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ments here, plantations, farms, buildings, &c. grave and the gay Generals pay me all due respect and attention, and so would all the garrison1 if I would allow them; but as I did not come here to be gay, I dispense with their civility and society.

2

When I left Mr. P. he was very well, and bearing all the fatigues of business most astonishingly.. Poor dear Lord H.'s illness fell very heavy upon him for a time. I hope you like Lord Ha Ha Ha as well as he is to be liked.

Lady Hester Stanhope to W. D. Adams, Esq.

Sunday (Walmer Castle, April, 1805).

I am pretty well, but I am not allowed to go out yet, which vexes me, as I wish to attend to a plantation Mr. P. knows nothing of. Lord Guilford has left his place in this part of the world,3 and is cutting down trees, and making all the money he can of it. He has allowed me to take a great many shrubs (these he gives to me), and, as anything green in this part of the world is a treasure, I have been employing myself to cultivate a frightful barren bit of ground behind the Castle, as it may be years and years before such an offer of plants might again be made; and buy them you cannot, of a considerable size at least; and little twigs make no show; and should Mr. Pitt come the end of the week, I should like the plantation to be finished.

1 In Deal Barracks.

2 Lord Harrowby, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
3 Waldershare Park.

Lady Hester Stanhope to W. D. Adams, Esq.

Thursday (Walmer Castle, April, 1805).

Pray be quite easy about me, for I assure you I am a vast deal better. . . . . This nasty fever is vastly provoking, for had Mr. P. come here I would have returned with him, and at all events I meant to come up the end of next week, to go to the Installation.1

I am so hurt about Lord M.2 and all that has passed. What a charming speech Mr. P. made! I think I see him; and certainly cet heureux et vaste regard, qui saisit à la fois toutes les faces et tous les rapports, embrasse tous les objets sans les confondre, et les tient tous à l'imagination, ought to have awed some rascals during the debate on Monday. Oh that I had been Lord M., that 1 might have gone upon my knees to Mr. P. not to have defended me!

There was no end yesterday to the farmers and people who wanted to get a sight of the papers. Their joy about Lord M. is whimsical enough; they say it proves that "bad is the best of them;" and it will make Mr. P. shine;" that he is the only honest man amongst them, and the only public man with clean hands. "Our

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master, our Colonel here," as they call him.

Lady Hester Stanhope to W. D. Adams, Esq.

Sunday (Walmer Castle, 1805).

I was frightened to a degree when the messenger arrived. I thought at first Mr. P. was ill, and when I

1 Of the Knights of the Garter, held at Windsor Castle, April 23, 1805.

2 Melville.

saw his handwriting, that he was out of office; but was delighted to find it was only papers he wanted. I hope he found what he wanted, but they are in great confusion. I wish you would ask him some day if he would like me to bring any more to town when I come, for at this moment perhaps it is difficult to say what are those he may want.

Lady Hester Stanhope to W. D. Adams, Esq.

Wednesday (Walmer Castle, 1805).

Some persons write me Mr. P. looks well, others that he does not; I feel a constant anxiety about his health, and fear that business without end must be too much for him or any one else. It often, indeed, occurs to me that you are likely to suffer from so much confinement. Let me give you one piece of advice, which is, to attend to your meals as regularly as possible, even if you sit up or rise the earlier for it to get through business. I have often been told that half Mr. P.'s complaints were originally brought on by fasting too long, and indeed only eating when he found it convenient, which ruined the tone of his stomach.

Lady Hester Stanhope to W. D. Adams, Esq.

Hotel, Bognor, Sunday night, (last months of 1806 ?).

I feel I am like dear Mr. Pitt when I am in the

country, for I recollect hearing him say he never saw a house, or cottage, or garden, he liked, but he immediately struck out improvements in his own mind.

MR. FOX AND MR. CANNING.

1827.

IN 1854 I made inquiry, through a common friend, the Countess of Newburgh, of the late Duke of Devonshire, whether Mr. Fox and Mr. Canning had died in the same room at Chiswick. Some persons have told me that it was so, while others declared that it was not.

The Duke replied as follows:

S.

MY DEAR LADY NEWBURGH,

Chiswick, March 18, 1854.

Canning died in a room up-stairs. I had a great foreboding when he came here, and would not allow of his being in the room below, where Fox had died. The other room above has been very much altered, and furnished differently since.

I am not surprised at Lord Mahon wanting to know; it was a sad and curious coincidence.

Ever yours, &c.,

DEVONSHIRE.

SHORT ESSAYS IN ARCHEOLOGY.

BY LORD MAHON.

READ AT THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES, 1830-1836.

On the Viola of the Ancients.

Read March 18, 1830. Archæologia, vol. xxiii.

I SHALL attempt in this Paper to prove that the plant called Viola by the Romans is not, according to the received opinion, our common Violet, but the flower called Iris, and well known in our English gardens. This idea first occurred to me when, in the winter of 1825-1826, I travelled on horseback over the greater part of Sicily, and observed that amongst the numerous wild flowers which that genial climate was already bringing forth at that season, there was no Violet to be seen, but, on the other hand, a great abundance of Iris; and I have since been informed that such is likewise the case in Southern Italy. This seemed to me to render it improbable that a plant so common should have been unnoticed by the ancient pastoral poets, and that their strains should be devoted to one apparently of foreign origin, of later introduction, and of less general growth.

This presumption will, I think, be confirmed by a consideration of the following passages.

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