We are just now in the throes of such a mobocracy,--and know how much one firm policeman can avail to calm a riot.

While speaking of the Duke and Apsley House, let me add here another word of some interest.

My uncle, Arthur W.Devis, had painted life-sized portraits of Blucher and Gneisenau, which his widow had given to me: and as the Duke had always been my father's friend, I asked his Grace if he would accept them from me; this he declined, but said, "get Colnaghi to value them and I'll buy them"-- as accordingly I did, and the pictures are still I presume either at Apsley House or Strathfieldsaye.
My small memories of the Great Duke are summed up in these four monosyllables, plain, blunt, firm, kind.
After Brodie's, my liberal father would give for me another hundred pounds, this time to his cousin Mr.Walters of No.

12 in the Square, to make me more learned as a conveyancer: but it was all of no use: "He penned a stanza when he should engross:" however, I ate my terms and was duly called to the Bar.

At Walters' my most eminent colleague, amongst others, was Roundel Palmer, now Lord Selborne, who, some time after, when we both had chambers in the Inn, wanted me (but I repudiated the idea) to be proposed as a candidate member for Oxford University, just before Gladstone was induced to stand; I daresay he will remember it.