cier, almost anything except what he was. "Browning,"
growled Tennyson, "I'll predict your end. You'll die of apoplexy, in a
stiff choker, at a London dinner-party."

The streams of society and of politics have always intermingled, and, at
the period of which I am writing, Lord Hartington, afterwards, as 8th
Duke of Devonshire, leader of the Liberal Unionists, might still be seen
lounging and sprawling in doorways and corners. Mr. Arthur Balfour,
weedy and willowy, was remarked with interest as a young man of great
possessions, who had written an unintelligible book but might yet do
something in Parliament; while Lord Rosebery, though looking absurdly
youthful, was spoken of as cherishing lofty ambitions.

Later on, I may perhaps say more about private entertainment and about
those who figured in it; but now I must turn to the public sights and
shows. Matthew Arnold once wrote to his mother: "I think you will be
struck with the aspect of London in May; the wealth and brilliancy of it
is more remarkable every year. The carriages, the riders, and the
walkers in Hyde Park, on a fine evening in May or June, are alone worth
coming to London to see." This description, though written some years
before, was eminently true of Rotten Row and its adjacent drives when I
first frequented them. Frederick Locker, a minor poet of Society, asked
in some pensive stanzas on Rotten Row:

"But where is now the courtly troop
That once rode laughing by?
I miss the curls of Cantilupe,
The laugh of Lady Di."

Lord Cantilupe, of whom I always heard that he was the handsomest man
of his generation, died before I was born, and Lady Di Beauclerck had
married Baron Huddleston and ceased to ride in Rotten Row before I came
to London; so my survey of the scene was unmarred by Locker's reflective
melancholy, and I could do full justice to its charm. "Is there," asked
Lord Beaconsfield, "a more gay and graceful spectacle in this world than
Hyde Park at the end of a long summer morning in the merry month of May?
Where can we see such beautiful women, such gallant cavaliers, such fine
horses, such brilliant equipages? The scene, too, is worthy of such
agreeable accessories--the groves, the gleaming waters, and the
triumphal arches. In the distance the misty heights of Surrey and the
lovely glades of Kensington." This passage would need some re-touching
if it were to describe the Park in 1911, but in 1880 it was still a
pho