To his Mother. ABERGELDIE CASTLE. Sep. 15, 1848. MY DEAR MAMA, Am I not the best son in the world? Here am I sitting away from all the fun at the writing table in the corner of the drawing-room to write this letter. However, as Mr Hutton (the Butler) has just brought me coffee to console myself withal, I shall not do badly. What an admirable custom is that of taking coffee after dinner! Oh! Mocha, fragrant is the steam of the precious ware, soothing its fragrance to the wearied dinner-farer! Mr Wicksted, Severne, myself and the lads rode on Highland ponies to Invercauld, the seat of the Farquharsons, where the Highland Gathering was this year held. The rest in the carriage; when, after a beautiful ride, we reached the Park, groups of picturesque people were moving onwards, with Highland soldiers here and there among them. At last emerging from the avenues and clumps of trees, we came on to a large fine meadow, with a small space enclosed by ropes; from the meadow rose a very steep slope of about thirty feet with a kind of lobby in the middle, to a lawn before the House. Having disposed of our ponies we, being privileged persons, made the best of our way to the lawn, and were admitted within the double line of Highland Society's kilted lads who kept out all meaner persons. The Duke of Athole and the Duke of Leeds, who is a Scotch Viscount also, should have been there by two o'clock, but it was now nearly three and they had not appeared, and the Queen was at hand. One of Mr Clive's servants was dispatched on horseback to meet them and hasten them on--and the simple mistake of being late brought them forward with tenfold better effect, for as they marched up at a quick run, and when within a few paces of us, turned over to the right and ran orderly down the steep slope, it looked like men starting to charge, and had no Astley sort of effect as it might have had had they proceeded slowly. These men were well armed with spiked shields, swords and Lochaber axes; and from the petty jealousy of their eclipsing the Farquharson and Duff men were sent down into the meadow at a distance from the Queen. Scarcely had they ranged with their banners furled, when the crowd below started off to meet the Queen, whose carriages presently appeared on the Drive. Hurrah! She looks very well to-day! Hurrah! the Royal tartan! Prince Albert was merely dressed as a gentleman-however he looks very stately. They advanced with the Princess Royal and the two Princes to the seats prepared for them in front of the lawn, with the Farquharson tartan laid beneath their feet. But I forgot-as they came across the lawn, five young Farquharsons-fine lads indeed-Highlanders all-knelt before them in turn to present them with bouquets-it looked very well. There is a divinity doth hedge a Queen, certainly when one unknown to us comes forward, and every head is uncovered, and every tongue praying God to save her, or shouting the watchword of the land. The two young Princes were in full costume-the Royal tartans, dirks and brooches and bugles-they wore the belted tartan, that is when the tartan is drawn up from the kilt to the left shoulder, this has a fine effect and shows off the figures of men to great advantage. But however to tell you all about the R. F. and have done. The Prince of Wales is a fair little lad, rather of slender make, with a good head and a remarkably quiet and thinking face, above his years in intelligence I should think. The Sailor portrait of him is a good one, but does not express the thought that there is on his little brow. Prince Alfred is a fair chubby little lad, with a quiet look, but quite the Guelph face, which does not appear in the Prince of Wales. The Princess Royal is the exact counterpart of her mother, with a will of her own, I should think. The Queen was, I should say, the most plainly drest lady there; a nice looking little Highland gentleman was soon brought to amuse the Royal boys, and they were soon as deeply engaged in conversation as children at their age usually are-meantime the Princess found a playmate in the wee Miss Farquharson-and they talked away at a great rate. "Have you got a garden?" was one of the questions which the Princess answered with a "Yes, have you?" The subjects were not however allowed to be too familiar-I saw Lady Gainsborough several times check little Ross when he got too free and stood in front of the Princes. Now, don't fancy me a "vulgar observer of great folk"-only I have recorded these things for your special edification, and my sisters', to whom commend me with all love. E. W. BENSON. CHAPTER III. CAMBRIDGE. "Here sits he, shaping wings to fly." TENNYSON. My father was elected to a Subsizarship at Trinity in 1848. Before going up, on his way to Cambridge, he paid his first visit to London, staying, I believe, with the Lightfoots, who were then living at Vauxhall: he began an elaborate diary at Cambridge, somewhat grandiloquently entitled a "Journal of College Residence,"--but it appears only to have extended to two pages; it is headed by this little distich: "Beata, Sancta, Gloriosa Trinitas Opus secundet quod domus nôrit Sua." It is interesting as giving his earliest impressions of London. CAMBRIDGE. When talking with the Wickendens on Thursday Evening it seemed impossible that I should allow any obstacle to my impatience to meet my kindly Mother': much as I had heard of the wonders of London and nothing as I knew of them, I positively vowed that I would not stay there one moment beyond the earliest time at which I was permitted to reside in the 1 Cambridge. University. Yet I have taken two days more, and as I lay awake in bed this morning all the unseen things recurred to my memory, and the repeated assurances of my fellows that I should find the time quite long enough. But of all the things that I have seen there are two which will, I think, never be obliterated from my memory in respect of the first impressions they produced. The Memnon Head' and the Victoria Tower. Their size certainly has upon me an almost overpowering effect. I was literally dumb with admiration, and I verily believe that had I been utterly uneducated, my first and only impulse at sight of the former would have been awful worship. And then the River-the most wondrous and mysterious and yet the most practical and business-like thing I ever beheld. Day and Night it is equally astonishing; streaked with the red reflections of the lamps of the next bridge, and rushing on below in darkness, or foul and filthy in broad daylight with its crowds of people treading it underfoot. Nor can I conceive anything more interesting either as a spectacle or as associated with its peculiar associations than the banks. Tower, Paul's, Somerset House, Westminster, Warehouses: every yard is subject for voluminous history. And even apart from every association, though the Mersey when I have seen it is finer than the Thames when I have seen that, yet for the ideas that irresistibly pour in and throng and jostle,-no, name it not. Surely England cannot be in her decline as so many of those whom most I know tell me, when her metropolis is full of such true, such liberal, such refined feeling: witness the crowds with which the British Museum was filled admiring, the mighty company that yesterday knelt in Westminster worshipping. Doubtless there is high and holy work for heads and hearts and hands in the generation to come. If I work not in it, with it, for it, heavy and deserved will be my condemnation. Emmanuel ! Besides his Subsizarship he held one or two small Exhibitions from Birmingham to eke out his slender finances; 1 This is a not uncommon error: there is no 'head of Memnon' in the British Museum, as the statue of Memnon has no face. Probably he was thinking of the cast of the colossal head of Rameses II. at the western end of the great Gallery of Antiquities. Dr Garnett tells me he has often heard it alluded to as Memnon. -and slender indeed they were: the family was growing up, and Mrs Benson was very hard put to it to pay for their education. With her acute dislike of mentioning money matters she preferred to undergo real privation rather than ask her relations for help. She cut off every possible luxury, dismissed servants, and cheerfully threw herself with her two elder daughters into the work of the house; she even schemed to embark again in business with one of her husband's patents for the production of colours, an idea which fortunately fell through. My father managed to get through his first year at Cambridge upon something over £90. All hospitality except of the most casual kind was of course out of the question, and my father has spoken to me feelingly of the miseries he endured through living with a large circle of more or less wealthy friends. He read hard, both in mathematics and classics, and reduced sleep and exercise to a minimum. He never had been much of an athlete, though he was a fair football player; at cricket, according to his own account, he was always a most indifferent performer. He told me that in his last summer half at school he had actually managed to bowl someone out, and was standing complacently receiving the plaudits of his friends when he fell unconscious on the ground, having been struck on the top of his head by the ball which had been thrown high into the air in triumph. At Cambridge he gave up all games and recreations except bathing, and limited himself to walks, taking the various "grinds" to Grantchester, Madingley, or Coton in turns, and exploring the churches of the neighbourhood. One sacred institution he founded: he breakfasted with Lightfoot every Sunday on a veal-and-ham pie, and the two set the greatest store by this simple festivity. After |