[Illustration: _Emery Walker Ph.Sc._ _Lady Dorothy Nevill_ _painted by G.F. Watts R.A. in 1844_ ] Leaves from the Note-Books of Lady Dorothy Nevill EDITED BY RALPH NEVILL MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1907 PREFACE When, some time ago, a collection of my mother’s reminiscences was given to the public, we received a large number of suggestions that a second similar volume would be certain of the same cordial welcome as was extended to the first. The following pages, containing memories and observations extending over a long period of years, are the result of these kindly exhortations. The task of arrangement and of selection from my mother’s scrap-books and note-books has been carried out by me under her supervision; and I have also included as many recollections, hitherto unpublished, as her very excellent memory was able to furnish. Of the many anecdotes which are given, the majority, it is hoped, are here told for the first time in print; most of them, indeed, recount personal experiences of her own or of some of the well-known people with whom during a long life it has been her privilege to meet. In preparing the volume valuable assistance, which it is our desire here gratefully to acknowledge, has been rendered by many well-wishers, some of them old friends, some of them unknown to us except by their encouraging and helpful letters. It may be added that my only aim in the pages which follow has been to arrange a mass of material—some of it no doubt old, but a great deal, I hope, new—in such a form as may interest and amuse the reader and thus serve to occupy a few leisure hours. If failure be the result, the blame must be laid entirely at my door; while should the book in any measure achieve its aim, the whole credit belongs properly to my mother. RALPH NEVILL. CONTENTS I PAGE My scrap-books—A female politician of other days—Souvenirs of past elections—_The Nottingham Lamb_—Bernal Osborne and his Irish friend—Taxes—Political caricatures—Sir F. Carruthers Gould—Sir Frank Lockwood—Lord Vernon and the Pope—Old menus—Weddings of the past—Some anecdotes—Mrs. Norton—The Duchess of Somerset—_The Owl_—The Fourth Party—Sir Henry Drummond Wolff—The Comte de Paris and the Primrose League—Lord Randolph Churchill and his resignation of office 1 II