'Randolph Churchill and Drummond Wolff to dinner; amusing in the style of Robert Macaire and his man.' Among more disciplined sections of the Tory party Sir Charles had many friends. One of them, a social figure of great charm and distinction, was Lord Barrington, 'who used, when Mr. Disraeli was leader of the House of Commons, to keep for him the notes which have to be kept by the Prime Minister for the Queen.... Barrington showed me his one night; it began: "Lord Barrington presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs to inform your Majesty that..." The Queen in no way showed her favouritism to Mr. Disraeli more than in excusing him from the performance of this tiresome duty, which, however, had the one advantage of giving Mr. Gladstone in his administration something quiet to do during exciting divisions such as those on Bradlaugh.... 'Lady Waldegrave pressed me to go to Strawberry Hill on a particular Saturday in the month--the only one, I think, on which, as a fact, I did not go--to meet the Prince of Wales, but as she playfully took me to task at the same time for not attending levees, I connected the two things, and thought she had been asked to speak to me, and declined. I told her that I had left off going to levees in 1865, before I left Cambridge, for no reason except that they bored me; and that if I were suddenly to go, people would think that I had changed my views, and wished it to be known that I had changed them, for they thought that my not going was connected with my opinions, which, however, it was not.' There is a note early in this year: 'I was engaged at this moment on an attempt to form a circle of friends who would be superior, from the existence with them of a standpoint, to the mere ordinary political world, and I began doing my best to meet frequently those whom I most liked--John Morley, Dillwyn, Leonard Courtney, and Fitzmaurice, prominently among the politicians; and Burton (Director of the National Gallery), Minto, and Joseph Knight, prominently among the artists and men of letters. All these were men with something noble in their natures, or something delicate and beautiful, full of sterling qualities.' Minto was the well-known man of letters. Joseph Knight, for many years dramatic critic of the Athenaeum, and, later, editor of _Notes and Queries_, was perhaps the best known and most beloved of Bohemians, a pillar of the Garrick Club, and one of the men to whose tongue came ceaselessly apt and unexpected quotations from Shakespeare. He had the same passion as old Mr. Dilke for accumulating books, and like him, too, was a living catalogue to his own library, or libraries, for he accumulated and sold two in his lifetime. Another man of letters needs no introduction: