Project Gutenberg's The Days Before Yesterday, by Lord Frederick Hamilton

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Title: The Days Before Yesterday

Author: Lord Frederick Hamilton

Posting Date: May 28, 2009 [EBook #3827]
Release Date: March, 2003
First Posted: September 29, 2001
Last Updated: February 25, 2005

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE DAYS BEFORE YESTERDAY

by

Lord Frederick Hamilton

FOREWORD

The Public has given so kindly a reception to The Varnished Pomps of
Yesterday (a reception which took its author wholly by surprise), that
I have extracted some further reminiscences from the lumber-room of
recollections. Those who expect startling revelations, or stale whiffs
of forgotten scandals in these pages, will, I fear, be disappointed,
for the book contains neither. It is merely a record of everyday
events, covering different ground to those recounted in the former
book, which may, or may not, prove of interest. I must tender my
apologies for the insistent recurrence of the first person singular; in
a book of this description this is difficult to avoid.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

Early days--The passage of many terrors--Crocodiles, grizzlies and
hunchbacks--An adventurous journey and its reward--The famous spring in
South Audley Street--Climbing chimney-sweeps--The story of Mrs.
Montagu's son--The sweeps' carnival--Disraeli--Lord John Russell--A
child's ideas about the Whigs--The Earl of Aberdeen--"Old Brown
Bread"--Sir Edwin Landseer, a great family friend--A live lion at a
tea-party--Landseer as an artist--Some of his vagaries--His frescoes at
Ardverikie--His latter days--A devoted friend--His last Academy picture

CHAPTER II

The "swells" of the "sixties"--Old Lord Claud Hamilton--My first
presentation to Queen Victoria--Scandalous behaviour of a
brother--Queen Victoria's letters--Her character and strong common
sense--My mother's recollections of George III. and George IV.--Carlton
House, and the Brighton Pavilion--Queen Alexa