• LORD AND LADY MOUNT TEMPLE.
(To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—The death of Lady Mount Temple, who was the last survivor of my fathers sisters, will be regarded as the sever-
ance of a precious link with the past, even by many. persons to whom she herself was no more than such a link. It was she who, as Ruskin tells us in " Prmterita," unwittingly overcame his youthful reluctance to attend the long servim in Rome :— " The fact was, that at services of this kind there was always a chance of seeing, at intervals, above the bowed heads of the Italian crowd, for an instant or two before she also stooped--( r sometimes, eminent in her grace above a stunted group of thin* —a fair English girl, who was not only the admitted queen of beauty in the English circle of that winter in Rome, but was so, in the kind of beauty which I had only hitherto dreamed of as possible, but never yet seen living : statuesque severity with womanly sweetness joined. I don't think I ever succeeded in getting nearer than within fifty yards of her ; but she was the light and solace of all the Roman winter to me, in the mere chance glimpses of her far away, and the hope of them. Mean-
time my father enjoyed everything that Rome had to show ; the musical festas especially, whenever his cross-grained boy consented, for Miss Tollemache's secret sake, to go with him.'
It must have been about this time that Sydney Smith called her "the Evangelical Beauty"; for after her marriage with Mr. Cowper-Temple (to give him the name by which he is best known) she was, at most, a Liberal Christian with Evan- gelical leanings. In some respects both husband and wife took a line of their own. I am assured that they introduced
Frederick Myers and Edmund Gurney to each other, and that it was under their auspices, if not in their house, that the idea of the Psychical Society was conceived. They were certainly
enthusiastic rather than critical. They had strong sym- pathy with what in English is euphemised as Spiritualism, but in French is more distinctively called " Spiritisme.".
From their, especially any aunt's, views on such matters I differed widely. But I hasten to add that, if her con- fidence in upholding these views now and then gave me a momentary sense of disappointment, I felt that, like the water of Bethesda, I was troubled by an angel. As my uncle's fame, if not his name, will be forgotten by some readers, I will
mention that it was he who, as First Commissioner of Public Works, adorned the parks with flower-beds, and in a manner turned them into gardens. He has a yet greater, though less conspicuous, title to our gratitude as the staunch friend of the then unpopular Maurice, whom it was his privilege to appoint
to St. Peter's Church in Vere Street. On me personally he conferred a special favour by introducing me to his mother,
Lady Palmerston ; and thus I had the honour of being her and Lord Palmerston's guest on those Saturday evenings at Cambridge House which are among the most highly prized recollections of my youth. Macaulay, while intimating his own dissent from some of Ken's most cherished beliefs, goes on to say of the saintly Bishop : "His moral character, when impartially reviewed seems to approach, as near as human infirmity permits, to the ideal perfection of Christian virtue." May not a like praise be given to the Mount Temples? Digna viro fuit cgregio sanctissima conjux.—I am,
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