splendid abode of Isle-of-Wight Ward (grandfather to my school and
college friend Ward of the Aristotle class and Oxonian persecution),
where I once spent a week in my father's time: and similarly a visit at
Lord Spencer's perfect villa near Ryde: and at other pleasant homes,
made to me frequently welcome, the chief being Wotton, the classic
mansion of one of my oldest friends.

Also long ago,--see a former page,--I purposely dismissed with only a
word our lengthened visits in my father's day at Inveraray Castle with
the old Duke of Argyll, and Holkar Hall with Lord George Cavendish, as
private domesticities,--whilst a casual other few as at Ardgowan,
Rozelle, Herriard, Losely, and the like, gratefully on my memory, shall
be thus briefly recorded here: Ardgowan is the magnificent abode of my
friend Sir Michael Shaw-Stewart, after whose grandmother as my sponsor I
am named Farquhar; Rozelle, the hospitable mansion of Captain Hamilton,
where I sojourned many days, meeting the _elite_ of Ayr, and among them
the aged niece of Burns in the poet's own country; Herriard House, my
old school-friend Frank Ellis's heritage under his name of Jervoise, and
Losely--"of the manuscripts," where I have often visited my late
excellent friend James More Molyneux.

Of course, like everybody else who may be lifted a trifle above the
crowd, I have experienced, almost annually, the splendid hospitalities
of the Mansion House and most of the City Companies: may they long
continue, and not be spunged away by Radical meanness! all classes are
united and gratified thereby, for the poorest get the luxurious
leavings, and the feasts are paid for by benefactors long departed from
the scenes of their successful merchandise. All that seeming prodigality
and luxury have good uses. But I will mention (of course without the
hint of a name or place) one only instance of excessive splendour, quite
needless and to my mind vulgar. A great magnate (not a royalty, I need
hardly say) invited four guests to dine with his home party; the four
were my father and mother, my brother Dan and myself, humble guests
enough; and yet behind each of twelve chairs stood a gorgeous flunkey in
powder and bright livery, with my lord's gentleman superadded in
undertaker's evening trim, while the Earl himself wore his star and
garter! Of course too the buffet and the table were loaded, with
resplendent plate. That, scene of ostentation has been on the gray
matter of my brain