In appearance he was about the middle height, and well and strongly built, though he latterly became somewhat corpulent.  He excelled in all manly exercises, was a hard rider to hounds, and was what those who do not belong to the upper ten thousand call “a good-plucked one.”  His face had somewhat of the rotund form and smiling expression which characterises the jolly friars one meets with in Italy.  His hair and eyes were dark, and he had a very small nose, to which, after deep potations, his copious pinches of snuff had some difficulty in finding their way, and were in consequence rather lavishly bestowed upon his florid cheek.  He resided in Park Street, St. James’s, and his dinners there and at Melton were considered to be the best in England.  He never invited more than eight people, and insisted upon having the somewhat expensive luxury of an apricot-tart on the sideboard the whole year round.

Alvanley was a good speaker; and, having made some allusion to O’Connell in rather strong terms in the House of Lords, the latter very coarsely and unjustly denounced him, in a speech he made in the House of Commons, as a bloated buffoon.  Alvanley thereupon called out the Liberator, who would not meet him, but excused himself by saying, “There is blood already on this hand”—­alluding to his fatal duel with D’Esterre.

Alvanley then threatened O’Connell with personal chastisement.  Upon this, Morgan O’Connell, a very agreeable, gentlemanlike man, who had been in the Austrian service, and whom I knew well, said he would take his father’s place.  A meeting was accordingly agreed upon at Wimbledon Common, Alvanley’s second was Colonel George Dawson Damer, and our late consul at Hamburgh, Colonel Hodges, acted for Morgan O’Connell.  Several shots were fired without effect, and the seconds then interfered and put a stop to any further hostilities.

On their way home in a hackney-coach, Alvanley said, “What a clumsy fellow O’Connell must be, to miss such a fat fellow as I am!  He ought to practise at a haystack to get his hand in.”  When the carriage drove up to Alvanley’s door, he gave the coachman a sovereign.  Jarvey was profuse in his thanks and said, “It’s a great deal for only having taken your lordship to Wimbledon.”

“No, my good man,” said Alvanley; “I give it you, not for taking me, but for bringing me back.”

Everybody knows the story of Gunter, the pastrycook.  He was mounted on a runaway horse with the King’s hounds, and excused himself for riding against Alvanley by saying, “Oh my lord, I can’t hold him, he’s so hot!” “Ice him, Gunter—­ice him!” was the consoling rejoinder.

In the hunting-field in a northern county, Sir Charles S——­, whose married life was not a very happy one, wore one morning at the meet a wonderful greatcoat, with enormous horn buttons.  Alvanley, riding up to him, and apparently looking at the buttons with great admiration, said, “A little attention of Lady S——­’s, I presume, Sir Charles?”