The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-08 00:00:00

About two o'clock, he generally gets on his horse, and
gallops over the downs, or, perhaps, to Dover, where he is
very active in attending to his business as Warden of the
Cinque Ports. He seems to be worshipped all over the
country, for he is very charitable and always ready to do
good to his neighbours. In a shop at Dover is to be seen,
framed and glazed, a short note, which he once wrote to
the owner, ordering fifty yards of flannel; it is kept as a
precious relic.
On his return lie walks again on the platform, till he
enters to dress for dinner, at which he also eats with
appetite, mixing meat, rice, and vegetables into a mess,
which fills his plate; he drinks very little wine, and during
the evening two decanters of iced water are placed by his
side, which are generally empty when he goes to bed.
When we were only men, he dressed in boots, but when
there are ladies (and when only my daughter) always
wears shoes, silk stockings, with his star and the garter.
He is exceedingly polite to all, and particularly attentive
to women ; he is la rieille tour personnifiee.

Although still active, yet age has made some havoc with
his frames; his hair is quite white, but not scanty ; ho is
very deaf with the left ear, and when left to himself, or
engaged in thought, he stoops very much, and his head
seems to droop on his breast; but the instant any subject
is started that interests him, his eye brightens, his head is
raised, he puts his hand to his right ear to catch the
sound, and enters into the argument with all the spirit,
and judgment, and penetration, which form so striking a
part of his character.
The Duke had naturally an excitable nervous
system (like all the \Vellesleys), but " he was
" a man of too martial a temperament easily to
" give way to emotion " in public. But only
gross ignorance ever supposed that he was
hard, inflexible, or impassive. Mr. Raikes
truly says :

Arbuthnot is his fidas Achates, his second self, from
whom he seems to have no secret hid. I observe that at
breakfast he shows him almost all his letters, and his
character is so mild and so placid, that it blends admirably
with that of the Duke, who, with all his fine qualities,
when worried and vexed by his multifarious business, is
subject at times to momentary fits of anger and excite•
ment. These bursts never last long, and when the bile is
once vomited out, he is cool and dispassionate again.
Algy says, that this bile is sometimes visited upon
Arbuthnot himself, from whom it glides off innocuous,
and who often makes a very convenient paratonnerre for
others.

All the ana about the Duke of Wellington in
these volumes are of much interest. The
editor has suppressed nearly everything about
the late Marquis of Hertford, though Mr.
Raikes wrote much about him. Louis Philippe
is the celebrity about whom Mr. Raikes has
written most, and his picture of that dethroned
monarch is highly unfavourable; and M.
Guizot, also, is made to figure in unflattering
colours in these volumes.

There are several most characteristic anec•
dotes scattered through these pages. The
following is capital; it is under dato of
1836 :

Lord Fitzgerald made us laugh at dinner to-day with a
story about C , whose pertinacity of opinion is well
known : he was laying down the law after dinner to the
Duke of Wellington, and according to custom asserting
the superiority of his own information on all subjects,
having even flatly contradicted the Duke, who had men-
tioned some incident that took place at the battle of
Waterloo• At last the conversatio❑ turned upon the use
of percussion caps for the muskets of the army, when
C again maintained a directly opposite opinion to
that which was urged by the Duke, who at last good-
humouredly said to him, " My dear C , I can yield
to your superior information on most points, and you may
perhaps know a great deal more of what passed at
Wa:erloo than myself, but, as a sportsman, I will maintain
my point about the percussion caps." .0 's view of
politics has now for some years been of the moat gloomy
cast, and so far does his wish for infallibility supersede his
patriotism, that he absolutely seems to rejoice at any par-
tial fulfilment of his prophecies, though it may thwart his
own views and that of his party. Fitzgerald once said to
Lord Wellesley at the castle, " I have had a very melan-
choly letter from C this morning." "Ay!" said
Lord Wellesley, "written, I suppose, in a strain of the
most sanguine despondency."

Elsewhere, under date of 1838, we read :
There is only one voice about -'s conduct in
bringing out his article in the Quarterly Review about
Soult and the battle of Tculouse at this moment, in de-
fiance of the Duke's wishes, and his impertinent rejection
of the flake's earnest request to him by letter not to
do it; and this after getting from the Duke an account
of the battle, which they say he has likewise altered.
Much of the marked reception given to the Marshal in
London may be traced to a wish of palliating this inhos-
pitable tirade.
The publication of that article was a flagrant
literary scandal, and damaged even the con-
nection to which the writer belonged. Sir
William Napier wrote a trenchant letter on
the subject at the time.
The following story of Grisi at Walmer
Castle 'is amusing The Duke gave an enter-
tainment to the late Duke and Duchess of
Cambridge :