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shaft and beautiful volute ; there is an elegance combined with rich 
luxuriance in the Corinthian, with its acanths capital, — which baffle 
ail theory, which speak to the eye without any explanation being 
needed on the grounds why they should be admired. These remarks, 
however, affect not the great merit of the treatise I speak of. Lord 
Aberdeen’s work on Grecian architecture is a work which no one 
should be ignorant of who desires to see the subject handled with 
scholarship, taste, and discernment. 
It is always interesting to know something of the personal ap- 
pearance, the ordinary address and manners, of the distinguished 
dead. Lord Aberdeen, though a man of high birth, of public status, 
of elegant and refined tastes, was to a great degree plain and un- 
pretending in manner. He had, perhaps, a good deal of that cold 
and reserved demeanour which obtains for the British character, 
especially for those in high positions, the name of an exclusive, 
haughty treatment of others. It is often, as in the case of Lord 
Aberdeen, a most fallacious mark of the real feeling and the true 
kindness of the heart within. I might have spoken on this point 
in some measure from my own observation, as I had the honour of 
personally knowing Lord Aberdeen. But I prefer offering the 
picture of Lord Aberdeen’s personal appearance and manner as they 
were observed from a different and most impartial point of view, — 
I mean as they struck the mind of a stranger, and that stranger a 
visitor from the United States. In the year 1835 a literary gen- 
tleman, Mr N. P. Willis, from America, visited this country for the 
express purpose of writing a tour, which was published in due time 
under the title of u Pencillings by the Way.” He had been in- 
troduced to the Earl of Dalhousie, father of the late distinguished 
Marquis of Dalhousie, and was received at Dalhousie Castle, where 
I met him, — and an acute, unscrupulous observer he was. Lord 
Dalhousie introduced him to the late Duke of Gordon, and at Gor- 
don Castle he was introduced to the late Lord Aberdeen, of whom 
he thus writes : — 
“ Lord Aberdeen has the name of being the proudest and coldest 
aristocrat of England. It is amusing to see the person who bears 
such a character. 
“He is of the middle height, rather clumsily made, with an address 
more of sober dignity than of pride or reserve. With a black 
coat much worn, and always too large for him,- — a pair of coarse 
