victory. His wife and four young children returned to Steeton Hall, of which she was mistress for nearly sixty years.

William, eldest son of the peerless knight, succeeded to possession of the estate. His brother Thomas was a general of the army in the reign of Queen Anne. Robert Fairfax, son of William, was the next heir, and was a brave and victorious admiral. He built a house a few miles from Steeton, at Newton Kyme, and made it the family seat. He also acquired Bilbrough. Thomas, his son, succeeded in 1725, and was the author of the Complete Sportsman," published in 1760. His son John, of Newton Kyme, succeeded to the patrimonial estates in 1803, and was followed in 1811 by his son, Thomas Lodington Fairfax. This gentleman was followed in turn, in 1840, by his son Thomas, who died in 1875. Thomas Ferdinand, eldest son of the last proprietor, then assumed the ancestral honors, and headship of the house. Educated at Eton, he held a commission in the famous Grenadier Guards, served with his regiment in Canada, and retired with the honorary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. On the 14th of April, 1869, he married Evelyn Selina, second daughter of Sir William Milner of Nun-Appleton; was an enthusiastic sportsman, and master of the York and Ainsty Hunt; was also an excellent magistrate, and a typical English country gentleman. Just, liberal, warm-hearted, and beloved, his death in 1883 was deeply regretted by all who knew him. Mrs. Fairfax, two sons, Guy and Brian, and one daughter, Evelyn, survive him. Since his death Newton Kyme has passed into the hands of another proprietor. Bilbrough Hall is now the seat of the family, the manors of Bilbrough and Steeton constituting the principal landed estates of the English branch of this ancient, renowned, and patriotic house.

Richard Wheatley.

BRIGADIER-GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON, U. S. A.

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS

When in the summer of 1854 I reported for duty as medical officer of the garrison at Fort Riley, in Kansas, I found Captain Nathaniel Lyon, of the Second Infantry, stationed at the post in command of his company.

The first opportunity I had for making his acquaintance was on one. evening soon after I and my family were settled in our new quarters, and he came to make a formal visit. I remember very well how, as we all sat on the piazza enjoying the cool night breeze after an unusually hot summer's day, he led the conversation to theological subjects, and the horror I experienced when he deliberately and almost offensively-considering that among his audience were several Christian ladies-announced that he was an infidel, and perhaps even an atheist, and that Socrates was a nobler man than Jesus. This was over thirty years ago, when the mode of thought of educated people was very different from what it is now, and when speeches such as Captain Lyon's were regarded as rank blasphemy. At this day such declarations would not only not excite astonishment or disgust, but would at least be received with kind attention by almost any half a dozen men or women that could be brought together, and would be almost certain to meet with sympathy and approval from one or more of those that might hear them.

Not satisfied with the assertion of his belief and disbelief, he went on to give his reasons, and he did this without the slightest evidence of regard for the religious feelings or prejudices of his listeners. Finally, not to be outdone in the making of dogmatic statements, I enunciated the proposition that there was no morality in the world outside of the Christian religion.

"Will you say that again, please?" said Captain Lyon.

I repeated the remark, with additional emphasis.

Do you really believe that?" he inquired.

"Yes, I do."

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Then, sir," rising as he spoke, his face as red as a beet, and his small light blue eyes flashing with anger, "I can have no further argument with such a such a Good evening," and he darted from the porch without supplying verbally the epithet that was in his mind. Some time afterward,

when we had become friends, I asked him what he would have said if he had spoken without restraint. "I should have called you a narrow-minded, bigoted, and fanatical ass," he answered, with a hearty laugh. "But I should have been wrong, as I generally am," he added after a moment's pause," when I jump at conclusions hastily, for you were only ignorant and hide-bound by the influence of the early education to which you had been subjected, and by which you were led to accept as truths doctrines that have not a shred of proof to support them. You believed because

some one in whom you had confidence told you they were true. You were exactly like the great mass of mankind. If men and women could get rid of their early prejudices, and would look at Scripture exactly as they would at any other collection of stories, the Christian religion would not stand a day."

I mention this instance for the reason that it affords an excellent example of General Lyon's independence of character, which he was constantly exhibiting in all the relations in which he might be placed, even at the risk of making himself personally disagreeable. Indeed, his intenseness and desire to inculcate his views on others made him utterly regardless of the effects of his speeches and conduct, so far as concerned the wounding of

the feelings of those with whom he was thrown. At the same time he was, as I shall have occasion to show, a man in whom the principles of abstract justice were deeply implanted, and they always influenced his conduct whenever he gave himself the opportunity of acting with deliberation. Often, however, his natural impetuosity would get the better of him, and he would perpetuate some outrageously unjust act, for which he was afterward forced by his own imperative convictions to make all possible atonement. I have repeatedly seen him assault with blows and kicks some soldier who he fancied had been guilty of disrespect, and in a few hours apologize in the most humble manner for his disregard of law and regulations, and for acting in a manner that he then knew was without excuse.

On the day following his first visit to me, and before I had returned his call, we again met, and this time on the prairie. We passed each other with the most formal and even frigid salutes, for I had imbibed fully as great a prejudice against him as he had conceived against me. I regarded him not only as a bigoted ignoramus, but as one whose eccentricity was as near insanity as it ever is, and as one, therefore, whose acquaintance was not desirable. We had not, however, gone more than a very few paces before I heard him approaching me, and turning round, almost expecting an attack of some kind, I found him at my side with a pleasant smile on his face and with outstretched hand.

"Doctor," he said, "it won't do for us to be enemies. All the officers here but you and I are pro-slavery men, and there's a time coming when. all friends of the right will have to stand together. Come, let us take a walk."

I met his advances half-way, and we went up to the top of the high bluff that overlooked the plain on which the fort stood. He talked all the time, never giving me a chance to get in a word, even if I had been ever so anxious to express my views. In fact he was always ready to do all the talking, liking, apparently, nothing so much as a good listener; although he halted at times a little in his speech, as though trying to find the exact word with which to express his meaning, he was extremely voluble, his ideas flowing with surprising rapidity, and his words being uttered at a rate of speed that would have kept the most skillful stenographer in full action.

Upon the present occasion he spoke at length of the slavery issue that was then before the country, and especially as it concerned the two new Territories, Kansas and Nebraska. He denounced Mr. Douglas and President Pierce in the most unmeasured terms, accusing them of subserviency to the slave interest, and predicted that the time was not far distant when they would be held up to the execration of all lovers of freedom. In the

course of his tirade-for it was scarcely anything else-he drew from his pocket a copy of the New York Evening Post, and read a long article from it that he said exactly expressed his views. He lauded Mr. William Cullen Bryant for his independence and courage, and declared that the Post was the most honest and fearless newspaper published in America. He had for many years been a subscriber to the semi-weekly or tri-weekly edition, and was always on the watch, when the mail was expected, for his favorite journal.

I have never in the whole course of my life met with a man as fearless and uncompromising in the expression of his opinions, and at the same time so intolerant of the views of others, as was he. If he had lived four hundred years ago he would have been burned at the stake as a pestilent and altogether incorrigible person, whose removal was demanded in the interests of the peace of society. His frankness and honesty were of so obtrusive a character that they made him enemies on all sides, and yet there were very few, even among those who disliked him, who did not at the same time respect him. His word was inviolable. Hypocrisy and humbug of all kinds were so distasteful to him that those in whom he detected them became the objects of his keenest animosity-and, above all other things, slavery met with his most thorough detestation. A slave-holder was in his eyes everything that was vile, and he did not hesitate a moment to say so in all collections of officers, although nearly every one at the post was a Southerner and a sympathizer with slavery.

Upon one occasion Captain Anderson, of the Second Dragoons, afterward a major-general in the Confederate service, gave a dinner party, at which were present several of the officers of the garrison as well as the members of a general court-martial that was then in session at the post, Captain Lyon and myself were among the number.

Although Captain Anderson was a citizen of South Carolina and his host, Lyon plunged as soon as he could get the opportunity into a harangue against the South and its peculiar institution, in which he used all the powers of invective that he possessed in so great a degree. Among the guests were General Mansfield, killed at Antietam, General Ramsey, chief of ordnance during the war, Colonel C. F. Smith-who, if he had lived, would certainly have given a good account of himself on the side of the Union-and General Casey, who so highly distinguished himself at the battle of Fair Oaks. All of these were Northern men who had no liking for slavery, but they were all dumbfounded at the violence and virulence of Lyon's attack. As for the Southerners, they looked indignant, of course, all but the host, Captain Anderson, who sat at the head of his table