XXXV POLITICAL, SOCIAL, LITERARY 171 



date. Lord Avebury and Lady Avebury at- 

 tended, taking the children to the Peers' stand 

 opposite the Abbey, whence they had a very 

 good view. 



He was at Birmingham in October, laying 

 the first stone of the Ruskin memorial, and 

 giving an address as President of the Ruskin 

 Society. Subsequently he attended an Early 

 Closing meeting, where the tradesmen of 

 Birmingham and its district presented him with 

 an address of thanks for his services to the 

 movement. 



In August he was at Avebury, taking the 

 children with him to show them the place, and 

 explaining it to them in his own way, which no 

 other way, perhaps, could quite equal in its attrac- 

 tive simplicity. They had planned to go on to 

 Stonehenge also, but the weather was abominable, 

 and they gave up that latter part of the expedi- 

 tion. In the late autumn — for that which he 

 annually, without any sense of irony, writes of 

 as " the holidays " — they were again at Holland 

 House, Kingsgate, much interested in watching 

 the building of the Castle and of the high sea- 

 wall on the chalk cliff, by which he was making 

 it secure from the waves. 



In the beginning of October they stayed for a 

 day or two with Lord and Lady George Hamilton 

 at Deal Castle, and a week later he and Lady 

 Avebury were Sir William Anson's guests at 

 Oxford, for the Bodleian tercentenary, of which 

 he writes : " Interesting ceremony in Sheldonian. 

 I presented an address from the British Museum. 

 In the evening a dinner at Christ Church — 290 



