LORD TOLLEMACHE AND HIS ANECDOTES.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—You complain that my Fortnightly article gives a not very distinct portrait of my father. This is not due to negligence. I would not, nay, I could not, especially at so early a date, analyse his character with the freedom with which (in the memoirs now republished in " Safe Studies " and " Stories of Stumbling ") I have ventured to criticise even such distinguished and valued friends as Grote, Arthur Stanley, Mark Pattison, and others. I am, however, collecting materials with the aid of which I hope some day to produce at least a recognisable portrait of him who was playfully called "The last of the Barons." Two characteristic anecdotes I can give at once :— " After landing on the South Coast of England, Lord Tollemache put his wife and children in a cab, and him- self walked to the station. Stopping suddenly before a barber's shop, he said to the shopman I like the look of that wig in the window. How long would it take to shave my head?'
—` A quarter of an hour, I can give you twenty minutes, and I shall then have five minutes to catch the train.' When he joined his wife and children, he had the wig on. This story I had from my father's own lips ; the other came to me less directly, but I have no reason to doubt it. My grand- mother, Lady Elizabeth Tollemache, had a house in London, and another Lady Elizabeth lived in the next house, which was exactly like it. My father, calling accidentally at the wrong
door, asked the servant, Is Lady Elizabeth at home ? Her Ladyship receives nobody, Sir; she is ill in bed.'—' Stuff and nonsense ! she is my mother.' And, rushing past the astonished footman, he ran upstairs to what he supposed to be his mother's bedroom."
I have lately been told that in the foot-race (mentioned in the article) which my father won against the champion of England, he ran a hundred yards in eight and a half seconds, and that this feat was at the time said to be unexampled.—I Engelberg, Switzerland, July 8th.
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