112. Such a room as Mr. Egg has painted in his masterly picture of “The Death of Chatterton;” and, curiously enough, the house above referred to was nearly upon the same spot.
113. This was William, first Marquis of Lansdowne, who, as Earl of Shelburne, was Prime Minister in 1782; the date of Mr. Britton’s visit was 1798. By the Marquis’s kindness, he tells us that he left Bowood for Chippenham loaded with books, and a copy of a large Survey of Wiltshire, in eighteen folio sheets. The Marquis was a liberal patron of Art, and commenced at Bowood and Shelburne House the formation of a gallery of modern art; and his fine taste was amply inherited by his son Henry, the third Marquis, who died at Bowood in January 1863.
114. We remember a similarly gratifying incident in early life. We had scarcely reached twenty-one, when we had occasion to wait upon Mr. Chamberlain Clark, to request of him some particulars of the house of Cowley the poet, at Chertsey, which was then in Mr. Clark’s tenancy. The bland old Chamberlain inquired if we had ever written a book; to which the reply was, that we had a volume of topography in the press. “Then please to put down my name for a copy,” kindly rejoined the Chamberlain, although the work was merely of local interest. What kindness in one who was the chastener of refractory apprentices and the terror of evil-doers!
115. Mr. P. Cunningham, in the Builder, Feb. 14, 1863, writes as follows:
“Chantrey died so suddenly that an inquest was held upon his body. I was present. It was a solemn sight, not to be effaced whilst unimpaired remembrance reigns. In an exquisite little gallery built for him by Sir John Soane, lay (seen by many lighted tapers) the breathless body and torpid hand that had given life to helpless clay and shapeless stone. Around the body in its windingsheet were ranged some of the finest casts from the antique that money and taste could procure. Calm and solemn was the scene. My father kissed the cold forehead of his friend with these words: “My dear master.” I looked into his eyes as we left together; they were full of tears.”—New Materials for the Life of Chantrey.
116. Sir Archibald Alison.
117. Published by Ridgway, Piccadilly, 1829.
The sudden death of Lord George Bentinck, the political leader, in 1848, in his forty-seventh year, showed how the most ardent intellect and the noblest frame are alike broken down by the turmoil of public life. After a late debate in Parliament he would travel by rail many miles to hunt, and return in time to attend the sittings of the House in the evening; throwing a wrapper over his scarlet hunting-coat, and exercising indefatigably the office of “whipper-in” in the House, and subsequently leader of “the country party.” He had during these political avocations continued his attention to racing and race-horses, declaring on one occasion that the winning of the Derby was the “blue-ribbon” of the turf. In August 1848 he retired to Welbeck Abbey for relaxation; he, however, attended Doncaster races four times in one week, at which a horse of his own breeding won the St. Leger stakes, to his great gratification. On September 21st he left Welbeck on foot, soon after four o’clock in the afternoon, to visit Earl Manvers, at Thoresby-park, and sent his servants to meet him with a carriage at an appointed place. He appeared not; the servants became alarmed; search was made for him; but it was not till eleven at night that he was found quite dead, lying on a footpath in a meadow about a mile from the house: his death having been caused by spasms of the heart. In Cavendish-square has been set up a colossal statue of this remarkable man: the pedestal simply bears his name; his political and sporting celebrity has “waned with time; had the awful circumstances of his death been inscribed upon the memorial, it would have been a constant monition—a “siste viator”—of far greater value than a political monument.