LINKS WITH THE PAST.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—As I am one of those who prefer an old century, like an old friend or an old bottle of wine, to a new one, I am anxious to add a short supplement to the very interesting " links with the past" recorded in the Spectator of January 5th. Both my grandmothers (my parents being first-cousins) were daughters of the eccentric Lady Aldborough, whom Hayward has classed with Sydney Smith and Luttrell as one of the chief wits of her time. I imagine that she lived on into the " forties " ; for I think it was shortly after her death that in the course of that decade I came into possession of a hand- some green parrot, for which she is said to have given 240. Lady Aldborough was much in Paris. My father told me that in 1815 she witnessed the service at the Saints Chapelle
on one Sunday attended by Louis XVIII., and on the next by Napoleon. She saw much of Wellington ; and one of my
grandmothers boasted that her own hand had been kissed by the great Duke. An odd story may be here quoted from a volume of reminiscences which I have not yet published :-- " Lady Aldborough began travelling on the Continent before the French Revolution ; and she visited Louis Philippe after the Revolution of July. At that tiuie it was, of course, necessary that her passport should declare how old she was. On her original passport she stated that she was 25 ; and she posi- tively refused throughout her long career of travelling to modify this statement. Accordingly, when at about 70 she presented her passport to a French official, we cannot wonder that he looked suspiciously at her and exclaimed : Madame, it me semble que vows avez plus pie vingt-cinq ans." Monsieur, voile 6tes le premier Francais qui ait jamais doute de ce qu'nne dame lni a dit au sujet de son age.' Pardon, Madame, milk foie. Je me anis tromps tout a fait."
I well remember the old Lord Combermere, who told my father that, if the Prince Regent had not interfered, Welling- ton would have placed him in command of the cavalry at Waterloo. Another of my father's friends was the late Lord Stradbroke, who, I think, had fought under Wellington, and who told me that, at his own table, he had heard Wellington say that if he had had his Peninsular Army at Waterloo the battle would have been ended in four hours. A frequent guest of my.father's was Colonel Gooch, who had been one of the defenders of Hougoumont, and who was, according to my father, the youngest man ever mentioned in despatches. He was in a chronic state of feud with an octogenarian friend of ours, Mr. John Forbes, of Twickenham, who died in or about 1860. Mr. Forbes had been at Warren Hastings's trial, had spoken to a ferryman who, as a boy, had helped to ferry Pope over the Thames, had been Lord Wellesley's private secretary, had entered Madrid with Wellington, and had known most of the eminent Englishmen who flourished at the beginning of
the century. He spoke to me of the charming manners of Lord Chatham, the elder brother of William Pitt. A quasi- historic interest may attach to some doggerel. which he con- fidently declared to have been written in Paris by the Duchess of Wellington, when the English were so much hated by the French after the end of the great war :—
"The French petits-maitre', who the spectacle throng, Say of Wellingtoa's dress, Qu'il fait Vilainton'; But at Waterloo Wellington made the French stare, When their army he dressed d la mode d'Angleterre."
Need I explain that Vilainton " was the French nick-name for Wellington P At Brighton, in 1869, I saw a good deal of Lady Molesworth (the mother of the politician), who was then hard upon ninety. She told me that she had gone into a shop adjoining the Pavilion, and had astonished the shopman by saying :—" This used to be part of the Pavilion. The last time I was here was seventy years ago, when I came to a ball
given by the Prince Regent." The garrulous old lady's experience reminds me of an odd incident connected with the same place. My wife's grandmother, Lady Ely, who was lady-in-waiting to Queen Adelaide, was in attendance at Brighton when a Court ball was given at the Pavilion. As the accommodation was indifferent, she asked some of her friends to leave their cloaks in her bedroom. When, at the
end of the ball, the ladies returned to claim their possessions, they were startled by a loud snore coming from behind the curtains of the four-poster. The fact was that the aged and infirm Lord Ely, never dreaming that his privacy would be invaded, had gone to rest betimes.—I am, Sir, &c., H'Utel d'Angleterre, Biarritz. LIONEL A. TOLLEMACHE.
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