From Memoir and Letters of Lady Mary Arundell

MEANWHILE the news which, from various quarters, reached Lady Arundell, all tended to convince her that the affairs of her brother, the Duke of Buck­ingham, were approaching a crisis. That his estates should have become so much involved as she knew they were, could be a matter of surprise to no one. As was well known at the time, their father, the late Duke, had lived in princely mag­nificence; his expenditure as a patron of art and literature had been enormous; and the lavish munificence with which he had maintained the Royal Family of France, and its numerous followers on one of his estates, had not only drained his exchequer but burdened him with debt. When, after his death, Lady Arundell’s brother’s pecuniary embarrassments had, owing to the same causes, increased from year to year, in the end it became imperative that his expensive establishment should be reduced, and that he himself should go abroad, till his large estates could be nursed, so as to meet the heaviest and most pressing demands.

It was in the deepest mel­ancholy that the young Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, of whom we here give a por­trait, bade adieu to the noble mansion and almost royal demesne of Stowe. As he wrote in his diary, July 5th, 1827, he thus prepared to tear himself away from his chief family seat, and take a long farewell of his beloved wife, the noble partner from whom he had derived the title to his second dukedom, sole heiress as she was of the Dukes of Chandos and the last descend­ant of Mary, Queen Dowager of France, and daughter of King Henry VII. of England.

“In the evening I drove out with my poor wife, and remained out until ten o’clock at night. She bade adieu to every scene of every favourite haunt. In silence we drove up and down. until at last, after the moon had risen upon us, we came to the flower garden, and sent home the carriage. She burst out into a violent fit of tears, in which I par­ticipated without saying a word. In this manner she went through the two gardens, and left them in silent sorrow. I gave her a rose which I gathered out of the garden as we passed, and I know that she treasured up the last gift. I never thought that she loved this place enough to make her grieve so much about leaving it.”

His Son Chandos came to see him, but their meeting was embittered by political antagonism;[i] and he records an omen: “As Chandos and Ledbrooke were standing above the cascade on the rock talking to each other, an oak fell over into the water. There was no appearance of decay… the water had com­pletely undermined the tree.” He writes in his diary, July 11th, 1827: “This is a very heavy day with me, people pressing me on all sides with business, and my heart long­ing to be alone. God’s will be done!—but my mind is very low, and I cannot look at the scene of my childhood, manhood and age, for perhaps the last time, without a very, very bitter pang. Some feelings, too, of sorrow swell in upon me and help to overwhelm me. But although I have cause for regret, I have none for self-reproach. My country and my neighbours have been the better for my money. No unworthy pursuit has con­sumed it. With a little management and the blessing of God, I may yet recover and pass what age God gives me in comfort. My reason tells me all this, but my feelings fight against my reason and prostrate my strength… I close the even­ing by a melancholy drive and visit to all my dear scenes. Adieu dear, dear Stowe!”

“July 12th. My grandchildren took leave of me, and the little girl was deeply affected and cried. Even the little boy repeatedly bade me good-bye. My old servants could not speak, but grasped my hand in silence as I passed: and thus I left the poor dear old residence of my fathers.”

Next day the Duke had an audience of three hours’ duration with the King, which he had demanded before going abroad to thank His Majesty for this gracious permission, and to give him personally the assurance that he had not a more attached and grateful servant, “though such had been the times that he had not been able to prove it in the usual way of service or support.”

The King then exclaimed: “Ah! these are indeed strange times, and it is a strange political atmosphere which we are breathing.”

The Duke replied: “So strange, sir, that I can­not breathe it, and I retire to avoid it.”

On August 4th, the Duke left Southampton in his newly built yacht, the Anna Eliza, with a small suite consisting of a Secretary, Chaplain, and Surgeon, and a few domestic servants, with “all my crew dead drunk the morning before leaving Southampton: mutinous and ungovernable, and the captain doing nothing to prevent them.”

Between Havre and Portland the vessel got unsteady and sickness became pretty general, while the Welsh cook-maid coming on deck “blesses her stars, and wonders how the sea can be so sickly a place, as she has always heard of people going into it and to its borders for their health.”

In a few days they are in the Southern Seas, and after an agreeable stay at Gibraltar, where they were received with great distinction by the Gover­nor, they pass into the Mediterranean. On September 9th, the Duke thus wrote in his diary: “We are now approaching the meridian of Green­wich, and I contemplate with feelings of sorrow, and remembrance of times gone by, the stars which for so many years I have contemplated on the meridian of my home! Alpha Lyre I have taught myself to consider as the star presiding over Stowe. Night after night have I sat watching its brilliant green lustre shining over the centre of the great south portico, and here it is in almost pre­cisely the same position over my head. When and how shall I see again the dear scenes which it looks down upon in my native land!” On September 22nd he again wrote: “As for myself, I am ashamed to say that I am more low than I should dare confess to anyone, by a dream which haunted me in my sleep, with a degree of precision which is really frightful. I was at Stowe, my dear and regretted home. All was desolate—not a soul appeared to receive me. My good dog met me, and licked my hand. Accompanied by him, I traversed all the apartments—all desolate and solitary: every room as I had left it. On my return from the state bedroom, I met my wife! She told me all my family were gone, and that she was left desolate—that even her little favourite dog, which had been her sole remaining companion, had died a few days ago. We went out at the north hall door together, and all was solitude and desertion. I awoke with the distress of the moment, and I slept no more that night.”

Some years later, this distressing dream, in which at the time the Duke himself professed not to have the slightest faith, was almost exactly realised.

But the wave of adversity, consequent on a general monetary depreciation, which in those memorable years swept over England, had not engulphed the Duke of Buckingham without striking on his sister and her lord, breaking up their home and wafting them abroad. Hence, Lady Arundell soon found herself writing in the same strain of deep despondency as her brother, and talking how she and her husband would have to bid a last farewell to Wardour. Suffice it to say that, owing to various causes, the greater part of the Wardour property had been under sale during the latter years or her husband’s father, so that Lord and Lady Arundell found their income so reduced that they could not well afford to live at the castle, which had therefore to be left untenanted in the vain hopes of finding some one who could rent it, while they themselves thought it at once more cheerful and more economical to travel abroad.

In May, 1828, Lord and Lady Arundell went down from Rome to meet their brother the Duke of Buckingham at Naples, where he had arrived in the preceding January in his yacht after visiting the chief cities of Sicily. At Naples he had been received immediately in audience by the King; and he afterwards went boar-hunting with his Majesty, who offered him his own guns for the occasion.

“May 4th. My sister comes on board.” She had first been witnessing the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius in the hands of the Cardinal Archbishop, Scilla Ruffo, “my old friend,” as the Duke styles him here in his Diary, for they had already exchanged visits. “Mary said that it did not appear to liquefy entirely, but to become pasty and smeary, like red savoury jelly.” Lord Clifford’s son Robert was then at Naples, and he and his friend Mr. King come on board also, and an excursion is made to Capri and Piestum. Lord and Lady Arundell then return to Rome while the Duke of Buckingham made a cruise during the summer months, visiting Malta, Sardinia and Corsica, Genoa and Turin.

On Nov. 4th, the Duke arrived in Rome, Next morning, “after breakfast my sister came, and with her I went to St. Peter’s…The first im­pression that it gave me was of the wonderful beauty of its chaste and plain design, although constructed in the most elaborate order of archi­tecture, the composite. The next impression produced was that of the splendour and dazzling magnificence of its ornaments, so tremendously resplendent in themselves, and yet so well kept under by the imposing and awful gravity of its architecture.”

“Nov. 6th, went a course of ruins with my sister.” On Sunday, the 9th, the Duke went in the afternoon to vespers at St. Peter’s. “I was with Lord Arundell in one of the tribunes, where we were not seen.” On the 12th, “antiquity hunting with my sister,” and so on.

On Nov. 21st, “having previously applied for an audience of the Pope,[ii] through the Hanoverian minister, I proceeded this morning at eleven o’clock, full-dressed, to the Vatican. Having waited for half-an-hour, whilst a cardinal transacted busi­ness with the Pope, our attendant in waiting, after desiring me to leave my hat in the adjoining room, as he would my sword had I not been in uniform, pre­ceded me, and falling down upon both knees in the middle of the room, announced my name and retired. The Pope, in his morning-dress of white camblet, with a white cap over the tonsure, ad­vanced from the table, where he was writing, and received me most cordially. I bent my knee to kiss his hand, as to my own sovereign, which is the etiquette, but he stopped me. His appear­ance was singularly dignified, easy, pious, mild, unassuming, and gentle, and his manners quite those of a man of the world. Before he was Pope he was sent on several foreign missions. He kept me for full three-quarters of an hour. He plunged directly into politics—his sentiments are decidedly liberal. His view of the present state of things in Europe most just and sensible, and his opinion on the Catholic question full of good feeling-moderate, honest, and conciliatory. At the end of the time I have mentioned, during which he spoke openly but confidentially, he took leave of me. His manners pleased me so much, and his mildness and moderation made such an impression upon me, that in going I said to him in nearly these words:—­

“Saint père, mon cher père fut Protestant comme moi. Le Pape regnant, quand mon père fut à Rome, l’honora de ses bontés et de ses égards. Quand il eut son audience d’adieu le Pape le bénit en lui disant, ‘Jeune homme, la bénédiction d’un vieillard ne peut pas vous faire de mal.’ Saint Père, la bénédiction d’un pieux, vertueux, et auguste Souverain à la tête de la Réligion Chrétienne la plus ancienne du monde, ne peut pas faire de mal à celui qui la reçoit, Bénissez moi, Saint Père!”

“The old man was affected, and the tears came into his eyes. He seized my two hands in his as I bent before him, and, with one hand making the sign of the cross over me, said, in evidently a tone of great feeling:

“Je le fais de tout mon cœur. Que le bon Dieu vous bénisse, mon cher fils!”

“Can I be blamed for saying that I retired from his presence as good a Protestant as I entered it, but warmly impressed with the kindness of his manner, and the sanctity of the act?”

But the best idea of the life led by Lady Arundell during her well-nigh two years’ residence in Rome, may be gathered from a letter written by her to her husband’s sister, two months after the arrival of her brother. The concluding part of the letter is unfortunately missing, and a few sentences of uninteresting gossip are omitted in the first part. It is addressed to the Hon^ble. Mrs. Doughty, and is dated Rome, Jan. 10th, 1829.

“My Dearest Katty, I have at length found a morning which I can devote to saying all my say to you, and first to answering your letter which crossed mine. Evd. felt deeply all your warm-hearted husband’s remonstrances against his remaining abroad. His letter had the most beneficial effect on Evd., who talked in the most open manner both to Jones and me about his affairs, which seem at a dead standstill, without any reason, except, I imagine, the reason why every affair in lawyers’ hands remains there ten times as long as it is necessary, viz: that it is said to be to the lawyers’ interest that it should do so. Jones is urgent for our return to England: if I was sure that it would hurry the conclusion of the affairs, I should wish it too, other­wise to leave dear Rome is such an effort that I would not willingly make it, unless I was certain of good arising from it, I mean this year; for of course I do not mean to stay my life here, and indeed, in 1830 should wish to return to see all I love; but this year I wish to remain abroad. The affairs plague Evd. so much, and hurt so especially both his spirits and health, that I dread his returning to them, unless I was sure that his presence would accelerate them. Then with my feelings and temper I dread the state of party in which England now is, particularly being near one of my family,[iii] whose atrocious con­duct is as hateful as it is inexplicable, and with whom I could not trust myself to be in collision.

Here all is quiet; one is out of the way of all uneasiness and worry; the life I lead here suits me as well as Evd.; I love the place and the climate, and I dread a change, particularly as it will not be going home to us, for Wardour is out of the question; and to travel about in England is as wearisome a life as can well be led. All that will recompense me will be to see my friends, and to that satisfaction I am far from being insensible, and a letter from Lord Nugent, yesterday, has shaken me, and for the moment decided Evd. to return in the spring for a year and then to come back here.

That however I know he will never do, once in England; and therefore I should have liked my fill of Italy, for I feel that in leaving Rome I shall bid it an eternal adieu! However God’s will be done. I who like being settled am doomed to a wandering pilgrimage, and as yet nothing is settled though I think it may be as Evd. now wishes, and certainly I do not see what can retard our return after the Spring of 1830. So much for Evd.’s resolves of eternal exile from England, etc., etc. Never again let me conjure you be pained, or let your husband feel so at anything said by your worthy brother. Everything depends upon the humour or state of spirits or health he is in at the moment he writes or speaks. If he was to tell me he wished to hang himself, and was going to do it, I would give him a rope and dance a rigadoon, not because I was glad he meant to commit suicide, but because know­ing he meant no such thing, but would alter his tone the next moment. I never can now worry myself about anything he says; By his state of biliousness when he wrote to your husband I could have sworn to the style of his letter. A few days after that he refused to buy more of a wine that was offered him because he could not drink it all this winter, and could not take it to England if he went in the spring. In a week after he was buying a house here, and a week after that altering Wardour with old Jones so as to make it a more compact, comfortable residence for us when we returned.

And this is a specimen of his resolves. Can you, then, wonder at my not minding what he says? What then I want your good, kind husband to do is this, not to mention my having written to you upon the subject, but if from his knowledge of business and of our affairs, he is convinced that Evd.’s pre­sence in England this Spring would do good, to write and express that conviction to Evd., and most certainly far from opposing I will join in urg­ing Evd. (who in fact wants no urging on the subject, but is at bottom anxious to re-visit Eng­land) to comply. Otherwise we remain till next year and then you shall certainly see us…

…Tell your dear husband that the moment his salmon and cod sounds arrive, they shall be laid at the Papal footstool with his duty and respects to our dear Santo Padre, who is now more kind than ever, but they have not yet arrived. Last Sunday we banqueted on a magnificent present of game sent us by the Pope, and several of our Clergy, as the properest persons to eat Papal game assisted at the demolition. Among others, a very agreeable and clever man from Maynooth, Dr. Boylan, who came in October as head of the Irish College here, which he is already raising to an equality with any of the colleges of its size:—he lives a great deal with us and we are very intimate. Dr. Kelly, too, the Archbishop of Tuam, said to be the cleverest amongst our Irish Hierarchy, arrived a month ago, and is amongst our most chosen friends. Besides my Sunday soirees, which are this year most splen­did, we have clerical Sunday dinners at which Bishop Baines, who is wonderfully well and quite strong, is one of our standing dishes. He likes his quarters at St. Calista very much. They are rather too far off from this side of the town, but certainly have a much more respectable appear­ance than if he was in lodgings, and ladies not being admitted is not I apprehend among the least of his comforts. However, he is much repandu this year; dines at Lady Westmoreland’s and at several other heretics’, goes to soirees, is the fashion among fine ladies. Lady W. calls him a saint, of which she is a great judge, and Mlle. J. Este[iv] says there is not such another man in existence. He has preached admirably already four times, and then, but indeed every Sunday, chairs are hardly to be found in our little Gesù and Maria, it is so full of heretics. Dr. Wiseman is much improved and preaches beautifully. Moreover, the English College have taken to singing, and before the sermons give us excellent mottets and Litany: a weekly rehearsal at my house, when Wiseman and his merry men, some twenty, fill my drawing room and sing for two or three hours to practise, and afterwards a merry luncheon, much to the delight of the poor boys, who look upon it quite as a holiday. We Catholics have mustered toler­ably strong this year. Early in October came a very nice little couple who have lived constantly with us, going sight-seeing together, Mr. F. Fitz­herbert and Mrs. Gandolfi’s daughter. They are very rational, sensible little people, very worthy of Rome, very fond of each other, and she is a great resource to me. I take her everywhere of an evening, and am really attached to her. Then the Cannings with whom I have struck up much intimacy; he is so firm and zealous a politician on the right side, and withal as well as his wife very agreeable. She too is ready for any parties fines, to churches or ceremonies, and her nieces, if they were not quite so red when they dance and drest rather better, would, especially the eldest, be rather fine girls and are very sensible and conversible. Then the Riddells of the Grange, who, poor people, coming here to recover the death of an elder son, had hardly arrived when they lost a younger, which has so much upset the poor mother that she has never left her room since, so that I have hardly seen her; but Mr. R. and a son are respectable, gentlemanlike men, and have strug­gled hard, and are beginning to recover their loss. Then Dr. Wiseman begged to bring a Mrs. Dames and two daughters, very tolerable, though with tongues seldom heard out of the wilds of Connaught. A Mr. and Mrs. Galwey, decent Col. Manley—wife too consumptive to come out. A Miss Trail, a last year’s convert: Scotch and very clever but not agreeable, much to be supported, however, as all the Scotch here, Lockharts, &c., have cut her dead for turning Papist. Lady Campbell who gave so many hints to get to my celebrated soirees that I was obliged almost to have her. The Heneages—she is a heretic, Lord Yarborough’s sister, with a heretic daughter, too, but as a Papist’s wife is admissible, very ladylike and pleasant. He a worthy simple quiet Jerry of a man. Son married Lord Graves’s daughter last year and—turned heretic! a vaurien and a spend­thrift (he is not here, thank Heaven). Then Lady Shrewsbury and her diamonds and an ugly sister; good-humoured, dear beloved Lord Shrewsbury and his Secretary a pleasant conversible Frenchman, who was carried off by banditti from Lucien Bonaparte’s Villa, and a clever good-humoured, smirking chaplain, Dr. Rock. Then all the Massimos and even the daughters. Lancellotti and Drago have taken to patronise my soirees constantly. Poor Mde. Ascoli with child and thinner than ever, but improving much on acquain­tance, and since our visit at Ascoli we are all more intimate. Then a great many Austrians, two rare old women, the Princess Isenburg and Baronne de Panhuys and her daughter, delightful, to whom I have sworn eternal friendship. Several French attachés and all my foreigners, Cardinals, etc., of last year, so that you can imagine how brilliant my Sundays are. The new occupants of the French Embassy, the Chateaubriands, I am very intimate with. He is very agreeable and with her I revel in having the St. Germain news, and we go together to every Convent within the bills of mortality. I go to her quietly of an evening when she is alone et souffrante, which poor thing she almost always is, and we set in for haute devotion and arrange devote excursions for the morning. Then I have a Platonic and haute devotion friendship with one of the other sex, as we say in shriving, with whom I pass whole mornings in various churches and who is always ready for a funzione—the most delightful, excellent young man that has existed since the days of St. Stanislaus Kostka, the son of March Phillipps, once member for Leicestershire—who became a Catholic, with­standing persecution of family, father, uncle, Bp. Ryder and all the University of Cambridge. His father a very gentlemanlike, well-informed, pleasant man, and a nice little sister, are here with this young saint, who has reconciled all his family now by his excellent conduct and does nothing but pray for their conversion. At breakfast the carriage comes to the door—now, says Evd., I shall not see you till dinner; of course you’ll be till then in Churches with that boy. Such Masses at the Gesù! after which we adjourn to the outer Sacristy and there such conferences with Padre Glover, who is by-the-bye one of the dearest, most agreeable, and delightful of men, and the best of Confessors. He will be one of the thousand things I shall deeply re­gret in leaving Rome. Meanwhile Evd. dives into every antiquity with antique Michael Jones, who is a great resource to us, rides with him in the morning, escorts me to studios and ruins when I am not in a devote mood, and lodging close to us comes in every evening we stay at home, which is hot as often as I should like, but however we cut the world as much as we can. There are, however, many dinners which take us out, and some really pleasant people whose society one then enjoys. Gally Knight the author and poet, and a very agreeable wife, both fond of Rome and of the arts, and hating gossip and what is called gaiety. Mr. Pusey and his wife, one of Lord Carnarvon’s daughters, both artists and antiquaries very agree­able and living at Mills’s Villa on the Palatine, enjoying it much, and the excuse it affords them of not mixing in general society. The Shrewsburys we go to at least once a week, as I am anxious to keep on close terms with them and to cement the intimacy between Lord A. and Lord S. With her I make progress for she is good and good-humoured and anxious to be intimate with me, and if she had less gossip and talked less in general, and less of what others did and said I should be more intimate, but we are not suited. She likes diamonds and going out and great dinners and driving with her four horses on the Pincio, instead of enjoying the beauties of Rome, and will listen to all Lady Westmoreland’s gossip instead of keeping her at a distance. In one thing we completely run together, and that is, utter rejection of all naughty ladies, and specially of Lady Dudley Stuart, a Bonaparte and a profligate, whom Lady Westmoreland has suc­ceeded in introducing to everyone but to Lady S. and me and Lady Kenmare, who stoutly backs us. Many have been the quarrellings specially as Lady S. will talk and discuss too much and not content herself with a quiet refusal, and now Lady West­moreland has gone too far and Lady S. is fast shaking her off, and all the Bonapartes having taken up Lady Dudley’s cause, it has had the good effect of bringing about a rupture between them and Lady S.; and her once dear friend Hortense and she are now foes. For me I go on quietly, keep Lady W. at a civil distance, go to her parties but have no secret conferences, and after some attempts she has given me up and Evd. too, but says there are no people with principle but Catholics, no men in the world so delightful or even so handsome as Lord S. and Lord A. Then Lady S. has no esprit de corps, which vexes me, no wish to patronise Popery, will not visit half the Papists here because they are not fine enough, throws away all her dinners and balls on heretics, and wonders at my having none on my Sundays, at which when she comes she will only talk to the Cannings or the Massimos, and as poor dear Lord S. lets her manage everything, the Papists are not a bit the better for the splendour of the Palazzo Colonna. In spite of M de. Massimo’s remon­strances she would, to please Lady Westmoreland and the heretics, give a ball on New Year’s day. Here it is not reckoned correct to dance till after the Epiphany, so one was particularly anxious that a Catholic should not infringe the custom. Evd. spoke strongly to Ld. S., who wished not to have it, but the heretics were for it, so a dance it was, and then the Romans would not go into the room, and sat in state in another room, the Catholics would not dance, in short such a work and a talking as never was. Her great aim is intimacy with the great, and to please and court them her occupation, and after all they laugh at the poor thing’s folly and pomposity. With my esprit de corps I take her part everywhere, but inwardly fuming at her. When we are alone, I like her well enough, that is to say, if I can get her off her gossip, but in public I feel down­right cross with her. Last night at a fine dinner, where she was acting fine to the utmost, she was so vulgar, and talked of her riches and estates, and of all the Kings and Queens she was intimate with, describing the dull formality of a German court as so delightful, and so superior to the rude manners of an English country house, where everyone is left to amuse themselves) till everyone laughed. I felt vexed, and she had hardly left the room when a torrent I could not withstand burst forth, and she was ridiculed in the cruellest manner. It is a thousand pities that Lord S. lets her govern so entirely and does not interpose his real plain good sense to direct her. My chief companion this year in gaiety is Mlle. d’Este, who has taken such a fancy to me, that she will never be chaperoned by anyone else. She improves much on acquaintance, has delightful spirits and temper, and is less spoilt by admiration and the world than anyone I ever saw, full of gentleness and talent and most agreeable; further­more she insists on my often extending my chaperonage to churches and ceremonies and to the English sermons, where her conduct is really a pattern, and next week I am to present her to the Pope, she promising to kneel down as often and to kiss all that I kiss, as without that I said I could not take her. Her attention to a very infirm mother is most exemplary, and altogether it is rare to find a more amiable person. A very pleasant family are here, Lord and Lady Barrington, three handsome daughters, as many sons, the eldest of whom is married to a beautiful and charming person, sister of Lady Normanby’s, who sings delightfully. All of them are intelligent, conversible, and agreeable, and the old man is a parson and a prebend of Durham. It is impossible not to love his beautiful and benevolent old countenance. And their conduct at our Church ceremonies would be edifying in Catholics.

The Meaths, too, whom I knew in Paris, are very delightful people. Lord and Lady Meath, a son, Lord Brabazon, very intelligent and pleasant, has travelled with great profit over part of Egypt, Greece, Syria and Turkey, and the daughter is the handsomest, and, except the Barringtons, the best brought up girl I ever saw, and Lord M. a zealous Catholic advocate and a good Irish politician. The Kenmares, too, I see a great deal of; she is very good humoured and conversible, has talent and sense: as for him he is a perfect nonentity, but good humoured, never speaks at all but goes smirking about to everybody and at everything. She has lately become assiduous about sermons, but whether with any idea of change, I know not. Then there are several of last year’s set, the Lock­harts and the old woman with white hair. The Gordon Drummonds wishing hard to dance off the daughter, and it is said have succeeded with the son of Lord Howard. Lady Howard, inconsolate for the loss of a little boy, does not stir out or allow her miserable daughters to do so either. The Aireys only just arrived from Naples, but having a bad cold, I have not been out to see them. The old man I met the day he came, and I thought he looked much broken, and hardly seemed to know me, The young men here this year are with a few exceptions great coxcombs, and idle, dissipated and gambling. The morning’s amusement in fine weather to give you an idea of them is to go out on all the hired horses they can get into the Cam­pagna; there they find a shepherd who for a few pauls drives his dog away, and off go the fools galloping after the poor beast, hallooing and screaming with might and main without hounds, for they have none. The dog generally leads four or five miles, then leaps a dyke too wide or a fence too high for them to get their miserable hacks over when they turn back, and in the evenings you hear boasting of the good run they have had! On bad days they meet in each other’s rooms, drink punch and play ecarté all the morning! losing and win­ning large sums. The mob of English this year is said to be twice as great as it was last year, and certainly it cannot be greater for not a house or a room is to be had, and the Torlonias and the Ambassadors are full of such people. I think it must ruin Margate, for everyone that formerly went there seems now to have come here. They are of course proportionably troublesome, and the conduct in churches worse than ever. However, at the Temple Deum on the last day of the year at the Gesù, they so far outdid their usual outdoings, that I made an outrageous stir, and have roused so much the indignation of all the good society here, that I think it has done good, but not a Cardinal have I found who would take my complaint to the Pope! and I canvassed several. However on Sunday he admits me after…”

Chapter V

Notes