NOTES OF MY LIFE.

I

CHAPTER I.

HOME AND SCHOOL. 1805-1819.

WAS born, Dec. 11, 1805, at Ossington, in Nottinghamshire one of a family of fourteen children, nine sons, five daughters, living to man's and woman's estate; the nine sons, and three of the daughters, my mother's children. My dear father died in 1820, aged 62; he sat in Parliament, I think, for Colchester; afterwards for Minehead: my dear mother died in 1859, aged 82. Two sons, one daughter, are still living; I am the eldest survivor.

We were brought up lovingly, tenderly, gently, wisely; never coddled, always cared for; in true subjection, but free from fear. We had also the advantage, at Eton and at home, 1809-1823, of the preparing for, the supplementing and improving of our school education, by a man of a very rare combination of great qualities. The absolute authority over us of Charles Drury, always tempering itself, never broken or impaired; his high principle, his cogent discipline; his exact and refined scholarship; his great teaching power; his wit and humour, in my experience unequalled; his genial companionship, so full of all manner of amusement and pleasant memories; our affection, respect, and love, with the abiding sense of great benefits received, the natural fruits of all the relations between us; all these are principal parts of a great inheritance.

Six of us were at Eton; one at Harrow; one was brought up for the navy: he died at the age of thirtyoné, loved and valued by all who knew him. Six were at Oxford, as Undergraduates; four at Ch. Ch., one at Oriel, one at Balliol.

B

My eldest brother, John Evelyn, Viscount Ossington 1872; married, 1827, Lady Charlotte Bentinck, third daughter of the Duke of Portland; and after some thirty years of Parliamentary life, became Speaker of the House of Commons, 1857; resigned, 1872. Died, 1873.

Edward, First Class in Classics, Fellow of Merton, became Bishop of Salisbury in 1837; married, 1839, Louisa Mary Ker Seymer, 2nd. Hon. Clementina Hamilton, 1845. Died, 1854.

William, went from Eton to Woolwich, then into the Engineers; married, 1838, Caroline Hornby. After employments at home and abroad, he became in 1846 Governor of Van Dieman's Land; Governor-General of Australia, K.C.B., 1855; Governor of Madras, 1861. After Lord Elgin's death, he acted for some months as Governor-General of India. Died, 1871.

Henry, Double-first Class, Fellow of All Souls. Was paralysed by an injury received in Australia; returned to England, 1841, and, after many years of great suffering, died, 1858.

Stephen, First Class in Classics, Stowell Fellow of University; married Susan Fellowes, 1845; was for many years Deputy Judge Advocate. Died, 1871.

Frank was the Sailor. Died, 1841.

Alfred, after some twenty years of laborious, honourable, and successful life in Australia, returned finally to England, 1859, and became Private Secretary to the Speaker.

Charles was in the 52nd Regiment, and became Colonel in it. He had sundry Staff employments in India; and afterwards, till he was compelled by failing health, caused by sun-stroke, to retire from active life, was Chief Commissioner of Civil Service at Madras. Died, 1877.

I was First Class in Classics, Fellow of Oriel, and gained the Chancellor's Prizes for Latin, and English Essay, 1828, 1829. Married, 1838, Georgiana, eldest daughter of the Rt. Hon. J. W. Henley.

My sister Charlotte, daughter of my father's first marriage, married Charles Manners Sutton, then Judge Ad

vocate General; afterwards, for seventeen years Speaker of the House of Commons, and Viscount Canterbury.

Matilda, the second sister of the first marriage, married Thomas Smith, Esq.

Julia married the Rev. Henry des Voeux; Henrietta, John Henry Jacob, Esq. My surviving sister, Charlotte, is the wife of the Right Hon. Sir Robert Phillimore.

In life and in death the love between us all has been unbroken. It is not that upon many points there has not been much difference of thought and judgment; but it has never touched the love. For myself, I cannot say, having lived all my life upon a diet of very strong and definite conclusions, religious and political, that I have had from brothers and sisters absolute sympathy with me in respect of such conclusions, and of my action upon them. Such family sympathy is a very rare thing. It was one of my dear brothers who said I was "St. George without the dragon ;" another who said that one day I might not improbably "upset the coach." But, with much difference, there has been no alienation, or loss of love. My eldest brother, afterwards Viscount Ossington, who succeeded to the family property in 1820, did all, and more than all, to help our dear mother in her wise and loving care for us. His own fatherly care for us, and his loving and generous kindness, never failed.

The first thing I can recall is looking out of a window in the house at Ossington at my dear father's troop of volunteers, in or about 1808. When I was six years old I went with my dear brother William to school at Sunbury. Those were not days of petting and coddling children, and stuffing them upon the hamper system; nor of making children virtually their own masters. If they had been such days, I think our case would have been an exception; I am certain we should not have been petted, coddled, "hampered," nor made our own masters. I remember well my school outfit, when I was six, the fourth son of a country gentleman of considerable estate.

I had a small hair-trunk, containing a spare jacket, and

a pair of stiffest corduroys, so stiff that, in their new and uncreased condition, with a little adjustment they might be made to stand upright of themselves; six shirts, two night-shirts; eight pairs of blue cotton stockings; eight small chequed pocket-handkerchiefs of a stern material; a black ribbon for my neck; a hat, and two pairs of shoes; a plum-cake; and some small money in an old-fashioned purse. The cake, having left its fragrance throughout the garments, was transferred to the cupboard of the Master's wife, and disappeared speedily under the combined efforts of the master, mistress, and their children, myself and school-fellows. In a few days, my application for a slice for two or three, and "a bit for the Doctor, my dear, and a bit for me, my dear, and a bit for Tommy and Betsy," finished up my cake.

There were two curious bits of discipline at that school: one, that whenever a boy committed a grave offence, every boy of the school was made a party to it; and a penitential letter was written home by every boy precisely in the same terms. Here is an instance. One night, as we followed the ushers two and two down a passage from the school-room to our bedrooms, William said to me, "George, I hate that usher fellow."

"So do I," I said.

"I shall spit on his back," said he.

"Please don't," said I, "we shall both be strapped." Strapping was administered with a piece of carriagetrace with the buckle-holes in it, through which the air rushed as the strap descended on the hand. "I shall spit on his back," said he; and, as I expected, the usher having, I suppose, heard whispering, turned round, and William was caught in the act. The next morning, after the due personal treatment of the leading culprit by a process more painful than strapping, we were all drawn up in single file in the school-room, and every boy, older and younger, had to write from dictation, and then to copy from his slate on a sheet of letter-paper, the letter following. Letters then cost eightpence each.

"MY DEAR PARENTS,

"We have committed a great sin. For William Denison spat on the usher's back as we went to bed.

"I remain,

"Your affectionate Son,
"ARTHUR SHIRT,"

There were four Shirt brothers in the school, Arthur, Lionel, Frederick and Augustus Shirt. I draw a veil over the feelings and expressions of the Shirt parents upon opening the four letters, price 2s. 8d. The like thing happened again while I was there, upon the occasion of buying apple-tarts from an old woman over the play-ground wall. In this case the sin was of a more general character, but as in the other case, was made universal.

"MY DEAR PARENTS,

"We have committed a great sin. For we have bought appletarts without the leave of the Master, when we have plenty to eat, and that of the best quality.

"I remain, &c."

The other point of discipline was, that every boy who had not conducted himself well during the week had no mutton-pie on Saturday. Now this gave the mutton-pie a moral elevation which, in its own nature, it did not deserve, being composed of what was left on the plates in the preceding days of the week.

William had been at school at Esher, with our elder brothers, Evelyn and Edward, before Sunbury. There, one Sunday morning, having lost his hat, he was made to go to church in a straw coal-scuttle bonnet of one of the daughters of the house. The ways of discipline are various. At present, there being no such thing as discipline, it is interesting to recall instances.

At home, as at school, we had our mischievous recreations,