LETTER TO MRS. RUSH,

FROM LONDON:

DESCRIBING A VISIT IN 1836 TO GROVE PARK,

THE SEAT OF

THE EARL OF CLARENDON.

LETTER TO MRS. RUSH.

VISIT TO GROVE PARK.

MY DEAR WIFE:

LONDON, December 14, 1836.

Week before last I went to Grove-Park, according to Lord Clarendon's invitation. My stay was short, even less than three full days, for I was unable to stay longer, though urged to wait the arrival of guests expected the day I came away. I have written home since making the visit, but said nothing of it, reserving the account of it for you. I write occasionally to one or other of our sons on business; to you as a recreation. I hope this may make my letters, whether short or long, the more welcome.

Grove-Park is not far from London; so that a post-chaise took me there in time for dinner the evening of the day I set out. Then and afterwards our topics and occupations were various. Of the former, matters in Spain, where such furious war is raging between the Carlist and Christinos parties, were among them. Sir George Villiers, heir presumptive to Lord Clarendon's title and estates, is now British Ambassador at Madrid, which led us to

talk but the more of the things going on there.* Lord C. spoke much of the Duke of Wellington, whose intercourse and friendship he had largely enjoyed. He told anecdotes of Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning, remembering my ample intercourse with each when I was minister here. Some of the anecdotes were new to me, well as I supposed myself to have known both; which shows that we live and learn.. He quoted from the Italian poets and from Milton. During our second evening he went into his library for a volume of Milton's prose works, and read to me, for greater accuracy than his quotation of it from memory, the following passage, where the great author is speaking of King Charles who was beheaded: "To descant on the misfortunes of a person fallen from so high a dignity, who hath also paid his final debt both to nature and his faults, is neither of itself a thing commendable nor the intention of this discourse." He applied the passage to a point we had been talking about. It is the more creditable to the immortal bard when we remember what a sturdy republican and king-hater he was.

The hall, dining room, drawing room, sleeping rooms, all contain paintings. Many are portraits

*This nephew afterwards became Earl of Clarendon, was English Minister of Foreign Affairs, and one of the representatives of England at the Peace Congress assembled in Paris in the spring of 1856, after the war against Russia closed by the fall of Sebastopol.

historical in name and costume, the ancestors of Lord Clarendon among them, though he said it ill became people to be talking of them, adding, "better try to have merit in themselves." Of fancy pieces there is a picture in connection with a riddle addressed to Lord Burleigh. I might fail in describing it, but perhaps may obtain a copy of it. Should I go again to Grove-Park, I will ask for a copy to be taken by an American artist of great promise now here, young Healy. The request would be granted, I doubt not, and the picture will then come home with me to hang up at Sydenham, when the riddle would speak for itself. What say you to this? Over the mantel-piece in my chamber hung a portrait of Lord Mansfield, Chief-Justice of England in times past. In the saloon was one of Lord Chancellor Clarendon, the historian of the civil wars. In the hall was one of a favorite name in English annals, Lord Falkland, a statesman, scholar and good man, who was killed at the battle of Newberry. He dressed himself very carefully on the day of the battle, in which he took part as a volunteer, from an expectation that he would fall, intending to expose himself freely, lest the strong desires he had expressed for peace should be misinterpreted by the king's party, to which he belonged; and not choosing, as he said, that his body should be found in a slovenly condition. It was one of his sayings that he pitied country gentlemen who had no