Including material on Richard Monckton Milnes' US tour, 1875.
First line 'Nocte mihi ferro blandum suadente soporem...' The piece does not appear to have been marked, as might be expected for schoolwork.
On headed notepaper with Harrow crest. With envelope addressed to Lord Houghton (not sent in the post).
Bills from traders: Crossley and Clarke (booksellers), Blake and Son,drapers, mercers, hosiers, haberdashers and hatters; H. Chatham Shaw, hat maker; E Goshawk, for hair cutting; E. W. Graham; James Woodbridge, tailor, hosier and hatter; E. W. Craker [?], perhaps a cobbler; Bowller & Fuller (butchers?).
Bills from Harrow School itself, for tuition, school charges and repairs etc, the school concert, and the bathing place, as well as paper, pens, ink and so on bought from the school.
Accounts with H. Montagu Butler (headmaster), for Christmas Term 1872, Easter and Christmas Terms 1873, and Easter Term 1874. With stamps and notes by Butler acknowledging payment.
With stamp and note acknowledging receipt of payment.
Invitation to Sir James and Lady Frazer to a party on Friday, 29 June.
Welcombe, Stratford on Avon. - Encloses a cutting from the American "Nation", with a letter about [Rabindranath] Tagore, and a poem by Lord Crewe which is 'about as good as his father would have written'. The poem reminds Sir George of the 'very pretty memoir' by Lord Ribblesdale about his son [Charles] Lister [who died of wounds sustained at Gallipolli] which has recently been published. Thinks the long article on Emerson in this week's "[Times] Literary Supplement" is by the same writer as the one on Keats; strange to see how the author in both cases 'admires and loves' quite different things to those he does himself. Most interested in Robert having known 'Jones Festing' [sic: Henry Festing Jones], and will want to talk to him. Now Robert knows 'all about it', can say that Mr [Arthur] Fifield told him the same about what seems to be now the only surviving sister of Samuel Butler.
Hôtel Floresta, Taormina [headed notepaper]:- Will return to England at the end of the month: would like to join some friends - Marsh, Barran, and Childers - and possibly Charlie, who are going for a few days’ walking tour in Yorkshire. May stop a day or two at Rome, but does not mean to stay anywhere long. Was ‘very glad to learn that C[harlie] had been coopted’ - understands that he has not been elected ‘by a constituency. It shows that they must think a lot of him’. Met an ‘acquaintance’ of Charlie’s the other day, a Miss [Lena] Milman, who writes and translates Dostoevsky; she met Charlie at Lord Crewe’s, and ‘chiefly remembers him as an enthusiast for Jane Austen’. Supposes Georgie will be back [from Madeira] around the same time he returns, having been ‘further afield in this “grand terraqueous spectacle” [Wordsworth] than any of the family than Papa’, since he does not remember their mother having ‘ever ventured beyond Naples or Vienna’.
The Italians ‘have had a terrible disaster [the great defeat by the Ethiopians at Adwa] and there is some talk of the throne having received a dangerous jar’: it is too soon to tell, but certainly many Italians ‘especially in the North are republicans at heart’; Crispi [the Prime Minister] has resigned. Hopes ‘Uncle Sam will stick to his guns about Cuba. That will be so much better than having a senseless shindy with us’. Is ‘anxious’ to hear how the news sounds to her in England: ‘out here they are mere shadows of events, for it is only when history can be talked about and over hauled in conversation that it becomes real’.
The weather has not always been brilliant, though they ‘have not been siroccoed for a week on end again’; is finding it ‘very easy to catch a chill’, as nights can be cold and ‘there are no such things as fires’; still, it is easy to get rid of chills, and he is ‘keeping quite well’. Has discovered something ‘about Papist priests. They dispense with fasting when at an hotel, because table d’hôte does not provide them with a sufficiency of good fish and vegetables’. Also, they are ‘passing fond of Madeira’. Is ‘quite priest-ridden’, though the two in his hotel are ‘the only two of any intelligence and conversation’, and he is ‘deadly sick of watching “The fat and greasy citizens sweep in / To sate their sordid souls at table-d’hôte”’. This is a quotation from ‘a sonnet built out of quotations’ which he and Bertram ‘architected for the Westminster two years ago on the Wengen (?) Alp’.
India Office, Whitehall, S.W.—His complaint against the Fair Wages Advisory Committee is that it stops short of giving the advice necessary to produce harmony between Government Departments. Such advice cannot shelter the contracting parties, who are free to to accept or reject its advice. He accepts that Buxton is not responsible for the Committee, but points out that the Board of Trade always answers questions on in it in the House and that it often uses Board of Trade paper. The opinion communicated in the Secretary of State’s letter, which was written with Montagu’s approval, was explicitly stated to be subject to Sir George Askwith’s approval. The letter was only written because of the Committee’s delay, and Buxton took action without waiting for the India Office’s reply to Askwith’s letter of 8 December. He will not be sorry if Buxton consults the Cabinet on the matter, since, if Buxton’s views of the Committee hold good and if future negotiations with the Committee proceed along similar lines, it is not as useful a body as it might be. But he hopes Buxton will not act till the Secretary of State [for India] is present to answer his contention.
(Carbon copy?)
18 W 32 N St, New York. - There was a slight error in the address of Procter's letter, so Sherwood has only just received it. Cannot immediately send Lord Houghton's last letter to his son, though she has always intended to do so; 'it is a most precious autograph, written but a short time before his lamented death saying that he hoped to assist at Westminster Abbey at the services in honour of General Grant'. Many of Lord Houghton's other letters contain 'gossiping details of great persons', which he wrote to her in confidence 'with permision to use them "after everybody was dead"'. Intends to leave them sealed and directed to the second Lord Houghton.
Lord Houghton always showed 'a curious literary and intellectual interest' in her; he told her 'many good stories' which she thinks he meant she should 'incorporate later in some sketch of himself'. Is very glad to have seen him with Lady Galway at Rome in the winter of 1884; 'her devotion was beautiful'. Glad Mrs Procter sees 'so much of Mr & Mrs Phelps, we are very proud of them'.
Buckingham Palace Hotel. - Lady Galway asks her to send 'these precious letters' to Houghton; is 'glad to return to the son, a part of the debt I owe to the father'; knew the first Lord Houghton from 1869 until his death, and he was often a visitor at her house when in America; she gave him his 'first large reception' in New York and had the pleasure of being with him in Rome in 1885, when he wrote her the 'pretty Valentine' she now sends. Has 'never met so curious a combination of wit and tender heart'; thinks Houghton's 'own lines should be his epitaph: "A helping hand to the weak /A friendly hand to the friendless...'.
Has other letters of his at her country home and left them behind when she left hurriedly to reach London for the Jubilee and could not find them; asks if she may send them if she does.
7 Barton Street, West Kensington, S. W. - Is 'much obliged' for the cheque for £75 for his work. Mentions the gathering of some newspaper cuttings in case he does not receive them from Romeike's.
Fairhill, Tunbridge.
Aldworth, Haslemere.
The Hermitage, Elstead, Godalming.
18 Wilton Street, S.W.
Cunard Royal Mail steamship 'Aurania', at sea.
7, Cumberland Terrace, Regents Park, N. W.
Birnam Hall, Birnam, N. B.
Allargue, Strathdon, Aberdeen.
Villa Norella, Cadenabbia, Lago di Como.
14, South Audley Street, W.
Grove Hall, Knottingley.
3 Lombard Street, handed in at Cornhill. Addressed to Sybil Milnes at 23 Hill Street, Berkeley Sq, W.
Badsworth Hall, Pontefract.
Micklegate House.