The last time I saw him was in the summer of 1902, when he came down with his wife and daughter to spend a week-end, July 12th to 14th, with me and my wife in Sussex. He had resolved to pass the rest of his days at Florence, and it was a farewell visit that he paid us. He had just bought Michael Angelo's Villa, and talked much about it and his design, philistine that he was, of turning it inside out, fitting it with electric light, and otherwise bedevilling it with modern improvements, uprooting the old trees in the _podere_ and planting new ones. On matters of this sort he was a terrible barbarian, and took delight in playing the vandal with places and things which the rest of the world held in reverence. "Old Michael," he explained, "knew nothing about the comforts of a modern establishment, and it was time that he should learn them." Apart from this little _méchanceté_, he proved himself a most delectable companion, giving us a true feast of wit and wisdom the whole Sunday through. Sibyl, Lady Queensberry, was of our party, and Colonel Bill Gordon, General Gordon's nephew, with whom he had much talk about Khartoum and Egypt. Gordon was a good talker on his own subjects, and they got on well together, sitting up till half-past one the first night, telling story after story. Among them, I remember, Labouchere gave us accounts of his adventures in Mexico, and also of a ride he had taken from Damascus to Palmyra with Lady Ellenborough and her Bedouin husband, Sheykh Mijwel el Mizrab, with reminiscences of the early days we had spent together in the Diplomatic Service, his gambling acquaintances at Hombourg, and his duel in Sweden. He was especially interested in this visit to the Weald of Sussex, and in {73} his having passed in the train almost within sight of Broome Hall, under Leith Hill, where he had lived as a boy. He had not been that way since, he said. The second evening he was less brilliant, as Hilaire Belloc had joined our party, a rival talker to whom he left the monopoly of our entertainment. But it was an altogether pleasant two days that we passed together. I am glad to have the recollection of them. Alas, they were the last we were to see of him, for he left England soon afterwards, and we never met again. [1] Joseph Hatton, _Journalistic London_. [2] Mrs. T. P. O'Connor, _I, Myself_. [3] For the rest of this interesting letter see Chapter X. [4] "Radical and Whigs," _Fortnightly Review_, Feb. 1, 1884. [5] It is interesting to note that Mr. Crampton's proceedings in America did not stand in his way, so far as promotion in the service was concerned. He was appointed Envoy-Extraordinary at Hanover almost immediately; Lord Palmerston insisted upon his being made a K.C.B., and he became Ambassador at St. Petersburg in 1858. (_Dictionary of National Biography_.) [6] _Truth_, May 23, 1878. [7] _Truth_, Feb. 8, 1877. [8] Busch, _Our Chancellor_. [9] _Ibid._ [10] _Truth_, May 23, 1889.