Here lies the bones of him whose strife Was how to drop the staff of life: Falstaff he was; survivors he has shown ’em How “nil” to leave “de mortuis nisi bonum.” In another number is a witty riddle also dealing with the eminent upholsterer in whose instructions for producing a reduction of weight the fat people of 1864 placed so much trust:— “Why is Lord Palmerston like Mr. Banting?” “Because his present measures are far smaller than the clothes (close) of last session would warrant.” My cousin, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, is one of the few survivors of that brilliant band who were contributors to the _Owl_, and no doubt will have much that is amusing and interesting to say about it in the volume of Memoirs which he has at last been persuaded to prepare for publication. Unrivalled as a _raconteur_, Sir Henry was a constant guest at my luncheon-table in the ’eighties, when almost every Sunday three-fourths of the Fourth Party, that is to say, Lord Randolph Churchill, Mr., now Sir John, Gorst, and Sir Henry used to give me the pleasure of their company, to the delight of all who chanced to be present. Those were the early days of the Primrose League, the immediate success of which put us all in very good spirits. A little later on, at the time when the League as a political force was beginning to make its influence felt, the late Comte de Paris became much interested in its methods, conceiving the idea that some organisation of a similar kind might be formed to promote Orleanist interests in France. He questioned me a good deal about the League, I remember, and I referred him to my daughter, who, ever an ardent worker on the Conservative side, thoroughly understood its machinery. As a result of his inquiries, a French “White Rose League” was soon afterwards formed, the badges being in the form of a gilt rose, specimens of which we received and still retain. France, however, manifested little enthusiasm at this attempt to breathe new life into Royalist circles, and after a short time nothing more was heard of the White Rose League, which soon relapsed into an obscurity from which indeed it can hardly be said to have ever really emerged.