, which was half a Cossack, and 
 had been bred by Lord Enniskillen. This horse was 
 an undeniably good hunter, and I sold him when leaving 
 Oxford for 1 20 guineas, to Hans Hamilton, afterwards 
 M.P. for Co. Dublin, notwithstanding that he was much 
 blemished on the quarters, from chafing on board one 
 of the then sailing packets between Ireland and Holy- 
 head. This horse never made a mistake ; he did not 
 .know how to go wrong. It was chiefly owing to his 
 performance, that " Billy " Freemantle (afterwards Dean 
 of Ripon, and a very different sort of man), proposed 
 my health at a " Mitre " dinner, as " a straight-forward 
 rider across country." The Dean was one of those, 
 who I have remarked in life often turn out the best, 
 for they have something more in them than hunting 
 and such like propensities.
 
 27 
 
 I remember as regards myself, to have worked very 
 hard during the time I was at Hemel Hempstead in 
 1828, and to have taken moreover a pleasure in it. 
 Indeed when I left it to go to Oxford in 1829, his 
 words to me were " you are fit to take a degree now, 
 but what you will do I do not know." 
 
 That following year of 1829, found me a gentleman 
 commoner at Christ Church, but I had a valet, a groom, 
 and two hunters, a large yearly allowance, augmented 
 by substantial tips from my mother, so that I put all 
 study aside, and gave myself over entirely to hunting, 
 which was then not interdicted as in after days. I 
 acquitted myself so well in different examinations on 
 first going up, that I received considerable praise. 
 Whether it was this fact, or that I never " knocked in 
 late" after " Tom," during the whole nine terms I was 
 there, I never went near my college tutor above three 
 or four times. All this is very unexplainable. Speak- 
 ing of nine terms, that was the extreme limit for these 
 called " privileged " to put off the " Little Go/' now 
 known by some other name. 
 
 Three of my old schoolfellows were at that time at 
 Christ Church, Bennet (then Lord Ossulston), Frederick 
 Robinson, and Robert Curzon, the two former having 
 entered of course as noblemen, the latter, however, as a 
 gentleman commoner. These grades have long been 
 abolished, and in my opinion very foolishly so. It 
 would be needless to recapitulate all the men across 
 whom I came, some of whom I knew, and some only 
 by sight ; among the latter were Gladstone, and Sidney 
 Herbert. The Duke of Beaufort, and Sir Thomas
 
 28 
 
 Mostyn (or rather Drake of Amersham), hunted the 
 Heythrop and Bicester countries ; Lord Kintore and 
 afterwards Lord Ducie's brother, Moreton, hunted the 
 Vale of White Horse. The first winter I kept my 
 horses in Oxford ; the next in the Duke's country at 
 Charlbury ; the third year in Drake's country at Bi- 
 cester. Perhaps no man had a more dignified (or regal) 
 appearance than the Duke of Beaufort, as Master of the 
 Heythrop in 1830, and no finer rider ever sat on a 
 horse than his huntsman " Will Long." The Duke 
 hunted his own (the Badminton), and the Heythrop 
 countries. He rented Heythrop House, which was 
 burned down whilst I was at Oxford, I think, or shortly 
 afterwards. The blue livery of the Beaufort hunt, and 
 the green plush of the huntsman and whips, were 
 unique in their way ; and these two colours are still, I 
 believe, maintained. 
 
 In due course, I was elected to the " Mitre," which 
 was purely a hunting club. Lord Waterford with whom 
 I was a contemporary during my whole Oxford life, 
 never would belong to it, for some reason or other. 
 He had two wonderfully good Irish horses, both stal- 
 lions, with the then common docked tail, and gave 
 evidence in those days of all the wonderful things he 
 did afterwards in Leicestershire. He was an open- 
 hearted fine specimen of a nobleman, perfectly under- 
 stood by those with whom he mixed, and very much 
 belied by those who knew nothing at all about him, or 
 who in point of character " could not hold a candle to 
 him"; as Carlyle said of the English population that 
 they were ''mostly fools," so these dissentients were
 
 2 9 
 
 " mostly snobs." I remember on one occasion from 
 my having jumped a sunk fence in Lord Redesdale's 
 park, which must have been, I think, in the Heythrop 
 country, that I was first up after the huntsman (Will 
 Long), when they ran into their fox, and that Water- 
 ford came up in an excited manner, calling out, " Re- 
 member, George, I came in third." This reminds me 
 of a black mare I was riding on that occasion ; she 
 was a wonderful creature, and was bred by Sir Charles 
 Knightley, and had a habit of giving her tail (the bang 
 tail just then in fashion) a swing, whenever she went at 
 her fences. She was quite unsurpassed as a water 
 jumper, so I named her " Water Wag-tail." I bought 
 her after winning a wager by jumping a brook between 
 Bicester and Oxford four or five times backwards and 
 forwards ; it was a brook which many horses would 
 have refused to jump once. 
 
 I may relate something of which I was the only 
 witness, when coming back to Oxford in company with 
 Waterford after a day's hunting. I entirely forget 
 how it all came to pass, whether he, or the ploughman 
 to be spoken of, was the aggressor, but it so happened, 
 that the latter said something very impertinent. It 
 was, if I remember, on the Bicester or Charlbury Road, 
 and Lord Waterford gave me his horse to hold. I shall 
 never forget his " pitching" into this fellow, and their 
 both getting well into a pond, which skirted the road. 
 It was very ludicrous, but the labourer, I called him 
 ploughman he may have been any farm servant had 
 had quite enough of it, so we rode on, and there was no 
 more said about it. But those were the bygone days,
 
 30 
 
 when putting your little finger on a man was not an 
 offence for imprisonment, and made a manly fellow act 
 just as Lord Waterford did, without sneaking off " with 
 his tail between his legs," to use a vulgarism. I bought a 
 horse of him, not up to his weight, and I mention it from 
 a peculiarity it possessed, of which I never knew a similar 
 instance. This horse would allow no groom to " dress " 
 his head, and as clipping had just then been introduced 
 for the first time, he presented a curious appearance, 
 with the undipped head in contrast to his other parts. 
 
 I do not wish to dwell too much on my hunting 
 exploits, seeing that in after-life I went in for literary 
 credit, and acquired honour in that field, nevertheless, 
 I performed a feat with the above-named mare, and an 
 Oxford hack, which would vie with a good many. 
 I rode the hack fifteen miles to Charlbury, where 
 my horses stood. The hounds met at a gorse, the 
 name of which I have forgotten ; they killed their fox 
 within six miles of Cheltenham, which is forty miles 
 from Oxford ; by the time I had taken the mare back 
 to Charlbury, had mounted my hack, and reached Ox- 
 ford, I had covered a hundred miles. But I cannot 
 omit to record a still greater feat, not of my own, but 
 of a horse. There were no less than five packs within 
 reach of Oxford ; one of them, the Warwickshire, 
 had a meet at Fenny Compton, to which I drove an 
 Oxford hack (thirty-five miles) in three and a half 
 hours. This was a grand piece of work for the horse, 
 but a cruel act, of which I am now ashamed. The 
 animal, I remember, was a mare, and I galloped her 
 over a great part of the road. I quote the reminiscence
 
 to show what a good horse can do, but I have no reason 
 to be proud of the part I took in it, in fact, the feat 
 seems almost incredible, and I much doubt whether a 
 horse could have performed the distance in the same 
 time with a rider on its back. The distance and time 
 are both indelibly impressed on my memory, but I 
 could not be so positive as to the name of the Meet, 
 although no other than the place named was within 
 reach at all of Oxford. I once posted with Cecil 
 Tumor to the same meet. As I, at the outset, have 
 alluded to my escapes in life, I have another to allude 
 to ; indeed it happened with that very identical mare 
 of Sir C. Knightley's. On this occasion I was hunting 
 with the Vale of White Horse, for I do not think the 
 Old Berkshire Hounds hunted the part of the country 
 I am about to speak of. It was in the vicinity of 
 Lechlade, and was during a slow hunting-run, that it 
 was necessary to jump a very broad piece of water. I 
 put this mare far too slowly at it, and she just missed 
 it, landing me on the bank, and coming right out of 
 the water with her fore feet on my face. I consider 
 this escape the second, for the blow blinded me at 
 once, and an Oxford friend, still alive, Simon Watson- 
 Taylor (of Erlestoke Park), like a good Samaritan, saw 
 me put into a post chaise and dispatched to Oxford. 
 Of course both my eyes were black for many a long day. 
 A Christ Church friend (Hartopp, of Little Dalby) took 
 me soon afterwards to stop with him in Leicestershire. 
 People wondered who his friend was, with those two 
 black eyes, especially his Reverend uncle one Sunday 
 in church, who took me at first for a "bruiser," and was
 
 32 
 
 sufficiently horrified. Hartopp mounted me during my 
 stay, and I remember two good runs with the Quorn. 
 
 Whilst at Oxford in 1829, the first boat race with 
 Cambridge was won at Henley. I did not go to it, as 
 I cared nothing about boating. Oxford continued to 
 win for some years in subsequent races. Boating was 
 very moderately pursued in my day, and nothing has 
 undergone more change than the appearance of the 
 Isis at this time. Coaching was then much in vogue, 
 and John Dutton (Lord Sherborne's brother), and 
 Barnard (afterwards Lord Willoughby de Broke), with 
 others, passed a fair portion of their time on the Henley 
 and High Wycombe roads, for good coaches ran on 
 both those London roads, but which had the preference 
 I forget. Perhaps the best known "drags" in those 
 days both hailed within sight almost of Oxford, viz. : 
 Sir Henry Peyton's four greys, and Annesley's roans. 
 The former prided himself on being able to drive his 
 team slower than any other man ; a merit which only 
 adepts will be able to appreciate. His figure in the 
 hunting field, and that of his son, then called "young" 
 Peyton, were remarkable, but few are now living who 
 can recall them. 
 
 One or two reminiscences occur to me. Although I 
 did not play, I belonged to the Bullingdon Cricket Club. 
 The members wore a very appropriate dress, and most 
 of them rode up to the ground on Oxford hacks. On 
 one occasion after dining in the tent, there was a hack 
 race, and fully ten or a dozen competed for it ; the 
 come-in was on good level ground, but the starting 
 point was intersected by most awful ruts. Off we
 
 33 
 
 went I made such reckless play over the said obstacles, 
 and got such a start, that though mounted on about the 
 slowest horse of the lot, I had nearly reached the 
 straight course or turn towards the finish, before the 
 rest were over half the course ; they none of them could 
 make up their lost ground ; I won in a canter, and 
 pocketed the stakes. 
 
 There was an undergraduate at Christ Church, in the 
 early part of my Oxford career, somewhat "horsey" in 
 his proclivities, who was much enamoured of a horse 
 dealer's daughter. The father was quite cognisant of 
 the fact, and of his daughter's attractions, but in the 
 end plainly told the young gentleman, that " no one 
 should have his daughter save through the "halter" 
 This the enamoured naturally declined, and took the 
 loss of the girl less to heart, than the gibbet looming in 
 no distant future. Many similar and dissimilar stories, 
 which "point a moral and adorn a tale," occur in the 
 biography of most young men, still, many probably, 
 though instructive in respect of the moral to be de- 
 duced therefrom, are better left unrecorded. And now 
 whilst in the moralizing mood, and in respect of myself, 
 it just occurs to me, that even under the penalty of a 
 certain amount of eccentricity, I have done many things 
 in life, out of the beaten track of fashion and custom. 
 In allusion once in conversation with certain Yorkshire 
 friends, as to some one peculiar act or another, which I 
 had carried out in my own way, I remember to have 
 said, " It matters little what a man does, so long as he 
 abstains from anything blackguard or dishonorable." 
 Sir Tatton Sykes, who was still living at the time I
 
 34 
 
 resided in Yorkshire, kept me traditionally in counte- 
 nance, for it was always admitted as a story of him, that 
 he drove home the first flock of sheep he bought ; and 
 broke the stones by the wayside, whilst the man, so 
 occupied, went home to his dinner. He was, perhaps, 
 the last of the "fine old English gentlemen," as the 
 song has it, " one of the olden time." 
 
 The Oxford hacks were in my time proverbial. I 
 rode one from Oxford to Ascot and back (I think the 
 distance was forty miles), but the ride so disgusted me, 
 that I vowed I would never go again to a race in my 
 life, and I have kept my word. 
 
 I cannot very well close my Oxford career, without 
 alluding to two more incidents. Lord Hillsborough, 
 afterwards Marquis of Downshire, who was a strong 
 powerful man, and some others, amongst whom I was 
 one, were all standing in the centre of Peckwater. He 
 gave Lord Conyers Osborne, what he intended for a 
 slight tap in joke, but unfortunately it turned out to 
 have been a blow sufficient to kill him. If I remember 
 rightly, the latter went to his rooms at once, and soon 
 after died. Another remarkable fact occurred also in 
 Peckwater, during a violent thunderstorm. One of the 
 College servants was crossing the quadrangle, and I 
 was looking out of the window at the time ; the man 
 was carrying a quantity of keys, and I saw a flash of 
 lightning come down on him. I believe I was the first 
 to be on the spot ; the man was standing upright with 
 his eyes staring and fixed, and motionless ; he ultimately 
 recovered, but not for a long time. One more incident 
 and I have done ; it has reference to hunting breeches,
 
 35 
 
 above all things in the world. It was a cant saying of 
 those days, that leathers, owing to their expense, were 
 only worn by <( eldest sons." Mine I remember, whether 
 from cleaning or otherwise, or the less roomy cut of them, 
 were so tight, that I was obliged to make my servant 
 hold them up, whilst I jumped, worked, and squeezed 
 myself into them. This became a standing joke against 
 me, both then and in after life. My old friend, Cecil 
 Turnor, was at Brasenose, and a great hunting man, 
 and though unlike him a " hare of many friends," my 
 own acquaintance at that period, had made great pro- 
 gress, but I think of all friends I made at Christ Church, 
 I kept up my acquaintance with Charles Barham, after- 
 wards of Trecwyn, in Pembrokeshire, as long as with 
 any. His mother, Lady Caroline Barham, was acciden- 
 tally killed by a cab. Lord Thanet, his uncle, had 
 always (indirectly perhaps), given him to understand 
 that he would become his heir, and in that way Barham 
 had unlimited sway over his estates in Westmorland, 
 &c. Of course my father's ruin a year or two after my 
 quitting Oxford, severed me a good deal from all but 
 those I was very intimate with. 
 
 I remained at Oxford a whole winter after I had 
 taken my name " off the books," hunting nearly every 
 day in the week. I may close this part of the subject 
 by saying that I was the undergraduate, mentioned by 
 the writer of '"Silk and Scarlet," whom he represents to 
 have told him at the cover side " that his hack had run 
 away with him the whole way from Oxford." This, 
 indeed, was in one way true. A hack which I mounted 
 at Canterbury Gate, could not, or would not be stopped ?
 
 36 
 
 let the distance be what it would, and I declined to ride 
 him any longer at last. He came right over on his side 
 once in turning a corner after a frost ; how I escaped 
 a broken leg is a wonder. 
 
 The last sixty years has not been productive of as 
 much change at Oxford, as in many other localities ; 
 still, during my time, Wadham had nothing beyond it 
 but open country ; ploughed land came close up to its 
 walls, and I used to " sweat " my horses on the same. 
 In this direction the change has been very great, as well 
 as in St. Giles's, and the road leading to Woodstock. 
 
 I have mentioned Mr. Gladstone, but I never ex- 
 changed a word with him as an undergraduate, though 
 I have a perfect remembrance of him in his student's 
 gown, and by repute, of his constant attendance at the 
 Debating Society. 
 
 During the " Long Vacation " in 1830, I visited Nor- 
 way, travelling by steam via Hamburg and Liibeck to 
 Gottenburg in Sweden, where I bought a cariole, and 
 engaged a Swede, who spoke German, to accompany 
 me as an interpreter. The route to Christiania was by 
 way of Frederikshall, where Charles XII. of Sweden 
 fell. At Christiania I had introductions to the Gover- 
 nor of the Province, or some such rank, the Count 
 Wedel-Jarlsberg, and dined (sitting next to him), at 
 some large official dinner. 
 
 Travelling in Norway is monotonous enough, with 
 its interminable forests of pine, until you reach the 
 Alpine land ; I had brought a waterproof Mackintosh 
 with me, then not long in fashion, and it stood me 
 in good need, for driving in an open cariole, I should
 
 37 
 
 have been often drenched with rain. The route from 
 Christiania to Bergen traverses the Fille Fjeld, one 
 of those high mountain ranges with which the coun- 
 try is intersected, and the descent from it is magni- 
 ficent in the extreme, passing along a deep narrow 
 ravine, with a roaring torrent below and stupendous 
 rocks on either side. The splendid scenery of this pass 
 continues unabated until you reach the shore of the 
 Sogne Fjord. Beyond this point driving became im- 
 practicable, the further part of the route to Bergen 
 having had to be carried on by boat along the different 
 fjords of that district, the names of some of which are 
 familiar to me, but whether by the Stavanger, or some 
 other fjord I entirely forget. I well remember, how- 
 ever, that owing to wind, the boatmen had to " lie to " 
 during the middle of the day, and renewed their rowing 
 when it lulled towards the evening. It was from this 
 spot, consisting at that time of a poor collection of huts, 
 that I made a digression in order to visit the Glacier 
 of Justedal, I think that was the name, but it is so 
 many years ago I may have forgotten. We rowed, if 
 I remember rightly, to the extreme end of the Sogne 
 Fjord, and then mounted horses to take us to the 
 glacier. The bridle-road passed along the bank of a 
 rushing torrent or river, then very much swollen by the 
 melting snow, which perfectly discoloured the water. 
 My information respecting this proceeding had been 
 very limited, for on my arrival at our halting place, 
 within a mile or more of the glacier, we were obliged 
 to go on foot. I discovered also, to my astonishment, 
 that we should have to depend for the night's lodging
 
 38 
 
 and other entertainment, on the hospitality of the 
 Minister, a member of the Lutheran Church. This 
 gentleman, who was overflowing with amiability and 
 kindness, met the cavalcade somewhere at a short dis- 
 tance from his manse. To my horror and surprise he 
 accosted me thus: " Intelligisne linguain Latinam"?] to 
 which, on my answering, as I did, to a certain extent, 
 the conversation proceeded in that tongue. But there 
 was not much time to lose, for although the days are 
 long, and without any real night at all in Norway at 
 that time of year, being the end of June, it was a long 
 tedious job to reach the glacier, and much more so to 
 surmount it, which I was bent on doing. Having arrived 
 at the foot of the glacier, I had to make out the ascent 
 the best way I could, for my Swedish interpreter did not 
 half like the business or the danger, saying that "he did 
 not come there to risk his life," and refusing to go on, 
 I left him, and ascended the side of it alone. I had 
 never seen any other glacier, but I suppose they are all 
 of the same nature, caused by the freezing snow and ice 
 blocking up a ravine or valley, from which some river 
 more or less important, issues from the base. 
 
 I had quite miscalculated (looking up from below), 
 the height I had to ascend, for on clambering up rocks 
 and crevices, in order to reach what I thought the 
 summit, I came upon a considerable plateau, which 
 terminating with the same sort of rock and difficulties, 
 displayed, on being surmounted, another piece of level 
 ground or plateau of some extent; but bent on over- 
 coming all obstacles, I went on, and ultimately reached 
 a spot from whence I overlooked the entire gorge or
 
 39 
 
 valley, blocked up with the frozen glacier. The pros- 
 pect was grand enough ; one vast expanse of eternal 
 snow, by which the whole horizon was bounded, con- 
 trasting remarkably with the dark black sky above, 
 giving the prospect all the appearance of an impending 
 thunderstorm. After a sufficient contemplation of this 
 grand scene, I began the descent. I had never calcu- 
 lated on that part of the difficulty, for to mount and 
 ascend is an easier process than the reverse, fraught, as 
 in such case often occurs, with greater danger. I pro- 
 bably did not descend in exactly the same direction, in 
 fact managed to deviate a good deal from it, especially 
 after I had traversed the two mentioned plateaux. I 
 thus came upon a part so steep, composed chiefly of 
 brushwood and grass, that I had to slide and go down 
 in a sitting posture. In this way, without any warning, 
 I came upon the edge of a frightful precipice, which 
 after a lapse of nearly seventy years, makes my blood 
 run cold to call to mind. This must have been com- 
 pletely hidden from my view, partly by the low brush- 
 wood, and chiefly by my sitting position, but I was near 
 enough to discover the awful danger in time, for I could 
 see much of the valley hundreds of yards below. What 
 could I do in such a dilemma ? I had no other choice 
 but to work my way backwards in the same sitting pos- 
 ture, and to strike off, when I had reached a certain 
 height, in another direction. I eventually came, after 
 endless obstacles, upon my Swedish companion, or in- 
 terpreter, and proceeded to the Manse, the path lying 
 by a fragile plank bridge over the swollen river rushing 
 forth from the bottom of the glacier. Here I found the
 
 40 
 
 the good kindly Minister on the look-out for me, at 
 some distance from it. On my telling him what I had 
 gone through and performed, and that it was " magnum 
 periculum" he ejaculated "maximum sane!" Much more 
 transpired between us which I seem to have forgotten, 
 the conversation in Latin being sufficiently trying. On 
 reaching the house, he made a sort of noise or whistle, 
 and down came scampering a whole herd of goats ; he 
 seemed to be on familiar terms with the whole lot, and 
 pointed to one especially, whose name he said was 
 " Mows," and appeared to be the pater-familias. It must 
 have been by this time late enough, though the light 
 showed no signs of it. Some stewed kid, which at this 
 day seems to remind me of the savoury meat which 
 Isaac loved, was set before me. Whilst I was discuss- 
 ing this much needed meal, the Minister occupying a 
 seat apart from the table on one side, and two ladies 
 (probably wife and sister) sitting at the further end, the 
 former said "Femince volunt tibi loquere, sed non possnnt," 
 which I of course acknowledged by an inclination or 
 bow. I had brought some snap-tackle with me, having 
 had an idea of fishing, so I made the whole of it over to 
 him, for other remuneration was refused. My room 
 and bed were of the smallest dimensions, and very 
 damp, but I survived the consequences, and started 
 betimes on my return back the following morning. 
 From the Sogne Fjord to Bergen the route was by water, 
 or the fjords, as I have said, but at this distance of time 
 I forget the turnings and windings of the course 
 though part of it, however, was performed by river, and 
 we went down a rapid, about as nervous a job as I can
 
 4* 
 
 call to mind, for the pace was terrific. I had introduc- 
 tions here to a banker or shopkeeper, who hospitably 
 invited me to his country villa, outside the town ; not 
 a soul spoke either French, German, or English. Some 
 of the Norwegian habits may be mentioned. A small 
 glass of brandy or cognac was handed round to the 
 assembled guests before sitting down to dinner ; the 
 last course, consisting of " sweets," and so forth, was 
 handed round by the young ladies, who left their seats 
 to perform this ceremony. The greatest privation 
 which I had to endure in getting here, had been absence 
 of food, having had to live upon clotted milk and wild 
 strawberries the whole way. The former was generally 
 rather sour ; the latter grew all around in great profu- 
 sion in the woods ; and once or twice I had a sweet 
 cheese made of goat's milk. I therefore supplied myself 
 with a good store of almonds and raisins, which were to 
 be got as well here as in more southerly climes, for one 
 of the industries of Bergen consists in drying fish, which 
 is taken direct to the Mediterranean by vessel, and other 
 Catholic countries. There is very little to remark on 
 my return journey to Christiania, save that at this season 
 about which I write (viz. : June and July), there is 
 really no night at all. When the sun goes down, you 
 have a twilight, or more than twilight, in which you 
 could see to read ; I therefore determined to drive 
 back without stopping, night and day, and naturally, on 
 one occasion, fell asleep. The relays of horses for 
 changing, ordered by an avant courier (or forebud) the 
 day before, at the various stations, are taken up from 
 their grazing ground, probably a long distance off. It
 
 42 
 
 was in this way that I remember being awoke by the 
 vehicle traversing some soft ground ; the horse well 
 knew the spot in which he fed, left the road, and made 
 for it. I had been so tired in one way and another, by 
 toil and hardship, that during the whole week I re- 
 mained at Christiania, until the steamer for Copenhagen 
 took me away, I never left the hotel, indeed there was 
 nothing very inviting in the place, had I done so. My 
 intention was to return to England by land after reach- 
 ing Hamburg, and " to post " the whole way to Calais. 
 I purchased accordingly an open carriage, or caleche, 
 with which I passed over the Elbe to Harburg. The 
 horses were no sooner put to at Harburg, than the 
 wooden axle of the vehicle broke in two, and down 
 came the carriage. The price which I had given for 
 it I entirely forget, but a temporary pole was lashed 
 to the under part, and the carriage taken back to 
 Hamburg. It had been nothing more than an old 
 vehicle, painted up newly to deceive me, or any one 
 else, so the repairs were made good by the vendor at 
 his expense. I had engaged a German servant to 
 accompany me. It was at this time that the Belgians 
 severed themselves from the Dutch, and there had been 
 some fighting between them, whether one or more 
 actions, I forget, but it so happened that my route 
 passed the very scene of one that had taken place the 
 day before. Trees and branches gave evident mani- 
 festation of some heavy firing between them. It was 
 at some frontier Police Station that I had to produce 
 my passport, and the German servant took it into the 
 bureau, but the authorities were not satisfied ; they
 
 43 
 
 had heard me speak to the servant in German, and main- 
 tained that I was not an Englishman. How the matter 
 was settled to their satisfaction I entirely forget, but 
 that part of it I distinctly remember. 
 
 The year 1831, having left Oxford, seems to have 
 passed without much to record. I entered the West 
 Essex Yeomanry at that time, and put in an appearance 
 at one or two of William I V's levees. The King asked 
 me, on being presented " What uniform is that," and 
 on my answering " the West Essex Yeomanry, Your 
 Majesty," he said, " Ah ! so I should have thought by 
 the name." The Royal Family of that and all times 
 are happy in the remembrance of names and faces. 
 
 Near Stort Lodge in Essex, which my grandfather had 
 bought, and my father pulled down and rebuilt, lived 
 Plomer Ward, the author of Tremaine and DeVere ; 
 he had married Mrs. Plomer, relict of the M.P. for 
 Herts, as his second wife, his first wife having been 
 sister to Lady Mulgrave. He did not know a note 
 of music, but would play on the piano most exquisitely. 
 George Palmer, of Nazing, another neighbour, who 
 married a very beautiful woman, Miss Surtees, raised 
 the West Essex Yeomanry, and half ruined himself 
 by it, and I joined the regiment after leaving Oxford. 
 Very many years afterwards, probably fifty, I was in- 
 vited to dine with the Mercers Company; someone, 
 engaged in talking to the Master, who was receiving 
 the guests, seized me on my entering, in a most friendly 
 and familiar way, exclaiming " I was your first Com- 
 manding Officer." With moustachios, whiskers, and so 
 forth, I had no conception who the man was, and
 
 44 
 
 neither would he for some time tell me, ejaculating now 
 and again " Yes I was," " Yes I was." I was never 
 more astonished when the said George Palmer revealed 
 himself, totally unlike the close shaven young man of 
 former days. This brings to my mind a matter which 
 he himself brought to my remembrance, and which 
 became a sort of standing joke against me, and must 
 have happened about 1831. I had taken over (as a 
 gift), four or five couples of Conyer's draft fox hounds ; 
 he was Master of the Essex hunt. I used to run a drag 
 with them ; of course they " tailed " off a good deal, as 
 it is called, but I enjoyed the gallop. On one occa- 
 sion I had a bag (French) fox sent down to me from 
 London, and Palmer's brother, with some others, met 
 for the expected run. To make matters short I got 
 some aniseed, and anointing the animal's brush, let my 
 friend out myself, and then returned to the " pack." 
 After a little " law," I put the dogs on the scent, and 
 took a fence or two, but thought the pack was running 
 very oddly ; the dogs were all round about me, so I 
 pulled up ; the dogs stopped, and kept looking up at me. 
 How was it all ? What did it mean ? The pack had 
 been running myself all the time ; it was the fatal 
 aniseed. I had nearly forgotten the matter after so 
 many years, but " Do you remember that fox " ? with a 
 hearty laugh, brought it all fresh to my rmnd. Conyers 
 happened to meet somewhere thereabouts the next day, 
 and had an awful run, the fox (my bag fox), taking 
 them into a part of the low grass country, in which, 
 probably, no fox had ever been before. 
 
 It was about this time that Lord William Russell was
 
 45 
 
 murdered by Courvoisier. Our house in Park Lane 
 looked into Norfolk Street, so that one could see 
 the house on the opposite side. I also went this year 
 to the Continent, and remember being at Pyrmont, 
 a retired sort of a watering place, (I think) in West- 
 phalia. Baroness Maltzahn was there with her children, 
 whom I had formerly known at Dresden. On my 
 way back I remember to have passed some days at 
 Wiesbaden. At the table d'hote where I was stopping, 
 I remember sitting opposite to a French Countess ; that 
 lady, together with a Major in the Nassau uniform, 
 another or two, and myself, were in conversation. She 
 appeared to be between thirty and forty, but this is 
 only conjecture, because she had been originally a 
 " flower girl " in Paris, and became a mistress of 
 Napoleon's, who enobled her and created her the Coun- 
 tess of- - (I have forgotten the title) ; I also forget 
 whether she was speaking in German or French, but 
 from those present, it must have been in the former 
 language to a certainty. I well remember that she 
 asked me to speak a little English, for " she much liked 
 to hear it spoken, there was something, to her mind, 
 very agreeable in the sound." It so happened that Lord 
 Rivers was dining at the same table, but at a distant 
 part. I had known him at Harrow as Beckford, and 
 afterwards under his then name at Christ Church. 
 After a stroll round the gardens at the Kursaal with 
 him, I saw him drive off on his way to Dresden. The 
 Countess in question must have been very pretty as a 
 girl, for she was still very good looking, and by no 
 means old ; she must have plied her original vocation
 
 46 
 
 sometime towards the end of the last century. Here, 
 at any rate, was a noteworthy matter as to nationality. 
 What English woman of that class could have acquired 
 the same manner and bearing, and not have betrayed 
 her origin sooner or later ; her manner was perfect. 
 Rivers, who had not very long succeeded his father, 
 was rather surprised to see me joining in such general 
 German conversation. Whoever has been at Wiesbaden 
 knows the gambling tables of the Kursaal. Of some of 
 the vices which most easily beset us, I was at that time 
 permanently cured, and so for any love of gambling. I 
 had won thirty louis d'or at roulette, and these I in turn 
 lost and thirty more in addition. I had had enough of 
 it, and never after lost a sixpence in that way, but I 
 can still remember the din of the croupier" Rouge gagne 
 la couleur, l'or perd." " Messieurs faites le jeu." 
 
 In 1832, perhaps matters of more importance hap- 
 pened in respect of my future life, than in any other 
 year, and therefore I may be excused some trifling 
 detail. It was in the early part of it that my father and 
 mother were living in Park Lane ; the carriage had a 
 habit of coming to the door at a certain time every 
 afternoon ; one day it had been at the door a long time, 
 waiting, and apparently not being required, my mother 
 said to me, idling and lounging about, I imagine, as I 
 was, "Why don't you go down and see your friend 
 Trotter at the Horse Guards " ? He was a Captain in 
 the 2nd Life Guards, and was then that day there on 
 guard. I went. " George," said he to me, after different 
 subjects of conversation, " won't you come into the 
 regiment and join us " ? I give his words. The idea of
 
 47 
 
 entering the Army had never occurred to me ; I had 
 been brought up more with a view to the Foreign 
 Office ; '* I can get you in at once, he continued, if you 
 will." Now it so happened that about that time a storm 
 was brewing up, about which I had known nothing. 
 My father was on the point of being involved in the 
 greatest pecuniary difficulties ; he had entered into 
 speculations in various ways, in mortgaging his estate, 
 in making a canal near Bethnal Green, and in associ- 
 ating himself with a bank, which rumour afterwards 
 said was not solvent when he entered it ! The propo- 
 sition, therefore, that I should enter the most expensive 
 regiment in the Army, without much previous con- 
 sideration, found no favour with him at all at that time ; 
 he was entirely opposed to it knowing the state of his 
 affairs. My dear mother, however, was very much more 
 far-seeing, and affirmed the proposition to be perfectly 
 " Providential." Certain difficulties were overcome ; 
 the money over and above the price of the commission 
 was paid ; and the 4th May, 1832, saw me a Sub-Lieu- 
 tenant in the 2nd Regiment of Life Guards ; I had got 
 through my drill, riding up every day to the barracks 
 for that purpose, and mounted guard at the Horse 
 Guards the very day 1 was gazetted. The three years 
 which I passed in that Corps, notwithstanding my 
 father's serious losses and ruin, were perhaps as happy 
 as any in my whole life, for I was fond of the Officers, 
 and popular with them, and although I had never in- 
 tended to make the Army my profession, I did so now, 
 I may say, by necessity. The regiment was too ex- 
 pensive for my then means, and I eventually left it, first
 
 4 8 
 
 by exchanging as a Lieutenant into the I5th Hussars, 
 and subsequently into the 82nd Regiment. 
 
 This year my sister was staying at Brighton, on a 
 visit to Admiral Sir Harry Neale. William IV. (a 
 sailor), was at Brighton at that time, and there was a 
 great deal going on at the Pavilion. He had known 
 Sir Harry when on duty with his father, for he was 
 Equerry to George III., and a great favourite with him, 
 and was constantly with the King when the Royal 
 yacht was at Weymouth. There were many old Ad- 
 mirals at Brighton at that time. I remember Sir 
 Richard Keats was one, and Lord Amelius Beauclerk 
 another, of whom the ridiculous story of his dancing 
 with William IV. is an historic truth. There were some 
 children in the house who were to go to the Play, and 
 I was one to go with the party. I mention this because 
 there was no room inside the vehicle, and I had to go 
 to the theatre on the box. Sir Harry Neale having 
 regard to my comfort, said, " Take this, it was George 
 Ill's boat-cloak." 
 
 Of the time I passed in the Life Guards, the best and 
 most happy was whilst it was quartered at Windsor. 
 Col. Lygon, who was at the battle, and wore the Water- 
 loo medal, was always very kind and considerate to me. 
 He allowed me to be stationed at Maidenhead for a long 
 time. There was a great deal going on in that neigh- 
 bourhood ; constant dinner parties in the vicinity, to 
 which I always got a " lift " by some other officer. 
 Balls also were held now and again ; in short I was 
 happy as a King. I was also a great walker in those 
 days, and walked, on one occasion, with the surgeon of
 
 49 
 
 the regiment, from Oxford to Maidenhead, and on 
 another from the latter place to Sandhurst and back. 
 It was somewhere about the end of 1833, in the winter, 
 that I went on leave of absence to Berlin. I intended 
 in my mind to have returned on foot the whole way to 
 Calais, but was destined to carry out, in the end, only 
 half that scheme. The Foreign Office had given me an 
 introduction to Lord Minto, then our Ambassador there, 
 and Lady Westmorland had done the like for me to the 
 Duke of Cumberland. He had married a Princess of 
 Solms Braunfels, and succeeded as King of Hanover on 
 William IV's death in 1837, but at that time lived con- 
 stantly at Berlin. I was invited to dine with His Royal 
 Highness at three p.m. the day after my arrival, but 
 the portmanteau containing my uniform I could not get 
 from the Post Office Depot, and the state of mind I was 
 in, lest I should be late, perplexed me beyond measure. 
 Late, I remember, I was, for after I had made my bow 
 to the Duke, the company went into dinner. The 
 Duke asked me " what sort of a passage " I had, for 
 it was a boisterous season of the year. It happened on 
 leaving, that a servant told me that Prince George 
 of Cumberland would like to speak to me ; he was 
 then quite blind, and came into the hall leaning on the 
 arm of two young men. His object in this, was to tell 
 me how well he knew my father, and how at Angelo's 
 fencing rooms my father had given him " lessons in 
 fencing," for the use of the small sword and fencing had 
 not gone out when he had been at Brunswick, towards 
 the end of the former century. As my father excelled 
 beyond any in the art, he was known as the best
 
 50 
 
 fencer of the day, and had acquired a way and manner 
 in it peculiarly his own ; at Harrow, in fact, as I have 
 already said, the boys used to joke with me about it. 
 Poor Prince George had not then encountered that 
 sad misfortune, and like an open-hearted fellow was 
 evidently much gratified in talking about the matter. 
 He sent me afterwards a list of high Court function- 
 aries on whom I should have to leave my name, but 
 my time would not have sufficed to benefit by any 
 invitation to Court, though I did drive round, and re- 
 member the main-guard " turning out " to me by mistake ; 
 moreover I had in view my long walk to Calais. A 
 certain amount of training was necessary for this pur- 
 pose, and as long as I remained in Berlin, I used to 
 walk for an hour or two at a time, daily round about 
 the outskirts of it. Previous to my return, I sent by 
 the Malle Poste all my effects to Cologne, where I 
 intended to break the journey, and bought what is 
 called an " officer's knapsack," which carried little 
 enough, but was still sufficiently heavy to be comfor- 
 table. I had, moreover, an oilskin military foragfr cap, 
 and a green frock coat, so that happily I did not look 
 much like an Englishman. I started at length, and 
 slept the first night at Brandenburg ; I walked the day 
 following as far as Burg, which was thirty-five English 
 miles, and the next day to Magdeburg, another thirty- 
 five miles. These two days of seventy miles, with that 
 on the succeeding day to Halberstadt, of the same 
 distance, were the longest of my marches. At Halber- 
 stadt I remained the whole of one Sunday, for the 
 walking had told upon the calves of my legs. At the
 
 5' 
 
 table d'hote at which I dined that day, I talked, as I always 
 did, with one person or the other, and at the end 
 of the dinner, one of the company, who had evidently 
 not been quite able to make me out, said on my 
 making some observation, " Now I know you are not a 
 German." This was perhaps the greatest compliment 
 as a linguist, I was ever paid. I was generally taken 
 abroad for a Pole, who with the Russian, is known to 
 be the best linguist in Europe. I passed by way of 
 Padderborn, in which the bells of the Catholic churches 
 were ringing very much at the time, and by easy stages 
 got to Cologne. I began here to think my walk rather 
 de trop, and determined to end it at that place. I see 
 by a letter which I wrote home on the occasion, that I 
 occupied one of the best rooms at that time, in order 
 to see the Carnival, which was then about to commence. 
 But I have rather anticipated this my visit to Berlin, 
 which occured in the winter of 1833. 
 
 The cholera made its first appearance in the summer 
 of 1832 in this country, and there were some cases in 
 the Knightsbridge barracks which terminated fatally ; 
 five or six at least. My barrack-room was right over 
 the regimental hospital, too near to be pleasant, but its 
 continuance was not long, and the year following found 
 the regiment at Windsor. 
 
 Some of the officers were constantly swapping and 
 changing their horses, and in this way I became pos- 
 sessed, for a short time, of the thorough-bred mare, 
 " Comus," who had run for the Oaks, and this need not 
 create surprise, for many of that class find their way 
 into cabs. She had a nasty habit of " rearing," es-
 
 52 
 
 pecially when people galloped past down Rotten Row. 
 I never could sit a rearing horse, and once I slipped off 
 in the Park, though no amount of kicking could have 
 done the same. 
 
 The subject of a second charger was always rather a 
 sore subject with me. I picked up a horse somewhere, 
 which, according to custom, had to be "passed" by 
 the Commanding Officer, and it was in due course 
 submitted to Colonel Lygon, whose manner was very 
 decisive on all points. Scarcely looking at the horse 
 at all" Take him away, take him away," said he, 
 " never saw such a brute in my life." This became a 
 regular standing joke against me, and was often quoted 
 with all the bonhomie which men of the class then in 
 the regiment knew how to display, and this very feeling 
 occurred in another totally different case. The officers 
 of the squadron quartered at Maidenhead, under Col. 
 Reid, had finished dinner at the " Sun," the hotel at 
 which we were billeted. The conversation ran on the 
 subject of pedestrianism. Reid remarked that he would 
 not in the least mind walking up to Hyde Park Corner 
 that very minute, were anyone to bet him 50 that 
 he could not do so. The distance was thirty or thirty- 
 two miles ; he had eaten a good dinner, and was more- 
 over rather a stout than a thin wiry man, so having just 
 that amount in hand, I accepted the bet, being morally 
 certain that he would break down. He started, how- 
 ever, with the Assistant-Surgeon, followed by his cab, 
 in case of any such event ; performed the feat, and 
 came down by the Oxford coach early the next morning. 
 I paid Reid the money, of which he generously returned
 
 53 
 
 ^4> retaining 10 for the remuneration of the Sur- 
 geon, adding that he performed the task to show that 
 he could do it and be as good as his word. My ^50 
 would have fared otherwise with some of the strange 
 bedfellows poverty has here and there made me ac- 
 quainted. 
 
 The above-mention of Colonel Lygon, touches closely 
 upon Waterloo. He took part in that celebrated battle, 
 where the Life Guards charged the French Cuirassiers. 
 His brother, Colonel Beauchamp Lygon, commanded 
 the ist Life Guards, and the two brothers were known 
 by the sobriquet of " Pride," and " Prejudice," the 
 latter appellation being applied to the Colonel of the 
 second regiment. The memorable day of Waterloo 
 was one never forgotten by the Life Guards, and the 
 second regiment had a fine old rat-tailed horse, who 
 had smelt powder on that occasion, and was of course 
 known as the ''Waterloo horse." It was at Knights- 
 bridge barracks on the i8th June, 1832, that I thought 
 it necessary to identify myself with the traditions of the 
 regiment, and unwittingly drank, to my own account, a 
 whole bottle of port wine. This of course made me 
 perfectly tipsy ; still I well remember that some one, 
 seeing the state in which I was, drank to the health of 
 '* Mr. Duckett, and the Waterloo Horse," On my 
 getting up to respond for that noble animal and myself, 
 I grieve to say I at once measured my length on the 
 floor. This was the first, and only time in my life, that 
 I was ever intoxicated. Poor George Howard Vyso, 
 who in course of time became Colonel of the regiment, 
 and was himself very far gone, helped, with the aid of
 
 54 
 
 some other officer, to take the "brave fellow away." 
 Many years afterwards, when I was living in Yorkshire, 
 I became acquainted with a Captain Hodgson, who had 
 been present at Waterloo with the ist Dragoon Guards. 
 That regiment had been brigaded with the two regi- 
 ments of Life Guards and Blues. Being particularly 
 anxious to obtain from him some reliable information as 
 to the sort of charge which the heavy brigade made at 
 Waterloo, but more particularly as to the way in which 
 it was delivered, I asked him as to the rate or speed at 
 which the men charged, and in reply he said, that 
 owing to the depth and heavy state -of the ground from 
 continuous rain, the rate did not exceed that of a mode- 
 rate trot. This is a noteworthy fact, and contrasts 
 rather unfavourably, as between actual service and 
 parade, with the dashing gallop of reviews. I rather 
 think that Shaw, the Lifeguardsman, who was so 
 notorious for his feats on that occasion, had not at that 
 time, long been dead ; indeed, I am not quite sure 
 whether he did not sometimes figure at Angelo's fenc- 
 ing rooms, though I may be mistaken ; but whether he 
 belonged to the first or second regiments I never heard. 
 I have alluded to Windsor and Maidenhead already, 
 but the following details will supplement what I have 
 said on the matter. When the 2nd Life Guards were 
 at Windsor in 1833, the officers of the squadron which 
 was billeted at Maidenhead, dined out a great deal, and 
 I was made the victim of a practical joke. It was agreed 
 that we should adopt the old hair powder and resusci- 
 tate that bygone fashion. Accordingly about two or 
 three hours before it was time to dress, for I with one
 
 55 
 
 or two others, were invited to dine at the Clayton-Easts 
 of Hall Place, I powdered my hair with flour, and got 
 that part of my person into a perfectly satisfactory state 
 as regarded appearance. But now came the cruel part 
 of the business ; I discovered only about an hour be- 
 fore the time that the proposed matter was nothing but 
 a hoax. I had a fine crop of hair in those days, and 
 the quantity of flour to be relieved in that short time 
 was simply appalling. The more I washed my head, 
 the more the same presented the appearance of a good 
 pudding ; no amount of water would effect the removal 
 of it. Of course I was late for dinner, in fact the com- 
 pany had half finished when I entered the dining room. 
 " What has he been doing to himself," said Lady Ork- 
 ney to her neighbour, who afterwards told me ; in fact 
 for the moment I was the hero of the occasion, the 
 observed of all observers. It was too ridiculous to be 
 angry about, and added to the hilarity of all. This was 
 the only occasion on which I was ever called to task by 
 my old friend John Trotter, for what he considered a 
 great piece of conceit on my part. Perhaps it was so, 
 but I had always thought the features of John Thomas 
 very much "brought out" by the powdery performance, 
 making him the beau ideal of Mary Jane, who averred 
 his likeness in that " get up" to be the " very moral " 
 of him. Influenced doubtless by similar reflections, I 
 became an easy dupe, though not so easy to catch in 
 early days, as in later years, reversing the application 
 of the proverb " Experientia docet." 
 
 Practical jokes were habitual in those days, and I may 
 as well rrention one which took place in my next regi-
 
 56 
 
 ment, the I5th Hussars. Upon one occasion, after 
 dinner, the subject of " tossing a man in a blanket " 
 cropped up. One of the newest importations amongst 
 the junior officers exclaimed, " Oh, I should not mind 
 being tossed in a blanket." This was no sooner said 
 than it was done. Calling to the mess-waiter, one or 
 two immediately ordered the appearance of a blanket, 
 and out we all went into the barrack square, contiguous 
 to the mess-room, and into the blanket was placed the 
 cavalry sub. One, two, three, and up he went with 
 sundry repetitions. The man pretended to like it, but 
 the reverse was evidently betrayed by his contorted 
 features. 
 
 Whilst quartered at Maidenhead, which with Slough 
 were two of the outposts, I remember a ball or two at 
 one of the inns, and that Lord Boston's daughters were 
 the chief attraction ; indeed, of these ladies a brother- 
 officer said, that on first looking into their carriage when 
 once stopping to speak, he was perfectly dazzled by 
 their brilliant eyes. The Irbys of Hedsor, the Clay- 
 tons, the Clay ton- Easts, the Watsons, Tunnos, and 
 Harfords, were all singularly nice, and made life very 
 agreeable. During some part of the time, the cele- 
 brated beauty of the North, Miss Fanny Brandling (the 
 Northern Light), was on a visit to Lord and Lady Ork- 
 ney, and accidentally slipped into the Thames. Fitz- 
 maurice, a Captain in the regiment, and Lord Orkney's 
 brother, helped her out, and Lord Boston made some 
 lines on the matter, two of which I remember : 
 
 " He never had so fair a handling, 
 As when he saved Miss Fanny Brandling."
 
 57 
 
 During the time the 2nd Life Guards were quartered 
 at Windsor in 1833, William IV. wished to have the 
 17th Lancers there, so the regiment was obliged to 
 make way for them, and took up their quarters at 
 Hounslow, but I was with the troop or squadron that 
 went to Hampton Court. William IV., I think, was 
 fond of Windsor ; all the officers of the regiment 
 dined on one or two occasions in St. George's Hall ; 
 some one remarking that the interminable rows of wax 
 lights looked as if they had been <( dressed " by Lord 
 Frederick Fitz Clarence, then reputed as a " great drill." 
 I remember the regiment parading before him in Wind- 
 sor Park upon one occasion ; by his side stood Prince 
 George of Cambridge in a Hussar uniform, now the 
 Commander-in-Chief. As this was in 1833, the Prince 
 must have been then fourteen years old. 
 
 It was about this time that I began to use the pen, 
 and I translated from the German, in my leisure time, 
 a work on " Extraordinary Marches." This I never 
 published, and it is still in M.S. ; I waited in fact to 
 augment it, and bring down extraordinary marches to 
 that date, for the Spanish Leader, Gomez, made, a little 
 before or after that time, a wonderful march from one 
 end of Spain to the other in an incredibly short time. 
 The Spanish soldiers are, or were,- among the worst 
 soldiers, but among the best marchers in the world ; 
 one or two onions in their knapsack is about as much 
 as they require to carry them on. 
 
 A trifling reminiscence occurs to me. There was a 
 Captain in the regiment, whose horse invariably ran 
 away with him w T hen the regiment charged ; one
 
 58 
 
 would see him far away on the horizon, sometimes lost 
 entirely to view, but he rarely showed again, and what 
 became of him until seen in his quarters I don't know. 
 This was Lord Deerhurst ; he never succeeded his 
 father ; to him I sold my celebrated black mare of 
 Oxford notoriety. 
 
 Though I was thoroughly fond of the regiment, I was 
 alwavs bent on getting back some of the money which 
 my commission had cost, and this was no easy matter, 
 but at last I found an officer in the I5th Hussars who 
 was willing to exchange with me. He was a Lieutenant, 
 and I was a Sub-Lieutenant, but Lord Cathcart, the 
 Colonel, had laid down (or had authority for so doing), 
 that Sub-Lieutenants in the Life Guards, ranked as 
 Lieutenants in the Line. Upon these terms, by dint 
 of a little interest, we changed places, and in the latter 
 part of 1834 I joined the i5th Hussars in Dublin with 
 that rank. What became of my two chargers in the 
 Life Guards I entirely forget, but I picked up two very 
 suitable light cavalry horses in London, and sent them 
 to Dublin by steam boat to take their chance. That 
 regiment had just gone through a very nasty ordeal ; 
 the late Lord Cardigan, then Lord Brudenell, had been 
 removed from the command of it. He had brought to 
 a court-martial one of the captains, Captain Wathen, 
 upon what charges I forget, but so much came out at 
 the trial, that the authorities pronounced the regiment 
 in bad order, and appointed Colonel Lovell Badcock, 
 an old Peninsular officer of distinction, to do what was 
 necessarv to make matters right. The difficulty, first 
 in finding an eligible officer who would pay the amount
 
 59 
 
 required, and secondly who would from a Lieutenant 
 descend to the bottom of the Cornets, was beyond 
 measure difficult, but Lord Brudenell's interest pre- 
 vailed with Col. Lygon. 
 
 The number of this regiment, fifteen, has always had a 
 sort of superstitious interest in connection with events of 
 my life. I was born at No. 15, Spring Gardens, in 181 1, 
 (the year of the comet) ; I was fifteen when I met with 
 the accident which nearly killed me ; my grandfather 
 died December i 5th, 1822 ; my father died I5th June, 
 1856 ; \$ was monthly paid to my account until the 
 mortgagees foreclosed ; in fact, that number cropped 
 up so often in matters of minor importance which 
 concerned me, that it became ominous ; still I got 
 habituated to ir, and learned to forget it. Nevertheless 
 in after days, the number stuck to me. I received the 
 " Palmes d'or " as Officer of Public Instruction in France, 
 on the 1 5th of the month ; my diploma as Knight of 
 the Order of Merit of Saxe Coburg-Gotha is dated 1 5th 
 September, 1890. 
 
 How or when the I5th earned for themselves the 
 sobriquet of " Rough and Ready," I do not remember 
 to have heard. It will be a bad day for the English 
 army when these regimental disignations are abolished. 
 Much has been done to strike at the esprit de corps of 
 different line regiments, by amalgamating one with 
 another, and I doubt whether the first great war in 
 which England is engaged will not show the mistake. 
 There are some twenty or thirty regiments who are as 
 proud as proud can be of their familiar designation, but 
 they wish to keep the honour to themselves, and see no
 
 6o 
 
 reason why they should have to share it with others who 
 have had no part in earning it. One might as well sever 
 the name of " Howard" from the ducal family of Norfolk, 
 or " Manners" from that of Rutland. But this matter 
 is a sorer subject for the octogenarian General, or the 
 Invalid Soldier of Chelsea Hospital, than for the man, 
 like myself, who bid adieu to the military service when 
 in the prime of life. As regards Great Britain, of the 
 good things which her sons have done in the past, and 
 of all the laudable acts which her present sons have 
 achieved, the balance is fifty fold in favour of the for- 
 mer. I do not modestly add, " I may be wrong," I 
 boldly and unhesitatingly assert that I am right. 
 
 The 15th, who had (as observed) the sobriquet of 
 "Rough and Ready," was one of the most distinguished 
 of our light cavalry regiments ; had been at Waterloo ; 
 and at Villiers-en-Couche had rescued the Emperor of 
 Austria from being taken prisoner by the French. For 
 this all the officers of the regiment got the " Maria 
 Teresa" Order. If I am not mistaken the late Sir 
 Robert Wilson commanded the regiment on that occa- 
 sion ; subsequently Sir Joseph Thackwell was their 
 Colonel for some time. He was a noted bad judge of 
 a horse, so that for many years the I5th were one of 
 the worst mounted regiments in the Army. 
 
 There was going on while I was in the regiment at 
 Porto Bello barracks, in Dublin, a regular system of rob- 
 bery in the officers' stables. I was laid up with an injury 
 I received from vaulting off a runaway horse mentioned 
 elsewhere. My soldier servant told me one morning 
 that he had lost his great coat. Now there was an idle
 
 6r 
 
 tall sort of a youth, half man, half boy, who made a 
 point of never "saluting" me on passing; he was to 
 every intent a camp follower, and his duty was so to do ; 
 it was in that way he attracted my notice ; he was the 
 son of some soldier of the regiment, and was often to be 
 seen loafing about and doing nothing. Upon this I said 
 to my servant, " Do you suspect anyone " ? " Do you 
 suspect so-and-so"? naming the fellow's father, who 
 was servant to some other officer in the next stable. 
 Of course, like all the lower orders, save some 'rare 
 exceptions, he did not suspect him, neither should it 
 enter his mind to do so. " Well then," said I, " I do. 
 Go at once for the police and bring them to my quar- 
 ters," and in due course two of the force appeared. I was 
 lame on the sofa, and told the men to go into the next 
 room, my bedroom. To my servant I said, " Go you 
 and tell so-and-so I want to speak to him, perhaps to 
 give him a job, work, and so forth." The fellow came ; 
 I at once taxed him without any ceremony or hesita- 
 tion, with taking rny servant's coat ; I had no proof of 
 course ; the measure was bold and venturesome. He 
 began not only to deny any such thing, but coupled it 
 with a great deal of impertinence and abuse. I called 
 out the policemen and gave him in charge on suspicion. 
 Now it happened, that the Colonel seeing the police- 
 men enter my quarters, sent to know what I meant, 
 what they wanted, and so forth ; I sent him word that 
 I hoped in a very short time to be able to satisfy him ; 
 so the two policemen proceeded to where the fellow's 
 mother lived at no great distance from the barracks. 
 It would seem that the woman had got wind of some-
 
 62 
 
 thing, or suspected that the police had been put upon 
 the scent, and came out to reconnoitre, but on seeing 
 her son in charge of the police approaching, set off and 
 got back to her abode. One of the men was close 
 upon her, and under the bed were found saddles, 
 bridles, clothing, and I know not what besides, includ- 
 ing my servant's coat, &c. This was a wonderful piece of 
 good fortune, and very remarkable insight on my part, 
 but I never got the smallest credit for it ; every one 
 thought that my servant had put me up to it, whereas 
 on the contrary, he had done the reverse. To this 
 there was a sequel. The boy or man received a very 
 trifling sentence, and was in Kilmainham Gaol, but was 
 ordered never to follow the regiment again. It must 
 have been a trifling sentence, because six or seven 
 months later, when the I5th had marched to Cahir, in 
 Galway, I was walking, according to my custom, or 
 taking a usual constitutional, and was two or three miles 
 on a road from Cahir, and emerging from a wood, to 
 which part of the road I had been plainly followed, 
 when a man jumped down from the bank, skirting the 
 wood and the road, in what I took to be a decidedly 
 hostile manner. To my surprise and wonder, there was 
 the very fellow facing me in the road. " Go on " I 
 said very plainly and determinedly " Go on," pointing 
 in the direction of Cahir, I kept saying ; the fellow all 
 the time bent upon something, and half cowed by my 
 manner, for putting firearms out of the question, I was 
 more than a match for him physically, kept standing, 
 not knowing what to do, and saying nothing. In fact 
 he was plainly mistaken ; I was a better man when I
 
 faced him, than he expected ; for he had never spoken 
 to me, save when I was lying down ; and moreover, I 
 had noticed him more than he had my general " build." 
 Reluctantly at any rate he went, plainly not having 
 pluck enough to do what he had planned ; I kept him 
 in view whilst he walked on, and went to a magis- 
 trate and sxvore the peace against him then and there. 
 I never saw or heard more about him, for that very 
 evening was to be my last in the regiment ; I had been 
 for some time in correspondence about entering the 
 Lancers of the Spanish Legion, then being embodied 
 under Colonel Evans, afterwards Sir de Lacy Evans, 
 and received notice that night to proceed at once to 
 London. When I look back upon this incident, to 
 which I may say vital matters had caused me not to 
 give a second thought, it ought undoubtedly to have 
 been a warning to me for all future time in respect 
 of Ireland and the Irish, but it was very far from so 
 being ; I lived in after days for four consecutive years 
 in Ireland without leaving it, but not without having 
 my attention drawn now and again to its peculiar 
 characteristic of blood-thirsty revenge. My service in 
 the Syth Irish Fusiliers, had quite misled me in estimat- 
 ing the true characteristics of a people before being 
 brought into proper form by discipline and good 
 example. 
 
 Having given very little for my two I5tb chargers, I 
 am tempted to say something about them, for the cha- 
 racter of one differed from that of any horse I have 
 known. When I tried him in London, I pronounced 
 him a slug, and very likely to " come down," but the
 
 64 
 
 voyage to Ireland wrought a complete change in him. 
 He was one of the finest actioned horses conceivable, 
 but was too fond of company, and would not leave the 
 noses of the troopers horses after coining up into the 
 alignment, i.e. he resisted coining round to the " front." 
 I replaced him by a horse w T hich I intended to have 
 taken w r ith me, had I joined the Spanish Legion. Hav- 
 ing " active " service at that time in view, I thought 
 that I might initiate him into the possible chance of 
 swimming a river. For this purpose I practised him in 
 the river at Cahir, but he was not to be made much 
 of in that character, and I nearly got myself into 
 danger in the current of that rapid river. My other 
 charger who used to stand when I was on the extreme 
 end of the line at a review in the Phoenix Park motion- 
 less as a statue, close to the guns of the artillery, was 
 shot a short time after I left the regiment, for glanders, 
 which he must have caught at some stable on the march. 
 This was another piece of dishonesty which innkeepers 
 did not shrink from at that period. I received ^40 for 
 him as compensation, which was nearly 20 more than 
 I gave for him. This was the horse, which on one 
 occasion, jeopardized my life. 
 
 I was exactly twelve months in the I 5th, the \vhole 
 of the time nearly in Dublin, and left it in 1835, 
 ostensibly to join one of the Lancer regiments of 
 the Spanish Legion, as I have said. For this purpose 
 on reaching London, I attended at an extemporized 
 sort of orderly room or office in some street off the 
 Strand. Upon my asking for the Adjutant, or some 
 one else, a clerk at a table answered that he was " on
 
 65 
 
 parade." This damped my ardour for the Lancers at 
 once, though it was certainly a military way of putting 
 it. I looked out of the window into the narrow street, 
 for that was the locality implied, but I had seen nothing 
 of the kind on entering the house, and I saw nothing 
 now ; but one thing I certainly observed, or which 
 caught my ears. There were a great many bushel 
 baskets full of " H's," which with the six or seven in- 
 dividuals in the room, either enrolled or waiting for 
 commissions, left as little room for doubting, as there 
 was for moving about. They may have been intended 
 to take out for the " hoats " or " osses," or indeed for the 
 " hasses," especially in a part of Europe in which the 
 " H " is not aspirated, and mules abound. So far this 
 was right enough, still, although I was only to have 
 been a candidate for subaltern rank, I could not help 
 being shocked when I thought what an incumbrance 
 this sort of thing would become to the Commander, 
 and the baggage train. I therefore left things as they 
 were. I must admit that I have in my peregrinations 
 seen great havoc made with that unfortunate letter of 
 the alphabet, probably among those who had got com- 
 missions towards the end of the last campaigns of 
 Wellington. That great General is said always to have 
 liked his " dandy " officers the best. The Duke did not 
 here imply "dress" only, but "blood" as well; 
 nevertheless, though few Englishmen are deficient in 
 pluck, in the main he was not wrong. 
 
 Having thus altered my plans, I exchanged into the 
 82nd regiment, the negociations for which had also been 
 on the tapis, should the above-named intention not have
 
 66 
 
 succeeded. This step was, for a few years, a source of 
 much personal worry, discomfort, and annoyance, and 
 I can look back upon my service in it until 1839, witn 
 no kind of real pleasure. 
 
 I shall never forget whilst I was quartered in this 
 regiment at Mullingar, in the bog of Allen, that I took 
 it into my head to see what I could do with ducks, at 
 the time known as the "flight," viz. at day-break. There 
 was an island in the lake, the name of which I forget, 
 and I went overnight in company with some attendant 
 to wait till the morning. A great blazing fire was made 
 of wood and sticks, and we laid down as soldiers do in 
 bivouacking, and of course fell asleep. I shall never 
 forget my surprise at seeing, when awoke out of sleep, 
 two or three policemen with their rifles, standing round. 
 The fire had been mistaken for a whisky still, and they 
 seemed sure of their prize. 
 
 It was just before the 82nd embarked from Cork for 
 Gibraltar, that I was first put upon my resources and 
 called upon to act on my own responsibility. A wing 
 of the regiment was then stationed at Carlow ; I had 
 been laid up for some time with a bad leg, and had 
 done no duty, and though I was ostensibly on the "sick 
 list," I was told off to escort some prisoners (or rather 
 convicts) to Naas, but was allowed on this occasion to 
 ride on an Irish car. It was two days' inarch from 
 Carlow, and after I had given up the prisoners at the 
 gaol, and taken a receipt for their " bodies," I told the 
 men before they lodged their arms, which is a custom 
 in Ireland, in the barrack, that they were to get their 
 breakfasts before they left the next morning, and that
 
 6 7 
 
 for this purpose, I should not start for an hour or two 
 later. Accordingly the next morning the detachment 
 marched out of Naas, and arrived at a town called Kil- 
 cullen, when the Sergeant told me the men wished to 
 halt for breakfast. I told him they had all well under- 
 stood they were to get their breakfasts before leaving, but 
 that I would not refuse to allow them to fall out for ten 
 minutes or a quarter-of-an-hour. The men accordingly 
 went into different beer shops, and after a much longer 
 time than I had allowed, I ordered the Sergeant to 
 make them fall in. There seemed no appearance of this 
 order being obeyed, and it was a long while before the 
 men did obey. The word was given to them to march 
 off, and I presume rather than have a disturbance in the 
 street, the escort marched off properly enough, but on 
 getting well out of the town, they all with one accord 
 began to what is called " mark time," a piece of tom- 
 foolery which is not quite easy to understand. The men 
 were not what may be called in open mutiny, for they 
 obeyed the word which I gave them to halt. I forget 
 the words I used exactly, but I gave them to know I 
 should stand none of their nonsense, and followed by 
 giving the order " quick march." This was followed 
 by a repetition of " marking time," and as the men were 
 in downright mutiny, save the Sergeant, I told him to 
 fall to the rear. It was difficult for me to know ex- 
 actly what to do, and the course I pursued, may, in the 
 eyes of some, be open to censure, but it was original 
 and the result was quite efficacious. I have said that 
 I was lame and riding in an open car ; I knew there 
 was a police-barrack two or three miles further on, and I
 
 68 
 
 knew also there was a large military force at Newbridge 
 of at least two or three regiments. I determined there- 
 fore to drive on to the Police Station and report to the 
 Officer Commanding at Newbridge, that some men of 
 the 82nd had mutinied under my command, and that I 
 awaited his orders. This despatch I wrote, and told the 
 Police Officer in charge, that if he saw (as I expected 
 he would), the men in question marching in a disorderly 
 and irregular manner, he was at once to despatch my 
 letter by an orderly to Newbridge ; but if on the other 
 hand, he saw the escort marching in a soldierlike and 
 proper way, to take no further notice ; I then drove 
 back to meet the men. They did not perhaps know 
 what I had been up to, but I met my friends marching 
 in " sections of threes," with sloped arms, in the most 
 gingerly way, as if nothing had happened. Something 
 had come over them, and they thought better of it. 
 The matter was of course investigated, but I myself 
 never heard more about it. I quite forget the name 
 of the Barrack Master at Carlow, or his former military 
 rank, but he was an old experienced soldier, and his 
 advice to me was, as a young officer, to commit every 
 word of this business to paper forthwith. The matter 
 was a nasty one, and seems to have been talked about 
 to some purpose, for he gave me this advice in the 
 barrack-square the day after the escort had returned. 
 He was surprised at it, adding " that he always thought 
 the 82nd a very fine regiment." 
 
 Mutiny is an awkward matter with which to deal, but 
 flogging had not then been abolished. To give military 
 men their due, I think all of them would be unanimous
 
 69 
 
 on the score of retaining the power of inflicting it when 
 necessary, and must be held irresponsible for its present 
 abolition, and the House of Commons, and other equally 
 wise persons, are chiefly to be thanked for the measure. 
 Nothing can be worse in my mind than the plan of 
 overlooking a thing of this kind, which now prevails, 
 that of "keeping dark" or "hushing up" the matter. 
 An example should be made on the spot (if practicable), 
 or as soon after as possible, and this of the most strin- 
 gent kind. If the English army is ever again engaged 
 in military operations of any magnitude, this punishment 
 of flogging must be renewed ; there is nothing between 
 it and shooting. Flogging brings the Briton more to 
 his senses than any other kind of appeal, and he returns 
 in due time to his duty, generally a better and a wiser 
 man. The Spaniards shoot. Their military code in- 
 flicts the punishment of death in cases, not only of 
 cowardice and misbehaviour before the enemy, but 
 for minor crime. The late General Lovell Badcock 
 told me when he was in command of the I5th Hus- 
 sars, that he had been eye-witness to the decimation 
 of a whole Spanish regiment for cowardice. As ob- 
 served, flogging will have to be re-introduced, unless 
 the English wish to follow the example of the Spanish 
 army. 
 
 I cannot call to mind where the regiment was sta- 
 tioned, whether at home or abroad, I have entirely 
 forgotten, but I distinctly remember Colonel Johnstone, 
 the husband of the lady who eloped with Lord Brude- 
 nell, to have dined at the 82nd mess. He was a most 
 jolly, jovial man, and no one for a moment would have
 
 70 
 
 believed him to have sustained any such loss. It was 
 said, and I believe with perfect truth, that Lord Brude- 
 nell offered him " satisfaction " of the sort gentlemen 
 understand, but he at once put the matter on a different 
 footing, " He was very much obliged to his Lordship." 
 
 In 1836 that regiment embarked at Cork for Gib- 
 raltar, and then formed one of the six regiments there 
 stationed, viz., 33rd, 52nd, 6oth, 68th, 8ist, 82nd. The 
 barracks at Cork are very large, and capable of holding 
 several battalions. On this occasion four regiments 
 were in readiness for embarkation, the i8th, 33rd, 35th, 
 and 82nd ; of these the first was for Ceylon, the third for 
 the Mauritius, and the two others were told off for Gib- 
 raltar. The Colonel of the 82nd was a good drill, and 
 always had his men well in hand, in fact few better men 
 at the head of a regiment. He came into the mess-room 
 one day, after a conversation with another Commanding 
 Officer, and jokingly remarked that the latter had just 
 asked him " Whether he ever did things on a movable 
 pivot." There was a good laugh amongst us at this 
 tactical performance. 
 
 The voyage out was rough, and having two cases of 
 small-pox on board, the transport was put into quaran- 
 tine on arrival, and on disembarking the regiment 
 occupied the Town Range barracks. 
 
 During the last year I was there, Prince George 
 of Cambridge came out, and was nominally attached 
 to the 33rd regiment, and returned to England in 
 due course with the rank of Colonel. It did not tend 
 to my comfort that I had for my Captain a very 
 unpopular officer, to whom a Recruiting Sergeant
 
 would not exactly have given the Queen's shilling. His 
 appearance might not have prevented higher military 
 qualities, but these were wanting, for " tel brille au second, 
 s'eclipse au premier" Great in command of a company, he 
 afterwards displayed less ability in handling his regiment 
 at drills, and finally extinguished himself by being " dis- 
 missed the service " for disobedience of orders before 
 the enemy ! This man was a remarkable instance of 
 retribution, otherwise would have been beneath notice. 
 
 The 82nd was a wonderfully steady, well drilled 
 regiment, thanks to its then Colonel and Adjutant, and 
 had about the average esprit de corps, which I have ob- 
 served is far greater in some regiments than in others. 
 The set of officers was at that time decidedly above par, 
 and there were many who might have taken their place 
 with the pick of the army, but there were two, however, 
 and perhaps three, of whom this could not be said, and 
 these might as well have been elsewhere. Neverthe- 
 less, the three years I served in it at Gibraltar were 
 about the most unpleasant and unprofitable in my exis- 
 tence, and as servants say of their places, I could not 
 find myself comfortable ; perhaps I was dwelling too 
 much on the past. 
 
 The profession of a soldier is a grand calling with 
 every nation ; none more so ; it brings out the best 
 feelings of man on many opposite occasions ; the soldier 
 distinguishes more than the civilian, upon the nice dis- 
 tinction of honour and dishonour, still in the ranks of 
 every army, and by experience, I know that in the 
 British Army, black sheep crop up (or used so to do), 
 far too often. Some regiments are more free from this
 
 72 
 
 disaster than others ; those that were termed " crack," 
 having less to say to the gentry of that class. A crea- 
 ture of that sort is an insufferable nuisance, for you 
 meet him at every turn ; on parade, off parade, at mess, 
 and after mess ; the man turns up like Banquo's 
 ghost. You are lucky if you haven't to fight a duel 
 with this regimental treasure, for he is uniformly a low- 
 born fellow, and delights in saying impertinent things, 
 but kicking and duelling are not commendable, and 
 even were they, one can't get rid of the brute. The 
 special season of this complaint is on board ship, in an 
 area of about ten by six, or probably with you in your 
 own cabin. The glories of the military life are great, 
 no doubt, but this difficulty is one of the drawbacks the 
 regimental officer has to face. Of this class are some 
 who "drink on the sly," others who, "unmitigated" 
 snobs, as I have heard an old friend style them, are 
 those who, belonging themselves, by origin, to the 
 lower class, are especially fond of talking of dignities, 
 not "speaking evil" of them exactly, but transferring 
 " wrongly pronounced " family name to equally wrong 
 titles of nobility, causing a repugnance of the most 
 indescribable sort in those who know better. I remem- 
 ber once an Assistant Surgeon who had this " parlour 
 trick," if one may so use this Americanism in reference 
 to a male party. 
 
 Possessed of a good horse, which had belonged to a 
 smuggler, the daily ride was along the shore towards 
 Algesiras, a town opposite to Gibraltar, on the other 
 side of the bay. There is a vineyard two miles beyond 
 it, which if one could reach without being taken by
 
 73 
 
 banditti, would well repay the visit, for the grapes were 
 wonderful. To enter any Spanish town in midday of 
 summer, such as Algesiras, is like entering a city of the 
 dead ; all are taking their siesta ; not a soul on foot. 
 During the time I was at Gibraltar, three officers of the 
 regiment were taken by banditti ; two of them were 
 allowed to go back to Gibraltar to collect the ransom 
 of the third, who was kept prisoner, arriving long 
 after gun-fire. The money was made up, but though 
 deposited at a spot agreed upon, the rascals had made 
 off, the Gendarmes being after them, and their prisoner 
 got free, but not without some rough handling ; they 
 had blindfolded him and carried him off towards the 
 Sierra, 
 
 Hunting with English foxhounds after racoons in the 
 Cork Wood was practised by the garrison, an officer of 
 the 52nd being the huntsman. On Sunday, a bull fight 
 used to come off at Algesiras. The only real feature 
 in this most disgusting performance, is the appearance 
 of the bull when first let into the arena, his look of 
 surprise, added to his own natural fierceness was strik- 
 ing ; the clapping of hands by women and others, 
 when the animal gores an unfortunate half frightened 
 horse, displaying his entrails, is simply horrifying and 
 most debasing. 
 
 No such thing as butter ever enlivened a man's break- 
 fast on that rock of Gibraltar. Some of the officers of 
 the Depot sent out a keg of Irish salt butter for four of 
 their friends, of whom I was one, and an American 
 vessel being then in harbour with a cargo of ice, enabled 
 us to freeze the same very satisfactorily. This impor-
 
 74 
 
 tation of ice was then not frequent, but probably is so 
 now. The celebrated crack frigate of the United 
 States Navy, whose name I have forgotten, came to 
 Gibraltar during that time, and I remember being 
 singularly struck with the smart crew which manned the 
 Captain's gig when coming on shore ; I heard they were 
 nearly all Englishmen. How about that in case of war ? 
 
 It was during the time the 82nd were at Gibraltar, 
 that the Governor, Sir Alexander Woodford, wanted to 
 see the regiment exercised by the two senior Lieu- 
 tenants ; accordingly, as one of them, when my turn 
 came, I put the battalion through about six or seven 
 manoeuvres, and I could not help thinking what a fine 
 steady set of men I had before me. On returning to 
 take my place in the rear, a Captain (Bender) made way 
 for me to get to my place " That's the way to do it" 
 said he to me. Officers, take them one with the other, 
 are a selfish lot ; here was a case of one devoid of any 
 bad feeling. 
 
 It was in December, 1838, or January, 1839, that I 
 obtained leave of absence, and left Gibraltar in the 
 same steamer which was taking Prince George of Cam- 
 bridge and Colonel Cornwall to Cadiz, at which they 
 disembarked. The Peninsula Co.'s steamers put into 
 Lisbon, and did so on this occasion, anchoring in the 
 Tagus. I remember landing and walking about some 
 of the streets, showing visible signs of the earthquake 
 in J755 (I think that was the date). At that time, 
 1839, there were no drains, so called, and the dogs and 
 pigs eat up all the dirt and refuse thrown into the 
 streets ; one had to be careful how one walked. After
 
 75 
 
 being at the opera I went off in a boat to the steamer, 
 an operation I have heard not always void of risk at 
 that late hour of the night. The voyage homeward 
 was rough, and we had to put into Corunna for coals. 
 This occupied a day, and I took the opportunity of 
 mounting a horse, and with the aid of a guide saw the 
 higher ground from whence the French harassed the 
 re-embarkation of Sir John Moore's forces. The spot 
 was marked on the bastion where he fell, and was 
 buried, and where, as the verse runs, " he lay like a war- 
 rior taking his rest, with his martial cloak around him." 
 
 The voyage across the Bay of Biscay to Falmouth 
 was rougher than anything I have ever known ; the 
 mails at that time were always landed there, and I 
 landed with them, having had quite enough of it, and 
 left the same night by the dear old mail-coach for 
 London, reaching Exeter at twelve noon the next day 
 for " dinner." Whilst the steamer was at Corunna, I 
 had to act as interpreter for some of the passengers, for 
 during my three years service at Gibraltar, I had picked 
 up a fair smattering of Spanish. To a man who knows 
 French and Latin, no language is easier. 
 
 I have somewhat anticipated matters, and I am re- 
 minded as I proceed, of a few occurrences before the 
 82nd left Ireland in 1836, but as the events occurred 
 within a few years of one another, and equally so close 
 to the time I exchanged into it, the order of date is not 
 material. 
 
 Having left the I5th at Cahir for London, ostensibly 
 to join the Spanish Legion in 1835, the passage from 
 Dublin to Liverpool most unexpectedly brought me in
 
 7 6 
 
 contact with an old Oxford friend, Lord Glandine, 
 whom I had known at Brasenose as Toler. He was 
 High Sheriff for King's County, and had been attending 
 the Assizes, and having his carriage on board, offered 
 me a seat up to London. There was at that time only 
 a short line of rail open, viz. : between Liverpool and 
 Manchester, otherwise we posted the whole way. I 
 suppose we must have arrived at Buxton early in the 
 forenoon, because he went to breakfast with Lady Lon- 
 donderry, and I performed the same ceremony at some 
 hotel. One thing interested me much ; the two judges 
 had known his grandfather, the first Lord Norbury, and 
 were full of his witty sayings and doings, for up to those 
 days almost, the newspapers had always something to 
 say on that subject, headed " Lord Norbury's last." 
 There was a very good pun on his family name of Toler, 
 in connection with the church bell, but I have forgotten 
 the exact words. I never met him again until living 
 many years after near Lymington, when he had married 
 my old friend John Trotter's niece, Miss Lindsay- 
 Bethune, who as Lady Norbury was the admiration of 
 all. Subsequent to this, Lord Norbury's brother-in-law, 
 Stewart of Rockhill, told me the exact truth of the 
 murder of Lord Norbury's father, which some member 
 of the House, it may still be remembered, so unwar- 
 rantably and wickedly insinuated to have taken place 
 otherwise. Mr. Stewart (grandson of the Marquis of 
 Drogheda), was on a visit to the house at the time 
 (having married the eldest daughter), and helped to 
 carry in the murdered body of the Earl ; there was no 
 doubt, he told me, that it was the butler who com-
 
 77 
 
 mitted the act, and who took himself off shortly after, 
 but the reason instigating this foul act on the man's 
 part need not be entered into ; nevertheless, here was 
 an instance to some purpose of the truth of the saying, 
 " cherchez la femme." The wonder is how any astute man 
 could have allowed himself to be so duped, and misin- 
 formed ; but there again, if I mistake not, was another 
 instance on the matter of " cherchez la femme ," the whole 
 Toler family being Protestants in the strictest sense. 
 
 Mullingar was the first station of the 82nd after leaving 
 Dublin in 1835, and that part of Ireland, in the bog of 
 Allen, used to be full of snipe. The meaning of Irish 
 " Blarney " is known to most of us, and though destitute 
 of truth, is sometimes pleasant to hear and consoling. A 
 man who did odds and ends for me on shooting occa- 
 sions, never failed to say when I shot a bird, " Och, 
 yur honour is the greatest snipe shot that iver I sar ; " 
 but when I missed, his uniform consolatory expression 
 was, " Sure if yur honour didn't kill him, yer hit him 
 very sevarely." This man had an eye for other game. 
 " Lie down, lie down, yur honour, here's a curlew," 
 laying the emphasis well upon the last syllable ; making 
 a whistle by way of enticing the bird, and transforming 
 himself as well as he could into the form, and imitating 
 the cry of one of the same species. This appears to be 
 a popular superstition, but quite fallacious and ludicrous 
 in the extreme, the supposition being that the whistle 
 will make the bird hover within reach of an easy shot. 
 This man was an example of the class which go to make 
 our soldiers, and could be equally made as good subjects 
 and tenants, were it not for the Priesthood, by whom
 
 78 
 
 they are governed, or whom rather they worship, and 
 that is the reason why you never can come at the 
 bottom of crime in Ireland. I lived for four years in 
 that country after leaving the army, chiefly because my 
 admiration of the Irish as soldiers, led me to form 
 golden opinions of the people as peasants, but the raw 
 material before being brought into form by military 
 discipline, was an element dangerous and untrustworthy 
 then unknown to me. When living in Donegal, I used 
 to prevent people making short cuts through the plan- 
 tations and grounds which I rented, so I at once be- 
 came a marked man, and put down or " booked " to be 
 shot the first opportunity. An old soldier of the 52nd, 
 who was living with me as an indoor servant, heard a 
 woman make this threat, and taking her up on the 
 spot, remarked, " Now, remember ! I have heard you 
 say that." But mark well ! I was no landowner ; no 
 wonder the actual landlord cares little to live among 
 such a Priest-ridden and murderous set. The Irish dis- 
 ciplined soldier, and the raw peasant, are very different 
 people, but you don't find this out until after you have 
 lived among them. I cared very little for life in those 
 days, and had I been attacked, or anything occurred of 
 the nature in question, I should have thought as little 
 of shooting a man as a partridge. 
 
 Whilst on this topic, I may as well allude to some- 
 thing of the same kind, for these bad tricks are catching, 
 and which actually took place in England, the date is 
 of no great moment. I was living within a few miles 
 of the county town and received a threatening letter, 
 drawn up in the most foul and disgusting language,
 
 79 
 
 bidding me to " wait till the hedges gets a bit thicker, you 
 d d, &c." I sent the letter to the Secretary of State, 
 and the Government offered a reward of $o ; I also 
 sent it to the Chief Constable of the County, to whom 
 I communicated my suspicion, and the way in which it 
 was brought home to the party was clear enough ; the 
 suspected person was a manufacturer of no matter what, 
 and some large quantity of his ware being at that time 
 wanted, a contract-estimate was at once forwarded to 
 the man ; he jumped at the offer, sent in his estimate 
 at once, and fell into the trap. The writings were 
 identical, and the great expert Nettleship so pronounced 
 them not a shadow of doubt about it. What further 
 link was required to bring the fellow to justice I entirely 
 forget, but the documents were kept in case anything 
 turned up. Like many such matters, this had its origin 
 in something of no great weight, for he had been caught 
 shooting by a man in my employ, Some of the Irish 
 ruffians had set this individual an example, although 
 this sort of thing had scarcely then taken root in 
 English soil. My acquaintance with the Irish, and this 
 national tendency to murder, has on one or two occa- 
 sions somewhat disturbed me, especially during my 
 army career. A soldier in the 87th, into which I ex- 
 changed from the 82nd, whom I punished, and visited 
 in the u cells," used some threatening language, which 
 luckily he was unable to carry into effect, for he went 
 into hospital, and there died. Putting different things 
 together, I now think the man was a little mad, but 
 men of that sort are just those who commit murderous 
 acts, and frequently escape on the score of mental
 
 8o 
 
 derangement. My habit of writing and working, and 
 sitting up late at night, especially in the tropics, with 
 doors and windows wide open for ventilation, afforded 
 a fine opportunity for indulging in these propensities, 
 and the thought often came across me of being victim- 
 ized on such occasions by some worthless incorrigible 
 ruffian, of which the English army harbours a good 
 many. A soldier of the same regiment was sentenced 
 to be shot, and was executed just before I arrived at 
 the Isle of France in 1841. He had shot a corporal, 
 who ultimately recovered. Even handed justice, with- 
 out favour or affection, with the strictest impartiality, 
 are the best securities to safeguard the officer in com- 
 mand of his men, whether he has to deal with a regiment 
 or only a company of it. These unpleasant topics seem 
 to force themselves on one, therefore " revenons a nos 
 motttons." 
 
 I was possessed about this time of an elaborate 
 writing desk, quite unknown for its "secret drawers" 
 and size to the present race ; it was like a large brass 
 bound mahogany trunk, and my father had it made in 
 his early days, and I mention it because it had been to 
 the North Pole, or as far as we have been able to 
 attain in that direction. He lent it to Captain Lyons 
 (of the same family which afterwards became ennobled 
 in the person of Lord Lyons), in order to secure it that 
 celebrity, when he and Captain Parry made their voy- 
 age of discovery in those regions. 
 
 In the autumn of the same year (1839), having ob- 
 tained my company, I exchanged into the 8/th Fusiliers, 
 then on service at the Isle of France, and joined its
 
 8i 
 
 Depot in Dublin. The esprit de corps in this Irish regi- 
 ment was second to none, and no man who ever joined 
 it failed to enter into all its glorious history and doings, 
 and to identify himself with it in every sense. In 1840 
 the Depot having left Dublin for Carlisle, I obtained 
 leave of absence to go to Berlin. I must not forget to 
 say that whilst in Dublin I entered to my heart's con- 
 tent into all the balls to which I was invited, or at the 
 Rotunda, to which I invited myself. There was at that 
 time a wonderfully pretty girl, Miss Macnamara, who 
 bewitched a good many ; she ultimately married a 
 Captain Conroy, aide-de-camp to the General Com- 
 manding (Sir Edward Blakeney), dying the same year 
 of her marriage. 
 
 I ought not to forget to notice two matters at this 
 period in connection with Dublin. I am well acquainted 
 with London fogs ; they are black, and so far do not 
 resemble the fog I remember here, more dense, but not 
 so discoloured. I was walking in the winter of 1839 
 from the Pigeon House Fort into Dublin ; there was 
 the most dense fog I had ever seen ; one had not to 
 lose touch of the wall, skirting the path. On nearing 
 the canal (called I think the Porto Bello), and the 
 bridge over it, I heard a great uproar of voices " Tim, 
 what are you about ! Don't pull the mare " ; I was 
 sufficiently near to hear this and more distinctly ; pre- 
 sently this was followed by a fearful splash, as if some 
 car or vehicle had backed or been pulled into the 
 canal. There was a man close by, who heard the same 
 and observed what a terrible thing it was not to be able 
 to render any assistance. The fog was such that if one
 
 82 
 
 had left the path or wall, it would have been impossible 
 to have found one's way. My impression at this time is, 
 that some outside car got thus into the canal, or one of 
 the party, for the next day I passed the spot, and the 
 dead body of a man was lying (I suppose waiting for 
 the inquest), on the roadside. 
 
 The officers quartered in Dublin, had in my day, free 
 entree to the theatre, and I often went. The street or 
 road from Dublin to Irish Town is skirted with lamp- 
 posts, rather wide apart. I left the theatre one night ; 
 not a soul was in the street, but on nearing and passing 
 close to one of these lamp-posts, I saw on the wall the 
 reflection of a boy on the point of dipping his hand into 
 my pocket ; there was no mistake about it. I turned 
 sharply round and seized the fellow by the neck, or 
 whatever he wore round it, he had (more Hibernico), 
 no shoes, his bare feet gave no signs of him. He was a 
 great " lump " of a youth, and began to struggle and bite, 
 but I had a good grip of the fellow, and he could do 
 nothing. I called " Police," but of course none were 
 to be found, so I pulled the fellow back some distance 
 in that way, and eventually came upon one or two of 
 the force, to whom I handed him over. I appeared 
 against him, but what his sentence was I never heard. 
 
 It was about the time of my being at Berlin that I 
 seriously meditated a fresh attempt of compiling a Mili- 
 tary Technological Dictionary in French, English, and 
 German. I had in fact commenced such a work three or 
 four years before, but I found that I made so many errors 
 that I threw up the job in disgust, being at the time at 
 Gibraltar ; now, I re-conceived the idea and worked
 
 83 
 
 upon other lines. Lord William Russell, a General 
 Officer, was at that time the English Ambassador at 
 the Court of Berlin, and was particularly civil to me, 
 for he had been aide-de-camp to Lord Lynedoch, who 
 commanded at the battle of Barossa, in which the 8jth 
 greatly distinguished themselves, taking the Eagle of 
 the 8th French Light Infantry Regiment ; I shall have 
 somewhat more to say about that gallant fellow, Lord 
 Gough, on this matter. He told me that after the 
 battle, it was pretended that the Eagle had been picked 
 up on the field by a drummer boy ; this so irritated 
 the corps, that one of the officers publicly gave out 
 that he should be found walking at a certain hour in 
 one of the streets of Cadiz, " when he should like to see 
 the man who would say the regiment had not taken the 
 aigle (eagle)." This officer, I have reason to know, was 
 a Captain in the B/th, named " Timmy Kenelly," an 
 Hibernian from the name, and as full of fight as many 
 others of his countrymen, especially at that time, when 
 duelling was more in vogue. 
 
 The further history of the " Eagle " is not void of 
 interest. It was stolen from Chelsea Hospital at the 
 time of the Duke of Wellington's funeral, and has not 
 since been traced. Sir John Doyle presented it on the 
 Horse Guards Parade to the Duke of York, the then 
 Commander-in-Chief, and the Right Hon. Colonel North 
 (then Sydney Doyle), and now living, is my authority, 
 was present with his uncle on that occasion. Whether 
 during the late "tinkering" the army has undergone, 
 the buttons of the regimental clothing have been altered 
 or not, I cannot say, but in my day, they carried as
 
 8 4 
 
 their chief emblem a representation of the 8th French 
 Infantry Eagle. 
 
 In pursuance of my object, Lord William obtained 
 for me permission to get access to the Artillery Work- 
 shops, for in compiling a technical work it was impera- 
 tive to verify every tool, weapon, or utensil used in the 
 military service ; and this information could only be 
 acquired by investigation on the actual spot. It was in 
 this way and for that object, that I visited on subsequent 
 occasions, and more than once, Paris, Brussels, and 
 Woolwich, the latter arsenal in fact, frequently. Berlin, 
 however, became my primary source of enquiry, and 
 the acquaintance which I made at that time of the 
 Superintendent, Captain Blume, enabled me to complete 
 an undertaking of the most arduous and laborious nature. 
 This opportunity also gave me fresh impulse, for I had 
 destroyed my first attempt at a Dictionary of military 
 terms. Such a work as a Dictionary brooks no imper- 
 fection ; it must not only be correct, it must be faultless. 
 From this time forward I date the commencement of 
 my laborious task, which I subsequently carried on in 
 different parts of the world, being always the one thing 
 uppermost in my mind ; but what did I eventually get 
 for it in the English service, for which it was intended ? 
 Nothing ! unless throwing up my commission, and a 
 beggarly grant of ^200 doled out in 1891 (fifty-two 
 years after), can be called any recompense. 
 
 Although I did not know it at that particular time, 
 the ceremony of doing " Homage " on the accession of 
 the then King of Prussia, Frederick William IV., was 
 shortly about to take place, and for this ceremony, many
 
 85 
 
 foreign officers, especially from Russia, were present at 
 the time, and I received an invitation to the Court din- 
 ners which followed it. An officer who had been on the 
 staff of the German Legion during the late Peninsular 
 war, was my neighbour on one side ; I never heard his 
 name or knew his rank, but I was very much interested 
 in his uniform, which was a perfect curiosity at that 
 time as a specimen of the staff at the Peninsular epoch. 
 The whole garrison of Berlin was on duty on that 
 occasion, and it was about that time, and during that 
 ceremony that I saw Marshal Paskewitch, who had 
 come, I presume, to congratulate the King, and I sat 
 next to one of his aides-de-camp at some other Court 
 dinner. I was very much impressed with this officer, 
 as I presume an average specimen of the Russian Staff, 
 he compared more than favourably with any I had seen 
 elsewhere, no matter of what country. It fell to my 
 lot to strike up an intimate friendship with Captain de 
 Fallois, of an old Huguenot family, who many years 
 afterwards when a Lieut. -General and covered with 
 orders, sent me his photograph, but he had lost an 
 eye. He was aide-de-camp to Prince Adelbert, the 
 founder, one may say, of the German Navy, for at that 
 date Prusssia did not posses a single ship of war to 
 my knowledge ; one only looked upon Prussia at that 
 time as the head and model of military nations, repre- 
 senting all the traditions of Frederick the Great ; much 
 credit is therefore due to Prince Adelbert for his exer- 
 tions in the naval line. 
 
 There were at least three Englishmen or rather British 
 National born subjects in the Prussian Guards at that
 
 86 
 
 time ; one named Annesley in the Cuirassiers of the 
 Guard ; Schreiber (possibly of German origin), in the 
 Garde Dragoner ; and Kingdon in one of the regiments 
 of Foot Guards. I dined with Lord William Russell, 
 when the first-named was present ; Lord Augustus 
 Loftus and myself comprised the whole company or 
 partie quaree. There was a remark made by Lieutenant 
 Annesley that English regimental officers did not 
 know their work ; and being at that time a very red 
 hot as well as a red coated soldier, this somewhat 
 put my back up, but I said what was necessary and 
 bienseance prevented any row, though really as a matter 
 of fact, he was not very wrong in respect of some, 
 and there is no doubt that such was the general 
 opinion on the subject among foreigners at that period. 
 When I was in the i5th in Dublin, I remember intro- 
 ducing myself to an officer at one of the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant's levees in a Bavarian uniform. He turned 
 out to be an Irishman, and was probably a Roman 
 Catholic, for the Austrian service also, used at one time 
 to number a few Catholics of British nationality in its 
 ranks. I am not quite sure if the practice is a good 
 one, or whether it "works" well on either side. Why 
 should not such and such a man be in his own country's 
 service, is a question which either side will ask ; be- 
 sides the days of Marshal Keith, and of some other 
 Russian (English) Admirals are gone and not likely to 
 return. All foreign officers with whom I have been 
 brought in contact, I have liked immensely, what there- 
 fore was an attraction to myself, may have been so to 
 others who enlisted. England's great " Iron" Duke may
 
 87 
 
 have held a different opinion ; he probably did so when 
 he " scratched " me, being too one-sided and prejudiced 
 to admit that what was " sauce for the goose was sauce 
 for the gander," and that a spade is a spade whether you 
 ask for one in German, French, or English, but that it 
 accelerates matters very much to be able to ask for it 
 in the language of the country. I am not one who 
 blindly " follows suit," and subscribes to his pre-emi- 
 nence as a General. He had the best soldiers in the 
 world, though rather too few of them, and of them, he 
 lost more than he need have done at some of those 
 Spanish fortresses ; nevertheless he had his idolizers then 
 and now. Although it rather tells against this observa- 
 tion, I cannot help putting on record the rather singular 
 fulfilment of a prophecy. When the news reached 
 England of some victory which Wellington achieved in 
 the Maratta war (I think), my father wrote to my 
 grandfather these words " The time will come when 
 Major-General Wellesley will be the Duke of Marl- 
 borough of this country." Of course in his estimation 
 such a man could not err ; he belonged to the category 
 of his idolizers ; nevertheless, " Quot homines, tot scntenticz," 
 and I am an admirer of that " rascal " Napoleon. Again 
 hereby hangs a tale. Someone asked Wellington (as I 
 have heard) what he would have done at Waterloo, if 
 the Prussians had not come up. He is reported to have 
 said that " he would have retreated on the Forest of 
 Soigne, and that the Devil would not have got him out." 
 Although rather more than an octo-nonogenarian, with 
 only hearsay or tradition to rely on, I should think with 
 Napoleon's reserve, that this was easier said than done,
 
 especially as Soigne was at some distance from his rear. 
 Retreating is one of the most difficult operations of 
 war, and how much more so is retiring in the face of the 
 enemy ; the English are notedly bad for this movement 
 to the rear ; their forte lies in the advance. Nothing 
 could be worse than Sir John Moore's retreat on 
 Corunna, but no army can retire as a rule without great 
 loss ; the whole thing ends before long in a rout with 
 the best troops ; this has been the case with the 
 French ; it has occurred with the Germans ; Sir John 
 Moore's retreat on Corunna is not an operation to 
 boast of; therefore retreating on Soigne is problematical. 
 It was not long after my return from leave, and 
 joining the 8yth Depot at Carlisle that I received orders 
 to join the Service Companies at the Mauritius ; the 
 Governor had sent orders home to have an additional 
 Captain sent out, and it fell to my turn. The " Union " 
 transport, in which my passage was given me, sailed 
 some time in the winter from the London Docks in 184 1, 
 and my father saw me oif. It was an American built ship 
 and a regular tub of the slowest kind, and was a hun- 
 dred and nineteen days going out. Three Professors 
 for the Royal College at Port Louis were my fellow 
 passengers, which proved a very great advantage, for 
 they were all men naturally of a literary turn, and 
 very good corrpany. I gave one of them, named Pro- 
 fessor Burrowes, a word-for-word translation of the 
 opening part of Goethe's Faust, and upon that, with 
 the exact metre of the original in addition, he composed 
 the best lines of any which have yet or since been pro- 
 duced ; in fact they are so very superior, that I have
 
 8 9 
 
 added them in the Appendix. I sent the verses to the late 
 Lord Leveson Gower, the first who translated Faust, and 
 he pronounced them "very felicitous." I had taken a 
 Thames wherry to carry out to the Mauritius, being fond 
 of sculling, which was lashed to the stern of the vessel, 
 having laid the pleasing unction to my soul that I might 
 be able to use it, but it was otherwise, and the boat 
 was useless. I nearly came to grief on the river with 
 this boat, a day or two before I left the London Docks 
 for the Mauritius ; I got too close to a barge moored 
 somewhere above Westminster Bridge, which sucked 
 the boat under it, so that it nearly filled, but I was 
 rescued by a waterman rowing up the river, though at 
 the time I thought he made very light of my perilous 
 position. My reason for taking out a boat, was that I 
 had seen an officer of the 52nd at Gibraltar comfortably 
 enjoying himself in the bay, and I thought to adopt the 
 plan. I remember in crossing the Line, during the cus- 
 tomary becalming, whilst giving the same a coat of paint, 
 and turning up my shirt-sleeves to perform the opera- 
 tion, my arms under an equatorial sun were so fearfully 
 blistered that I shall remember it to the day of my death. 
 I always took down each day's "reckoning," and after- 
 wards had it pricked off on a chart, forming a pleasing 
 reminiscence in one way of the voyage, and in another 
 of the very few knots made per day on the way out. 
 The benito, caught in a certain latitude about Madeira, 
 like a very large mackerel, duly appeared at table during 
 that part of the voyage, and is an excellent fish. That 
 splendid bird also, the albatross, once came on board, 
 as well as the Cape pigeon, which as well known, be- 
 comes sick on touching the vessel.
 
 9 c 
 
 The Mauritius is the site of the " Paul and Virginia " 
 story, and I read it in French going out. After the 
 usual rough weather off the Cape, we at length reached 
 Port Louis, and I and the Professors, or one of them 
 at least, put up at Luciani's Hotel. I had brought out 
 also besides the boat, a pointer ; I was anxious to get 
 rid of him, so I advertised this " chien d'arret " in a local 
 paper at once, and he was snapped up by a sugar 
 planter in a very short time. 
 
 The Sjth regiment was not at Port Louis, but at 
 Mahebourg, on the other side of the island. I had 
 brought out introductions to the Governor, Sir Lionel 
 Smith, and delivered them to him personally the day 
 following my arrival. I dined as a matter of course, 
 by invitation at Government House, a day or so after- 
 wards, the party being a large one, and I remember 
 his daughter had just married an aide-de-camp, Captain 
 Warde. The Military Secretary was an officer of the 
 8/th, Captain O'Brien, who afterwards as a Major- 
 General, commanded the troops in Ceylon ; I was 
 always on very friendly terms with him, for he was a 
 good French scholar and linguist, and we understood 
 one another. Not very long before my arrival in the 
 island, a soldier of the 8/th had been shot, by sentence 
 of court-martial for shooting a Corporal, who happily 
 survived. I may be wrong, but I believe this was the 
 last case of any sentence of death being carried out. 
 It is a bad thing that the abolition of flogging, so fool- 
 ishly abolished in the British army, can only be replaced 
 in time of war, by this extreme penalty. 
 
 Not very long after my joining the S/th, I walked on
 
 one occasion, from Mahebourg to Port Louis, the dis- 
 tance being upwards of thirty miles, and went to a ball 
 at Government House, dancing with one of Sir Lionel 
 Smith's daughters, who was afterwards destined to be- 
 come my wife. 
 
 The routine of military life in any of the British Colo- 
 nies, has not much interest, and therefore little can be 
 said on that head, but I will give a few trifling incidents 
 for what they are worth. My company was in due course 
 ordered to relieve another of the regiment stationed in 
 a very beautiful part of the island called Black River, 
 being, as far as I remember, about thirty-five miles off on 
 the south side of the island, and the men left about four 
 p.m. in order to march through the night, arriving 
 after an hour's halt, at the post in question. During the 
 march the Sergeant had told me that if I would allow 
 the men to take off their shoes and stockings, they 
 would march much better ; I therefore, Irishmen as 
 they were, consented, seeing nothing very objectionable, 
 though somewhat rather unmilitary, in this proceeding, 
 but when the company arrived within sight of the post, 
 there was a manifest dislike to again put on the same. 
 
 Few sites can vie with the part of the island called 
 " Riviere Noire." That park-like level is surrounded 
 on three sides by moderately high mountains, each 
 from the nature of its verdure of a different colour, the 
 view being closed in on one, the open side, by a gorge 
 and forest, whence issues the river, so called, the dark 
 recesses of the forest, accounting for the name. The 
 shells of the island, some of them at least are wonder- 
 fully beautiful, as well as the coral on the reefs, when
 
 9 2 
 
 first leaving the water, though it afterwards fades, losing 
 all those flowery and many coloured spots, which at 
 first make it like nothing else. An old French gentle- 
 man (named Geneve), of the last century school, and a 
 model of good breeding, had sway over this part of the 
 island, but I never heard whether or not as the actual 
 owner. A combination of houses (or bungaloes) formed 
 his residential abode ; in one he dined, in another slept, 
 in another he had a museum and library, reception room 
 in another ; and in a country generally dry and void 
 of rain, save in the season of hurricanes, this sort of 
 menage was possible. The land crabs make holes in the 
 ground, and are as dangerous on horseback as rabbit 
 holes, which they much resemble. I had a habit of 
 working by night at my Dictionary, and was often dis- 
 turbed by the noise of these creatures walking about 
 the floor, every door, from the heat, being kept open. 
 A black flat fish is, also, caught on these shores, called 
 an " Electric fish" ; its tail is as long as a riding whip, 
 for which it could well be used. 
 
 This part of the world lies in the hurricane latitude, 
 and the havoc which ensues from that violent atmos- 
 pheric disturbance is well known ; no part of Port 
 Louis which I remember now exists, in consequence of 
 the terrific hurricane which took place in 1 892. What 
 is there termed a demi coup de vent happened only once 
 during my time, but it was very much stronger than any 
 blowing storm of Europe. It was sometime after, or 
 following one of these " demi coups de vent,' 1 that I drove 
 with a brother officer to a military post at " Gunner's 
 Quoin," a rock to the north of the island, so called from
 
 93 
 
 its exact resemblance to the same ; I drove fast, and 
 the ignorant soldier-servant of the officer of the post, 
 gave the horse a bucket of cold water, so that it died in 
 less than an hour after. This obliged us to walk back, 
 and I shall never forget the warm rain with which we 
 were drenched, for I had on a white beaver hat, long 
 since extinct as an article of dress, and the warmth of 
 the rain so softened the texture that it got into a state 
 resembling nothing else, and if preserved would have 
 formed a good specimen of this obsolete hat, and of 
 what any head dress is capable of becoming. 
 
 I happened once to see a vessel come into Port Louis 
 harbour, with its bulwarks entirely carried away by a 
 hurricane in which it had been caught ; the deck was 
 perfectly cleared of everything, from stem to stern, and 
 I went on board of her, but found it a difficult job to 
 manage. This vessel, after refitting, took home the 
 Governor's family after his death, an event which took 
 place some time before, and sad to say, his wife, Lady 
 Smith, died two days afterwards. Sir Lionel Smith 
 had seen much service in India during the Maratta 
 war ; in the Persian Gulf, &c., but was most noted for 
 his capabilities as a Governor, and in that way as 
 Governor-General of Jamaica, had carried out the 
 emancipation of the slaves for the Whigs. He was a 
 popular Governor, and the Colony erected a monument 
 to him over his grave ; it was executed by the then 
 well-known sculptor, Westmacott, the Island subscrib- 
 ing 1000 for the same. 
 
 A very disagreeable Court Martial took place whilst 
 I was at Port Louis, perfectly interminable in its dura-
 
 94 
 
 tion ; I forget the number of days, but my company 
 was then stationed at Fort George, at the entrance of 
 the harbour, and as I was one of its members, I had the 
 pleasure of being rowed backwards and forwards every 
 day during the whole time I was quartered there. 
 
 The shells at the Mauritius are very beautiful ; I 
 collected a great many ; those called the cone, the harp, 
 and the olive, I used to get brought to me, by a man 
 who fished for them at Black River ; I think I can see 
 him now, sitting in his black boat, on the calm sea ; 
 but I knew them better by their French names. Upon 
 one occasion I boarded a South Sea whaler, which 
 came into Port Louis, and got many shells from those 
 latitudes also. I sent a large quantity of these shells to 
 Berlin, to my friend Captain Blume of the Artillery ; 
 he was wonderfully pleased with them, for such things 
 were then very rare in Germany, and I remember 
 seeing them all displayed in a glass case made purposely 
 for them, some time afterwards. 
 
 I happened to have brought out with me a capital 
 shoulder-duck-gun, and I stalked, in a hot mid-day sun, 
 when at Black River, some curlew I had taken notice 
 of. I shot two, and sent them to the Governor's house 
 at Reduit, and I believe they were duly acknowledged 
 and cooked. There is a very beautiful bird in the 
 Mauritius, the name of which, unless it be " pintad," I 
 forget at this moment, something of the grouse species, 
 and is found among the sugar canes ; I saw one once 
 on the wing, and I should think it a very easy bird to 
 kill, but I never had the chance. I remember when I 
 visited Gunner's Quoin, above alluded to, I saw that
 
 95 
 
 beautiful bird, the boatswain, soaring about, and con- 
 trasting by his white plumage remarkably with the dark 
 rocks and cliffs thereabouts ; the French name of that 
 bird is " paille-en-queue." On that said curiously shaped 
 island or rock, were growing in great profusion on the 
 ground, a small melon, about the size of a good orange ; 
 and here I may observe en passant that nothing can equal 
 the pureness of the water at the Mauritius. 
 
 Whilst I was in the 8/th at the Mauritius, a relative 
 of the reigning Imaun of Muscat died, and a party of 
 three officers and a hundred men, furnished by the 35th 
 regiment, were told off to escort the funeral cortege ; 
 I had command of it, and I should scarcely have men- 
 tioned it, but for a very ridiculous incident. After the 
 men, drawn up in a very narrow street, had presented 
 arms to the coffin, covered with the Green Shawl, be- 
 tokening the Prophet, and were marching in solemn 
 silence towards the cemetery, four or five pigs, always 
 where they should not be in those latitudes, and 
 frightened by the crowd, ran bolt into the party be- 
 tween the soldiers legs, upsetting more than one of 
 them. There is no reasoning with pigs, and nothing 
 could be done, but it had a very ludicrous and un- 
 military effect at the time, especially considering the 
 imaginary importance of the Princely deceased. 
 
 The Imaun of Muscat, an Arabian potentate, had 
 known Sir Lionel Smith when on service up the Per- 
 sian Gulf, and sent him four Arab horses whilst I was 
 there. They were all chesnuts, and very small ; I saw 
 an officer perched on one of them, and looking wonder- 
 fully uncomfortable.
 
 96 
 
 Whilst I was stationed with my company at Black 
 River, an incident occurred, which had the Governor 
 lived, might have got me into trouble. The coast at 
 this southern part of the island, abounds with fish, and 
 on one occasion when some men were making rather 
 too free use of the military post, I ordered them off. 
 I was right both in a military point of view, and accord- 
 ing to the old French law, but the men went to the 
 Governor, who took a view adverse to me and in their 
 favour, so it ended in the parties bringing an action 
 against me. Monsieur Geneve, of whom I have spoken, 
 knew that the law was on my side, and always friendly 
 to the English, put my case into the hands of a colonial 
 lawyer, a friend of his. Sir Lionel Smith in the mean- 
 while had died, so that the people bringing the action 
 lost their main support, and the case w T as given in my 
 favour ; they had laid I know not what fabulous 
 damages against me on the chance of success. 
 
 When the time at length arrived that the 8/th was 
 to be relieved, I obtained leave to precede it " over- 
 land" ; a vessel bound for Madras in ballast, was lying 
 in harbour at the time, and I took my passage in 
 her (the Duchess of Portsmouth), and bargained to be 
 landed at Point de Galle in Ceylon. My occupation 
 during the entire voyage was one I always pursued, that 
 of my Dictionary, and engrossed in this pursuit, the 
 time did not lie heavy on my hands. It had always 
 been my habit, to note different queries, to be even- 
 tually solved on the spot, whether at Woolwich, Berlin, 
 or Paris, and this idea or plan I eventually carried 
 out, by at once on my arrival in England, proceeding
 
 97 
 
 to each. It is a perfect wonder to me that I ever 
 reached Point de Galle, for the skipper, a very in- 
 different navigator I suspect, was constantly asking me 
 to look at his charts ; I every day took down his reckon- 
 ings, but afterwards when at home, they were marked 
 off, his last day's reckoning, when he made Ceylon, was 
 more than a hundred miles from the spot. How I ever, 
 also, set foot on that island is a complete mystery to 
 me, or how in fact in these reckonings, he ever made 
 out the entrance of the harbour of Galle ; the chart he 
 showed me could have been of very little use. A boat 
 at length was lowered, my luggage and effects were put 
 into it, and four of the crew plied the oars, whilst the 
 mate took the helm ; the heat on crossing the Line had 
 opened the boat's seams ; it soon filled nearly up to 
 the gunwale, and I thought it was certain to sink. For 
 my part I could see no entrance to any harbour, but 
 I could see the waves dashing against breakers, some 
 distance ahead. I worked like a slave to bale out the 
 water, which always seemed to keep at one point ; 
 every single thing I had was saturated with water ; the 
 sea was swarming with sharks, and I saw nothing but 
 destruction in prospect, so that for many a day this 
 episode in my life's career, I looked upon, as dangerous 
 as any. As I was never more than a very moderate 
 sailor, there may have been a line up to which the water 
 might rise and keep the boat afloat ; this the mate 
 probably knew, for he took it very coolly, and brought 
 it alongside the jetty, which made me also think that 
 he must have been there before. The hot sun, after 
 two days exposure of all my effects in the yard of the
 
 98 
 
 hotel, soon dried them. My recollections of Ceylon do 
 not go for much, for Galle is an uninteresting place, 
 but I remember to have observed a distinct spicy per- 
 fume off the island ; I also thought the " Ceylon Rifles " 
 a very soldier-like set of men ; I here also first became 
 acquainted with a punkah, which without my knowing it, 
 had been noiselessly worked, whilst I was discussing my 
 cocoa-nut curry. 
 
 The crew of the vessel that took me to Ceylon, were 
 a wonderfully fine set of men, and all English, contrast- 
 ing very much with the Captain, who was particularly 
 diminutive. One of the smartest things I ever saw done, 
 was by one of these men ; the sailors had hooked an 
 enormous shark, about a day's sail from Ceylon ; one 
 of them let himself down, holding on by a rope, and 
 taking a purchase with one leg, brought himself into 
 more than a horizontal position, and succeeded in 
 placing a hawser round the shark ; I looked at him 
 over the stern of the vessel and saw the whole proceed- 
 ing, but how he managed to keep himself steady with 
 only one arm to do the business, is. a mystery to me to 
 this day ; in its way it was quite equal to any perfor- 
 mance on the tight rope, or similar exploit. I hope 
 our Navy has still more of that sort. 
 
 Before quitting my remembrances of the Mauritius, 
 and parts South of the Equator, I cannot omit to note 
 how singularly the stars of that hemisphere, in my 
 mind, contrast in point of brilliancy and number with 
 the starry firmament of the Northern. I was struck 
 with this, with the " Southern Cross " in view, after 
 passing the Line, but more particularly during one or
 
 99 
 
 two rides I made by star-light in the early morning, for 
 I was possessed of an excellent Cape horse, one of the 
 only two in the island, and used to leave Black River 
 early for Pert Louis. Nothing would have made me 
 take to astronomy more than that glorious aspect of the 
 Southern firmament of the Heavens. 
 
 I remember that the atmosphere of Ceylon (or rather 
 Galle), contrasted very unfavourably with that of Mau- 
 ritius ; in the latter, one had a constant breeze even at 
 the hottest period ; whereas at Point de Galle I found 
 the air and climate less hot, but close and oppressive. 
 
 The steamer from Calcutta did not arrive for a fort- 
 night ; it was the " Tenasserim," and had been used as 
 a war vessel up to that time in China, was bringing 
 home to England many of the Chinese and Afghan 
 heroes, and was very much crowded ; amongst others 
 on board was a member of Council, Thoby Prinsep, with 
 his wife and family. I slept the whole way up to Suez 
 on deck, for the vessel swarmed with rats, and were 
 familiar occupants of my berth. The vessel touching 
 at Aden, I landed, and rode to see the English lines on 
 the Arab frontier ; I also remember the regiment of 
 Sepoys stationed there were a very fine soldierly set of 
 men. The voyage up the Red Sea was interesting 
 enough, save that the sandy redness of the shores on 
 both sides had an interminable sameness. I was the 
 first to get on shore at Suez, as I was perfectly sick of 
 being cooped up with so many people ; the two boat- 
 men, I recollect who took me ashore, were covered 
 with vermin. I made no delay whatever at Suez, and 
 forthwith set out on horse-back, with a guide, to cross
 
 100 
 
 the Desert. The track could almost be made out by 
 the bones and skeletons of dead camels, &c., some of 
 them perfectly bleached, others with putrifying flesh, 
 on which vultures were feeding. These birds were so 
 full and bloated, that they seemed unwilling to rise, 
 and when they did so, expanded their wings in a quiet 
 lazy way, notwithstanding that I dismounted and fired 
 a pistol at one of them, being under the impression 
 afterwards, that it was only harmlessly loaded with 
 powder. There was (and is, I suppose), a station on 
 the Desert, in which all passengers by the Indian route, 
 sleep at night, and I must have arrived there after dark, 
 for I have a distinct remembrance of the lighted lamps 
 here and there. I resumed my ride at daylight, accom- 
 panied by the guide, but I never could have undertaken 
 this mode of crossing the Desert, but for a pair of green 
 goggles which were kindly lent me, by a Captain I 
 think, in some Sepoy regiment. The hotel at Cairo, at 
 which I eventually arrived, was swarming with flies ; 
 of course the flies of Egypt are proverbial. Nothing 
 could equal the unearthly noise of the camels, when 
 they came into the courtyard to be unloaded. I saw 
 nothing very interesting in Cairo, save the wonderful 
 narrowness of the streets, and I had an unpleasant ex- 
 perience of a bath, which I ventured to take ; the 
 darkness of the bath-room, with one small bull's eye for 
 a window, and the muddy water of the Nile had a more 
 dirtying than cleansing effect. I was not particularly 
 enamoured, either, of my associates in the " Tenasse- 
 rim," and remained at Cairo till the next batch came 
 up; besides as the ride across the Desert had somewhat
 
 101 
 
 knocked me up and done me harm, I occupied my room 
 the greater part of the time, and seldom left the hotel. 
 During that interval, I passed the whole day at my 
 never-failing Dictionary, and made myself so acquainted 
 with " Lane's Modern Egyptians," that I bought as 
 many odds and ends, mentioned by him, from Albanian 
 scarfs to Turkish slippers, as would have filled two good 
 sized portmanteaus. 
 
 The following set of Indian passengers at length 
 arrived, and I proceeded to Alexandria, chiefly, if I 
 remember, by water. Of course I saw in the distance 
 the Pyramids on leaving Cairo, and that wonderful half- 
 buried Pompey's Pillar at the latter place. I suppose 
 a list of passengers is published at Alexandria, for the 
 Consul-General called upon me quite unexpectedly. 
 He was Captain Lyons, R.N., whom I had never seen 
 before, but he knew all about me, and had served with 
 my father's brother-in-law, the late Sir Harry Burrard 
 Neale ; his own brother was subsequently created Lord 
 Lyons. Among the passengers to Malta and Marseilles 
 was Colonel Spiller, the very cut of a soldier in point 
 of appearance ; he had been Major of Brigade, or some 
 such rank, to Sir Lionel Smith in India, and knowing 
 that I had just left the Mauritius, and that he had died, 
 was anxious to hear a great deal about him, more in 
 fact than I could tell him. The passengers were all 
 put in quarantine on arrival at Malta, and landed at 
 Fort Manuel, where I passed a very pleasant time to 
 myself, and worked away as hard as I could at my 
 Dictionary. 
 
 A naval officer who had been in China, Captain
 
 102 
 
 Bennett, with whom I had struck up a considerable 
 friendship during the Red Sea voyage, had just died 
 there of smallpox, contracted at Cairo. Although there 
 was a very large number of passengers, he was the best 
 style of man of the whole set, and though I know a 
 good many of that name, and am distantly akin to some, 
 I did not ascertain his family connections. He showed 
 me some female dress which he had " looted " in China ; 
 a happy specimen of the good combination of colours, 
 in which the Chinese, to my mind, so much excel. 
 
 Some rather amusing particulars seem to be con- 
 nected with Fort Manuel. People were allowed to 
 come and talk with you through a grating, a very un- 
 pleasant mode of intercourse, but still sufficient, and in 
 this way Lord Hamilton Chichester visited me to ask 
 questions about his brother Lord John, an officer of the 
 8/th ; also Captain Maxwell, Military Secretary to the 
 Governor, Sir Henry Bouverie, for he had been in my 
 time, and still was on the strength of the 82nd regiment, 
 and came to welcome me as an old brother officer ; but 
 how different were my army prospects when I came 
 again to Malta in 1848 ! 
 
 After our release from this Fort, my stay at Malta 
 did not exceed, I think, more than three or four days, 
 but had I been inclined, or had time, I should have 
 fared well. The Governor was good enough to ask 
 me to dine, but my custom was always to refuse in those 
 days ; a characteristic in early life, frequent enough, but 
 always to be lamented. Colonel Bastard, also, com- 
 manding the Artillery there, came to my hotel with his 
 daughter, a friend of my sister, and had chalked out so
 
 io 3 
 
 much entertainment for me that it would have occupied 
 a week. 
 
 A French Government steamer took me and others 
 to Marseilles, from whence by diligence I arrived in 
 due time at Paris. I had nearly lived upon my Colo- 
 nial allowance at the Mauritius, and was at this period 
 so bent upon purchases, that by the time I arrived in 
 England, I had nearly emptied my pockets. It was from 
 Dieppe that I crossed over to Brighton, and on the arrival 
 of the diligence at the former place, I was accosted by 
 an Englishman, who had all the appearance of a man 
 looking out for a job to show you the way or carry 
 your portmanteau ; the man knew me perfectly, and 
 turned out to have been a ci-devant builder and archi- 
 tect, whom my father had employed to build two 
 houses of some size at Bishop Stortford and Roydon ; of 
 course he had failed in business, and to avoid imprison- 
 ment for debt, then in vogue, had escaped to France. 
 I started the same night on which I arrived at Brighton, 
 by the mail for London. I was the only passenger out- 
 side, and at some part of the road, which I have forgotten, 
 something went wrong with the two leaders on going 
 down hill, and they half got up a bank on the roadside ; 
 I had a thick heavy top coat on, and jumped clean into 
 the road and got to their heads. The guard came up 
 soon after, and wonderingly asked " how I ever got 
 there." 
 
 It must have been in June July, of 1843, that I 
 reached England, for when at Malta in May, I remem- 
 ber well remarking that I found the heat quite equal to, 
 if not exceeding that of the Mauritius. I lost no time
 
 104 
 
 in starting for Berlin to get all my questions answered, 
 of which I had made note in regard to my Work during 
 my absence abroad. I had sent home several shells, 
 coral, &c., and now had the pleasure of recompensing 
 my kind artillery friend, Captain Blume, for some time 
 past head of the " Artillerie-Werkstatte," for his aid in 
 enabling me to prosecute my laborious task, as well as 
 for many answers to my queries. He had been origin- 
 ally a " gunner-and-driver " at Quatre-Bras (Waterloo), 
 and after my time became a General Officer, and em- 
 ployed at the Ministry of War. They " manage these 
 things better" abroad, as Sterne says of France. 
 
 The Opera House was burned down the night before I 
 left Berlin, and I went the whole way by boat to Ham- 
 burg and thence to London. On reaching Hamburg 
 in the dark, I got into a wrong steamer, and luckily dis- 
 covered the mistake in time. I now took up my quarters 
 at Woolwich, and working in the Arsenal, and with an 
 old Scotch Artillery Sergeant, and another of the Engi- 
 neers, I satisfactorily brought that part of my task to an 
 end, as I had done at Berlin and Paris, when en route 
 homewards. All this happened in the very nick of 
 time, for no sooner was I ready with my queries, &c., 
 than I heard the 8yth had arrived at Glasgow, and a 
 fortnight afterwards I joined this splendid regiment at 
 that place, By three or four deaths among the Captains, 
 I was then within measureable distance of being before 
 long at the top of the list, and considering my short 
 service, my rise was good enough. It was to the Com- 
 manding Officer (Colonel Streatfield's) credit, that he 
 gave his senior Captains opportunity of exercising the
 
 105 
 
 regiment, and here, as at the Mauritius, I had more 
 than once command of it. Whether I evinced capacity 
 for handling the batallion in proper form, must have 
 been for him to decide. It was not long after I had 
 joined the 8/th at Glasgow on their landing from foreign 
 service, that I was victimized by my Pay-Sergeant ; 
 the fellow deserted with ^70 of the company's money, 
 which of course I had to make good. Although I have 
 had some experience both with French and German 
 troops, I own that I am not quite positive as to the way 
 in which the men are paid, but I look upon the English 
 system as faulty in the extreme. I remember boarding ) 
 armed with a search warrant, all the likeliest vessels 
 then in harbour, and although we searched every nook 
 and corner, my friend was not to be found. England 
 and America vie with one another in giving refuge to 
 their own and other nation's criminals. In the winter 
 of 1843, I was in command of a detachment consisting 
 of two companies at Paisley, and worked in all leisure 
 time at my never-lost sight of task. During some part 
 of it, a fire occurred in the town, for the barracks were 
 at some distance out of it, the assistance of the Mili- 
 tary being required, I brought the men down so quickly 
 (" at the double "), that the Mayor expressed his thanks 
 and astonishment at the rapidity of our being on the 
 spot. 
 
 I had been in the early part of 1844 in constant cor- 
 respondence with Prince Albert's Secretary, Mr. Anson. 
 and towards the end of 1843, was obliged to go up to 
 London respecting my father's affairs, for (as I have 
 said), he had many years before mortgaged his estate,
 
 io6 
 
 and as I have made frequent allusion to the way in 
 which he had lost his fortune, I may add more. He 
 was never a man of business in any sense, though 
 learned beyond most men, and better read in books 
 than in men, affording thus a convenient tool in the 
 hands of rogues and sharpers Whether he would have 
 been ultimately ruined, had he never associated himself 
 with a bank, is now that more than sixty years have 
 passed, very problematical, for the Eastern Counties 
 Railway has swept the valley of the Stort, which was 
 his chief property, and at this day, brings in next to 
 nothing. It never brought in less than ^4,000 a year, 
 and one year as much as ^7,000, but the days of water- 
 carriage and inland navigation are comparatively gone. 
 We can none of us look into futurity, but some will 
 never live up to date, and so hold fast to ideas which 
 time should have long shelved. Whilst on the subject 
 of my father, I may add somewhat about my aunt, 
 which also concerns him. She was his half sister, Lady 
 Neale, who married Sir Harry Burrard, sometime to- 
 wards the end of the last century, and was a great deal 
 about the Princess Amelia, George Ill's, favourite 
 daughter, as I have always heard. She may have been 
 at one time her lady-in-waiting, though I have equal 
 grounds for assigning the same position to the Duchess 
 of Gloucester, but I have often heard say in speaking 
 of Court matters, that some of the Royal Princesses 
 said to her, " We like your brother very much, but he 
 is very short ; " they all, I believe, jokingly nicknamed 
 her " Lady Niggleton." My father was a very learned 
 man (as I have said), had Greek at his finger ends, a
 
 107 
 
 language which I myself have completely forgotten, 
 and never kept up. He was unequalled as a French 
 and German scholar, and as a layman was unsurpassed 
 in his knowledge of Divinity ; but he was very antago- 
 nistic to Romanists, and in his very latest years, had 
 much to say to and correspond with Dr. Gumming ; 
 nothing pleased him more than to write sermons for 
 any of his younger acquaintances in the Church. A 
 man of that sort was not a " man of business " ; on the 
 contrary he was a " theorist" in every sense ; no won- 
 der one may add " Hinc ilia lacryma" 
 
 It was in consequence of having to go up to London, 
 for I had a prior claim on some mortgaged property, that 
 I took that opportunity of getting my friend Trotter 
 to ask Lord Hardwicke, then a Lord-in-waiting to the 
 Queen, to present me to Prince Albert. Lord Hard- 
 wicke and my friend had both married sisters, daughters 
 of Lord Ravensworth, and in addition the former was 
 acquainted with my father. So it was therefore, that 
 having the MS. of my work in tolerably complete form, 
 I went up to London, taking it with me, with the inten- 
 tion of asking H.R.H. the Prince to obtain for me a 
 year's leave of absence in which to finish it, for no shor- 
 ter time could have sufficed. There was considerable 
 opposition to this, both on the part of the Horse 
 Guards (or the Duke of Wellington), and the Colonel 
 commanding the regiment, but Royal influence prevailed 
 and I got my leave, but no doubt at the expense of 
 an awkward mark against me by the Duke, who was 
 as unforgetful as unforgiving. My interview with the 
 Prince is worth noting. Lord Hardwicke, after a foot-
 
 108 
 
 man had been summoned to carry up my three vols. of 
 MS., took me to the Prince's rooms ; he pointed out 
 en attendant the beautiful things it contained, and soon 
 after the Prince entered, and Lord Hardwicke with- 
 drew. I asked the Prince obligingly to name any par- 
 ticular word which might occur to him. This he did ; 
 I turned to the word, and the Prince seem gratified. I 
 again requested H.R.H. to fix upon some other ex- 
 pression, and the same result ensued, and I think that 
 in this way four or five terms were at once satisfactorily 
 seen ; H.R.H. then retired, saying he would do what 
 he could. I was in uniform, and Lord Hardwicke told 
 me that he was very glad that I had chosen that mode 
 of appearing before the Prince. My leave of absence 
 at length arrived, the Commander-in-Chief remarking 
 that he approved of every step which had been taken 
 by the Colonel of the regiment, which was tacitly tanta- 
 mount to an adverse reflection on myself, and a censure 
 which settled my military prospects. 
 
 I was then to be found again at Woolwich, for words 
 make words, and investigations queries. It was here 
 before starting for Berlin that I got the last letter I ever 
 had from my poor mother ; she was overjoyed at my 
 success, but predicted that it would bring a "hornets' 
 nest about me," and the sequel will show the truth of that 
 prediction. She died that same year under distressing 
 circumstances ; a wonderfully energetic woman, she 
 was bent often upon impossibilities, was taken danger- 
 ously ill whilst prosecuting enquiries upon one of these 
 occasions, was mismanaged, and died among strangers 
 at a distance from her family. She had been searching
 
 109 
 
 for "el dorado"; prosecuting enquiries for what had no 
 existence in fact. 
 
 Although I could not at that time look into futurity 
 more than any other, subsequent events show that I had 
 now virtually left the S/th, for I never joined it again, 
 and above all I was committed to carry out what I had 
 undertaken at all costs. I shall therefore forestall 
 events by taking leave of it, eighteen months sooner 
 than happened in reality, and set down all that I can 
 further recollect in connection with it. 
 
 As men die off, and many things relating to some are 
 left unnoticed, for tradition will not convince all, I 
 should be negligent in my record of facts, were I to 
 close my reminiscences of the Syth, without giving the 
 following particulars. When I joined that regiment's 
 depot in Dublin, it was stationed after a while at the 
 Pigeon House Fort, and there for a short time was one 
 of the only three survivors of Barossa, then Brevet Major 
 Moore, who was at the time seeking to retire on full 
 pay, which he not only deserved, but very much more ; 
 the other survivors being the late Lord Gough, and 
 Quarter-Master Carr. Like all brave men who have 
 faced the enemy and danger, Moore was a quiet un- 
 assuming man, and was old enough to have been the 
 father or more of any of the youngsters about him. 
 He had been Adjutant of the battalion of the S/th 
 which was on service in Spain, and when the men were 
 advancing on the French at Barossa, who would then 
 appear to have been in position, and received the 
 attack, he in that capacity rode up to Lord Gough 
 (then Major Gough), and told him " the rear rank were
 
 1 10 
 
 in front." To this Gough replied, " I don't care a d , 
 the rear rank are as well able to fight as the front rank." 
 Here was a thorough-paced practical soldier, evincing a 
 trait worthy of all remembrance, for rather than go 
 through the useless time of counter-marching the ranks, 
 so proper on parade, he let fly the dogs of war on the 
 enemy at once without further ado. No wonder such 
 a man was in after days victorious at Sobraon, Chillian- 
 wallah, and I know not where else, and I think that it 
 may be said, without fear of denial, that when Lord 
 Gough died, no officer or soldier of any nation on earth 
 had seen so much fighting. He had been through the 
 whole of the Peninsular War, and in some engagements 
 preceding it ; he won, I cannot enumerate the number, 
 victory upon victory over the Sikhs, which annexed the 
 Punjaub to the British Empire, and then closed his 
 career in China. I wonder whether there is a sort of 
 red-tape scale by which the English Government is 
 influenced in dealing out its rewards ; I should be dis- 
 posed so to conclude, seeing that for his splendid ser- 
 vices this man was only created a Viscount. Moore, 
 poor old fellow, may have got his petition for full-pay 
 retirement granted, but I cannot say ; he assuredly 
 never got more. When Lord Gough was sent out to 
 India, being then Sir Hugh Gough, he landed at the 
 Mauritius, where his old regiment was stationed, but 
 whether the vessel purposely made that island or not, 
 I never heard, for it lies out of the direct track. It 
 looks very much as though it had not been accidental, 
 for he found one of the three survivors of Barossa still 
 at his post, Quarter-Master Carr and his wife, whom the
 
 Ill 
 
 latter had, one may almost say, married on the field of 
 battle, for a dying comrade at that memorable action 
 bequeathed her to him. Sir Hugh Gough at any rate, 
 on his arrival at the Mauritius, was so overjoyed at 
 seeing again this couple for Mrs. Carr had washed for 
 the regiment during the war that he threw his arms 
 round her neck, though she must have then been, what 
 I remember her, a good stout old lady. Be all this as it 
 may, the men of the 8yth adored the man, and the Irish 
 accentuation of " Sir Hugh," runs still in my ears. 
 Fine fellows before the enemy, but less reliable on their 
 native bogs. 
 
 It had been the custom, partly in my time, but more 
 so since, to promote from the ranks, and this is right 
 enough no doubt, but the soldier so promoted finds 
 himself very much out of his place. I have seen some 
 dozen cases of promotion from the ranks, and I never 
 knew any instance of the officer so promoted, who 
 looked or felt at his ease, but one, and that one was 
 Quarter-Master Carr above alluded to. I have thought 
 that he appeared in those respects quite equal in look 
 and manner to any who were at the same time dining 
 with him at mess. I am speaking of what has come to my 
 own knowledge, for many very dissimilar cases may and 
 I believe have occurred, although the qualification, as it 
 runs of " Officer and gentleman," is not a natural though 
 a desirable result ; the French or foreign soldier, how- 
 ever, so promoted, knows well how " to assume the 
 manner if he has it not." Those men in the British 
 Army like General Sir John Floyd in the last century, 
 and Sir John Elley, and others, who rose from the
 
 112 
 
 ranks, were all gentlemen by birth, scamps no doubt, 
 who like the first-named, have " run away from school " 
 and enlisted as private soldiers. All honour, however, 
 to both categories of military heroes, though the latter 
 quoted were " to the manner bred." 
 
 The mention of Sir John Floyd, brings to my remem- 
 brance that in 1834 when I was about to exchange into 
 the 1 5th Hussars, I rode down to Fulham to see my 
 mother, and inform her of the fact. I found her en- 
 veloped with piles of parchment deeds, which she was 
 overhauling, and on my naming to her the I5th, she 
 exclaimed, " How very singular." I was then reminded 
 of what I already knew, that Sir John Floyd had enlisted 
 when a youngster at school, but till then I had not 
 known the regiment, which appears to have been the 
 15th Dragoons, known at the time he so enlisted as 
 Elliot's Light Horse. " Running away from school " 
 seems to have been much more often practised a 
 hundred years or more ago than now-a-days ; things I 
 suppose were then less pleasant at seminaries. Sir John 
 Elley (I think) had enlisted into the Blues, and I re- 
 member him, a tall man, and Colonel of the ijth 
 Lancers. 
 
 These digressions must be excused, but as words are 
 the outcome of thought, one reminiscence calls up 
 another, which is at once jotted down, whether much 
 to the point or not. I was on my way to Berlin in 
 1844, after having been at Woolwich for technical re- 
 searches in the artillery and engineer departments. 
 
 It was in an unaristocratic part of Berlin that I took 
 up my quarters in the street called " Charite Strasse,"
 
 close to some hospital. My rooms were over a restau- 
 rant, and wonderfully quiet considering the vicinity, but 
 otherwise open and accessible to any one. I often 
 think in looking back on the past, how I escaped being 
 murdered or robbed, for I lived of course alone, and 
 the Berlin mauvais sujets are wonderful adepts with the 
 knife ; they manage, I have been told, to cut the panel 
 of a door, and thus make easy entrance into any apart- 
 ments. An Englishman is always identified with money, 
 and the temptation to rob was at any rate a good one ; 
 indeed, fearing this, after a time I borrowed a brace of 
 pistols from an officer, and deemed myself safe enough. 
 I remember, however, an occurrence which looked 
 like some such catastrophe ; one night, very late, my 
 front door-bell rang, and before opening I asked in 
 German, "Who is there"? no answer; the same 
 question repeated, and with the same result no answer. 
 Upon this I unfastened the door, keeping a firm hold 
 of it, and partly opened it, when a strong push was 
 made, but I succeeded in re-bolting it at once. This 
 was evident proof that someone at any rate wanted to 
 make an entrance. A public staircase common to all, 
 without a porter or concierge, enables anyone to enter a 
 house without a question. 
 
 The autumnal reviews were then, as now, a source of 
 infinite pleasure and attraction to a military man. I got 
 myself sometimes mixed up with the " enemy" in a 
 rather laughable way, but there was no taking of prison- 
 ers, therefore the thing ended in a joke. I remember 
 being mounted on a horse, which had been a Hussar 
 charger, and which I hired for the occasion ; Prince
 
 Albrecht of Prussia sent word to me on the ground, be- 
 fore the manoeuvres began, that I was to accompany him 
 to some part of the field. He was a good rider and 
 looked well on a horse, and being also well mounted 
 probably on an English hunter, or an equally good 
 Mecklenburg animal, went off full gallop to some cavalry 
 brigade, drawn up at a distance. I could not help half 
 laughing within myself at the way in which I followed 
 him with his aide-de-camp at a suitable distance. I 
 knew nothing of the horse I was riding, and went over 
 all the rough and broken ground in the most uncon- 
 cerned way, but I discovered for the first time that a 
 bear-skin cap was not exactly the head-dress for that 
 racing pace. After exchanging a few words with the 
 officer commanding the body of cavalry, for its actual 
 strength I did not ascertain, the Prince galloped off 
 to another corps. All this must have been witnessed, 
 and I fancy must have accounted for an officer riding 
 up to me and saying that the King, who was sitting 
 alone encircled by several general and staff officers, had 
 commanded me into his presence. His Majesty asked 
 me the number of my regiment, and put some other 
 questions to me, which I now seem to have forgotten ; 
 but I perfectly well remember the King's reply when 
 I said that I hoped His Majesty would excuse the man- 
 ner in which I had addressed him. " Not at all," he 
 said, " You speak very good German, far better than 
 most Englishmen." [" Sie sprechen sehr gut Deutch, viel 
 besser wic die meisten Engldnder."] I then backed out of His 
 Majesty's presence, and an aide-de-camp whom I knew 
 very well, was most anxious to know " what the King had
 
 said." I may here say that the officer now alluded to, 
 then a Captain only, sent me his photograph twenty 
 years afterwards, when I was living in Yorkshire, covered 
 with decorations ; he had then been in all those cam- 
 paigns in Holstein and other parts. I may, also, add 
 that King Frederick William IV., some years later, 
 conferred on me the Great Gold Medal of " Science and 
 Art," for my Military Dictionary, which the Emperor of 
 Austria had also done the year before ; the Prussian 
 Official Gazette in announcing the bestowal of that hon- 
 our, coupled with it the fact, that the work in question 
 was " remarkable for its singular and faultless correctness 
 and completeness " ; an announcement not usually made 
 by a Government Gazette. He was son of that King of 
 Prussia who suffered so much at the hands of the French, 
 for which Prussia obtained its revenge at Sedan, 
 though half a century and more later ; who, also, came 
 over to England with other Crowned heads after Water- 
 loo ; the same being grandson of Frederick the Great. 
 I was asked on that occasion to luncheon ; the order 
 coming from the Prince of Prussia to lunch at a farm- 
 house with others who were invited. I had an order, 
 also, to dine that same day at the Palace of the Prince. 
 Anyone who ever saw the Prince of Prussia (afterwards 
 Emperor of Germany), with his military bearing, and 
 affable mode of speaking, could not help being im- 
 mensely taken with him. His Royal Highness said to 
 me in German, " Did you have a good horse to-day ? " 
 and upon my answering in the affirmative, asked " Was 
 it your own ? " I told the Prince that I had hired it 
 only, at which he seemed astonished, but said no
 
 n6 
 
 more. This remark, it is true, like other observations 
 I have here and there quoted, flattering though they 
 be, almost seem to remind one from their brevity and 
 stereotyped character of what George IV. said (or is 
 recorded to have said) to the Irishman ; but there it is 
 to be hoped, for the repose of one's soul, the analogy 
 ends. Many there are who have spun yarns, and have 
 had more talk with Princes, but I may be excused for 
 thinking that Royalty (save in some cases) had not then 
 made itself so cheap in different ways, as in later times. 
 The bearing and soldier-like figure of the Prince of 
 Prussia, as he marched past the King, his brother, at 
 the head of the troops, and at considerable distance or 
 space before the leading division, dropping his sword to 
 the King in the way familiar to himself, was a thing not 
 easy to forget. On this occasion and Court dinner, 
 there was another English officer belonging to the i8th 
 Royal Irish ; his name I never heard, but the Crown 
 Princess (afterwards Empress Augusta), addressed her. 
 self to both of us. H.R.H. spoke remarkably good 
 English with an unmistakably good accent, and was 
 evidently very fond of displaying her knowledge of 
 English. She told us her cousin was in the English 
 Guards, meaning of course the Duke of Saxe Weimar. 
 I heard her shortly afterwards speaking in French to 
 some one, which she spoke quite as well as English. 
 
 I doubt whether Prussia looked then to what after- 
 wards occurred. Moltke was only, I think, a Major ; 
 Manteufel and some others distinguished in the subse- 
 quent wars Captains only, if I am not mistaken, for I 
 left the English Army long before, and turned my back
 
 on all things military. There certainly was always an 
 unmistakable ill feeling towards Austria on the part of 
 Prussia, and very much so towards some of the smaller 
 German States. I was sitting next to an officer of the 
 General Staff in that year or the following, at some 
 Court entertainment, when he astonished me very much 
 by calling my attention to two officers who seemed 
 somewhat isolated, and were sitting together opposite, 
 alluding to them in no very friendly way ; they evi- 
 dently from their uniform belonged to some minor 
 State. This fact seems to point to the unceremonious 
 way in which Prussia afterwards aggrandised herself, 
 annexing Hanover, Hesse Cassel, etc. On that occa- 
 sion I had, on the other side of me, Colonel Bentinck, 
 in the Guards. I met him at Buckingham Palace, when 
 I was going to lay the first portion of my work before 
 Prince Albert. He gave me some good advice, which 
 I followed. 
 
 The winter sets in early in Northern Germany and 
 lasts long ; even in April of 1845, when I went to Eng- 
 land, the Elbe was full of ice ; but the stoves heat the 
 rooms so effectually that one never feels the cold until 
 one goes out. I worked without intermission, I may say, 
 day and night, and on two occasions was so engrossed 
 in my undertaking, that I never went to bed at all. I 
 had commenced printing my Dictionary at Berlin ; the 
 type and execution, as far as the printing was concerned, 
 were faultless, but the total ignorance of English on the 
 part of the compositors caused me an awful amount of 
 trouble, especially in the " division " of words ; they 
 would divide such a word as "horse," and equally
 
 short words ; in the end, however, I reprinted the en- 
 tire volume in England. 
 
 When festivities were going on I invariably saw 
 Humboldt, celebrated for his " Cosmos." He had been 
 enobled by the late King, but had a retiring demeanour, 
 and a little insignificant looking man, but was held in 
 the highest and most deserved repute. I forget for 
 what reason it was, but I called by appointment on 
 General v. Boyen, the Commander-in-Chief, according 
 to English parlance, (it is so long ago that I may not 
 give the exact name). He acquiesced in whatever I 
 had to bring before him, and I took care to wait upon 
 him in uniform. The General asked me subsequently 
 to dinner, a large official dinner, where were assembled 
 most, if not all, those excellent officers who figured in 
 the subsequent operations in which Prussia was engaged, 
 including the Franco-German war. I did not receive 
 much civility, save from the General himself, who had 
 figured in the campaigns against Napoleon, for the 
 English hold no very great place in the estimation of 
 foreigners, save as good soldiers at close quarters ; their 
 strategetical abilities being underrated. The Artillery 
 officer, Captain Blume, in charge of the Artillery Work- 
 shops, became a close friend of mine, and I had to thank 
 him for much that he did, never seeming bored by the 
 innumerable references I made to him. He had been 
 simply a gunner and driver at Quatre Bras, and the 
 Waterloo campaign, but was also an excellent draftsman, 
 which to my mind was not explainable. He was after- 
 wards appointed to the War Office, and became a Major 
 General, and I lost a great friend by his death. I can-
 
 u 9 
 
 not avoid relating the following matter which occurred 
 about this time. A ball was given at the Opera House 
 for which purpose the whole pit or parterre was covered 
 over with boarding, level with the stage. I had struck 
 up a sort of slight bowing acqaintance with the Officer 
 Commanding one of the Rifle Corps, and being at the 
 ball, I begged to be introduced to his daughter, and 
 asked her to dance, and for the next quadrille. On my 
 coming up being of course in uniform she placed 
 herself in a stooping position, so as to hide (so to say), 
 or conceal herself behind a fine big young fellow in an 
 Infantry uniform ; he mav have been her lover or her 
 brother. She continued thus dodging about, showing 
 that there could remain no doubt as to the motive, so of 
 course I turned on my heel, and mixed with the crowd. 
 I was angry, but at this distance of time I dare say it 
 was only a girlish joke, which I was unable to under- 
 stand. 
 
 Though I had been twelve months hard at work, I 
 had been able to print no further than up to the end of 
 letter F in the alphabet. This first instalment was put 
 into circulation, and taken up as much as I could ex- 
 pect, and most favourably reviewed. It was in April of 
 1 845 that I left for England to report progress so far to 
 Prince Albert, and to ask for a further extension of six 
 months leave of absence. Previous to my obtaining 
 an audience of H.R.H. I had been to the Adjutant 
 General, Sir John Macdonald, who gave me an awful 
 setting down, and said that he " would oppose me as 
 much as one officer could another." No sooner had I 
 left the Horse Guards than I went straight to Bucking-
 
 120 
 
 ham Palace in order to wait upon the Prince. He read 
 the Reviews in German, from beginning to end, asked 
 me a few questions, and ended by saying that he would 
 see what he could do in respect of obtaining six months 
 further leave of absence. The Prince's wish was of 
 course granted, and the leave obtained. 
 
 It happened now, that at my Club, in looking through 
 the Army List, I accidentally saw that Sir Lionel 
 Smith's aide-de-camp, whom I had known at the Mau- 
 ritius, had become a Staff Officer of Pensioners, and 
 was in charge of the London District. I determined 
 before leaving again for Germany to call on him and 
 his wife. The result of this visit was that a very short 
 time afterwards I became engaged to Sir Lionel's 
 second daughter, to whom I was married on the longest 
 day of that year (June 21). Sir Lionel Smith, who was 
 a G.C.B. and G.C.H., had acquired much military repu- 
 tation in the Maratta war in conjunction with Sir Thomas 
 Hislop, He had seen fighting and service elsewhere 
 up the Persian Gulf, where he was wounded ; but his 
 chief abilities show as a Governor, and he was selected 
 in 1835-6 by the Whig Government to carry out the 
 Slave Emancipation question in Jamaica, of which he 
 was then appointed Governor-General, being at the 
 time in question in command and Governor of the Lee- 
 ward Islands ; thus if for no other reason, I was much 
 pleased to marry the daughter of an officer so distin- 
 guished. At that very time also my wife's uncle, Sir 
 H. Pottinger, had acquired a great name in China, which 
 added to the matter. 
 
 After spending our honeymoon at Paris, we left at
 
 121 
 
 once for Germany, via Hamburg, but before going to 
 Berlin, I thought a little relaxation would do no harm, 
 so I determined on showing my wife the " Saxon 
 Switzerland " near Dresden. All this was thoroughly 
 enjoyed, especially at a season too early for general 
 tourists or the British snob. She was a capital walker, 
 and we traversed that lovely district on foot, so what 
 with sketching, being an excellent drafts-woman, and 
 other opportunities, we passed to my remembrance, a 
 most enjoyable time, and so visiting Lillienstein and 
 Konigstein, that virgin-fortress, we came to Dresden, 
 and thence by rail to Berlin. 
 
 I never thought that my six months leave would 
 suffice, but I had determined, rather than abandon my 
 project, or have it said that I could not finish what I 
 had begun, to go eventually on half-pay. By so doing, 
 I relinquished of course my regimental position in the 
 Syth, and virtually sealed my doom, so far as any rank 
 went. 
 
 For the coming winter I hired a flat in the Dorotheen 
 Strasse, for which I paid more than in the best part of 
 London. Very good horses could be hired, and we rode 
 a great deal, generally in the direction of the Artillery 
 practice ground, a few miles off; and mounted in that 
 way, witnessed on one occasion, a march past of the 
 Berlin garrison before the King. I had dined some 
 months before at the British Embassy, and knew Lady 
 Westmorland, who now presented my wife at Court. 
 
 It must have been either in 1844 or 1845 that the 
 Prussians were loud in demanding a Constitution, 
 though their Representative Assembly was a thing of
 
 122 
 
 much later growth. One of the class likely to know, 
 used to say that the idea found little favour with Fred- 
 erick William IV., who is reported to have said of 
 these his subjects in question " Sie sind noch nicht reif." 
 
 In this way things went on till March 1 846, when I took 
 up my abode in the Links Strasse outside one of the 
 Berlin Gates. By this time, also, I had gone on half-pay, 
 and by the spring of 1 847 I had exhausted all that my Ger- 
 man sejour could perform, and went direct to Brussels. 
 I had never been satisfied with the grammatical correct- 
 ness of the French portion of my Work, and determined 
 that nothing should ever be laid to my charge in that 
 respect. It was there that I waited on the Governor or 
 officer directing the Military Academy. He at once 
 fell in with my request, which was to appoint some com- 
 petent Engineer or Artillery Officer to visit me daily 
 for a fixed remuneration, and go through the whole 
 work with me. I believe this officer thoroughly en- 
 joyed the task, and daily visited my quarters in the Rue 
 Royale for three months. Little else of note occurred 
 during our stay at Brussels ; an occasional ride on two 
 very great " screws," and a visit to the Theatre were 
 about all that took place. I saw here on that occasion, 
 Win. Drury, ci-devant Assistant- Master at Harrow, 
 looking as fat and comfortable as usual, for by some 
 interest he had long been appointed English Chaplain 
 either to the Embassy, or the King. The Military 
 Dictionary, as far as the German, French, and English 
 part went, was now complete, and I determined upon 
 re-printing what had already been issued, and entrust- 
 ing the further printing of it to a London firm. We
 
 123 
 
 passed the winter of 1847 at Dolgelly in Wales, and 
 in three months I had corrected the Press, and my 
 labours so far were over. In 1848 I left for Scot- 
 land, renting a house close to the coast in Argyleshire, 
 near Campbeltown. The different operations under 
 Lord Gough in India, made me long to be employed 
 on active service, but my wife ruled it otherwise, and 
 preferred that I should be occupied in shooting grouse. 
 Whilst in Wales I had rented a moor, and the same was 
 the case now. I had some good dogs which I bought of 
 Sir Robert Vaughan's keeper at Hengwrt, and in that 
 way things went on in the sporting line till the Autumn of 
 that year, when I was placed on full pay, and appointed 
 to the Reserve Battalion of the 69th regiment at Malta, 
 a great come down, no doubt, to find oneself at the 
 bottom of the Captains ; indeed it proved enough, and 
 went far to disgust me with the military service. My 
 Dictionary had done me more harm than good as an 
 English Officer ; the Quarter-Master General Sir Wil- 
 loughby Gordon, then at the Horse Guards, wrote me, it 
 is true a most flattering letter, and so did Sir George 
 Murray, with two or three of the best then existing old 
 Peninsular Officers, but it was clear that the Authori- 
 ties could not appreciate what they did not understand, 
 either French or German, and though I had undertaken 
 the task with a view to my own advancement, and the 
 benefit of the service, I got neither that, nor even thanks. 
 They might have thought that my work was of more 
 use to the foreigner than to the English Officer ; but 
 were that so, the same might be said of every Dictionary, 
 nevertheless it showed a littleness and narrow-minded- 
 ness not much to the credit of a great country.
 
 124 
 
 Whilst I was at Ballyshear, in" Scotland, I was ap- 
 pointed, as I have said, to the 69th, and ordered to take 
 out a strong detachment of troops as reliefs to different 
 Mediterranean garrisons. It was about November or 
 December of 1848, that I left Newport (or rather 
 Cowes) in command of these drafts, on board the 
 Catherine Stuart Forbes. I had virtually left the ser- 
 vice when I quitted the 8/th at Glasgow in 1844, but 
 I was astonished to see how lax and altered discipline 
 had become in those four years ; I saw at once that the 
 men would give me some trouble. There were about 
 250 men on board, two Captains (of which I was the 
 senior), three Subalterns, and an Army Surgeon. The 
 passage was unusually stormy ; the ordinary routine of 
 duty on board-ship was carried out well enough, but 
 some of the men became very noisy, and I thought 
 mutinous, and as there were sufficient officers on board, 
 I determined to bring two of them to a Court-martial ; 
 the men were sentenced to be flogged, and I confirmed 
 that sentence. But now occurred an unforseen dilem- 
 ma ; the Sergeant who was acting as Sergeant-Major on 
 board, told me privately there were no "cats," so I at 
 once saw that I had nothing to do but to make a virtue 
 of necessity. I ordered the Sergeant-Major on no 
 account to divulge this fact, or in any way to make it 
 known, so the troops being ordered to parade on the 
 quarter-deck, and the proceedings of the court-martial 
 duly read, I ordered the first man " to strip," and he 
 was accordingly tied up, and as they were all more or 
 less young soldiers, what ensued had a salutary effect. 
 I addressed the men in becoming terms on the subject
 
 125 
 
 of discipline, and how these men were sentenced to 
 be flogged for insubordinate conduct ; I had no wish 
 to carry out the sentence, but they would know the 
 penalty in case of any future misconduct in that way ; 
 the man was taken down, and the Parade dismissed. 
 The Skipper who had been looking on at the proceed- 
 ings from the poop above all the time, said to me, as 
 soon as the deck was clear, " Captain, that was the best 
 done thing I ever saw in my life." We had a terribly 
 rough passage in the Mediterranean, but arrived in due 
 course at Malta. I had left the men in charge of Cap- 
 tain Abbot, and said that no one was to leave the vessel 
 until I returned, having to go ashore to report- my 
 arrival to the Town-Major. I was very much astonished 
 to find on my way back to the ship, one of the Subalterns 
 just landed on the steps, highly got up, who had never 
 done a stroke of duty the whole passage, and had been 
 returned as on the Sick List. I ordered that young 
 gentleman to be placed at once under arrest, and in 
 that way to join his regiment at Corfu. The Colonel 
 of his regiment afterwards wrote to me, saying that he 
 had released him, but that it would do him a great deal 
 of good. 
 
 The disgust at the way in which my labours had been 
 overlooked at the Horse Guards ; the fact, also, of having 
 to mount the Main Guard at Malta after having been 
 Captain of the Day, and doing Field Officer's duty at 
 the Mauritius ; and not the least, finding myself at the 
 bottom of ten Captains, proved a complete damper to 
 all military ardour. Colonel Coote, who was in com- 
 mand of the Reserve Battalion, gave me leave, after a
 
 126 
 
 short time, to return to England, with a view to again 
 going on half-pay. He was a very good officer, and 
 afterwards exchanged into the i8th Royal Irish, and I 
 think was killed in some action in command of that 
 regiment. 
 
 The steamer by which I left Malta in the early part 
 of 1849, landed us at Naples, and being in March, my 
 wife and I had the hotel entirely to ourselves. Pompeii 
 can never be seen too often, and all the surroundings 
 of Naples are full of interest, so the fortnight passed 
 there makes one regret the inability to renew a similar 
 visit. On this head very much ought to be said, but the 
 route from Malta to England, by which soever way you 
 journey, has been so hackneyed in Guide Books and 
 Travels, that nothing new can be said. Although a 
 fortnight's stay was made at Naples, a very much 
 longer time would not have sufficed to thoroughly work 
 out and visit all its historic sources of interest. The 
 Roman amphitheatres and many similar monuments of 
 antiquity, are evidence of a wonderful and far-advanced 
 people, in a direction also to which Europe of this and 
 subsequent intermediate centuries can lay no claim. 
 Later ages have not attained to the same perfection, 
 neither do I believe that were a repetition of the so- 
 called " dark ages " to take place, to the overthrow of 
 all present structures and inventions, any instances or ex- 
 amples either of modern science, ingenuity, or structural 
 erection would anywhere remain equal in grandeur to 
 those of Ancient Rome, or capable of pointing to a 
 nation of like greatness. We have, it is true, Electricity 
 and Steam, both marvellous discoveries, Gunpowder,
 
 127 
 
 Dynamite, and other explosives ; but these and all that 
 derives from such modern discoveries would vanish like 
 smoke away, and form no lasting memorial of bygone 
 superiority ; they have not the elements of duration, for 
 the same casualty or power which led to their inven- 
 tion might lead to their annihilation. Though all is 
 destined to pass away, such scientific results are palpa- 
 bly less enduring than those monuments of antiquity, 
 which have survived the ordeal of barbarism and the 
 dark ages, or if ever lost to the world, would enable 
 posterity to look back upon an equally great race of 
 men. The present generation, indeed, is very far from 
 having attained the universal perfection to which it 
 aspires ; if scientific discoveries be omitted in the com- 
 parison, those monuments of antiquity have nothing 
 comparable with themselves in any civilized part of the 
 world. As observed, every modern undertaking is more 
 perishable, and would leave no token to posterity of 
 vastness or grandeur. To descend to the commonest 
 of things, the very ink with which men now write has 
 no permanency ; and what social evils may we not 
 bewail in addition in token of inferiority ? Communism 
 and Anarchy are at the root of society, and if one ex- 
 cepts the results of Steam or Electricity, the present 
 world has not much of which to be proud. To put the 
 inferiority in another point of view, the superior advan- 
 tages to which mankind ought to have attained by the 
 enlightenment of the Gospel, have not been truly and 
 effectually realised ; they are considered of secondary 
 moment, because men love the pleasures of the world, 
 and prefer darkness to light. Religion has no existence
 
 128 
 
 in fact ; if it can be found, I should like to know where ? 
 save within the breast of the comparatively few. Mock, 
 ery is not religion, neither what is akin to it, the cele- 
 bration of sensational rites. The Ancients had not the 
 advantage or blessing of Christianity ; how much more 
 then ought the present world to exceed and surpass them 
 in this as well as in every other respect ? The inference 
 from these and such like reflections is, that not only are 
 the children of the present time not wiser, but less wise 
 in their generation than the children of the past, and 
 are far from being their equals in matters of endurance 
 or permanent stability. We are able to value the one 
 by a fixed and tested standard of excellence ; the other 
 fixes its own value on a faulty standard of its own creation. 
 
 The vessel to Marseilles touched at Genoa, and was 
 boarded by an insufferable number of Italians anxious 
 to make themselves " scarce," for the place had followed 
 the example of the revolutionary emeutes going on at 
 that period. We had landed ostensibly for breakfast, 
 which in fact we got at some hotel, such as it was, for 
 the whole city was in a state of riotous confusion ; we 
 found the stones of the principal streets had all been 
 taken up to form barricades. Upon the whole I was 
 glad to have seen something of which I had only heard 
 by name. A carriage was on the deck of the steamer, 
 and I found the occupant to be the late Lord Gosford, 
 whom I knew. He had adopted thus the wisest course, 
 for the deck was swarming with emigres. 
 
 From 1849, m tne summer of which I went to 
 Brighton, until 1855, my chief occupation was shooting, 
 for I had virtually left the Army, living in Scotland
 
 129 
 
 and Ireland. In the latter I rented a large tract of 
 country in Donegal, belonging to Sir Charles Style, not 
 getting off without a threat to be murdered, During 
 this time, and a temporary stay near Lymington, I re- 
 newed my acquaintance with an old Oxford friend, 
 Lord Norbury, and became acquainted, also, with the 
 late Lady Hastings. I unfolded to her all my appoint- 
 ments and disappointments, and she got Lord Hardinge, 
 then Commander-in-Chief, to nominate me to the Ger- 
 man Legion, then in course of being embodied, towards 
 the end of the war. I have omitted to say that when 
 the Crimean War was on the eve of breaking out, I 
 applied for employment, and to be appointed to some 
 regiment then under orders to form part of the force. 
 Sir Richard Airey was then Military Secretary, and to 
 his hostility, but principally to that of the Duke of 
 Wellington, I was brought again on full pay, but, who 
 would believe it ? I was posted as a Brevet- Major to 
 the 4th West India Regiment ! This was more than I 
 could stand, and I resigned my commission. 
 
 It was thus (as observed), that in 1855 I was nominated 
 Major in one of the two battalions then at ShornclifFe, 
 through the interest of Lady Hastings, but I had stipu- 
 lated that I should not serve under an officer junior to 
 myself in the service. Accordingly I got all that was 
 requisite, the uniform, the horse, &c., and reported my- 
 self to the Officer Commanding the battalion at that 
 station. I totally forget his name, but I know that 
 finding him very much junior to myself, a point on 
 which I had insisted, and was agreed to, I resigned the 
 commission, and from that day to this have turned my
 
 130 
 
 back on the Service, and all things military. Up to that 
 time I had kept myself constantly employed at intervals, 
 in reworking the English part of the Technological Dic- 
 tionary ; it is still indeed in MS. ; but who would wish 
 to continue such a task on such terms ? 
 
 It was in 1850 that the Emperor of Austria sent me 
 his Gold Medal of " Science," in recognition of the 
 Work, which his Ambassador in England, Baron Koller, 
 had brought to his notice, but without my knowledge. 
 The same year Baron Bunsen forwarded to me from the 
 King of Prussia, the Great Gold Medal of "Science and 
 Art" ; and this was followed by the French Emperor's 
 Gold Medal. I sent all these medals to the British 
 Museum, and they were accepted on the implicit under- 
 standing that they were to be exhibited i.e., open to the 
 public. It seems one of the attributes of some Govern- 
 ments, to break faith whenever so disposed, for this 
 stipulation was for a time carried out, but I discovered 
 afterwards from a personal attendance, that they were 
 under lock and key, and nowhere to be seen. I remon- 
 strated, and I believe the Trustees ordered their re- 
 appearance. 
 
 To prove the utility of my Dictionary I used to see 
 in the Reports from Military Correspondents with the 
 Armies in the field, constant use of my terms, and this 
 continued during the whole Franco-German War. The 
 importance of the Work seems to have been recog- 
 nised by all, excepting by those from whom it ought to 
 have had its chief recognition. A paragraph appeared in 
 the " Naval and Military Gazette " sometime in April or 
 May of 1856, in which, in an Article on the fortress of
 
 Kars, and how the Authorities never promoted the study 
 of Foreign languages, my name was thus brought in 
 " The best linguist in the whole British Army has been 
 refused employment over and over again ; when did our 
 Authorities ever promote the knowledge and study of 
 modern languages " ? But to give all their due, the 
 Duke of Wellington, who hated any man who ever took 
 a pen in hand, had undoubtedly placed his own mark 
 against my name, for after four years absence in Ireland, 
 I casually took up an Army List, and found it with an 
 Old English "W," just as if I had served at Water- 
 loo. The blundering clerk had here " let the cat out of 
 the bag ;" there was "Wellington" safe enough. But 
 I have so long bid adieu to the Service, and turned my 
 thoughts into another channel, in which I have, thanks 
 to others, completely succeeded, that the manner in 
 which I was treated, and the "littleness" of which 
 "great" men can be found capable, gives me no con- 
 cern whatever. The Government under Lord Salisbury, 
 bestowed on me a grant of ^200 in 1890, for work 
 done forty-eight years before ! about a third of the sum 
 which the same cost to print. Being a " poor Devil " I 
 took it, though many another would have declined it 
 with becoming thanks. 
 
 For my appointment to the above-named German 
 Legion I had, I may say, entirely to thank the late Lady 
 Hastings, a warm-hearted woman, whose acquaintance 
 I had then made quite within recent years, when living 
 near Lymington. She had known my old friend Cecil 
 
 * Major George Floyd Duckett.
 
 132 
 
 Turner, in Leicestershire, when her husband had been 
 Master of the Quorn, and being a Peeress in her own 
 right as Baroness Grey de Ruthin, she made matters easy 
 with Lord Hardinge, and so overcame the Duke's said 
 "scratching." The German Legion of two battalions 
 was placed under the command of Baron Stutterheiin, 
 a German officer, and I was appointed Major of the 1st 
 or 2nd battalion, I forget which, as I never did a day's 
 duty with the corps, for I found on reporting myself 
 at ShornclhTe, that what I had stipulated had been 
 ignored, so I at once sent in my resignation. This 
 step, on reflection, I regretted, and sought to recall, 
 but I had now to deal with underlings, a class I have 
 abhorred through life ; hence my experience of that 
 most heterogeneous embodiment of every imaginable 
 foreigner, was short lived. The underling was here 
 quite unmistakable, and I could put my finger on him, 
 if brought back to life, or now even, if not yet united 
 with the majority. When I told all that had happened 
 to Lady Hastings, she said " Beggars must not be 
 choosers." This in one way was true enough, but I 
 answered " I am not quite such a beggar as that." 
 
 On the subject of understrappers, underlings, et hoc 
 genus omne, by whatever other designation familiar, I 
 have somewhat to observe. In my earliest days, when 
 I had to retrieve my lost estates, if not almost my 
 position, I was baffled at every turn by the heartless 
 and self-sufficient demeanour of these gentry ; their 
 consequential form, their palpable ignorance in most 
 instances, made me sometimes nearly frantic. I believe 
 it was these "whips and scorns of time " and "insolence
 
 133 
 
 of office " which, acting on the blue blood of a gentle- 
 man, first made me take up the elucidation of the 
 Wyndesore and Duket descent. To have to eat dirt 
 and humble pie at the hands of many, whose not remote 
 predecessors were breaking stones on a road, or following 
 the plough, when my own had been sitting in Parliament 
 for two centuries, and even up to the time of Henry 
 IV., was not to be endured, and I resolved, if anything 
 were ever to be obtained, to go to the fountain head. 
 Still this is not always feasible, for like Royalty, Secre- 
 taries of State are hedged in by officials, but as I have 
 said, I knocked them aside whenever I had the chance. 
 This occurred on one remarkable occasion, and tends to 
 illustrate the matter. I had casually to go to the Horse 
 Guards about some matter which I entirely forget, 
 though it was of consequence I well remember, and my 
 solicitations were met in the usual red-tape and conse- 
 quential manner. I went thereupon, straight from that 
 part of the building to the department then not far 
 distant, the War Office, requested to see Fox Maule 
 (Lord Panmure), laid my complaint before him, whatever 
 it was, and secured the point at once. He rang a bell, 
 ordered such paper or document to be forthcoming, and 
 gave the required order. I have followed this course 
 through life, and I can recall at least six or seven cases 
 of turning the flank of that odious set. It wants a certain 
 amount of pluck, but as the Page is told in the 
 " Hunchback," never to say "fail," so I took a wrinkle 
 out of the same injunction. " Never say fail again, 
 boy ; in the whole volume of youth, which presages a 
 bright future, there's no such word as " fail." I have
 
 '34 
 
 relieved my mind of this long-felt incubus, and give 
 my experience, with warning advice to those who wish 
 to " get on " in the race of life : Make use of them as 
 far as they will let you ; but throw them over the first 
 opportunity. They only cringe to you in prosperity, 
 and cut you in adversity. " Whip me such honest 
 knaves," says our old friend Shakespeare, and I quite 
 agree. Nevertheless, I came across other instances, 
 who, though no underlings, had all the same attributes 
 of the sort here bewailed. 
 
 During my life I have been brought into contact with 
 many men, some keeping up their position, and passing 
 the even tenour of their way in their respective localities. 
 I never met with any single instance of want of cordiality, 
 save in one parvenu lord, or at most two cases, and there 
 I had evidence of the adage, " What is bred in the bone 
 will come out in the flesh," or of that which my dear old 
 friend, Charles Barham, used to designate as evidence 
 of the " Cart-horse somewhere." The man so raised to 
 the peerage, is often one whose immediate or not 
 remote ancestor has been ennobled in the usual way, 
 viz : as one from the bench, to which his wits and not 
 his birth got him ; as another from success in the Army 
 or Navy, and especially another who has gained his 
 money by trade, or by the liquor poured down his 
 fellow-creatures' throats. These men's ancestors were 
 probably following the same employment, as those 
 of the official underlings complained of. They say it 
 only takes three generations to make a " gentleman " ; 
 the sort of men I allude to could claim no more, if so 
 many, either to get ennobled, or still fewer to see their
 
 '35 
 
 names in Burke's Landed Gentry. Such men give 
 no one much concern, either in the case of the parvenu 
 lord, of late years on the increase, or the millionaire's 
 heir apparent, nevertheless both in their way are equally 
 disgusting, examples of a class so common in this 
 country. Although I have generalized the genus 
 parvenu, I had two men especially in my mind whilst so 
 doing, both glaring instances of the type. I wonder 
 Royalty can endure to have any such upstart snob 
 about it. 
 
 Subordinates in office assume all the importance of 
 their position with additional airs of their own. I have 
 generally done my best to avoid them (as observed), but 
 that has not been easy, or in fact possible. The last 
 experience I had of that class was in two instances, 
 about the time I was appointed Major of one of the two 
 battalions of the German Legion, towards the close of 
 the Crimean War ; I have alluded to one, and will 
 presently close with the other. If all Services are as 
 hateful as our own used to be on that score, there can 
 be no exception to the rule. I presume the bearing and 
 importance of which I complain is universal, and a failing 
 of human nature, but it is simply monstrous to recollect 
 how important matters were sometimes conducted, and 
 (perhaps still are) by such a set of incompetent boobies. 
 I have had evidence of this over and over again. 
 
 But there is a second or third class of this order, the 
 gentleman's gentleman, powdered or not, as the case 
 may be. If you call at the house of a man of conse- 
 quence, and the flunkey does not know you, the airs the 
 fellow gives himself are wonderful ; it would not do that 
 his lordship's menial should be too condescending.
 
 36 
 
 The other occasion, and the last, was when Lord 
 Hardinge was at the Horse Guards. His Military 
 Secretary might to a certain extent be considered an 
 anomaly, being a Naval Officer, and I waited on him on 
 some matter which has escaped my memory. Whilst I 
 was on some landing place, not having entered the apart- 
 ment used for such business-like purposes, I heard these 
 words " He has not got the old father with him to- 
 day," and immediately afterwards, Captain Fitzroy, R.N. 
 (to whom, by-the-bye, I had had an introduction from a 
 relative of his own), made his appearance. Though as 
 a matter of course, I naturally received nothing favour- 
 able towards my object, whatever it was, I distinctly 
 discovered the way in which the wind blew, and how 
 my father, up to within a short time of his death, had 
 unknown to me, been eating dirt and insolence at the 
 hands of Jacks in office. The words, unmistakably heard 
 by me, (which it might have been more dignified to 
 have omitted), conveyed more, for they came from 
 some empty-headed official who had got up his lesson, 
 right or wrong, like the rest, for as a matter of fact, I 
 never was within the gates of the Horse Guards, with 
 my father, on any business whatever. 
 
 I have troubled the reader, citing my own experience 
 as an example ; but in so doing I hope the same may 
 prove, if a source of amazement to one, a caution 
 against these practices to another.
 
 1856-1894.
 
 h I A HE first half of my existence, belonging to the first 
 half of this century, has been sufficiently eventful, 
 and though called upon to record what I can call to 
 mind, my memory has been somewhat taxed to carry 
 out this measure, so that I have no doubt much more 
 might have been added thereto ; the two callings, how- 
 ever, which I embraced, the one in the first half, purely 
 Military, and the other to a great extent Literary, in 
 the following half of it, are so diametrically opposite to 
 one another, that little or no affinity exists between them. 
 
 Notwithstanding, there are some perhaps, who may 
 wish to read to the end of the chapter, now that the 
 curtain has dropped on the first Episodes of my life, and 
 know the end of a less eventful period, still when again 
 lifted, it will tend to show that the last stage of that 
 man was better than the first, as far as human foresight 
 can go, being yet alive. Under any circumstances, the 
 memorials of bygone days, and occurrences such as I 
 have to relate, would have need of the separate place 
 which I now give them, if only for the sake of classi- 
 fication. 
 
 The result of my experience has been that there are 
 some men who see and do more in two years, than 
 others contrive to effect during their whole life ; but 
 there are some, on the other hand, so original, incon- 
 sistent, or varied that they seem to be, not one, but all
 
 140 
 
 mankind's epitome." Putting aside, however, the ego- 
 tism of autobiography (which has been over and over 
 again lamented in these pages), in which of these two 
 categories some might care to place me, or perhaps in 
 neither, I may say it has thus been with me in life, 
 for I have had " a dozen irons in the fire " at one time, 
 and it would be difficult to say which of the trades I 
 took up I mastered or not. Most of my military career 
 is detailed in the preceding pages ; my literary career, 
 though ranging only over some five and twenty or thirty 
 years, has been followed by a sufficiently satisfactory 
 result ; but whether literary or military, I have turned 
 my attention to endless other labours, like my first 
 cousin, the late Thomas Berney of Morton ; I have been 
 a Mechanic, Carpenter, etc., but not equal to him ; I 
 have been an indefatigable sportsman and a good shot ; 
 I have been an equally ardent follower of foxhounds, 
 whenever I could afford to enjoy that splendid and 
 manly pursuit ; in fact I may close the list by saying 
 that I have had a hand in almost every occupation, and 
 wind up the list or sum total, by repeating what I said 
 in the presence of my father, to the schoolmistress of 
 the first school I went to. Being apparently unable to 
 endure her interrogations as to the number and nature 
 of diseases I had survived at that early age, " My dear, 
 what other complaints have you had ?" " Madam," said 
 I (or should have said), " I have had every disease but 
 one." 
 
 Having in 1856 virtually bid adieu to all things mili- 
 tary, without either sorrow or remorse, an entire change 
 " came o'er the spirit of my dream " ; I devoted myself
 
 to other pursuits, not like a man of my acquaintance, 
 who from force of circumstances having left the Army, 
 could not endure to hear the " drums and fifes " of a 
 regiment, without being overcome and prostrate, my 
 whole thoughts were now bent on "Archaeology, His- 
 torical, Antiquarian, and Monastic Researches," as in- 
 deed they had long been in Genealogical Records. I 
 had never during my whole service in the Army, 
 thoroughly lost my original and naturally studious in- 
 clinations ; every succeeding day made me now forget 
 my former calling, which that profession had, happily, 
 in no way tended to quench, but rather to augment ; 
 hence the first idea of compiling a Military Techno- 
 logical Dictionary. 
 
 It is not easy to forget one's first love, (neither plea- 
 sant to be one's own trumpeter), but I had the " metis 
 conscia recti," and cared as little for what I had given 
 up, as did that jolly fellow, Colonel Johnstone, for his 
 frail and run-away spouse. I w r ent back, if I may so say, 
 to first principles, and my original literary turn, and the 
 occupation of Lexography, under every clime, kept me in 
 constant touch with literary subjects. Having thus taken 
 up traditional and historical literature, I was brought 
 again face to face with Latin, which I had shelved on 
 going to Oxford, but though it was in most respects of 
 the "mongrel" or "dog-latin" kind, and so far re- 
 sembling medical prescriptions, still it was grammatically 
 the same as classical Latin. It came fully back to me 
 by degrees, and quite so after I had concluded the 
 Genealogical History of my family at the Bodleian, 
 some years afterwards in 1870. It enabled me in sue-
 
 142 
 
 ceeding years to edit and carry out through the Press 
 many volumes of important Records. If through the 
 injustice and narrow-mindedness of the Military Ser- 
 vice, I had failed to acquire reputation as a soldier " at 
 the cannon's mouth," I became then bent on achieving 
 honour in a different sphere, and the adoption of that 
 course has been followed by advantages more enduring, 
 for like " Virtue, it has had its own reward." Up to 
 1894, when I write these words, I have laboured for 
 five and twenty years in one direction, and if a man 
 cannot master his profession or trade, whatever it may 
 be, in five and twenty or thirty years, that man must be 
 unfit for any profession ; but in this case, Honours in the 
 end have not been wanting. Such a mode of life has 
 brought me, on the eve of that life, equally in contact 
 with subjects more serious and more important for an- 
 other or future existence ; yet, as among my multi- 
 farious trades I do not include in any respect that of a 
 parson, on this head I need say no more, for such sub- 
 jects speak for themselves. 
 
 After the foregoing remarks, I take up as much of the 
 second unrelated portion of my Reminiscences, as seems 
 desirable to publish, for I have eaten a good deal of 
 dirt in life, much of it spontaneously and much in ignor- 
 ance, though not " all at one meal," as some one said to 
 the waiter. 
 
 But one word I think necessary to add, in eluci- 
 dation of my literary undertakings in Monastic and 
 Archaeological History. As one thing often leads to 
 another, so a controversial point led me quite acciden- 
 tally, without any previous intention, into another field
 
 143 
 
 of the same subject, and opened up a mine which had 
 remained till then unworked by any, and that mine was 
 the History of the celebrated Order of Cluny, and its 
 subordinate foundations in Europe. 
 
 In 1856, whilst I was living in Ireland, and renting 
 Lough McRory, in Tyrone, my father died, an event 
 quite unexpected by me, for as his father had lived to 
 ninety-eight, I presaged for him ,an equally long life. 
 From that time till 1870, I did nothing very worthy of 
 note, as the following entries will show, passing my time 
 in comparative ease and pleasure, save on the score of a 
 certain lack of money. From 1832 to the day of his 
 death, my father had been in constant straightened 
 circumstances, neither, unfortunately, did the fact of his 
 having re-married a woman of means, much improve 
 that matter. 
 
 But this seems an appropriate opportunity to refer 
 both to him, and to his father, before dealing with other 
 incidents, which occurred partly before his death, and 
 partly during the last forty years. I give them not 
 altogether in order of date, but as they come before me. 
 
 My grandfather, though of good lineage, made his 
 own fortune in life, to which his family connections in 
 Yorkshire no doubt somewhat contributed. Like many 
 other men of good birth and parentage, he kept little 
 record relating to his forefathers, but I have heard my 
 father say (who was somewhat in the same line), "my 
 Aunt Dorothy was very proud of her family," and that 
 referred as much to the Jacksons of Richmond and 
 Ellerton Abbey, as to the Wards of Gisborough. 
 
 A few months after my father's death, I went to pass 
 the Christmas with our cousins, the Berneys, in Norfolk ;
 
 144 
 
 I had till then been living in Ireland, and drove the 
 whole way from Whitehaven to Norwich. Although 
 "Reminiscenses" are not to be mixed up with Genealogy 
 as a rule, I may as well note the following matters. 
 Two daughters of my grandfather, by his first wife, had 
 married two Norfolk squires, named Berney and Longe. 
 He used to say that he had three clever people in his fa- 
 mily, Thomas Berney, his grandson ; my own father ; and 
 his nephew, William Ward Jackson, of Normamby ; but 
 that the first-named was " the cleverest." Practically 
 he was right, for in a lower sphere of life, his inventive 
 turn of mind would have had more chance of display, 
 and have brought " more grist to the mill." He invented 
 I know not what ; amongst other things, " Ely's Cartridge" 
 well-known to sportsmen in former times, for which Ely 
 I forget whether or not he was a gunsmith got the 
 credit and the gain ; in fact, his gun-room was like a 
 turner's or carpenter's workshop. He also invented the 
 "Kite," which on this occasion of my visit, I saw used. 
 The effect of this last is two-fold ; the birds awfully 
 alarmed, lie close to the ground, but then again are so 
 terribly frightened when they rise, that unless one has a 
 large tract of country, they go right off the ground. A 
 wonderful shot with his single-barrelled gun, (though I 
 once " wiped his eye " at a rabbit), he used to say of 
 the pheasants " That he always gave them an invitation 
 to dinner, which they seldom refused." His fore- 
 sight in respect of Steam, long before its application 
 as a marine propelling power, was remarkably foretold 
 for the future of our then Navy ; and, though long 
 to enter into, he certainly predicted the discovery of 
 Electricity. I believe that he invented the mill which
 
 145 
 
 threw up the water to his house at Morton. My grand- 
 father's other daughter, and my half-aunt, who married 
 Longe of Spixworth, had no children ; she was a singu- 
 larly handsome woman, and the well-known poetess, 
 Mrs. Opie, of historic name, and wife of the equally 
 celebrated painter, wrote the following lines on the 
 occasion of introducing a niece at her first Norwich 
 ball. The lines are telling, and coming from Mrs. 
 Opie, are well worthy of record. I have written a His- 
 tory of my family, where the lines, which run as follow, 
 and more about Mrs. Longe may be found : 
 
 LINES BY MRS. OPIE, UPON SEEING MRS. LONGE OF 
 
 SPIXWORTH IN NORFOLK, INTRODUCE HER NIECE, 
 
 Miss STIRLING, AT A NORWICH BALL. 
 
 See beauteous Longe with every grace 
 Matured, but not impaired by time, 
 
 Lead in with slow majestic pace, 
 Stirling, in beauty's opening prime. 
 
 Yet mark the difference that exists between 
 These charmers of the gazing throng, 
 
 The one, has long a sterling beauty been, 
 The other surely can't be Stirling long ? 
 
 A sterling beauty, Longe, we're told, 
 Shone forth the Meteor of the place, 
 
 As if again renewed Behold ! 
 
 Longe still displays a sterling grace. 
 
 No more then deal in empty rhyme, 
 Ye Beaux of these degenerate days, 
 
 But mark ! the gallantry of Time, 
 Who rests upon his Scythe to gaze. 
 
 And Oh ye fair ! no more with tears, 
 Lament your beauty must decay, 
 
 Since sterling charms of other years, 
 Are sterling at the present day.
 
 146 
 
 She was far past her earlier looks, (having been mar- 
 ried before my father was born), indeed pretty old when 
 I last saw her, which must have been in 1824, a year or 
 two before I went to Germany, and about the same 
 before her death. Notwithstanding the truth of Mrs. 
 Opie's lines, the amourous ensnaring ways of Queen 
 Dido, and the captivating beauty of Mary Queen of Scots, 
 all ages have their own fashions, graces, and standard of 
 beauty, indeed some have seen the latter "in a brow of 
 Africa." She was chiefly mixed up in my early mind with 
 something she had done, ages before, to a valuable tea- 
 caddy, the account of which is historic and remarkable. 
 Some time during the last century, the noted mulberry 
 tree, which was planted by Shakespeare, was cut down, 
 for the owner of the property voted it a perfect nuisance 
 to have his grounds constantly trespassed upon by pil- 
 grims to that shrine. It so happened that a gentleman 
 named Smith, a Lieutenant in the Navy, to whom my 
 grandfather, when Secretary to the Admiralty, had been 
 of service, and lived at Stratford-on-Avon, at once 
 secured two blocks of the said mulberry tree so cut 
 down, and presented them to my grandfather. He had 
 them both made into tea-caddies, most elaborately 
 carved, one of which I sold some time back, and the 
 other I disposed of in the same way, and is now in 
 possession of the Berneys. This last is the one in 
 question, for it had a medallion of Shakespeare on the 
 lid, and was used at one time by Mrs. Longe as a foot- 
 stool, and in that way injured, especially in reducing 
 the proportions of Shakespeare's nose ; a crime which 
 she could never atone for. Apropos of footstools, it
 
 '47 
 
 strikes me now very forcibly, that they were the neces- 
 sary adjuncts of the old straight high-back chair; they 
 did not go out with them, still they are not very com- 
 mon now, but Mrs. Longe always gave me the idea of 
 a woman who had been drilled to sit bolt upright ; 
 lolling about as the pretty ladies of the present race do, 
 not being deemed at all comme-il-faut in her day. Never- 
 theless, lolling about, or bolt upright, the women were 
 no better then than they are now, as Gothe says, 
 " Wenn ich nur halb ein Kenner bin" 
 
 The remark made a few lines back as to cleverness, 
 could only have applied to practical scientific ability, for 
 my father was overflowing with learning, but he was a 
 theorist, than which nothing more dangerous or fallacious. 
 As a classical scholar he might have had his equal, but 
 as a modern linguist he was unsurpassed, and shared 
 that power with no one. 
 
 My grandfather died in 1822, and some matters relat- 
 ing to his further history are noteworthy. Born in 1725, 
 he appears to have entered some Government depart- 
 ment under the auspices of Lord Milton, but must have 
 early gone to the Admiralty, for having married his cousin 
 sometime about 1746, I find that Commissioner Os- 
 born of the Chicksands family in Beds, was godfather to 
 his first child ; a pretty good proof that he was then at 
 the Admiralty. She was Mary Ward, and grand- 
 daughter of Sir Francis Vincent, of Stoke d'Abernon, 
 in Surrey ; and an old family Bible gives the dates of 
 his three daughters' births, and the names of their god- 
 fathers and godmothers, most of them belonging to the 
 Vincent familv. He rose to be Secretarv of the Admir-
 
 148 
 
 alty, a post he held during the great American War of 
 Independence, and quitting that office retired as Judge 
 Advocate of the Fleet. As such, he acted in the mem- 
 orable trial .of Sir Hugh Palliser, quite within measurable 
 distance of that on Admiral Byng, and I have the 
 proceedings taken down in his own handwriting. He 
 contested Colchester in 178 , George Tierney being 
 his opponent, and my father has often said that it cost 
 him ; 20,000, a sum almost too large, nevertheless, the 
 contest crippled him for many succeeding years. He 
 used to say that his grandfather had seen Henry Jenkins 
 (contemporary with Parr), fishing in the river Swale in 
 Yorkshire, up to his waist, for trout. This was a con- 
 siderable amount of longevity to be able to record ; 
 still, dying in December, 1822, aged ninety-eight, he was 
 the oldest householder in London at that time. I never 
 quite knew on what grounds it has been reported, that 
 my grandfather was the well-known " Junius," but, 
 whether founded or unfounded, he wrote to my own 
 knowledge a great deal in the public newspapers of the 
 last century, (the "General [or Public?] Advertiser" 
 was one, but none are at hand to quote), though, for 
 some reason of his own, adopted, it is certain, so many 
 and different signatures, (or none), that it is endless 
 trouble to endeavour to ascribe any article to him, or 
 to fix upon any of his communications ; I have tried hard 
 so to do, but have failed. " Junius " at any rate is now 
 more or less out of date. My grandfather was, also, a 
 great promoter of Inland Navigation, and having a place 
 at Roydon in Essex, on the banks of the river Stort, 
 which divides the counties of Essex and Herts, bought
 
 149 
 
 (for the original object of country air when in office at the 
 Admiralty^, the thought betook him to make that river 
 navigable from Bishop Stortford to the Lea, which runs 
 into the Thames ; a perfectly successful project and 
 undertaking, and would have remained a lasting monu- 
 ment of public spirit, had not, alas ! for him and his 
 posterity, the application of railway transit by steam, 
 transferred the whole traffic arising out of that measure, 
 into the since discovered channel of locomotion. He 
 was a great friend of, and very intimate with all the 
 " Pitt " family, not only of the celebrated statesmen, 
 Chatham and William Pitt, but of their less spoken-of 
 relatives in Dorsetshire. With one of these Pitts he 
 must have stood for some constituency besides Wey- 
 mouth, for which he was at one time Member, as I have 
 in my possession Electioneering Badges in dark blue 
 ribbon, bearing the words " Pitt and Jackson," some in 
 letters of gold, some in silver. Lord Chatham had a 
 son in the Navy, brother of the great statesman, and 
 Lady Chatham was constantly writing to my grandfather 
 at the Admiralty to get tidings of him, and his where- 
 abouts. As many of these letters as I could find, I gave 
 recently to Lord Rosebery, descended from the Pitts in 
 the female line ; but most of the Pitt correspondence 
 went with valuable autograph letters temp. James II. to 
 the British Museum probably, or elsewhere, when my 
 father was ruined in 1832. 
 
 The celebrated circumnavigator, Captain Cooke, 
 named after him Port-Jackson in New South Wales, and 
 Point-Jackson in New Zealand, to whom my grand- 
 father had been a steady friend and patron, for to the
 
 150 
 
 honour of the former, he never forgot the fact that 
 when a boy he had been in the service of my grand- 
 father's sister, Rachael, wife of Commodore Wilson of 
 Ayton, in Cleveland, Yorkshire. In his " History of the 
 British Colonies," Montgomery, without proper investi- 
 gation, and utterly regardless of accuracy, states that 
 the land so named, as observed, by Cooke, after my 
 grandfather, obtained its name from some sailor named 
 Jackson, who at the mast-head first descried the land ; 
 a piece of assurance, and most unwarrantable assertion, 
 which had better have been omitted for the authenticity 
 of his History. 
 
 These matters bring to my mind a curious incident con- 
 cerning an old watch, tending to verify family history. 
 The Stort river, which my grandfather had made navig- 
 able sometime in the middle of last century (the date is 
 immaterial), virtually passed out of the family on my 
 father's ruin in 1832. Wishing to visit some of my old 
 haunts about twenty or twenty-five years afterwards, I 
 looked up a lock-keeper named George Coleman, of 
 Roydon, whose father and grandfather had always been 
 in the same position, since the opening of that naviga- 
 tion. The poor fellow who inherited the by-gone qua- 
 lities (not then, but now extinct), of domestic fidelity, 
 said to me " There is an old watch here ; it's of no 
 value and has'nt gone since I can remember, but you 
 ought to have it," whereupon the watch was produced, 
 in appearance resembling exactly those in museums of 
 Charles I. period. " But what about its history?" said 
 I. It was this. Sometime during the last century, a 
 lock-keeper on the Stort navigation, named Savage, had
 
 his house broken into and ransacked, losing his watch. 
 My grandfather who met him when riding up the river 
 subsequently, and had heard the story of the robbery 
 and the man's loss, said to him " Here, take this 
 watch," drawing it out of his breeches pocket, as usually 
 deposited in those days, " and I give it to you on the 
 understanding that at your death, the next oldest lock- 
 keeper on the river gets it ; for it belonged to my 
 grandfather." I placed the watch, which was made by 
 Quare (the inventor of the chronometer, in the reign 
 of Charles I.,) in the hands of a watchmaker, and had 
 it put into order. This watch tended to the verification 
 of six generations. I made it over to the Berney 
 family, who now possess it. Thompson of Bond Street, 
 Vulliamy's successor, on handing it to me when repaired, 
 said " Now it will go for another century." Anyone 
 curious to know more, will be able to do so by consult- 
 ing my " History of the Wyndesore and Duket families." 
 I remember attending a Levee in 1857, the year after 
 my father died, and was presented by the late Lord de 
 Grey, who had known me from a boy. I do not know 
 what he would have thought, had his own splendid 
 Hussar regiment been disbanded, as was the case re- 
 cently with the 2nd West Riding regiment. He knew 
 quite as much of his work in that capacity, or more, than 
 many Colonels of the Regular Cavalry of that day. He 
 was an equally good architect, and drew up the plan 
 of the Junior United Service Club ; I rather think also 
 of Wrest in Beds, which he re-built. He was First 
 Lord of the Admiralty at the time our Fleet went up 
 the Baltic, under Sir Charles Napier in 1854 or 1855, I
 
 152 
 
 forget the date. I wanted to be employed in any 
 capacity, short of a shoe-black, and then sought to be 
 appointed "Interpreter" to the Fleet. By his means I 
 remember calling on Sir Charles Napier in Albemarle 
 Street. I do not think the Admiral quite liked " the cut 
 of my jib," for he did without one. Perhaps he thought 
 his guns would be the best interpreter, and as for the 
 " jib," the " cut " of mine was not that of a sailor exactly, 
 or for that matter like his own. There are many still 
 living who remember that bluff sailor. I am not quite 
 up to date in ship-building, but I rather fancy those 
 were still the days of our " wooden walls," now, alas ! 
 gone for ever, when there was no long-firing, but 
 grappling-irons and boarding did the job, for close 
 quarters best suited English sailors as well as soldiers. 
 Writing towards the end of 1894, in the days of iron- 
 clads, the Naval mantle of modern victory seems to 
 have fallen on the Japanese. To whom will they be- 
 queath it ? England will have to keep a sharp look 
 out, and her sailors too. Lord Gough used to say to 
 his men " Give them the cold stale, boys," according to 
 Irish accentuation. Might one advise for Naval war- 
 fare, prompt and good use of the " Ram," without much 
 more ado ? 
 
 This bellicose notice of Sir C. Napier, &c., ought to 
 have found its place earlier, but one thing brings in 
 another, and thus it originated by the mention of Lord 
 de Grey, as head of the Admiralty. 
 
 " Difficile est proprie communia dicere," says somewhere, I 
 think, Cicero, though I may be wrong in fathering the 
 words on him, still in admitting the difficulty, in which
 
 153 
 
 I agree as to the detail of common-place events, I 
 feel an equal, if not greater difficulty in marshalling my 
 reminiscences of common occurrences, so that like a 
 shield of arms, they should chime-in chronologically. 
 This would be more than I can undertake, therefore in 
 detailing what occurs to me, the " cart will be often 
 before the horse," or in its usual place, and the order 
 of date cannot be adhered to, save only that whatever 
 may have occurred worthy of note, took place at the 
 date given, whether I "hark back " as whippers-in say, 
 to the same date again. 
 
 It must have been between 1860-70, when renting 
 Fangfoss Hall in Yorkshire, that I was either dining 
 out or stopping at some house, within no great dis- 
 tance of the former in point of time, when a gentleman 
 (I need make no secret of his name, it was Sir W. 
 Worsley), said to me, quite good naturedly and unoffen- 
 sively " I hear you exercise your own horses." To a 
 certain extent I admitted it ; but here again, was, as 
 usual, something out of place. I did not exercise them, 
 I superintended the business very often, for I generally 
 tried to master everything I took in hand, and knew 
 well that however good a horse might be, his powers 
 were threefold greater when judiciously seasoned, and 
 got into training. No stud groom or other is to be 
 quite trusted in this sort of thing ; besides my love for 
 the animal was (and is) second to that of none ; I never 
 ill-treated a horse, made him part and parcel of myself, 
 and got as much out of him, or more, by first-rate 
 training, condition, and sundry little attentions, than 
 whip or spur could have effected. I have taken fences
 
 154 
 
 over which no one followed me, and ridden distances 
 on one horse which can vie with any, save perhaps the 
 rides of old Sir Tatton Sykes from Scotland, in order to 
 attend a York ball ; or the feat of " Dick Turpin " to 
 the same place ; or of Colonel George Greenwood, who 
 used to ride his horse straight away from London to his 
 family place in Hants ; the same animal, I think, on 
 which he swam across the Serpentine. I am not 
 ashamed, therefore, of my studgroom or trainer's voca- 
 tion, when it came in its turn, but rejoice in the fact, 
 that the splendid powers of the horse are capable of 
 being brought to greater perfection under one's own eye, 
 than under that of another. '' How are the stud," used 
 often the late Admiral Buncombe to say to me, whilst 
 his neighbour in Yorkshire. A man is " safe " with 
 gentlemen, but not with the other sort, who get up 
 every kind of story in order to magnify themselves ; 
 a class indigenous to our country of " double barrelled 
 peers," and parvenus. I say all this pretty plainly, for 
 it is well to be prepared for envious "friends" of all 
 persuasions, whether in " military," " ecclesiastical," or 
 sheep's clothing. 
 
 This state of things brought me in close contact with 
 a part of human knowledge, which I mastered, as well 
 as other matters, though I never rode a steeplechase, or 
 had ever much to say to the wholesale slaughter of a 
 battue ; neither have I been on any racecourse since 
 my Oxford life ; but whether the dog or the horse, I 
 made both my friends and study, and know as much 
 about both as most men. I have always been my own 
 veterinary surgeon, save in anatomical requirements,
 
 155 
 
 making my own balls ; I never allowed a blacksmith to 
 shoe, save under my own eye, forging shoes to my own 
 pattern ; and in all such things, besides training, in 
 which I was as good as a stud-groom, I was eye-wit- 
 ness to my horses being exercised before break of day 
 for three hours " Our fathers by the chase did live, 
 toil strung their nerves, and purified their blood," says 
 I think Dryden ; so early rising and active occupations, 
 mental as well as bodily, have had the best result. 
 Some of my rural experiences accordingly, I may relate. 
 In a part of Ireland in which I was living in 1858, 
 viz., in the county of Down, the agent of the estate had 
 a pack of harriers. I had often heard of a " trencher 
 fed" pack of dogs, and here was an instance, which I 
 mention, because it was positively amusing, and to a 
 man who knows the proper way, rather ridiculous. Mr. 
 Miller, a grand old fellow, was the master. Leaving 
 his place at Portoferry, he sallied forth, perhaps with 
 two or three others, and began to collect the dogs. 
 This was a one by one ceremony, and on his horn 
 sounding, out came a hound from the first farmstead on 
 the road ; another blow of the same brought out 
 another dog, and thus proceeding, by the time he had 
 reached my abode, close to the sea shore, he had got 
 together his whole pack. There was no hitch ; all the 
 dogs seemed to understand the circumstances, and the 
 pack were in as good order as if trotting away from a 
 kennel. I used to enjoy the wild style of all this very 
 much ; sometimes a sort of run, but with few " kills ; " 
 though the finale to the day, seemed heartless enough ; 
 the dogs knew instinctively when the master's horse
 
 156 
 
 pointed homewards, and they were no longer wanted ; 
 they all disbanded, each betaking himself to his own 
 lair, in the most unceremonious manner. But the 
 instinct of dogs and horses is wonderful, and I may 
 mention the following. I was living in 1870 in Dorset- 
 shire, and happened to be one day in Dorchester. I 
 was at a stationer's shop, which also was the Post Office, 
 or connected with it, and at that time, was pretty full. I 
 must have been waiting my turn, and that for no short 
 time, for my attention had been all along attracted by 
 a small dog of a cur breed. The little fellow did not 
 go on in the canine way altogether, and thus attracted 
 my notice ; he seemed to belong to nobody, and 
 to maintain a sort of expectant attitude. The dog 
 must have been deporting himself thus for ten minutes, 
 for shopkeepers are methodical and don't hurry them- 
 selves, when suddenly I saw someone fling a newspaper 
 on the floor close to him, done up and posted in the 
 usual known way. At once the dog took up the paper 
 in his mouth and left the shop. " What dog was that" 
 said I, to someone, " Oh, he comes every day at this 
 time for his master's paper," was the reply. The owner 
 lived at a distant part of the town, and it must have 
 taken the dog five or six minutes to get back. How 
 about the cruelty of vivisection after this ? 
 
 I bought a horse once at Tattersall's about 1862, then 
 at Hyde Park Corner, with a blemish on the knee, which 
 I knew would make him " go cheap," though a splendid 
 horse in figure. The knee made me endeavour to get 
 at his true history, and I succeeded most satisfactorily. 
 Why the owner, Mr. Henry Coventry, a first-rate rider,
 
 157 
 
 I have heard, got rid of him, I don't know, neither did 
 his father, my old friend Deerhurst's half-brother, exactly 
 know, but I soon discovered this horse to be possessed 
 of a very, not wilful or bad, but a peculiar temper. 
 One of the finest jumpers imaginable, no fence being 
 too big for him, he would not jump over anything away 
 from the dogs, and this I discovered the first day I rode 
 him ; I wanted to make a short cut homewards and leave 
 the road, but he resisted all attempts to make him take 
 the fence skirting it. One day I had better proof of him. 
 I was late for the meet, as I generally was, for my hunt- 
 ing was quite in a moderate way of business, riding my 
 hunter to cover, and taking my own time. I arrived at 
 the place of fixture, a small village, fully half-an-hour 
 after the hounds had put into cover, about half-a-mile 
 off. "Where are the hounds" I said to a man on 
 getting to the meet. " I think," said he, " if you go to 
 the further end of the village, you will see something 
 of them, for I think they have found, and are coining 
 that way." To the end of the village I went, and after 
 a minute or two, one after another came the dogs in 
 full cry, but not a soul was with them. " Open the 
 gate my boy," I said to a young fellow, as soon as the 
 dogs were well over the road ; and through I went ; 
 no one was with them, and my friend was in his glory, 
 for he would go anywhere at the tail of the dogs. I had 
 a wonderfully good gallop after them, but they had got 
 up to a wood (Kexby Wood), before the " field " were in 
 sight at all. That fine rider, Ben Morgan, the huntsman 
 of Lord Middleton's hounds, said to me, on my telling 
 him that I had had it all to myself, " Oh, you got such
 
 158 
 
 a start of us.' r I had often proofs of this characteristic 
 in that animal, and I am certain that if people would 
 only be kind to animals, and study their character, they 
 would get much more out of them. This was another 
 proof of sense, I may almost say of mind, far in advance 
 of instinct. 
 
 I possessed another singularly odd tempered horse, 
 much about the same time, and also a hunter. This 
 horse was Irish, as by the way, was the one just spoken 
 of, and he had been ridden in Leicestershire, and why 
 he was sold, was equally a mystery to me, unless it were 
 for the habit I am about to mention. I bought him at 
 Birmingham for very little, and being near the summer 
 I did not at once find him out. I asked a friend of mine 
 in Leicestershire to find out something about him 
 " You will have to take care of your Dairy " was about 
 as much as I could get out of my friend. I am not at 
 all an advocate for " turning " horses "out," but I did 
 so for some reason which I forget with this horse. One 
 morning the man who looked after cows and calves, said 
 the whole lot were scattered over the adjoining fields. 
 The horse was the culprit ; he had made a regular clear- 
 ance, and would allow no other animal in his presence ; 
 he had simply driven everything out of the field. It 
 was clear that he would share the pasture with no 
 other ; there should not be two Kings in Brentford. 
 Luckily cows and heifers can jump any moderate fence, 
 so that as the fences looked as usual, the wonder would 
 otherwise have been, how they got out. But when the 
 hunting season began, I discovered that this horse, who 
 was equal to any othor in the fencing line, would not
 
 159 
 
 allow another horse to come near him ; he lashed out 
 at every one. That was a most serious job, and I 
 found it impossible to get into a crowd, such as occurs 
 when a dozen or twenty people are waiting to get 
 through a gate ; I had always to jump the fence and 
 get out of the way, rather than to face such a thing. 
 Once, however, a man came galloping past me in cover, 
 but although the road was pretty wide, he kicked out 
 and caught the rider, knocking off his spur. He was 
 plainly sold for this trick, for as a hunter he was other- 
 wise perfect. The extraordinary thing in this horse 
 was that a man might do what he pleased with him ; 
 he could not tolerate one of his own species. He 
 was once in a paddock, skirted by a good wide brook, 
 and fence on the take-offside, and in the adjacent field 
 were some three or four cart horses. His natural 
 dislike to other animals was here shown ; he jumped 
 the fence and brook, how I can't conceive I would 
 not have ridden at such an obstacle and commenced 
 at once his operations. There was a regular fight 
 amongst them and my horse got the most fearful cut 
 on the thigh, laying it all open. The veterinary 
 surgeon sewed the parts together, but it became a per- 
 manent blemish. Here was another curious instance 
 of character, though I rather suspect that Foreign 
 horses also display many traits seldom found on British 
 soil. When I was a boy at Saxe-Gotha I took riding 
 lessons, and an animal which I rode in the school (or 
 Reitbahn), upon one occasion, on leaving the same, 
 took it into his head to sulk ; he betook himself to the 
 side of a wall or building, and systematically kept
 
 i6o 
 
 jamming my leg against it, and nothing would make him 
 desist. This was a trait so like that of a human being 
 that I have never forgotten it ; indeed these things have 
 always made me a great anti-vivisectionist. 
 
 We had once a dog (a German Spitz), who would do 
 everything but speak. " Take this to your master," he 
 would then bring a book, parcel, or what not from one 
 side of the room to the other. When coming into the 
 carriage on the wrong side, or that that closed up, and 
 told "go round to the other side," at once understood. 
 
 I took into my head at one time to " break " a dog to 
 the gun, and acquired the art by reading and partly 
 through a gamekeeper. My mode was to hunt the 
 dog with a long line to its neck ; a boy at my elbow or 
 within reach, was trained on my holding up my hand, 
 when the dog stood (or pointed), to creep down along 
 the ground upon " all fours," seize the end of the long 
 line, and become motionless. Should the dog on the 
 bird or birds rising, attempt to move or "run in," he 
 was to give a sharp jerk. In this way I had a young 
 setter, and like all highly bred dogs, she became easy 
 to break. The first bird she ever found was a grouse, 
 at which she stood ; it got up and I killed it. This was 
 more than half the battle, and can be quite understood. 
 She became, I may say, too steady ; a move of the hand 
 would scarcely suffice to make her commence " ranging " 
 again, after the game had risen. Shooting in that way 
 with pointers is now gone out more's the pity, for bags 
 and slaughter are now only cared for ; and breechloaders 
 were then unknown. The by-gone mode with dogs 
 taught to range close, and quarter their ground on
 
 i6r 
 
 stubble, and in small enclosures, is a very different 
 thing from the wide and free ranging of dogs on the 
 moors. The dog I have spoken of was very fast, and a 
 wide ranger ; it really took some trouble to keep her in 
 sight. Once she stood to a single bird (as it turned out) 
 in some distant broken boggy ground ; I suppose that 
 I was fully four or five minutes, what with jumping this 
 and jumping that, before I could get up to her, or the 
 dog "backing" her. There she stood, motionless ; but 
 the grouse were getting wild, and the bird got up out 
 of shot. I am as sad as sad can be when I think of the 
 fate of some of those dear poor animals, far superior in 
 many of their attributes to the man who ill uses them. 
 
 Now that I am on the subject of horses and dogs, I 
 cannot omit mention of one I bought at Tattersall's, 
 on the same day with the other I have spoken of, 
 and for an equally low figure, for it so happened that 
 some great man was selling off his stud, consisting of 
 many splendid animals, which fetched high prices. I 
 bought both at the end of the day when bidders were 
 reduced. The horse in question was, if anything, quite 
 as good looking, if not better, than the other. I don't 
 of course care for names by which horses may be 
 entered, but this horse I speak of was named " Ginger," 
 and the other " Poole " after the tailor. As I was 
 leaving the yard, and making for Hyde Park Corner, a 
 man came up to me, and touching his hat said, "I beg 
 pardon, Sir, but I know the horse you have bought well, 
 and he is about as good a horse across country as ever 
 went " the horse was advertised to be well known with 
 Meynell Ingrain's hunt " I have had care of him, and
 
 162 
 
 know him well ; " <( Oh, do you " said I, " like an owl," 
 and forthwith put half-a-crown into his ready paw, and 
 proceeded on my way, if possible, more than rejoicing. 
 This was an entirely new dodge to me, and I did not 
 discover it until later, as will be seen, and one which 
 the last thirty years had then brought forth, showing 
 that the rascals of that time were sharper in their 
 generation, than those of my earlier days, for the effron- 
 tery of this lying blackguard was beyond recognition 
 or detection. I was living in Yorkshire and took down 
 the two horses a few days afterwards. My servant 
 smiled when he saw the horses enter the yard, as 
 much as to say, "You have two good ones now." 
 According to my habit, the day following, I took the 
 horse with the wonderful reputation along the road lead- 
 ing to the nearest town, in order to become acquainted 
 with him. There was a windmill about two miles on 
 the road, out of which my friend at once made capital ; 
 turned sharp round, and in the plainest way declined to 
 become at all acquainted with the market town. I saw 
 of course at once what he was, and equally declined to 
 have any row with him. I sent him accordingly into 
 York a day or two after, to be sold for what he would 
 fetch, but was of course silent as the grave about him. 
 The groom who took him came back telling me with a 
 grin, " We have sold Ginger." Well done thought I, 
 and more satisfied still when I heard that he had fetched 
 more than I gave for him. But the purchaser had been 
 deceived in him like myself. I could scarcely help 
 laughing, though it was a case for pity, when he wrote 
 to me for any information I could give him about the
 
 i6 3 
 
 horse, " for " said he, " I was two hours on him one day 
 in a field and I could not get him to move a step." 
 
 I shall not have to recur much more to my horse 
 experiences, and may as well close with the following, 
 one being another "take-in." About two or three 
 years later, I bought again at Tattersall's a very good 
 looking animal indeed, described as the property of 
 Lord Maiden, a good hunter, and u quiet to ride," but 
 the price was more than double that of the other 
 named purchases. I took the horse down the same 
 night, and arrived in York about 2 a.m. Regardless of 
 appearance, and indifferent to remarks, I rode the 
 horse myself just as he was, and took the road home- 
 wards. All went on right enough until the ninth mile 
 stone, at which a bye road of three miles led to where 
 I lived. I had not proceeded a quarter of a mile along 
 the road, before the horse set to kicking, and in such 
 a persistent way that I thought it advisable to dismount 
 and lead him home. I returned him the same morning 
 to Tattersall's, and refused to take him, not answering 
 to his description. This was the trick for which he had 
 been sold evidently. The parties made some objection, 
 but gave way. The two foregoing are cases of bad 
 temper, which I think is brought out nine times out of 
 ten by some injudicious treatment, or rather ill-treat- 
 ment on the part of a groom or stable man. 
 
 In conclusion, I may make especial mention of a 
 remarkable horse which I bought in Dublin, first on 
 account of the price, and secondly for excellence. The 
 horse in question was sold to me for 6, which was so 
 ridiculously under the value of any horse, about in fact
 
 164 
 
 the value of a dog, that I concluded the seller had come 
 by him improperly, so much so that I went to the 
 Police, as the safest way of ascertaining the truth, for 
 he was sold to me as a hunter. It turned out that the 
 horse had been " cast," and sold out of the Horse 
 Artillery ; the troops from the Crimea having about 
 that time returned from service. That this horse was 
 Turkish I have no doubt at all, having all the action 
 and make of a good Turkish horse ; be this as it may I 
 never had one more valuable, and it would be endless 
 to recount his further history for twenty-two years. 
 This horse had been cast as incurable for some hock 
 disease (occult-spavin, probably), and had a hole or 
 cavity besides at the hip, large enough for a cricket 
 ball ; some shot had carried away a great part of it, or 
 if not a shot, it must have been a lance wound origin- 
 ally, which had sloughed away, leaving a large cavity. 
 He was much hardier than a horse of English or Irish 
 breed, and of that peculiar high stepping action in which 
 most English horses are deficient ; for this reason he 
 was not a fast trotter, and a very slow galloper. 
 
 The occurrences of ordinary life are necessarily un- 
 eventful, still one or two matters appear to me worthy of 
 note. Soon after my marriage I was living on the out- 
 skirts of Dolgelly in Wales, and the accidental manner 
 in which I prevented or rather frustrated the attempt of 
 burglars to break into my house, may be mentioned. It 
 was about 1-30 or 2 p.m., that being still in my sitting- 
 room, I had occasion to search for something in a 
 remote part of the house, and whilst so occupied, I 
 distinctly heard someone try to open a door bordering
 
 the road. The house was entirely shut off from it by 
 a high wall, in which was the said door, so that the light 
 I had, could not have been observed. There was no 
 doubt about it in my mind, so I at once extinguished 
 the light and went for a gun, for I used to shoot a good 
 deal on some snipe ground of Sir Robert Vaughan's, near 
 at hand. I forthwith placed myself in position, exactly 
 in the same room, which happened to be over the 
 back entrance to the house. I must have been waiting 
 for at least twenty minutes, when I heard an attempt to 
 try the kitchen door. I threw up the window, and 
 fired as well as I could in that direction, but being 
 right above the door, I was prevented from all aim. I 
 at once saw a large dog run off in the exact and only 
 direction by which entrance was possible ; a man by 
 keeping close into the house could also have escaped 
 the shot. There were opposite to the house, some out- 
 buildings, in which it would have been easy for burglars 
 to have secreted themselves. I remained with my gun 
 cocked for a good half-hour, and not a sound was to be 
 heard, though I was convinced that someone was on 
 the premises, and I thought might be concealed in one 
 of the outhouses, so I fired into one, the door of which 
 was half open, and immediately afterwards a " shout of 
 defiance" was raised in the road, by at least three or 
 four men. I had thwarted them, and they then gave 
 distinct evidence of their intention themselves, for had 
 they gone away silently, it would have only remained 
 a matter of suspicion, but this shout was clear proof 
 that I had accidentally baffled the burglars. 
 
 I only resided at Dolgelly during that winter, 1848-9,
 
 1 66 
 
 and it must have been probably about November that I 
 drove over to a moor, which I rented, about thirty 
 miles off. The days were then closing in, and very short, 
 and I did not leave to return home until far too late. I 
 had not troubled myself about moonlight and so forth, 
 so that before I got ten miles I was regularly benighted ; 
 it became in common parlance, pitch dark ; I had no 
 lamps, and the road being at one time only distinguish- 
 able or evident as a rather narrow streak, became shortly 
 after no longer visible, when that was obliterated. 
 There was nothing to guide me but the sound of the 
 horses' hoofs, or rather of the two ponies, and the road 
 I knew very indifferently, but I was aware that it over- 
 hung a deep ravine on one side, for some miles. I 
 suppose I must have proceeded in this way, pitch dark 
 as it was, for upwards of a mile, when I came upon the 
 lights of a wayside inn, and I never remember any 
 greater relief. How these two ponies kept the road, 
 and went bravely on, has always made me think that 
 the power of vision, even in the dark, excels in some 
 more than other animals. Night had not alone contri- 
 buted ; the road for some miles was darkened, even by 
 day, with overhanging trees and rocks. 
 
 I have related my first accident in life. Although not 
 all the following are by any means in succession, I may 
 as well couple them in that way, for all (save two), 
 refer to runaway horses of the veritable sort. You will 
 often hear both men and women talking about horses 
 running away. Some horses have hard mouths, and you 
 may pull at them, so to say, for ever. Of this kind I 
 have had two or three such to deal with, but it is quite
 
 i6 7 
 
 a different matter in respect of the horse who bolts 
 outright ; the rider (or driver) at once recognises his 
 perfect incapacity to do anything, for the animal has it 
 entirely his own way ; no power can stop him, and the 
 consequences, nine times out of ten, must end fatally. 
 The following are of my own experience. About 1830 
 or 31, my father had bought a grey mare for his groom's 
 own riding. I was mounted on this animal about that 
 time, and took her down to the river side merely for a 
 ride whilst at Roydon, my father's house in Essex. The 
 river was the Stort Navigation. No sooner had I passed 
 a bridge and lock, than being in a large meadow, 
 bounded on all sides with water, the mare at once 
 bolted, and ran straight for a branch of the river, but 
 coming up to it, turned and went direct back for the 
 lock. A lock keeper witnessed all this, and in some 
 way, how I am sure I know not, got at her head just as 
 she was coming up to the lock, at the risk of his own 
 life of course. This, my third experience of a run- 
 away horse, was followed by a fourth, occurring in a 
 barrack yard in Dublin, which has been omitted in its 
 proper place, for it was soon after I had joined the I5th 
 Hussars at Portobello. I had been "schooling" one 
 of my chargers on my own account, independent of the 
 "rough rider's " tuition, and had had a battle with him, 
 which put up his temper, and lasted some time. In due 
 course I left the riding house, but had no sooner done 
 so, than I discovered that the curb-chain was broken, and 
 the horse became equally aware of it at the same time ; 
 I had virtually no further real power over him. When 
 he thus found himself free, off he went, and I was not
 
 1 68 
 
 long in recognising the probable future. The animal was 
 not verv steady on his legs and I foresaw that in 
 turning the corner of a line of stables, which he would 
 have to do, he was morally certain to come down, so 
 I at once vaulted off, reaching the ground safely 
 enough, but badly cutting one of my knees. When I 
 consider the high-peaked saddle, with its high bent 
 pommel and cantle of the light cavalry : that I had on 
 my sword, sabre-tache, and spurs, how I got so clear 
 of the horse, and escaped as I did, is to me a miracle. 
 The temper of horses is very contradictory, and this, 
 and another to be mentioned, happened with apparently 
 docile animals. I consider this my fourth escape, but 
 another, and the worst instance, perhaps, of all, occurred 
 whilst driving in Scotland. It was in 1855 that I 
 was residing at Ballyshear House in Argyleshire. The 
 owner of it, a brother of Lord Ducie, had sent me a 
 small horse on trial, to use in a sort of basket carriage ; 
 I did not like it, and thought it a slug. I was one day 
 in this vehicle with my wife, and a Pomeranian dog. 
 The hills thereabouts are high, and on going down one 
 of them, something, perhaps the end of the futchells 
 or shafts, for I never could make out the cause, touched 
 the horse behind ; off it went down a steep hill, and 
 reaching a straight road, the brute went on up the 
 opposite hill and down on the other side, and without 
 any abatement in speed, took us up to the top of the 
 third hill. By this time the wind was nearly, if not 
 quite pumped out of the horse, and I managed by hard 
 pulling, to bring his head into a wall off the road side. 
 It must have run away at least two miles or more, but
 
 169 
 
 the road was good though narrow, and providentially 
 nothing was on it ; no cart, waggon or other obstacle ; 
 had we met any such, the writer of this would never 
 have taken pen in hand again, My wife and I both 
 jumped out, for the brute was fairly done up and blown ; 
 we walked home the whole way, being seven miles 
 from the house ; the straightness of the road and height 
 of the hills were alone responsible for our escape. The 
 foregoing were four instances of the real runaway kind ; 
 no human power could have stopped the horses in any 
 of those cases, but I can relate some equally termed by 
 many runaway, less dangerous and rather similar. 
 
 I had a very noted horse in Yorkshire, which had 
 belonged to one of the men (and a first-rate rider), who 
 were drowned in 1867-8, during a run with the York and 
 Ainstey Hounds, on which occasion, Sir C. Slingsby the 
 Master, the Huntsman, Robinson (the owner in ques- 
 tion), and Lloyd of , near York, were drowned ; 
 
 it was a fearful accident, and may be briefly noted. 
 The Swale had overflowed its banks, and the country 
 was under water ; the hounds had crossed the river 
 somewhere near Newby Hall, and as usual the best 
 riders were first up in order to place their horses and 
 themselves in the flat-bottomed ferry boat, which plys 
 across the river at that spot. The boat took in far too 
 many horses, and one of them, Sir C. Slingsby's cele- 
 brated horse, " Saltfish," set to kicking ; the horses I 
 rather think had been more or less coupled together, 
 and when this kicking commenced the whole got in 
 some way or another on one side of the ferry boat, 
 which turned over, and they were all immerged in the
 
 170 
 
 water. Robinson never dismounted his horse at all, 
 rose to the top, and never came up again. Slingsby 
 was a good swimmer, and for some time kept afloat, 
 but his top boots and dress prevented his landing ; his 
 horse followed the red coat and was the only one of all 
 the eleven horses that escaped. The names of those 
 who were not drowned I do not remember to have 
 heard, but Sir George Wombwell of Crimean activity 
 at Balaclava, managed with another or two, to get on 
 the bottom of the overturned ferry boat. The above 
 named horse, after this sad event, came into the posses- 
 sion of my old friend, Robert Bower of Welham, but 
 was scarcely up to his weight, so his father drove him 
 as a leader in his drag. I had long known this unde- 
 niable good horse, on which Robinson used to lead the 
 field ; and I once sat behind him from Welham to 
 Scarborough, when he seemed to pull the whole drag 
 by himself. This brings to my remembrance one of the 
 greatest pieces of activity I ever witnessed in my life. I 
 was sitting on the box next to Mr. Bower on the above 
 occasion ; we had not reached the Lodge, the iron 
 gates of which were shut, and the horses appeared to be 
 rather too much for him ; I thought nothing would 
 prevent the whole concern dashing into the gates, but 
 the two servants behind well estimating the danger, 
 had jumped off the drag, and reached them just in 
 the nick of time to throw them open. Nothing could 
 have been better done. The horse, after Mr. Bowers 
 death, was nominally given to me by his son, and not 
 being very heavy, I hunted him a few times, but he 
 was too old to do as much as he had done ; he was still
 
 as active as a cat, and as safe as possible on his legs ; 
 no fence stopped him, but he had a wonderful trick of 
 temporarily bolting with every new man who got on 
 him for the first time ; a practice not very easy to 
 understand, for he had no sort of vice about him. 
 He had done this with Robinson, who as observed, 
 always led the field on him ; he had done so with 
 Robert Bower, and he now did so with me, and I think 
 the horse took at least half a dozen fences with me in 
 this way, before I could say that I had any power over 
 him ; he then seemed to settle down. I mounted a 
 lady on him some time afterward in 1874, a second 
 cousin of mine, Julia Berney ; I never dreamed of his 
 repeating this trick when not with hounds ; I thought 
 age had sobered him down, but the Old Berkshire 
 Hounds happened to be out without my knowing it, and 
 to my horror he set off with her, whilst we were canter- 
 ing on some soft ground. I saw that if I tried to stop 
 him by keeping up with him, for I was mounted on a 
 faster horse, there would be a fearful accident, so I 
 pulled up, and the lady, who had plenty of nerve, 
 managed to turn his head after a long gallop towards 
 his stable friend, on whom I was seated ; he came 
 back straight to him, and I seized the reins when he 
 came up. The old fellow had had his gallop, and as all 
 was well, it so ended. 
 
 In 1871 I was residing for a short time in Dorsetshire. 
 The configuration of much of it is well known ; high 
 hilly uncultivated tracts, like the Sussex and Wiltshire 
 Downs, with intervening inhabited valleys. I was riding 
 on one occasion by a footpath or bridle road over the
 
 172 
 
 hills from Sydling to Maiden Newton. Some one (a 
 shepherd boy probably), had hung his coat or jacket on 
 the post of a gate ; I was bending forward to open the 
 gate, when the horse took fright at the suspended jacket, 
 and bolted right down the hill. He happened to be 
 a wonderfully sure-footed animal down hill, so though 
 I soon lost my hat, I had lost neither my head or my 
 seat. Half way down was a strong fence, right in 
 front of the horse, which I knew would stop him 
 sufficiently to enable me to get clear oF him. It turned 
 out as I anticipated ; the horse swerved at the fence and 
 off I jumped ; he had had a good long gallop, and was 
 practically stopped by the fence. This was another 
 instance of the runaway sort, following short of the real 
 kind, but equally powerless in ability to stop the animal. 
 It might be almost said that the horse in this case could 
 not stop himself, putting vice out of the question, for 
 the impetus down a fearfully steep hill would cause the 
 like in a human being. 
 
 I was driving on one occasion about 1887, in an open 
 carnage or phaeton with splash board in front ; the 
 horse had a habit of throwing up its head, and if not 
 very careful, whisked the reins out of one's hand. I 
 was engaged in doing something, I forget what, and had 
 the reins loose, when it jerked them out of my hand, and 
 finding itself without restraint, set off galloping down a 
 hill, and up another. The reins were long, and were 
 thus dragging on the road behind the horse ; I bent 
 myself over the splash board, and how I managed to 
 hoist them up, whilst the animal was at full speed, is a 
 mystery, but I did so, and as no cart or obstacle was on
 
 173 
 
 the road, no harm occurred. This incident belongs to 
 the category of the second runaway kind, for as soon as 
 I recovered the reins, I had perfect control over the 
 horse. Curious enough, I never drove this horse again, 
 or used more the said carriage, from a circumstance of 
 no great moment. 
 
 I have had so many miraculous escapes in life that it 
 is really difficult to pronounce upon the greatest, but 
 perhaps those which I survived in later years were as 
 remarkable as any, namely that which I experienced from 
 a cart in Tottenham Court Road, and the following. I 
 was working a punt to an island on the river Thame, 
 close to which I lived until 1893, and was landing on 
 it, in order to bring the punt close up to the bank, 
 when my foot slipped, and I went down backwards, head 
 foremost into a pool twenty or thirty feet deep. I was 
 down so long, that one who was in the boat declared 
 that the water had become quite smooth before I rose 
 to the top. This I luckily did, clear of the punt, for 
 had I come up under it, I must have been drowned ; 
 as it was, I made a few strokes to the boat, and held 
 on until a labourer aided my reaching and ascending the 
 undermined river bank. 
 
 In 1892 I was returning to the West End of London 
 from the British Museum, and was in the act of crossing 
 a narrow street out of Tottenham Court Road, seldom 
 used for traffic, when a cart horse touched my shoulder ; 
 in a moment more I should have been knocked down 
 and under the cart, had not a man pulled me forcibly 
 back, as quick as lightning ; he gave me a most reprov- 
 ing look, not knowing that I had lost the sight of the
 
 174 
 
 left eye, on the side from whence the danger came. I 
 have since deeply regretted that I never took down his 
 name and address, for he most assuredly saved my life 
 on that occasion. 
 
 To these last minor, but still very narrow escapes, I 
 must mention the following relating to an old house. I 
 was occupying in 1878 a house that dated from about the 
 time of James ist, or earlier, in which according to the 
 custom of our ancestors why it is difficult to conceive 
 a beam ran about four or five feet above the fireplace 
 across the room. Being fond of heat, I had established 
 a stove with a pipe running into the chimney, and two 
 days after using it on one occasion, I found an unusual 
 heat in the wall, so that there could be no doubt as to 
 fire somewhere. A mason was sent for, and on remov- 
 ing a part of the wall above the fireplace, close to the 
 said beam, the latter was found to be in a beautiful 
 glow extending to a couple of yards on each side, and 
 but for this timely discovery, the whole house would 
 have been shortly on fire. The mention of this, in one 
 way of no great importance, may tend to warn others of 
 the danger of this old mode of construction. It might 
 be curious to ascertain upon what grounds the builders 
 of ancient days placed beams in such perilous sites. 
 
 Escapes, whenever there is peril of life, or rather 
 when in contact with imminent danger, are in their way 
 equal to any which the sailor or soldier has to face. 
 Man can die but once, and the dangers of the battle 
 field may never be realized. To have survived, there- 
 fore, a multitude of miraculous escapes, is as worthy of 
 note as of thanksgiving on the part of the survivor, even
 
 175 
 
 though the same had no connection with it ; there is no 
 disparity in either result. 
 
 I am not certain as to the exact date, but think that 
 it was in 1873 tnat I was invited to dine with the 
 Mercers' Company. I presume that it was my repu- 
 tation as a linguist, which induced the Master and 
 Wardens to place me right in amongst the individuals 
 who composed the Japanese Embassy, which had been 
 sent to this country on some special mission ; these 
 were the Envoy and his suite, numbering some eight or 
 ten, invited to dine on that occasion. To suppose that 
 a man who was master of three or four European lan- 
 guages, had an equal acquaintance with Japanese, was 
 a decided stretch of imagination, although of course 
 highly complimentary. I sat next to the Secretary, and 
 he again sat next to the Ambassador or Envoy, and that 
 gentleman was the only one of the Embassy who spoke 
 aught but Japanese. He spoke perfectly good English, 
 and equally good French, and was an exceedingly 
 agreeable neighbour, and quite a man of the world. 
 My presence amongst them was quite unnecessary, but 
 that could not have been forseen. The only matter that 
 called for my assistance, related to the "punch," which 
 at civic dinners is usually handed round early in the 
 day. This beverage took the special fancy of the En- 
 voy, as it did of the rest, so amidst general " smacking 
 of lips," I was asked as to its secret components, and it 
 was not without some hilarity that I obtained, I hope 
 not without similar success, a promise to supply the 
 receipt ; if among its attributes of " curing the gout, 
 the colic, and the phthisic," it was afterwards found so
 
 I 7 6 
 
 to do the like in Japan, though in myself I am conscious 
 of its producing the two first of these complaints, some- 
 thing will have been gained by those foreigners beyond 
 political advantages. The Mission was to leave in a 
 day or two for Paris, as I learned from the Secretary, 
 and the Japanese Envoy, I remember, read his after- 
 dinner speech in his own language, from a paper he 
 held in his hand. Though of an uninistakeable simi- 
 larity of look, the Japanese (judging from those in 
 question), have a " better bred " mien, with a fuller, far 
 less " puckered up " eye, in fact quite wanting the 
 well-known luminary of the Chinese. I have always 
 had an inward satisfaction and pride in attending a civic 
 banquet at the Mercers' Company, knowing that my 
 ancestor's coat of arms figured over my head in their 
 splendid hall. I remember dining there once, when 
 nine or ten English Bishops were present. 
 
 About 1865-6 I received an invitation to stop at 
 Scrivelsby in Lincolnshire, with the Dymokes. This 
 place passed lately to a very distant branch, occupying, I 
 believe, a somewhat lower position in the scale, but still 
 in descent from the original Queen's Champions. I 
 mention this, because on the centre of the dinner table 
 the custom at Scrivelsby was to display the different 
 u gold cups," out of which the Coronation Champion of 
 different reigns had been wont to drink to the King's 
 health, and defy his enemies. I think there must have 
 been eight or nine of them, one dating from Richard II. 
 
 Although no man can lay the unction to his soul, that 
 he has in his life time never done a foolish act, there 
 are some to whom the reverse will come home more
 
 177 
 
 than to others. I believe my failings in that respect 
 have been pretty evenly divided, though to name the 
 wisest or most foolish act I have committed, would 
 require consideration ; still in 1858-9 (I forget the year) 
 one I perpetrated assuredly belongs to the latter 
 category. I never was a good hand at public or post 
 prandial " speaking," neither did I ever care a straw for 
 politics, for when in power I have uniformly seen the 
 party so circumstanced, play the very same game of the 
 adverse side, so that in the end the policy of both is 
 uniformly conducted on similar lines. With no turn 
 therefore for political life, why I should have been so 
 unwise as to think of putting myself in nomination for 
 any seat in Parliament, is not very explainable, for in 
 addition to defective oratory, (save in addressing 
 soldiers, where I was quite at home) I am not at all 
 disposed to take with stoic indifference the common- 
 place vulgarities, or even adverse remarks people at 
 elections seem to take the liberty of making, and bandied 
 about indiscriminately to damage the candidate. In 
 that way I came in for my share of low and would-be 
 witticism, but caring personally very little for the matter, 
 I retired in time. 
 
 Lest, moreover, I should be accused by some kind 
 friend of having omitted in my narrative any matter of 
 which it might have been better to have said nothing, 
 it was at some later period, that two further incidents 
 occured, but these may be soon disposed of, though I 
 omit names for obvious reasons. One related to a 
 Company, to which I lent my name, and got sufficiently 
 mulcted ; Sheriff's Officers being sent to my premises
 
 178 
 
 in order to intimidate and enforce payment, the whole 
 transaction having been an abominable swindle, to put 
 it at the mildest. Another case was a gross and 
 scandalous perversion of justice, not often occuring ir. 
 an English Court. It was one of assault, in which two 
 witnesses perjured themselves so shockingly, that they 
 ought to have been prosecuted, had they been, as they 
 say, " worth powder and shot." But a gentleman is a nice 
 tool to be made use of by any low set, and forms good 
 capital out of which to obtain advantage pecuniary or 
 otherwise. 
 
 AIL my remarks tend to show that I was never over- 
 burdened with money. I had at one time a picture, by 
 Hans Holbein, of Sir Lionel Ducket, Lord Mayor of 
 London t. Elizabeth. He, Sir Lionel, was not one of 
 those Lord Mayors, of whom I have heard in derision 
 say., that they were the first founders of such and such 
 people's family ; on the contrary, he belonged to one of 
 the oldest families in the North of England, and was 
 brought up, as was said in those days to " commerce," 
 The picture has on the finger a ring, quartering the 
 arms of Duket, Wyndesore, Redman, and Aldeburg, 
 being only four out of the ten quarterings he was able 
 to marshal. When my father became ruined and his 
 property brought to the hammer, this picture was either 
 bought in by a friend, or given back to the family I 
 have no certain knowledge about it but as Sir Lionel 
 Ducket had been a great benefactor to the Mercers' 
 Company, and built the Royal Exchange in conjunction 
 with Sir Thomas Gresham, I offered it to that Company 
 and they very generously paid five hundred guineas for it.
 
 179 
 
 It was in 1870 that my old schoolfellow, brother 
 officer, and unswerving friend Trotter died, and his last 
 days were very distressing, being perfectly paralysed in 
 arms and legs. I had been to see him in Soho Square, 
 for he was proprietor of the Bazaar so-called, originally 
 set on foot by his father, a tall well proportioned man, 
 who piqued himself on his gait and fencing acquire- 
 ments, for the straight sword was still in vogue in his 
 youth. Anxious not to miss the train, my old friend 
 with " George, I have not a moment to spare," bounded 
 out of the house, jumped into a hansom cab, and was 
 off like a shot, in all the vigour of life. Two years 
 afterwards a fearful change had come o'er the spirit of 
 his dream ; he was helplessly paralysed from hand to 
 foot ; a man foremost as a performer on the Serpentine 
 of the skating club, priding himself upon the build of 
 his limbs, of which models had been made, and cele- 
 brated in his earlier days as a waltzing partner to many 
 a fair lady at Almacks. I wrote to be allowed to see 
 him at Dyrham, his house near Barnet, but this could 
 not always be permitted. At last a day was named, 
 and on reaching Dyrham, I found him sitting in awheel 
 chair on the lawn with his wife close at hand. I was 
 so dreadfully shocked and overcome, that I told Mrs. 
 Trotter I could not stop, that it was too much for 
 me. Upon her saying " Oh do, it does him good," I 
 stood and talked to him by the side of his chair ; he 
 was visibly affected also, poor fellow. I remarked to 
 him that his hair was not the least grey, and he tried to 
 take off his hat, and partly raised it by lowering his 
 head. I remember one of his daughters was called
 
 Mo 
 
 from another part of the lawn, and was told by him to 
 read a passage in Galatians. A contrivance by which 
 the chair could be moved on planks through one of the 
 lower windows without displacing the occupant had 
 been managed, and after a while he was borne in that 
 way back again to the house ; he waved his hand as well 
 as he could, and I never saw him more. It is a note- 
 worthy fact, that my two greatest friends became 
 "Saints" in the vulgar acceptation of the word, as 
 thoroughly as any two men could attain to that much 
 to be envied state, and what is also remarkable is, that 
 neither of them knew the other. The two men, also, 
 animated by the same spirit, sought to make their 
 " calling and election sure " in two opposite ways ; the 
 one faced the world openly, the other retired from it 
 in fear, nevertheless both, as friends, were equally 
 valued. I have spoken further on in hostile terms 
 of certain two " R's," I may equally designate these 
 as the two "T's," and if I add thereto Lord Tanker- 
 ville, who will not care to avoid such company, I 
 may, though still living, associate him with the former 
 of them, whom he knew, and thus instead of two, record 
 three " T's," as good specimens of that state, to which 
 poor human nature is able to attain. Curiously enough 
 I now remember another of equal sanctity, with " T " 
 commencing designation, thus doubling my originally 
 quoted number. Of the four it may be said as a singu- 
 lar fact, that there should have been the same initial 
 letter of the name, all being well known to myself, 
 though not to one another. Lord Tankerville, a still 
 older friend, but with whom I have been brought
 
 less in contact, is a good example of a spiritually-minded 
 man (aided by his highly gifted, and high born partner), 
 using this world without abusing it, and in that way, 
 does perhaps more good in his generation than others, 
 for men are not to be converted by force, or by Act of 
 Parliament. 
 
 Cecil Tumor, above alluded to, with whom I had 
 been at Oxford, and at a private tutor's, and in constant 
 communication until he shut himself up and shunned 
 the world, had left Malvern, where I last saw him, for 
 Cheltenham, and here he died in 188 . I am not an 
 admirer of the recluse, or of seclusion from the world, 
 for if a man cannot avoid its temptations I allude to 
 those of a sinful kind his faith and endurance are far 
 from sufficient, and fall far short of the state inculcated 
 by Divine precept. This was the condition of mind, 
 which first brought mankind to seek retirement in 
 monasteries, praiseworthy up to a certain point, but in 
 which the original motive soon became lost, the subse- 
 quent state of their inmates becoming worse than the 
 first, for if the abominations and wickedness carried on 
 openly in the world were too unendurable, how much 
 greater the sin in those, who under the pretence of 
 devoting themselves to prayer, carried on vices in 
 seclusion, under the protection of such human institu- 
 tions. Seclusion is a mistake on the part of any one, 
 and monasteries give the lie, so far, to Hahnemann's 
 theory " Similia similibus curantur." But here is another 
 digression, demanding apology. 
 
 In 1876, I lost my excellent and only sister, Lady 
 Burrard, who had in 1839 married Sir George Burrard
 
 182 
 
 of Walhampton. He was a remarkable instance of 
 persistence, and true to his own family motto of " Per- 
 severe," for she had refused him over and over again. 
 There was no relationship between them, though my 
 father's half-sister had married his uncle, Sir Harry 
 Burrard. That distinguished officer was entirely instru- 
 mental to the breaking up of the mutiny of the Nore, 
 having had such influence over the crew of the San 
 Fiorenzo, which he commanded, as to keep them loyal, 
 although ostensibly in touch with the Mutineers, send- 
 ing delegates to the flag-ship to keep up appearance, 
 and so it was that, on the first change of wind, he 
 hoisted sail and passed right out through the Fleet, 
 some of the ships firing on him. This gallant and loyal 
 conduct was immediately followed by Lord Amelius 
 Beauclerk, which lead to the breaking up of that mem- 
 orable mutiny. I think he received for this the Red 
 Ribbon of the Bath, and the thanks of the City of London, 
 but George III. told him personally, that "he should 
 never forget it." I mention my sister, Lady Burrard's 
 name, more particularly because the family of Burrard 
 is a very old one, and its members were all proud of 
 their residence Walhampton, a beautiful place com- 
 manding views of the Solent and the Needles, at which 
 George III. and Queen Charlotte had been more than 
 once visitors, and to perpetuate the name and keep the 
 property in their family, was the sole thought of their 
 lives. My sister's husband was accidentally drowned 
 at Lyme Regis ; his half brother, Sir Harry, died six 
 months later in 1871 ; whilst the latter's son, Sir H. P. 
 Burrard, managed to bring the whole estate to the 
 hammer. " Sic transit gloria mundi."
 
 It was about 1872 that I took up my abode partly at 
 Oxford, and subsequently in its neighbourhood, bringing 
 on that occasion to an end the Genealogical Work I had 
 been engaged upon since 1845, for the priceless MSS. 
 of Dodsworth had by that time been thoroughly over- 
 hauled, as well as those of Rawlinson, both being in the 
 Bodleian Library. I may say, also, that from about 
 that time my labours in the field of Archaeology first 
 commenced, to which my constant researches in 
 Genealogy had given the impulse. From that period to 
 within a year of the present time, whilst I pen these 
 Memoirs, I have posed as an Antiquary, and obtained 
 success in that direction, although not altogether in the 
 land of my nativity. Now, it strikes me as a very re- 
 markable and somewhat ominous condition of matters, 
 that in this country everything is a job, and whilst the 
 main object seems to be to place a stumbling block in 
 the path of independent workers, or such as seek a name 
 in the field of literature or otherwise, on their own 
 account, and hold no allegiance to recognised authori- 
 ties, or those that set up for such, a whole swarm of 
 miserable creatures spring up in addition either to laud 
 or condemn your undertaking, just as it suits their pur- 
 pose, dictated, in the last case, sometimes by jealousy, 
 or oftener by self sufficient conceit, and an idea of an 
 up-to-date superiority, cringing to the opinion of some 
 presumed and fashionable authority. Hence it would 
 appear that the great class of Englishmen are chiefly 
 bent upon criticising productions, without having ability 
 to exhibit any of their own, and so in that way neither 
 the truth, or real value of a work is ever admitted, and
 
 i8 4 
 
 the opinion of the press is given in accordance with the 
 wire puller. I entertained great suspicion of this state 
 of things very long ago, and an experience of five and 
 twenty years, not at Oxford only, tends to confirm the 
 belief. Still not there alone, but at other seats of 
 learning, the inevitable grandeur of the Don, save in 
 some instances, with the stuck-up self-sufficiency of 
 upper University employes, apparent to any man of the 
 world, both add their quota of antagonism for the 
 above end. Were all this otherwise, how should it 
 come to pass, that an Englishman like myself, receives 
 medals of honour and decorations from Foreign 
 Governments only. University distinctions (which, 
 however, can be bought), are withheld from very many, 
 and above all are given to men who never penned 
 more than a common letter in their lives, and have 
 earned distinction in any but a literary way. Such a 
 condition of our literary surroundings is neither en- 
 couraging to the student, or creditable to the reputation 
 of the country. I have met, nevertheless, with two or 
 three (perhaps more) exceptions, during the course of 
 my literary labours at one English University, among 
 which, the Rev. W. D. Macray of the Bodleian if he 
 will allow me to name him stands quite unrivalled, as 
 the man of unbounded information, and ready at all 
 times to impart the same to any seeker for it at his hands. 
 Not only have I often had a difficulty solved by him, 
 but have had greater testimony of his value in those 
 wonderful Catalogues of the Rawlinson and other MSS., 
 without the aid of which I should never have been 
 enabled to finish or even carry out many works I have
 
 85 
 
 undertaken. He is a manifest exception, but who 
 would believe it ? Jealousy (for what else could it have 
 been), once did its work with him, since no fitter man 
 could have been selected to maintain the traditions of 
 Bodley's Library ; void of all pretention, and full of 
 learning, he stands quite alone. 
 
 Thus it was, therefore, that about 1871 I took in hand 
 works, for some of which I have received honours and 
 rewards, bringing first to a close a laborious undertaking 
 about 1871 (one of the many irons I have always had 
 in the fire) namely, the genealogy of the Duket and 
 Windesore families, for on the female side, through my 
 grandmother, I am able to count twenty-two uninter- 
 rupted and indisputable descents, and give chapter and 
 verse for each. I have heard some one observe, that 
 a pedigree was of no great value, unless it enabled a man 
 to claim a peerage, for as no such dignity is attainable, 
 save on unanswerable testimony and record, such ob- 
 servation points to infallible correctness as a matter of 
 necessity, and in the genealogical work in question every 
 step and link is capable of proof. This work, first under- 
 taken on the lines of Burn's History of Westmorland, 
 whence my family originally springs, and the much 
 earlier work on the same county, by Sir Daniel Fleming 
 of Rydal (in 1671), was finally completed (as observed) 
 from the Dodsworth MSS. in the Bodleian. There 
 had been scarcely a week for many years in which I 
 had not been engaged on this work, which can be seen 
 at the British Museum, and is a fair specimen of labour. 
 
 It was in this way that antiquarian researches in family 
 history first brought me in close contact with those two
 
 1 86 
 
 fountains of folk-lore and historical authority, the Dods- 
 worth and Rawlinson MSS., and I seized in succession 
 on entries concerning counties, with which my ancestry 
 were connected. In this way one of the first works I 
 chose was Sir Daniel Fleming's History of Westmorland, 
 in his own handwriting, among the latter MSS, and this 
 I copied and edited for the Westmorland Antiquarian 
 Society. Shortly afterwards I entered into the con- 
 troversy and much disputed question of the Gundreda 
 descent, about which perhaps more nonsense has been 
 given to the world, than any other disputed point in 
 history ; to counteract the fallacy of which, and to 
 establish my own (I consider the true) theory, I have 
 written article upon article in the Yorkshire and Sussex 
 Antiquarian Journals. This controversy affecting the 
 Norman noble family of Warenne, from which that 
 of Wyndesore deduces, was, I may say, the origin of all 
 my subsequent Antiquarian studies and pursuits, and I 
 verily believe that my last articles in the Sussex and 
 Yorkshire Journals "Gundreda, Countess of Warenne; a 
 parting word about her," in 1892, ought to end the same, 
 if anything ever does, though this is an unbelieving age, 
 and if men question parts of Holy Writ, how can one 
 be surprised at their want of belief in minor things ? 
 
 Such undertakings brought me back, if I may so 
 say, to first principles, for I had always been very 
 studious and industrious as a boy, having copied and 
 arranged annotations on the four Gospels from books 
 on Divinity belonging to my Tutor, long before I went 
 to Oxford ; in fact I was commencing to arrange notes 
 on the Acts, as the MS. books, still extant, show, just
 
 i8 7 
 
 at the time I met with the accident which nearly killed 
 me in Hyde Park. Some one might say the same was 
 a prelude to my love for subsequent lexicography ! 
 
 It was partly to discover the truth of the foregoing 
 descent, that I turned my thoughts to the Records of 
 the Abbey of Cluny in the French National Library. 
 The late French Ambassador (Mr. Waddington), intro- 
 duced me to its Director, and I became so thoroughly 
 interested in all that related to the Order of Gtuni (or 
 Cluny), that I edited two large volumes of Records 
 concerning its relations with this country. That work, 
 Styled " Monasticon Cluniacense Anglicanum" obtained for 
 me the honour of the Palmes d'or, or decoration of an 
 Officer of Public Instruction in France. I had pre- 
 viously to this undertaking, published " Evidences of the 
 Abbey of Cluni," taken chiefly from M. Delisle's Catalogue 
 of the Cluni MSS. A work of very great labour 
 brought out by me in 1884, occupied a few years, viz., 
 the " Test Act and Penal Law Returns," during the reign of 
 James II., among the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian. 
 These I transcribed with my own hand, word for word, 
 and letter for letter. I have shown in that work how 
 these original Returns must have come into the posses- 
 sion of Dr. Rawlinson, and considering that the writing 
 is in the hand of different people, not one of whom 
 wrote a hand like another, and of whom some were 
 illiterate, the undertaking tried me a good deal, and 
 I myself look upon it as satisfactory a work as any 
 on which I have ever been engaged. With many 
 papers for the Archaeologia Cambrensis, the Wiltshire, 
 Sussex, Yorkshire Antiquarian, and Camden Societies,
 
 i88 
 
 (ex. g.) the " Marches of Wales " ; the " History of Manorbeer 
 Castle and the Barri Family, its early owners " ; " Original 
 Letters of the Duke of Monmouth " ; several papers on 
 Gundreda de Warenne ; " Monastic and Ecclesiastical Cos- 
 tume "; "Hastings v. Senlac " ; the " Water Supply of Ancient 
 British Encampments"; "Royalist Rising in Wilts in 1655"; 
 the " Parrs of Kendal Castle" ; with other similar Papers. 
 I edited also a work on the battle of Poitiers, and the 
 " Hostages " of the French King, taken prisoner there, 
 when sent to England by the Treaty of Bretigny in 1 360 ; 
 a list of the " Commissioners of the Navy " from 1660 to 1 760. 
 I have lately translated from the German, a brochure on 
 "Mariolatry " ; a 3rd vol. of Cluny Records, " The Chapters 
 General and Visitations of the Order of Cluni " in Germany, Alsace, 
 Lorraine, England, and Poland, which with the present, 
 will be the last effort of my sight. This supplementary 
 volume of Cluny Records, has been deemed by those 
 competent to judge, most important and valuable, for it 
 shows beyond contradiction, how necessary was that 
 great Reformation, brought about by Luther and others ; 
 a matter which of course Roman Catholics deny. Some 
 of the monasteries dealt with in that work, were among 
 those very religious houses, which seceded from the 
 Church of Rome at that time. For this undertaking, 
 dedicated by special permission to the late Duke Ernest 
 of Saxe Coburg-Gotha, and which must have just 
 reached Coburg on the day of his fatal illness, the 
 present Duke Alfred I. has conferred on me the ist 
 class of the " Saxe Ernestine House Order." H.H. the 
 late Duke was well able to appreciate successful labour, 
 and had already given me the Saxe Coburg and Gotha
 
 :8 9 
 
 "Order of Merit" for my Military Dictionary. More- 
 over, H.H. was in descent from that celebrated Elector 
 of Saxony, who harboured Luther at Eisenach in order 
 to safeguard him from his enemies &c. The French 
 Republic has also granted me a Special " Gold Medal 
 of Honour" for the service that Supplementary Volume 
 on Cluny has rendered to Archaeology. 
 
 Thus far I have brought my literary labours to a close, 
 for to continue to work, as my inclination would be, 
 might strip me (blind as I am), of any credit the fore- 
 going have obtained. 
 
 Before closing, however, this very egotistical narrative 
 but what autobiography is not so I may state that 
 about 1867-8, 1 gave an unreflecting consent to my wife's 
 becoming a Roman Catholic, a step made in perfect 
 ignorance (unpardonable though it was), of what was to 
 ensue, and one, after the truth broke in upon me, I shall 
 deplore till the day of my death. 
 
 This private matter is not withheld, because by its 
 mention, I entertain a hope (though slight), of warning 
 the unwary among those to come. I know no set 
 of men who have damaged mankind more than the 
 Fuseyites, for they first set the ball rolling ; then came 
 the so-called senseless Oxford movement, which made 
 a Cardinal of one, and Roman Catholic Priests of 
 others ; and now we have the Ritualists, who are pre- 
 paring intentionally or unintentionally many recruits for 
 Romanism. There have been Roman Catholic Priests, 
 who to their eternal honour, have left their faith, and it 
 is not only on my own well derived suspicion, (or 
 rather knowledge), but on their own deposition, that I
 
 190 
 
 am able to affirm also, that the doctrines of the Con- 
 fessional, are "the most ingenious device ever invented 
 by the Great Enemy of man for the destruction of the 
 human soul." Such fearful words coining, above all, 
 from a Confessing Priest, and ratified by more than one 
 seceding Priest, are direct and sufficient evidence. For 
 my self, I have sighed when I reflected on such a state 
 of things in this country, for the good old times in that 
 respect of Queen Bess, and her much abused parent, as 
 well as for those of my plucky forefathers who seceded 
 from Romanism, for neither priests or others were then 
 allowed to play ecclesiastical pranks, or at sensational 
 religion, if anything of that sort is worthy of the name. 
 No, there is too much " Liberty of Conscience " now-a- 
 days, as there is also on many other matters, and it 
 were well could the Church of England be forced back 
 again to its original Reformation-principles, to the utter 
 annihilation of those two " R's," Romanism and its half 
 sister Ritualism. The rising generation may not see the 
 force of my remarks, but let them take heed, Roman 
 Catholics still hope to see Mass again performed in 
 Westminster Abbey ! This was just what that bigoted 
 Monarch James II. wanted to effect, but our ancestors 
 knew better, and they sent him to St. Germains, to 
 which (or to some very less agreeable place) I would 
 consign all worshippers of the two said sects in ques- 
 tion, had I the power. 
 
 With this I close my brief, necessarily egotistical, 
 moderately interesting, and less important biographical 
 Memoir ; I say " brief," because much more of my later 
 life I leave (as observed), purposely unrecorded, although
 
 191 
 
 in some respects not devoid of instruction. Were I to 
 recapitulate the sayings and doings of all the pleasant 
 people I have met with during the last thirty or forty 
 years of my life, or recount all that I have known, I might 
 probably add to the interest of these pages ; were I on 
 the other hand, to publish totidem verbis for the edification 
 and warning of those to come, the different traps 
 (especially of the Jesuitical kind), into which I have 
 fallen during that time, and name those who set them 
 with their iniquitous consequences, I might bring my- 
 self not only into trouble and hot water, but create for 
 myself a still more formidable snare. The mental agony 
 and distress of which Jesuitical doctrine and practices 
 have been productive, are beyond description. There 
 are many for whom these allusions will quite suffice ; 
 there are also not a few for whom the " cap may fit," 
 and in that case pray " let them wear it." Such a 
 narrative, more or less identical with other disclosures 
 (already given to the world, and much to their honour, 
 by more than one " renegade " priest), might suit or 
 befit a sensational story book of the lowest type, and 
 for that cause alone must be totally ignored. 
 
 And now my charming young friends, (and less partial 
 readers), my story is finished, like my life, for that will 
 soon be over also ; I have recorded many matters, and 
 have omitted many which might point a salutary moral, 
 but in either case brief is the span, and few in reality the 
 incidents of human life, neither does so called longevity 
 add much thereto, for " We bring our years to an end 
 like a tale that is told," and after the allotted age, 
 second childhood soon sets in, and goes for nothing in
 
 192 
 
 the page of biography. For my own part, I have had 
 no pleasure in recording my reminiscences, for not- 
 withstanding the solicitude and careful training of an 
 excellent father in my earliest days, I lived practically 
 without God in the world, and of all that I have had to 
 record, this feeling alone surpasses every other con- 
 sideration. To have escaped, as often as I have, whilst 
 in that frame of mind and heathenly condition, the jaws 
 of death during my long and eventful career, equalling, 
 if not exceeding that of most human beings, is marvel- 
 lous in my sight, and calls for far more than man's 
 idea of gratitude. But still even to this reflection a 
 corollary may well be added ; though the sequel to my 
 tale must ever be lamented, facts verify the truth of 
 those Scriptural words, " I have been young, but am 
 now old, yet never saw I the righteous man deserted, or 
 his seed begging their bread." 
 
 BENE VALETE. 
 
 Brighton, May itfh, 1894.
 
 APPENDIX.
 
 194 
 
 GOETHE'S "FAUST." 
 
 [Translation from the "Faust" of Goethe; being the "Introduction" or 
 
 " Prefaratory Opening" to that Poem, and the "Prologue in Heaven" by 
 
 the three Archangels, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.-''-] 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Again ye come as in Life's early day, 
 Mysterious Forms which once my mind possessed, 
 Shall I attempt your fluttering hues to stay ? 
 Are such old dreams now suited to my breast ? 
 Still, still, ye come! once more I own your sway, 
 As dim ye rise in shadowy darkness drest ; 
 My bosom with the heart of youth come back, 
 Thrills to the spell that hovers in your track. 
 
 Ye bring the days of joys long since resigned, 
 And many a lovely form beams forth again, 
 Like some old tale still lingering in the mind, 
 Comes Love once more, and Friendship in its train ; 
 I feel the grief, the tears once more I find, 
 Of Life's bewildering scenes of toil and pain, 
 And honour'd names I hear, whom Fortune's tide 
 Long since, alas ! hath wafted from my side. 
 
 They hear no more the smooth divided song, 
 The souls who listen'd to my early lay, 
 Their kind encouragement hath vanished long, 
 The echoing heart, alas! has passed away ; 
 My grief is uttered to an unknown throng, 
 Whose very praises strike me with dismay, 
 And all, who in my earlier strains found worth, 
 If still they live, are scattered o'er the earth. 
 
 I feel once more a passion quenched by years, 
 The wonders of the unseen world to seek, 
 My infant lay arises on my ears, 
 Like strains that from Eolian music break; 
 A dread comes o'er me tears succeed to tears, 
 And this strong heart feels powerless and weak, 
 What I possess grows faint and undefined, 
 And all the past seems present to my mind. 
 
 * The metre of the original has been strictly adhered to in the versification, and 
 it is worthy of note, as probably a solitary instance of the kind, that whilst the 
 language and literal wording of the Poem is solely due to Sir George Duckett, (then 
 Captain Duckett), the versification was the work of one totally ignorant of German, 
 and that* gentlernan^was Professor Burrows, late of the Royal College, Port Louis, 
 Isle of France. Composed at sea, on board the " Union " Transport, June 25th, 1841.
 
 '95 
 
 Ihr naht euch wieder, schwankende Gestalten, 
 Die friih sich einst dem triiben Blick gezeigt, 
 Versuch' ich wohl, euch diesmal fest zu halten ? 
 Fiihl' ich mein Herz noch jenem Wahn geneigt ? 
 Ihr drangt euch zu! Nun gut, so mogt ihr walten, 
 Wie ihr aus Dunst und Nebel um mich steigt ; 
 Mein Busen fuhlt sich jugendlich erschiittert 
 Vom Zauberhauch, der euren Zug umwittert. 
 
 Ihr bringt mit euch die Bilder froher Tage, 
 Und manche Hebe Schatten steigen auf ; 
 Gleich einer alten, halbverklungnen Sage, 
 Kommt erste Lieb' und Freundschaft mit herauf ; 
 Der Schmerz wird neu, es wiederholt die Klage 
 Des Lebens labyrinthisch irren Lauf, 
 Und nennt die Guten, die, um schone Stunden 
 Vom Gliick getauscht, vor mir hinweggeschwunden. 
 
 Sie horen nicht die folgenden Gesange, 
 Die Seelen, denen ich die ersten sang; 
 Zerstorben ist das freundliche Gedrange, 
 Verklungen, ach ! der erste Wiederklang. 
 Mein Leid ertont der unbekannten Menge, 
 Ihr Beifall selbst macht meinem Herzen bang, 
 Und was sich sonst an meinem Lied erfreuet, 
 Wen es noch lebt, irrt in der Welt zerstreuet. 
 
 Und mich ergreift ein langst entwohntes Sehnen, 
 
 Nach jenem stillen, ernsten Geisterreich, 
 
 Es schwebet nun in unbestimmten Tonen 
 
 Mein lispelnd Lied, der Aeolsharfe gleich; 
 
 Ein Schauer fasst mich, Thrane folgt den Thranen, 
 
 Das strenge Herz, es fuhlt sich mild und weich ; 
 
 Was ich besitze, seh'ich wie im Weiten, 
 
 Und was verschwand, wird mir zu Wirklichkeiten.
 
 196 
 
 PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 
 
 The sun mid Heaven's united choir, 
 Resounds as erst when time was young, 
 And ends his custom'd course of Fire, 
 At evening in a thunder-song. 
 His aspect gives the Angels power, 
 Though none can comprehend his way ; 
 And Nature's works appear this hour, 
 As great as on Creation's Day. 
 
 GABRIEL. 
 
 And swift and soon the earth revolves, 
 Its glittering scenes o'erspread with light, 
 And all its glorions show dissolves 
 In deep impenetrable night; 
 The billows of the headlong deep 
 Are dashed in foam along the shore ; 
 And shore and sea together sweep, 
 In rapid course for evermore. 
 
 MICHAEL. 
 
 Contending tempests loud resound, 
 On shore and sea, on land and main, 
 And Nature's elements around, 
 Are mingled in a tangling chain ; 
 The lightning's flash breaks out before 
 The thunder-cloud's destructive way; 
 But still Thy servants, Lord ! adore 
 The peaceful walking of Thy day. 
 
 THE THREE. 
 
 Thine aspect gives the Angels power, 
 Though none can comprehend Thy way ! 
 And all Thy works appear this hour 
 As great as on Creation's Day.
 
 I 9 7 
 PROLOG IM HIMMEL. 
 
 RAPHAEL. 
 
 Die Sonne tont nach alter Weise 
 In Bruderspharen Wettgesang, 
 Und ihre vorgeschrieb'ne Reise 
 Vollendet sie mit Donnergang, 
 Ihr Anblick gibt den Engeln Starke, 
 Wenn keiner sie ergriinden mag ; 
 Die unbegreiflich hohen Werke 
 Sind herrlich, wie am erst en Tag. 
 
 GABRIEL. 
 
 Und schnell und unbegreiflich schnelle 
 Dreht sich umher der Erde Pracht : 
 Es wechselt Paradieseshelle 
 Mit tiefer schauervoller Nacht ; 
 Es schaumt das Meer in breiten Flussen 
 Am tiefen Grund der Felsen auf, 
 Und Fels und Meer wird fortgerissen 
 In ewig schnellem Spharenlauf. 
 
 MICHAEL. 
 
 Und Stiirme brausen um die Wette, 
 
 Vom Meer auf's Land, vom Land auf's Meer, 
 
 Und bilden wiithend eine Kette 
 
 Der tiefsten Wirkung rings umher. 
 
 Da flammt ein blitzendes Verheeren 
 
 Dem Pfade vor des Donnerschlags ; 
 
 Doch deine Boten, Herr ! verehren 
 
 Das sanfte Wandeln deines Tags. 
 
 Der Anblick gibt den Engeln Starke, 
 Da keiner dich ergriinden mag, 
 Und alle deine hohen Werke 
 Sind herrlich, wie am ersten Tag.
 
 198 
 
 WORKS 
 
 PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED FROM 1834 TO 1894 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Extraordinary Marches, from the German of Gansauge, 
 
 Captain in the Prussian Lancer Guard ' . . 1834 
 
 Preface to the " Faust" of Goethe ; (Translation of the 
 " Introduction," and the " Prologue in Heaven," 
 composed June 25, 1841); 4to. . .. . 1841 
 
 Technological Military Dictionary, German, English and 
 French ; 8vo. London. Dedicated by permission to 
 H.R.H. the Prince Consort, K.G., &c., &c. . . 1848 
 
 Duchetiana; Genealogical Memoirs of the Families of 
 
 Wyndesore and Duket ; 4to London . . . 1874 
 
 The Parrs of Kendal Castle; 8vo. . . . 1875 
 
 Extract from Cottonian MSS. relating to Border Service; 
 
 8vo. Kendal. . . . . . .1878 
 
 Observations on the Parentage of Gundreda, dau. of 
 W. Duke of Normandy, and wife of William de 
 Warenne ; 8vo. Kendal. .... 1878 
 
 Remarks on a Battle Abbey Roll of the fifteenth century 
 from the Collections of William of Worcester; 8vo. 
 Lewes ....... 1878 
 
 Observations on the " Water Supply " of some of our 
 ancient British Encampments, more particularly in 
 Wiltshire and Sussex; 8vo. Devizes . . . 1879 
 
 Original Letters of the Duke of Monmouth, in the Bodleian 
 
 Library ; 4to London ..... 1879 
 
 Royalist Rising in the West in 1655, among the Thurloe 
 
 State Papers (Bibl. Bodl.), Devizes . . .1879 
 
 The Sheriffs of Westmorland, and earliest Sheriffs of 
 Cumberland; 8vo. Kendal. (Muniments of Dean and 
 Chapter of Carlisle) ; (collated with copy in Public 
 Record Office) ...... 1879
 
 i 9 9 
 
 Congratulatory Correspondence between the Courts of 
 England, France, and Denmark in 1683, on the 
 occasion of the Marriage of the Princess Anne (Queen 
 of England); 8vo. . . ... . 1880 
 
 Observations on the Parentage of Gundreda, Countess 
 
 ofWarenne; 8vo. London .... 1880 
 
 Evidences of Battle Abbey in the Bodl. Libr. ; 8vo. . 1881 
 The Marches of Wales ; 8vo. London . . . 1881 
 
 Harwood Evidences: Redman of Harwood and Levens ; 
 
 8vo. . . . . . . . 1881 
 
 Manorbier Castle: Evidences of its early owners ; 8vo. . 1882 
 
 History of Westmorland by Sir Daniel Fleming of Rydal, 
 in 1671 (Bibl. Bodl.), Edited for the Westmorland 
 Archaeological Society ;. 8vo. .... 1882 
 
 Penal Laws and Test Act (original) Returns; Questions 
 touching their Repeal, propounded by James II. to 
 the Lords-Lt. and Magistrates of the several counties 
 of England and Wales ; 2 vols. Royal 8vo. London. 
 (Rawl. MSS. Bodl. Lib.) .... 1882 
 
 Stray Notes in connection with the Churches of St. John 
 and St. Mary of Beverley ; 8vo. London 
 
 Arms of Aldeburgh ; 8vo. . 
 
 Charters of the Priory of Swine, in Holderness (Rawl. 
 
 MSS. in the Bodleian) 8vo. . . 1882 
 
 Letters of the Yorkshire Commissioners of Sequestration 
 to Cromwell in 1655-6, from the original State Papers 
 in the Bodleian . . . .1882 
 
 Do. from the Wiltshire Commissioners in 1655; 8vo. . 1882 
 
 Cluniac Evidences, 8vo. (in the Bibliotheque Nationale, 
 
 Paris) . .1886 
 
 The Day of Judgment in Art, from the German . . 1886 
 
 Monasticon Cluniacense Anglicanum ; Charters and Re- 
 cords of the several Cluniac foundations in England 
 and Scotland; 2 vols. Royal 8vo. London. (Bibl. Nat. 
 Paris). 1888 
 
 Mariolatory, or Worship of the Virgin ; from the German. 
 Small 8vo. London. ....
 
 20O 
 
 Naval Commissioners, from the Restoration to Geo. III. ; 
 from the original warrants and returns ; Royal 8vo. 
 Dedicated by permission to H R.H. the Duke of 
 Edinburgh, K.G., &c., &c., London , , . . 1890 
 
 Visitations of English Cluniac Foundations, 1262, 1275-6, 
 
 1279, 1298, 1390, 1405; Royal 8vo. London . . 1890 
 
 Charter among the Muniments of the Due de la Tremoi'lle, 
 relating to the Hostages for John, King of France 
 (taken prisoner by Edward, Black Prince at Poitiers) 
 after his release by the treaty of Bretigny, in 1360; 
 Royal 8vo. ...... 1890 
 
 Observations on Monastic and Ecclesiastical Costume 
 
 (Sussex Collections) : 8vo. .... 1890 
 
 The Countess Gundreda ; a parting word about her 
 (Sussex and Yorkshire Archaeological Collections) ; 
 8vo. . . . ... . . 1893 
 
 Chapters-General and Visitations of the Order of Cluni, 
 in Germany, Alsace, Lorraine (Switzerland), Poland, 
 and England. Royal 8vo. London ; (uniform with 
 Monasticon Cluniacense Anglicanum). (Bibl. Nat. 
 of France . . . . . . . ^93 
 
 Anecdotal Reminiscenses by an Octo-Nonogenarian, 8vo. 
 
 Kendal ....... 1894 
 
 NOTE. Works in Italics are in MS. only.
 
 201 
 
 PERSONS, PLACES, SUBJECTS. 
 
 Aberdeen (Earl of) 6. 
 
 Accidents, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 
 
 171, 172, 173, 174. 
 Adelbert (Prince) 85. 
 Aden, 99. 
 
 (Arab) Frontier of, 99. 
 
 Adjutant-General, 119. 
 Admiralty, 147, 151. 
 
 (Secretary of), 147, 148. 
 
 (First Lord of the) 152. 
 Advocate, (Judge of the fleet) 148. 
 Afghanistan, 99. 
 Airey, (Sir Richard) 129. 
 Albert (Prince Consort) 107, 117, 118, 
 
 119. 
 
 Albrecht (Prince of Prussia) 113. 
 Alexandria, 72. 
 Algeciras, 72. 
 Almacks, 179. 
 Altenburg, 16. 
 Amelia (Princess) 106. 
 American War, 148. 
 Angelo, (Fencing-rooms) 49. 
 Annabaptists, 6. 
 Annesley, 32. 
 Anson, 105. 
 Arab Prince, 95. 
 
 Arab Horses, 95. 
 
 Archaeologia Cambrensi, 187. 
 
 Army Transport, 124. 
 
 Arsenal (Woolwich), 104. 
 
 Art (Medal of Science and), 130. 
 
 Artillery (Workshops, Berlin) 84, 104, 
 
 118. 
 
 Ascot, 34. 
 Austria, 117. 
 
 (Emperor of), 130. 
 Autumnal Reviews, 113. 
 
 Badcdck, (Colonel) 58, 59, 69. 
 
 Badminton, 28. 
 
 Ballyshear, 122, 124, 162. 
 
 Baltic, 151. 
 
 Banditti, 73. 
 
 Barham, (Charles of Trecwyn) 35. 
 
 (Lady Caroline) 35. 
 Barnard, 32. 
 
 Barossa, 83, 109, no, in. 
 Barri, 187. 
 
 Bastard (Colonel) 102. 
 Beckford, 45. 
 
 Beauclerk, (Lord Amelius) 48, 182. 
 Beaufort (Duke of), 27, 28. 
 Beechcroft, (Rev.) 10. 
 
 * The arrangement of this Index is due to my gentle and patient wife, of 
 whom I can never think, save with sorrow and remorse.
 
 202 
 
 Belgians, 42. 
 
 Benighting, 166. 
 
 Bennet, (Hon. Charles) 3. 
 
 Bennett, (Captain) 102. 
 
 Bentinck (Colonel) 117. 
 
 Bergen, 37,40, 41. 
 
 Berkshire (Old) 171. 
 
 Berlin, 22, 48, 49, 81, 82, 83, 84, 96, 
 
 104, 112, 121. 
 
 (British Embassy), 121. 
 
 Official Gazette, 115. 
 
 Opera House (Ball at) 119., 
 
 Berney, Julia, 171. 
 
 (Family of) Norfolk, 144, 145, 151 
 
 Bessborough (Earl of) 3. 
 Bicester, 28, 29, 36. 
 Bigge (Archdeacon) 24. 
 Black River, 91, 94, 96. 
 
 Sheep, 71. 
 
 Blakeney (Sir Edward) 81. 
 Blanket (Tossing in) 55. 
 Blues (Oxford) 54. 
 Blucher (Prince) 18. 
 Blume (Captain) 84, 94, 104, 118. 
 Bodleian Library, 183, 184, 185, 186, 
 
 187. 
 
 Bodley's Librarian, 185. 
 Bolting, 166. 
 Boston, (Lord) 56. 
 Boulogne, 14. 
 Bower (Robert of Welham) 170, 171, 
 
 172. 
 
 Boyen (General v.) 118. 
 Brandenburg, 50. 
 Brandling (Fanny) 56. 
 Brasenose, 35. 
 Breaking Dogs, 160, 161. 
 Breaking-out, 6. 
 Brighton, 47, 102, 128. 
 British Encampments, 188. 
 Museum, 130, 173, 185. 
 
 Brodie (Sir Benjamin), 14. 
 Brooke (Mrs. Langford) 20, 21. 
 
 (Jonas, Esq.) 21. 
 
 Brudenell (Lord), 58, 59. 
 Bruhl (Terrace of) 23. 
 Brunswick, 16, 17, 49. 
 Brussels, 24, 122. 
 
 (Military Academy at) 122. 
 
 Briixen (Madame de) 19, 20. 
 Buckingham Palace, 117, 120. 
 Bullfight, 73. 
 Bullingdon, 32. 
 Burglars, 164, 165. 
 
 Burrard (Sir Harry Neale) 101, 106, 
 181, 182. 
 
 (Isabella, Lady) 181. 
 
 (Sir Harry) 181, 182. 
 
 (Sir George) 181, 182. 
 
 (Sir Harry Paul) 182. 
 Bunsen, (Baron) 130. 
 Butler (Dr.) 4. 
 Butter, 73. 
 Buxton, 75. 
 Byron (Lord) 8. 
 
 Cadiz, 74, 83. 
 
 Cahir, 62, 63, 75. 
 
 Cairo, 100, 101, 102. 
 
 Calais, 14. 
 
 Calcutta, 99. 
 
 Cambridge (Prince George of) 32, 74. 
 
 Calvert, 5. 
 
 Camden Society, 187. 
 
 Camels, 99, 100. 
 
 Campbeltown, 122. 
 
 Camperdown (Earl of) 3. 
 
 Cape of Good Hope, 90. 
 
 Pigeons, 89. 
 
 Cardigan (Earl of) 58, 59. 
 Carlisle, 81. 
 Carlow, 66.
 
 203 
 
 Carnival, 50, 51. 
 Carr (Quarter Master) 109, in. 
 Cathcart (Earl) 58. 
 Catholics (Roman), 189, 190. 
 Ceylon, 90, 95. 
 
 Rifles, 98. 
 
 Champion (Queen's) 176. 
 Charger (second) 52, 63, 64. 
 Charlbury, 28, 30. 
 Charlotte, (Queen) 182. 
 Charleroi, 15. 
 Charles XII, (King) 36. 
 Charite Strasse, 112, 113. 
 Chatham (Earl of) 149. 
 
 ' (Countess of) 149. 
 
 Chelsea, 51. 
 
 Hospital, 83. 
 
 Cheltenham, n, 30. 
 
 Chichester (Lord Hamilton), 102. 
 
 (Lord John) 102. 
 
 China, 100, 101, 102, no. 
 
 Cholera, 51. 
 
 Christ Church (Oxford) 7, 25, 26, 27, 
 
 28, 29, 30. 
 Christiania, 36, 37. 
 Cluni (Records of) 
 
 (Chapters General of) 187. 
 
 (Evidences of) 187. 
 
 Cluny (History of the Order of) 143. 
 
 Coal Mine, 177. 
 
 Colchester, 148. 
 
 Cole (Hon. Henry) 25, 26. 
 
 Cologne, 14, 15, 51. 
 
 Commander-in-Chief, 57. 
 
 Comus (Mare) 51. 
 
 Confessional, 190. 
 
 Conroy (Captain) 81. 
 
 Consort Prince, 107, 108, 117, 118, 119. 
 
 Cooke (Circumnavigator) 149, 150. 
 
 Cooper (Sir Astley) 25. 
 
 Coote (Colonel) 125. 
 
 Copenhagen, 42. 
 Corfu, 125. 
 Cork (Barracks) 70. 
 Cornwall (Colonel) 75. 
 Coronation Cups, 176. 
 Corpus-Christi (Oxford) 21. 
 Correspondence (Military) 130. 
 Corunna, 88. 
 
 Costume, Monastic and Ecclesias- 
 tical, 188. 
 
 Court (Dinners), 85. 
 Court Martial, 93, 94. 
 Courvoisier, 44. 
 Coventry (Henry) 167. 
 Coventry (Earl of) 68. 
 Cowes, 124. 
 
 Cowper, (Hon. Wm.), 3. 
 Cowper-Temple (Lord) 3. 
 Crimean War, 129, 135. 
 Curzon, (Hon. Ed.), 3. 
 
 (Hon. Robert) 3, 27. 
 
 Cumberland (Duke of) 48, 49. 
 
 (Prince George of) 49, 50, 57. 
 
 Gumming (Dr.), 107. 
 
 Dalby, (Little) 31. 
 Dalmeny (Lord) 3, 4. 
 Davis, (Captain) 13. 
 Dawkins, (Clinton) 6. 
 Death (Sentence of) 90. 
 Debating Society, 36. 
 Decimation, 62. 
 Deerhurst (Viscount), 58, 157. 
 De Lisle, 187. 
 Dering (Sir Edward), 6. 
 Desert, 99, 100. 
 Dictionary, passim. 
 Dieppe, 102. 
 
 Dodsworth Manuscripts, 184, 185, i8& 
 Dolgelly, 122, 164, 165. 
 I Dogs, 155, 156, 157, 160, 161.
 
 304 
 
 Dogbreaking, 160. 
 
 Donegal, 129. 
 
 Dorchester, 156. 
 
 Doring, 16, 17. 
 
 Down, Cu. 155. 
 
 Downshire, (Marquis of) 34. 
 
 Doyle, (Sir John) 83. 
 
 (Sidney), 83. 
 
 Drake, 28. 
 
 Dragoon Guards, (First) 54. 
 
 Dublin, 60, 64, 81, 82, 83, 109, 163, 
 
 167. 
 
 Duchetiana, 185, 184. 
 Ducie, (Lord) 28, 168, 169, 170, 171. 
 Duckett (Sir George Jackson) 147, 
 
 148, 149, 150, 151. 
 supposed Identity with Junius, 
 
 148. 
 (Sir George 2nd Bart) 105, 106, 
 
 107, 147- 
 (Isabella, Lady, wife of 2nd Bart) 
 
 24, 108, 109. 
 Duck-Puddle, 6. 
 Duket, 133, 178, 185. 
 Duket and Windesore Pedigree, 185. 
 
 -(Sir Lionel) 178. 
 
 Duncan, (Lord) 3. 
 Dutton, 32. 
 
 Dymoke of Scrivelsby, 176. 
 Dyrham, 181. 
 
 Eagle, (French) 83. 
 
 Eastern Counties Railway, 106. 
 
 East (Clayton) 55, 56. 
 
 Eating-out, 6. 
 
 Eaton Place, 4. 
 
 Square, 4. 
 
 Egypt, 101. 
 
 Elbe, (River "134. 
 
 Elley (Genera Sir John 111.112. 
 
 Elliot's Light Horse 112. 
 
 Ely's Cartridge, 144. 
 
 English, unpopular in France, 24, 25. 
 
 ridiculed in Paris, 25. 
 
 Officers, 86. 
 
 in foreign services, 85, 86. 
 
 Enniskillen, (Earl of) 25, 26. 
 Escapes, s. Accidents. 
 Essex Hunt, 44. 
 
 Yeomanry, 43. 
 
 Eton, 4. 
 
 Evans, (Sir de Lacy) 63. 
 
 Fag, 4 . 
 Fallois, 85. 
 Fangfoss, 153. 
 Faust, (Goethe's) 88, 89. 
 Fencing, 25, 49. 
 
 Foils, 25, 44. 
 
 Fifteenth Hussars, 167. 
 
 Fille-Fjeld, 37. 
 
 Fjord, (Hardanger) 41. 
 
 (Sogne) 37. 
 
 Fitzclarence (Lord Frederick), 56. 
 Fitzmaurice (Hon. Captain), 56. 
 Fleming of Rydal (Sir Daniel) 185, 186 
 Flogging, 68, 69, 90. 
 
 (on board ship), 124. 
 
 Floyd (Sir John) in, 112, 113. 
 
 Flunkeyism, 134, 135, 
 
 Fogs, 8 1, 82. 
 
 Foreign Office, 46, 48, 49. 
 
 Form (Third) 4. 
 
 Fort George, 94. 
 
 Fort Manuel, 102, 103. 
 
 Fox (Bag), 44. 
 
 Fox-Maule, s. Panmure. 
 
 France, (English unpopular in) 23, 24 
 
 25- 
 
 Frankfort, 14. 
 Frederick William IV, King of 
 
 Prussia, 22, 84, 85, 114, 122.
 
 205 
 
 Frederick (The Great) King, 85. 
 
 Frederikshall, 36. 
 
 Fremantle (Wm.) Dean of Ripon, 
 
 25, 26. 
 
 French Retreat (after Leipsic) 16, 17. 
 French Republic, 189. 
 Fulda, 15. 
 Fusiliers, (8 7 th) 63, 80, 81, 83, 88. 
 
 Galle (Point de) 96, 97, 99. 
 Gazette (Naval and Military) 130, 134 
 General Staff, 117, 118. 
 Genoa, 128. 
 
 (Emeute at) 128. 
 
 Geneve, 92, 0,6. 
 
 George III, (King), 48, 106, 181, 182, 
 
 183. 
 
 IV, (King) 116. 
 
 German Legion, 129, 131, 132. 
 
 States (Minor) 117. 
 
 (Winter) 117. 
 
 Germany, (Conflagrations in) 14, 21. 
 
 Gibraltar, 66, 73, 74, 82, 89. 
 
 Gilston, 43. 
 
 Glacier, 37, 38. 
 
 Gladstone, 27, 36. 
 
 Glandine (Lord) 76. 
 
 Glasgow, 104. 
 
 Gleichen (the three) 18. 
 
 Gloucester (Duchess of), 106. 
 
 Goethe, 21,88. 
 
 Gomez, 57. 
 
 Gotha, 15, 18, 23, 24. 
 
 (Ducal Castle of) 15, 20. 
 
 (Ducal Court of) 16, 17, 18, 19, 
 
 20, 21, 22. 
 
 Orangery, 23. 
 
 (Saxe, Duchess of) 
 
 (Saxe, Gymnasium at) 15. 
 
 (Albert, Duke of) 16, 17, 18. 
 
 Prince of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, 16. 
 
 Gotha, Louise, (Duchess of) 16, 17, 18. 
 
 (Three Moors at) 15, 22. 
 
 Gordon, (Sir Willoughby) 123. 
 Gosford, (Earl of) 128, 36. 
 Gottenburg, 38 
 Gough (Viscount), 83, 109, no, in, 
 
 112, 122. 
 
 Gower, (Lord Levesor.) 89. 
 Grantham, (Lady) 4, 5. 
 
 -'(Lord) 3, 5. 
 
 Greenwood, (Colonel) 154. 
 Gresham, (Sir Thomas) 178. 
 Grey (Earl de) 151, 152. 
 
 (Countess de) 10. 
 
 Grey de Ruthin, (Baroness) 132. 
 Gundreda de Warenne, 187. 
 
 Hahn, (Poet) 23. 
 Halberstadt, 50. 
 Hamburg, 36, 42. 120. 
 Hamilton, (Hans. M.P.) 25. 
 Hampton Court, 56. 
 Hanover, 117. 
 
 (King of) 49. 
 
 Hans Holbein, 178. 
 
 Hardinge, (Viscount) 129, 132, 136. 
 
 Hardwicke, (Earl of) 107, 108. 
 
 Hertford, 56. 
 
 Harrow, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 45, 46, 50. 
 
 (Dinner) 8. 
 
 (Register) 6. 
 
 Hartopp, 31, 32. 
 Hastings, (Battle of) 188. 
 
 (Marchioness of) 129, 131, 132. 
 
 (Marquis of) 132. 
 Hedsor, 56. 
 
 Heinrich, (Professor) 18, 20. 
 Hengwrt, 123. 
 Henley, 32. 
 Herbert, (Sidney) 27. 
 Hesse-Cassel (Elector of) 16, 17.
 
 206 
 
 Hertford Assizes, 9. 
 
 Hertford, (See Seymour) 
 
 Hertfordshire, (Sheriff of) 9. 
 
 Heythrop, 28. 
 
 High Wycombe, 32. 
 
 Hillsborough, (Earl of) 34. 
 
 Hislop, (Sir Thomas) 120. 
 
 Hohenloe, (Princess of) 20. 
 
 Holidays, 0. 
 
 Holland, 4,-. 
 
 Holstein, 117. 
 
 Homage, 84. 
 
 Hood, (Rev. W. E.) 14, 15, 18, 20, 22. 
 
 Honore, (Rue St.) 24. 
 
 Horse Guards, (Parade) 83. 
 
 107, 119, 133, 135. 136- 
 
 Horses, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165. 
 
 Huldigung, 22, S"4. 
 
 Humboldt, (Baron) 118. 
 
 Hunt, 9. 
 
 Hunters, 153. 
 
 Hunting, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158. 
 
 Hurricane, 92, 93, 94. 
 
 Hussars, (7th) 25. 
 
 (XV.) 55, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 75, 
 
 86, 112. 
 
 Hyde Park, n, 12. 
 (Accident in) 12, 13. 
 
 Ickvvell Green, 10. 
 Imaun (of Muscat), 95. 
 Irby, (The Hon. Misses) 56. 
 Ireland, 129. " 
 Irish Men, 77, 78, 79, 80. 
 
 Jackson, (Sir George) 143, 144, 145, 
 
 148. 
 Dorothy, 143. 
 
 See Duckett. 
 
 (Port), 149. 
 
 (Point), 149. 
 
 Jamaica, 93, 120. 
 Japanese, 152. 
 
 Embassy, 175, 176. 
 
 Envoy, 176. 
 
 Jekyll, 23. 
 
 Jena, (Battle of) 17. 
 
 Jenkins, 148. 
 
 John, (King of France), 188. 
 
 Johnstone, (Colonel) 70. 
 
 Junior United Service Club, 151. 
 
 Junius, 148. 
 
 Justedale (Glacier), 37, 38. 
 
 Kars, (Siege of) 131. 
 Keats, (Sir Richard) 48. 
 Keith, (Marshal) 85. 
 Kendal, 188. 
 Kerry, (Earl of) 3.' 
 Kexby Wood, 157. 
 Kilmainham Gaol, 62. 
 Kintore, (Lord) 28. 
 Knightley, (Sir Charles) 29, 31. 
 Knightsbridge Barracks, 51. 
 
 Lancers, (i7th) 56. 
 Land-Crabs, 92. 
 Latin (Dog) 141. 
 
 (Classical) 141. 
 
 Lea, (River) 8, 150, 149. 
 Leaward Islands, 120. 
 Lechlade, 31. 
 
 Legion, (German) 129, 131, 132. 
 Leicestershire, 158. 
 Leipsic, (Battle of) 15. 
 
 (Retreat from) 15, 17. 
 
 Levee, (Court) 43. 
 
 Life Guards, 4, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 
 
 52, 53. 54, 56. 
 Lifford, (Viscount) 6. 
 Lisbon, 74. 
 Loftus, (Lord Augustus) 86.
 
 207 
 
 London Docks. 88, 89. 
 
 Londonderry, (Marchioness of) 76. 
 
 Long Vacation, 36. 
 
 Long (Will), 28. 
 
 Longe (of Norfolk) 144, 145. 
 
 (of Spixworth) 145, 146, 147. 
 
 (Mrs. of Spixworth) 145, 146, 147. 
 
 Lord (Chancellor of Ireland), 6. 
 
 Lord Mayor of London, 
 
 Lough McRory, 143. 
 
 Liineburg, 16, 17. 
 
 Luther, 22. 
 
 Lygon, (Colonel), Honble. E. P., 52, 
 
 53, 58. 
 
 Lymington, 129, 131, 177. 
 Lynedoch, (Lord) 83. 
 Lyons, Captain (Consul General) 101. 
 Lord, 101. 
 
 Macdonald, (Sir John) 119. 
 
 Macray, (The Rev. W. D.) 183, 184. 
 
 Macnamara, (Miss) 81. 
 
 Madras, 96. 
 
 Magdeburg, 50. 
 
 Mahebourg, 91. 
 
 Maidenhead, 48, 52, 54, 56. 
 
 Major of Brigade, 101. 
 
 Maiden, 163. 
 
 Malvern, n. 
 
 Maitzahn, (Baron) 24, 45. 
 
 (Baroness) 24, 45. 
 
 Malta, lor, 102, 103, 123, 125, 126. 
 
 (Town Major at) 125. 
 
 Manning, (Cardinal) 7. 
 Manobier Castle, 187. 
 Manteufel, 116. 
 Manuel, (Fort) 102, 103. 
 Marches of Wales, 187. 
 Maria-Theresa, (Order of) 60. 
 Maratta War, 93. 
 Marriage, 129. 
 
 Marseilles, 101, 102, 128. 
 
 Martin (Wickham) 6. 
 
 Maule, (Fox) 133. 
 
 Mauritius, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93,94, 95, 
 
 96, 103, no. 
 Maxwell, (Captain) 102. 
 Mayence, 14. 
 Medal, 129. 
 
 (Science and Art, Prussia), 130. 
 
 (of Science), Austria, 130. 
 
 (Gold of French Emperor), 130. 
 
 of French Republic for services 
 
 rendered to Archaeology. 
 Mediterranean, 124, 125. 
 Mercers' Company, 43, 175, 178. 
 Merivale, 7. 
 Meurice's Hotel, 24. 
 Middleton, (Lord) 157. 
 Millinet, (Professor) 18, 20. 
 Milton. (Lord) 147. 
 Military Correspondents, i^o. 
 Minto, (Earl of) 48, 4:;. 
 Moltke, 116. 
 Monastery, 181. 
 Monasticon, Cluniacense, Anglican- 
 
 um, 187. 
 Monmouth, (Duke of) original letters 
 
 of 187, 188. 
 Montgomery, 150. 
 
 (History of the Colonies by) 150 
 
 Moore, (Sir John) 75, 88. 
 
 (Brevet Major) 109, no. 
 
 Morgan, (Ben) 157. 
 Morton, (Norfolk) 144, 145. 
 Mostyn, (Sir Thomas) 27. 
 Mountain, (Rev. J. B.) 25. 
 Murray, (Sir George) 123. 
 Mullingar, 66,67, 77. 
 Muscat, (Imaun of) 95. 
 Mutiny, ^Indian) 66, 67, 68. 
 (of the More), 182.
 
 208 
 
 Napier, (Admiral Sir Charles) 151. 15 
 
 Naples, 126. 
 
 Napoleon, (Emperor, 1815) 87, 118. 
 
 (Mistress of) 45. 
 
 Nassau, 45. 
 
 National (Library of France), 185. 
 Naval Commissioners, 188. 
 Naval and Military Gazette, 130. 
 Navigation (Inland), 148. 
 
 '(Stort) 148, 149. 
 
 Nazing, 43. 
 
 Neale (Sir Harry) 47, 48, 101, 106. 
 
 (Lady) 106, i8r, 182. 
 
 Needles, (The) 183. 
 
 Neeld (Sir John), 178. 
 
 Newbridge, 63. 
 
 Newby Hall, 169. 
 
 Newport, 124. 
 
 New South Wales, 149. 
 
 New Zealand, 149. 
 
 Nile, 101. 
 
 Nore (Mutiny of the) 182. 
 
 Norbury (Earl of) 76, 77, 129. 
 
 (Countess of) 76. 
 
 North, (Colonel) 83. 
 North-Pole, 80. 
 Northampton, (Lord) 24. 
 Northill, 10. 
 Northwick, (Lord) 5, 6. 
 Norway, 36, 37. 
 
 (Glacier) 37. 
 
 Norwegian Habits, 41. 
 
 O'Brien, (Major General) 90. 
 
 (Stafford) 6. 
 
 Officials, 132, 133, 134, 135. 
 Officer of Public Instruction, 187. 
 Opie (Mrs.) (Poetess). 145. 
 
 Painter, 145. 
 
 (Lines by Mrs.) 145. 
 
 Orkney, (Countess of) 55. 
 
 Orkney, (Earl of) 56. 
 
 Osborn, (Commissioner Royal Navy) 
 
 147. 
 
 Osborn (General), 9. 
 Osborn, (Lord Conyers), 34. 
 Ossulston. (Lord) 27. 
 Overland Route, 96. 
 Oxford, 29, 33, 34, 35 36, 43, 49, J 35, 
 
 136, 183, 184. 
 
 (Boat Race), 32. 
 
 (Coaching at) 32. 
 
 (Hack), 30, 34, 35, 48. 
 
 Padderborn, 51. 
 
 Paisley, 105. 
 
 Palliser, (Admiral Sir Hugh) 148. 
 
 Palmer, (George) 43, 44. 
 
 Palmes d' Or, 59, 187. 
 
 Panmure, (Lord) 133. 
 
 Paris, 24, 84, 96, 102, 120. 
 
 Parr (of Kendal), 148, 188. 
 
 Paskevitch, (Marshal) 85. 
 
 Pay-Sergeant, 105. 
 
 Peckwater, 34. 
 
 Penal Law and Test Act Returns, 187 
 
 Peninsular War, no, in. 
 
 Persian Gulf, 93, 95, 120. 
 
 Peterborough, (Dean of) 4. 
 
 Peyton, (Sir Henry) 32. 
 
 Phoenix Park, 64. 
 
 Pickpockets, 82. 
 
 Pigeon House Fort, Si, 109. 
 
 Pitt Correspondence, 149. . 
 
 (Family) 149. 
 
 (William) Statesman 149. 
 
 'oitiers, (Battle of) 188 
 
 ompeii 126. 
 
 'ompey's Pillar, 101. 
 3 onsonby, the Hon. 3. 
 
 orto-Bello (Barracks) 81. 
 
 (Cana!) 81.
 
 Port Louis, 88, go, 91, 92, 94. 
 
 (College at), 88. 
 
 Portoferry, 155. 
 
 Pottinger, (Right Honble. Sir Henry) 
 
 I2O. 
 
 Prince Albert, 105, 107, 108, 119,120. 
 
 Edward (of Saxe Weimar) 116. 
 
 Prince of Prussia, (Emperor of Ger- 
 many) 115, 116. 
 
 Princess Amelia, 106. 
 
 Princess Charlotte, 2. 
 
 Princess (Crown) of Prussia, Empress 
 Augusta, 116. 
 
 Prinsep Thoby, 99. 
 
 Probert, 9. 
 
 Professor (German) 22, 23. 
 
 (French), 23. 
 
 Prussia, 87, 115, 117. 
 
 Prussian, (Guards) 85. 
 
 (Englishmen in Army) 85, 86. 
 
 War Office, 117, 118. 
 
 Public Instruction (Officer of) 59. 
 
 Punjab, no. 
 
 Pyramids, 101. 
 
 Pyrmont, 24, 45. 
 
 Quarentine, 102, 103. 
 Quatre-Bras, 87, 104, 118. 
 Queen Charlotte, 182. 
 Quintin Castle, 155. 
 Quorn Hounds, 132. 
 
 ' Regiment, (6gth) 123. 
 
 (82nd), 6, 47, 65, 66,67,69, 70,71, 
 
 72, 73, 74, 79, 80, 88, 90, 104, 107, 
 
 109, no, in. 
 
 (87th) 63, 79, 83. 
 
 (West India) 129.. 
 I Regimental (Black Sheep) 71. 
 
 Retiring, (Operation of) 88. 
 
 Retreating (Operation of) 88. 
 
 Reviews (Autumnal) 113, 114. 
 
 Rhine, (River) 14. 
 
 Ripon, (Dean of) 26. 
 . Ritter-Akademie 16, 17. 
 
 Riviere-Noire, 91. 
 
 Rivers, (Lord) 45, 46. 
 
 Robinson, (Hon. Frederick) 3, 4/7, 
 10, 26, 27, 169, 170, 171. 
 
 Rome, 126. 
 
 Roman Catholics, 189, 191. 
 
 Romanists, 107. 
 
 Rosebery (Earl of) 3, 149. 
 Rotten Row, 13, 52. 
 
 Rotunda, 81. 
 
 Royal Exchange, 178. 
 
 Roydon (Essex) 14. 
 
 Ruddock, 3. 
 
 Runaway Horses, 166, 167, 168, 169, 
 170, 171, 172. 
 
 Russell, (Lord William) 44, 82, 83,86 
 
 Russia, 85. 
 
 (Emperor of 1815) 18, 21. 
 
 Salisbury, (Marquis of) 131. 
 Railway, (Manchester and Liverpool) Sandhurst, 10, n, 48. 
 
 76. San Fiorenzo, 182. 
 
 Ravensworth, (Lord) 107. Sansom, 5. 
 
 Rawlinson Manuscripts, 184, 185, 186, ! Saxe Coburg and Gotha (Order of 
 
 187. merit of) 188. 
 
 Red Sea, 102. Saxe Gotha, (Duke Alfred of) iSS. 
 .Reduit, 94. (Duke Ernest of) 188. 
 
 Reid, (Colonel) 52. 
 
 Saxe-Ernestine Order, 188.
 
 210 
 
 Saxe-Gotha, 159. 
 
 Saxon Switzerland, 121. 
 
 Saxony (Elector of 1500) 22. 
 
 Schnepfenthal, 18. 
 
 Scotland, 124, 128. 
 
 Scrivelsby, 176. 
 
 Senlac, 188. 
 
 Sentence of Death, 90. 
 
 Sepoys, 99. 
 
 Sergeant, (Artillery) 104. 
 
 (of Engineers) 104. 
 
 Serpentine, 154, 179. 
 Seymour, (Hon. Algernon) 3. 
 
 (Hon. Archibald) 3. 
 
 (Francis, Marquis of Hertford) 21 
 
 Shakespeare, (Mulberry Tree of) 146. 
 Sharks, 98. 
 Shells (South Sea) 94. 
 Shooting (sentence of) 69. 
 Shorncliffe, 129, 132. 
 Skating Club, (Serpentine) 179. 
 Sikhs, no. 
 
 Slave Emancipation, 120. 
 Slingsby, 169, 170. 
 
 Smith, (Sir Lionel) 90, 91, 93, 94, 96, 
 1 20. 
 
 (Royal Navy) 146. 
 
 Sobraon, no. 
 
 Solent, (The) 183. 
 
 Soigne, 87, 88. 
 
 Solmes-Braunfels, (Princess of) 49. 
 
 (Prince) 
 
 Somerset, (Duke of) 3. 
 Southern Cross, 98. 
 Spanish Legion, 63, 64, 75. 
 Spiller, (Colonel) 101. 
 Spring Gardens, 59. 
 St. George's Hospital, 13. 
 
 Hall, 57 . 
 
 St. Giles, 36. 
 Stars 98. 
 
 Steam and Electricity, 144. 
 
 Stewart, (Sir John) 143. 
 
 (of Rock Hill) 76. 
 
 Stort Lodge, 43. 
 
 Stort-Navigation, 148, 149, 150, 167. 
 
 Stort, (River) 148, 149, 150. 
 
 Strasburg, 24. 
 
 Streatfield, 104, 107. 
 
 Stuttenheim, (Baron) 132. 
 
 Style, (Sir Charles) 129. 
 
 Sussex Antiquarian Society, 186, 187. 
 
 Suez, 99, 100. 
 
 Swayle, (River) 14?, 169. 
 
 Sweden, 34. 
 
 Sydenham, (Lord) 24. 
 
 Sydling, 172. 
 
 Sykes, (Sir Tatton) 33, 154. 
 
 Taddy, (Rev. John) 10, 25. 
 
 (Mrs.) 10. 
 
 Tagus, (River) 74. 
 Tankerville, (Earl of) 3, 180. 
 Tattersall's, 156, 161. 
 Taylor, (Simon Watson) 31. 
 Tenasserim, ^Steamer) 99, 100. 
 Thackwell, (Sir Joseph) 60. 
 Thames, (River) 8. 
 
 Wherry, 89. 
 
 Thanet, (Earl of) 35. 
 
 Thompson, (Paulet) 24. 
 
 Threatening Letter, 78, 79. 
 
 Thuringia, (Forest of) 18. 
 
 Thurtell, 9. 
 
 Thynne, (Lord Edward) 3. 
 
 Toler, (Honble. H.) 76. 
 
 Tooke, (Home) 3. 
 
 Tottenham Court Road, 193. 
 
 Trencher-fed Pack, 155. 
 
 Trollope, (Anthony) 6. 
 
 Trotter, (John) 46, 107, 179, 180, 181. 
 
 Tunno, 56.
 
 21 I 
 
 Turkish Horse, 164. 
 Turner, (Cecil) 10, 31, 35, 130, 132, 
 180, 181. 
 
 (Edmund) 10. 
 
 Tyburn, 4. 
 Tyndal, 148. 
 
 Union, (Transport) 88. 
 United States, 21, 74. 
 
 Vauxhall, 5, 6. 
 
 Verney, (Sir Harry) 5. 
 
 Verses, 6. 
 
 Vincent, (of Stoke d' Abernon) 
 
 Villiers-en-Couche, 60. 
 
 Vogelschiessen, 18. 
 
 Vyse, (George Howard) 53. 
 
 Waddington, (French Ambassador) 
 
 187. 
 
 Wadham, 36. 
 Walhampton, 181, 182. 
 Waltham Abbey Waters, 8. 
 Wangenheim, (Countess of) 19. 
 War Office, 133. 
 
 Peninsular, no. 
 
 Ward Jackson, 144. 
 
 Ward, (William) of Gisborough 
 
 Ward, (Mary) 147. 
 
 Ward, (Plomer) 43. 
 
 Warenne, (Gundreda de) 186, 187. 
 
 Warwickshire Hounds, 30. 
 
 Waterford, (Marquis of) 28, 29, 30. 
 
 Waterloo, 4, 14, 18, 53, 54, 60, 87, 
 
 104, 118. 
 
 Horse, 53. 
 
 Wathen, (Captain) 58, 59. 
 Watson, (Sir Frederick) 56. 
 
 (Sir Henry) 56. 
 
 Weald Manor House, 174. 
 
 Weare, 9. 
 
 Wedel-Jarlsberg, 36. 
 
 Weimar (Prince Edward of Saxe) 116 
 
 (Ducal Court of) 21. 
 
 (Grand Duchess of) 21. 
 
 Welham, 170. 
 Wellesley, 87. 
 Wellington, 65, 86, 87, 88, 107, 129, 
 
 (Funeral of) 83. 
 
 Westmacott, 93. 
 Westmorland, (Earl of) 48. 
 
 (Countess of) 48, 49, 121. 
 
 Antiquarian Society, 186. 
 
 White Horse, (Vale of) 28, 31. 
 
 Wiesbaden, 14, 45, 46. 
 
 William IV. (King) 43, 47, 48, 49, 56, 
 
 57- 
 
 Wilson, (Sir Robert) 60. 
 Wiltshire Antiquarian Society, 181. 
 
 Royalist (Rising in) 188. 
 
 Wimbledon, (School at) 3. 4. 
 Windesore, 133, 185, 186. 
 Windsor, 51, 54, 56, 57. 
 Wombwell, (Sir George) 169, 170. 
 Woodstock, 36. 
 Woolwich, 84, 96, 108, 112. 
 Wordsworth, (Bishop) 7. 
 Workshops, (Berlin Artillery) 84.' 
 Wormwood Scrubs, 4. 
 Worsley, (Sir William) 152. 
 Wrest Park, 10, 151. 
 
 York (City), 
 
 York, (Duke of) u, 14, 161. 
 York and Ainstey, (Hounds) 169. 
 Yorkshire Antiquarian Society, 186, 
 187. 
 
 Zouche, (Lord) 3.
 
 
 .; - .'. - '
 
 A 000 031 320 5