The late Sir James Graham. 35 



Stanley and Mr. Sidney Herbert both joined him at 

 The Flatt, and Sir Robert Peel shot his covers with 

 him at Netherby, where Mr. Gladstone was a frequent 

 summer visitor. The party roughed it considerably 

 at The Flatt, as the house was small, and some of 

 them had to adjourn to shepherds' huts. They always 

 shot over dogs, as driving was not then the fashion. 

 Occasionally Sir James would try his hand at salmon- 

 fishing in the Esk with old John Wilson as henchman, 

 but the gaff which John shouldered was not often 

 brought into requisition. John still " minds on" how 

 when Sir James had had an unlucky day, he handed 

 over the rod to himself. After a further trial of the 

 game of patience, a salmon was hooked, and Sir 

 James resumed the rod, and John the gaff, but " the 

 speckled monarch of the tide" escaped to the Solway 

 after some nice play, and John said, in sly allusion to 

 election matters, " / never seed Sir James look sae blue 

 afore!' 



He was singularly punctual in his habits, and very 

 abstemious, tasting very little between a light break- 

 fast and a late dinner. Sir Benjamin Brodie once 

 said to us of him, that when he was working hardest, 

 he only took meat three times a week. We cannot 

 recall a finer election sight than when he and Mr. 

 Blamire were borne, side by side, through Carlisle, 

 one in a dark-blue and the other in a light-blue chair ; 

 but Sir James's height and weight made the task 

 rather difficult to the bearers, and they changed so 

 often, that in Castle-street we once thought that the 

 baronet would have descended more swiftly than 

 agreeably from his calico and laurel throne. A 

 handsomer couple than Lady Graham and himself 

 were seldom seen in a ball-room, and a few Carlisle 

 people still remember how every other dancing group 

 was suddenly broken up, and how one and all crowded 

 round to look, and t never forgot that rare quartet of 

 beauty, when the present Duchess of Somerset, Lady 



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