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déchainé," as he was called by Byron, Disraeli, Bulwer, Charles Dickens, and Napoleon the Third all met, came to an abrupt close, in 1848, by her leaving the country. The famous salon of the Miss Berrys in Curzon street, to which as a boy of nineteen I had the honor of being invited, came to an end in 1851, and in the following year Miss Berry died. The salon she and her sister had established had been extraordinarily famous.

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It still seems strange to me that I should have known a lady whom Thackeray says had been asked in marriage by Horace Walpole, who himself had been patted on the head by George the First. This lady had knocked at Dr. Johnson's door; been intimate with Fox, the beautiful Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, and that brilliant Whig society of the reign of George the Third; had known the Duchess of Queensbury, the patroness of Gay and Prior, the admired young beauty of the court of Queen AnneLady Ashburton, "a commanding woman, before whom we all knelt," entertained Carlyle, Hallam, Thackeray at Bath House. Lady Jersey still held a salon for the Tories in Berkeley Square, and Lady Grey, the beautiful widow of Charles Earl Grey, entertained the Whigs in Eaton Square till 1889. Lady Granville in Bruton Street, Lady William Russell in South Audley Square, and Madame de Flahault in the house which was the Coventry Club, and is now the St. James's, held salons to the end of the eighties. I know that I should differ from all the memoirs I have read if I were to say that Lady Palmerston's parties owed their especial charm to the fact that they formed the certain rendezvous of all the people who made her "world"more than to her position and her charms, or Lord Palmerston's ready bonhomie. It was told of him that he used to greet all those whom he did not know with a "How d'ye do?" and "How is the old complaint?" which fitted all sorts and conditions of men. Lady Molesworth in Eaton Place, and Lady Waldegrave in Carlton Gardens

and Strawberry Hill, were introducing more cosmopolitan gatherings, With Abraham Hayward and Bernal USborne as standing dishes-the first a studied raconteur, the latter always requiring a butt for his wit and his sarcasm. Society was now becoming dem. ocratized, and the days of the grands seigneurs and the grandes dames were rapidly disappearing.

Hayward died in his lodgings at St. James's at the same time as Panizzi, the famous librarian of the British Museum, was dying within the walls of that building where he had immortalized himself by creating the splendid reading-room we all know so well. Mr. Gladstone used to say that Hayward's death-bed was happy and Panizzi's miserable, because one lived where all his friends could drop in for a few minutes' daily talk, and the other required a pilgrimage which few were at the trouble to take. What a reflection on the friendship of the world!

Notorious wits like Sydney Smith, Jekyll, Luttrell, Bernal Osborne, have disappeared from the scene, the last survivor having been Doctor Quin, the advocate of homoeopathy. I met him one night at Lady Craven's, where he and I were constant guests; I had a bad headache, and Lady Craven, much against my will, asked him what I should take. "Advice," he answered promptly.

Great changes in dinners occurred during the forties. Formerly a large turbot with red festoons of lobster was an inevitable dish at a London dinner party; a saddle of mutton at the head of the table, which was carved by the host; and a couple of chickens with white sauce and tongue in the middle, was a necessity, and led to various conventional compliments as to whether the hostess or her neighbor should carve them. Sir David Dundas used to tell of a chicken being launched on his lap, and the lady with a sweet smile saying: "Would you kindly give me back that chicken?" With six side dishes and two bottles of champagne in silver coolers the table plete. The champagne

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handed round after the second course, and was drunk in homoeopathic doses out of small tubes of glass which contained little but froth. Lord Alvanley was the first who had courage to protest, saying, "You might as well expect us to drink our wine out of thermometers." After dinner the cloth was re

moved, and the wine and dessert put on a shining mahogany table. The Bishop of Oxford at Cuddesdon used to drink the health of each candidate for holy orders; but as he did not like drinking so much himself, he always kept by him a bottle of toast and water. On one occasion a bumptious young man, on being asked what wine he would have, replied, "A little of your lordship's bottle, if you please," thinking to get something of superior excellence. "Take my bottle to him," said the bishop to his butler. But now the good old habit of the master of the house asking his guests to drink wine with him has passed away; yet in the early days of the reign it was so much the fashion that when the change began, on a host asking a lady if she drank no wine, she replied, "Do you expect me to drink it with the butler?" It was at Lady Sydney's hospitable table in Cleveland Square that I gained my first experience of what was then called dîner à la russe, when the viands were carved off the table, and the fruit, and probably flowers, were on the cloth which was not removed after dinnertea always following coffee.

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In country houses, luncheons sisted of cold meat, or the children's dinner; and the men who were going to shoot made themselves sandwiches from the cold meat which, with per haps an egg, constituted the ordinary breakfast. Battues and hot luncheons were an innovation introduced by the prince consort.

Breakfasts used to be given by Rogers the banker and poet, who, in addition to the literary charm of his company, would delight his guests with the musical notes of an artificial nightingale, which sat in a cage outside his window. His poems of Italy were beautifully illustrated by Stothard,

Turner, and Calcott-a novelty in those days. Luttrell said that his poems "would have been dished but for their plates."

Visitors to Holland House still may see on a seat in the garden that lovely tribute to his "Pleasures of Memory:"

Here Rogers sat, and here forever dwell With me those memories which he sang so well.

He died at the age of ninety-three in 1858, having seen in his youth the heads of rebels on Temple Bar, and cartloads of young girls who had taken part in the Gordon riots, in dresses of various colors, on their way to be executed at Tyburn.

Notwithstanding Disraeli's assertion that to breakfast out was a plebeian amusement, Mr. Gladstone continued his breakfasts on Thursdays till he left Harley Street in 1880.

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Smoking existed from the time of Sir Walter Raleigh, but only on sufferance, and many were the evenings in winter when the smoking brigade was sent across a sloppy yard to smoke in the harness room; or, when there were less bigoted hosts, we were allowed to remain in the servants' hall. No gentleman ever smoked in the streets after the Crimean peace; and ladies never sullied their lips with tobacco, or even allowed men to smoke in their presence. It was not till the year '45 that a smoking-room was first established in the Holy of Holies, 18 Dandydom, White's Club; and it was 1881 before smoking was allowed below the attics in Brooks's.

Thanks to the introduction by the Prince of Wales of smoking after dinner, wine drinking is now over. What it was in old days appears almost incredible. The late Lord Clanwilliam told me of one occasion when he had dined at a friend's villa near Putney. The dinner was extraordinarily late for those days-at eight o'clock. When they at last rose from the table and went up to their rooms, Lord Clanwilliam flung open his window, and saw the haymakers coming into the field. “I wonder," he thought, "what hour they

begin work," and on consulting his watch he found it was 8.30. The haymakers were returning to work from their breakfasts! Mr. Gladstone recollects that on one occasion when a host put to a bishop who was dining with him the ordinary formula, "Will your lordship have any more wine?" the bishop replied in a solemn voice, "Thank you, not till we have drunk what we have before us."

When I first entered the Admiralty as a boy, about every three weeks the chief clerk used to come into the room where I sat with a "jabot frill" and entirely dressed for the evening, and say, "Mr. Jesse, I shall not be here to-morrow, for I am going to dine out tonight." And this was not meant as a joke, but was considered quite a natural thing. At other times, J. H. Jesse, who was my immediate chief, used to tell us stories too well known to repeat, of the wild freaks of Lord Waterford and Charles and Frank Sheridan, which would now be impossible. Imagine such an occurrence as this: A mad party were on their way back from dinner "bear-fighting" in Pall Mall.

One of the party threw Frank Sheridan's hat over the area rails. At that inauspicious moment a bishop issued from the classical portico of the Athenæum and in an instant his hat was transferred to Frank Sheridan's head, and the others making common cause with the bishop vainly pursued the thief down the street. The next morning Frank Sheridan calmly went down to his clerical duties at the Admiralty in the ecclesiastical hat!

I once asked Mr. Charles Villiers how he compared the morals of his early days with those of our time. He answered with a touch of cynicism that he supposed human nature was human nature at all times, but one difference was manifest. In his golden days, every young man, even if he was busy, pretended to be idle; now every young man, if he was idle, pretended to be busy; and that meant a good deal. The stricter sabbatarianism of the early years of the reign existed side by side with a lamentable laxity, and perhaps

the looser morals of those times were a reaction against the too Puritanic restraints of the dreary Sundays. I think of the weary services of my youth, when, with a properly pomatumed head, I was taken to the high pews, where I had to listen to the fatuous and lengthy sermons of a curate in a black gown and bands, and the refined music of Tate and Brady. What a debt we who live now owe to the movement which has emancipated us from that melancholy view of our religious duties; though there may be danger of going too far in the opposite extreme, of paying too little regard to the scruples of others, and letting our Sunday amusements rob some of needed rest. Cockfighting, which was illegal, flourished at a farm near Harrow till the fifties. Prize-fights were still fashionable, and there was a great fight, which excited the sporting world, between Tom Sayers and an American, J. Heenan, called the "Benicia Boy," at Farnborough in 1860. A subscription for the English champion was started by Napier Street, to which the House of Commons, headed by Lord Palmerston, contributed. Early in the reign oaths were an ordinary ingredient in polite conversation. The queen's favorite prime minister was more than an ordinary sinner in this way. Archdeacon Denison once complained to him that on going to his brother, Lord Beauvale, on the subject of some Ecclesiastical Bill, he had damned him, and damned the bill, and damned everything. "But, damn it, what could he do?" said Lord Melbourne. Count D'Orsay once called on the publishers, Messrs. Saunders & Otley, on Lady Blessington's behalf, and used very strong language. A beautiful gentleman in a white neckcloth said he would rather sacrifice Lady Blessington's patronage than stand such personal abuse. "I was not personal," said D'Orsay. "If you are Saunders, then damn Otley; if you are Otley, then damn Saunders."

At regimental messes coarse acts and coarse language were common, and at private dinner tables the departure of the ladies from the room was the signal

for every sort of loose and indecent heard her say that she never recollected conversation. That is rarely the case

now.

Sir Frederic Rogers in 1842 tried hard in the columns of the Times to kill duels by ridicule, and they were forbidden in the army in 1844, but they still existed. I well recollect Lord Cardigan's trial in the House of Lords, where, in consequence of a legal technicality, he was acquitted of the mur der of Captain Tucker in a duel. Ridicule, however, gave the coup de grâce to duels. In 1852 George Smythe, the representative of the Young England party, and Colonel Romilly were going to fight in consequence of an electioneering quarrel. When they got to the Weybridge Station there was only one fly to be had, so both combatants, thirsting for each other's blood, and their seconds had to drive over in it to the chosen spot, George Smythe sitting on the box, and Colonel Romilly, with both the seconds, inside. At the fateful moment a pheasant rose out of a copse, as in Leech's famous caricature, and a pistol went off. The combatants exchanged shots, and the foes returned as they came. The incident was dealt with in a witty article in the Times, and so ridicule did more than mortality to kill duelling. Solvuntur risu tabulæ.

One of the most remarkable changes of manners has been that familiarities have taken the place of formalities. In my early days few elderly ladies addressed their husbands by their Chris tian names in public. I never heard my mother call my father by his Christian name. I recollect that Lady's fame was imperilled because, after some great man's death, a letter from her to him was discovered beginning with his Christian name. I think I am right in saying that at Eton we never recognized the existence of such a thing. Even boys who "knew each other at home" never divulged them. Letters between friends often began "My dear Sir," and many boys in my time addressed their fathers always as "Sir." A friend of mine, Gerald Ponsonby, dining with Lady Jersey,

her father, Lord Westmorland, though specially attached to his sister, Lady Lonsdale, call her anything but Lady Lonsdale; and Henry Greville, who was present at the same dinner, said he remembered his mother, Lady Charlotte, and her brother, the Duke of Portland, meeting in the morning at Welbeck and saying "How is your Ladyship this morning?" and her replying with all solemnity, "I am quite well, I am obliged to your Grace."

All shopkeepers are now "young gentlemen" and "young ladies." The Duchess of Somerset, on making inquiry about something she had purchased at Swan & Edgar's, was asked if she had been served by a young gentleman with fair hair. "No," she said meditatively, "I think it was by an elderly nobleman with a bald head."

Photography was in its infancy early in the fifties, and had just begun to be common in the hideous daguerreotypes and talbotypes of that time. The witty Lady Morley used to say in reply to any complaint of the dulness of the weather, "What can you expect when the sun is busy all day taking likenesses in Regent Street?"

Before 1860 there were games but no crazes. Tennis, cricket, and rowing existed, but created no enthusiasm. The boat races were watched by rowing men and the friends of the crews, and that was all. I well recollect the great public school matches at Lord's, where the Winchester men, as they always called themselves, wore tall white hats.

They were attended only by some schoolboys, their relations, and those who were really interested in cricket. In all athletic sports there has been a marked development. Men row better, run faster, leap higher, gain larger scores at cricket than the men of the days gone by. In 1860 women first entered the field as competitors with men in outdoor games. Croquet could be played by men and women; and in 1870 women, leaving "les grâces" and embroidery frames, found they could compete with men in lawn tennis, as they do now in bicycling, golf, fishing,

and hunting. The present generation becoming the companions and competiof splendidly developed girls shows how useful these athletic exercises have become; but we must all recognize that the age in which we live is an age of emancipation. The swaddling clothes of childhood have been cast aside, and the limbs are unfettered.

This is the case in art, in music, which has come in the light of a new mode of expression for all the subtle and innermost experiences of modern thought, in dress, in furniture, and essentially in ideas and conversation.

Conventionalities and commonplaces have been supplanted by daring and originality, and who shall venture to say that the change is for the worse?

Following this movement a certain number of ambitious young women, whom envious people called the "Souls," some clever by education, some by intuition, some from a sublime audacity, appeared about ten years ago on the stage of London society. By the brilliancy of their conversation, by their attractiveness and their personal charm, and may it be said from a divine instinct which taught them how dear flattery is to the race of men?they gradually drew into their society much that was distinguished, clever, and agreeable in social and political life. They soon succeeded in completely breaking down the barriers that had heretofore existed between men of opposite political parties, and included in their ranks everybody who, in their opinion, added anything to the gaiety of nations. Never having myself been admitted into the heart of this society, I have sometimes been allowed to feel its throbbings, and to be drawn into sufficient proximity to estimate the real effect its existence has produced in social life; and when I have compared the sparkle, dash, and vitality of its conversation with the stereotyped conventionalities of the ordinary "Have you been to the Academy?" sort of talk of my earlier days, I think that under whatever name they live on the lips of men we must take off our hats and make our bow to them with courtesy and admiration. No doubt women by

tors of men in all their amusements and pursuits, have lost somewhat the old-fashioned respect and deference they received in earlier days. But "la femme est toujours la femme, et jamais ne sera qu'une femme tant que le

monde entier durera."

It cannot be denied that with the growth of education far greater latitude in conversation is now allowed in the presence of ladies; but we live in a time of introspection and self-analysis unknown to former generations, and the realistic tendencies of our modern novels have been imported into our modern talk; but we should bear in mind the wise words of Lord Bowen, who tells us that it is not the absence of costume, but the presence of innocence, which made the happiness of the Garden of Eden.

I cannot venture to describe the modern young lady of this fin de siècle, but shall take refuge in what Lucas Mallett says, "that, compared with even a superficial comprehension of the intricacies of her thought and conduct, the mastery of the Chinese language would supply an airy pastime, the study of the higher mathematics a gentle sedative."

Taking the morals of 1837 and the morals of to-day, and making allowance for Charles Villiers's dictum that "human nature is human nature," I believe that, notwithstanding the en forced absence of the restraining influence of a court and its society, morals in the main have improved. I am amazed by the marvellous strides in the manners and education of young children; instead of the shy self-consciousness of my youth we see everywhere well-mannered, well-educated little folk who can speak intelligently and answer when they are spoken to. When I think of the rough times of dear Eton, the sanded floor, the horrid food, the six o'clock school without greatcoats, the complete absence of any attempt at educating stupid boys like myself, I tremble at the pitch men and women have reached. Now there has come a very Capua of luxury, which indeed

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