Memoirs of Life and Literature

by W. H. Mallock

On another occasion she told the following story of him. He was, so she said, in London, and she, having been left in the country, had written to propose joining him. He had at once replied begging her not to do so, but to leave him a little longer in the enjoyment of philosophic solitude. "When I heard that"—so she confided to a friend—"I set off for London instantly; and there I found him with Philosophic Solitude, in white muslin, on his knee."

"Perhaps," added the narrator, "even less agreeable to the delinquent would have been, had he heard it, her description of his physical appearance. Alluding to the fact that his head was undoubtedly too large for his body, she said, 'My husband has the head of a goat, and he has the body of a grasshopper.'"

But of all the men who, in the way of conversational wit or otherwise, figure in my memory as types of a now vanished generation, the most remarkable still remains to be noticed. This was the second Duke of Wellington. Even to those who knew him only by sight he was memorable, on account of his astonishing likeness to the portraits or statues of his father. He had not, or he had not chosen to cultivate, the talents which mainly lead to distinction in public life, but by the small circle of those who were intimate with him during his later days he was known for a humor, a polished wit, and a shrewdness which made him, of all possible companions, one of the most delightful. I knew him intimately myself as far as my age permitted. I often stayed with him at Strathfieldsaye, not only when he had parties, but also when, as sometimes happened, we were together for a week alone. On these latter occasions I had all the mornings to myself, and every afternoon I took with him long walks, during which he poured forth his social or other philosophies, or else told me stories of his father so pointed and numerous that, had I written them down, I might then have compiled a life of him which would form a very interesting supplement to those which exist already. I never, in the course of these walks, experienced a dull moment.

The only great entertainment at which I ever encountered him was a dinner party of his own given at Apseley House. During one of such visits which I paid him at Strathfieldsaye he told me that very soon he would have to give a party in London in honor of the King of the Belgians. The party was to be a large dinner, and he asked me to be one of the company. The time arrived. The King of the Belgians for some reason failed to come, but everything had been arranged in an appropriate manner for his reception. As a spectacle the table was noteworthy. It was covered with gold plate—a historic monument to the great hero of Waterloo—which consisted of figures of soldiers, horses, palm trees, camels, artillery, and other military objects symbolical of his various campaigns; and gold plate at intervals all round the table was supplemented by triumphal wreaths. The duke told me afterward that all these decorations were due to his own forgetfulness. He had for years been accustomed to celebrate the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo by a banquet to certain officers who had been present at it, and who still survived; but the number of these had already been so reduced that he had determined to discontinue the celebration. In fixing, however, a day for the dinner now in question, he had entirely forgotten that the date ultimately chosen was none other than the day of the great battle. His servants had concluded that, in honor of Belgian royalty, he was giving one more repetition of the Waterloo banquets of the past. Everything had been arranged accordingly; and I was thus present at a function which will never take place again.

But it was not at such functions that his real character displayed itself. This only came out in intercourse of a much more private kind, as would happen at Strathfieldsaye when he entertained parties of not more than ten people. When I was present on such occasions I was usually the youngest—by far the youngest—member of the company. Of the rest I may mention as examples Lady Dorothy Nevill, Alfred Montgomery, Sir Hastings Doyle, Lord Calthorpe, Sir St. George Foley, Lady Chesterfield, and Mr. Newtons, the courtly police magistrate, called by his friends "The Beak." And here—to repeat in substance the observation which I have made already—what always struck me was the far greater polish of manner that prevailed among these my elders than any which was cultivated among my own, the then rising, generation. In such an atmosphere the Duke's special gifts were at home. He never strained after effect. His words seemed to crystallize into wit or poignant humor before he had time to reflect on what he was going to say. But these qualities were perhaps seen at their best in tête-à-tête encounters or correspondence. At all events, it is from such occurrences that illustrations of them can be most readily drawn.

He had often spoken to me of his dislike of anything in the nature of jobbery, and this was once brought out in a very characteristic way by a passage at arms between himself and Lady St. Helier. Lady St. Helier had written to him to ask him if, as Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex, he would make one of her friends a magistrate. The duke promptly replied that her friend was an entire stranger to him, and that he never made appointments of that kind as a favor to some third party. There the matter rested for a week or two, at the end of which period she received the following note from him:

Dear Lady St. Helier.

You have treated me extremely ill. I have made inquiries about your friend, and I find he is part-proprietor of—here he named a certain place of amusement—which I learn is frequently used as a place for assignations of a very reprehensible kind.

Lady St. Helier's immediate reply was this:

My Dear Duke.