tial welcomes.

Perhaps I may say a word or two about my having for the best part of
half a century occasionally made my duteous bow at Court; which I
thought it right to do whenever some poetic offering of mine had been
received; in particular at the Princess Royal's marriage, when Prince
Albert specially invited me to Buckingham Palace, presenting me kindly
to the heir of Prussia, and bidding, "Wales come and shake hands with
Mr. Tupper" (my genial Prince will recollect it); and above all adding
the honour of personal conversation with Her Majesty.

Of these thus briefly: also I might record (but I forbear) similar
condescensions at Frogmore; as also with reference to my little Masques
of the Seasons, and the Nations--wherein Corbould was pictorially so
efficient, and Miss Hildyard so helpful in the costumes--both at Osborne
and at Windsor. In gracious recognition of these Her Majesty gave me
Winterhalter's engravings of all the royal children, now at Albury, as
well as some gifts to my daughters. The Masques will be found among my
published poems.

At Court I frequently met Lord Houghton, known to me in ancient days as
Monckton Milnes; and I remember that we especially came together from
sympathy as to critical castigation, _Blackwood_ or some other Scotch
reviewer having fallen foul of both of us, then young poets (and
therefore to be hounded down by Professor Wilson), in an article pasted
in an early volume of Archives, spitefully disparaging "Farquhar Tupper
and Monckton Milnes."

Until these days every one wore the antiquated Queen Anne Court suit,
now superseded by modern garments, perhaps more convenient but certainly
not so picturesque. Bagwig and flowered waistcoat, and hanging
cast-steel rapier, and silken calves and buckled shoes,--and above all
the abundant real point lace (upon which Lord Houghton more than once
has commented with me as to the comparative superiority of his or
mine,--both being of ancestral dinginess, and only to be washed in
coffee)--these are ill exchanged for boots and trousers and straight
black sword, and everything of grace and beauty diligently tailored
away. When I last attended at St. James's in honour of Prince Albert
Victor's first reception, I was, among twelve hundred, one of only three
units who paid our respects in the stately fashions of Good Queen Anne:
and I was glad to be complimented on my social courage as almost alone
in those antiquated garments, and on my profu