mentioned whose
entertainments the Prince liked to attend were Mrs. Bischoffstein and
Mrs. Arthur Rothschild. Other personal friends were the late Earl of
Lathom, the bright and witty Marchioness of Aylesbury, Lord James of
Hereford and the late Sir Charles Hall. Amongst artists whom the Prince
greatly favoured were Sir Charles and Lady Halle and the late Lord
Leighton. No closer and more devoted friends of the Prince could be
found than the members of his own Household, and the public was long
aware of this in the persons of Lord Suffield, Sir Francis Knollys and
Sir Dighton Probyn, in particular. The Prince delighted in doing honour
to those whom he accepted as friends. He marked his sorrow at the deaths
of Colonel Oliver Montagu and Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild by
personally attending their funerals--an exception to the rule which he
had set himself in this connection.

His Royal Highness frequently gave his powerful patronage to the
promotion of Memorials to those who had been honoured by his friendship
and who deserved honour upon national grounds. An early instance of this
was the case of Dean Stanley. A later one, on July 13, 1900, was the
gathering called at Marlborough House and presided over by the Prince
for the purpose of erecting a national memorial in Westminster Abbey to
the Duke of Westminster. In speaking, His Royal Highness said: "To me
personally the death of the Duke meant the loss of a life-long friend. I
had known him from his boyhood and there is no one whose friendship I
appreciated more than his. In my judgment there is no one whose public
services more fully deserve public recognition by his countrymen."

Fidelity to friends and appreciation of manly qualities and special
abilities were always characteristic of the Prince of Wales and,
combined with his tact and the unusual qualifications of the Princess as
a hostess, made Marlborough and Sandringham, in different ways, the most
ideal centres of social entertainment. Taken as a whole, the Prince's
leadership of society was emphatically for good. His approval and
patronage of the opera or the theatre, the race-course or the
shooting-box, may not have been agreeable to some people, but they
represented the popular opinion of the great majority. He took things as
they were, enjoyed them in a full-hearted and honest way, improved the
_morale_ of the social system and the practices in vogue in many
directions and left Society infinitely better and