The Bullers, a political family, had a son who filled the rectory of Troston, and were often on a visit to him there. They were the parents of Charles Buller, Lord Durham’s secretary in Canada, afterwards member for Liskeard, and the pet of the House.

These Bullers were much of the Lord John Russell set; were friends of the Grotes, the Nussau Seniors, the Thackerays, the Sidney Smiths, the Walshams, and their like, not to mention the Bunburys, all more or less philosophers of the advanced type.

I liked Charles Buller’s company. He was good-natured, moderate in his views, the friend of the opinionated without being conceited himself. He was a fine speaker, but afflicted with asthma, the greatest curse that can befall a rising statesman.

I heard much about Whigism in this circle, and always with disgust; they were too autocratic, too grasping, too well off to obtain the confidence of those who, at a glance, could see behind their scenes.

There was Lord John, who began life as the fool of the family; and this character in the Alabama business reached its highest pitch. He was a sprig of the dukedom, so he did not like that Mr. Delane (the editor of the Times), and would not invite him to his receptions. So that Mr. Delane, who knew his own value, ordered the lord-John speeches in Parliament to be only indicated in brief, not reported. On this Lord John did like that Mr. Delane, and sent him invitations; so his speeches were reported once more in full.

He, too, must be an earl, and what are these beggars on England-back going to do with their titles after all? One would think that a true man would shrink from being mylorded by his filthy valet; but they can bear it!

Charles Buller was a man for every one to love, and he died too soon.

On the whole, Samuel Rickards’s parsonage was the most literary house to be at, though his knowledge was a good deal confined. But he and his wife were open to everything, botany especially, and antiquities. I recollect their showing me an iron ring that had been dug up on the glebe, which had an inscription on it that Rickards could not interpret. It was Bertus beriori. I suggested that it was monkish latin, and might signify A greatest to a greater warrior, assuming it to be derived from berus, berior, bertus, and this pleased him much.

Who, belonging to the days of which I write, does not remember the cheery voice and the bright, handsome face of Tom Thornhill, the son of the first winner of the Derby, and the inheritor of the Norfolk estate, Riddlesworth Hall! Who has forgotten his hospitality, and the famous still champagne, the bountiful stock of which was left by the father, and kept up by the son!

I often stayed at Riddlesworth with the Thornhills; they saw a good deal of company there, both from Norfolk and from town. Lord Sandwich was very fond of talking to doctors, so they said; and he often talked to me. I recollect his saying that his father-in-law, Lord Anglesey, forgot, not unfrequently, that he had only one leg (for the sensation of every part of the body is cerebral), and he would sometimes jump out of bed in the morning as if he had two, and fall on the floor.

I once accidentally met Colonel Keppel, the late Earl of Albemarle, at the same house. I was then staying at Riddlesworth, but there was no company there, when Colonel Keppel was announced. This caused some perturbation, as only a family dinner was prepared. It appeared that the colonel was to be of a party there on the morrow, but had mistaken the day. All, however, went off well; and since, when I heard of the homage paid him on his almost last birthday, as almost the last survivor of the battle, on the field of Waterloo, it recalled to me the charm of his manner and conversation.

At the time his father and brother were still alive, residing at Quiddenham Hall.

What one missed in these great houses was the company of one’s own class, men in the pursuit of literature or science; but such things are of no use in the patrician circles, they would only be in the way. These lords of the soil love horses, carriages, plate, all of which one can see in great perfection in the parks, and at the silversmiths’, as well as in private houses, and the pleasure in any case is but momentary. In justice, however, it must be said that high-class people are often capable of conversing with those who have little to show besides their brains; and are not slow in eliciting information from them. Lord Sandwich was a good example of such; but Lord Albemarle had a naÏvetÉ and an intelligence so delightful as to need nothing at another’s hands. Then, a rich aristocracy has opportunities which do not belong to the men who have their money to make. The one class has not to consider in his dealings with others how he can make the most out of them, but is able to be generous; this alone has an ennobling influence. An American made the remark that, many as are the faults of the English nobility, they always kept their promise.

The reason why authors, deserving of encouragement from the intrinsic value of their work, are no longer patronized and brought into notice by the great, is that the influence of the nobility has wholly died out. The literary leaders, great editors, and the like, play but a minor part; they are not enough looked up to by the people at large, who do not understand them. They can confer fame on men among their own select class, but that fame cannot over-leap its boundary, and reach even the intelligent vulgar.

Even the Royal Society, begun by a king, was long afraid to venture in its career with anything less than a royal or noble president, and this within the memory of man; but happily it now runs alone, as do all the other learned bodies in its track.

The truth may lie here—though scientific men are not growing rich, rich men are growing scientific.

I must not leave Riddlesworth without a tribute to Mrs. Thornhill, a lady so conscientious; and that means gentle, kind and full of charity. She was the daughter of Mr. Waddington, of Cavenham Hall, the county member; a devoted mother, a constant friend.

I suppose, like everybody else, except myself, she is dead; that class of people live too luxuriously to last very long.

Mrs. Thornhill’s mother, Mrs. Waddington, was a lady of extraordinary beauty. She was of the Milnes family of which Moncton Milnes was the recent head, a wit and writer who tried to legitimize bad grammar on the liberal principle that every one had a right to do what he liked with his own language. He, too, like the brewers, could not do without being a lord, though already a patrician, which is greater, and which a king cannot create. He was called the “Cool of the Evening,” which must imply that he was a very pleasant guest on a hot summer’s night.

Our country parishes, with their resident squires, are really little republics with the squire himself at their head as president, and the clergyman acting as his prime minister. It is a form of paternal government without the despotism. The parish clerk, humble as he is, fills the office of a secretary of state, the rest are the people. Where the squire lives on his estate, how many of these happy republics may be seen! All the parishes, pretty much, that I have described are of this category, and I hold it beyond human wit to improve them. All are free!

Mrs. Newton of Elvedon was the sister of Mrs. Waddington. The place of that name has since become the property of Duleep Singh. In the time of the Newtons it was no exception to the happily-governed squirearchies of East Anglia.

Two or three places of mark remain to be mentioned, and as many to be omitted, before quitting the subject. One is the seat of the Duke of Grafton, Euston Hall, inherited by the family from Lord Arlington, in the time of Charles II. The duke, who was Earl of Euston when I first knew him, lived much on his Northamptonshire property, but was a good deal in Norfolk too, where his interests were large. He showed me the principal rooms in his fine mansion, which, though large, bespoke great comfort. The drawing-room, which was very long, had bay-windows, with a daÏs under each for seats. There is a grand staircase; on one wall of this was hung a portrait of the duchess, mother of the first duke, then seven or eight generations ago, a lapse of time when the bar-sinister had ceased to cross the shield; nevertheless, it was retained in the armorial bearings of the house, and this may be regarded as a proper pride.

I was shown a picture of the hall as it was originally, with gilded pinnacles, but these had disappeared.

The usual entrance was at the back of the building, flanked by the stables; the front entrance was approached through the park gates, which, as was an old custom, were never opened except to royalty.

The duke, regardless of the example set by his ancestors in contenting themselves with a life interest in so fine a property, for the good of those to come, was quite willing to sell Euston if he could have got his price, but it did not change hands.

I was not acquainted with the duke in fashionable life, so I know little of his character there; but I believe he was thought to be eccentric. All I know is that he was a benevolent and kind-hearted president of his village republic. He was married to the daughter of the last Earl of Berkeley—a sister of the famed colonel of that name—a lady of great worth. My acquaintance with the family was professional only; in this way. I had to advise several members of the house, and this sufficed to confirm me in the opinion that the higher you go the greater is the amiability you encounter. It may be good breeding only, but whatever its source may be, it is deserving of admiration.

One more place I will mention in Norfolk to which I was summoned, the seat of Mr. Angerstein. In point of decoration, it was a gilded palace, the most superb in its interior that I had ever seen. I remained there for the night, and had a most agreeable conversation with the head of the house and his two sons, the general and the member for Greenwich.

Some very fine pictures remain in the mansion. The one I was most gratified in seeing was a Rembrandt, the finest almost of that artist’s work; it was a Charles I., on horseback, under an archway. I never met with the equal of this fine painting, except in the equestrian figure of the Duke of Galiere,—Brignole Sale,—by the same hand, in the palazzo Rosso at Genoa.

I remember being told by General Angerstein that his father had always regretted the sale of the pictures to the nation, which was, however, made compulsory by the terms of his predecessor’s will.