Putupability

By LORD EGREMONT

ONE morning when I was sitting in the shade read- ing a book on the deck • of a yacht in a splendid sunlit foreign bay, my kind host appeared on the scene. The other guests had persuaded him to go bathing with them. Find-

'l ing me happy and con- tented, lazing as I was, where I was, and deter- mined as I was to do nothing until lunch-time, he professed to envy me—how pleasant just to lounge like me with a book in such delightful surroundings (although the book was perhaps superfluous). He said jokingly that somebody ought to invent a word for people like himself allowing themselves to be pushed into doing what they really didn't want to do.

But somebody already had. Sir William Beechey, RA, said in praise of another kind host and a namesake of mine that 'putupability' was one of his nicest characteristics: 'the amount he would bear before he took the trouble to be angry.'

That Lord Egremont (1751-1837) was remark- able. He was humane, cultured, distinguished both as a patron of the arts and as an agricul- turist. -hservant, spritely, accurate, shrewd, eccen- tric. benevolent, well grounded in the classics, of literary and artistic bent, highly competent in business and all practical affairs, a leading land- owner and agricultural reformer, Lord Lieutenant of his county in the most literal sense of the

term, and a winner of five Derbys and five Oaks, all but one with horses bred by himself.

Burke spoke of him as 'delighting to reign in the dispensation of happiness' This was so. But he was shy. He preferred the company of artists and agriculturists to that of grandees.

He got engaged to Lady Maria Waldegrave, a stepdaughter of the Duke of Gloucester and a great-grand-daughter of Sir Robert Walpole. On July 5, 1780, there was a party at Ranelagh at which the Gloucesters were present to celebrate the event. Egremont was a grandson of the Tory leader, Sir William Wyndham, who had been Walpole's enemy. It was pleasant to reflect that differences, instead of being carried on in a hereditary manner, might thus be healed. The company at Ranelagh was all agog about it. Their whisperings and pointings made Egremont feel so uncomfortable that he broke off the engagement—which shows that there were some things with which he would not put up.

He neither drank nor gambled. Wine made him feel unwell; and he thought that the constant gains of some players weren't due to chance alone.

A friend of his, Lord Hertford, took a different line about gambling. When asked what he would do if he saw a man cheating at cards, Lord Hertford replied, 'Bet upon him to be sure.'

Egremont was generous to people in all walks of life—artisans, artists and duchesses. Turner was his frequent guest.

It would be fun to write much about this in- teresting peer. But I cannot, because when he died his executors rushed into the house and burnt all those of his private papers on which they could lay-their hands. Some letters, how- ever, escaped the holocaust—for example, this one from the beautiful but extravagant Duchess of Devonshire:

My Dearest Lord Egremont, I write from Chiswick where I am very desirous to stay but alas unless you can for this once exert yourself for me I must return to town tonight. If you have the goodness to post me a draft for £300 for tomorrow iq a blank cover . . .

She promised to repay it the next Saturday. The draft for f300 was sent, and the next letter from the Duchess asks for a postponement of the Saturday date of repayment.

-He got bored with the haul monde and retired to Petworth, preferring to hob-nob• with artists like Turner and agriculturists like Arthur Young —and a Miss Iliffe, who bore him six bastards.

Nevertheless, the `putupability' remained. When the haut monde continued to arrive, he put up with them and put them up. He would wander through the great rooms, his hat on his head, his hands in his pockets and little dogs at his heels, exchanging civilities with those whom he met.

That his eldest son, who was to inherit his estates, would not also inherit his titles caused him neither embarrassment nor regret. He re- peatedly refused the Garter. He expressed the keenest pleasure when Lord Melbourne (whose mother had been a great and good friend of his) 'declined being made a monkey of by having a blue ribbon tied round his neck and his nickname changed from Viscount to Earl.' His contempt for such things he attributed to 'something wrong in my natural construction.'

What was wrong in Egremont's construction I am not qualified to say. For all his benevolence and for all the happiness which he dispensed himself, I doubt whether he was happy himself. For such happiness as we may aspire to on this earth a more direct nature is required—for example, that of the paladin who, having been offered the Garter and having accepted it, was asked what the installation ceremony in St George's Chapel, Windsor, had been like, and replied: 'My dear fellow, it was mar- vellous: it was, don't you know, like a mixture between Holy Communion and getting your house colours.' And I dare say he had the blessed gift of putupability too.