250 HkinQB of tbe 1l3unttng*3ftel6 



devotion which so strangely distorted some phases of 

 his Hfe. He was essentially a simple-hearted man. 

 There was no guile about him. He showed himself to 

 the world exactly as he was, concealing nothing, extenu- 

 ating nothing, leaving the world to like him or dislike 

 him as it pleased. He was the most charitable and 

 kindly of men. No one ever appealed to his generosity 

 in vain. The last act of his life was one of kindness ; 

 on the 28th of March 1868 he set out on a visit of 

 condolence to the bereaved family of one of his depend- 

 ants. The horse he w^as riding was young and restive. 

 It reared suddenly and fell, crushing Lord Cardigan 

 beneath its weight. He was taken up unconscious, and 

 never spoke again. So, the hero who had come un- 

 scathed out of the storm of Russian shot at Balaclava, 

 who had survived a hundred perils in the hunting-field, 

 one of the finest and boldest horsemen in Europe, met 

 his death in a tussle with a restive colt in a quiet English 

 country lane. 



What manner of man he seemed to the world in 

 general I have endeavoured to show. How he appeared 

 to those who knew and loved him may be gathered 

 from this eloquent panegyric of Whyte Melville's : — 'Old 

 war-worn veterans mourn for the stern commander who 

 never shirked a duty, for the staunch comrade who never 

 failed a friend. Young rising soldiers are sad to think 

 that their ideal has been quenched, that their hero too 

 has vanished like another. Magnates of the land, his 

 peers and equals, find time to grieve for one who was 

 an ornament to his rank, an honour to his order ; but — 

 sorrows far more precious than these — tears fall fast and 

 thick from the widow and the fatherless, while they sob 



