“There is a fine portrait of Napoleon as First Consul by Dabos in the small yellow drawing-room of Apsley House, to which rather a curious story is attached. In May 1824 the Duke wrote an invitation to dinner to a Mr. Fleming. The messenger, by mistake, delivered it at the house of another gentleman of the same name. Finding his error, the man went again and asked for the return of the invitation. Mr. Fleming replied that the invitation signed by the Duke had been delivered to him, and he meant to avail himself of it, as he should never have such an honour again—mistake or no mistake, he should come to dinner to Apsley House. The Duke was told, and, after inviting him, could hardly refuse him admittance, so made the best of it, though Mr. Fleming found a very frigid reception. The next day he sent this fine picture to His Grace by way of amends. “At the foot of the great staircase is a gigantic nude statue of Napoleon by Canova, a splendid work eleven feet high. “In the long gallery overlooking the Row and the Park, surely one of the most stately rooms in London, was held every recurring 18th of June, to the end of the great Duke’s life, the Waterloo banquet, where the dwindling band of companions in arms of the Chief met in the glittering panoply of the brave days gone by, to celebrate the crowning victory that brought peace to Europe. The well-known print by Moon represents one of the last of these historic banquets, where, under the splendid canvasses of Velasquez, Murillo, and Titian, the Duke of Wellington is represented standing at the long, crowded dinner-table, surrounded by his old comrades, to propose his annual toast. In the large yellow drawing-room the portraits of many of the old generals hang: Lord Anglesea, Picton, Hill, Somerset, Beresford, Alava, and the rest of them, their strong faces glowing still with the bright brushes of Lawrence and Pienemann, and their splendid uniforms shaming the utilitarian khaki of to-day. Some of these great old soldiers, like Lord Combermere—padded and dyed phantoms they seemed, as one recollects them—were spared to ride in the Park almost daily within the memory of those not yet effete, but not many of them outlived their great leader.”