Prime Ministers and Some Others: A Book of ReminiscencesRussell, George William Erskine
History
Prime Ministers and Some Others: A Book of Reminiscences
Russell, George William Erskine
Great Britain -- Biography
The MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, on behalf of the Members who sit
on this side of the House, I rise to second the Motion of the Right
Hon. Gentleman. He has on more than one occasion gracefully, but
at the same time justly, recognized the services rendered to the
State by the house of Russell. That house will always occupy a
foremost place in the history of the Party to which I am proud
to belong, and I hope it will occupy no insignificant place in
the history of the country. Of that house the noble Lord who has
just resigned his office is no unworthy member. There are, Sir,
at the present moment but few Members who can recollect the time
when he assumed the duties of his office; but I am glad that his
resignation has been deferred long enough to enable a number of
new Members of this House to add their testimony to that of us
who are better acquainted with him, as to the invariable dignity
and courtesy with which he has discharged his duties.
The Resolution was adopted by the House, _nemine contradicente._
* * * * *
Lord Charles now retired to his home at Woburn, Bedfordshire, where
he spent the nineteen years of his remaining life. He had always
been devoted to the duties and amusements of the county, and his
two main joys were cricket and hunting. He was elected to M.C.C. in
1827, and for twenty years before his death I had been its senior
member. Lilywhite once said to him: "For true cricket, give _me_
bowling, _Pilch_ in, _Box_ at the wicket, and your Lordship looking
on."[*] He was a good though uncertain shot, but in the saddle he
was supreme--a consummate horseman, and an unsurpassed judge of
a hound. He hunted regularly till he was eighty-one, irregularly
still later, and rode till his last illness began. Lord Ribblesdale
writes: "The last time I had the good fortune to meet your father
we went hunting together with the Oakley Hounds, four or five years
before his death. We met at a place called Cranfield Court, and
Lord Charles was riding a young mare, five years old--or was she
only four?--which kicked a hound, greatly to his disgust! She was
not easy to ride, nor did she look so, but he rode her with the
ease of long proficiency--not long years--and his interest in all
that goes to make up a day's hunting was as full of zest and youth
as I recollect his interest used to be in all that made up a
cricket-match in my Harrow days."
[Footnote *: See _Lords and the M.C.C._, p. 86.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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