Is so great a lord as he,”

is open to comment, save as a poetic licence. The fair children were 1, Brownlow, second Marquess, the husband of my cousin; 2, Lord Thomas, who married, in 1838, Lady Sophia Lennox; and 3, Lady Sophia, who married, in 1818, Right Honourable Henry Pierrepont. Lady Sophia Pierrepont was grandmother of the present Duke of Wellington.

LORD DERBY—THE CORN LAWS

Amongst my frequent visits to my cousins Lord and Lady Exeter, at this magnificent old dwelling, to which I have alluded in a former chapter, the one most worthy of being remembered was that paid in the year 1850, when the strife of parties respecting the Corn Laws was still raging. In fact it immediately preceded the short period of Lord Derby’s administration, and the house party included the greater part of those who were destined to become the principal members of his Government. It was in this manner that I became acquainted with that great Protectionist leader, and the man who eventually succeeded him as the head of the Conservative Party, Benjamin Disraeli. Lord Derby was then in the vigour of physical and intellectual strength, and in the mornings which he passed with his supporters and colleagues in private Cabinet councils, his whole time and thoughts were naturally absorbed in the great question of the day, and in the formation of a system of policy to be carried out, when, as appeared probable, he would become Prime Minister. From such important discussions the ladies of the house were excluded, as a matter of course; for the day had not arrived when women loudly clamoured for entrance into public life, neither had the gentler sex the ambition or the spirit of their sisters of the present day, who demand a right to sit at the official board with the lords of creation, and share their titles, after a somewhat Hibernian fashion, of “Alder-men and Council-men.”

How delightful, how captivating, was Lord Derby when work gave place to leisure, how enviable was the position of her who sat beside him at luncheon or dinner, how ringing his laugh, how brilliant his nonsense, how irresistible the good-humoured chaff in which he engaged with his worshipper, Mr Disraeli, who offered an ever-contented front to many a keen, though not envenomed dart; what a playfellow he was in conversation, full of mischief and sparkle! In my own mind I always considered him a perennial school-boy. It appeared to me that the wand of some enchanter had arrested the beats of his heart and the flow of his spirits at boyhood point. No wonder he died before old age crept on him; the very idea appeared incongruous in connection with him.

DISRAELI

One evening we had a large ball, to which the town of Stamford and the surrounding neighbourhood had been invited, and I was much amused by overhearing a conversation between two Stamfordians: “Do you know which is Dizzy?” “Well, naturally, because I see Punch every week.” For even at that remote period, the peculiar features and singular appearance of the future Lord Beaconsfield had already become familiar to the world through the cartoons of our London Figaro. There was scarcely ever a man who changed so little in aspect; his face grew thinner, his youthful locks became sparse and tinged with grey in later years, but he was the same man grown older, and a portrait of him between the ages of twenty and thirty might easily be recognised at fifty or sixty. He was, indeed, a godsend to the portrait-painter, or caricaturist, and I think it speaks much to his credit that he always gazed on his own effigy in Punch or elsewhere, however comic it might be, with intense and unalloyed amusement. In those days, and in the presence of his Chief, as we used to call Lord Derby, Dizzy did not take so prominent a part in social conversation as he naturally did in after years; but there was something which bespoke concentrated power and resolute ambition, at least to the readers of physiognomy. His demeanour towards his wife was through life a theme of commendation amongst those who knew him little or well. The delicate tact with which he warded off the occasional sallies that her eccentricities provoked, and the manner in which he, so to speak, shielded her from ridicule, were conspicuous by their affectionate diplomacy.

Mrs Disraeli, the farmer’s pretty daughter and the widow of a millionaire, was a hero-worshipper by profession, and laid herself and her dowry at the feet of the handsome and talented Benjamin. She was a happy woman, a happy wife, and a happy member of Society, which she enjoyed to the full. To few people could the epithet naïve be better applied. She rather lent herself to than resented the laugh which her unexpected observations would often raise. To me she was especially amiable, and I confess to having found untold amusement in her conversation.

At the time of which I am speaking, the interior of Burghley presented an appearance of more than usual brilliancy. The spacious rooms, whose walls were decorated by the paintings of old Italian masters, profusely lighted, the groups of gaily-dressed and richly-jewelled ladies, enlivened by a sprinkling of Knights of the Bath and Garter, and last, but not least, as far as the pageant went, the numbers of male attendants in the traditional garb of the retainers of the house of Cecil, in their sky-blue livery, resplendent with frogs and aiguillettes of silver. The whole scene was calculated to impress the spectator as one of no common splendour.

Mrs Disraeli had been describing to me the distinguished manner in which she and her husband had been received at the Court of Louis Philippe, and at that of the President, when she paused, and looking round complacently, exclaimed: “But I do assure you, dear Miss Boyle, I like this sort of thing a great deal better.” The speech reminded me in some measure of that of Caractacus of Rome, yet I could scarcely say that Burghley House reminded me of a humble cottage in Britain.