Prince Lobanoff, by the by, was a great wit and a very accomplished man. His collection of books, papers, pasquinades and MSS. concerning the great French Revolution was unique. His sudden and tragic death at Schepetowka when travelling in the suite of the Tsar on the return journey from Vienna to Kiew on the 30th of August, 1896, meant a great loss not only to Russia, but to his foreign friends. For a Russian statesman and diplomatist he was singularly outspoken. We were talking once about Russian politics. In answer to an observation of mine as to the personal power of the Tsar he remarked: “Yes! so long as he is in accord with the policy of his ministers. Lorsqu’un Empereur de Russie a voulu s’opposer à la volonté de ses ministres, on a toujours trouvé moyen de s’en débarrasser.” I was amazed! Seldom has the month of March been more cruel, even in England, than it was in 1881. The weather was bitter, and the blighting east wind seemed to reduce men’s skin to powder. About the middle of the month we heard that Lord Beaconsfield was ailing. The old story, a slight chill. At first there was no anxiety, but when men were told after some days that he was still in bed, they began to shake their heads. That sick bed in a dull Curzon Street house (No. 19) was watched by some half dozen faithful friends, Rowton, Barrington and two or three others, who prayed, and prayed in vain, that the east wind might cease, for the doctors had said that all depended upon a change from the west bringing a little warm moisture into the air. It was hoping against hope; day after day the blasts, charged with all the filth of the great city, blew fiercely and yet more fiercely, bringing poison to those parched lungs. On the 19th of April he died, choked by London. The mourning was universal all over the country; never, except in the case of King Edward’s death, have I seen so much feeling shown; he had won his way into the hearts of the people, who knew that in him England had lost not only a great statesman but a true lover. A mighty man had fallen. Even his political enemies admitted that he left a void which could not be filled. There was no public funeral—no gorgeous ceremony in Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s Cathedral. He had willed it otherwise. He was buried as he wished to be, by the side of his dearly loved wife, almost under the shadow of those trees which had been so much to him and which gave their name to the county[42] with which he was so long bound up. “You may tire of mountains and rivers, you may tire of the sea, but you can never tire of trees,” was a favourite saying of his. And so we laid him in his grave, simply, reverently. There was none of the paid panoply of woe, but great grief and true mourning. Men of all ranks were there, colleagues and foes.