DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

| ‘ee passion.” Yet I think he continued all his life putting papa in a passion and being forgiven, for I believe he died in his service.’ Lord North lived to an old age, and in common with several distinguished contemporaries became afflicted with blindness. It happened that he then met Colonel Barré, formerly one of his political adversaries, who had also lost his sight, and after exchanging the usual compliments, ‘Ah! Colonel,’ gaily observed Lord North, ‘whatever may have been our former animosities, I am persuaded there are no | two men who would now be more glad to see each ) other than you and I.’ Lord North’s plainness was shared by his wife and transmitted to his daughter, Lady Sarah Lindsay. The story is well known of a gentleman asking Lord North at the theatre who that frightful woman was sitting beside him, and his lordship answering, ‘ That is my wife.’ The other, to repair his blunder, said, ‘I don’t mean her, but that monster next to her,’ on which Lord North said, ‘That monster is my daughter.’ With this story, Frederick Robinson, the ancestor of the present Lord Ripon, and well known for his absence of mind, was one day entertaining a lady next him at dinner—and, lo! the lady was Lady Sarah Lindsay. Lord North’s political tendencies and_ sub- servience to the King made him particularly accept- B