the Bishopric, saying that he had neither the eloquence nor the
administrative ability necessary for so high an office in the
Church, and that he preferred to remain a plain country parson in
his little parish, of which, at the time of his death, he had been
Rector for fifty-six years. All of which only goes to show what
absurdly erroneous ideas a child, anxious to learn, may pick up
from listening to the conversation of his elders, even when one of
those elders happened to be Mr. Disraeli himself.

Another ex-Prime Minister who was often at our house was the
fourth Earl of Aberdeen, who had held office many times, and had
been Prime Minister during the Crimean War. He must have been a
very old man then, for he was born in 1784. I have no very
distinct recollection of him. Oddly enough, Lord Aberdeen was both
my great-uncle and my step-grandfather, for his first wife had
been my grandfather's sister, and after her death, he married my
grandfather's widow, his two wives thus being sisters-in-law.
Judging by their portraits by Lawrence, which hung round our
dining-room, my great-grandfather, old Lord Abercorn's sons and
daughters must have been of singular and quite unusual personal
beauty. Not one of the five attained the age of twenty-nine, all
of them succumbing early to consumption. Lord Aberdeen had a most
unfortunate skin and complexion, and in addition he was deeply
pitted with small-pox. As a result his face looked exactly like a
slice of brown bread, and "Old Brown Bread" he was always called
by my elder brothers and sisters, who had but little love for him,
for he disliked young people, and always made the most
disagreeable remarks he could think of to them. I remember once
being taken to see him at Argyll House, Regent Street, on the site
of which the "Palladium" now stands. I recollect perfectly the