a compound of his own. When Monsieur ber could not be more cold, damp, and Guizot escaped from France, his first gloomy than this August. The Berrys dinner and welcome was in Queen Square. are here in Mrs. Lamb's house, and Lady Soon after their marriage my father and Char. [Lady Charlotte Lindsay] at Petermother went abroad, and she wrote from sham, all well and youthful. Mr. Senior Munich to Mrs. Austin: is vacation master in London this year again, and finds us a godsend for his Sat rdays and Sundays. We have had various people here, and many more have announced their intention of coming. Lord Lansdowne was here for a day in passing through London, and he was so much obliged for our kind hospitality in giving him a dinner and a bed." Dwarkanauth Tagore, the clever Hindoo merchant, and Landseer and Eastlake.

Our friend Magnus took us to Kaulbach's atelier, where we saw his "Hunnenschlacht," his "Tollhaus," a great new picture he is designing of the destruction of Jerusalem, and last, but not least, a set of drawings for a new edition of "Reineke Fuchs," for which I could have worshipped him. The "Lion's Court," the "Cock accusing Reineke to the King," "Reineke keeping School for the Rabbits," and "Reineke stellte sich fromm" (over which Alick laughed till large tears ran down), were finished; but there will be forty or fifty. If you could see Reineke's face and attitude, his shaven crown, his downcast eye, and mouth down at the corners-in short, the drawings are quite as good as the poem. Kaulbach is a wonderful genius; he had beautiful erhaben paintings, drawings which might have been Hogarth's, and this Reineke in quite another style; besides which he is a beautiful portrait-painter. We were amused by a bookseller, into whose shop we went to buy the "Gospel of the Life of Maria." He had not got it, and wanted us to buy Sievert's "Leben Christi." Alick, not hearing the name of the author, asked if it was Strauss's. The poor man looked shocked and frightened, and on our expressing decorous sympathy with his feelings, he added, in a most confidential tone, "Aber wissen Sie doch, gnädige Frau, es gibt auch Freigeister hier in Augsburg!" His face was inimitable, and we only suppressed our laughter till the door closed behind us.

66

The most amusing book this year is Ford's "Handbook of Spain," one of the Red Murrays.” It is written in a style between Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" and any work by the immortal Sancho Panza, had he ever written a book

edge of the country. How I envy you so quaint, so lively, and such knowlMunich. If you see Kaulbach, tell him how often we talk of him, his pictures, and his beautiful little girl; and look at Albrecht Dürer's pale, beautiful face in the gallery, and grüss him for me so sweet and so sad, no print could ever catch the life in the face and in the very hair.

This house is Bowood on a diminished scale. Hassan (a black boy) is an inch taller for our grandeur-peu s'en faut, he thinks me a great lady and himself a great butler.

"Hassen el Bakkeet " was quite a feature of the establishment. Lady Duff Gordon had taken him in from charity one night, his master having turned him out of doors because he was going blind. She took care of him, and he devoted himself to her and still more to the eldest child, whose constant playmate he was. Mr. Hilliard, the American author, was much shocked at seeing Hassan in his arms. The oculist who cured him come into the dining-room with the baby offered to take him into his service, with good wages. His mistress advised him his knees and begged to be whipped into accept the place, upon which he fell on stead of being sent away, as he said, "57. a year with you are sweeter than the 127. a year he offers." He was then twelve.

He associated himself entirely with the family. On the birth of a son he said triumphantly to all callers, “We have got a boy." One evening when Prince Louis Napoleon, the late Emperor,

of the French, came unexpectedly to dia- they lived until my mother's health ner, Hassan announced gravely, "Please, made it necessary for her to leave Engmy lady, I ran out and bought two penny- land. The following extracts from letters worth of sprats for the prince." to a valued and intimate friend will tell of her life better than I can:

Poor Hassan caught cold at Weybridge, and died about 1849; and never was a servant more regretted.

In 1847 Sir Alexander and Lady Duff Gordon translated together Ranke's "History of Prussia," and wrote the "Sketches of German Life."

WEYBRIDGE, 17th October, 1850.

I have not left Weybridge this summer, except to go to Sandgate for three weeks for M.'s health. He is very well and immensely tall. I still like my cam

suits

Lady Duff Gordon's old friend, Wil-pagnarde existence of all things; it just liam Bridges Adams, the engineer, had a health and happiness. Alick, too, looks my laziness and my children's workshop, which she sometimes went to ten years younger than he ever did in visit. During the riots in 1848 the men London. came to protect their "lady." She thus describes the night of the 10th of April:

and reading-room here, and have forty I have set up a working man's library subscribers at twopence a week. It an

I had only time to write once yester-swers very well, I think; they all like it day, as all hands were full of bustle pre- much; and I go most Monday evenings paring for our guests. I never wish to and transact the business, and talk over see forty better gentlemen than we had the news. I hope it will do some good here last night. All was quiet. We had here; at any rate it keeps a few out of supper-cold beef, bread, and beer, with the public-house. I don't know any songs, sentiments, and toasts, such as news to tell you of any one, as indeed "Success to the roof we are under," how should I? But I should like to "Liberty, brotherhood, and order." know the most sage reasons which lead Then they bivouacked in the different you to become a Protectionist. I fear houses till five o'clock this morning, the insular and colonial life has begun to when they started home. Among the party affect your intellect, and that you will was a stray policeman, who looked rather want a good deal of scouring when you wonder-struck. Tom Taylor was capital, come home. made short speeches, told stories, and kept all in high good humour; and Alick came home at midnight, and was received with great glee and affection. All agreed that the fright, to us at least, was well made up by the kindly and pleasant Weybridge, immediately after nursing the evening. As no one would take a penny children through the measles. I state we shall send books for the library, or a this to account for my not writing either contribution to the school, all our neigh-in March or April. I am now nearly well bours being quite anxious to pay, though

ESHER, May 1st, 1851. When I received your letter of 20th January, I was still in bed, having lain there six weeks, sick of bronchitis and intermittent fever, which seized me at

not willing to fraternize. I shall send again, but had a very narrow escape for cravats as a badge to the "Gordon Vol- my life. If you looked at my date it will unteers." We had one r. w, which, how- already have told you that we have left Weybridge. We have also left Queen ever, ceased on the appearance of our stalwart troop. Indeed, I think, one Bir-Square, and moved all our goods and ourmingham smith, a handsome fellow six selves to a very nice old-fashioned house, feet high, whose vehement disinterested-on the top of a high hill, close to Clareness would neither allow him to eat, drink, nor sleep in the house, would have scattered them. My friends of yesterday unanimously decided that Louis Blanc would "just suit the 'lazy set.'"

mont, which joins our garden and field, and where beds can be given to our friends. I only wish you were installed in one of them.

I am still very weak, but very busy getting my house in order, and cannot go The Austins had taken a long, low, to London yet even to see the Exhibirambling old house at Weybridge in tion. I will send you many thanks for Surrey, where we used to spend the sum-the sugar or "bag full of anything," when mer months; but the house was too small for two families, and in the spring of 1851, my father took a house at Esher, about four miles from Weybridge, where

it arrives, but I am uneasy about it, as I fear it has been made into grog on board ship; it is, however, not needed to sweeten our remembrance of you. My

library at Weybridge was very success- | idea of your return, that my friends, all ful. I have left it with sixty members, but Alick, refused to sympathize. Philself-supporting, and very well self-gov- lips talked of jealousy, and Tom Taylor erned. muttered something about a "hated rival." Meanwhile all send friendly greeting to you.

My father is not well; I think he is much aged of late. Lord Langdale's death affected him terribly, and our leav ing Weybridge was a great annoyance to him; but the house was impossibly

small.

ESHER, 20th July, 1851.

I will devote this solitary Sunday evening to a gossip with you; how I wish it could be done viva voce instead of with these odious implements, pen, ink, and paper. Imprimis, the sugar came quite safe, and is the admiration of all coffeedrinkers. To-day I ought to be dining at Senior's (where Alick is spending some days), but I feel too low and exactly what is called "not up" to anything. Our house is charming, on the top of a sandy hill, so dry and healthy, and warm, and pretty. We have a kind of half project of going to Scotland this year, and of visiting Stirling, at Keir, together with Mrs. Norton and her son, with whom I am nearly as much friends as with his mother. He has grown into a delightful young man, and certainly twenty-one is a charming age, when it is not odious.

I fear you would think me very much altered since my illness; I look thin, ill, and old, and my hair is growing grey. This I consider hard upon a woman just over her thirtieth birthday. I break the melancholy fact to you now lest somebody should be beforehand with me. I continue to like Esher very much; I don't think we could have placed ourselves better. Kinglake has given Alick a great, handsome chestnut mare, so he is well mounted, and we ride merrily.

ESHER, 15th June, 1854.

extremely portly and dignified-looking. Now for news. Alick is very well, and

I am rather better, but quite old, and my hair quite grey.

Last Thursday we went to E's wedding, and all went off like the end of a novel. Everybody made pretty speeches; bride and bridegroom looked equally lovely, and we "blessed them unawares," and threw white satin slippers after them instead of old shoes.

We have just finished translating a book of Moltke's, a Prussian major, on the Russian campaigns of 1828-29, very interesting, especially now that all the world is thinking and talking of the war.

I saw the opening of the Crystal Palace on the tenth, which was a fine sight as far as the building and the crowd went, but a very ridiculous ceremony. I wish I were with you enjoying some heat. I am now poking the fire, at noonday, on the 15th June, and have rheumatism so that I can hardly write at all. I shall leave Alick to finish this tiresome yarn, as he may have some news to tell you, which such a country mouse as I cannot.

Our dear old house at Esher was noth

ing very remarkable in itself, having been, I believe, an inn, with a small cottage near. The space between the two had been built over and made the diningroom and drawing-room, L shaped. But the house was full of quaint old furniture and china, and the pretty garden sloped upwards from the back of the house to Claremont Park palings. The view from the front windows was beautiful; the "sluggish Mole" and Wolsey's tower in the foreground, and Windsor Castle in the far distance. Many a merry boating party did we have on the Mole, with picnics in the woods, varied by now and then knocking a hole in the bottom of the boat, on one of the many snags and hidden stumps of trees, with which the river abounds. Once we lost all our wine, which was hung overboard to cool, and my father and Henry Phillips had to dive for it in very deep water, while Ary Scheffer, who was staying at Esher to paint Queen Marie Amélie's portrait, and RichIard Doyle, stood ready to assist in the recovery of the lost bottles.

ESHER, 18th August, 1851. 'Twill indeed be jolly if you get a congé, and come over for six months; but then there's the going back again, which will be dreadful. We went over to Paris for a lark, and 'twas so hot-92° to 95°. Barthélemy St. Hilaire lent us his rooms, and Phillips the painter lodged in the same house with us, and we had a very merry time. I am far better than I thought I ever should be again; the heat in Paris did me a wonderful deal of good, and I now feel able once more to use my lungs. I like my rural existence better and better: the garden, horses, and the health and happiness for the children are better than all London life whatever. expressed such glee and exultation at the

The rides were most beautiful - over Paris three years ago, when I heard he endless commons, through large covers was very poor, and dying. I sent my and green, shady lanes, and in the fir- name, and a message that if he chanced wood behind Claremont, with its small to remember the little girl to whom he lake called the Black Pool in the centre. told "Mährchen " years ago at Boulogne, It was near this lake that the Comte de I should like to see him. He sent for Paris broke his leg out hunting; his me directly, remembered every little inhorse ran away and smashed his leg cident, and all the people who were in against a tree. It was raining, and the same inn; a ballad I had sung, which gave my water-proof to put under the recounted the tragical fate of Ladye prince, and galloped off to announce the Alice and her humble lover, Giles Colaccident at Claremont, for fear the Queen lins, and ended by Ladye Alice taking Marie Amélie should be alarmed at see-only one spoonful of the gruel, "with ing the Comte de Paris carried up to the sugar and spices so sweet," while after house. The princes always sent to tell her decease, "the parson licked up the us of the meets of their harriers, and we rest." This diverted Heine immensely, had famous runs in the cramped country and he asked after the parson who drank about; small fields, big fences, and large the gruel directly. water-jumps in the low-lying land near I, for my part, could hardly speak to the river. They were most popular with him, so shocked was I by his appearance. everybody, and they well deserved it, He lay on a pile of mattresses, his body being kind, courteous, and amiable to all. wasted so that it seemed no bigger than In the autumn of 1854 we all went to a child under the sheet that covered him, Paris, where my mother often saw Hein- the eyes closed, and the face altogether like rich Heine, the poet. The following let-the most painful and wasted Ecce Homo ter has already been published in Lord Houghton's monographs:

ever painted by some old German painter. His voice was very weak, and I was astonished at the animation with which he My husband tells me that you wish to talked; evidently his mind had wholly have my recollections of poor Heine when survived his body. He raised his powI last saw him. I had known him about erless eyelids with his thin, white fingers, twenty years ago as a child of ten or and exclaimed, "Gott! die kleine Lucie eleven at Boulogne, where I sat next ist gross geworden, und hat einen Mann; him at table d'hôte. He was then a fat, dass ist eigen!" He then earnestly short man, short-sighted, and with a sen- asked if I was happy and contented, and sual mouth. He heard me speak Ger- begged me to bring my husband to see man to my mother, and soon began to him. He said again he hoped I was haptalk to me, and then said, "When you go py now, as I had always been such a back to England you can tell your friends merry child. I answered that I was no that you have seen Heinrich Heine." Ilonger so merry as "die kleine Lucie " replied, “And who is Heinrich Heine?" He laughed heartily, and took no offence at my ignorance; and we used to lounge on the end of the pier together, where he told me stories in which fish, mermaids, water-sprites, and a very funny old French fiddler with a poodle, who was diligently taking three sea-baths a day, were mixed up in the most fanciful manner, sometimes humorous, and very often pathetic, especially when the water-sprites brought him greetings from the "Nord See." He since told me that the poem "Wenn ich an deinem Hause," etc., was meant for me and my "braune Augen." He was at Boulogne a month or two, and I saw him often then, and always remembered with great tenderness the poet who had told me the beautiful stories and been so kind to me, and so sarcastic to every one else.

I never saw him again till I went to

had been, but very happy and contented; and he said, "Das ist schön; es bekommt einem gut eine Frau zu sehen, die kein wundes Herz herum trägt, um es von allerlei Männern ausbessern zu lassen, wie die Weiber hier zu Lande, die es am Ende nicht merken, dass was ihnen eigentlich fehlt ist gerade, dass sie gar keine Herzen haben." I took my husband to see him, and we bid him good-bye. He said that he hoped to see me again, ill as he was; he should not die yet.

Last September I went to Paris again, and found Heine removed and living in the same street as myself in the Champs Elysées. I sent him word I was come, and soon received a note, painfully written by him in pencil, as follows:

"Hoch geehrte grossbritannische Göttin Lucie,

"Ich liess durch den Bedienten zurück

melden, dass ich, mit Ausnahme des translated into English. He offered me lezten Mitwochs, alle Tage und zu jeder the copyright of all his works as a gift, beliebigen Stunde bereit sey, your God- and said he would give me carte blanche ship bey mir zu empfangen. Aber ich to cut out all I thought necessary on my habe bis heute vergebens auf solcher own account, or that of the English himmlischen Erscheinung gewartet. Ne tardez plus à venir! Venez aujourd'hui, venez demain, venez souvent. Vous demeurez si près de moi, dem armen Schatten in den Elisäischen Feldern! Lassen Sie mich nicht zu lange warten. Anbey schicke ich Ihnen die vier ersten Bände der französischen Ausgabe meiner unglückseligen Werke. Unterdessen verharre ich Ihrer Göttlichkeit,

"Unterthänigsten und ergebensten An

beter,

"HEINRICH HEINE.

public, and made out lists of how I had better arrange them, which he gave me. He sent me all his books, and was boyishly eager that I should set to work and read him some in English, especially a prose translation of his songs, which he pressed me to undertake with the greatest vehemence, against my opinion of its practicability.

He talked a great deal about politics in the same tone as in his later writings a tone of vigorous protest and disgust of mob-tyranny, past, present, and future ;

"N.B. The parson drank the gruel told me a vast number of stories about peo

water."

ple of all parts, which I should not choose to repeat; and expressed the greatest wish I went immediately, and climbed up- that it were possible to get well enough stairs to a small room, where I found him to come over and visit me, and effect a still on the pile of mattresses on which I reconciliation with England. On the had left him three years before; more ill whole, I never saw a man bear such horhe could not look, for he looked dead rible pain and misery in so perfectly unalready, and wasted to a shadow. When affected a manner. He complained of I kissed him, his beard felt like swan's his sufferings, and was pleased to see down or baby's hair, so weak had it tears in my eyes, and then at once set to grown, and his face seemed to me to have work to make me laugh heartily, which gained a certain beauty from pain and pleased him just as much. He neither suffering. He was very affectionate to paraded his anguish nor tried to conceal me, and said, “Ich habe jetzt mit der it, or put on any stoical airs. I thought ganzen Welt Frieden gemacht und end-him far less sarcastic, more hearty, more lich auch mit dem lieben Gott, der indulgent, and altogether pleasanter than schickt mir dich nun als schöner Todes- ever. After a few weeks he begged me engel: gewiss sterb Ich bald." I said, not to tell him when I was going, for that "Armer Dichter, bleiben Ihnen doch im- he could not bear to say "Lebewohl auf mer so viele herrliche Illusionen, dass ewig," or to hear it, and repeated that I Sie eine reisende Engländerin für Azrael had come as “ein schöner, gütiger Todesaussehen können? Das war sonst nicht engel," to bring him greetings from youth der Fall, Sie konnten uns ja nicht leiden." and from Germany, and to dispel all the He answered, "Ja, mein Gott, ich weiss "bösen französischen Gedanken." When doch gar nicht was ich gegen die Eng- he spoke German to me he called me länder hatte, dass ich immer so boshaft" Du," and used the familiar expressions gegen sie war; es war aber wahrlich nur and terms of language which Germans Muthwillen, eigentlich hasste ich sie nie, use to a child; in French I was "Maund ich habe sie auch nicht gekannt. Ich dame,” aud “ Vous." war einmal in England, kannte aber NieIt was evident that I recalled some mand, und fand London recht traurig, happy time of his life to his memory, and und die Leute auf der Strasse kamen that it was a relief to him to talk German, mir unausstehlich vor. Aber England and to consider me still as a child. He hat sich schön gerächt, sie schickte mir said that what he liked so much was ganz verzgülich Freunde - dich, und that I laughed so heartily, which the Milnes, der gte Milnes, und noch andere." I saw him two or three times a week during a two months' stay in Paris, and found him always full of lively conversation and interest in everything, and of his old undisguised vanity, pleased to receive bad translations of his works, and anxious beyond measuse to be well

French could not do. I defended "la vieille gaieté française," but he said, "Oui, c'est vrai, cela existait autrefois, mais avouez, ma chère, que c'était une gaieté un peu bête." He had so little feeling for what I liked best in the French character that I could see he must have lived only with those of that