88 LORD LILFORD 



(March 13, 1896) my brother again alludes to 

 this expedition. 'I once had the privilege of 

 spending a week of wandering in the New Forest 

 with Tennyson, who asked me to join him at 

 Lyndhurst. It was springtime and the weather 

 was lovely, and that week is one of the brightest 

 and most purely enjoyable of my (thank God) 

 many delightfully happy epochs in memory.' 

 He ever after felt the warmest regard for the 

 great master of poetic expression, who in sym- 

 pathetic imagining could follow the lark to 

 where it became ' a sightless song.' 



In 1873 my brother took two rooms on the 

 ground-floor at No. 6 Tenterden Street, Hanover 

 Square, which was then the headquarters of the 

 British Ornithologists' Union. Here he stayed 

 on and off when in town, and 'the den,' as it 

 was familiarly called, became known to all his 

 friends. Visitors dropped in during the even- 

 ing, whist was played, pipes were smoked, 

 and a running talk was kept up on the passing 

 topics of the day, and the never-passing topics 

 connected with zoology. Ladies who were not 

 afraid of a somewhat smoky atmosphere looked 

 in on their way to balls and parties, and were 



