a second home; and I have no happier memory than of hours spent
there by the side of one who had played bat, trap and ball with
Charles Fox; had been the travelling companion of Lord Holland;
had corresponded with Tom Moore, debated with Francis Jeffrey, and
dined with Dr. Parr; had visited Melrose Abbey in the company of
Sir Walter Scott, and criticized the acting of Mrs. Siddons; had
conversed with Napoleon in his seclusion at Elba, and had ridden
with the Duke of Wellington along the lines of Torres Vedras. It was
not without reason that Lord Russell, when reviewing his career,
epitomized it in Dryden couplet:

"Not heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been has been, and I have had my hour."




III

_LORD DERBY_

My opportunities of observing Lord Derby at close quarters, were
comparatively scanty. When, in June, 1866, he kissed hands as Prime
Minister for the third time, I was a boy of thirteen, and I was only
sixteen when he died. I had known Lord Palmerston in the House of
Commons and Lord Russell in private life; but my infant footsteps
were seldom guided towards the House of Lords, and it was only
there that "the Rupert of debate" could at that time be heard.

The Whigs, among whom I was reared, detested Derby with the peculiar