1819]

KINGS OF SPAIN DO NOT DIE

37

He had lost it when his eye was destroyed by a sabre cut. When the battle was over he sent his soldiers in search of it, and they found it under a heap of slain on the field of battle. There is a fortuneteller's history attached to this cross, which makes the tale interesting. He himself has become a perfect hero of romance.

I was much amused by an account which Lord Albemarle gave me last night of the ceremonies which take place between the death of a King of Spain and his burial. Every day the royal table is prepared for dinner, and the dead body of the King is suitably dressed. After a time the Chamberlain comes in to announce to the nobles in attendance that the King does not choose to dine on that day, whereupon they all sit down to table. The dead body is then conveyed to the vault. After the funeral service has been read all the attendants remain until the proper officer makes the solemn announcement that it pleases His Majesty to remain where he has been laid. Thus a dead King of Spain is treated to the last as if he were actually alive, and a free agent. Could folly go beyond this?

On Friday we dined with the Duke of Wellington, a party of twenty, but only four ladies, namely, Lady Caroline Lamb, Mrs. Arbuthnot, Miss Fitzclarence, and myself. After dinner the Duke showed us the drawings for his new house, and also the beautiful diamonds which belong to the Order of Saint-Esprit, give to him by the King of France. The Star and the Cross are said to be worth twenty thousand pounds. We had a thorough examination of the pictures belonging to the King of Spain, which the latter will neither give nor take away. There is amongst them a most curious picture by Spagnoletto, "An Incantation by Raffaele." 1

' The painter commonly called Lo Spagnoletto was Giuseppe Ribera, born in 1588. While a mere stripling he tramped to Rome from Naples,

38

[CH. IV

A DINNER AT THE DUKE'S HOUSE The conversation turned on the new bank-notes, which are to be made of paper which appears at first sight to be white, but, when held up to the light, is pink. It is marked by a minute collection of circles, which are only visible under a microscope. The plate on the dinner-table had been given to the Duke by the King of Portugal. The whole dinner this day was magnificent.

Next day we dined with Lady Antrim and Mr. Macdonald, ci-devant Captain Phelps, late chorister of St. Paul's, late captain of the Beef-eaters, and now a well-bred, rich, and much-courted person. Lord Stewart's marriage with Lady Antrim's daughter, which was so long talked of and so violently opposed, took place last Saturday. More than fifty relatives were present at the ceremony, and the bride shed abundant tears.

I have been amused by an Irish anecdote which Mr. Macdonald told me of two peasants in Lady Antrim's Irish village near her house.

One day a young girl was tripping along the street, when she met her lover, who thus greeted her :

having been fired by a longing to study Italian art at headquarters. Early in the seventeenth century, while sketching in the streets of Rome, he attracted the notice of a Spanish cardinal, who took the ragged boy to his own mansion. It was then that Roman artists nicknamed him Spagnoletto. Dissatisfied with his quarters at the palace of the Cardinal, Ribera decamped, and went to the famous painter Michelangelo da Caravaggio, head of the naturalistic school, known as the Tenebrosi, or shadow painters. In that method of art Ribera almost equalled his master Caravaggio. Ribera subsequently went to Parma, and worked after the frescoes of Correggio. In the Museum at Madrid is his "Jacob's Ladder," which is regarded as one of his chefs d'œuvre. Ribera eventually drifted back to Naples, where he attracted the notice of the Spanish Viceroy by his " Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew." From that time his fortune was made, and he received many orders for pictures from the King of Spain. But, owing to Ribera's grasping avarice and jealousy of other artists, he was cordially detested; and, according to some authorities, he mysteriously disappeared in 1648; but it seems more probable that he died peacefully at Naples in 1656. He always signed his pictures, "Jusepe de Ribera-Español." The "Incantation by Raffaele " here mentioned cannot now be traced either at Apsley House or at Stratfield. Saye.

1819]

A GENEROUS EXCHANGE

39

Honey sweet!" said he. "Will ye marry me? Say ye will."

"What will you give me if I do?" replied the girl. "I will keep you in tea,” replied her swain.

"Well, if I do marry you," says she, "I will keep you in hot water."

From the DUKE OF WELLINGTON to LADY SHELLEY "LONDON, April 26, 1819.

'MY DEAR LADY SHELLEY,

"I write one line to remind you of my application for two tickets for Mrs. Hope Gordon and her daughter for the ball this night. I am afraid that by inadvertence my name is upon more than one list; but I shall ultimately belong exclusively to whoever will give me these tickets.

"If you should succeed in obtaining them for me, I beg you to send them to Mrs. Hope Gordon, No. Upper Berkeley Street, Portman Square, as I shall be out all day.

"Ever yours most sincerely,

"WELLINGTON.

"I should wish to have a third ticket for a lady. This last to be sent to myself.

My servant will leave word at your house, Mrs. Gordon's number in Upper Berkeley Street.

"To LADY SHELLEY,

BERKELEY SQUARE."

I know not whether the blank which I have left for the conclusion of this London Season, so fertile in anecdote and amusement, will ever be filled up. I have been so occupied that I have had no time for writing my diary.

CHAPTER V

July 8.-We left London and slept at Warwick, where the Castle, so full of historical interest, is, in itself, the most perfect of its kind to be seen in England, or out of it. Unfortunately, the present proprietors do not keep it up in a manner to preserve the respect which every one is inclined to pay to the representative of a noble race.

Lord Warwick, without a single vice, is a complete nonentity, and is ruled by his wife with a rod of iron. It is said that he is not even permitted to invite any personal friend to his own house. The old housekeeper is one of the curiosities of the place, and is noted for her devotion to the family. Her gains, which are immense, will be distributed among the poor younger branches of her lord's family. It is said that her will is made, by which she disposes in that manner of something like twenty thousand pounds which she has received from visitors to the Castle.

Guy's Porridge Pot, so celebrated through Garrick's satire, is kept in the porter's lodge. It is made of brass, and capable of holding thirty gallons. They

1 Formerly Lady Monson. (Note by Lady Shelley.)

2 See "Life of David Garrick" by Percy Fitzgerald. See also N. and Q., II S, vi. 315.

"He showed them Guy's pot, but he gave them no soup,

No scent would his Lordship allow,

Unless they had gnawed the blade bone of the Boar,

Or the rib of the famous Dun Cow."

The date of Garrick's inhospitable reception at Warwick Castle was 1759.

1819]

WARWICK CASTLE TO KNOWSLEY

41

also show the flesh hook with which, according to tradition, Guy Earl of Warwick helped himself.

After passing through all that disagreeable, cold, and manufacturing country-which for twenty miles smokes from a thousand steam engines, so that at night the whole country, from Birmingham to Wolverhampton, appears to be on fire-we came to Coalbrook Dale, where Nature and Art have been equally prodigal, the former in bestowing, the latter in destroying the beauty of the country. Eventually we entered Mr. Forrester's new bare park of Willey, which in a hundred years may perhaps be beautiful.

The present proprietor, Cecil Forrester, has, in his old age, taken up the improvement of his estate, with the same passion that made him in youth the keenest of fox hunters. As it was then his pride to sell for large prices horses which he had bought for a mere song, so it is now his passion to make purchases at a lower price than other people. There is not a chair, table, vase, or ornament of which he has not something to say. He tells you the actual price at which it was bought, and its real value. This is wearying enough to be sure, but his charming wife, Lady Catherine, in whose face no shade of boredom is ever to be seen, prevents the impatience that one might otherwise show. Mr. Forrester's strong, shrewd, uneducated sense is for a short time entertaining; but after two days it would be unbearable. Lady Catherine is young, and beautiful, she is consequently much admired. And yet, with the worst possible example before her eyes, she has never given rise to the faintest breath of scandal.

We spent two days at Knowsley, one day at Rufford (my old home), and three days with our Steward. We looked over our farms, and were much amused by the simplicity of some of our tenants. One woman, on seeing me mounted on horseback, asked if I had ridden all the way from London, and whether I was not very tired? A farmer used a proverb which it is good to