kept him for more than three years in confinement in the fortress of Verdun. But when the Whigs came into office in 1806, the Prince of Wales requested Mr Fox to apply through Talleyrand for the Earl's release. The French Government thought the application indicated that Lord Yarmouth was a personal favourite of Fox's, and he was not only released, but intrusted with a verbal communication to the English Minister of the terms on which Buonaparte was disposed to treat for peace. The basis was accepted by Fox, and Lord Yarmouth returned to Paris with powers to conclude a treaty; Buonaparte, however, had meanwhile obtained hopes of making better terms with Russia, and raised his demands with England. The Earl of Lauderdale was sent as a colleague to Lord Yarmouth, to add weight to the English diplomacy, but ultimately the negotiations both with England and Russia came to nothing. In September 1809 Lord Yarmouth acted as second to his cousin, Lord Castlereagh, in his duel with Mr Canning. In 1810, he succeeded to the greatest part of the disposable property of the old Duke of Queensberry, whose putative daughter he had married. The Duke left to Lord Yarmouth for his life and that of Lady Yarmouth, and then to descend to their issue male, £150,000, his two houses in Piccadilly, and his villa at Richmond, with all their furniture. Lord Yarmouth was also named residuary legatee, and it was estimated at the time that he would eventually obtain £200,000 additional from that source. In the Regency discussions of 1811 Lord Yarmouth supported the proposal which placed the fuller power in the Prince of Wales, and in the new appointments which followed became Vice

Chamberlain, his father being made Lord Chamberlain. Their removal from these offices, demanded and refused, was the ostensible cause of the failure of the attempt to introduce Lords Grey and Grenville into the Cabinet on the death of Mr Perceval. In August 1812 Lord Yarmouth exchanged his office of ViceChamberlain for the more lucrative one of Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and was sworn of the Privy Council. He acted as escort to the Emperor Alexander when the allied Sovereigns visited England in 1814, and was made a Knight of the Garter, November 22, 1822. He was Recorder of Bodmin, and in September 1824 became Recorder of Coventry, but resigned both posts in 1832, on the prospect of municipal reform. In 1827 he was sent to convey the Garter to the Emperor Nicholas, and astonished St Petersburg by his magnificence. He supported throughout the Wellington Cabinet, and was offered a great Household appointment on the accession of William IV., but declined it on account of his health. He had suffered much from the gout, and spent his winters at the baths of Aix and Naples, but returned in the spring to London, and gave the most splendid entertainments at his villa in the Regent's Park, which he had fitted up in an extraordinary style. He died at his town residence, Dorchester House, Park Lane, on March 1, 1842, aged sixty-five. In him culminated the dissipation of the Regency period, and probably his open excesses equal, if they do not go beyond, those of any English nobleman on record. He is said, however, to have been a man of real ability, to have been well read in old and modern literature, and to have been remarkable for his sagacious judg

ment. He has been also praised for generosity and constancy in his friendships. By his wife, Maria Fagniani, he left a daughter and two sons, the elder of whom, Richard Seymour-Conway, succeeded him in his titles. His will was a most extraordinary document, and entailed a lawsuit, in which his confidential valet and his mistresses figured in a manner little conducive to the reputation of the Marquess. His successor, the present and fourth Marquess, is unmarried, and resides at Paris. He is chiefly known in England for his collection of paintings; and, if he dies without heirs, will be succeeded by Sir George Francis Seymour, eldest son of Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour, fifth son of the first Marquess, and the Admiral lately commanding on the American station. Sir George Hamilton Seymour, the eminent diplomatist- who will be known to posterity from his celebrated conversation with the Emperor Nicholas of Russia before the Crimean war on the "sick man" (viz., Turkey)-is also a cousin of the Marquess of Hertford, being the eldest son of Lord George Seymour, seventh son of the first Marquess.

The Seymours are aristocrats of the ideal typemen on the one hand besotted with the pride of birth, absolutely devoted to their own wills, whether for evil or for good, but on the other ready to sacrifice all for the greatness and welfare of the State. They have done great services and have been nobly paid, and their greatest act was one none but an aristocrat would have dared. But for the Duke of Somerset (acting with Shrewsbury and Argyll) the Council which met upon Anne's death might, and probably would, have recalled the Stuarts; but no man

not at once Duke and Seymour, if unconnected with the Cabinet, would have pushed uninvited into a Cabinet Council, and compelled the members to make instant choice between their safety and their predilections. This act of impudent patriotism saved the Protestant succession, and those who grudge the pride of the Seymours may remember with advantage the incident in which it was most conspicuously shown.

The Lennoxes.

NOTHER of Charles II.'s offspring. The Lennoxes are descended from a natural son of the "Merry Monarch" and Louise Renée de Penencourt, of Querouaille, in Brittany. She had been noticed by Charles when attending his sister Henrietta of Orleans, and Buckingham, perceiving the impression she had made, pointed out to the French Court the advisability of giving Charles a mistress devoted to French interests. It was accordingly arranged that the lady should travel to Dieppe with the Duke's equipage, and he would there join her, and accompany her to England. But the volatile voluptuary forgot or did not condescend to fulfil the latter part of the arrangement, but went to England by way of Calais; and she was indebted to Montagu, the Ambassador at Paris, for the means of conveyance across the Channel. Of course Buckingham thus secured in her an enemy instead of a friend. The King was greatly taken with her, and she ruled over him for the rest of his life, dividing her empire, but very unequally, with Nell Gwynne, the latter being considered as the Protestant and English mistress, the Duchess as the Catholic and French. Nell