CHAPTER THE FIRST.

1762 to 1776.

HUGH'S EDUCATION – - EXPEDITION TO POLAND AND THE DANUBIAN PROVINCES-MISSION TO MUNICH-RECALL

TO ENGLAND.

IT has been impossible to me to read my grandfather's papers without conceiving a strong desire to make others of his family better acquainted with a man who played no unimportant part in the public affairs of his day, and whose name was never mentioned but with the tenderest affection in the home of my childhood. Since, however, no one but myself has leisure or inclination to attack masses of manuscript in depths of trunks, I see nothing for it but to attempt a slight sketch of his early career, founded on facts which I have gathered from his correspondence.

With the laudable desire to begin at the beginning, I should gladly trace the manner in which my grandfather's earliest years were spent, but unfortunately I have no means of doing so; the oldest letter in my possession is of the date of 1762, when he was ten years old, and was living with his family at Twickenham; and in none of the subsequent letters have I found any internal evidence as to the locality which they looked

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upon as home. In none is there any allusion to favourite haunts, to gardens or games, to dependants or pets; nothing to show affection for home as a place. Strong family affection has been ever a characteristic of the race, and to be together was at all times an object of tenderest longing, but where the meeting should take place seems to have been a matter of indifference.

I therefore suppose that during the youth of the family their parents led an unsettled life, probably dividing their time between Parliamentary duties in London and visits to relations in Edinburgh, occasionally living at Lochgelly and occasionally at Minto. It is possible, too, that the home life may not have been of the kind to make itself remembered with unmixed pleasure. Sir Gilbert1 was a grave, highly cultivated man, immersed in politics, and, like all fathers of his time, he seems to have inspired his family with as much awe as admiration.

Lady Elliot, clever, high-spirited, and imaginative, was not, like one who filled her place in after years, “Blessed with a temper, whose unclouded ray,

Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day."

Her preference for those of her children who most resembled herself was openly avowed, and in Isabella and Hugh, she cultivated rather than repressed the uncon

1 Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, third Baronet, M.P., a Lord of the Admiralty, distinguished by his literary tastes as well as his political abilities.

2 Agnes Murray Kynynmound, heiress of Melgund in Forfar, and of Lochgelly and Kynynmound, in Fifeshire. She was habitually addressed as Lady Elliot Murray.

3 Isabella; Gilbert (1st Earl of Minto); Hugh, 6th April 1752; Alexander; Robert; Eleanor.

trolled sensibility, the romantic impulsiveness of character, and "high imaginings," which, in the case of the sister, probably increased constitutional tendencies to the extent of rendering them morbid, and which in that of the brother diminished the successfulness of his career and the happiness of his life. Her eldest son Gilbert 1 and her youngest daughter Eleanor, were not supposed by her to be of the porcelain clay of which the rest were made, and her allusions, soon after Hugh left her, to Gilbert's coldness of manner, as compared with Hugh's more demonstrative nature, is not less striking, when we find that she lived to give her entire confidence to her eldest son, and to be on terms approaching to estrangement with the younger.

To a want therefore of home sunshine, it is possible that we may in part ascribe the fact that the letters written from home deal chiefly with news, with politics, or with advice, while those addressed there by the absent sons, are confined to matters affecting their studies and pursuits.

From their earliest years the boys were training for the world.

"Life," says Byron, "has no Present," but childhood is a time of life which should form an exception to the rule, a time when stores of mental as of bodily health may be laid up in days of careless enjoyment.

At twelve years old Hugh was with his elder brother in Paris, learning French and l'usage du monde under the auspices of David Hume.

1 The absence of Alick in India, and the youth of Bob, prevented them from playing an equal part with the others in the family drama.

The circumstances of the family probably had much to do with the eagerness with which the boys were prepared to enter on the arena where honours were to be won. Poor, and proud of the position to which character and abilities had raised them, the parents strove to fit the sons to keep what themselves had gained. Gilbert, writing to his mother from Edinburgh, in reply to a letter of congratulation on a successful display in the Rhetorical Society, deprecates her being too much elated by his success; though, he says, he well knows the importance of obtaining the power of public speaking.

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I am, however, anticipating events; so, to proceed with my story in order. In 1762, Mr. Liston 1 engaged to be their tutor, and during that and the following year his pupils appear to have lived at Twickenham, and to have prosecuted the ordinary studies of their age under his superintendence. Towards the end of 1764 they went to Paris, where they spent two years in a military school, directed by the Abbé Choquart. While there they made the acquaintance of Mirabeau, a boy of their own age, for whom the school of l'Abbé Choquart had been specially selected as being more like a prison than a school. "Je l'ai mis chez l'Abbé Choquart," wrote the old Marquis de Mirabeau, "l'ami des hommes," but certainly not the friend of his son, "cet homme est roide, et force les punitions dans le besoin."

No complaints of harsh treatment have, however, been recorded in the letters of the Elliots. In a style

1 Robert Liston, Esq., of New Liston, near Edinburgh, afterwards Sir R. Liston, minister at Madrid, ambassador to Constantinople, etc.; his salary as tutor was £25 a-year, bed, board, and washing.