_Woburn Abbey, January 19th._--Yesterday morning we were astounded by the receipt of a telegraphic message informing Granville that the Duke of Devonshire had been found dead in his bed.[1] Nothing could be more sudden and unexpected, and the immediate cause of his death is not known. At different periods of my life I have lived in great intimacy with him, but he was capricious, so the intervals were long and frequent during which we were almost strangers to each other. Spoiled by his mother as a boy, and becoming Duke of Devonshire with a colossal fortune at twenty-one years old, and besides afflicted with incurable deafness, his existence was _manqué_, and he was a disappointed and unhappy man. His abilities were of a very high order, and if he had not been relieved by his position and wealth from the necessity of exertion and disqualified by his infirmities from taking an active part in public life, he might have been a considerable and important as well as a far happier man; but as he had unfortunately no positive tastes or active pursuits, no domestic ties to engage his affections, and no public duties to occupy his mind, he was reduced to fill up the vacuum of his existence by capricious _engouements_ and frivolous society. He was very clever and very comical, with a keen sense of humour, frequently very droll with his intimate friends, and his letters were always very amusing. The Duke lived very much like a _grand seigneur_, hospitable and magnificent; he was very fond of his family, and very kind to them, as he was also to those of his friends whom he took into favour, many of the poorer of whom will have great reason to regret the loss of a benefactor. There was for a long time a vague notion that some mystery attached to his birth, and that he was not really the son, or at all events not the legitimate son, of his reputed father. The idea was that Lady Elizabeth Foster (whom the Duke afterwards married as his second wife) and the Duchess had been confined at the same time at Paris, and that the latter having a girl and the former a boy, the children had been changed, the Duke being the father of both children. I always treated this story as a myth, and this opinion has been confirmed by the deposition of the woman who had received the child in her arms upon his birth, which was conclusive evidence of his legitimacy. It is remarkable that the whole of the vast property of the late Duke was in his own power. The entail was cut off upon his majority, and his father died before the estates were resettled. Footnote 1: [William Spencer, sixth Duke of Devonshire, born May 21, 1790, died January 17, 1858. He was Mr. Greville's second cousin, the Duchess of Portland, mother of Lady Charlotte Greville, having been the daughter of the fourth Duke of Devonshire.]