68 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



I have al\va}'S heard was a characteristic of him — when- 

 ever he received a deputation he was " at home " in 

 everything, and no one who had once had occasion to 

 meet him dared to make any incorrect statement, as he 

 would be down on him in a moment, fetch out his 

 authority, and overwhelm him by either facts or figures. 



I believe you obtain from m.any a public man in 

 private conversation oftentimes a clearer insight into his 

 opinions than you do by his public speeches. On one 

 occasion I remarked to Disraeli that for several Sessions 

 of Parliament I had never heard him even mention the 

 word " Protection." He replied, " You may as well 

 attempt to put life into the dead bones of a skeleton as 

 to revive Protection in this country." 



I think in one of his novels he says " that somehow or 

 other if you meet the English country gentleman on the 

 heated plains of India, on the deserts of Egypt, or on 

 the icy slopes of the Alps, he has always a snug corner 

 in his conversation to talk of Quarter Sessions." At 

 our own Quarter Sessions dinners I have often heard 

 him in conversation, and although not a great talker at 

 the table, his remarks were so amusing and his sarcasm 

 was so refined, that though severe, he was never ill- 

 natured. I remember on one occasion the conversation 

 turned on the newly-discovered fact that there were two 

 dormant peerages in the Lowndes family — one in the 

 Selby Lowndes of Whaddon, and another in the other 

 county family of the same name, William Lowndes of 

 Chesham, who ov/ned a considerable property situated 

 in Belgravia, comprising Lowndes Square and Chesham 

 Place. Mr. Disraeli remarked that "somehow or other. 



