Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/15

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BIRTH AND BOYHOOD
11

the Peninsular War and in the Waterloo campaign, and rose to the rank of Major-General.

Mention, too, should be made of his uncle, George Hardinge, well known as a lawyer, scholar, and literary critic. After a successful career at the Bar and in Parliament, he was appointed Judge of the three Welsh counties of Brecon, Glamorgan, and Radnor. His wife was Lucy, daughter of R. Long of Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, whose portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds is considered one of his finest works[1]. After his death, his Miscellaneous Writings were published by his friend James Nichols (3 vols., 1818).

Henry, the future Governor-General, passed his childhood at The Grove, near Sevenoaks, under the charge of two maiden aunts, whom he ever spoke of with great affection. Before entering the army he was for some time at school at Durham; and he used to relate how he was always told off by his school-fellows for climbing the buttresses of the Cathedral and other services of danger in search of birds'-nests. When a boy, he was short in stature; and he would tell how his aunts made him hang with his arms on a door in order to stimulate his growth. The result of this treatment was in their minds satisfactory; for, although never a tall man, he passed

  1. This portrait of Mrs. George Hardinge was for some years lost. When Mr. Tom Taylor made enquiries from the family respecting its whereabouts, no information could be given; but it afterwards turned up in the possession of Lord Clanricarde. The mezzotint engraving of the picture is well known.