For Reeve this wound up the season. A few days later, July 23rd, he, with his wife, started for Germany.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE GREVILLE MEMOIRS
Dr. de Mussy had recommended Reeve to drink the water at Carlsbad, so to Carlsbad they went, and stayed there twenty-four days. The manner of life at Carlsbad may be very wholesome, but no one has ever ventured to speak of it as jovial. The Reeves thought it 'dull enough,' and left it with a feeling of release, on August 23rd. On the 24th they were at Dresden, and reached home on September 3rd. And then came a curious reaction; a disagreeable experience of the Carlsbad treatment. 'Henry,' wrote Mrs. Reeve a few days later, 'who had been quite well and quite free from gout all the time, had a tendency thereto on leaving Hamburg, which, on landing at Gravesend, was a sharp attack in the right hand. He cannot hold a pen…. His doctor and some fellow-patients all say that after Carlsbad waters such attacks are frequent, and that they in no way imply that the waters did not suit.' The Journal goes on:—
September 16th.—To Gorhambury [Lord Verulam's] with Christine. On leaving the house on the 18th to go to the station, the horse in the fly ran away. We were overturned near the park gates, and had a narrow escape. Nobody was hurt, and we drove on [in another fly] to Lord Ebury's at Moor Park.
October 2nd.—To Scotland on a visit to Moncreiff at Cultoquhey; thence to Minard (Mr. Pender's) on Loch Fyne; thence to Edinburgh; Ormiston on the 21st; the John Stanleys there and Lord Neaves. [Footnote: A lord of justiciary, one of the foremost authorities on criminal law in Scotland, and for more than forty years a regular contributor of prose and verse to Blackwood's Magazine.] Lady Ruthven to dinner.
26th.—To Auchin, and home on the 28th.
A bill had passed at the close of the last session for the appointment of four paid members of the Privy Council. They were Sir James Colvile, Sir Barnes Peacock, Sir Montague Smith, and Sir Robert Collier. These judges began to sit on November 6th of this year. The Court, from that time, sat continuously. I obtained an additional clerk, and also an addition of 300 £ a year to my own salary, which was fixed at 1,500 £.
Pleasant visit to New Lodge (Van de Weyer's) in November. Shooting at Lithe
Hill in December.
The Prince of Wales's serious illness. He very nearly died on December 6th.