n
immense distance separated him from all his neighbours, and I do not think
there lived a human being who knew him at more than perhaps a point or two
of his character.

Considering how entirely he secluded himself, my father was, as many people
living remember, wonderfully popular in his county. He was neighbourly
in everything except in seeing company and mixing in society. He had
magnificent shooting, of which he was extremely liberal. He kept a pack of
hounds at Dollerton, with which all his side of the county hunted through
the season. He never refused any claim upon his purse which had the
slightest show of reason. He subscribed to every fund, social, charitable,
sporting, agricultural, no matter what, provided the honest people of
his county took an interest in it, and always with a princely hand; and
although he shut himself up, no one could say that he was inaccessible,
for he devoted hours daily to answering letters, and his checque-book
contributed largely in those replies. He had taken his turn long ago as
High Sheriff; so there was an end of that claim before his oddity and
shyness had quite secluded him. He refused the Lord-Lieutenancy of his
county; he declined every post of personal distinction connected with it.
He could write an able as well as a genial letter when he pleased; and his
appearances at public meetings, dinners, and so forth were made in
this epistolary fashion, and, when occasion presented, by magnificent
contributions from his purse.

If my father had been less goodnatured in the sporting relations of his
vast estates, or less magnificent in dealing with his fortune, or even if
he had failed to exhibit the intellectual force which always characterised
his letters on public matters, I dare say that his oddities would have
condemned him to ridicule, and possibly to dislike. But every one of the
principal gentlemen of his county, whose judgment was valuable, has told me
that he was a remarkably able man, and that his failure in public life
was due to his eccentricities, and in no respect to deficiency in those
peculiar mental qualities which make men feared and useful in Parliament.

I could not forbear placing on record this testimony to the high mental
and the kindly qualities of my beloved father, who might have passed for
a misanthrope or a fool. He was a man of generous nature and powerful
intellect, but given up to the oddities of a shyness which grew with
years and indulgence, and