168 SWITZERLAND 1867 his daughter Valentia for a little tour in Switzerland-Basle, Lucerne, Rigi, Pilatus, Gründelwald, Berne, Chillon, Neufchâtel, Dijon. LONDON, 15th November 1867. MY DEAR FATHER-I have finished the Parkes-Merivale volumes, and one opinion excited is that the last editor has hardly given time enough to his work. But there is some excuse in the rather obsolete nature of the principal subject of interest supposed to be connected with Francis, and an enormous mass of papers, already mammocked and much tumbled over, some of them over and over again, must be very repulsive. Hayward is taking up the cudgels against the Franciscan theory, and, no doubt, there is still plenty of room for ingenious argument, although there is, as I think, no reasonable moral doubt that Sir Philip Francis was the man, remote as it still is from absolutely conclusive proof. If he succeeds in shaking the accepted belief, I shall then come out with my theory that Junius was George the Third. The recent publication of his letters to Lord North has done much to set him up, and this will do more. -Yours affectionately, W. F. P. 7th December. The registering thermometer outside a window, looking east, at the Athenæum Club showed this morning a difference of nearly a hundred degrees between the maximum and minimum temperature of the night, and the minimum was not far from the freezing point. The great fire which destroyed Her 1867 FIRE IN THE HAYMARKET 169 Majesty's Theatre in the Haymarket had occurred during the night. A pane of glass in a window of the drawing-room, a few yards nearer to the source of heat, was cracked. CHAPTER VI MONTALEMBERT 7th January 1868.-Dined with Merivales. Kinglake, Leslie Stephen, Annie Thackeray. Kinglake had an anecdote of Montalembert and his tenants during an election under the Second Empire in France. He desired them to go and vote as he wished, against the Government. They came back without having voted. He asked, "Pourquoi n'avez vous pas voté ?”—“Mais, Monsieur le Comte, il y avaient des gensdarmes."- 'Qu'est ce qu'ils ont fait ?" "Rien, Monsieur le Comte."-" Qu'est ce qu'ils ont dit."-" Rien, Monsieur le Comte." "Mais pourquoi donc . . Monsieur le Comte." . ?"—“ Ils ?"" Ils y étaient, 8th January.-Dined with William Spottiswoodes. Goschen, Frederick Harrison, Bonamy Price, etc. 1868 "CASTLE RUMMELSBERG" 171 21st January.-Performance of Castle Rummelsberg at 59 Montagu Square. This was an original piece, founded on the German tale of the Spectre Barber, written by my wife, and licensed" for performance by Donne, at this time the Examiner of Plays in the Lord Chamberlain's office. He was himself so kind as to take a small part under the nom de theatre of Mr. Bodham (his own second name). His daughter Valentia played in the piece as Miss Chamberlain; the other characters were sustained by my wife and our sons. 6th February. With a view to the better ventilation of the lecture theatre at the Royal Institution, I went over Spottiswoode's printing office and the lecture-room of the Chemical Society at Burlington House, and made experiments in company with Frankland and De la Rue. B. L. Chapman showed me, at the request of Tennyson, a proposed contract with Moxon & Co. for a library edition of his poems in four volumes, which we determined to advise him not to accept, as not being favourable for him to the extent it ought to be. 10th February.-To Beresford Hope's London committee, on the contest with Cleasby for 172 A REJECTED VOTING PAPER 1868 the seat for the University of Cambridge vacated by Selwyn's elevation to the bench. 22d February 1868. MY DEAR FATHER-You may be amused to hear that your voting paper was not allowed to pass muster at the polling at Cambridge, as you did not describe yourself as Jonathan Frederick, under which names you appear on the register. One vote, however, is now of no consequence. The numbers at one o'clock to day were-Hope, 1789; Cleasby, 1300-so that winning looks easy. 22d February.-Breakfast at Sir John Lefevre's. Dufferin, Grant Duff, Lacaita, Acton, Froude, Erskine May, Simeon, Bruce. Lady Acton (grandmother of Sir John) is now alive, aged eighty. Her husband was born in 1730, the same year in which Gibbon was born. He was minister to the King of Naples. She was his niece, and was sent for from England to marry her uncle, under a Papal dispensation, in order to continue the family. On her arrival at Naples she remembers talking to an officer who had been in the service of Louis XIV. (who died in 1715), accompanying a Neapolitan contingent to the French army. 23d February.-To the Rolls Chapel to hear Brookfield preach. He was always very de |