unasked, in the form which, in "a certain place," is
called "a speech"—he would have no such
things as taxes on hair-powder, armorial bearings,
hounds, race-horses, carriages, dice, or playing-
cards ; these he considered dangerous fiscal
innovations, or, at best, unwise concessions; but
taxes on food, and light, and clothing, on all that
most affects the hard-working community, for these
he lent his voice with the heartiest good will, and the
minister whose budget most severely ground the
faces of the poor, was always sure of the
support of Lord Millstone. He was not, however,
a man with only one idea, though what follows
may be thought by many merely the complement
of his political character, and not a distinct
feature; he detested "freedom of opinion," whether
written or spoken, but chiefly written, that is to
say printed. A radical orator was, naturally,
Lord Millstone's aversion; but he had no words
to express his abhorrence of a radical
newspaper.

Some fragments have been preserved of a
speech of his which show how strong this feeling
was in him. It was on the occasion of the
great privilege question, when Type, the famous
printer, was brought before the bar of the
House of Lords and sentenced to a fine of five
hundred pounds and twelve months' imprisonment
for having made a noble lord speak sense
in a previous debate, whereas the noble lord had
spoken quite the contrary. The point was one
that touched Lord Millstone nearly. He accordingly
rose and said:

"I can conceive nothing more fatal to the
authority of your lordships' House—and I need
not say if that authority be sapped, what must
be the consequences, not only to this realm, but
to the world at large—nothing more fatal, I
repeat, to that authority than the substitution
for your lordships' language of the words, of a
common person like the culprit, whose unauthorised,
and, I may say, daring interference with
your lordships' privileges we are here to arraign.
It is not the least amongst the evils which, in
our legislative capacity, we are called upon to
combat, and, by the assistance of Divine
Providence, to eradicate—evils which have their
source, as most of your lordships are aware, in
the pernicious doctrines that were disseminated
by the French revolution. (Loud cheers from
three Tory peers, not quite deaf enough to lose
this point, Lord Millstone's perpetual illustration.)
It is not, I say (Lord Millstone was
given to repetition), the least amongst the evils
against which we have to fight, that a system of
ideas is at present abroad,—encouraged, I grieve
to say, by those whose rank and station, and
whose duty to—to—society—and to—
themselves, should teach them a widely different
lesson,—which tends to reduce everything above
it to its own vulgar level. (More cheers from
the three Tory peers.) Can anything, my lords,
be more monstrous, more insulting, more
subversive of all that is right-minded and—and
proper, than this attempt to control the
prescriptive and constitutional right of your lordships'
House to utter their sentiments in whatever
way your lordships please? I vote, therefore,
in favour of my noble friend's proposition."

Of the pleasures of Paris, the subject of so
much animated talk on the part of Aglaë and
her companions, I had no experience; for very
shortly after I was sold to Lord Millstone he
returned to England. He travelled post, but I
saw nothing of the country; indeed, I could
scarcely hear the oaths of the postilions, being
shut up in a large imperial on the top of my
lord's carriage; nor did I see the light again
until my prison door was thrown open at the
Dover custom-house. With a peer of the
realm, and such a peer as Lord Millstone, the
examination was a mere ceremony; to touch
anything marked with a coronet being thought, at
that time, far too awful a sacrilege to enter
the mind of a custom-house officer. It would
have been as much as his place was worth, to
have dared to lift me from the spot where I was
lying; though had there been a functionary
sufficiently resolute and evil-minded to dip
his hand deep enough down, his courage, or his
malevolence, would have been rewarded by the
discovery of as much lace as would have made
an ordinary smuggler's fortune. "My lord's
wearing apparel!" said the solemn valet who
stood by at the "search;" and straightway the
searcher shrunk back aghast, the lid of the
imperial was clapped down, and the hieroglyphic
in chalk affixed, which declared that the custom-
house examination had been duly made. Except
for the fact that he had plenty of room, Lord
Millstone almost went out of his way to
smuggle lace in his personal baggage, for the
ambassador's bag was at his service in Paris
to send anything he liked to the Foreign-office
in London, whence it would be forwarded to
his own house without the slightest delay; but
perhaps he thought that the delicate fabric
would run less risk of being rumpled when
carefully stowed away with his own effects, or
he might have liked to indulge afterwards in
the easy boast of having outwitted "a set of
fellows," who were much too deferential, and, it
may be added, too ready to pocket a guinea, to
give his lordship the slightest trouble. Be this
as it may, the lace was my bed, and in it I
travelled to Grosvenor-square.

My first appearance in London was at a dinner
given by Lord Millstone to a few political
friends, ostensibly with the object of imparting
to them his "views" on the state of Europe,
but in reality to discuss the merits of his new
chef: an artist who, at a great sacrifice, and a
large salary, had consented to accompany the
noble stranger to a land of barbarians, where,
according to his belief—the only belief he
entertained—cookery was a thing unknown. To be
a great politician it is not necessary that you
should be a "grand politique," as Louis the
Thirteenth called Cardinal Richelieu when he
was dead, but you must at all events be a
gourmand; and politicians of the calibre of Lord
Millstone console themselves for their want of
political knowledge by reflecting—when they
do reflect—that some of the leading statesmen