Every one who went about in London in the ’seventies will remember the dyed locks and crimson velvet waistcoat of William, fifth Earl Bathurst, who was born in 1791 and died in 1878.  He told me that he was at a private school at Sunbury-on-Thames with William and John Russell, the latter of whom became the author of the Reform Bill and Prime Minister.  At this delightful seminary, the peers’ sons, including my informant, who was then the Hon. William Bathurst, had a bench to themselves.  William and John Russell were not peers’ sons, as their father had not then succeeded to the Dukedom of Bedford.  In 1802 he succeeded, on the sudden death of his elder brother, and became sixth Duke of Bedford; and his sons, becoming Lord William and Lord John, were duly promoted to the privileged bench.  Nothing in Pelham or Vivian Grey quite equals this.

When I went to Harrow, in 1868, there was an old woman, by name Polly Arnold, still keeping a stationer’s shop in the town, who had sold cribs to Byron when he was a Harrow boy; and Byron’s fag, a funny old gentleman in a brown wig—­called Baron Heath—­was a standing dish on our school Speech-Day.

Once at a London dinner I happened to say in the hearing of Mrs. Procter (widow of “Barry Cornwall,” and mother of the poetess) that I was going next day to the Harrow Speeches.  “Ah,” said Mrs. Procter, “that used to be a pleasant outing.  The last time I went I drove down with Lord Byron and Dr. Parr, who had been breakfasting with my father.”  Mrs. Procter died in 1888.

Among the remarkable women of our time, if merely in respect of longevity, must be reckoned Lady Louisa Stuart, sister and heir of the last Earl of Traquair.  She was a friend and correspondent of Sir Walter Scott, who in describing “Tully Veolan” drew Traquair House with literal exactness, even down to the rampant bears which still guard the locked entrance-gates against all comers until the Royal Stuarts shall return to claim their own.  Lady Louisa Stuart lived to be ninety-nine, and died in 1876.

Perhaps the most remarkable old lady whom I knew intimately was Caroline Lowther, Duchess of Cleveland, who was born in 1792 and died in 1883.  She had been presented to Queen Charlotte when there were only forty people at the Drawing-room, had danced with the Prince of Orange, and had attended the “breakfasts” given by Albinia Countess of Buckinghamshire (who died in 1816), at her villa just outside London.  The site of that villa is now Hobart Place, having taken its name from that of the Buckinghamshire family.  The trees of its orchard are still discoverable in the back-gardens of Hobart Place and Wilton Street, and I am looking out upon them as I write this page.