Wellington shooting Lord Granville in the face and
imperilling his eyesight; at Paris he was presented to Sir Walter
Scott, who had come to dine with the Ambassador. When living at
the Embassy, Freddy Leveson was a playmate of the Duc de Bordeaux,
afterwards Comte de Chambord; and at the age of eight he was sent
from Paris to a Dr. Everard's school at Brighton, "which was called
the House of Lords, owing to most of the boys being related to
the peerage, many of them future peers, and among them several
dukes." Here, again, the youthful Whig found himself a playmate of
Princes. Prince George of Hanover and Prince George of Cambridge
were staying with King William IV. at the Pavilion; their companions
were chosen from Dr. Everard's seminary; and the King amused his
nephews and their friends with sailor's stories, "sometimes rather
coarse ones." In his holidays little Freddy enjoyed more refined
society at Holland House. In 1828 his mother wrote with just elation:
"He always sits next to Lord Holland, and they talk without ceasing
all dinner-time."

From Brighton, Frederick Leveson was promoted in due course to
Eton, where he played no games and made no friends, had poor health,
and was generally unhappy. One trait of Eton life, and only one,
he was accustomed in old age to recall with approbation, and that
was the complete indifference to social distinctions.

"There is," he wrote, "a well-known story about my friend, the
late Lord Bath, who, on his first arrival at Eton was asked his
name, and answered, 'I am Viscount Weymouth, and I shall be Marquis
of Bath.' Upon which he-received two kicks, one for the Viscount
and the other for the Marquis. This story may not be true, but at
any rate it illustrates the fact that if at Eton a boy boasted
of his social advantages, he would have cause to repent it!"

Leaving Eton at sixteen, Frederick Leveson went to a private tutor
in Nottinghamshire, and there he first developed his interest in
politics. "Reform," he wrote, "is my principal aim." Albany Fonblanque,
whose vivacious articles, reprinted from the _Examiner_, may still
be read in _England under Seven Administrations_, was his political
instructor, and indoctrinated him with certain views, especially
in the domain of Political Economy, which would have been deemed
heretical in the Whiggish atmosphere of Trentham or Chatsworth.
In 1832 he made his appearance in society at Paris, and his mother
wrote: "As to Freddy, he t