'One day, however, at the hour of luncheon, things went ill: the Dowager's bell rang violently. The mutton-chop was so ill dressed and so well peppered as to be uneatable. On inquiry it was discovered that the good old lady's royal charge had acted as cook, and her favourite grandson as scullery-maid.

I have a living witness to this mutton-chop scene in the person of my kinsman, Dr. Thomas Garnier, Dean of Winchester, who assures me, through my sister, Lady Caroline Garnier, that I said, "A pretty Queen you'll make!"

On her proposing to take him to the theatre, he objected that the pleasure would infallibly entail the pain of a sound flogging, as the play and a good supper would make it impossible for him to be in time for the eight o'clock morning school:

"Leave that to me," said the Princess, and forthwith penned a letter to Dr. Page, taking upon herself the blame for my anticipated non-appearance. The morning after the play I came into school half-an-hour late, and was "shown up" as a matter of course. With a deprecatory "Please sir," I presented my royal credentials. The doctor glanced at the seal and the hieroglyphic "Charlotte" on the envelope, and then dropped the letter into the pocket of his gown that his hand might be free to grasp the rod. His next proceeding was to perform that part of his duty which always seemed a pleasure. That done, he read the letter to the whole form, and added how glad he was that he had not opened it sooner, for he would have been under the painful necessity of disobeying Her Royal Highness's commands.

This was not the only occasion on which the Princess made an ineffectual attempt to screen me from the consequences of a neglect of school duties. She had some project which required my co-operation. I pleaded my unfinished exercise for the Monday. It was again "Leave that to me." I did so, but her latinity, in spite of Bishop Fisher's preceptorship, was found on examination not even to come up to my low standard. This second attempt to help me was attended with exactly the same result as the former.'

Her exuberance of animal spirits and indomitable love of fun, occasionally hurried her into less excusable eccentricities, as when she horsewhipped him after nearly breaking his neck (vol. i. p. 305) or amused herself in this fashion

My sister, Lady Mary Whitbread, reminds me of a certain mound in the orchard of Earl's Court. To the top of this mound the Princess would entice her and her sisters (who were at that time of the respective ages of seven, six, and four) to climb, in order to roll them down into a bed of nettles below. If the little girls refrained from crying and from complaining to their governess, they were sure to be rewarded for their reticence by a doll. Indeed the Princess, never so happy as when making presents, kept their nursery well

supplied

supplied with dolls. Two of these Lady Mary remembers as going by the names of the Princess Charlotte and the Princess of Wales.'

Pugilism towards the beginning of the century ranked only just below the fine arts, and was encouraged at some of our seats of learning as one of the athletic games essential to the training of a gentleman.

'It was the point upon which no difference of opinion existed either between masters and pupils, or between sons and fathers.

Carey (the headmaster), who had been a good fighter in his day, did all in his power to foster this pugnacious feeling.

When my

friend and co-Busbeian, Mr. James Mure, was captain of the school, the Doctor took him to task for the idleness of one Lambert, a junior on the foundation. Mure pleaded that he had not "helped" Lambert into College, but that he believed him to be a good honest fellow, and by no means deficient in abilities. "Where did he get that black eye?" asked Carey.

"In fighting a 'scy."

""Which licked?"

666 Lambert."

"Well! if he is a good fellow and a good fighter we must not be too hard upon him for his Latin and Greek."

When the lad went home for the holidays, he found his father preaching from the same text as the doctor. In fact, the exMaster of the Buckhounds was an enlightened patron of the prize ring, and one of the noble and illustrious backers of Pearce, the Game Chicken, onewhile champion of England, whose generosity of disposition was on a par with his pluck—

In his famous fight with James Belcher, the one-eyed pugilist, Pearce knocked his antagonist on to the ropes, and, according to the pugilistic code, might have gained an easy victory, but he forewent his advantage, saying, "I will not hit thee, Jem, lest I knock out thy other eye."

The excitement caused in 1811 by the forthcoming fight between Crib and Molyneux (an American negro), was not confined to us Westminsters,' and the national exultation at the result fell little short of that raised soon afterwards by the capture of the Chesapeake' by the Shannon'

The fight came off in September of this year. The national honour was saved. The Englishman won, although as the newspapers announced, "his head was terribly out of shape."

A few weeks after the battle, Grandmamma Albemarle sent me to Astley's Amphitheatre with her footman. As my companion was in livery, we could not be admitted into the boxes. Immediately in the row before me in the pit sat Crib and Molyneux, to both of whom I obtained a formal introduction, not a little proud of being able to boast

boast to my schoolfellows of having made the acquaintance of two such celebrities. The appearance of the late combatants was curious. The black man had beaten the white one black and blue. The white man, the black one green and yellow.'

On one occasion when the Lady de Clifford and the Princess had driven to Westminster to see him, he was in the fighting green, the grass quadrangle of the great cloisters, whither they repaired in search of him—

'While my good grandmamma was reading quaint monumental inscriptions, her royal charge was grasping the rails of the Cloister and eagerly straining her eyes to watch the motions of the combatants. Her Royal Highness was in high luck, for I appeal to my contemporaries whether they ever witnessed a better fought battle than that between John Erskine, afterwards Earl of Mar, and Paddy Brown, afterwards Sir John Benyon de Beauvoir.'

The fisty duel was equally at vogue at the other public schools. The Iron Duke's first victory was over Bobus Smith in a fair stand-up fight at Eton: his only recorded defeat, by a young blacksmith in Wales; and many a laudator temporis acti may be still heard regretting that affairs of honour, between boys or men, are not still encouraged by the authorities as in the olden time.

Amongst the traits of manners which Lord Albemarle appropriately recalls is the Four-in-Hand Club,' established in 1808, when the rage for driving had attained its acme

The Etonians, who were always lording it over us Westminsters with their superior gentility, used to boast that they would never condescend to handle the ribbons unless with four sprightly nags at their feet; in other words, they drove stage and we hackney coaches. For my part I was well content with the humbler vehicle. One Sunday evening several of us boys met by agreement at the top of St. James's Street. Each engaged a hackney coach for himself, and having deposited his "Jarvey" inside, we mounted our respective boxes and raced down to Westminster, the north archway into Dean's Yard being the winning-post. Over such roads, and with such sorry cattle, the wonder is that we reached the goal. Luckily for us our course was all down hill.'

We have heard of races between sedan chairs at Bath, but never before of races between hackney coaches in London, and it is to be hoped that the institution will not be revived with cabs. When railways were unknown, an excellent school for driving was supplied by the road. When' (says Lord Albemarle) 'I became big enough to manage a team, I had the honour of driving the London and Norwich Royal Mail. I generally selected the stage from Bury to Thetford, the last of

my

was

my journey homewards.' The skill thus acquired by the connivance of the regular driver was occasionally at the expense of the passengers; but the art of handling the ribbons pretty generally diffused, and now that driving four-in-hand has lost its practical utility and business-like air, the new or revived club bears about the same relation to the original one as the Eglintoun tournament to the 'gentle passage of arms' commemorated in Ivanhoe.'

A very remarkable letter, now printed for the first time, was addressed by the Princess to Lord Albemarle (the father), dated January 17th, 1812, in which, with a sneer at her tutor, the Bishop of Salisbury, she declares herself an out-and-out Foxite. It is too long to quote. Lady de Clifford had frequent occasion to reprove her pupil's levity of conduct and expression, and the Princess used to complain to her playfellow of harsh treatment on the part of her governess; but after all,' she would say in her cooler moments, there are many worse persons in the world than your snuffy old grandmother.'

We have here, on Lady de Clifford's authority, the true version of the disputed scene with Lord Eldon on Sunday, 17th January, 1812, when the Princess went to the Castle at Windsor, attended by her governess.

'In the Queen's room were assembled Her Majesty, Princess Mary, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester, and the Prince Regent, who had brought with him Lord Chancellor Eldon. This great legal functionary pointed out to the Princess the somewhat despotic power which the law gives to the Sovereign over the members of the Royal family. During the interview the Regent loaded his daughter with reproaches. At last turning to the Chancellor he asked him what he would do with such a daughter. "If she were mine," was the answer, "I would lock her up." The Princess burst into tears. "What,” she exclaimed, "would the poor King have said if he could understand that his grand-daughter had been likened to the grand-daughter of a coal-heaver!"'

Lord Albemarle states that he had always been taught to look to the Bar as his profession, but his confirmed habit of breaking bounds and getting into scrapes led to a sudden change of destination. One fine morning, after a fresh breach of discipline, a letter from his father informed him that his school-days had come to an end. Inclosed was one from Dr. Page to him, dissuading him from thinking any more of a learned profession for me, and recommending him to choose one in which physical rather than mental exertion would be requisite.'

In April 1815, being then under sixteen, he was gazetted to an ensigncy in the 14th Foot, and was immediately ordered to

join the third battalion of his regiment in Flanders. When he joined it, fourteen of the officers and three hundred of the men were under twenty years of age. 'These last consisted principally of Buckinghamshire lads, fresh from the plough, whose rustic appearance procured for them the appellation of the "Peasants." The Duke always declared that his Waterloo army was the worst he ever commanded, and that if it had been composed of his old Peninsular troops, the battle would have been decided in three hours. An old General Mackenzie, who inspected the battalion at Brussels, no sooner set eyes on them than he called out, 'Well, I never saw such a set of boys, both officers and men.' Yet this set of boys gave speedy and ample proof of the cool, tenacious, enduring courage which has been correctly designated as the distinctive quality of the race.*

At a more advanced period of his narrative, Lord Albemarle relates that, during the Peninsular War, Lord Wellington was asked, at his own dinner-table, on whom, in his opinion, in the event of anything happening to him, the command should devolve. After some hesitation he named Beresford. There was a general expression of surprise. 'I see,' he said, 'what you mean, by your looks. If it were a question of handling troops, some of you fellows might do as well, perhaps better than he; but what we now want is some one to feed our troops; and I know of no one fitter for the purpose than Beresford.' A confirmatory anecdote is told by Mr. Mark Boyd: 'On one occasion he (a foreign prince) took the opportunity of asking his Grace what was the best method of making good soldiers. "A very proper question, Prince," said the Duke, "for, although you are now a young man, you may have to command an army. Feed them well, and house them well, and you will make good soldiers."'†

Now it is incidentally shown in this publication that, during the whole of the campaign of 1815, including the march to Paris, the Duke either neglected his own maxim or was very badly served by his commissariat; for the British army was neither fed well nor housed well. Indeed, during the twenty

'Mais pour ce qui regarde la guerre, l'histoire du passé nous rassure quant aux chances de l'avenir. Il n'y a certainement pas de nation qui puisse se vanter d'être plus brave que la nation française, mais je crois que nos hommes ont quelques dix minutes de ténacité plus que les vôtres; et lorsque le courage est égal des deux côtés, c'est la ténacité qui décide du sort du combat.' (Lord Palmerston to Count Persigny in 1860. 'Life,' by the Hon. E. Ashley, vol. ii. p. 194.) This is one instance, amongst many, of the boldness and clearness of view which form the distinctive merit of Lord Palmerston's letters; and Mr. Ashley has acted most judiciously in allowing them to speak for themselves.

† Social Gleanings.' By Mark Boyd. London, 1875.

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