Volume I Part 5 (2/2)

[64] This subject is too lengthy for more than cursory allusion here, but the patient a.n.a.lytic skill and keen venatic instinct with which Yule not only proved the forgery of the alleged _Travels of Georg Ludwig von ----_ (that had been already established by Lord Strangford, whose last effort it was, and Sir Henry Rawlinson), but step by step traced it home to the arch-culprit Klaproth, was nothing less than masterly.

[65] This is probably the origin of the odd misstatement as to Yule occupying himself at Palermo with photography, made in the delightful _Reminiscences_ of the late Colonel Balcarres Ramsay. Yule never attempted photography after 1852.

[66] She was a woman of fine intellect and wide reading; a skilful musician, who also sang well, and a good amateur artist in the style of Aug. Delacroix (of whom she was a favourite pupil). Of French and Italian she had a thorough and literary mastery, and how well she knew her own language is shown by the sound and pure English of a story she published in early life, under the pseudonym of Max Lyle (_Fair Oaks, or The Experiences of Arnold Osborne, M.D._, 2 vols., 1856). My mother was partly of Highland descent on both sides, and many of her fine qualities were very characteristic of that race. Before her marriage she took an active part in many good works, and herself originated the useful School for the Blind at Bath, in a room which she hired with her pocket-money, where she and her friend Miss Elwin taught such of the blind poor as they could gather together.

In the tablet which he erected to her memory in the family burial-place of St. Andrew's, Gulane, her husband described her thus:--”A woman singular in endowments, in suffering, and in faith; to whom to live was Christ, to die was gain.”

[67] Mary Wilhelmina, daughter of F. Skipwith, Esq., B.C.S.

[68] Collinson's _Memoir of Yule_.

[69] See _Notes from a Diary_, 1888-91.

[70] The identification was not limited to Yule, for when travelling in Russia many years ago, the present writer was introduced by an absent-minded Russian _savant_ to his colleagues as _Mademoiselle Marco Paulovna_!

[71] See Note on Sir George Yule's career at the end of this Memoir.

[72] Addressed to the Editor, _Royal Engineers' Journal_, who did not, however, publish it.

[73] Debate of 27th August, 1889, as reported in _The Times_ of 28th August.

[74] Yule had published a brief but very interesting Memoir of Major Rennell in the _R. E. Journal_ in 1881. He was extremely proud of the circ.u.mstance that Rennell's surviving grand-daughter presented to him a beautiful wax medallion portrait of the great geographer. This wonderfully life-like presentment was bequeathed by Yule to his friend Sir Joseph Hooker, who presented it to the Royal Society.

[75] Knowing his veneration for that n.o.ble lady, I had written to tell her of his condition, and to ask her to give him this last pleasure of a few words. The response was such as few but herself could write. This letter was not to be found after my father's death, and I can only conjecture that it must either have been given away by himself (which is most improbable), or was appropriated by some unauthorised outsider.

[76] So Sir M. E. Grant Duff well calls it.

[77] _Academy_, 19th March, 1890.

[78] He was much pleased, I remember, by a letter he once received from a kindly Franciscan friar, who wrote: ”You may rest a.s.sured that the Beato Odorico will not forget all you have done for him.”

[79] F.-M. Lord Napier of Magdala, died 14th January, 1890.

[80] This notice includes the greater part of an article written by my father, and published in the _St. James' Gazette_ of 18th January, 1886, but I have added other details from personal recollection and other sources.--A. F. Y.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR HENRY YULE'S WRITINGS

COMPILED BY H. CORDIER AND A. F. YULE[1]

1842 Notes on the Iron of the Kasia Hills. (_Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, XI. Part II. July-Dec. 1842, pp. 853-857.)

Reprinted in _Proceedings of the Museum of Economic Geology_, 1852.

1844 Notes on the Kasia Hills and People. By Lieut. H. Yule. (_Jour.

Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, XII. Part II. July-Dec. 1844, pp. 612-631.)

1846 A Ca.n.a.l Act of the Emperor Akbar, with some notes and remarks on the History of the Western Jumna Ca.n.a.ls. By Lieut. Yule. (_Jour. Asiatic Society Bengal_, XV. 1846, pp. 213-223.)

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