SECOND MARRIAGE 209 



come on till after midnight and you may be quite 

 easy, I shall say nothing to put up the backs of 

 the Spaniards." 



In December he went to Cambridge for the 

 Peterhouse Sexcentenary, and at the dinner 

 returned thanks for the House of Commons. It 

 was a very long business. At 12.30 Sir Frederick 

 Bramwell had to return thanks for " Applied 

 Science." The whole speech may be quoted. 

 It was this : " At an earlier hour there is much 

 that I should like to have said about applied 

 Science, but as it is nearly one o'clock the only 

 application which strikes me as at all appropriate 

 would be the application of a domestic lucifer 

 to a bedroom candle." With this he sat down, 

 and Lowell, the American Ambassador, who was 

 opposite, scribbled on a menu and chucked 

 across to him the lines : 



O wise Sir Frederick, 

 Who thy wit could catch, 

 Hold thee a candle 

 Or supply thy match ? 



Sir John continually added, as the opportunity 

 arose, to his landed property about High Elms, 

 and in this year bought Cockshot Hill and 

 Farnboro' field, which now form part of the 

 estate. 



An interesting note in the diary is that under 

 date October 18 : " Called on Lady Stanley 

 of Alderley, and while there Gladstone came in. 

 He said that when in 1874 he proposed to do 

 away with the Income Tax, he expected to do so 

 partly by economy, but partly, also, by an 

 increase in the Death Duties." 



vol. i p 



