[Illustration: SIR RICHARD WALLACE, BART., K.C.B. _From a bust in the Wallace Collection._ [_To face p. 192._] In a further letter to me Lord Esher very justly calls attention to the remarkable likeness between Lord Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace. The busts at Hertford House demonstrate this. Richard, fourth Marquess of Hertford, who never married, died at Paris on the 25th of August, 1870. His successor in the title, Sir Francis (or, as his familiars called him, “Franco”) Seymour, as was natural, hurried over to Paris, not yet beleaguered by the Prussians, to look after his interests. He was accompanied by his eldest son and his solicitor. The fortune at stake in lands and money was great, but, if the value of the works of art be taken into account, enormous even in these days of plutocratic dominion. The real estate and the personalty, taken together, would have reached a sum “beyond the dreams of avarice;” indeed, by comparison, the boilers and vats of Mr. Thrale would have represented no more than a modest competence.[16] It must have been a rude shock for the new Lord Hertford when the will was read at Bagatelle after the funeral, and he found that, barring the settled estates, which without the money were almost a white elephant, there was nothing for him. The wealth which had given his two predecessors such power that, in spite of manifest drawbacks, they were propitiated with the Garter, had vanished like Alnaschar’s dream, and he was left with the unredeemed anxieties and responsibilities of a country squire. Equally, it must have been a startling shock for Sir Richard to find that he was the heir to all that wealth. With the exception of a handsome property which Lord Hertford bequeathed to his cousin, Sir Hamilton Seymour, the famous ex-Ambassador, or rather Minister, to Russia, practically everything was left to the future Sir Richard Wallace. Sir Richard (I call him “Sir” for convenience’ sake, though he was not created a baronet until the following year) lost no time in turning his newly-acquired wealth to good account. He was one of the most generous men that ever lived. Bravely he stood by Paris and the French in their troubles, started ambulances, founded the Hertford Hospital for poor Englishmen, and set money flowing like water in aid of all sufferers by the war. His charities in France were boundless, and continued throughout his life, and indeed beyond it. But he felt it his duty to come to England, and for thirteen years represented Lisburn in Parliament—Lisburn, which he made the headquarters of his vast Irish domain.