n lodgings in Charles Street, and eating his dinners at
Lincoln's Inn, Frederick Leveson experienced to the full the advantage
of having been born a Whig. His uncle, the sixth Duke of Devonshire,
a benevolent magnifico, if ever there was one, treated him like a
son, giving him the run of Devonshire House and Chiswick; while
Lady Holland, the most imperious of social dames, let him make
a second home of Holland House.

"I dined with her whenever I liked. I had only to send word in
the morning that I would do so. Of course, I never uttered a word
at dinner, but listened with delight to the brilliant talk--to
Macaulay's eloquence and varied information, to Sydney Smith's
exquisite joke which made me die of laughing, to Roger's sarcasms
and Luttrell's repartees."

Frederick Leveson was called to the Bar in 1843, and went the Oxford
Circuit in the strangely-assorted company of G. S. Venables, J. G.
Phillimore, and E. V. Kenealy. This proved to be his last stage
in the anticipated progress towards the Woolsack. Lord Granville
died at the beginning of 1846, and the change which this event
produced in Frederick Leveson's position can best be described in
his own quaint words:

"My father was greatly beloved by us all, and was the most indulgent
parent--possibly too indulgent. Himself a younger son, although I
cannot say that his own case was a hard one, he sympathized with
me for being one of that unfortunate class. It may have been this
feeling, combined with much affection, that made him leave me well
provided for. I much question whether, if I had been left to earn my
own bread by my own exertions as a lawyer, I should have succeeded."

His friends had no difficulty in answering the question, and answering
it affirmatively; but the practical test was never applied, for on
succeeding to his inheritance he glided--"plunged" would be an
unsuitable word--into a way of living which was, more like the
[Greek: scholae] of the Athenian citizen than the sordid strife of
professional activity. He was singularly happy in private life,
for the "Sacred Circle of the Great-Grandmotherhood" contained some
delightful women as well as some distinguished men. Such was his
sister-in-law Marie, Lady Granville; such was his cousin Harriet,
Duchess of Sutherland; such was his mother, the Dowager Lady Granville;
and such, pre-eminently, was his sister, Lady Georgiana Fullerton,
of whom a competent critic said that, in the female characters of