Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 1

[376] America, and recounts as the proudest event of his life the motion he made for the recognition of our Independence. He speaks of Fox with the warmest friendship; of George IV., who had visited him at Holkham, in no measured terms. This pedantic monarch used to call Fox ‘Charles,’ and Mr. Coke (now Lord Leicester) ‘Tom.’ Brougham was once a great favorite of my host; but his recent conduct seems to have estranged everybody from him, even Lord Leicester and also Lord Spencer, who is now here, though I have not heard the latter speak of him. There is a large party about assembling to enjoy shooting. Lord Spencer and his brother and Lord Ebrington have already come, with the Ladies Anson and Elizabeth Stanhope.¹ You would be amused to see Lord Spencer,²—once the leader of the House of Commons, and perhaps the most distinguished member of the Ministry, and now looked to as a future Premier, if he will consent to have greatness thrust upon him,—in a rough dress, with thick hob-nailed shoes, duck-painted gaiters, and a mackintosh,—his whole dress defying the wet, —going round the barnyards, and feeling of cows and oxen and bulls, in order to determine their comparative merits, or with his gun and well-trained dogs wandering through fields of turnips and stubble to shoot pheasants and partridges; and after dinner, not wotting of the affairs of state, but talking about his dogs and of the fifteen brace of partridges he has shot, and then sitting down to a silent game of whist. There is a register kept of all the birds killed; and Mr. Stevenson, our Minister, who once visited here, is remembered for often missing, and for charging his gun so high as to blow off its lock, and nearly to blow himself to pieces. But the shot never to be forgot