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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Beaux and Belles of England, by Mary Robinson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Beaux and Belles of England
+       Mrs. Mary Robinson, Written by Herself, With the Lives of
+       the Duchesses of Gordon and Devonshire by Grace and Phillip
+       Wharton
+
+Author: Mary Robinson
+
+Posting Date: October 29, 2011 [EBook #9822]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: October 21, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEAUX AND BELLES OF ENGLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stan Goodman and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece:
+The Attempted Abduction
+Original painting by B. Wesley Rand]
+
+
+
+
+Beaux & Belles of England
+
+Mrs. Mary Robinson
+
+Written by Herself
+
+With the Lives of the Duchesses of Gordon
+and Devonshire by Grace and Philip Wharton
+
+London
+
+EDITION DE LUXE
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION
+
+
+The following brief memoirs of a beautiful, engaging, and, in many
+respects, highly gifted woman require little in the way of introduction.
+While we may trace same little negative disingenuousness in the writer,
+in regard to a due admission of her own failings, sufficient of
+uncoloured matter of fact remains to show the exposed situation of an
+unprotected beauty--or, what is worse, of a female of great personal and
+natural attraction, exposed to the gaze of libertine rank and fashion,
+under the mere nominal guardianship of a neglectful and profligate
+husband. Autobiography of this class is sometimes dangerous; not so that
+of Mrs. Robinson, who conceals not the thorns inherent in the paths
+along which vice externally scatters roses; For the rest, the
+arrangement of princely establishments in the way of amour is pleasantly
+portrayed in this brief volume, which in many respects is not without
+its moral. One at least is sufficiently obvious, and it will be found in
+the cold-hearted neglect which a woman of the most fascinating mental
+and personal attractions may encounter from those whose homage is merely
+sensual, and whose admiration is but a snare.
+
+
+
+
+EDITOR'S PREFACE
+
+
+The author of these memoirs, Mary Robinson, was one of the most
+prominent and eminently beautiful women of her day. From the description
+she furnishes of her personal appearance, we gather that her complexion
+was dark, her eyes large, her features expressive of melancholy; and
+this verbal sketch corresponds with her portrait, which presents a face
+at once grave, refined, and charming. Her beauty, indeed, was such as to
+attract, amongst others, the attentions of Lords Lyttelton and
+Northington, Fighting Fitzgerald, Captain Ayscough, and finally the
+Prince of Wales; whilst her talents and conversation secured her the
+friendship and interest of David Garrick, Richard Brinsley Sheridan,
+Charles James Fox, Joshua Reynolds, Arthur Murphy, the dramatist, and
+various other men of distinguished talent.
+
+Though her memoirs are briefly sketched, they are sufficiently vivid to
+present us with various pictures of the social life of the period of
+which she was the centre. Now we find her at the Pantheon, with its
+coloured lamps and brilliant music, moving amidst a fashionable crowd,
+where large hoops and high feathers abounded, she herself dressed in a
+habit of pale pink satin trimmed with sable, attracting the attention of
+men of fashion. Again she is surrounded by friends at Vauxhall Gardens,
+and barely escapes from a cunning plot to abduct her,--a plot in which
+loaded pistols and a waiting coach prominently figure; whilst on another
+occasion she is at Ranelagh, where, in the course of the evening, half a
+dozen gallants "evinced their attentions;" and ultimately she makes her
+first appearance as an actress on the stage of Drury Lane, before a
+brilliant house, David Garrick, now retired, watching her from the
+orchestra, whilst she played Juliet in pink satin richly spangled with
+silver, her head ornamented with white feathers.
+
+The fact of her becoming an actress brought about the turning-point in
+her life; it being whilst she played Perdita in "The Winter's Tale"
+before royalty that she attracted the Prince of Wales, afterward George
+IV., who was then in his eighteenth year. The incidents which follow are
+so briefly treated in the memoirs that explanations are necessary to
+those who would follow the story of her life.
+
+The performance of the play in which the prince saw her, probably for
+the first time, took place on the 3d of December, 1779. It was not until
+some months later, during which the prince and Perdita corresponded,
+that she consented to meet him at Kew, where his education was being
+continued and strict guard kept upon his conduct. During 1780 he urged
+his father to give him a commission in the army, but, dreading the
+liberty which would result from such a step, the king refused the
+request. It was, however, considered advisable to provide the prince
+with a small separate establishment in a wing of Buckingham House; this
+arrangement taking place On the 1st of January, 1781.
+
+Being now his own master, the prince became a man about town, attended
+routs, masquerades, horse-races, identified himself with politicians
+detested by the king, set up an establishment for Mrs. Robinson,
+gambled, drank, and in a single year spent ten thousand pounds on
+clothes. He now openly appeared in the company of Perdita at places of
+public resort and amusement; she, magnificently dressed, driving a
+splendid equipage which had cost him nine hundred guineas, and
+surrounded by his friends. We read that: "To-day she was a _paysanne,_
+with her straw hat tied at the back of her head. Yesterday she perhaps
+had been the dressed belle of Hyde Park, trimmed, powdered, patched,
+painted to the utmost power of rouge and white lead; to-morrow she would
+be the cravated Amazon of the riding-house; but, be she what she might,
+the hats of the fashionable promenaders swept the ground as she passed."
+
+This life lasted about two years, when, just as the prince, on his
+coming of age, was about to take possession of Carlton House, to receive
+L30,000 from the nation toward paying his debts, and an annuity of
+L63,000, he absented himself from Perdita, leaving her in ignorance of
+the cause of his change, which was none other than an interest in Mrs.
+Grace Dalrymple Elliott.
+
+In the early fervour of his fancy, he had assured Mrs. Robinson his love
+would remain unchangeable till death, and that he would prove
+unalterable to his Perdita through life. Moreover, his generosity being
+heated by passion, he gave her a bond promising to pay her L20,000 on
+his coming of age.
+
+On the prince separating from her, Perdita found herself some L7,000 in
+debt to tradespeople, who became clamorous for their money, whereon she
+wrote to her royal lover, who paid her no heed; but presently she was
+visited by his friend, Charles James Fox, when she agreed to give up her
+bond in consideration of receiving an annuity of L500 a year.
+
+She would now gladly have gone back to the stage, but that she feared
+the hostility of public opinion. Shortly after, she went to Paris, and
+on her return to England devoted herself to literature. It was about
+this time she entered into relations with Colonel--afterward Sir
+Banastre--Tarleton, who was born in the same year as herself, and had
+served in the American army from 1776 until the surrender of Yorktown,
+on which he returned to England. For many years he sat in Parliament as
+the representative of Liverpool, his native town; and in 1817 he gained
+the grade of lieutenant-general, and was created a baronet. His
+friendship with Mrs. Robinson lasted some sixteen years.
+
+It was whilst undertaking a journey on his behalf, at a time when he was
+in pecuniary difficulties, that she contracted the illness that resulted
+in her losing the active use of her lower limbs. This did not prevent
+her from working, and she poured out novels, poems, essays on the
+condition of women, and plays. A communication written by her to John
+Taylor, the proprietor of the _Sun_ newspaper and author of various
+epilogues, prologues, songs, etc., gives a view of her life. This
+letter, now published for the first time, is contained in the famous
+Morrison collection of autograph letters, and is dated the 5th of
+October, 1794.
+
+"I was really happy to receive your letter. Your silence gave me no
+small degree of uneasiness, and I began to think some demon had broken
+the links of that chain which I trust has united us in friendship for
+ever. Life is such a scene of trouble and disappointment that the
+sensible mind can ill endure the loss of any consolation that renders it
+supportable. How, then, can it be possible that we should resign,
+without a severe pang, the first of all human blessings, the friend we
+love? Never give me reason again, I conjure you, to suppose you have
+wholly forgot me.
+
+"Now I will impart to you a secret, which must not be revealed. I think
+that before the 10th of December next I shall quit England for ever. My
+dear and valuable brother, who is now in Lancashire, wishes to persuade
+me, and the unkindness of the world tends not a little to forward his
+hopes. I have no relations in England except my darling girl, and, I
+fear, few friends. Yet, my dear Juan, I shall feel a very severe
+struggle in quitting those paths of fancy I have been childish enough to
+admire,--false prospects. They have led me into the vain expectation
+that fame would attend my labours, and my country be my pride. How have
+I been treated? I need only refer you to the critiques of last month,
+and you will acquit me of unreasonable instability. When I leave
+England,--adieu to the muse for ever,--I will never publish another line
+while I exist, and even those manuscripts now finished I will destroy.
+
+"Perhaps this will be no loss to the world, yet I may regret the many
+fruitless hours I have employed to furnish occasions for malevolence and
+persecution.
+
+"In every walk of life I have been equally unfortunate, but here shall
+end my complaints.
+
+"I shall return to St. James's Place for a few days this month to meet
+my brother, who then goes to York for a very short time, and after his
+return (the end of November), I depart. This must be secret, for to my
+other misfortunes pecuniary derangement is not the least. Let common
+sense judge how I can subsist upon L500 a year, when my carriage (a
+necessary expense) alone costs me L200. My mental labours have failed
+through the dishonest conduct of my publishers. My works have sold
+handsomely, but the profits have been theirs.
+
+"Have I not reason to be disgusted when I see him to whom I ought to
+look for better fortune lavishing favours on unworthy objects,
+gratifying the avarice of ignorance and dulness, while I, who sacrificed
+reputation, an advantageous profession, friends, patronage, the
+brilliant hours of youth, and the conscious delight of correct conduct,
+am condemned to the scanty pittance bestowed on every indifferent page
+who holds up his ermined train of ceremony?
+
+"You will say, 'Why trouble me with all this?' I answer, 'Because when I
+am at peace, you may be in possession of my real sentiments and defend
+my cause when I shall not have the power of doing it.'
+
+"My comedy has been long in the hands of a manager, but whether it will
+ever be brought forward time must decide. You know, my dear friend, what
+sort of authors have lately been patronised by managers; their pieces
+ushered to public view, with all the advantages of splendour; yet I am
+obliged to wait two long years without a single hope that a trial would
+be granted. Oh, I am tired of the world and all its mortifications. I
+promise you this shall close my chapters of complaints. Keep them, and
+remember how ill I have been treated."
+
+Eight days later she wrote to the same friend:
+
+"In wretched spirits I wrote you last week a most melancholy letter.
+Your kind answer consoled me. The balsam of pure and disinterested
+friendship never fails to cure the mind's sickness, particularly when it
+proceeds from disgust at the ingratitude of the world."
+
+The play to which she referred was probably that mentioned in the sequel
+to her memoirs, which was unhappily a failure. It is notable that the
+principal character in the farce was played by Mrs. Jordan, who was
+later to become the victim of a royal prince, who left her to die in
+poverty and exile.
+
+The letter of another great actress, Sarah Siddons, written to John
+Taylor, shows kindness and compassion toward Perdita.
+
+"I am very much obliged to Mrs. Robinson," says Mrs. Siddons, "for her
+polite attention in sending me her poems. Pray tell her so with my
+compliments. I hope the poor, charming woman has quite recovered from
+her fall. If she is half as amiable as her writings, I shall long for
+the possibility of being acquainted with her. I say the possibility,
+because one's whole life is one continual sacrifice of inclinations,
+which to indulge, however laudable or innocent, would draw down the
+malice and reproach of those prudent people who never do ill, 'but feed
+and sleep and do observances to the stale ritual of quaint ceremony.'
+The charming and beautiful Mrs. Robinson: I pity her from the bottom
+of my soul."
+
+Almost to the last she retained her beauty, and delighted in receiving
+her friends and learning from them news of the world in which she could
+no longer move. Reclining on her sofa in the little drawing-room of her
+house in St. James's Place, she was the centre of a circle which
+comprised many of those who had surrounded her in the days of her
+brilliancy, amongst them being the Prince of Wales and his brother the
+Duke of York.
+
+Possibly, for the former, memory lent her a charm which years had not
+utterly failed to dispel.
+
+J. Fitzgerald Molloy.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+The Attempted Abduction
+
+Lady Lyttleton
+
+William Brereton in The Character Of Douglas
+
+The First Meeting of Mrs. Robinson and the Prince of Wales
+
+Mrs. Robinson
+
+The Prince of Wales
+
+Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
+
+
+
+
+MRS. MARY ROBINSON
+
+
+At the period when the ancient city of Bristol was besieged by Fairfax's
+army, the troops being stationed on a rising ground in the vicinity of
+the suburbs, a great part of the venerable minster was destroyed by the
+cannonading before Prince Rupert surrendered to the enemy; and the
+beautiful Gothic structure, which at this moment fills the contemplative
+mind with melancholy awe, was reduced to but little more than one-half
+of the original fabric. Adjoining to the consecrated hill, whose antique
+tower resists the ravages of time, once stood a monastery of monks of
+the order of St. Augustine. This building formed a part of the spacious
+boundaries which fell before the attacks of the enemy, and became a part
+of the ruin, which never was repaired or re-raised to its former Gothic
+splendours.
+
+On this spot was built a private house, partly of simple, and partly of
+modern architecture. The front faced a small garden, the gates of which
+opened to the Minster Green (now called the College Green); the west
+side was bounded by the cathedral, and the back was supported by the
+ancient cloisters of St. Augustine's monastery. A spot more calculated
+to inspire the soul with mournful meditation can scarcely be found
+amidst the monuments of antiquity.
+
+In this venerable mansion there was one chamber whose dismal and
+singular constructure left no doubt of its having been a part of the
+original monastery. It was supported by the mouldering arches of the
+cloisters, dark, Gothic, and opening on the minster sanctuary, not only
+by casement windows that shed a dim midday gloom, but by a narrow
+winding staircase, at the foot of which an iron-spiked door led to the
+long gloomy path of cloistered solitude. This place remained in the
+situation in which I describe it in the year 1776, and probably may, in
+a more ruined state, continue so to this hour.
+
+In this awe-inspiring habitation, which I shall henceforth denominate
+the Minster House, during a tempestuous night, on the 27th of November,
+1758, I first opened my eyes to this world of duplicity and sorrow. I
+have often heard my mother say that a mare stormy hour she never
+remembered. The wind whistled round the dark pinnacles of the minster
+tower, and the rain beat in torrents against the casements of her
+chamber. Through life the tempest has followed my footsteps, and I have
+in vain looked for a short interval of repose from the perseverance
+of sorrow.
+
+In the male line I am descended from a respectable family in Ireland,
+the original name of which was MacDermott. From an Irish estate, my
+great-grandfather changed it to that of Darby. My father, who was born
+in America, was a man of strong mind, high spirit, and great personal
+intrepidity. Many anecdotes, well authenticated, and which, being
+irrefragable, are recorded as just tributes to his fame and memory,
+shall, in the course of these memoirs, confirm this assertion.
+
+My mother was the grandchild of Catherine Seys, one of the daughters and
+co-heiresses of Richard Sey's, Esq., of Boverton Castle, in
+Glamorganshire. The sister of my great-grandmother, named Anne, married
+Peter, Lord King, who was nephew, in the female line, to the learned and
+truly illustrious John Locke--a name that has acquired celebrity which
+admits of no augmented panegyric.
+
+Catherine Seys was a woman of great piety and virtue--a character which
+she transferred to her daughter, and which has also been acknowledged as
+justly due to her sister, Lady King.[1] She quitted this life when my
+grandmother was yet a child, leaving an only daughter, whose father also
+died while she was in her infancy. By this privation of paternal care my
+grandmother became the _eleve_ of her mother's father, and passed the
+early part of her life at the family castle in Glamorganshire. From this
+period till the marriage of my mother, I can give but a brief account.
+All I know is, that my grandmother, though wedded unhappily, to the
+latest period of her existence was a woman of amiable and simple
+manners, unaffected piety, and exemplary virtue. I remember her well;
+and I speak not only from report, but from my own knowledge. She died in
+the year 1780.
+
+My grandmother Elizabeth, whom I may, without the vanity of
+consanguinity, term a truly good woman, in the early part of her life
+devoted much of her time to botanic study. She frequently passed many
+successive months with Lady Tynt, of Haswell, in Somersetshire, who was
+her godmother, and who was the Lady Bountiful of the surrounding
+villages. Animated by so distinguished an example, the young Elizabeth,
+who was remarkably handsome,[2] took particular delight in visiting the
+old, the indigent, and the infirm, resident within many miles of
+Haswell, and in preparing such medicines as were useful to the maladies
+of the peasantry. She was the village doctress, and, with her worthy
+godmother, seldom passed a day without exemplifying the benevolence of
+her nature.
+
+My mother was born at Bridgwater, in Somersetshire, in the house near
+the bridge, which is now occupied by Jonathan Chub, Esq., a relation of
+my beloved and lamented parent, and a gentleman who, to acknowledged
+worth and a powerful understanding, adds a superior claim to attention
+by all the acquirements of a scholar and a philosopher.
+
+My mother, who never was what may be called a handsome woman, had
+nevertheless, in her youth, a peculiarly neat figure, and a vivacity of
+manner which obtained her many suitors. Among others, a young gentleman
+of good family, of the name of Storr, paid his addresses. My father was
+the object of my mother's choice, though her relations rather wished her
+to form a matrimonial alliance with Mr. S. The conflict between
+affection and duty was at length decided in favour of my father, and the
+rejected lover set out in despair for Bristol. From thence, in a few
+days after his arrival, he took his passage in a merchantman for a
+distant part of the globe; and from that hour no intelligence ever
+arrived of his fate or fortune. I have often heard my mother speak of
+this gentleman with regret and sorrow.
+
+My mother was between twenty and thirty years of age at the period of
+her marriage. The ceremony was performed at Dunyatt, in the county of
+Somerset. My father was shortly after settled at Bristol, and during the
+second year after their union a son was born to bless and
+honour them.[3]
+
+Three years after my mother gave birth to a daughter, named Elizabeth,
+who died of the smallpox at the age of two years and ten months. In the
+second winter following this event, which deeply afflicted the most
+affectionate of parents, I was born. She had afterward two sons:
+William, who died at the age of six years; and George, who is now a
+respectable merchant at Leghorn, in Tuscany.
+
+All the offspring of my parents were, in their infancy, uncommonly
+handsome, excepting myself. The boys were fair and lusty, with auburn
+hair, light blue eyes, and countenances peculiarly animated and lovely,
+I was swarthy; my eyes were singularly large in proportion to my face,
+which was small and round, exhibiting features peculiarly marked with
+the most pensive and melancholy cast.
+
+The great difference betwixt my brothers and myself, in point of
+personal beauty, tended much to endear me to my parents, particularly to
+my father, whom I strongly resembled. The early propensities of my life
+were tinctured with romantic and singular characteristics; some of which
+I shall here mention, as proofs that the mind is never to be diverted
+from its original bent, and that every event of my life has more or less
+been marked by the progressive evils of a too acute sensibility.
+
+The nursery in which I passed my hours of infancy was so near the great
+aisle of the minster that the organ, which reechoed its deep tones,
+accompanied by the chanting of the choristers, was distinctly heard both
+at morning and evening service. I remember with what pleasure I used to
+listen, and how much I was delighted whenever I was permitted to sit on
+the winding steps which led from the aisle to the cloisters. I can at
+this moment recall to memory the sensations I then experienced--the
+tones that seemed to thrill through my heart, the longing which I felt
+to unite my feeble voice to the full anthem, and the awful though
+sublime impression which the church service never failed to make upon my
+feelings. While my brothers were playing on the green before the
+minster, the servant who attended us has often, by my earnest
+entreaties, suffered me to remain beneath the great eagle which stood in
+the centre of the aisle, to support the book from which the clergyman
+read the lessons of the day; and nothing could keep me away, even in the
+coldest seasons, but the stern looks of an old man, whom I named Black
+John from the colour of his beard and complexion, and whose occupations
+within the sacred precincts were those of a bell-ringer and sexton.
+
+As soon as I had learned to read, my great delight was that of learning
+epitaphs and monumental inscriptions. A story of melancholy import never
+failed to excite my attention; and before I was seven years old I could
+correctly repeat Pope's "Lines to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady;"
+Mason's "Elegy on the Death of the Beautiful Countess of Coventry," and
+many smaller poems on similar subjects. I had then been attended two
+years by various masters. Mr. Edmund Broadrip taught me music, my father
+having presented me with one of Kirkman's finest harpsichords, as an
+incitement to emulation. Even there my natural bent of mind evinced
+itself. The only melody which pleased me was that of the mournful and
+touching kind. Two of my earliest favourites were the celebrated ballad
+by Gay, beginning, "'Twas when the sea was roaring," and the simple
+pathetic stanzas of "The Heavy Hours," by the poet Lord Lyttelton.
+These, though nature had given me but little voice, I could at seven
+years of age sing so pathetically that my mother, to the latest hour of
+her life,' never could bear to hear the latter of them repeated. They
+reminded her of sorrows in which I have since painfully learned to
+sympathise.
+
+The early hours of boarding-school study I passed under the tuition of
+the Misses More, sisters to the lady of that name whose talents have
+been so often celebrated.[4] The education of their young pupils was
+undertaken by the five sisters. "In my mind's eye," I see them now
+before me; while every circumstance of those early days is minutely and
+indelibly impressed upon my memory.
+
+I remember the first time I ever was present at a dramatic
+representation: it was the benefit of that great actor[5] who was
+proceeding rapidly toward the highest paths of fame, when death, dropped
+the oblivious curtain, and closed the scene for ever. The part which he
+performed was King Lear; his wife, afterward Mrs. Fisher, played
+Cordelia, but not with sufficient _eclat_ to render the profession an
+object for her future exertions. The whole school attended, Mr. Powel's
+two daughters being then pupils of the Misses More. Mrs. John Kemble,
+then Miss P. Hopkins, was also one of my schoolfellows, as was the
+daughter of Mrs. Palmer, formerly Miss Pritchard, and afterward Mrs.
+Lloyd. I mention these circumstances merely to prove that memory does
+not deceive me.
+
+In my early days my father was prosperous, and my mother was the
+happiest of wives. She adored her children; she devoted her thoughts and
+divided her affections between them and the tenderest of husbands. Their
+spirits now, I trust, are in happier regions, blest, and reunited
+for ever.
+
+If there could be found a fault in the conduct of my mother toward her
+children, it was that of a too unlimited indulgence, a too tender care,
+which but little served to arm their breast against the perpetual arrows
+of mortal vicissitude. My father's commercial concerns were crowned with
+prosperity. His house was opened by hospitality, and his generosity was
+only equalled by the liberality of fortune: every day augmented his
+successes; every hour seemed to increase his domestic felicity, till I
+attained my ninth year, when a change took place as sudden as it was
+unfortunate, at a moment when every luxury, every happiness, not only
+brightened the present, but gave promise of future felicity. A scheme
+was suggested to my father, as wild and romantic as it was perilous to
+hazard, which was no less than that of establishing a whale fishery on
+the coast of Labrador, and of civilising the Esquimaux Indians, in order
+to employ them in the extensive undertaking. During two years this
+eccentric plan occupied his thoughts by day, his dreams by night: all
+the smiles of prosperity could not tranquillise the restless spirit, and
+while he anticipated an acquirement of fame, he little considered the
+perils that would attend his fortune.
+
+My mother (who, content with affluence and happy in beholding the
+prosperity of her children, trembled at the fear of endangering either),
+in vain endeavoured to dissuade my father from putting his favourite
+scheme in practice. In the early part of his youth he had been
+accustomed to a sea life, and, being born an American, his restless
+spirit was ever busied in plans for the increase of wealth and honour to
+his native country, whose fame and interest were then united to those of
+Britain. After many dreams of success and many conflicts betwixt
+prudence and ambition, he resolved on putting his scheme in practice;
+the potent witchery possessed his brain, and all the persuasive powers
+of reason shrunk before its magic.
+
+Full of the important business, my misguided parent repaired to the
+metropolis, and on his arrival laid the plan before the late Earl of
+Hilsborough, Sir Hugh Palliser, the late Earl of Bristol, Lord Chatham
+(father to the present Mr. William Pitt), the chancellor Lord
+Northington, who was my godfather, and several other equally
+distinguished personages; who all not only approved the plan, but
+commended the laudable and public spirit which induced my father to
+suggest it. The prospect appeared full of promise, and the Labrador
+whale fishery was expected to be equally productive with that of
+Greenland. My parent's commercial connections were of the highest
+respectability, while his own name for worth and integrity gave a
+powerful sanction to the eccentric undertaking.
+
+In order to facilitate this plan, my father deemed it absolutely
+necessary to reside at least two years in America. My mother, who felt
+an invincible antipathy to the sea, heard his determination with grief
+and horror. All the persuasive powers of affection failed to detain him;
+all the pleadings of reason, prudence, a fond wife, and an infant
+family, proved ineffectual. My father was determined on departing, and
+my mother's unconquerable timidity prevented her being the companion of
+his voyage. From this epocha I date the sorrows of my family.
+
+He sailed for America. His eldest son, John, was previously placed in a
+mercantile house at Leghorn. My younger brothers and myself remained
+with my mother at Bristol. Two years was the limited time of his
+absence, and, on his departure, the sorrow of my parents was reciprocal.
+My mother's heart was almost bursting with anguish; but even death would
+to her have been preferable to the horrors of crossing a tempestuous
+ocean and quitting her children, my father having resolved on leaving my
+brothers and myself in England for education.
+
+Still the comforts, and even the luxuries of life distinguished our
+habitation. The tenderness of my mother's affection made her lavish of
+every elegance; and the darlings of her bosom were dressed, waited on,
+watched, and indulged with a degree of fondness bordering on folly. My
+clothes were sent for from London; my fancy was indulged to the extent
+of its caprices; I was flattered and praised into a belief that I was a
+being of superior order. To sing, to play a lesson on the harpsichord,
+to recite an elegy, and to make doggerel verses, made the extent of my
+occupations, while my person improved, and my mother's indulgence was
+almost unexampled.
+
+My father, several years before his departure for America, had removed
+from the Minster House, and resided in one larger and more convenient
+for his increased family. This habitation was elegantly arranged; all
+the luxuries of plate, silk furniture, foreign wines, etc., evinced his
+knowledge of what was worth enjoying, and displayed that warm
+hospitality which is often the characteristic of a British merchant.
+This disposition for the good things of the world influenced even the
+disposal of his children's comforts. The bed in which I slept was of the
+richest crimson damask; the dresses which we wore were of the finest
+cambric; during the summer months we were sent to Clifton Hill for the
+advantages of a purer air; and I never was permitted to board at school,
+or to pass a night of separation from the fondest of mothers.
+
+Many months elapsed, and my mother continued to receive the kindest
+letters from that husband whose rash scheme filled her bosom with regret
+and apprehension. At length the intervals became more frequent and
+protracted. The professions of regard, no longer flowing from the heart,
+assumed a laboured style, and seemed rather the efforts of honourable
+feeling than the involuntary language of confidential affection. My
+mother felt the change, and her affliction was infinite.
+
+At length a total silence of several months awoke her mind to the
+sorrows of neglect, the torture of compunction; she now lamented the
+timidity which had divided her from a husband's bosom, the natural
+fondness which had bound her to her children; for while her heart bled
+with sorrow and palpitated with apprehension, the dreadful secret was
+unfolded, and the cause of my father's silence was discovered to be a
+new attachment--a mistress, whose resisting nerves could brave the
+stormy ocean, and who had consented to remain two years with him in the
+frozen wilds of America.
+
+This intelligence nearly annihilated my mother, whose mind, though not
+strongly organised, was tenderly susceptible. She resigned herself to
+grief. I was then at an age to feel and to participate in her sorrows. I
+often wept to see her weep; I tried all my little skill to soothe her,
+but in vain; the first shock was followed by calamities of a different
+nature. The scheme in which my father had embarked his fortune failed,
+the Indians rose in a body, burnt his settlement, murdered many of his
+people, and turned the produce of their toil adrift on the wide and
+merciless ocean. The noble patrons of his plan deceived him in their
+assurances of marine protection, and the island of promise presented a
+scene of barbarous desolation. This misfortune was rapidly followed by
+other commercial losses; and to complete the vexations which pressed
+heavily on my mother, her rash husband gave a bill of sale of his whole
+property, by the authority of which we were obliged to quit our home,
+and to endure those accumulated vicissitudes for which there appeared
+no remedy.
+
+It was at this period of trial that my mother was enabled to prove, by
+that unerring touchstone, adversity, who were her real and disinterested
+friends. Many, with affected commiseration, dropped a tear--or rather
+seemed to drop one--on the disappointments of our family; while others,
+with a malignant triumph, condemned the expensive style in which my
+father had reared his children, the studied elegance which had
+characterised my mother's dress and habitation, and the hospitality,
+which was now marked by the ungrateful epithet of prodigal luxuriance,
+but which had evinced the open liberality of my father's heart.
+
+At this period my brother William died. He was only six years of age,
+but a promising and most lovely infant. His sudden death, in consequence
+of the measles, nearly deprived my mother of her senses. She was deeply
+affected; but she found, after a period of time, that consolation which,
+springing from the bosom of an amiable friend, doubly solaced her
+afflictions. This female was one of the most estimable of her sex; she
+had been the widow of Sir Charles Erskine, and was then the wife of a
+respectable medical man who resided at Bristol.
+
+In the society of Lady Erskine my mother gradually recovered her
+serenity of mind, or rather found it soften into a religious
+resignation. But the event of her domestic loss by death was less
+painful than that which she felt in the alienation of my father's
+affections. She frequently heard that he resided in America with his
+mistress, till, at the expiration of another year, she received a
+summons to meet him in London.
+
+Language would but feebly describe the varying emotions which struggled
+in her bosom. At this interesting era she was preparing to encounter the
+freezing scorn, or the contrite glances, of either an estranged or a
+repentant husband; in either case her situation was replete with
+anticipated chagrin, for she loved him too tenderly not to participate
+even in the anguish of his compunction. His letter, which was coldly
+civil, requested particularly that the children might be the companions
+of her journey. We departed for the metropolis.
+
+I was not then quite ten years old, though so tall and formed in my
+person that I might have passed for twelve or thirteen. My brother
+George was a few years younger. On our arrival in London we repaired to
+my father's lodgings in Spring Gardens. He received us, after three
+years' absence, with a mixture of pain and pleasure; he embraced us with
+tears, and his voice was scarcely articulate. My mother's agitation was
+indescribable; she received a cold embrace at their meeting--it was the
+last she ever received from her alienated husband.
+
+As soon as the first conflicts seemed to subside, my father informed my
+mother that he was determined to place my brother and myself at a school
+in the vicinity of London; that he purposed very shortly returning to
+America, and that he would readily pay for my mother's board in any
+private and respectable family. This information seemed like a
+death-blow to their domestic hopes. A freezing, formal, premeditated
+separation from a wife who was guiltless of any crime, who was as
+innocent as an angel, seemed the very extent of decided misery. It was
+in vain that my mother essayed to change his resolution, and influence
+his heart in pronouncing a milder judgment: my father was held by a
+fatal fascination; he was the slave of a young and artful woman, who had
+availed herself of his American solitude, to undermine his affections
+for his wife and the felicity of his family.
+
+This deviation from domestic faith was the only dark shade that marked
+my father's character. He possessed a soul brave, liberal, enlightened,
+and ingenuous. He felt the impropriety of his conduct. Yet, though his
+mind was strongly organised, though his understanding was capacious, and
+his sense of honour delicate even to fastidiousness, he was still the
+dupe of his passions, the victim of unfortunate attachment.
+
+Within a few days of our arrival in London we were placed for education
+in a school at Chelsea. The mistress of this seminary was perhaps one of
+the most extraordinary women that ever graced, or disgraced, society;
+her name was Meribah Lorrington. She was the most extensively
+accomplished female that I ever remember to have met with; her mental
+powers were no less capable of cultivation than superiorly cultivated.
+Her father, whose name was Hull, had from her infancy been the master of
+an academy at Earl's Court, near Fulham; and early after his marriage
+losing his wife, he resolved on giving his daughter a masculine
+education. Meribah was early instructed in all the modern
+accomplishments, as well as in classical knowledge. She was mistress of
+the Latin, French, and Italian languages; she was said to be a perfect
+arithmetician and astronomer, and possessed the art of painting on silk
+to a degree of exquisite perfection. But, alas! with all these
+advantages, she was addicted to one vice, which at times so completely
+absorbed her faculties as to deprive her of every power, either mental
+or corporeal. Thus, daily and hourly, her superior acquirements, her
+enlightened understanding, yielded to the intemperance of her ruling
+infatuation, and every power of reflection seemed lost in the unfeminine
+propensity.
+
+All that I ever learned I acquired from this extraordinary woman. In
+those hours when her senses were not intoxicated, she would delight in
+the task of instructing me. She had only five or six pupils, and it was
+my lot to be her particular favourite. She always, out of school, called
+me her little friend, and made no scruple of conversing with me
+(sometimes half the night, for I slept in her chamber), on domestic and
+confidential affairs. I felt for her a very sincere affection, and I
+listened with peculiar attention to all the lessons she inculcated. Once
+I recollect her mentioning the particular failing which disgraced so
+intelligent a being. She pleaded, in excuse of it, the immitigable
+regret of a widowed heart, and with compunction declared that she flew
+to intoxication as the only refuge from the pang of prevailing sorrow. I
+continued more than twelve months under the care of Mrs. Lorrington,
+during which period my mother boarded in a clergyman's family at
+Chelsea. I applied rigidly to study, and acquired a taste for books,
+which has never, from that time, deserted me. Mrs. Lorrington frequently
+read to me after school hours, and I to her. I sometimes indulged my
+fancy in writing verses, or composing rebuses, and my governess never
+failed to applaud the juvenile compositions I presented to her. Some of
+them, which I preserved and printed in a small volume shortly after my
+marriage, were written when I was between twelve and thirteen years of
+age; but as love was the theme of my poetical fantasies, I never showed
+them to my mother till I was about to publish them.
+
+It was my custom, every Sunday evening, to drink tea with my mother.
+During one of those visits a captain in the British navy, a friend of my
+father's, became so partial to my person and manners that a proposal of
+marriage shortly after followed. My mother was astonished when she heard
+it, and, as soon as she recovered from her surprise, inquired of my
+suitor how old he thought me; his reply was, "About sixteen." My mother
+smiled, and informed him that I was then not quite thirteen. He appeared
+to be skeptical on the subject, till he was again assured of the fact,
+when he took his leave with evident chagrin, but not without expressing
+his hopes that, on his return to England,--for he was going on a two
+years' expedition,--I should be still disengaged. His ship foundered at
+sea a few months after, and this amiable gallant officer perished.
+
+I had remained a year and two months with Mrs. Lorrington, when
+pecuniary derangements obliged her to give up her school. Her father's
+manners were singularly disgusting, as was his appearance; for he wore a
+silvery beard which reached to his breast; and a kind of Persian robe
+which gave him the external appearance of a necromancer. He was of the
+Anabaptist persuasion, and so stern in his conversation that the young
+pupils were exposed to perpetual terror. Added to these circumstances,
+the failing of his daughter became so evident, that even during school
+hours she was frequently in a state of confirmed intoxication. These
+events conspired to break up the establishment, and I was shortly after
+removed to a boarding-school at Battersea.
+
+The mistress of this seminary, Mrs. Leigh, was a lively, sensible, and
+accomplished woman; her daughter was only a few years older than myself,
+and extremely amiable as well as lovely. Here I might have been happy,
+but my father's remissness in sending pecuniary supplies, and my
+mother's dread of pecuniary inconvenience, induced her to remove me; my
+brother, nevertheless, still remained under the care of the Reverend Mr.
+Gore, at Chelsea.
+
+Several months elapsed, and no remittance arrived from my father. I was
+now near fourteen years old, and my mother began to foresee the
+vicissitudes to which my youth might be exposed, unprotected, tenderly
+educated, and without the advantages of fortune. My father's
+impracticable scheme had impoverished his fortune, and deprived his
+children of that affluence which, in their in fancy, they had been
+taught to hope for. I cannot speak of my own person, but my partial
+friends were too apt to flatter me. I was naturally of a pensive and
+melancholy character; my reflections on the changes of fortune
+frequently gave me an air of dejection which perhaps etched an interest
+beyond what might have been awakened by the vivacity or bloom of
+juvenility.
+
+I adored my mother. She was the mildest, the most unoffending of
+existing mortals; her temper was cheerful, as her heart was innocent;
+she beheld her children as it seemed fatherless, and she resolved, by
+honourable means, to support them. For this purpose a convenient house
+was hired at Little Chelsea, and furnished, for a ladies'
+boarding-school. Assistants of every kind were engaged, and I was deemed
+worthy of an occupation that flattered my self-love and impressed my
+mind with a sort of domestic consequence. The English language was my
+department in the seminary, and I was permitted to select passages both
+in prose and verse for the studies of my infant pupils. It was also my
+occupation to superintend their wardrobes, to see them dressed and
+undressed by the servants or half-boarders, and to read sacred and moral
+lessons on saints' days and Sunday evenings.
+
+Shortly after my mother had established herself at Chelsea, on a
+summer's evening, as I was sitting at the window, I heard a deep sigh,
+or rather a groan of anguish, which suddenly attracted my attention. The
+night was approaching rapidly, and I looked toward the gate before the
+house, where I observed a woman evidently labouring under excessive
+affliction; I instantly descended and approached her. She, bursting into
+tears, asked whether I did not know her. Her dress was torn and filthy;
+she was almost naked; and an old bonnet, which nearly hid her face, so
+completely disfigured her features that I had not the smallest idea of
+the person who was then almost sinking before me. I gave her a small sum
+of money, and inquired the cause of her apparent agony. She took my hand
+and pressed it to her lips. "Sweet girl," said she, "you are still the
+angel I ever knew you!" I was astonished. She raised her bonnet--her
+fine dark eyes met mine. It was Mrs. Lorrington. I led her into the
+house; my mother was not at home. I took her to my chamber, and, with
+the assistance of a lady who was our French teacher, I clothed and
+comforted her. She refused to say how she came to be in so deplorable a
+situation, and took her leave. It was in vain that I entreated, that I
+conjured her to let me know where I might send to her. She refused to
+give me her address, but promised that in a few days she would call on
+me again. It is impossible to describe the wretched appearance of this
+accomplished woman! The failing to which she had now yielded, as to a
+monster that would destroy her, was evident even at the moment when she
+was speaking to me. I saw no more of her; but to my infinite regret, I
+was informed some years after that she had died, the martyr of a
+premature decay, brought on by the indulgence of her propensity to
+intoxication, in the workhouse of Chelsea!
+
+The number of my mother's pupils in a few months amounted to ten or
+twelve, and just at a period when an honourable independence promised to
+cheer the days of an unexampled parent, my father unexpectedly returned
+from America. The pride of his soul was deeply wounded by the step which
+my mother had taken; he was offended even beyond the bounds of reason:
+he considered his name as disgraced, his conjugal reputation tarnished,
+by the public mode which his wife had adopted of revealing to the world
+her unprotected situation. A prouder heart never palpitated in the
+breast of man than that of my father: tenacious of fame, ardent in the
+pursuit of visionary schemes, he could not endure the exposure of his
+altered fortune; while Hope still beguiled him with her flattering
+promise that time would favour his projects, and fortune, at some future
+period, reward him with success.
+
+At the expiration of eight months my mother, by my father's positive
+command, broke up her establishment and returned to London. She engaged
+lodgings in the neighbourhood of Marylebone. My father then resided in
+Green Street, Grosvenor Square. His provision for his family was scanty,
+his visits few. He had a new scheme on foot respecting the Labrador
+coast, the particulars of which I do not remember, and all his zeal,
+united with all his interest, was employed in promoting its
+accomplishment. My mother, knowing that my father publicly resided with
+his mistress, did not even hope for his returning affection. She devoted
+herself to her children, and endured her sorrows with the patience of
+conscious rectitude.
+
+At this period my father frequently called upon us, and often attended
+me while we walked in the fields near Marylebone. His conversation was
+generally of a domestic nature, and he always lamented that fatal
+attachment, which was now too strongly cemented by time and obligations
+ever to be dissolved without an ample provision for Elenor, which was
+the name of my father's mistress. In one of our morning walks we called
+upon the Earl of Northington, my father having some commercial business
+to communicate to his lordship. Lord Northington then resided in
+Berkeley Square, two doors from Hill Street, in the house which is now
+occupied by Lord Robert Spencer. We were received with the most marked
+attention and politeness (I was presented as the goddaughter of the late
+Chancellor Lord Northington), and my father was requested to dine with
+his lordship a few days after. From this period I frequently saw Lord
+Northington, and always experienced from him the most flattering and
+gratifying civility. I was then a child, not more than fourteen years
+of age.
+
+The finishing points of my education I received at Oxford House,
+Marylebone. I was at this period within a few months of fifteen years of
+age, tall, and nearly such as my partial friends, the few whose
+affection has followed me from childhood, remember me. My early love for
+lyric harmony had led me to a fondness for the more sublime scenes of
+dramatic poetry. I embraced every leisure moment to write verses; I even
+fancied that I could compose a tragedy, and more than once
+unsuccessfully attempted the arduous undertaking.
+
+The dancing-master at Oxford House, Mr. Hussey, was then ballet-master
+at Covent Garden Theatre. Mrs. Hervey, the governess, mentioned me to
+him as possessing an extraordinary genius for dramatic exhibitions. My
+figure was commanding for my age, and (my father's pecuniary
+embarrassments augmenting by the failure of another American project) my
+mother was consulted as to the propriety of my making the stage my
+profession. Many cited examples of females who, even in that perilous
+and arduous situation, preserved an unspotted fame, inclined her to
+listen to the suggestion, and to allow of my consulting some master of
+the art as to my capability of becoming an ornament to the theatre.
+
+Previous to this idea my father had again quitted England. He left his
+wife with assurances of good-will, his children with all the agonies of
+parental regret. When he took leave of my mother, his emphatic words
+were these,--I never shall forget them--"Take care that no dishonour
+falls upon my daughter. If she is not safe at my return, I will
+annihilate you!" My mother heard the stern injunction, and trembled
+while he repeated it.
+
+I was, in consequence of my wish to appear on the stage, introduced to
+Mr. Hull,[6] of Covent Garden Theatre; he then resided in King Street,
+Soho. He heard me recite some passages of the character of Jane Shore,
+and seemed delighted with my attempt. I was shortly after presented by a
+friend of my mother's, to Mr. Garrick;[7] Mr. Murphy,[8] the celebrated
+dramatic poet, was one of the party, and we passed the evening at the
+house of the British Roscius in the Adelphi. This was during the last
+year that he dignified the profession by his public appearance. Mr.
+Garrick's encomiums were of the most gratifying kind. He determined that
+he would appear in the same play with me on the first night's trial; but
+what part to choose for my debut was a difficult question. I was too
+young for anything beyond the girlish character, and the dignity of
+tragedy afforded but few opportunities for the display of such juvenile
+talents. After some hesitation my tutor fixed on the part of Cordelia.
+His own Lear can never be forgotten.
+
+It was not till the period when everything was arranged for my
+appearance that the last solemn injunction, so emphatically uttered by
+my father, nearly palsied my mother's resolution. She dreaded the
+perils, the temptations to which an unprotected girl would be exposed in
+so public a situation; while my ardent fancy was busied in contemplating
+a thousand triumphs in which my vanity would be publicly gratified
+without the smallest sacrifice of my private character.
+
+While this plan was in agitation, I was one evening at Drury Lane
+Theatre with my mother and a small party of her friends, when an officer
+entered the box. His eyes were fixed on me, and his persevering
+attention at length nearly overwhelmed me with confusion. The
+entertainment being finished, we departed. The stranger followed us. At
+that period my mother resided in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane,
+for the protection which a venerable and respectable friend offered at a
+moment when it was so necessary. This friend was the late Samuel Cox,
+Esq., the intimate friend of Mr. Garrick, and an honour to those laws of
+which he was a distinguished professor.
+
+It was Mr. Garrick's particular request that I would frequent the
+theatre as much as possible till the period fixed on for my appearance
+on the stage. I had now just completed my fifteenth year, and my little
+heart throbbed with impatience for the hour of trial. My tutor was most
+sanguine in his expectations of my success, and every rehearsal seemed
+to strengthen his flattering opinion.
+
+It happened that, several evenings following, the stranger officer,
+whose name, for motives of delicacy toward his family, I forbear to
+mention, followed me to and from the theatre. It was in vain that he
+offered his attentions in the box; my mother's frown and assiduous care
+repulsed them effectually. But the perseverance of a bad mind in the
+accomplishment of a bad action is not to be subdued. A letter was
+written and conveyed to me through the hands of a female servant; I
+opened it; I read a declaration of the most ardent love. The writer
+avowed himself the son of Lady----, and offered marriage; he was
+graceful and handsome. I instantly delivered the letter to my mother,
+and, shortly after, he was, by an acquaintance, presented with
+decorous ceremony.
+
+The idea of my appearing on the stage seemed to distract this
+accomplished suitor. My mother, who but half approved a dramatic life,
+was more than half inclined to favour the addresses of Captain ----. The
+injunction of my father every hour became more indelibly impressed on
+her memory; she knew his stern and invincible sense of honour too well
+to hazard the thought of awakening it to vengeance.
+
+After a short period, the friend who had presented Captain----, alarmed
+for my safety, and actuated by a liberal wish to defend me from the
+artifice of his associate, waited on my mother, and, after some
+hesitation, informed her that my lover was already married; that he had
+a young and amiable wife in a sister kingdom, and that he apprehended
+some diabolical stratagem for the enthralment of my honour. My mother's
+consternation was infinite. The important secret was communicated to me,
+and I felt little regret in the loss of a husband when I reflected that
+a matrimonial alliance would have compelled me to relinquish my
+theatrical profession.
+
+I had, also, at this period, another professed admirer, a man of
+splendid fortune, but nearly old enough to be my grandfather. This suit
+I never would listen to; and the drama, the delightful drama, seemed the
+very criterion of all human happiness.
+
+I now found myself an object of attention whenever I appeared at the
+theatre. I had been too often in public not to be observed, and it was
+buzzed about that I was the juvenile pupil of Garrick,--the promised
+Cordelia. My person improved daily; yet a sort of dignified air, which
+from a child I had acquired, effectually shielded me from the attacks of
+impertinence or curiosity. Garrick was delighted with everything I did.
+He would sometimes dance a minuet with me, sometimes request me to sing
+the favourite ballads of the day; but the circumstance which most
+pleased him was my tone of voice, which he frequently told me closely
+resembled that of his favourite Cibber.[9]
+
+Never shall I forget the enchanting hours which I passed in Mr.
+Garrick's society; he appeared to me as one who possessed more power,
+both to awe and to attract, than any man I ever met with. His smile was
+fascinating, but he had at times a restless peevishness of tone which
+excessively affected his hearers; at least it affected me so that I
+never shall forget it.
+
+Opposite to the house in which I resided lived John Vernon, Esq., an
+eminent solicitor. I observed a young inmate of his habitation
+frequently watching me with more than ordinary attention. He was
+handsome in person, and his countenance was overcast by a sort of
+languor, the effect of sickness, which rendered it peculiarly
+interesting. Frequently, when I approached the window of our
+drawing-room, this young observer would bow or turn away with evident
+emotion. I related the circumstance to my mother, and from that time the
+lower shutters of our windows were perpetually closed. The young lawyer
+often excited my mirth, and my mother's indignation; and the injunction
+of my father was frequently repeated by her, with the addition of her
+wish, that I was "once well married."
+
+Every attention which was now paid to me augmented my dear mother's
+apprehensions. She fancied every man a seducer, and every hour an hour
+of accumulating peril! I know what she was doomed to feel, for that
+Being who formed my sensitive and perpetually aching heart knows that I
+have since felt it.
+
+Among other friends who were in the habit of visiting my mother there
+was one, a Mr. Wayman, an attorney of whom she entertained the highest
+opinion. He was distinguished by the patronage of Mr. Cox, and his
+reputation required no other voucher. One evening a party of six was
+proposed for the following Sunday; with much persuasion my mother
+consented to go, and to allow that I should also attend her. Greenwich
+was the place fixed on for the dinner, and we prepared for the day of
+recreation. It was then the fashion to wear silks. I remember that I
+wore a nightgown of pale blue lustring, with a chip hat trimmed with
+ribands of the same colour. Never was I dressed so perfectly to my own
+satisfaction; I anticipated a day of admiration. Heaven can bear witness
+that to me it was a day of fatal victory!
+
+On our stopping at the "Star and Garter," at Greenwich, the person who
+came to hand me from the carriage was our opposite neighbour in
+Southampton Buildings. I was confused, but my mother was indignant. Mr.
+Wayman presented his young friend,--that friend who was ordained to be
+my husband!
+
+Our party dined, and early in the evening we returned to London. Mr.
+Robinson remained at Greenwich for the benefit of the air, being
+recently recovered from a fit of sickness. During the remainder of the
+evening Mr. Wayman expatiated on the many good qualities of his friend
+Mr. Robinson: spoke of his future expectations a rich old uncle; of his
+probable advancement in his profession; and, more than all, of his
+enthusiastic admiration of me.
+
+A few days after, Mr. Robinson paid my mother a visit. We had now
+removed to Villars Street, York Buildings. My mother's fondness for
+books of a moral and religious character was not lost upon my new lover,
+and elegantly bound editions of Hervey's "Meditations," with some others
+of a similar description, were presented as small tokens of admiration
+and respect. My mother was beguiled by these little interesting
+attentions, and soon began to feel a strong predilection in favour of
+Mr. Robinson.
+
+Every day some new mark of respect augmented my mother's favourable
+opinion; till Mr. Robinson became so great a favourite that he seemed to
+her the most perfect of existing beings. Just at this period my brother
+George sickened for the smallpox; my mother idolised him; he was
+dangerously ill. Mr. Robinson was indefatigable in his attentions, and
+my appearance on the stage was postponed till the period of his perfect
+recovery. Day and night Mr. Robinson devoted himself to the task of
+consoling my mother, and of attending to her darling boy; hourly, and
+indeed momentarily, Mr. Robinson's praises were reiterated with
+enthusiasm by my mother. He was "the kindest, the best of mortals!" the
+least addicted to worldly follies, and the man, of all others, whom she
+should adore as a son-in-law.
+
+My brother recovered at the period when I sickened from the infection of
+his disease. I felt little terror at the approaches of a dangerous and
+deforming malady; for, I know not why, but personal beauty has never
+been to me an object of material solicitude. It was now that Mr.
+Robinson exerted all his assiduity to win my affections; it was when a
+destructive disorder menaced my features and the few graces that nature
+had lent them, that he professed a disinterested fondness; every day he
+attended with the zeal of a brother, and that zeal made an impression of
+gratitude upon my heart, which was the source of all my
+succeeding sorrows.
+
+During my illness Mr. Robinson so powerfully wrought upon the feelings
+of my mother, that she prevailed on me to promise, in case I should
+recover, to give him my hand in marriage. The words of my father were
+frequently repeated, not without some innuendoes that I refused my ready
+consent to a union with Mr. Robinson from a blind partiality to the
+libertine Captain----. Repeatedly urged and hourly reminded of my
+father's vow, I at last consented, and the banns were published while I
+was yet lying on a bed of sickness. I was then only a few months
+advanced in my sixteenth year.
+
+My mother, whose affection for me was boundless, notwithstanding her
+hopes of my forming an alliance that would be productive of felicity,
+still felt the most severe pain at the thought of our approaching
+separation. She was estranged from her husband's affections; she had
+treasured up all her fondest hopes in the society of an only daughter;
+she knew that no earthly pleasure can compensate for the loss of that
+sweet sympathy which is the bond of union betwixt child and parent. Her
+regrets were infinite as they were evident, and Mr. Robinson, in order
+to remove any obstacle which this consideration might throw in the way
+of our marriage, voluntarily proposed that she should reside with us. He
+represented me as too young and inexperienced to superintend domestic
+concerns; and while he flattered my mother's _armour propre_, he rather
+requested her aid as a sacrifice to his interest than as an obligation
+conferred on her.
+
+The banns were published three successive Sundays at St. Martin's
+Church, and the day was fixed for our marriage,--the twelfth of April.
+It was not till all preliminaries were adjusted that Mr. Robinson, with
+much apparent agitation, suggested the necessity of keeping our union a
+secret. I was astonished at the proposal; but two reasons were given for
+his having made it, both of which seemed plausible; the first was, that
+Mr. Robinson had still three months to serve before his articles to
+Messrs. Vernon and Elderton expired; and the second was, the hope which
+a young lady entertained of forming a matrimonial union with Mr.
+Robinson as soon as that period should arrive. The latter reason alarmed
+me, but I was most solemnly assured that all the affection was cherished
+on the lady's part; that Mr. Robinson was particularly averse to the
+idea of such a marriage, and that as soon as he should become of age his
+independence would place him beyond the control of any person
+whatsoever.
+
+I now proposed deferring our wedding-day till that period. I pleaded
+that I thought myself too young to encounter the cares and important
+duties of domestic life; I shrunk from the idea of everything
+clandestine, and anticipated a thousand ill consequences that might
+attend on a concealed marriage. My scruples only seemed to increase Mr.
+Robinson's impatience for that ceremony which should make me his for
+ever. He represented to my mother the disapprobation which my father
+would not fail to evince at my adopting a theatrical life in preference
+to engaging in an honourable and prosperous connection. He so powerfully
+worked upon the credulity of my beloved parent that she became a decided
+convert to his opinions. My youth, my person, he represented as the
+destined snares for my honour on a public stage, where all the
+attractions of the mimic scene would combine to render me a fascinating
+object. He also persuaded her that my health would suffer by the
+fatigues and exertions of the profession, and that probably I might be
+induced to marry some man who would not approve of a mother's forming a
+part in our domestic establishment.
+
+These circumstances were repeatedly urged in favour of the union. Still
+I felt an almost instinctive repugnance at the thought of a clandestine
+marriage. My mother, whose parental fondness was ever watchful for my
+safety, now imagined that my objections proceeded from a fixed
+partiality toward the libertine Captain----, who, though he had not the
+temerity to present himself before my mother, persisted in writing to
+me, and in following me whenever I appeared in public. I never spoke to
+him after the story of his marriage was repeated to my mother; I never
+corresponded with him, but felt a decided and proud indignation whenever
+his name was mentioned in my presence.
+
+My appearance on the stage had been put off from time to time, till Mr.
+Garrick became impatient, and desired my mother to allow of his fixing
+the night of important trial. It was now that Mr. Robinson and my mother
+united in persuading me to relinquish my project; and so perpetually,
+during three days, was I tormented on the subject, so ridiculed for
+having permitted the banns to be published, and afterward hesitating to
+fulfil my contract, that I consented--and was married.
+
+As soon as the day of my wedding was fixed, it was deemed necessary that
+a total revolution should take place in my external appearance. I had
+till that period worn the habit of a child, and the dress of a woman, so
+suddenly assumed, sat rather awkwardly upon me. Still, so juvenile was
+my appearance, that, even two years after my union with Mr. Robinson, I
+was always accosted with the appellation of "Miss" whenever I entered a
+shop or was in company with strangers. My manners were no less childish
+than my appearance; only three months before I became a wife I had
+dressed a doll, and such was my dislike to the idea of a matrimonial
+alliance that the only circumstance which induced me to marry was that
+of being still permitted to reside with my mother, and to live
+separated, at least for some time, from my husband.
+
+My heart, even when I knelt at the altar, was as free from any tender
+impression as it had been at the moment of my birth. I knew not the
+sensation of any sentiment beyond that of esteem; love was still a
+stranger to my bosom. I had never, then, seen the being who was destined
+to inspire a thought which might influence my fancy or excite an
+interest in my mind, and I well remember that, even while I was
+pronouncing the marriage vow, my fancy involuntarily wandered to that
+scene where I had hoped to support myself with _eclat_ and reputation.
+
+The ceremony was performed by Doctor Saunders, the venerable vicar of
+St. Martin's, who, at the conclusion of the ceremony, declared that he
+had never before performed the office for so young a bride. The clerk
+officiated as father; my mother and the woman who opened the pews were
+the only witnesses to the union. I was dressed in the habit of a
+Quaker,--a society to which, in early youth, I was particularly partial.
+From the church we repaired to the house of a female friend, where a
+splendid breakfast was waiting; I changed my dress to one of white
+muslin, a chip hat adorned with white ribbons, a white sarsnet
+scarf-cloak, and slippers of white satin embroidered with silver. I
+mention these trifling circumstances because they lead to some others of
+more importance.
+
+From the house of my mother's friend we set out for the inn at
+Maidenhead Bridge, Mr. Robinson and myself in a phaeton, my mother in a
+post-chaise; we were also accompanied by a gentleman by the name of
+Balack, a very intimate acquaintance and schoolfellow of my husband, who
+was not apprised of our wedding, but who nevertheless considered Mr.
+Robinson as my avowed suitor.
+
+On his first seeing me, he remarked that I was "dressed like a bride."
+The observation overwhelmed me with confusion. During the day I was more
+than pensive,--I was melancholy; I considered all that had passed as a
+vision, and would scarcely persuade myself that the union which I had
+permitted to be solemnised was indissoluble. My mother frequently
+remarked my evident chagrin; and in the evening, while we strolled
+together in the garden which was opposite the inn, I told her, with a
+torrent of tears, the vouchers of my sincerity, that I was the most
+wretched of mortals! that I felt the most perfect esteem for Mr.
+Robinson, but that, according to my ideas of domestic happiness, there
+should be a warm and powerful union of soul, to which I was yet totally
+a stranger.
+
+During my absence from town, a letter was written to Mr. Garrick,
+informing him that an advantageous marriage (for my mother considered
+Mr. Robinson as the legal heir to a handsome fortune, together with an
+estate in South Wales) had induced me to relinquish my theatrical
+prospects; and a few weeks after, meeting Mr. Garrick in the street, he
+congratulated me on my union, and expressed the warmest wishes for my
+future happiness.
+
+The day after our marriage, Mr. Robinson proposed dining at
+Henley-upon-Thames. My mother would not venture in the phaeton, and Mr.
+Balack occupied the place which was declined by her. On taking his seat
+between Robinson and myself, he remarked, "Were you married, I should
+think of the holy anathema,--Cursed is he that parteth man and wife." My
+countenance was suddenly suffused with the deepest scarlet; I cautiously
+concealed the effect which his remarks had produced, and we proceeded on
+our journey.
+
+Descending a steep hill, betwixt Maidenhead Thicket and Henley, we met a
+drove of oxen. The comic opera of the "Padlock" was then in high
+celebrity, and our facetious little friend a second time disconcerted me
+by saying, in the words of Don Diego, "I don't like oxen, I wish they
+had been a flock of sheep!" I now began to discover the variety of
+unpleasant sensations which, even undesignedly, must arise from
+conversation, in the presence of those who were clandestinely married. I
+also trembled with apprehension, lest anything disgraceful should attach
+itself to my fame, by being seen under doubtful circumstances in the
+society of Mr. Robinson.
+
+On our return to London, after ten days' absence, a house was hired in
+Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was a large, old-fashioned
+mansion, and stood on the spot where the Freemasons' Tavern has been
+since erected. This house was the property of a lady, an acquaintance of
+my mother, the widow of Mr. Worlidge, an artist of considerable
+celebrity. It was handsomely furnished, and contained many valuable
+pictures by various masters. I resided with my mother; Mr. Robinson
+continued at the house of Messrs. Vernon and Elderton, in Southampton
+Buildings.
+
+The stated time of concealment elapsed, and still my husband was
+perpetually at chambers in Lincoln's Inn. Still he was evidently under
+the control of his articles, and still desirous that our marriage should
+be kept a secret. My mother began to feel a considerable degree of
+inquietude upon the subject; particularly as she was informed that Mr.
+Robinson was not exactly in that state of expectation which he had
+represented. She found that he was already of age, and that he had still
+some months to serve of his clerkship. She also heard that he was not
+the nephew and heir, but the illegitimate son of the man from whom he
+expected a handsome fortune; though he had an elder brother, now
+Commodore William Robinson, who was then in India, reaping the fruits of
+industry under the patronage of Lord Clive.
+
+It was now for the first time that my mother repented the influence she
+had used in promoting our union. She informed Mr. Robinson that she
+apprehended some gross deception on his part, and that she would no
+longer consent to our marriage being kept a secret. The reputation of a
+darling child, she alleged, was at stake; and though during a few weeks
+the world might have been kept in ignorance of my marriage, some
+circumstances that had transpired, now rendered an immediate disclosure
+absolutely necessary.
+
+Mr. Robinson, finding my mother inexorable, resolved on setting out for
+Wales, in order to avow our marriage, and to present me to his "uncle,"
+for such he still obstinately denominated his father. My mother wished
+to avail herself of this opportunity to visit her friends at Bristol,
+and accordingly we set out on the journey. We passed through Oxford;
+visited the different colleges; proceeded to Blenheim, and made the tour
+a tour of pleasure, with the hope of soothing my mother's resentment,
+and exhilarating my spirits, which were now perpetually dejected. I
+cannot help mentioning that, shortly after my marriage, I formed an
+acquaintance with a young lady, whose mind was no less romantic than my
+own, and while Mr. Robinson was occupied at chambers, we almost daily
+passed our morning hours in Westminster Abbey. It was to me a soothing
+and a gratifying scene of meditation. I have often remained in the
+gloomy chapels of that sublime fabric till I became, as it were, an
+inhabitant of another world. The dim light of the Gothic windows, the
+vibration of my footsteps along the lofty aisles, the train of
+reflections that the scene inspired, were all suited to the temper of my
+soul; and the melancholy propensities of my earliest infancy seemed to
+revive with an instinctive energy, which rendered them the leading
+characteristics of my existence. Indeed, the world has mistaken the
+character of my mind; I have ever been the reverse of volatile and
+dissipated. I mean not to write my own eulogy, though with the candid
+and sensitive mind I shall, I trust, succeed in my vindication.
+
+On our arrival at Bristol, Mr. Robinson thought it most advisable to
+proceed toward Tregunter, the seat of his "uncle," alone, in order to
+prepare him for my cordial reception, or to avoid the mortification I
+should experience, should he refuse to sanction our union. Mr. Robinson
+left me a few guineas, and promised that his absence should be short,
+and his affection increasing.
+
+I had now been married near four months; and, though love was not the
+basis of my fidelity, honour, and a refined sense of feminine rectitude,
+attached me to the interest as well as to the person of my husband. I
+considered chastity as the brightest ornament that could embellish the
+female mind, and I regulated my conduct to that tenor which has
+principle more than affection to strengthen its progress.
+
+At Bristol my mother experienced the most gratifying reception; all her
+former friends rejoiced to see her; I was invited daily to feasts of
+hospitality, and I found that fortune was to common minds a never
+failing passport. Mr. Robinson was represented as a young man of
+considerable expectations, and his wife was consequently again received
+as the daughter of Mr. Darby. The house in which I first opened my eyes
+to this world of sorrow, the minster, its green, the schoolhouse where I
+had passed many days, the tomb of my lost relatives in the church of St.
+Augustine, were all visited by me with a sweet and melancholy interest.
+But the cathedral, the brass eagle in the middle aisle, under which,
+when an infant, I used to sit and join in the loud anthem, or chant the
+morning service, most sensibly attached me. I longed again to occupy my
+place beneath its expanding wings, and once I went before the service
+began to gratify my inclination.
+
+Language cannot describe the sort of sensation which I felt when I heard
+the well-known, long-remembered organ flinging its loud peal through the
+Gothic structure. I hastened to the cloisters. The nursery windows were
+dim and shattered; the house was sinking to decay. The mouldering walk
+was gloomy, and my spirits were depressed beyond description: I stood
+alone, rapt in meditation, "Here," said I, "did my infant feet pace to
+and fro; here did I climb the long stone bench, and swiftly measure it
+at the peril of my safety. On those dark and winding steps did I sit and
+listen to the full-toned organ, the loud anthem, the bell which called
+the parishioners to prayer." I entered the cathedral once more; I read
+and re-read the monumental inscriptions; I paused upon the grave of
+Powell; I dropped a tear on the small square ground tablet which bore
+the name of Evelyn. Ah! how little has the misjudging world known of
+what has passed in my mind, even in the apparently gayest moments of my
+existence! How much have I regretted that ever I was born, even when I
+have been surrounded with all that could gratify the vanity of woman!
+
+Mr. Robinson, on his arrival at Tregunter, despatched a letter informing
+me that his "uncle" seemed disposed to act handsomely, but that he had
+only ventured to avow an intention to marry, fearful of abruptly
+declaring that he had been already some months a husband. Mr. Harris,
+for that was the name of my father-in-law, replied that "he hoped the
+object of his choice was not too young!" At this question Mr. Robinson
+was somewhat disconcerted. "A young wife," continued Mr. Harris, "cannot
+mend a man's fortune. How old is the girl you have chosen?"
+
+"She is nearly seventeen!"
+
+I was then only fifteen and a few months.[10]
+
+"I hope she is not handsome," was the second observation. "You say she
+is not rich; and beauty without money is but a dangerous sort
+of portion."
+
+"Will you see her?"
+
+"I have no objection," said Mr. Harris.
+
+"She is now with her mother at Bristol,--for," continued Mr. Robinson,
+with some hesitation, "she is my wife."
+
+Mr. Harris paused, and then replied, "Well! stay with me only a few
+days, and then you shall fetch her. If the thing is done, it cannot be
+undone. She is a gentlewoman, you say, and I can have no reason to
+refuse seeing her."
+
+The same letter which contained this intelligence also requested me to
+prepare for my journey, and desired me to write to a person whom Mr.
+Robinson named in London, and whom I had seen in his company, for a sum
+of money which would be necessary for our journey. This person was Mr.
+John King, then a money-broker in Goodman's Fields; but I was an entire
+stranger to the transaction which rendered him the temporary source of
+my husband's finances.
+
+One or two letters passed on this subject, and I waited anxiously for my
+presentation at Tregunter. At length the period of Mr. Robinson's return
+arrived, and we set out together, while my mother remained with her
+friends at Bristol. Crossing the old passage to Chepstow in an open
+boat, a distance, though not extended, extremely perilous, we found the
+tide so strong and the night so boisterous that we were apprehensive of
+much danger. The rain poured and the wind blew tempestuously. The boat
+was full of passengers, and at one end of it were placed a drove of
+oxen. My terror was infinite; I considered this storm as an ill omen,
+but little thought that at future periods of my life I should have cause
+to regret that I had not perished!
+
+During our journey Robinson entreated me to overlook anything harsh that
+might appear in the manners of his "uncle,"--for he still denied that
+Mr. Harris was his father. But above all things he conjured me to
+conceal my real age, and to say that I was some years older than he knew
+me to be. To this proposal I readily consented, and I felt myself firm
+in courage at the moment when we came within sight of Tregunter.
+
+Mr. Harris was then building the family mansion, and resided in a pretty
+little decorated cottage which was afterward converted into domestic
+offices. We passed through a thick wood, the mountains at every break
+meeting our eyes, covered with thin clouds, and rising in a sublime
+altitude above the valley. A more romantic space of scenery never met
+the human eye! I felt my mind inspired with a pensive melancholy, and
+was only awakened from my reverie by the postboy stopping at the mansion
+of Tregunter.
+
+Mr. Harris came out to receive me. I wore a dark claret-coloured
+riding-habit, with a white beaver hat and feathers. He embraced me with
+excessive cordiality, while Miss Robinson, my husband's sister, with
+cold formality led me into the house. I never shall forget her looks or
+her manner. Had her brother presented the most abject being to her, she
+could not have taken my hand with a more frigid demeanour. Miss
+Robinson, though not more than twenty years of age, was Gothic in her
+appearance and stiff in her deportment; she was of low stature and
+clumsy, with a countenance peculiarly formed for the expression of
+sarcastic vulgarity--a short snub nose, turned up at the point, a head
+thrown back with an air of _hauteur_; a gaudy-coloured chintz gown, a
+thrice-bordered cap, with a profusion of ribbons, and a countenance
+somewhat more ruddy than was consistent with even pure health, presented
+the personage whom I was to know as my future companion and kinswoman!
+
+Mr. Harris looked like a venerable Hawthorn; a brown fustian coat, a
+scarlet waistcoat edged with narrow gold, a pair of woollen
+spatter-dashes, and a gold-laced hat, formed the dress he generally
+wore. He always rode a small Welsh pony, and was seldom in the house,
+except at eating-time, from sunrise to the close of the evening.
+
+There was yet another personage in the domestic establishment, who was
+by Mr. Harris regarded as of no small importance: this was a venerable
+housekeeper of the name of Mary Edwards. Mrs. Molly was the female
+Mentor of the family; she dined at the table with Mr. Harris; she was
+the governess of the domestic department; and a more overbearing,
+vindictive spirit never inhabited the heart of mortal than that which
+pervaded the soul of the ill-natured Mrs. Molly.
+
+It may easily be conjectured that my time passed heavily in this
+uninteresting circle. I was condemned either to drink ale with "the
+squire," for Mr. Harris was only spoken of by that title, or to visit
+the Methodistical seminary which Lady Huntingdon had established at
+Trevecca, another mansion house on the estate of Mr. Harris. Miss
+Robinson was of this sect; and though Mr. Harris was not a disciple of
+the Huntingdonian school, he was a constant church visitor on every
+Sunday. His zeal was indefatigable; and he would frequently fine the
+rustics (for he was a justice of the peace, and had been sheriff of the
+county) when he heard them swear, though every third sentence he uttered
+was attended by an oath that made his hearers shudder.
+
+I soon became a considerable favourite of "the squire," but I did not
+find any yielding qualities about the hearts of Miss Betsy or Mrs.
+Molly. They observed me with jealous eyes; they considered me as an
+interloper, whose manners attracted Mr. Harris's esteem, and who was
+likely to diminish their divided influence in the family. I found them
+daily growing weary of my society; I perceived their sidelong glances
+when I was complimented by the visiting neighbours on my good looks or
+taste in the choice of my dresses. Miss Robinson rode on horseback in a
+camlet safeguard, with a high-crowned bonnet; I wore a fashionable
+habit, and looked like something human. Envy at length assumed the form
+of insolence, and I was taunted perpetually on the folly of appearing
+like a woman of fortune; that a lawyer's wife had no right to dress like
+a duchess; and that, though I might be very accomplished, a good
+housewife had no occasion for harpsichords and books,--they belonged to
+women who brought wherewithal to support them. Such was the language of
+vulgar, illiberal natures! Yet for three weeks I endured it patiently.
+
+Knowing that Mr. Harris was disposed to think favourably of me,--that he
+even declared he should "have liked me for his wife, had I not married
+Tom," though he was then between sixty and seventy years of age, I
+thought it most prudent to depart, lest, through the machinations of
+Miss Betsy and Mrs. Molly, I should lose the share I had gained in his
+affections. My mother was still at Bristol; and the morning of our
+departure being arrived, to my infinite astonishment Mr. Harris proposed
+accompanying us thither. It was in vain that Molly and Miss interfered
+to prevent him; he swore that he would see me safe across the channel,
+whatever might be the consequence of his journey. We set out together.
+
+On our arrival at Bristol, Mr. Harris was presented to my mother, and by
+her introduced to many respectable friends. He was consequently invited
+to several dinner-parties. I was his idol; he would dance with me; when
+he had taken the evening draught, he would sing with me, and I was to
+him the most delightful of beings. Many embellishments for Tregunter
+House were submitted to my taste and choice; and I remember, on his
+giving orders for the marble chimney-pieces, he said, "Choose them as
+you like them, Mrs. Robinson, for they are all for you and Tom when I am
+no more." Indeed, he frequently assured me, while I was at Tregunter,
+that the estate should be my husband's.
+
+After passing many days at Bristol Mr. Harris returned to Wales, and our
+party set out for London. Mr. Robinson's mind was easy, and his hopes
+were confirmed by the kindness of his uncle; he now considered himself
+as the most happy of mortals. We removed from Great Queen Street to a
+house, No. 13, in Hatton Garden, which had been recently built. Mr.
+Robinson hired it, and furnished it with peculiar elegance. I frequently
+inquired into the extent of his finances, and he as often assured me
+that they were in every respect competent to his expenses. In addition
+to our domestic establishment, Mr. Robinson purchased a handsome
+phaeton, with saddle-horses for his own use; and I now made my debut,
+though scarcely emerged beyond the boundaries of childhood, in the broad
+hemisphere of fashionable folly.
+
+A new face, a young person dressed with peculiar but simple elegance,
+was sure to attract attention at places of public entertainment. The
+first time I went to Ranelagh, my habit was so singularly plain and
+Quaker-like that all eyes were fixed upon me. I wore a gown of light
+brown lustring with close round cuffs (it was then the fashion to wear
+long ruffles); my hair was without powder, and my head adorned with a
+plain round cap and a white chip hat, without any ornaments whatever.
+
+The second place of polite entertainment to which Mr. Robinson
+accompanied me was the Pantheon concert, then the most fashionable
+assemblage of the gay and the distinguished. At this place it was
+customary to appear much dressed; large hoops and high feathers were
+universally worn. My habit was composed of pale pink satin, trimmed with
+broad sable; my dear mother presented me a suit of rich and valuable
+point lace, which she had received from my father as a birthday gift,
+and I was at least some hours employed in decorating my person for this
+new sphere of fascination; I say some hours, because my shape at that
+period required some arrangement, owing to the visible increase of my
+domestic solicitudes.
+
+As soon as I entered the Pantheon rotunda, I never shall forget the
+impression which my mind received; the splendour of the scene, the dome
+illuminated with variegated lamps, the music, and the beauty of the
+women, seemed to present a circle of enchantment. I recollect that the
+most lovely of fair forms met my eyes in that of Lady Almeria Carpenter.
+The countenance which most pleased me was that of the late Mrs.
+Baddeley.[11] The first Countess of Tyrconnel also appeared with
+considerable _eclat_. But the buzz of the room, the unceasing murmur of
+admiration, attended the Marchioness Townshend. I took my seat on a sofa
+nearly opposite to that on which she was sitting, and I observed two
+persons, evidently men of fashion, speaking to her, till one of them,
+looking toward me, with an audible voice inquired of the other, "Who
+is she?"
+
+Their fixed stare disconcerted me; I rose, and, leaning on my husband's
+arm, again mingled in the brilliant circle. The inquirers followed us;
+stopping several friends, as we walked around the circle, and repeatedly
+demanding of them, "Who is that young lady in the pink dress trimmed
+with sable?" My manner and confusion plainly evinced that I was not
+accustomed to the gaze of impertinent high breeding. I felt uneasy, and
+proposed returning home, when I perceived that our two followers were
+joined by a third, who, on looking at me, said, "I think I know her." It
+was the late Earl of Northington.[12]
+
+We had now to pass the group in order to quit the rotunda. Lord
+Northington, leaving his companions, approached me. "Miss Darby, or I am
+mistaken," said he, with a bow of marked civility. I replied that my
+name was now changed to that of Robinson, and, to prevent any awkward
+embarrassment, presented my husband, on whose arm I was still leaning.
+Lord Northington continued to walk around the Pantheon with us, made
+many inquiries after my father, complimented me on the improvement of my
+person, and "hoped that he should be permitted to pay his respects to
+Mr. and Mrs. Robinson."
+
+We now entered the tea-room; there was not a seat vacant; I was
+considerably fatigued, and somewhat faint with the heat of the rotunda.
+I quitted the tea-room, and seated myself on a sofa near the door. In a
+few minutes Lord Northington brought me a cup of tea, for Mr. Robinson
+did not like to leave me alone, and at the same time presented his two
+inquisitive friends, Lord Lyttelton and Captain Ayscough.[13]
+
+I now proposed departing. Mr. Robinson accompanied me to the vestibule,
+and while he was seeking the carriage Lord Lyttelton offered his
+services. I had never till that evening heard his name, but there was an
+easy effrontery in his address that completely disgusted, while his
+determined gaze distressed and embarrassed me, and I felt inexpressible
+satisfaction when Mr. Robinson returned to tell me that the carriage
+was ready.
+
+On the following morning Lords Northington, Lyttelton, and Colonel
+Ayscough made their visits of ceremony. Mr. Robinson was not at home,
+but I received them, though not without some embarrassment. I was yet a
+child, and wholly unacquainted with the manners of the world; yet, young
+as I was, I became the traveller of its mazy and perilous paths. At an
+age when girls are generally at school, or indeed scarcely emancipated
+from the nursery, I was presented in society as a wife--and very nearly
+as a mother.
+
+Lord Lyttelton, who was perhaps the most accomplished libertine that any
+age or country has produced, with considerable artifice inquired after
+Mr. Robinson, professed his earnest desire to cultivate his
+acquaintance, and, on the following day, sent him a card of invitation.
+Lyttelton was an adept in the artifices of fashionable intrigue. He
+plainly perceived that both Mr. Robinson and myself were uninitiated in
+its mysteries; he knew that to undermine a wife's honour he must become
+master of the husband's confidence, and Mr. Robinson was too much
+pleased with the society of a man whose wit was only equalled by his
+profligacy, to shrink from such an association.
+
+Fortunately for me, Lord Lyttelton was uniformly my aversion. His
+manners were overbearingly insolent, his language licentious, and his
+person slovenly even to a degree that was disgusting. Mr. Robinson was
+in every respect the very reverse of his companion: he was unassuming,
+neat, and delicate in his conversation. I had not a wish to descend from
+the propriety of wedded life, and I abhorred, decidedly abhorred, the
+acquaintance with Lord Lyttelton.
+
+In the course of a few days his lordship presented me the works of Miss
+Aitken[14] (now Mrs. Barbauld). I read them with rapture. I thought them
+the most beautiful poems I had ever seen, and considered the woman who
+could invent such poetry as the most to be envied of human creatures.
+Lord Lyttelton had some taste for poetical compositions, and wrote
+verses with considerable facility.
+
+On the following Monday I again visited the Pantheon. My dress was then
+white and silver. Again I was followed with attention. Lord Lyttelton
+was my _cavaliere servente_ that evening, though, as usual, his chief
+attention was paid to Mr. Robinson. During the concert he presented the
+Count de Belgeioso, the imperial ambassador, one of the most
+accomplished foreigners I ever remember having met with. Lord Valentia
+was also introduced, but as his lordship had recently made some _eclat_
+by his attentions to the celebrated Mrs. Elliot, I rather avoided than
+wished to cultivate his acquaintance.
+
+Mr. Robinson's intercourse with the world was now rapidly augmenting.
+Every day was productive of some new association. Lord Lyttelton
+presented many of his friends; among others, Captain O'Byrne, and Mr.
+William Brereton, of Drury Lane Theatre. In the course of a short time
+we also became acquainted with Sir Francis Molyneux, Mr. Alderman Sayer,
+and the late unfortunate George Robert Fitzgerald.[15] Lord Northington
+was also a constant visitor, and frequently rallied me on what he
+thought my striking likeness to his family.
+
+Among my female friends, those for whom I entertained the strongest
+esteem were Lady Yea, the wife of Sir William Yea, and the sister of Sir
+John Trevellyan. She was a lovely and accomplished woman. Mrs. Parry,
+the wife of the Rev. Doctor Parry, and the author of "Eden Vale," a
+novel, was also one of my most favourite acquaintances. Mrs. Parry was a
+woman of considerable talents, a wit, and of remarkably
+pleasing manners.
+
+Of those who frequented our house Lord Lyttelton was most decidedly my
+abhorrence; I knew that he frequently led my husband from the paths of
+domestic confidence to the haunts of profligate debasement. Toward me
+his lordship affected great indifference. He has even in my presence
+declared that no woman under thirty years of age was worth admiring;
+that even the antiquity of forty was far preferable to the insipidity of
+sixteen; and he generally concluded his observations by hoping he had
+not made "the pretty child angry."
+
+I soon discovered that his intercourse with Lord Lyttelton produced a
+very considerable change in Mr. Robinson's domestic deportment. They
+were constantly together, and the neglect which I experienced began to
+alarm me. I dedicated all my leisure hours to poetry; I wrote verses of
+all sorts; and Mr. Robinson having mentioned that I had proposed
+appearing on the stage, previous to my marriage, in the character of
+Cordelia, Lord Lyttelton facetiously christened me the Poetess Corry.
+
+It was with extreme regret, and frequently with uncontrollable
+indignation, that I endured the neglect of my husband and the tauntings
+of the profligate Lyttelton. "The child"--for so he generally called
+me--was deserted for the society of the most libertine men and the most
+abandoned women. Mr. Robinson became not only careless of his wife, but
+of his pecuniary finances, while I was kept in total ignorance as to the
+resources which supported his increasing expenses.
+
+Among my other friends, Lady Yea frequently inquired by what means my
+husband supported his household disbursements. Our table was elegantly,
+though not profusely, served. Mr. Robinson seldom attended to his
+profession, and I was too young, as well as too inexperienced, to look
+after family affairs. My younger brother George, whom, upon my marriage,
+Mr. Robinson and myself adopted as our own, now finding his health
+impaired, my mother attended him at Bristol, so that I had no friend to
+advise me who felt any real interest in my welfare. Dress, parties,
+adulation, occupied all my hours. Mr. Robinson's easy temper was
+influenced by the counsel of his friend Lyttelton, and he every hour
+sunk more deeply in the gulf of dissipation.
+
+Among the most dangerous of my husband's associates was George Robert
+Fitzgerald. His manners toward women were interesting and attentive. He
+perceived the neglect with which I was treated by Mr. Robinson, and the
+pernicious influence which Lord Lyttelton had acquired over his mind; he
+professed to feel the warmest interest in my welfare, lamented the
+destiny which had befallen me in being wedded to a man incapable of
+estimating my value, and at last confessed himself my most ardent and
+devoted admirer. I shuddered at the declaration, for, amidst all the
+allurements of splendid folly, my mind, the purity of my virtue, was
+still uncontaminated.
+
+I repulsed the dangerous advances of this accomplished person, but I did
+not the less feel the humiliation to which a husband's indifference had
+exposed me. God can bear witness to the purity of my soul, even
+surrounded by temptations and mortified by neglect. Whenever I ventured
+to inquire into pecuniary resources, Mr. Robinson silenced me by saying
+that he was independent; added to this assurance, Lord Lyttelton
+repeatedly promised that, through his courtly interest, he would very
+shortly obtain for my husband some honourable and lucrative situation.
+
+I confess that I reposed but little confidence in the promises of such a
+man, though my husband believed them inviolable. Frequent parties were
+made at his lordship's house in Hill Street, and many invitations
+pressed for a visit to his seat at Hagley. These I peremptorily refused,
+till the noble hypocrite became convinced of my aversion, and adopted a
+new mode of pursuing his machinations.
+
+One forenoon Lord Lyttelton called in Hatton Garden, as was almost his
+daily custom, and, on finding teat Mr. Robinson was not at home,
+requested to speak with me on business of importance. I found him
+seemingly much distressed. He informed me that he had a secret to
+communicate of considerable moment both to my interest and happiness.
+I started.
+
+"Nothing, I trust in Heaven, has befallen my husband!" said I, with a
+voice scarcely articulate.
+
+Lord Lyttelton hesitated.
+
+"How little does that husband deserve the solicitude of such a wife!"
+said he; "but," continued his lordship, "I fear that I have in some
+degree aided in alienating his conjugal affections. I could not bear to
+see such youth, such merit, so sacrificed--"
+
+"Speak briefly, my lord," said I.
+
+"Then," replied Lord Lyttelton, "I must inform you that your husband is
+the most false and undeserving of that name! He has formed connection
+with a woman of abandoned character; he lavishes on her those means of
+subsistence which you will shortly stand in need of."
+
+"I do not believe it," said I, indignantly.
+
+"Then you shall be convinced," answered his lordship; "but remember, if
+you betray me, your true and zealous friend, I must fight your husband;
+for he never will forgive my having discovered his infidelity."
+
+"It cannot be true," said I. "You have been misinformed."
+
+"Then it has been by the woman who usurps your place in the affections
+of your husband," replied Lord Lyttelton. "From her I received the
+information. Her name is Harriet Wilmot; she resides in Soho. Your
+husband daily visits her."
+
+I thought I should have fainted; but a torrent of tears recalled the
+ebbing current of my heart, and I grew proud in fortitude, though
+humbled in self-love.
+
+"Now," said Lord Lyttelton, "if you are a woman of spirit, you will be
+_revenged_!" I shrunk with horror, and would have quitted the room.
+"Hear me," said he. "You cannot be a stranger to my motives for thus
+cultivating the friendship of your husband. My fortune is at your
+disposal. Robinson is a ruined man; his debts are considerable, and
+nothing but destruction can await you. Leave him! Command my powers to
+serve you."
+
+I would hear no more,--broke from him, and rushed out of the apartments.
+My sensations, my sufferings were indescribable.
+
+I immediately took a hackney-coach, and proceeded to Prince's Street,
+Soho,--Lord Lyttelton having given me the address of my rival. Language
+cannot describe what I suffered till I arrived at the lodgings of Miss
+Wilmot. The coachman knocked, a dirty servant girl opened the door. Her
+mistress was not at home. I quitted the coach and ascended to the
+drawing-room, where the servant left me, after informing me that Miss W.
+would return in a very short time. I was now left alone.
+
+I opened the chamber door which led from the drawing-room. A new white
+lustring sacque and petticoat lay on the bed. While I was examining the
+room, a loud knocking at the street door alarmed me. I reentered the
+front apartment, and waited with a palpitating bosom till the being
+whose triumph had awakened both my pride and my resentment appeared
+before me.
+
+She was a handsome woman, though evidently some years older than myself.
+She wore a dress of printed Irish muslin, with a black gauze cloak and a
+chip hat, trimmed with pale lilac ribbons; she was tall, and had a very
+pleasing countenance. Her manner was timid and confused; her lips as
+pale as ashes. I commiserated her distress, desired her not to be
+alarmed, and we took our seats, with increased composure.
+
+"I came to inquire whether or not you are acquainted with a Mr.
+Robinson," said I.
+
+"I am," replied Miss Wilmot. "He visits me frequently." She drew off her
+glove as she spoke, and passing her hand over her eyes, I observed on
+her finger a ring, which I knew to have been my husband's.
+
+"I have nothing more to say," added I, "but to request that you will
+favour me with Mr. Robinson's address; I have something which I wish to
+convey to him."
+
+She smiled, and cast her eyes over my figure. My dress was a morning
+_deshabille_ of India muslin, with a bonnet of straw, and a white lawn
+cloak bordered with lace.
+
+"You are Mr. Robinson's wife," said she, with a trembling voice. "I am
+sure you are; and probably this ring was yours; pray receive it--"
+
+I declined taking the ring. She continued, "Had I known that Mr.
+Robinson was the husband of such a woman--"
+
+I rose to leave her. She added, "I never will see him more,--unworthy
+man,--I never will again receive him."
+
+I could make no reply, but rose and departed.
+
+On my return to Hatton Garden, I found my husband waiting dinner. I
+concealed my chagrin. We had made a party that evening to Drury Lane
+Theatre, and from thence to a select concert at the Count de
+Belgeioso's, in Portman Square. Lord Lyttelton was to join us at both
+places. We went to the play; but my agitation had produced such a
+violent headache that I was obliged to send an apology for not keeping
+our engagement at the imperial ambassador's.
+
+On the following morning I spoke to Mr. Robinson respecting Miss Wilmot.
+He did not deny that he knew such a person, that he had visited her; but
+he threw all the blame of his indiscretion on Lord Lyttelton. He
+requested to know who had informed me of his conduct. I refused to tell;
+and he had too high an opinion of his false associate to suspect him of
+such treachery.
+
+At one of Mrs. Parry's card parties I met Mrs. Abington.[16] I thought
+her the most lively and bewitching woman I had ever seen; her manners
+were fascinating, and the peculiar tastefulness of her dress excited
+universal admiration. My imagination again wandered to the stage, and I
+thought the heroine of the scenic art was of all human creatures the
+most to be envied.
+
+About this period I observed that Mr. Robinson had frequent visitors of
+the Jewish tribe; that he was often closeted with them, and that some
+secret negotiation was going forward to which I was a total stranger.
+Among others, Mr. King was a constant visitor; indeed, he had often been
+with my husband on private business ever since the period of our
+marriage. I questioned Mr. Robinson upon the subject of these strange
+and repeated interviews. He assured me that the persons I had seen came
+merely upon law business, and that in his profession it was necessary to
+be civil to all ranks of people. Whenever I urged a farther explanation,
+he assumed a tone of displeasure, and requested me not to meddle with
+his professional occupations. I desisted; and the parlour of our house
+was almost as much frequented by Jews as though it had been their
+synagogue.
+
+Mr. Robinson's mornings were devoted to his bearded friends, his
+evenings to his fashionable associates; but my hours were all dedicated
+to sorrow, for I now heard that my husband, even at the period of his
+marriage, had an attachment which he had not broken, and that his
+infidelities were as public as the ruin of his finances was inevitable.
+I remonstrated--I was almost frantic. My distress was useless, my wishes
+to retrench our expenses ineffectual. Mr. Robinson had, previous to our
+union, deeply involved himself in a bond debt of considerable magnitude,
+and he had from time to time borrowed money on annuity,--one sum to
+discharge the other,--till every plan of liquidation appeared
+impracticable. During all this time my mother was at Bristol.
+
+Lord Lyttelton, finding every plan of seduction fail, now rested his
+only hope of subduing my honour in the certainty of my husband's ruin.
+He therefore took every step, embraced every opportunity of involving
+him more deeply in calamity. Parties were made to Richmond and Salt
+Hill, to Ascot Heath and Epsom races, in all of which Mr. Robinson bore
+his share of expense, with the addition of post-horses. Whenever he
+seemed to shrink from his augmenting indiscretion, Lord Lyttelton
+assured him that, through his interest, an appointment of honourable and
+pecuniary importance should be obtained, though I embraced every
+opportunity to assure his lordship that no consideration upon earth
+should ever make me the victim of his artifice.
+
+[Illustration: _Lady Lyttelton_ Engraved by Chas. Townley from the
+painting by Richard Casway]
+
+Mr. Fitzgerald still paid me unremitting attention. His manners toward
+women were beautifully interesting. He frequently cautioned me against
+the libertine Lyttelton, and as frequently lamented the misguided
+confidence which Mr. Robinson reposed in him. Lord Lyttelton's shameless
+conduct toward an amiable wife, from whom he was separated, and his
+cruel neglect of a lady of the name of Dawson, who had long been
+attached to him, marked the unworthiness of his character. He was the
+very last man in the world for whom I ever could have entertained the
+smallest partiality; he was to me the most hateful of existing beings.
+Probably these pages will be read when the hand that writes them
+moulders in the grave, when that God who judges all hearts will know how
+innocent I was of the smallest conjugal infidelity. I make this solemn
+asseveration because there have been malevolent spirits who, in the
+plenitude of their calumny, have slandered me by suspecting my fidelity
+even at this early period of my existence. These pages are the pages of
+truth, unadorned by romance and unembellished by the graces of
+phraseology, and I know that I have been sufficiently the victim of
+events too well to become the tacit acquiescer where I have been grossly
+misrepresented. Alas! of all created beings, I have been the most
+severely subjugated by circumstances more than by inclination.
+
+About this time a party was one evening made to Vauxhall. Mr. Fitzgerald
+was the person who proposed it, and it consisted of six or eight
+persons. The night was warm and the gardens crowded. We supped in the
+circle which has the statue of Handel in its centre. The hour growing
+late,--or rather early in the morning,--our company dispersed, and no
+one remained excepting Mr. Robinson, Mr. Fitzgerald, and myself.
+Suddenly a noise was heard near the orchestra. A crowd had assembled,
+and two gentlemen were quarrelling furiously. Mr. R. and Fitzgerald ran
+out of the box. I rose to follow them, but they were lost in the throng,
+and I thought it most prudent to resume my place, which I had just
+quitted, as the only certain way of their finding me in safety. In a
+moment Fitzgerald returned. "Robinson," said he, "is gone to seek you at
+the entrance-door. He thought you had quitted the box."
+
+"I did for a moment," said I, "but I was fearful of losing him in the
+crowd, and therefore returned."
+
+"Let me conduct you to the door; we shall certainly find him there,"
+replied Mr. Fitzgerald. "I know that he will be uneasy."
+
+I took his arm and we ran hastily toward the entrance-door on the
+Vauxhall Road.
+
+Mr. Robinson was not there. We proceeded to look for our carriage. It
+stood at some distance. I was alarmed and bewildered. Mr. Fitzgerald
+hurried me along. "Don't be uneasy; we shall certainly find him," said
+he, "for I left him here not five minutes ago." As he spoke, he stopped
+abruptly. A servant opened a chaise door. There were four horses
+harnessed to it; and by the light of the lamps on the side of the
+footpath, I plainly perceived a pistol in the pocket of the door which
+was open. I drew back. Mr. Fitzgerald placed his arm around my waist,
+and endeavoured to lift me up the step of the chaise, the servant
+watching at a little distance. I resisted, and inquired what he meant
+by such conduct. His hand trembled excessively, while he said, in a low
+voice, "Robinson can but fight me." I was terrified beyond all
+description. I made him loose his hold, and ran toward the
+entrance-door. Mr. Fitzgerald now perceived Mr. Robinson. "Here he
+comes!" exclaimed he, with easy nonchalance. "We had found the wrong
+carriage, Mr. Robinson. We have been looking after you, and Mrs.
+Robinson is alarmed beyond expression."
+
+"I am, indeed!" said I. Mr. Robinson now took my hand. We stepped into
+the coach, and Mr. Fitzgerald followed. As we proceeded toward Hatton
+Garden, the sky incessantly flashed lightning. I was terrified by the
+combination of events, and I was in a situation which rendered any alarm
+peculiarly dangerous, for I was several months advanced in that state
+which afterward terminated by presenting to me my only child, my darling
+Maria.[17]
+
+I had often heard of Mr. Fitzgerald's propensity to duelling. I
+recollected my own delicate situation; I valued my husband's safety. I
+therefore did not mention the adventure of the evening, particularly as
+Mr. Fitzgerald observed, on our way to Hatton Garden, that he had
+"nearly made a strange mistake, and taken possession of another person's
+carriage." This remark appeared so plausible that nothing further was
+said upon the subject.
+
+From that evening I was particularly cautious in avoiding Fitzgerald. He
+was too daring and too fascinating a being to be allowed the smallest
+marks of confidence. Whenever he called, I was denied to him, and at
+length, perceiving the impracticability of his plan, he desisted, and
+seldom called, excepting to leave his name as a visitor of ceremony.
+
+I do not recount these events, these plans for my enthralment, with a
+view to convey anything like personal vanity, for I can with truth
+affirm that I never thought myself entitled to admiration that could
+endanger my security or tempt the libertine to undermine my husband's
+honour. But I attribute the snares that were laid for me to three
+causes: the first, my youth and inexperience, my girlish appearance and
+simplicity of manners; secondly, the expensive style in which Mr.
+Robinson lived, though he was not known as a man of independent fortune;
+and thirdly, the evident neglect which I experienced from my husband,
+whom Lord Lyttelton's society had marked as a man of universal
+gallantry.
+
+I was now known by name at every public place in and near the
+metropolis. Our circle of acquaintances enlarged daily. My friend Lady
+Yea was my constant companion. Mr. Robinson became desperate, from a
+thorough conviction that no effort of economy or professional labour
+could arrange his shattered finances, the large debt which he owed
+previous to his marriage with me having laid the foundation of every
+succeeding embarrassment.
+
+The moment now approached when the arcanum was to be developed, and an
+execution on Mr. Robinson's effects, at the suit of an annuitant,
+decided the doubts and fears which had long afflicted me. I was in a
+great degree prepared for this event by the evident inquietude of my
+husband's mind, and his frequent interviews with persons of a mysterious
+description. Indeed, this crisis seemed rather consolatory than
+appalling, for I hoped and trusted that the time was now arrived when
+reason would take place of folly, and experience point out those thorns
+which strew the pleasurable paths of dissipation.
+
+At this period, had Mr. Harris generously assisted his son, I am fully
+and confidently persuaded that he would have pursued a discreet and
+regular line of conduct. His first involvement was the basis of all his
+misfortunes. The impossibility of liquidating that debt (the motive for
+which it was contracted is to this hour unknown to me) rendered him
+desperate. Indeed, how could a young man, well educated,[18] subsist in
+such a metropolis without some provision? Mr. Harris was a man of
+fortune, and he ought to have known that necessity is the most dangerous
+associate of youth; that folly may be reclaimed by kindness, but seldom
+fails to be darkened into vice by the severity of unpitying natures.
+
+From Hatton Garden we removed to a house which was lent to us by a
+friend at Finchley. Here I hoped at least to remain tranquil till the
+perilous moment was passed which was to render me a mother. I here
+devoted my time to making my infant's little wardrobe; my finest muslin
+dresses I converted into frocks and robes, with my lace I fondly trimmed
+them. It was a sweetly pleasing task, and I often smiled when I
+reflected that only three years before this period I had dressed a waxen
+doll nearly as large as a new-born infant.
+
+Mr. Robinson had much business to transact in London, and I was almost
+perpetually alone at Finchley. Of our domestic establishment there was
+only one who did not desert us, and he was a negro!--one of that
+despised, degraded race, who wear the colour on their features which too
+often characterises the hearts of their fair and unfeeling oppressors. I
+have found, during my journey through life, that the two male domestics
+who were most attached to my interest and most faithful to my fortunes
+were both negroes!
+
+My mother now returned from Bristol, and I had the consolation of her
+society. I divided my time betwixt reading, writing, and making a little
+wardrobe for my expected darling. I little regretted the busy scenes of
+life; I sighed not for public attention. I felt by this change of
+situation as though a weighty load were taken from my heart, and solaced
+my mind in the idea that the worst had happened which could befall us.
+Gracious Heaven! How should I have shuddered, had I then contemplated
+the dark perspective of my destiny!
+
+Mr. Robinson went almost daily to London, and sometimes my brother
+George, who was still a boy, accompanied him upon a little pony. One
+day, after returning from one of their rides, my brother informed me
+that he had been with Mr. Robinson to Marylebone, and that he had waited
+and held Mr. Robinson's horse, while he made a morning visit. I had then
+no acquaintance that resided at Marylebone. I questioned my brother as
+to the place, and he persisted in his original story. "But," added he,
+"if you say anything about it to Mr. Robinson, I never will tell you
+where we go in future." I promised not to mention what he had said, and
+my mind was deeply engaged in a variety of conjectures.
+
+A few days after, Mr. Robinson made another visit, and my brother was
+introduced to the lady. From the manner and conversation of both
+parties, even a youth scarcely in his teens could draw conclusions of no
+favourable nature. By the side of the chimney hung my watch, which I had
+supposed lost in the general wreck of our property. It was enamelled
+with musical trophies, and very remarkable for a steel chain of singular
+beauty. The moment my brother described it my suspicions were confirmed;
+and Mr. Robinson did not even attempt to deny his infidelity.
+
+Mr. Robinson, finding his creditors inexorable, and fearing that he
+might endanger his personal liberty by remaining near London, informed
+me that I must, in a few days, accompany him to Tregunter. I felt a
+severe pang in the idea of quitting my adored mother at a moment when I
+should stand so much in need of a parent's attentions. My agony was
+extreme. I fancied that I never should behold her more; that the
+harshness and humiliating taunts of my husband's kindred would send me
+prematurely to the grave; that my infant would be left among strangers,
+and that my mother would scarcely have fortitude sufficient to survive
+me. Then I anticipated the inconvenience of so long a journey, for
+Tregunter House was within a few miles of Brecon. I dreaded to encounter
+the scornful vulgarity and the keen glances of Miss Betsy and Mrs.
+Molly. I considered all these things with horror; but the propriety of
+wedded life commanded the sacrifice, and I readily consented to make it.
+
+With tender regret, with agonising presentiments, I took leave of my
+mother and my brother. Such a parting would but mock the powers of
+language! My delicate situation, my youth, my affection for my best of
+mothers, all conspired to augment my sorrow; but a husband's repose, a
+husband's liberty were at stake, and my Creator can bear witness that,
+had I been blessed with that fidelity and affection which I deserved, my
+heart was disposed to the observance of every duty, every claim which
+would have embellished domestic propriety.
+
+We set out for Tregunter. On our arrival there, I instantly perceived
+that our misfortunes had outstripped our speed. Miss Robinson scarcely
+bade us welcome, and Molly was peevish, even to insulting displeasure.
+
+Mr. Harris was from home when we arrived. But he returned shortly after.
+His greeting was harsh and unfeeling. "Well! so you have escaped from a
+prison, and now you are come here to do penance for your follies? Well!
+and what do you want?" I could not reply. I entered the house, and
+instantly hastened to my old chamber, where my tears gave relief to that
+heart which was almost bursting with agony.
+
+Still Mr. Robinson conjured me to bear his uncle's wayward temper
+patiently, I did, though every day I was taunted with idle and inhuman
+questions, such as, "How long do you think that I will support you? What
+is to become of you in a prison? What business have beggars to marry?"
+With many others, equally feeling and high-minded!
+
+The mansion of Tregunter presented but few sources of amusement for the
+female mind. Mr. Harris had acquired a considerable fortune in trade,
+and, however the art of accumulating wealth had been successfully
+practised, the finer pursuits of mental powers had been totally
+neglected. Books were unknown at Tregunter, excepting a few magazines or
+periodical publications, which at different periods Miss Robinson
+borrowed from her juvenile neighbours. There was, however, an old spinet
+in one of the parlours. Music had been one of my early delights, and I
+sometimes vainly endeavoured to draw a kind of jingling harmony from
+this time-shaken and neglected instrument. These attempts, however,
+frequently subjected me to insult. "I had better think of getting my
+bread; women of no fortune had no right to follow the pursuits of fine
+ladies. Tom had better married a good tradesman's daughter than the
+child of a ruined merchant who was not capable of earning a living."
+Such were the remarks of my amiable and enlightened father-in-law!
+
+One day, I particularly remember, Mr. Harris had invited a large party
+to dinner, John and Charles Morgan, Esqrs., members of Parliament, with
+an old clergyman of the name of Jones, and several others were present.
+I was then within a fortnight of my perilous moment. One of the company
+expressed his satisfaction that I was come to give Tregunter a little
+stranger; and turning to Mr. Harris, added:
+
+"You have just finished your house in time for a nursery."
+
+"No, no," replied Mr. Harris, laughing, "they came here because prison
+doors were open to receive them."
+
+I felt my face redden to scarlet; every person present seemed to
+sympathise in my chagrin, and I was near sinking under the table with
+confusion. Mr. Robinson's indignation was evident; but it was restrained
+by duty as well as by necessity.
+
+The manor-house was not yet finished; and a few days after our arrival
+Mr. Harris informed me that he had no accommodation for my approaching
+confinement. Where was I to go? was the next question. After many family
+consultations, it was decided that I should remove to Trevecca House,
+about a mile and a half distant, and there give to this miserable world
+my first-born darling.
+
+I removed to Trevecca; it was a spacious mansion at the foot of a
+stupendous mountain, which, from its form, was called the Sugar-loaf. A
+part of the building was converted into a flannel manufactory, and the
+inhabitants were of the Huntingdonian school. Here I enjoyed the sweet
+repose of solitude; here I wandered about woods entangled by the wild
+luxuriance of nature, or roved upon the mountain's side, while the blue
+vapours floated around its summit. Oh, God of Nature! Sovereign of the
+universe of wonders! in those interesting moments how fervently did I
+adore thee!
+
+How often have I sat at my little parlour window and watched the pale
+moonbeams darting amidst the sombre and venerable yew-trees that shed
+their solemn shade over the little garden! How often have I strolled
+down the woody paths, spangled with the dew of morning, and shaken off
+the briery branches that hung about me! How tranquil did I feel, escaped
+from kindred tyranny, and how little did I regret the busy scenes of
+fashionable folly! Unquestionably the Creator formed me with a strong
+propensity to adore the sublime and beautiful of his works! But it has
+never been my lot to meet with an associating mind, a congenial spirit,
+who could (as it were abstracted from the world) find a universe in the
+sacred intercourse of soul, the sublime union of sensibility.
+
+At Trevecca House I was tranquil, if not perfectly happy. I there
+avoided the low taunts of uncultivated natures, the insolent vulgarity
+of pride, and the overbearing triumphs of a family, whose loftiest
+branch was as inferior to my stock as the small weed is beneath the
+tallest tree that overshades it. I had formed a union with a family who
+had neither sentiment nor sensibility; I was doomed to bear the society
+of ignorance and pride; I was treated as though I had been the most
+abject of beings, even at a time when my conscious spirit soared as far
+above their powers to wound it as the mountain towered over the white
+battlements of my then solitary habitation.
+
+After my removal to Trevecca, I seldom saw Miss Robinson or Mrs. Molly;
+Mr. Harris never called on me, though I was not more than a mile and a
+half from Tregunter. At length the expected, though to me most perilous,
+moment arrived, which awoke a new and tender interest in my bosom, which
+presented to my fondly beating heart my child,--my Maria. I cannot
+describe the sensations of my soul at the moment when I pressed the
+little darling to my bosom, my maternal bosom; when I kissed its hands,
+its cheeks, its forehead, as it nestled closely to my heart, and seemed
+to claim that affection which has never failed to warm it. She was the
+most beautiful of infants! I thought myself the happiest of mothers; her
+first smile appeared like something celestial,--something ordained to
+irradiate my dark and dreary prospect of existence.
+
+Two days after my child was presented to this world of sorrow, my nurse,
+Mrs. Jones, a most excellent woman, was earnestly desired by the people
+of the manufactory to bring the infant among them; they wished to see
+the "young squire's baby, the little heiress to Tregunter." It was in
+vain that I dreaded the consequences of the visit, for it was in the
+month of October; but Mrs. Jones assured me that infants in that part of
+the world were very frequently carried into the open air on the day of
+their birth; she also hinted that my refusal would hurt the feelings of
+the honest people, and wear the semblance of pride more than of maternal
+tenderness. This idea decided my acquiescence; and my little darling,
+enveloped in the manufacture of her own romantic birthplace, made her
+first visit to her kind but unsophisticated countrywomen.
+
+No sooner did Mrs. Jones enter the circle than she was surrounded by the
+gazing throng. The infant was dressed with peculiar neatness, and
+nothing mortal could appear more lovely. A thousand and a thousand
+blessings were heaped upon the "heiress of Tregunter," for so they
+fancifully called her; a thousand times did they declare that the baby
+was the very image of her father. Mrs. Jones returned to me; every word
+she uttered soothed my heart; a sweet and grateful glow, for the first
+time, bespoke the indescribable gratification which a fond parent feels
+in hearing the praises of a beloved offspring. Yet this little absence
+appeared an age; a variety of fears presented dangers in a variety of
+shapes, and the object of all my care, of all my affection, was now
+pressed closer to my heart than ever.
+
+Amidst these sweet and never-to-be-forgotten sensations, Mr. Harris
+entered my chamber. He abruptly inquired how I found myself, and,
+seating himself by the side of my bed, began to converse family affairs.
+I was too feeble to say much; and he had not the delicacy to consider
+that Mrs. Jones, my nurse, and almost a stranger to me, was a witness to
+our conversation.
+
+"Well!" said Mr. Harris, "and what do you mean to do with your child?"
+
+I made no answer.
+
+"I will tell you," added he. "Tie it to your back and work for it."
+
+I shivered with horror.
+
+"Prison doors are open," continued Mr. Harris. "Tom will die in a gaol;
+and what is to become of you?"
+
+I remained silent.
+
+Miss Robinson now made her visit. She looked at me without uttering a
+syllable; but while she contemplated my infant's features, her innocent
+sleeping face, her little dimpled hands folded on her breast, she
+murmured, "Poor little wretch! Poor thing! It would be a mercy if it
+pleased God to take it!" My agony of mind was scarcely supportable.
+
+About three weeks after this period, letters arrived, informing Mr.
+Robinson that his creditors were still inexorable, and that the place of
+his concealment was known. He was cautioned not to run the hazard of an
+arrest; indeed, he knew that such an event would complete his ruin with
+Mr. Harris, from whom he should not receive any assistance. He
+communicated this intelligence to me, and at the same time informed me
+that he must absolutely depart from Trevecca immediately. I was still
+extremely feeble, for my mental sufferings had impaired my corporeal
+strength almost as much as the perils I had recently encountered. But
+the idea of remaining at Trevecca without my husband was more terrible
+than the prospect of annihilation, and I replied, without a hesitating
+thought, "I am ready to go with you."
+
+My good nurse, who was a very amiable woman, and under forty years of
+age, conjured me to delay my journey. She informed me that it would be
+dangerous to undertake it in my then weak state. My husband's liberty
+was in danger, and my life appeared of little importance; for even at
+that early period of my days I was already weary of existence.
+
+On the succeeding morning we departed. Mrs. Jones insisted on
+accompanying me on the first day's journey. Mr. Robinson, my nurse, and
+myself occupied a post-chaise; my Maria was placed on a pillow on Mrs.
+Jones's lap. The paleness of death overspread my countenance, and the
+poor honest people of the mountains and the villages saw us depart with
+sorrow, though not without their blessings. Neither Mr. Harris nor the
+enlightened females of Tregunter expressed the smallest regret or
+solicitude on the occasion. We reached Abergavenny that evening. My
+little remaining strength was exhausted, and I could proceed no farther.
+However singular these persecutions may appear, Mr. Robinson knows that
+they are not in the smallest degree exaggerated.
+
+At Abergavenny I parted from Mrs. Jones, and, having no domestic with
+me, was left to take the entire charge of Maria. Reared in the tender
+lap of affluence, I had learnt but little of domestic occupation; the
+adorning part of education had been lavished, but the useful had never
+been bestowed upon a girl who was considered as born to independence.
+With these disadvantages, I felt very awkwardly situated, under the
+arduous task I had to perform; but necessity soon prevailed, with the
+soft voice of maternal affection, and I obeyed her dictates as the
+dictates of nature.
+
+Mrs. Jones, whose excellent heart sympathised in all I suffered, would
+not have parted from me in so delicate a moment, but she was the widow
+of a tradesman at Brecon, and having quitted her home, where she had
+left two daughters,--very pretty young women,--to attend me, she was
+under the necessity of returning to them. With repeated good wishes, and
+some tears of regret flowing from her feeling and gentle heart,
+we parted.
+
+On the following day we proceeded to Monmouth. Some relations of my
+mother residing there, particularly my grandmother, I wished to remain
+there till my strength was somewhat restored. We were received with
+genuine affection; we were caressed with unfeigned hospitality. The good
+and venerable object of my visit was delighted to embrace her
+great-grandchild, and the family fireside was frequently a scene of calm
+and pleasing conversation. How different were these moments from those
+which I had passed with the low-minded inhabitants of Tregunter!
+
+My grandmother, though then near seventy years of age, was still a
+pleasing woman; she had in her youth been delicately beautiful; and the
+neat simplicity of her dress, which was always either brown or black
+silk, the piety of her mind, and the mildness of her nature, combined to
+render her a most endearing object.
+
+As soon as my strength recovered, I was invited to partake of many
+pleasant entertainments. But the most favourite amusement I selected was
+that wandering by the river Wye, or of exploring the antique remains of
+Monmouth Castle, a part of which reached the garden of my grandmother's
+habitation. I also constantly accompanied my amiable and venerable
+relative to church; and I have often observed, with a mixture of
+delight, and almost of envy, the tranquil resignation which religion
+diffused over her mind, even at the very close of human existence. This
+excellent woman expired of a gradual decay in the year 1780.
+
+We had resided at Monmouth about a month, when I was invited to a ball.
+My spirits and strength had been renovated by the change of scenery, and
+I was persuaded to dance. I was at that time particularly fond of the
+amusement, and my partial friends flattered me by saying that I measured
+the mazy figure like a sylph. I was at that period a nurse; and, during
+the evening, Maria was brought to an antechamber to receive the only
+support she had ever yet taken. Unconscious of the danger attendant on
+such an event, I gave her her accustomed nourishment immediately after
+dancing. It was agitated by the violence of exercise and the heat of the
+ballroom, and, on my return home, I found my infant in strong
+convulsions.
+
+My distraction, my despair, was terrible; my state of mind rendered it
+impossible for me to afford any internal nourishment to the child, even
+when her little mouth was parched, or the fit in the smallest degree
+abated. I was little less than frantic; all the night I sat with her on
+my arms; an eminent medical man attended. The convulsions continued, and
+my situation was terrible; those who witnessed it cautiously avoided
+informing me that the peril of my infant proceeded from my dancing; had
+I known it at that period, I really believe I should have lost
+my senses.
+
+In this desperate state, with only short intervals of rest, my darling
+continued till the morning. All my friends came to make inquiries, and,
+among others, a clergyman who visited at my grandmother's. He saw the
+child, as it was thought, expiring; he saw me still sitting where I had
+taken my place of despair on the preceding night, fixed in the stupor of
+unutterable affliction. He conjured me to let the child be removed. I
+was in a raging fever; the effects of not having nourished my child
+during twelve hours began to endanger my own existence, and I looked
+forward to my dissolution as the happiest event that could befall me.
+
+Still Maria lay upon my lap, and still I resisted every attempt that was
+made to remove her. Just at this period the clergyman recollected that
+he had seen one of his children relieved from convulsions by a simple
+experiment, and he requested my permission to try its effects. The child
+was given over by my medical attendant, and I replied, "However
+desperate the remedy, I conjure you to administer it."
+
+He now mixed a tablespoonful of spirit of aniseed with a small quantity
+of spermaceti, and gave it to my infant. In a few minutes the convulsive
+spasms abated, and in less than an hour she sunk into a sweet and
+tranquil slumber. What I felt may be pictured to a fond mother's fancy,
+but my pen would fail in attempting to describe it.
+
+Some circumstances now occurred which gave Mr. Robinson reason to
+believe that he was not safe at Monmouth, and we prepared for a removal
+to some other quarter. The day was fixed for commencing our journey,
+when an execution arrived for a considerable sum, and Mr. Robinson was
+no longer at liberty to travel. My alarm was infinite; the sum was too
+large for the possibility of liquidation, and, knowing Mr. Robinson's
+desperate fortune, I thought it unjust as well as ungenerous to attempt
+the borrowing of it. Fortunately the sheriff for the county was a friend
+of the family. He was a gentlemanly and amiable man, and offered--to
+avoid any unpleasant dilemma--to accompany us to London. We set out the
+same evening, and never slept till we arrived in the metropolis.
+
+I immediately hastened to my mother, who resided in Buckingham Street,
+York Buildings, now the Adelphi. Her joy was boundless. She kissed me a
+thousand times, she kissed my beautiful infant; while Mr. Robinson
+employed the day in accommodating the business which had brought him to
+London. He had been arrested by a friend, with a hope that, so near a
+father's habitation, such a sum would have been paid; at least, such is
+the reason assigned for such unfriendly conduct![19]
+
+The matter was, however, arranged on an explanation taking place, and
+Mr. Robinson engaged a lodging near Berners Street, whither we repaired
+on the same evening. My little collection of poems, which I had arranged
+for publication, and which had been ready ever since my marriage, I now
+determined to print immediately. They were indeed trifles, very trifles;
+I have since perused them with a blush of self-reproof, and wondered how
+I could venture on presenting them to the public. I trust that there is
+not a copy remaining, excepting that which my dear, partial mother
+fondly preserved, and which is now in my possession.
+
+I had been in town a few days, when some female friends persuaded me to
+accompany a party which they had formed to Ranelagh. Mr. Robinson
+declined going, but after much entreaty I consented. I had now been
+married near two years; my person was considerably improved; I was grown
+taller than when I became Mr. Robinson's wife, and I had now more the
+manners of a woman of the world than those of girlish simplicity, which
+had hitherto characterised me, though I had been some months absent from
+London, and a part of them rusticated among mountains. The dress which I
+wore was plain and simple; it was composed of pale lilac lustring. My
+head had a wreath of white flowers; I was complimented on my looks by
+the whole party, and with little relish for public amusements, and a
+heart throbbing with domestic solicitude, I accompanied the party
+to Ranelagh.
+
+The first person I saw, on entering the rotunda, was George Robert
+Fitzgerald. He started as if he had received a shock of electricity. I
+turned my head away, and would have avoided him; but he instantly
+quitted two friends with whom he was walking, and presented himself to
+me. He expressed great pleasure at seeing me once more in "the world;"
+was surprised at finding me for the first time in public without my
+husband, and requested permission to pay his respects to me at my house.
+I replied that I was "on a visit to some friends." He bowed, and
+rejoined his companions.
+
+During the evening, however, he never ceased to follow me. We quitted
+the rotunda early; and, as we were waiting for the carriage, I again
+observed Fitzgerald in the antechamber. We passed the vestibule, and at
+the door his own carriage was waiting.
+
+On the following noon I was correcting a proof-sheet of my volume, when
+the servant abruptly announced Mr. Fitzgerald!
+
+I was somewhat disconcerted by this unexpected visit, and received Mr.
+Fitzgerald with a cold and embarrassed mien, which evidently mortified
+him; I also felt a little worldly vanity in the moment of surprise, for
+my morning dress was more calculated to display maternal assiduity than
+elegant and tasteful _deshabille_. In a small basket near my chair slept
+my little Maria; my table was spread with papers, and everything around
+me presented the mixed confusion of a study and a nursery.
+
+From the period of Mrs. Jones's quitting me at Abergavenny, I had made
+it an invariable rule always to dress and undress my infant. I never
+suffered it to be placed in a cradle, or to be fed out of my presence. A
+basket of an oblong shape with four handles (with a pillow and a small
+bolster) was her bed by day; at night she slept with me. I had too often
+heard of the neglect which servants show to young children, and I
+resolved never to expose an infant of mine either to their ignorance or
+inattention. It was amidst the duties of a parent, that the gay, the
+high-fashioned Fitzgerald now found me; and whenever either business,
+or, very rarely, public amusements drew me from the occupation, my
+mother never failed to be my substitute.
+
+Mr. Fitzgerald said a thousand civil things; but that which charmed me,
+was the admiration of my child. He declared that he had never seen so
+young a mother, or so beautiful an infant. For the first remark I
+sighed, but the last delighted my bosom; she indeed was one of the
+prettiest little mortals that ever the sun shone upon.
+
+The nest subject was praise of my poetry. I smile while I recollect how
+far the effrontery of flattery has power to belie the judgment. Mr.
+Fitzgerald took up the proof-sheet and read one of the pastorals. I
+inquired by what means he had discovered my place of residence; he
+informed me that his carriage had followed me home on the preceding
+night. He now took his leave.
+
+On the following evening he made us another visit; I say us, because Mr.
+Robinson was at home. Mr. Fitzgerald drank tea with us, and proposed
+making a party on the next day to dine at Richmond. To this I gave a
+decided negative; alleging that my duties toward my child prevented the
+possibility of passing a day absent from her.
+
+On the Wednesday following, Mr. Robinson accompanied me again to
+Ranelagh. There we met Lord Northington, Lord Lyttelton, Captain
+O'Bryan, Captain Ayscough, Mr. Andrews, and several others, who all, in
+the course of the evening, evinced their attentions. But as Mr.
+Robinson's deranged state of affairs did not admit of our receiving
+parties at home, I made my excuses by saying that we were at a friend's
+house and not yet established in a town residence. Lord Lyttelton was
+particularly importunate; but he received the same answer which I had
+given to every other inquirer.
+
+A short time after, Mr. Robinson was arrested. Now came my hour of
+trial. He was conveyed to the house of a sheriff's officer, and in a few
+days detainers were lodged against him to the amount of twelve hundred
+pounds, chiefly the arrears of annuities and other demands from Jew
+creditors; for I can proudly and with truth declare that he did not at
+that time, or at any period since, owe fifty pounds for me, or to any
+tradesmen on my account whatever.
+
+Mr. Robinson knew that it would be useless to ask Mr. Harris's
+assistance; indeed, his mind was too much depressed to make an exertion
+for the arrangement of his affairs. He was, therefore, after waiting
+three weeks in the custody of a sheriff's officer (during which time I
+had never left him for a single hour, day or night), obliged to submit
+to the necessity of becoming a captive.
+
+For myself I cared but little; all my anxiety was for Mr. Robinson's
+repose and the health of my child. The apartment which we obtained was
+in the upper part of the building, overlooking a racket-ground. Mr.
+Robinson was expert in all exercises of strength or activity, and he
+found that amusement daily which I could not partake of. I had other
+occupations of a more interesting nature,--the care of a beloved and
+still helpless daughter.[20]
+
+During nine months and three weeks, never once did I pass the threshold
+of our dreary habitation; though every allurement was offered, every
+effort was made, to draw me from my scene of domestic attachment.
+Numberless messages and letters from Lords Northington and Lyttelton,
+from Mr. Fitzgerald and many others, were conveyed to me. But they all,
+excepting Lord Northington's, were dictated in the language of
+gallantry, were replete with professions of love, and wishes to release
+me from my unpleasant and humiliating situation,--and were therefore
+treated with contempt, scorn, and indignation. For God can bear witness
+that, at that period, my mind had never entertained a thought of
+violating those vows which I had made to my husband at the altar.
+
+What I suffered during this tedious captivity! My little volume of poems
+sold but indifferently; my health was considerably impaired; and the
+trifling income which Mr. Robinson received from his father was scarcely
+sufficient to support him. I will not enter into a tedious detail of
+vulgar sorrows, of vulgar scenes; I seldom quitted my apartment, and
+never till the evening, when for air and exercise I walked on the
+racket-ground with my husband.
+
+It was during one of these night walks that my little daughter first
+blessed my ears with the articulation of words. The circumstance made a
+forcible and indelible impression on my mind. It was a clear moonlight
+evening; the infant was in the arms of her nursery-maid; she was dancing
+her up and down, and was playing with her; her eyes were fixed on the
+moon, to which she pointed with her small forefinger. On a sudden a
+cloud passed over it, and the child, with a slow falling of her hand,
+articulately sighed, "All gone!" This had been a customary expression
+with her maid, whenever the infant wanted anything which it was deemed
+prudent to withhold or to hide from her. These little nothings will
+appear insignificant to the common reader, but to the parent whose heart
+is ennobled by sensibility they will become matters of important
+interest. I can only add, that I walked till near midnight, watching
+every cloud that passed over the moon, and as often, with a rapturous
+sensation, hearing my little prattler repeat her observation.
+
+Having much leisure and many melancholy hours, I again turned my
+thoughts toward the muses. I chose "Captivity" for the subject of my
+pen, and soon composed a quarto poem of some length; it was superior to
+my former production, but it was full of defects, replete with weak or
+laboured lines. I never now rend my early compositions without a
+suffusion on my cheek, which marks my humble opinion of them.
+
+At this period I was informed that the Duchess of Devonshire[21] was the
+admirer and patroness of literature. With a mixture of timidity and hope
+I sent her Grace a neatly bound volume of my poems, accompanied by a
+short letter apologising for their defects, and pleading my age as the
+only excuse for their inaccuracy. My brother, who was a charming youth,
+was the bearer of my first literary offering at the shrine of nobility.
+The duchess admitted him, and with the most generous and amiable
+sensibility inquired some particulars respecting my situation, with a
+request that on the following day I would make her a visit.
+
+I knew not what to do. Her liberality claimed my compliance; yet, as I
+had never, during my husband's long captivity, quitted him for half an
+hour, I felt a sort of reluctance that pained the romantic firmness of
+my mind, while I meditated what I considered as a breach of my domestic
+attachment. However, at the particular and earnest request of Mr.
+Robinson, I consented, and accordingly accepted the duchess's
+invitation.
+
+During my seclusion from the world, I had adapted my dress to my
+situation. Neatness was at all times my pride; but now plainness was the
+conformity to necessity. Simple habiliments became the abode of
+adversity; and the plain brown satin gown, which I wore on my first
+visit to the Duchess of Devonshire, appeared to me as strange as a
+birthday court-suit to a newly married citizen's daughter.
+
+To describe the duchess's look and manner when she entered the back
+drawing-room of Devonshire House would be impracticable; mildness and
+sensibility beamed in her eyes and irradiated her countenance. She
+expressed her surprise at seeing so young a person, who had already
+experienced such vicissitude of fortune; she lamented that my destiny
+was so little proportioned to what she was pleased to term my desert,
+and with a tear of gentle sympathy requested that I would accept a proof
+of her good wishes. I had not words to express my feelings, and was
+departing, when the duchess requested me to call on her very often, and
+to bring my little daughter with me.
+
+I made frequent visits to the amiable duchess, and was at all times
+received with the warmest proofs of friendship. My little girl, to whom
+I was still a nurse, generally accompanied me, and always experienced
+the kindest caresses from my admired patroness, my liberal and
+affectionate friend. Frequently the duchess inquired most minutely into
+the story of my sorrows, and as often gave me tears of the most
+spontaneous sympathy. But such was my destiny, that while I cultivated
+the esteem of this best of women, by a conduct which was above the reach
+of reprobation, my husband, even though I was the partner of his
+captivity, the devoted slave to his necessities, indulged in the lowest
+and most degrading intrigues; frequently, during my short absence with
+the duchess,--for I never quitted the prison but to obey her
+summons,--he was known to admit the most abandoned of their sex, women
+whose low, licentious lives were such as to render them the shame and
+outcasts of society. These disgraceful meetings were arranged, even
+while I was in my own apartment, in a next room, and by the assistance
+of an Italian, who was also there a captive. I was apprised of the
+proceeding, and I questioned Mr. Robinson upon the subject. He denied
+the charge; but I availed myself of an opportunity that offered, and was
+convinced that my husband's infidelities were both frequent and
+disgraceful.
+
+Still I pursued my plan of the most rigid domestic propriety; still I
+preserved my faith inviolate, my name unsullied. At times I endured the
+most poignant sufferings, from the pain of disappointed hope, and the
+pressure of pecuniary distresses.
+
+During my long seclusion from society, for I could not associate with
+those whom destiny had placed in a similar predicament, not one of my
+female friends even inquired what was become of me. Those who had been
+protected and received with the most cordial hospitality by me in my
+more happy hours now neglected all the kind condolence of sympathetic
+feeling, and shunned both me and my dreary habitation. From that hour I
+have never felt the affection for my own sex which perhaps some women
+feel; I have never taught my heart to cherish their friendship, or to
+depend on their attentions beyond the short perspective of a prosperous
+day. Indeed, I have almost uniformly found my own sex my most inveterate
+enemies; I have experienced little kindness from them, though my bosom
+has often ached with the pang inflicted by their envy, slander, and
+malevolence.
+
+The Italian whom I took occasion to mention as the _cicerone_ of my
+husband's gallantries was named Albanesi. He was the husband to a
+beautiful Roman woman of that name, who had some years before attracted
+considerable attention in the hemisphere of gallantry, where she had
+shone as a brilliant constellation. She had formerly been the mistress
+of a Prince de Courland, and afterward of the Covet de Belgeioso, the
+imperial ambassador; but at the period in which I first saw her she was,
+I believe, devoted to a life of unrestrained impropriety. She frequently
+came to visit her husband, who had held a situation an the opera-house
+during the management of Mr. Hobart,[22] now Earl of Buckinghamshire. I
+remember she was one of the handsomest women I had ever seen, and that
+her dress was the most extravagantly splendid. Satins, richly
+embroidered, or trimmed with point lace, were her daily habiliments; and
+her personal attractions were considerably augmented by the peculiar
+dignity and grace with which she walked: in a few words, this woman was
+a striking sample of beauty and of profligacy.
+
+Whenever she came to visit her _sposo_, she never failed to obtrude
+herself on my seclusion. Mr. Rabinson rather encouraged than shunned her
+visits, and I was obliged to receive the beautiful Angelina (for such
+was her Christian name), however repugnant such an associate was to my
+feelings. At every interview she took occasion to ridicule my romantic
+domestic attachment; laughed at my folly in wasting my youth (for I was
+not then eighteen years of age) in such a disgraceful obscurity; and
+pictured, in all the glow of fanciful scenery, the splendid life into
+which I might enter, if I would but know my own power, and break the
+fetters of matrimonial restriction. She once told me that she had
+mentioned to the Earl of Pembroke that there was a young married lady in
+the most humiliating captivity with her husband; she said that she had
+described my person, and that Lord Pembroke was ready to offer me
+his services.
+
+This proposal fully proclaimed the meaning of Signora Albanesi's visits,
+and I resolved in future to avoid all conversation with her. She was at
+that time between thirty and forty years of age, and her day of
+splendour was hourly sinking to the obscurity of neglect; she was
+nevertheless still reluctant to resign the dazzling meteors which
+fashion had scattered in her way, and, having sacrificed every personal
+feeling for the gratification of her vanity, she now sought to build a
+gaudy, transient fabric on the destruction of another. In addition to
+her persuasions, her husband, Angelo Albanesi, constantly made the world
+of gallantry the subject of his conversation. Whole evenings has he
+sitten in our apartment, telling long stories of intrigue, praising the
+liberality of one nobleman, the romantic chivalry of another, the
+sacrifice which a third had made to an adored object, and the splendid
+income which a fourth would bestow on any young lady of education and
+mental endowments who would accept his protection, and be the partner of
+his fortune. I always smiled at Albanesi's innuendoes; and I still found
+some amusement in his society, when he thought fit to divest his
+conversation of his favourite topic. This Italian, though neither young
+nor even tolerably well-looking, was uncommonly entertaining; he could
+sing, likewise imitate various musical instruments, was an excellent
+buffoon, and a very neat engraver; some of his plates were executed
+under the inspection of Sherwin, and he was considered as a very
+promising artist.
+
+Were I to describe one-half of what I suffered during fifteen months'
+captivity, the world would consider it as the invention of a novel. But
+Mr. Robinson knows what I endured, and how patiently, how correctly I
+suited my mind to the strict propriety of wedded life; he knows that my
+duty as a wife was exemplary, my chastity inviolate; he knows that
+neither poverty nor obscurity, neither the tauntings of the world, nor
+his neglect, could tempt me even to the smallest error; he knows that I
+bore my afflicting humiliations with a cheerful, uncomplaining spirit;
+that I toiled honourably for his comfort; and that my attentions were
+exclusively dedicated to him and to my infant.
+
+The period now arrived when Mr. Robinson, by setting aside some debts,
+and by giving fresh bonds and fresh securities for others, once more
+obtained his liberty. I immediately conveyed the intelligence to my
+lovely Duchess of Devonshire, and she wrote me a letter of kind
+congratulation; she was then at Chatsworth.
+
+The first moments of emancipation were delightful to the senses. I felt
+as though I had been newly born; I longed to see all my old and intimate
+associates, and almost forgot that they had so unworthily neglected me.
+Everything that had passed now appeared like a melancholy vision. The
+gloom had dissolved, and a new perspective seemed to brighten before me.
+
+The first place of public entertainment I went to was Vauxhall. I had
+frequently found occasion to observe a mournful contrast when I had
+quitted the elegant apartment of Devonshire House, to enter the dark
+galleries of a prison; but the sensation which I felt on hearing the
+music, and beholding the gay throng, during this first visit in public
+after so long a seclusion, was indescribable. During the evening we met
+many old acquaintances,--some who pretended ignorance of our past
+embarrassments, and others who joined us with the ease of fashionable
+apathy; among these was Lord Lyttelton, who insolently remarked, "that,
+notwithstanding all that had passed, I was handsomer than ever." I made
+no reply but by a look of scornful indignation, which silenced the bold,
+the unfeeling commentator, and convinced him that, though fallen in
+fortune; I was still high in pride.
+
+Mr. Robinson having once more obtained his liberty, how were we to
+subsist honourably and above reproach? He applied to his father, but
+every aid was refused; he could not follow his profession, because he
+had not completed his articles of clerkship. I resolved on turning my
+thoughts toward literary labour, and projected a variety of works, by
+which I hoped to obtain at least a decent independence. Alas! how little
+did I then know either the fatigue or the hazard of mental occupations!
+How little did I foresee that the day would come when my health would be
+impaired, my thoughts perpetually employed, in so destructive a pursuit!
+At the moment that I write this page, I feel in every fibre of my brain
+the fatal conviction that it is a destroying labour.
+
+[Illustration: William Brereton in the Character of Douglas From a
+painting by N. Hone]
+
+It was at this moment of anxiety, of hope, of fear, that my thoughts
+once more were turned to a dramatic life; and, walking with my husband
+in St. James's Park, late in the autumn, we were accosted by Mr.
+Brereton, of Drury Lane Theatre. I had not seen him during the last two
+years, and he seemed rejoiced in having met us. At that period we lodged
+at Lyne's, the confectioner, in Old Bond Street. Mr. Brereton went home
+and dined with us; and after dinner the conversation turned on my
+partiality to the stage, which he earnestly recommended as a scene of
+great promise to what he termed my promising talents. The idea rushed
+like electricity through my brain. I asked Mr. Robinson's opinion, and
+he now readily consented to my making the trial. He had repeatedly
+written to his father, requesting even the smallest aid toward our
+support until he could embark in his profession; but every letter
+remained unanswered, and we had no hope but in our own mental exertions.
+
+Some time after this period, we removed to a more quiet situation, and
+occupied a very neat and comfortable suite of apartments in Newman
+Street. I was then some months advanced in a state of domestic
+solicitude, and my health seemed in a precarious state, owing to my
+having too long devoted myself to the duties of a mother in nursing my
+eldest daughter Maria. It was in this lodging that, one morning, wholly
+unexpectedly, Mr. Brereton made us a second visit, bringing with him a
+friend, whom he introduced on entering the drawing-room. This stranger
+was Mr. Sheridan.[23]
+
+I was overwhelmed with confusion. I know not why, but I felt a sense of
+mortification when I observed that my appearance was carelessly
+_deshabille_, and my mind as little prepared for what I guessed to be
+the motive of his visit. I, however, soon recovered my recollection, and
+the theatre was consequently the topic of discourse.
+
+At Mr. Sheridan's earnest entreaties, I recited some passages from
+Shakespeare. I was alarmed and timid; but the gentleness of his manners,
+and the impressive encouragement he gave me, dissipated my fears and
+tempted me to go on.
+
+Mr. Sheridan had then recently purchased a share of Drury Lane Theatre,
+in conjunction with Mr. Lacey and Doctor Ford; he was already celebrated
+as the author of "The Rivals" and "The Duenna," and his mind was
+evidently portrayed in his manners, which were strikingly and
+bewitchingly attractive.
+
+The encouragement which I received in this essay, and the praises which
+Mr. Sheridan lavishly bestowed, determined me to make a public trial of
+my talents; and several visits, which were rapidly repeated by Mr.
+Sheridan, at length produced an arrangement for that period. My
+intention was intimated to Mr. Garrick, who, though he had for some
+seasons retired from the stage, kindly promised protection, and as
+kindly undertook to be my tutor.
+
+The only objection which I felt to the idea of appearing on the stage
+was my then increasing state of domestic solicitude. I was, at the
+period when Mr. Sheridan was first presented to me, some months advanced
+in that situation which afterward, by the birth of Sophia, made me a
+second time a mother. Yet such was my imprudent fondness for Maria, that
+I was still a nurse; and my constitution was very considerably impaired
+by the effects of these combined circumstances.
+
+An appointment was made in the greenroom of Drury Lane Theatre. Mr.
+Garrick, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Brereton, and my husband were present; I
+there recited the principal scenes of Juliet (Mr. Brereton repeating
+those of Romeo), and Mr. Garrick, without hesitation, fixed on that
+character as the trial of my debut.
+
+It is impossible to describe the various emotions of hope and fear that
+possessed my mind when the important day was announced in the playbills.
+I wrote to the Duchess of Devonshire at Chatsworth, informing her of my
+purposed trial, and received a kind letter of approbation, sanctioning
+my plan and wishing me success. Every longing of my heart seemed now to
+be completely gratified; and, with zeal bordering on delight, I prepared
+for my approaching effort.
+
+Mr. Garrick had been indefatigable at the rehearsals, frequently going
+through the whole character of Romeo himself until he was completely
+exhausted with the fatigue of recitation. This was only a short period
+before the death of that distinguished actor.
+
+The theatre was crowded with fashionable spectators; the greenroom and
+orchestra (where Mr. Garrick sat during the night) were thronged with
+critics. My dress was a pale pink satin, trimmed with crape, richly
+spangled with silver; my head was ornamented with white feathers, and my
+monumental suit, for the last scene, was white satin, and completely
+plain, excepting that I wore a veil of the most transparent gauze, which
+fell quite to my feet from the back of my head, and a string of beads
+around my waist, to which was suspended a cross appropriately fashioned.
+
+When I approached the side wing, my heart throbbed convulsively; I then
+began to fear that my resolution would fail, and I leaned upon the
+nurse's arm, almost fainting. Mr. Sheridan and several other friends
+encouraged me to proceed; and at length, with trembling limbs and
+fearful apprehension, I approached the audience.
+
+The thundering applause that greeted me nearly overpowered all my
+faculties. I stood mute and bending with alarm, which did not subside
+till I had feebly articulated the few sentences of the first short
+scene, during the whole of which I had never once ventured to look at
+the audience.
+
+On my return to the greenroom I was again encouraged, as far as my looks
+were deemed deserving of approbation; for of my powers nothing yet could
+be known, my fears having as it were palsied both my voice and action.
+The second scene being the masquerade, I had time to collect myself. I
+never shall forget the sensation which rushed through my bosom when I
+first looked toward the pit. I beheld a gradual ascent of heads. All
+eyes were fixed upon me, and the sensation they conveyed was awfully
+impressive; but the keen, the penetrating eyes of Mr. Garrick, darting
+their lustre from the centre of the orchestra, were, beyond all others,
+the objects most conspicuous.[24]
+
+As I acquired courage, I found the applause augment; and the night was
+concluded with peals of clamorous approbation. I was complimented on all
+sides; but the praise of one object, whom most I wished to please, was
+flattering even to the extent of human vanity. I then experienced, for
+the first time in my life, a gratification which language could not
+utter. I heard one of the most fascinating men, and the most
+distinguished geniuses of the age, honour me with partial approbation. A
+new sensation seemed to awake in my bosom; I felt that emulation which
+the soul delights to encourage, where the attainment of fame will be
+pleasing to the esteemed object. I had till that period known no impulse
+beyond that of friendship; I had been an example of conjugal fidelity;
+but I had never known the perils to which the feeling heart is subjected
+in a union of regard wholly uninfluenced by the affections of the soul.
+
+The second character which I played was Amanda, in "A Trip to
+Scarborough."[25] The play was altered from Vanbrugh's "Relapse;" and
+the audience, supposing it was a new piece, on finding themselves
+deceived, expressed a considerable degree of disapprobation. I was
+terrified beyond imagination when Mrs. Yates, no longer able to bear the
+hissing of the audience, quitted the scene, and left me alone to
+encounter the critic tempest. I stood for some moments as though I had
+been petrified. Mr. Sheridan, from the side wing, desired me not to quit
+the boards; the late Duke of Cumberland,[26] from the stage-box, bade me
+take courage: "It is not you, but the play, they hiss," said his Royal
+Highness. I curtseyed; and that curtsey seemed to electrify the whole
+house, for a thundering appeal of encouraging applause followed. The
+comedy was suffered to go on, and is to this hour a stock play at Drury
+Lane Theatre.
+
+The third character I played was Statira, in "Alexander the Great." Mr.
+Lacey, then one of the proprietors of Drury Lane Theatre, was the hero
+of the night, and the part of Roxana was performed by Mrs. Melmoth.
+Again I was received with an _eclat_ that gratified my vanity. My dress
+was white and blue, made after the Persian costume; and though it was
+then singular on the stage, I wore neither a hoop nor powder; my feet
+were bound by sandals richly ornamented, and the whole dress was
+picturesque and characteristic.
+
+Though I was always received with the most flattering approbation, the
+characters in which I was most popular were Ophelia, Juliet, and
+Rosalind. Palmira was also one of my most approved representations. The
+last character which I played was Sir Harry Revel, in Lady Craven's
+comedy of "The Miniature Picture;" and the epilogue song in "The Irish
+Widow"[27] was my last farewell to the labour of my profession.
+
+Mr. Sheridan now informed me he wished that I would accustom myself to
+appear in comedy, because tragedy seemed evidently, as well as my
+_forte_, to be my preference. At the same time he acquainted me that he
+wished me to perform a part in "The School for Scandal." I was now so
+unshaped by my increasing size that I made my excuses, informing Mr.
+Sheridan that probably I should be confined to my chamber at the period
+when his since celebrated play would first make its appearance. He
+accepted the apology, and in a short time I gave to the world my second
+child, Sophia. I now resided in Southampton Street, Covent Garden.
+
+Previous to this event I had my benefit night, on which I performed the
+part of Fanny, in "The Clandestine Marriage." Mr. King, the Lord Ogleby;
+Miss Pope, Miss Sterling; and Mrs. Heidelberg, Mrs. Hopkins.
+
+Mr. Sheridan's attentions to me were unremitting. He took pleasure in
+promoting my consequence at the theatre; he praised my talents, and he
+interested himself in my domestic comforts. I was engaged previous to my
+debut, and I received what at that time was considered as a handsome
+salary. My benefit was flatteringly attended. The boxes were filled with
+persons of the very highest rank and fashion, and I looked forward with
+delight both to celebrity and to fortune.
+
+At the end of six weeks I lost my infant. She expired in my arms in
+convulsions, and my distress was indescribable. On the day of its
+dissolution Mr. Sheridan called on me; the little sufferer was on my
+lap, and I was watching it with agonising anxiety. Five months had then
+elapsed since Mr. Sheridan was first introduced to me; and though,
+during that period, I had seen many proofs of his exquisite sensibility,
+I never had witnessed one which so strongly impressed my mind his
+countenance on entering my apartment. Probably he has forgotten the
+feeling of the moment, but its impression will by me be remembered
+for ever.
+
+I had not power to speak. All he uttered was, "Beautiful little
+creature!" at the same time looking on my infant, and sighing with a
+degree of sympathetic sorrow which penetrated my soul. Had I ever heard
+such a sigh from a husband's bosom? Alas! I never knew the sweet,
+soothing solace of wedded sympathy; I never was beloved by him whom
+destiny allotted to be the legal ruler of my actions. I do not condemn
+Mr. Robinson; I but too well know that we cannot command our affections.
+I only lament that he did not observe some decency in his infidelities;
+and that while he gratified his own caprice, he forgot how much he
+exposed his wife to the most degrading mortifications.
+
+The death of Sophia so deeply affected my spirits that I was rendered
+totally incapable of appearing again that season. I therefore obtained
+Mr. Sheridan's permission to visit Bath for the recovery of my repose.
+From Bath I went to Bristol--to Bristol! Why does my pen seem suddenly
+arrested while I write the word? I know not why, but an undefinable
+melancholy always follows the idea of my native birthplace. I instantly
+behold the Gothic structure, the lonely cloisters, the lofty aisles, of
+the antique minster,--for, within a few short paces of its wall, this
+breast, which has never known one year of happiness, first palpitated on
+inhaling the air of this bad world! Is it within its consecrated
+precincts that this heart shall shortly moulder? Heaven only knows, and
+to its will I bow implicitly.
+
+I transcribe this passage on the 29th of March, 1800. I feel my health
+decaying, my spirit broken. I look back without regret that so many of
+my days are numbered; and, were it in my power to choose, I would not
+wish to measure them again. But whither am I wandering? I will resume my
+melancholy story.
+
+Still restless, still perplexed with painful solicitudes, I returned to
+London. I had not then, by many months, completed my nineteenth year. On
+my arrival I took lodgings in Leicester Square. Mr. Sheridan came to see
+me on my return to town, and communicated the melancholy fate of Mr.
+Thomas Linley,[28] the late brother of Mrs. Sheridan,--he was
+unfortunately drowned at the Duke of Ancaster's. In a few days after,
+Mr. Sheridan again made me a visit, with a proposal for an engagement to
+play during the summer at Mr. Colman's theatre in the Haymarket.[29] I
+had refused several offers from provincial managers, and felt an almost
+insurmountable aversion to the idea of strolling. Mr. Sheridan
+nevertheless strongly recommended me to the acceptance of Mr. Colman's
+offer; and I at last agreed to it, upon condition that the characters I
+should be expected to perform were selected and limited. To this Mr.
+Colman readily consented.
+
+The first part which was placed in the list was Nancy Lovel, in the
+comedy of "The Suicide." I received the written character, and waited
+the rehearsal; but my astonishment was infinite when I saw the name of
+Miss Farren[30] announced in the bills. I wrote a letter to Mr. Colman,
+requesting an explanation. He replied that he had promised the part to
+Miss Farren, who had then performed one or two seasons at the Haymarket
+Theatre. I felt myself insulted. I insisted on Mr. Colman fulfilling his
+engagement, or on giving me liberty to quit London: the latter he
+refused. I demanded to perform the part of Nancy Lovel. Mr. Colman was
+too partial to Miss Farren to hazard offending her. I refused to play
+till I had this first character, as by agreement, restored to me, and
+the summer passed without my once performing, though my salary was paid
+weekly and regularly.
+
+During the following winter I performed, with increasing approbation,
+the following characters:
+
+Ophelia, in "Hamlet."
+
+Viola, in "Twelfth Night."
+
+Jacintha, in "The Suspicious Husband."
+
+Fidelia, in "The Plain Dealer."
+
+Rosalind, in "As You Like It."
+
+Oriana, in "The Inconstant."
+
+Octavia, in "All for Love."
+
+Perdita, in "The Winter's Tale."
+
+Palmira, in "Mahomet."
+
+Cordelia, in "King Lear."
+
+Alinda, in "The Law of Lombardy."
+
+The Irish Widow.
+
+Araminta, in "The Old Bachelor."
+
+Sir Harry Revel, in "The Miniature Picture."
+
+Emily, in "The Runaway."
+
+Miss Richley, in "The Discovery."
+
+Statira, in "Alexander the Great."
+
+Juliet, in "Romeo and Juliet."
+
+Amanda, in "The Trip to Scarborough."
+
+Lady Anne, in "Richard the Third."
+
+Imogen, in "Cymbeline."
+
+Lady Macbeth,[31] in "Macbeth," etc.
+
+It was now that I began to know the perils attendant on a dramatic life.
+It was at this period that the most alluring temptations were held out
+to alienate me from the paths of domestic quiet,--domestic happiness I
+cannot say, for it never was my destiny to know it. But I had still the
+consolation of an unsullied name. I had the highest female patronage, a
+circle of the most respectable and partial friends.
+
+During this period I was daily visited by my best of mothers. My
+youngest brother had, the preceding winter, departed for Leghorn, where
+my eldest had been many years established as a merchant of the first
+respectability.
+
+Were I to mention the names of those who held forth the temptations of
+fortune at this moment of public peril, I might create some reproaches
+in many families of the fashionable world. Among others who offered most
+liberally to purchase my indiscretion was the late Duke of Rutland; a
+settlement of six hundred pounds per annum was proposed as the means of
+estranging me entirely from my husband. I refused the offer. I wished to
+remain, in the eyes of the public, deserving of its patronage. I shall
+not enter into a minute detail of temptations which assailed my
+fortitude.
+
+The flattering and zealous attentions which Mr. Sheridan evinced were
+strikingly contrasting with the marked and increasing neglect of my
+husband. I now found that he supported two women, in one house, in
+Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. The one was a figure-dancer in Drury Lane
+Theatre; the other, a woman of professed libertinism. With these he
+passed all his hours that he could steal from me; and I found that my
+salary was at times inadequate to the expenses which were incurred by an
+enlarged circle of new acquaintance, which Mr. Robinson had formed since
+my appearance in the dramatic scene. Added to this, the bond creditors
+became so clamorous, that the whole of my benefits were appropriated to
+their demands; and on the second year after my appearance at Drury Lane
+Theatre, Mr. Robinson once more persuaded me to make a visit at
+Tregunter.
+
+I was now received with more civility, and more warmly welcomed, than I
+had been on any former arrival. Though the assumed sanctity of Miss
+Robinson's manners condemned a dramatic life, the labour was deemed
+profitable, and the supposed immorality was consequently tolerated!
+However repugnant to my feelings this visit was, still I hoped that it
+would promote my husband's interest, and confirm his reconciliation to
+his father; I therefore resolved on undertaking it. I now felt that I
+could support myself honourably; and the consciousness of independence
+is the only true felicity in this world of humiliations.
+
+Mr. Harris was now established in Tregunter House, and several parties
+were formed, both at home and abroad, for my amusement. I was consulted
+as the very oracle of fashions; I was gazed at and examined with the
+most inquisitive curiosity. Mrs. Robinson, the promising young actress,
+was a very different personage from Mrs. Robinson who had been
+overwhelmed with sorrows, and came to ask an asylum under the roof of
+vulgar ostentation. I remained only a fortnight in Wales, and then
+returned to London, to prepare for the opening of the theatre.
+
+We stopped at Bath on our way to town, where Mr. Robinson met with Mr.
+George Brereton, with whom, at Newmarket, he had some time before become
+acquainted. Mr. Brereton was a man of fortune, and married to his
+beautiful cousin, the daughter of Major Brereton, then master of the
+ceremonies at Bath. At a former period Mr. Robinson had owed a sum of
+money to Mr. George Brereton, for which he had given a promissory note.
+On our arrival at Bath we received a visit from this creditor, who
+assured Mr. Robinson that he was in no haste for the payment of his
+note, and at the same time very earnestly pressed us to remain a few
+days in that fashionable city. We were in no hurry to return to London,
+having still more than three weeks' holidays. We resided at the "Three
+Tuns," one of the best inns, and Mr. Brereton was on all occasions
+particularly attentive.
+
+The motive of this assiduity was at length revealed to me, by a violent
+and fervent declaration of love, which astonished and perplexed me. I
+knew that Mr. Brereton was of a most impetuous temper; that he had
+fought many duels; that he was capable of any outrage; and that he had
+my husband completely in his power. Every advance which he had the
+temerity to make was by me rejected with indignation. I had not
+resolution to inform Mr. Robinson of his danger, and I thought that the
+only chance of escaping it was to set out immediately for Bristol, where
+I wished to pass a few days, previous to my return to the metropolis.
+
+On the following morning, as we were quitting the inn in Temple Street,
+to visit Clifton, Mr. Robinson was arrested at the suit of Mr. George
+Brereton, who waited himself in an upper room in order to see the writ
+executed. I forget the exact sum for which Mr. Robinson had given his
+promissory note, but I well remember that it was in magnitude beyond his
+power to pay. Our consternation was indescribable.
+
+In a few minutes after, I was informed that a lady wished to speak with
+me. Concluding that it was some old acquaintance, and happy to feel that
+in this perplexing dilemma I had still a friend to speak to, I followed
+the waiter into another room. Mr. Robinson was detained by the
+sheriff's officer.
+
+On entering the apartment, I beheld Mr. Brereton.
+
+"Well, madam," said he, with a sarcastic smile, "you have involved your
+husband in a pretty embarrassment! Had you not been severe toward me,
+not only this paltry debt would have been cancelled, but any sum that I
+could command would have been at his service. He has now either to pay
+me, to fight me, or to go to a prison; and all because you treat me with
+such unexampled rigour."
+
+I entreated him to reflect before he drove me to distraction.
+
+"I have reflected," said he, "and I find that you possess the power to
+do with me what you will. Promise to return to Bath--to behave more
+kindly--and I will this moment discharge your husband."
+
+I burst into tears.
+
+"You cannot be so inhuman as to propose such terms!" said I.
+
+"The inhumanity is on your side," answered Mr. Brereton. "But I have no
+time to lose; I must return to Bath; my wife is dangerously ill; and I
+do not wish to have my name exposed in a business of this nature."
+
+"Then for Heaven's sake release my husband!" said I. Mr. Brereton smiled
+as he rang the bell, and ordered the waiter to look for his carriage. I
+now lost all command of myself, and, with the most severe invective,
+condemned the infamy of his conduct. "I will return to Bath," said I;
+"but it shall be to expose your dishonourable, your barbarous
+machinations. I will inform that lovely wife how treacherously you have
+acted. I will proclaim to the world that the common arts of seduction
+are not sufficiently depraved for the mind of a libertine and a
+gamester."
+
+I uttered these words in so loud a tone of voice that he changed colour,
+and desired me to be discreet and patient.
+
+"Never, while you insult me, and hold my husband in your power," said I.
+"You have carried outrage almost to its fullest extent; you have
+awakened all the pride and all the resentment of my soul, and I will
+proceed as I think proper."
+
+He now endeavoured to soothe me. He assured me that he was actuated by a
+sincere regard for me; and that, knowing how little my husband valued
+me, he thought it would be an act of kindness to estrange me from him.
+"His neglect of you will justify any step you may take," added he; "and
+it is a matter of universal astonishment that you, who upon other
+occasions can act with such becoming spirit, should tamely continue to
+bear such infidelities from a husband." I shuddered; for this plea had,
+in many instances, been urged as an excuse for libertine advances; and
+the indifference with which I was treated was, in the theatre, and in
+all my circle of friends, a subject of conversation.
+
+Distressed beyond the power of utterance at this new humiliation, I
+paced the room with agonising inquietude.
+
+"How little does such a husband deserve such a wife!" continued Mr.
+Brereton; "how tasteless must he be, to leave such a woman for the very
+lowest and most degraded of the sex! Quit him, and fly with me. I am
+ready to make any sacrifice you demand. Shall I propose to Mr. Robinson
+to let you go? Shall I offer him his liberty on condition that he allows
+you to separate yourself from him? By his conduct he proves that he does
+not love you; why then labour to support him?"
+
+I was almost frantic.
+
+"Here, madam," continued Mr. Brereton, after pausing four or five
+minutes, "here is your husband's release." So saying, he threw a written
+paper on the table. "Now," added he, "I rely on your generosity."
+
+I trembled, and was incapable of speaking. Mr. Brereton conjured me to
+compose my spirits, and to conceal my distress from the people of the
+inn. "I will return to Bath," said he. "I shall there expect to see
+you." He now quitted the room. I saw him get into his chaise and drive
+from the inn door. I then hastened to my husband with the discharge; and
+all expenses of the arrest being shortly after settled, we set out
+for Bath.
+
+Mr. Robinson scarcely inquired what had passed; but I assured him that
+my persuasions had produced so sudden a change in Mr. Brereton's
+conduct. I said that I hoped he would never again place his freedom in
+the hands of a gamester, or his wife's repose in the power of a
+libertine. He seemed insensible of the peril attending both the one and
+the other.
+
+Expecting letters by the post, we waited the following day, which was
+Sunday, at Bath; though, in order to avoid Mr. Brereton, we removed to
+the White Lion Inn. But what was my astonishment, in the afternoon,
+when, standing at the window, I saw Mr. George Brereton walking on the
+opposite side of the way, with his wife and her no less lovely sister! I
+now found that the story of her dangerous illness was untrue, and I
+flattered myself that I was not seen before I retired from the window.
+
+We now sat down to dinner, and in a few minutes Mr. George Brereton was
+announced by the waiter. He coldly bowed to me, and instantly made a
+thousand apologies to Mr. Robinson; declared that he had paid the note
+away; that he was menaced for the money; and that he came to Bristol,
+though too late, to prevent the arrest which had happened. Mr. Robinson
+skeptically replied that it was now of little importance; and Mr.
+Brereton took his leave, saying that he should have the honour of seeing
+us again in the evening. We did not wait for his company, but
+immediately after dinner set out for London.
+
+On my arrival in town I saw Mr. Sheridan, whose manner had lost nothing
+of its interesting attention. He continued to visit me very frequently,
+and always gave me the most friendly counsel. He knew that I was not
+properly protected by Mr. Robinson, but he was too generous to build his
+gratification on the detraction of another. The happiest moments I then
+knew were passed in the society of this distinguished being. He saw me
+ill-bestowed upon a man who neither loved nor valued me; he lamented my
+destiny, but with such delicate propriety that it consoled while it
+revealed to me the unhappiness of my situation. On my return to town the
+Duke of Rutland renewed his solicitations. I also received the most
+unbounded professions of esteem and admiration from several other
+persons. Among the list, I was addressed with proposals of libertine
+nature by a royal duke, a lofty marquis, and a city merchant of
+considerable fortune, conveyed through the medium of milliners,
+mantua-makers, etc. Just at this period my eldest brother visited
+England; but such was his unconquerable aversion to my profession as an
+actress, that he only once, during a residence of some months in London,
+attempted to see me perform. He then only attempted it; for, on my
+advancing on the boards, he started from his seat in the stage-box, and
+instantly quitted the theatre. My dear mother had no less a dislike to
+the pursuit; she never beheld me on the stage but with a painful regret.
+Fortunately, my father remained some years out of England, so that he
+never saw me in my professional character.
+
+My popularity increasing every night that I appeared, my prospects, both
+of fame and affluence, began to brighten. We now hired the house which
+is situated between the Hummums and the Bedford Arms, in Covent Garden;
+it had been built (I believe) by Doctor Fisher, who married the widow of
+the celebrated actor Powel; but Mr. Robinson took the premises of Mrs.
+Mattocks, of Covent Garden Theatre. The house was particularly
+convenient in every respect; but, above all, on account of its vicinity
+to Drury Lane. Here I hoped to enjoy, at least, some cheerful days, as I
+found that my circle of friends increased almost hourly.
+
+One of those who paid me most attention was Sir John Lade. The
+good-natured baronet, who was then just of age, was our constant
+visitor, and cards contributed to beguile those evenings that were not
+devoted to dramatic labour. Mr. Robinson played more deeply than was
+discreet, but he was, at the end of a few weeks, a very
+considerable winner.
+
+In proportion as play obtained its influence over my husband's mind, his
+small portion of remaining regard for me visibly decayed. We now had
+horses, a phaeton and ponies; and my fashions in dress were followed
+with flattering avidity. My house was thronged with visitors, and my
+morning levees were crowded so that I could scarcely find a quiet hour
+for study. My brother by this time had returned to Italy.
+
+Mr. Sheridan was still my most esteemed of friends. He advised me with
+the gentlest anxiety, and he warned me of the danger which expense would
+produce, and which might interrupt the rising progress of my dramatic
+reputation. He saw the trophies which flattery strewed in my way; and he
+lamented that I was on every side surrounded with temptations. There was
+a something beautifully sympathetic in every word he uttered; his
+admonitions seemed as if dictated by a prescient power, which told him
+that I was destined to be deceived!
+
+Situated as I was at this time, the effort was difficult to avoid the
+society of Mr. Sheridan. He was manager of the theatre. I could not
+avoid seeing and conversing with him at rehearsals and behind the
+scenes, and his conversation was always such as to fascinate and charm
+me. The brilliant reputation which he had justly acquired for superior
+talents, and the fame which was completed by his celebrated "School for
+Scandal," had now rendered him so admired, that all ranks of people
+courted his society. The greenroom was frequented by nobility and men of
+genius; among these were Mr. Fox[32] and the Earl of Derby. The stage
+was now enlightened by the very best critics, and embellished by the
+very highest talents; and it is not a little remarkable that the drama
+was uncommonly productive, the theatre more than usually attended,
+during that season when the principal dramatic characters were performed
+by women under the age of twenty. Among these were Miss Farren (now Lady
+Derby), Miss Walpole (now Mrs. Atkins), Miss P. Hopkins (now Mrs. John
+Kemble), and myself.
+
+I had then been married more than four years; my daughter Maria
+Elizabeth was nearly three years old. I had been then seen and known at
+all public places from the age of fifteen; yet I knew as little of the
+world's deceptions as though I had been educated in the deserts of
+Siberia. I believed every woman friendly, every man sincere, till I
+discovered proofs that their characters were deceptive.
+
+I had now performed two seasons, in tragedy and comedy, with Miss Farren
+and the late Mr. Henderson. My first appearance in Palmira (in
+"Mahomet") was with the Zaphna of Mr. J. Bannister, the preceding year;
+and though the extraordinary comic powers of this excellent actor and
+amiable man have established his reputation as a comedian, his first
+essay in tragedy was considered as a night of the most distinguished
+promise. The Duchess of Devonshire still honoured me with her patronage
+and friendship, and I also possessed the esteem of several respectable
+and distinguished females.
+
+The play of "The Winter's Tale" was this season commanded by their
+Majesties.[33] I never had performed before the royal family; and the
+first character in which I was destined to appear was that of Perdita. I
+had frequently played the part, both with the Hermione of Mrs. Hartley
+and of Miss Farren: but I felt a strange degree of alarm when I found my
+name announced to perform it before the royal family.[34]
+
+In the greenroom I was rallied on the occasion; and Mr. Smith,[35] whose
+gentlemanly manners and enlightened conversation rendered him an
+ornament to the profession, who performed the part of Leontes,
+laughingly exclaimed, "By Jove, Mrs. Robinson, you will make a conquest
+of the prince, for to-night you look handsomer than ever." I smiled at
+the unmerited compliment, and little foresaw the vast variety of events
+that would arise from that night's exhibition!
+
+As I stood in the wing opposite the prince's box, waiting to go on the
+stage, Mr. Ford, the manager's son, and now a respectable defender of
+the laws, presented a friend who accompanied him; this friend was Lord
+Viscount Malden, now Earl of Essex.[36]
+
+We entered into conversation during a few minutes, the Prince of Wales
+all the time observing us, and frequently speaking to Colonel (now
+General) Lake, and to the Honourable Mr. Legge, brother to Lord
+Lewisham, who was in waiting on his Royal Highness. I hurried through
+the first scene, not without much embarrassment, owing to the fixed
+attention with which the Prince of Wales honoured me. Indeed, some
+flattering remarks which were made by his Royal Highness met my ear as I
+stood near his box, and I was overwhelmed with confusion.
+
+The prince's particular attention was observed by every one, and I was
+again rallied at the end of the play. On the last curtsey, the royal
+family condescendingly returned a bow to the performers; but just as the
+curtain was falling my eyes met those of the Prince of Wales, and with a
+look that I never shall forget, he gently inclined his head a second
+time; I felt the compliment, and blushed my gratitude.
+
+During the entertainment Lord Malden never ceased conversing with me. He
+was young, pleasing, and perfectly accomplished. He remarked the
+particular applause which the prince had bestowed on my performance;
+said a thousand civil things; and detained me in conversation till the
+evening's performance was concluded.
+
+I was now going to my chair, which waited, when I met the royal family
+crossing the stage. I was again honoured with a very marked and low bow
+from the Prince of Wales. On my return home, I had a party to supper;
+and the whole conversation centred in encomiums on the person, graces,
+and amiable manners of the illustrious heir-apparent.
+
+Within two or three days of this time, Lord Malden made me a morning
+visit. Mr. Robinson was not at home, and I received him rather
+awkwardly. But his lordship's embarrassment far exceeded mine. He
+attempted to speak--paused, hesitated, apologised; I knew not why. He
+hoped I would pardon him; that I would not mention something he had to
+communicate; that I would consider the peculiar delicacy of his
+situation, and then act as I thought proper. I could not comprehend his
+meaning, and therefore requested that he would be explicit.
+
+After some moments of evident rumination, he tremblingly drew a small
+letter from his pocket. I took it, and knew not what to say. It was
+addressed to Perdita. I smiled, I believe rather sarcastically, and
+opened the _billet_. It contained only a few words, but those
+expressive of more than common civility; they were signed Florizel.[37]
+
+"Well, my lord, and what does this mean?" said I, half angry.
+
+"Can you not guess the writer?" said Lord Malden.
+
+"Perhaps yourself, my lord," cried I, gravely.
+
+"Upon my honour, no," said the viscount. "I should not have dared so to
+address you on so short an acquaintance."
+
+I pressed him to tell me from whom the letter came. He again hesitated;
+he seemed confused, and sorry that he had undertaken to deliver it.
+
+"I hope that I shall not forfeit your good opinion," said he; "but--"
+
+"But what, my lord?"
+
+"I could not refuse--for the letter is from the Prince of Wales."
+
+I was astonished; I confess that I was agitated; but I was also somewhat
+skeptical as to the truth of Lord Malden's assertion. I returned a
+formal and a doubtful answer, and his lordship shortly after took
+his leave.
+
+A thousand times did I read this short but expressive letter. Still I
+did not implicitly believe that it was written by the prince; I rather
+considered it as an experiment made by Lord Malden, either on my vanity
+or propriety of conduct. On the next evening the viscount repeated his
+visit. We had a card-party of six or seven, and the Prince of Wales was
+again the subject of unbounded panegyric. Lord Malden spoke of his Royal
+Highness's manners as the most polished and fascinating; of his temper
+as the most engaging; and of his mind, the most replete with every
+amiable sentiment. I heard these praises, and my heart beat with
+conscious pride, while memory turned to the partial but delicately
+respectful letter which I had received on the preceding morning.
+
+The next day Lord Malden brought me a second letter. He assured me that
+the prince was most unhappy lest I should be offended at his conduct,
+and that he conjured me to go that night to the Oratorio, [38] where he
+would by some signal convince me that he was the writer of the letters,
+supposing I was still skeptical as to their authenticity.
+
+I went to the Oratorio; and, on taking my seat in the balcony-box, the
+prince almost instantaneously observed me. He held the printed bill
+before his face, and drew his hand across his forehead, still fixing his
+eyes on me. I was confused, and knew not what to do. My husband was with
+me, and I was fearful of his observing what passed. Still the prince
+continued to make signs, such as moving his hand on the edge of the box
+as if writing, then speaking to the Duke of York[39] (then Bishop of
+Osnaburg), who also looked toward me with particular attention.
+
+I now observed one of the gentlemen in waiting bring the prince a glass
+of water; before he raised it to his lips he looked at me. So marked was
+his Royal Highness's conduct that many of the audience observed it;
+several persons in the pit directed their gaze at the place where I sat;
+and, on the following day, one of the diurnal prints observed that there
+was one passage in Dryden's Ode which seemed particularly interesting to
+the Prince of Wales, who--
+        "Gazed on the fair
+        Who caused his care,
+      And sigh'd, and look'd, and sigh'd again."[40]
+
+However flattering it might have been to female vanity to know that the
+most admired and most accomplished prince in Europe was devotedly
+attached to me; however dangerous to the heart such idolatry as his
+Royal Highness, during many months, professed in almost daily letters,
+which were conveyed to me by Lord Malden, still I declined any interview
+with his Royal Highness. I was not insensible to all his powers of
+attraction; I thought him one of the most amiable of men. There was a
+beautiful ingenuousness in his language, a warm and enthusiastic
+adoration, expressed in every letter, which interested and charmed me.
+During the whole spring, till the theatre closed, this correspondence
+continued, every day giving me some new assurance of inviolable
+affection.
+
+After we had corresponded some months without ever speaking to each
+other (for I still declined meeting his Royal Highness, from a dread of
+the _eclat_ which such a connection would produce, and the fear of
+injuring him in the opinion of his royal relatives), I received, through
+the hands of Lord Malden, the prince's portrait in miniature, painted by
+the late Mr. Meyer. This picture is now in my possession. Within the
+case was a small heart cut in paper, which I also have; on one side was
+written, _"Je ne change qu'en mourant;"_ on the other, "Unalterable to
+my Perdita through life."
+
+During many months of confidential correspondence, I always offered his
+Royal Highness the best advice in my power; I disclaimed every sordid
+and interested thought; I recommended him to be patient till he should
+become his own master; to wait till he knew more of my mind and manners,
+before he engaged in a public attachment to me; and, above all, to do
+nothing that might incur the displeasure of his Royal Highness's family.
+I entreated him to recollect that he was young, and led on by the
+impetuosity of passion; that should I consent to quit my profession and
+my husband, I should be thrown entirely on his mercy. I strongly
+pictured the temptations to which beauty would expose him; the many arts
+that would be practised to undermine me in his affections; the public
+abuse which calumny and envy would heap upon me; and the misery I should
+suffer, if, after I had given him every proof of confidence, he should
+change in his sentiments toward me. To all this I received repeated
+assurances of inviolable affection; and I most firmly believe that his
+Royal Highness meant what he professed--indeed, his soul was too
+ingenuous, his mind too liberal, and his heart too susceptible, to
+deceive premeditatedly, or to harbour even for a moment the idea of
+deliberate deception.
+
+At every interview with Lord Maiden I perceived that he regretted the
+task he had undertaken; but he assured me that the prince was almost
+frantic whenever he suggested a wish to decline interfering. Once I
+remember his lordship's telling me that the late Duke of Cumberland had
+made him a visit early in the morning, at his house in Clarges Street,
+informing him that the prince was most wretched on my account, and
+imploring him to continue his services only a short time longer. The
+prince's establishment was then in agitation; at this period his Royal
+Highness still resided in Buckingham House.
+
+A proposal was now made that I should meet his Royal Highness at his
+apartments, in the disguise of male attire. I was accustomed to perform
+in that dress, and the prince had seen me, I believe, in the character
+of the Irish Widow. To this plan I decidedly objected. The indelicacy of
+such a step, as well as the danger of detection, made me shrink from the
+proposal. My refusal threw his Royal Highness into the most distressing
+agitation, as was expressed by the letter which I received on the
+following morning. Lord Malden again lamented that he had engaged
+himself in the intercourse, and declared that he had himself conceived
+so violent a passion for me that he was the most miserable and
+unfortunate of mortals.
+
+During this period, though Mr. Robinson was a stranger to my epistolary
+intercourse with the prince, his conduct was entirely neglectful. He was
+perfectly careless respecting my fame and my repose; passed his leisure
+hours with the most abandoned women, and even my own servants complained
+of his illicit advances. I remember one, who was plain even to ugliness;
+she was short, ill-made, squalid, and dirty; once, on my return from a
+rehearsal, I found that this woman was locked with my husband in my
+chamber. I also knew that Mr. Robinson continued his connection with a
+female who lodged in Maiden Lane, and who was only one of the few that
+proved his domestic apostacy.
+
+His indifference naturally produced an alienation of esteem on my side,
+and the increasing adoration of the most enchanting of mortals hourly
+reconciled my mind to the idea of a separation. The unbounded assurances
+of lasting affection which I received from his Royal Highness in many
+scores of the most eloquent letters, the contempt which I experienced
+from my husband, and the perpetual labour which I underwent for his
+support, at length began to weary my fortitude. Still I was reluctant to
+become the theme of public animadversion, and still I remonstrated with
+my husband on the unkindness of his conduct.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_[The narrative of Mrs. Robinson closes here.]_
+
+
+
+
+CONTINUATION
+
+BY A FRIEND
+
+
+Among those persons who have at various periods attracted the attention
+of the public, there are few whose virtues have been so little known, or
+whose characters have been so unfairly estimated, as the subject of the
+preceding memoir. To compress within narrow limits the numerous
+circumstances by which the later years of Mrs. Robinson's life were
+chequered, will be a task of no little difficulty. The earlier periods
+of her existence, rendered more interesting as narrated by her own pen,
+have doubtlessly been justly appreciated by the reflecting and candid
+reader, whose sympathy they could not fail to awaken. That she lived not
+to conclude the history of a life scarcely less eventful than
+unfortunate, cannot but afford a subject of sincere regret.
+
+The conflicts which shook the mind, and the passions which succeeded to
+each other in the breast of Mrs. Robinson, at the period when her
+narrative closes, a crisis perhaps the most important in her life, may
+be more easily conceived than described. A laborious though captivating
+profession, the profits of which were unequal to the expenses of her
+establishment, and the assiduities of her illustrious lover, to whom she
+naturally looked for protection, combined to divide her attention and
+bewilder her inexperienced mind. The partiality of her royal admirer had
+begun to excite observation, to awaken curiosity, and to provoke the
+malignant passions which, under an affected concern for decorum, assumed
+the guise of virtue. The daily prints teemed with hints of the favour of
+Mrs. Robinson with "one whose manners were resistless, and whose smile
+was victory." These circumstances, added to the constant devoirs of Lord
+Malden, whose attentions were as little understood as maliciously
+interpreted, conspired to distract a young creature, whose exposed
+situation, whose wavering and unformed character, rendered her but too
+obnoxious to a thousand errors and perils.
+
+To terminate her correspondence with the prince appeared the most
+painful remedy that could be adopted by a heart fascinated with his
+accomplishments, and soothed by his professions of inviolable
+attachment. She was aware that, in the eye of the world, the reputation
+of the wife is supposed unsullied, while the husband, enduring passively
+his dishonour, gives to her the sanction of his protection. The circles
+of fashion afforded more than one instance of this obliging acquiescence
+in matrimonial turpitude. Could Mrs. Robinson have reconciled it to her
+own feelings to remain under the roof of her husband, whose protection
+she had forfeited, and to add insult to infidelity, the attentions of
+her illustrious admirer might have given to her popularity an additional
+_eclat_. Neither might her husband have suffered in his worldly
+prospects, from being to the motives of his royal visitor a little
+complaisantly blind. But her ingenuous nature would not permit her to
+render the man for whom she had once felt an affection an object of
+ridicule and contempt. She determined, therefore, to brave the world,
+and, for a support against its censures, to rely on the protection and
+friendship of him to whom she sacrificed its respect.
+
+The managers of Drury Lane Theatre, suspecting that Mrs. Robinson
+purposed, at the conclusion of the season, to withdraw from the stage,
+omitted no means that might tend to induce her to renew her engagements.
+With this view, they offered a considerable advance to her salary, while
+to their solicitations she returned undecisive answers. Hourly rising in
+a profession to which she was enthusiastically attached, the public
+plaudits, which her appearance never failed to excite, were too
+gratifying to be relinquished without regret.
+
+During this irresolution she was persecuted by numerous anonymous
+letters, which she continued to treat with derision or contempt. The
+correspondence between Mrs. Robinson and the prince had hitherto been
+merely epistolary. This intercourse had lasted several months, Mrs.
+Robinson not having acquired sufficient courage to venture a personal
+interview, and bid defiance to the reproaches of the world.
+
+At length, after many alternations of feeling, an interview with her
+royal lover was consented to by Mrs. Robinson, and proposed, by the
+management of Lord Malden, to take place at his lordship's residence in
+Dean Street, Mayfair. But the restricted situation of the prince,
+controlled by a rigid tutor, rendered this project of difficult
+execution. A visit to Buckingham House was then mentioned; to which Mrs.
+Robinson positively objected, as a rash attempt, abounding in peril to
+her august admirer. Lord Maiden being again consulted, it was determined
+that the prince should meet Mrs. Robinson for a few moments at Kew,[41]
+on the banks of the Thames, opposite to the old palace, then the summer
+residence of the elder princes. For an account of this incident, an
+extract from a letter of Mrs. Robinson, written some years afterward, to
+a valued and since deceased friend, who during the period of these
+events resided in America, may not be unacceptable to the reader. The
+date of this letter is in 1783.
+
+[Illustration: The First Meeting of Mrs. Robinson and the Prince of
+Wales Original etching by Adrien Marcel]
+
+"At length an evening was fixed for this long-dreaded interview. Lord
+Maiden and myself dined at the inn on the island between Kew and
+Brentford. We waited the signal for crossing the river in a boat which
+had been engaged for the purpose. Heaven can witness how many conflicts
+my agitated heart endured at this most important moment! I admired the
+prince; I felt grateful for his affection. He was the most engaging of
+created beings. I had corresponded with him during many months, and his
+eloquent letters, the exquisite sensibility which breathed through every
+line, his ardent professions of adoration, had combined to shake my
+feeble resolution. The handkerchief was waved on the opposite shore; but
+the signal was, by the dusk of the evening, rendered almost
+imperceptible. Lord Maiden took my hand, I stepped into the boat, and in
+a few minutes we landed before the iron gates of old Kew Palace. The
+interview was but of a moment. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York
+(then Bishop of Osnaburg) were walking down the avenue. They hastened to
+meet us. A few words, and those scarcely articulate, were uttered by the
+prince, when a noise of people approaching from the palace startled us.
+The moon was now rising; and the idea of being overheard, or of his
+Royal Highness being seen out at so unusual an hour, terrified the whole
+group. After a few more words of the most affectionate nature uttered by
+the prince, we parted, and Lord Maiden and myself returned to the
+island. The prince never quitted the avenue, nor the presence of the
+Duke of York, during the whole of this short meeting. Alas! my friend,
+if my mind was before influenced by esteem, it was now awakened to the,
+most enthusiastic admiration. The rank of the prince no longer chilled
+into awe that being who now considered him as the lover and the friend.
+The graces of his person, the irresistible sweetness of his smile, the
+tenderness of his melodious yet manly voice, will be remembered by me
+till every vision of this changing scene shall be forgotten.
+
+"Many and frequent were the interviews which afterward took place at
+this romantic spot; our walks sometimes continued till past midnight;
+the Duke of York and Lord Malden were always of the party; our
+conversation was composed of general topics. The prince had from his
+infancy been wholly secluded, and naturally took much pleasure in
+conversing about the busy world, its manners and pursuits, characters
+and scenery. Nothing could be more delightful or more rational than our
+midnight perambulations. I always wore a dark coloured habit, the rest
+of our party generally wrapped themselves in greatcoats to disguise
+them, excepting the Duke of York, who almost universally alarmed us by
+the display of a buff coat, the most conspicuous colour he could have
+selected for an adventure of this nature. The polished and fascinating
+ingenuousness of his Royal Highness's manners contributed not a little
+to enliven our promenades. He sung with exquisite taste, and the tones
+of his voice breaking on the silence of the night have often appeared to
+my entranced senses like more than mortal melody. Often have I lamented
+the distance which destiny had placed between us. How would my soul have
+idolised such a husband! Alas! how often, in the ardent enthusiasm of my
+soul, have I formed the wish that that being were mine alone! to whom
+partial millions were to look up for protection.
+
+"The Duke of York was now on the eve of quitting the country for
+Hanover; the prince was also on the point of receiving his first
+establishment; and the apprehension that his attachment to a married
+woman might injure his Royal Highness in the opinion of the world
+rendered the caution which we invariably observed of the utmost
+importance. A considerable time elapsed in these delightful scenes of
+visionary happiness. The prince's attachment seemed to increase daily,
+and I considered myself as the most blest of human beings. During some
+time we had enjoyed our meetings in the neighbourhood of Kew, and I note
+only looked forward to the adjusting of his Royal Highness's
+establishment for the public avowal of our mutual attachment.
+
+"I had relinquished my profession. The last night of my appearance on
+the stage, I represented the character of Sir Harry Revel, in the comedy
+of 'The Miniature Picture,' written by Lady Craven,[42] and 'The Irish
+Widow.' On entering the greenroom, I informed Mr. Moody, who played in
+the farce, that I should appear no more after that night; and,
+endeavouring to smile while I sung, I repeated,--
+      'Oh joy to you all in full measure,
+      So wishes and prays Widow Brady!'
+which were the last lines of my song in 'The Irish Widow.' This effort
+to conceal the emotion I felt on quitting a profession I
+enthusiastically loved was of short duration, and I burst into tears on
+my appearance. My regret at recollecting that I was treading for the
+last time the boards where I had so often received the must gratifying
+testimonies of public approbation; where mental exertion had been
+emboldened by private worth; that I was flying from a happy certainty,
+perhaps to pursue the phantom disappointment, nearly overwhelmed my
+faculties, and for some time deprived me of the power of articulation.
+Fortunately, the person on the stage with me had to begin the scene,
+which allowed me time to collect myself. I went, however, mechanically
+dull through the business of the evening, and, notwithstanding the
+cheering expressions and applause of the audience, I was several times
+near fainting.
+
+"The daily prints now indulged the malice of my enemies by the most
+scandalous paragraphs respecting the Prince of Wales and myself. I found
+it was now too late to stop the hourly augmenting torrent of abuse that
+was poured upon me from all quarters. Whenever I appeared in public, I
+was overwhelmed by the gazing of the multitude. I was frequently obliged
+to quit Ranelagh, owing to the crowd which staring curiosity had
+assembled around my box; and, even in the streets of the metropolis, I
+scarcely ventured to enter a shop without experiencing the greatest
+inconvenience. Many hours have I waited till the crowd dispersed which
+surrounded my carriage, in expectation of my quitting the shop. I cannot
+suppress a smile at the absurdity of such proceeding, when I remember
+that, during nearly three seasons, I was almost every night upon the
+stage, and that I had then been near five years with Mr. Robinson at
+every fashionable place of entertainment. You, my dear sir, in your
+quiet haunts of transatlantic simplicity, will find some difficulty in
+reconciling these things to your mind--these unaccountable instances of
+national absurdity. Yet, so it is. I am well assured that, were a being
+possessed of more than human endowments to visit this country, it would
+experience indifference, if not total neglect, while a less worthy
+mortal might be worshipped as the idol of its day, if whispered into
+notoriety by the comments of the multitude. But, thank Heaven! my heart
+was not formed in the mould of callous effrontery. I shuddered at the
+gulf before me, and felt small gratification in the knowledge of having
+taken a step, which many who condemned would have been no less willing
+to imitate had they been placed in the same situation.
+
+"Previous to my first interview with his Royal Highness, in one of his
+letters I was astonished to find a bond of the most solemn and binding
+nature containing a promise of the sum of twenty thousand pounds, to be
+paid at the period of his Royal Highness's coming of age.
+
+"This paper was signed by the prince, and sealed with the royal arms. It
+was expressed in terms so liberal, so voluntary, so marked by true
+affection, that I had scarcely power to read it. My tears, excited by
+the most agonising conflicts, obscured the letters, and nearly blotted
+out those sentiments which will be impressed upon my mind till the
+latest period of my existence. Still, I felt shocked and mortified at
+the indelicate idea of entering into any pecuniary engagements with a
+prince, on whose establishment I relied for the enjoyment of all that
+would render life desirable. I was surprised at receiving it; the idea
+of interest had never entered my mind. Secure in the possession of his
+heart, I had in that delightful certainty counted all my future
+treasure. I had refused many splendid gifts which his Royal Highness had
+proposed ordering for me at Grey's and other jewellers. The prince
+presented to me a few trifling ornaments, in the whole their value not
+exceeding one hundred guineas. Even these, on our separation, I returned
+to his Royal Highness through the hands of General Lake.
+
+"The period now approached that was to destroy all the fairy visions
+which had filled my mind with dreams of happiness. At the moment when
+everything was preparing for his Royal Highness's establishment, when I
+looked impatiently for the arrival of that day in which I might behold
+my adored friend gracefully receiving the acclamations of his future
+subjects, when I might enjoy the public protection of that being for
+whom I gave up all, I received a letter from his Royal Highness, a cold
+and unkind letter--briefly informing me that 'we must meet no more!'
+
+"And now, my friend, suffer me to call God to witness, that I was
+unconscious why this decision had taken place in his Royal Highness's
+mind. Only two days previous to this letter being written I had seen the
+prince at Kew, and his affection appeared to be boundless as it was
+undiminished.
+
+"Amazed, afflicted, beyond the power of utterance, I wrote immediately
+to his Royal Highness, requiring an explanation. He remained silent.
+Again I wrote, but received no elucidation of this most cruel and
+extraordinary mystery. The prince was then at Windsor. I set out in a
+small pony phaeton, wretched, and unaccompanied by any one except my
+postilion (a child of nine years of age). It was near dark when we
+quitted Hyde Park Corner. On my arrival at Hounslow the innkeeper
+informed me that every carriage which had passed the heath for the last
+ten nights had been attacked and rifled. I confess the idea of personal
+danger had no terrors for my mind in the state it then was, and the
+possibility of annihilation, divested of the crime of suicide,
+encouraged rather than diminished my determination of proceeding. We had
+scarcely reached the middle of the heath when my horses were startled by
+the sudden appearance of a man rushing from the side of the road. The
+boy, on perceiving him, instantly spurred his pony, and, by a sudden
+bound of our light vehicle, the ruffian missed his grasp at the front
+rein. We now proceeded at full speed, while the footpad ran endeavouring
+to overtake us. At length, my horses fortunately outrunning the
+perseverance of the assailant, we reached the first 'Magpie,' a small
+inn on the heath, in safety. The alarm which, in spite of my resolution,
+this adventure had created, was augmented on my recollecting, for the
+first time, that I had then in my black stock a brilliant stud of very
+considerable value, which could only have been possessed by the robber
+by strangling the wearer.
+
+"If my heart palpitated with joy at my escape from assassination, a
+circumstance soon after occurred that did not tend to quiet my emotion.
+This was the appearance of Mr. H. Meynell and Mrs. A----. My foreboding
+soul instantly beheld a rival, and, with jealous eagerness, interpreted
+the hitherto inexplicable conduct of the prince from his having
+frequently expressed his wish to know that lady.
+
+"On my arrival the prince would not see me. My agonies were now
+undescribable. I consulted with Lord Malden and the Duke of Dorset,
+whose honourable mind and truly disinterested friendship had on many
+occasions been exemplified toward me. They were both at a loss to divine
+any cause of this sudden change in the prince's feelings. The Prince of
+Wales had hitherto assiduously sought opportunities to distinguish me
+more publicly than was prudent in his Royal Highness's situation. This
+was in the month of August. On the 4th of the preceding June I went, by
+his desire, into the chamberlain's box at the birthnight ball; the
+distressing observation of the circle was drawn toward the part of the
+box in which I sat by the marked and injudicious attentions of his Royal
+Highness. I had not been arrived many minutes before I witnessed a
+singular species of fashionable coquetry. Previous to his Highness's
+beginning his minuet, I perceived a woman of high rank select from the
+bouquet which she wore two rosebuds, which she gave to the prince, as he
+afterward informed me, emblematical of herself and him.' I observed his
+Royal Highness immediately beckon to a nobleman, who has since formed a
+part of his establishment, and, looking most earnestly at me, whisper a
+few words, at the same time presenting to him his newly acquired trophy.
+In a few moments Lord C---- entered the chamberlain's box, and, giving
+the rosebuds into my hands, informed me that he was commissioned by the
+prince to do so. I placed them in my bosom, and, I confess, felt proud
+of the power by which I thus publicly mortified an exalted rival. His
+Royal Highness now avowedly distinguished me at all public places of
+entertainment, at the king's hunt near Windsor, at the reviews, and at
+the theatres. The prince only seemed happy in evincing his affection
+toward me.
+
+"How terrible, then, was the change to my feelings! And I again most
+solemnly repeat that I was totally ignorant of any just cause fur so
+sudden an alteration.
+
+"My 'good-natured friends' now carefully informed me of the multitude of
+secret enemies who were ever employed in estranging the prince's mind
+from me. So fascinating, so illustrious a lover could not fail to excite
+the envy of my own sex. Women of all descriptions were emulous of
+attracting his Royal Highness's attention. Alas! I had neither rank nor
+power to oppose such adversaries. Every engine of female malice was set
+in motion to destroy my repose, and every petty calumny was repeated
+with tenfold embellishments. Tales of the most infamous and glaring
+falsehood were invented, and I was again assailed by pamphlets, by
+paragraphs, and caricatures, and all the artillery of slander, while the
+only being to whom I then looked up for protection was so situated as to
+be unable to afford it.
+
+"Thus perplexed, I wrote to you, my friend, and implored your advice.
+But you were far away; your delighted soul was absorbed in cherishing
+the plant of human liberty, which has since blossomed with independent
+splendour over your happy provinces. Eagerly did I wait for the arrival
+of the packet, but no answer was returned. In the anguish of my soul I
+once more addressed the Prince of Wales; I complained, perhaps too
+vehemently, of his injustice; of the calumnies which had been by my
+enemies fabricated against me, of the falsehood of which he was but too
+sensible. I conjured him to render me justice. He did so; he wrote me a
+most eloquent letter, disclaiming the causes alleged by a calumniating
+world, and fully acquitting me of the charges which had been propagated
+to destroy me.
+
+"I resided now in Cork Street, Burlington Gardens. The house, which was
+neat, but by no means splendid, had recently been fitted up for the
+reception of the Countess of Derby, on her separation from her lord. My
+situation now every hour became more irksome. The prince still unkindly
+persisted in withdrawing himself from my society. I was now deeply
+involved in debt, which I despaired of ever having the power to
+discharge. I had quitted both my husband and my profession. The
+retrospect was dreadful!
+
+"My estrangement from the prince was now the theme of public
+animadversion, while the newly invigorated shafts of my old enemies, the
+daily prints, were again hurled upon my defenceless head with tenfold
+fury. The regrets of Mr. Robinson, now that he had lost me, became
+insupportable; he constantly wrote to me in the language of unbounded
+affection, nor did he fail, when we met, to express his agony at our
+separation, and even a wish for our reunion.
+
+"I had, at one period, resolved on returning to my profession; but some
+friends whom I consulted dreaded that the public would not suffer my
+reappearance on the stage. This idea intimidated me, and precluded my
+efforts for that independence of which my romantic credulity had robbed
+me. I was thus fatally induced to relinquish what would have proved an
+ample and honourable resource for myself and my child. My debts
+accumulated to near seven thousand pounds. My creditors, whose insulting
+illiberality could only be equalled by their unbounded impositions,
+hourly assailed me.
+
+"I was, in the meantime, wholly neglected by the prince, while the
+assiduities of Lord Malden daily increased. I had no other friend on
+whom I could rely for assistance or protection. When I say protection, I
+would not be understood to mean pecuniary assistance, Lord Mailden
+being, at the time alluded to, even poorer than myself,--the death of
+his lordship's grandmother, Lady Frances Coningsby, had not then placed
+him above the penury of his own small income.
+
+"Lord Maiden's attentions to me again exposed him to all the humiliation
+of former periods. The prince assured me once more of his wishes to
+renew our former friendship and affection, and urged me to meet him at
+the house of Lord Malden in Clarges Street. I was at this period little
+less than frantic, deeply involved in debt, persecuted by my enemies,
+and perpetually reproached by my relations. I would joyfully have
+resigned an existence now become to me an intolerable burthen; yet my
+pride was not less than my sorrow, and I resolved, whatever my heart
+might suffer, to wear a placid countenance when I met the inquiring
+glances of my triumphant enemies.
+
+"After much hesitation, by the advice of Lord Malden, I consented to
+meet his Royal Highness. He accosted me with every appearance of tender
+attachment, declaring that he had never for one moment ceased to love
+me, but that I had many concealed enemies, who were exerting every
+effort to undermine me. We passed some hours in the most friendly and
+delightful conversation, and I began to flatter myself that all our
+differences were adjusted. But what words can express my surprise and
+chagrin, when, on meeting his Royal Highness the very next day in Hyde
+Park, he turned his head to avoid seeing me, and even affected not
+to know me!
+
+"Overwhelmed by this blow, my distress knew no limits. Yet Heaven can
+witness the truth of my assertion, even in this moment of complete
+despair, when oppression bowed me to the earth, I blamed not the prince.
+I did then, and ever shall, consider his mind as nobly and honourably
+organised, nor could I teach myself to believe that a heart, the seat of
+so many virtues, could possibly become inhuman and unjust. I had been
+taught from my infancy to believe that elevated stations are surrounded
+by delusive visions, which glitter but to dazzle, like an unsubstantial
+meteor, and flatter to betray. With legions of these phantoms it has
+been my fate to encounter; I have been unceasingly marked by their
+persecutions, and shall at length become their victim."
+
+[Illustration: Mrs. Robinson From a painting by Gainsborough]
+
+Here the narrative of Mrs. Robinson breaks off, with some reflections to
+which the recital had given rise. Though diligent search has been made
+to elucidate the obscurity in which the preceding events are involved,
+but little information has been gained. All that can be learned with
+certainty is her final separation from the Prince of Wales in the
+year 1781.
+
+The genius and engaging manners of Mrs. Robinson, who was still very
+young, had procured her the friendship of many of the most enlightened
+men of this age and country; her house was the rendezvous of talents.
+While yet unconscious of the powers of her mind, which had scarcely then
+unfolded itself, she was honoured with the acquaintance and esteem of
+Sir Joshua Reynolds, Messrs. Sheridan, Burke, Henderson, Wilkes, Sir
+John Elliot, etc., men of distinguished talents and character. But
+though surrounded by the wise, the witty, and the gay, her mind,
+naturally pensive, was still devoured by secret sorrow; neither could
+the blandishments of flattery, nor the soothings of friendship, extract
+the arrow that rankled in her heart. Involved beyond the power of
+extrication, she determined on quitting England, and making a tour
+to Paris.
+
+To desert her country, to fly like a wretched fugitive, or to become a
+victim to the malice, and swell the triumph of her enemies, were the
+only alternatives that seemed to present themselves. Flight was
+humiliating and dreadful, but to remain in England was impracticable.
+The terrors and struggles of her mind became almost intolerable, and
+nearly deprived her of reason. The establishment of the prince had now
+taken place; to him, for whom she had made every sacrifice, and to whom
+she owed her present embarrassments, she conceived herself entitled to
+appeal for redress. She wrote to his Royal Highness, but her letter
+remained unanswered. The business was at length submitted to the
+arbitration of Mr. Fox, and, in 1783, her claims were adjusted by the
+grant of an annuity of five hundred pounds, the moiety of which was to
+descend to her daughter at her decease. This settlement was to be
+considered as an equivalent for the bond of twenty thousand pounds given
+by the prince to Mrs. Robinson, to be paid on his establishment, as a
+consideration for the resignation of a lucrative profession at the
+particular request of his Royal Highness. To many persons the assurance
+of an independence would have operated as a consolation for the
+sufferings and difficulties by which it had been procured; but the
+spirit of Mrs. Robinson bent not to a situation which the delicacy of
+her feelings led her to consider as a splendid degradation.
+
+About this period, Mrs. Robinson, notwithstanding the change in her
+affairs, determined to visit Paris, to amuse her mind and beguile her
+thoughts from the recollection of past scenes. Having procured letters
+of introduction to some agreeable French families, and also to Sir John
+Lambert, resident English banker at Paris, she quitted London, with the
+resolution of passing two months in the gay and brilliant metropolis of
+France. Sir John Lambert, on being informed of her arrival, exerted
+himself to procure for her commodious apartments, a _remise_, a box at
+the opera, with all the fashionable and expensive etceteras with which
+an inexperienced English traveller is immediately provided.
+
+This venerable chevalier united to the cordiality of the English
+character the _bienfaisance_ of a Frenchman; every hour was devoted to
+the amusement of his admired guest, who came to him highly recommended.
+Parties were, with the most flattering assiduity, formed for the
+different spectacles and places of public entertainment. A brilliant
+assemblage of illustrious visitors failed not to grace at the opera the
+box of _la belle Anglaise_.
+
+A short time after the arrival of Mrs. Robinson at Paris, the Duke of
+Orleans and his gallant friend and associate, the Duke de Lauzun
+(afterward Duke de Biron), were presented to her by Sir John Lambert.
+This unfortunate prince, with all the volatility of the national
+character, disgraced human nature by his vices, while the elegance of
+his manners rendered him a model to his contemporaries.
+
+The Duke of Orleans immediately professed himself devoted to the fair
+stranger. His libertine manners, the presumption with which he declared
+his determination to triumph over the heart of Mrs. Robinson, assisted
+to defend her against him; and, while he failed to dazzle her
+imagination by his magnificence, he disgusted her by his hauteur.
+
+The most enchanting fetes were given at Mousseau, a villa belonging to
+the Duke of Orleans. near Paris, at which Mrs. Robinson invariably
+declined to appear. Brilliant races _a l'Anglaise_ were exhibited on the
+plains _des Sablons_, to captivate the attention of the inexorable
+_Anglaise_. On the birthday of Mrs. Robinson a new effort was made to
+subdue her aversion and to obtain her regard. A rural fete was appointed
+in the gardens of Mousseau, when this beautiful pandemonium of splendid
+profligacy was, at an unusual expense, decorated with boundless luxury.
+
+In the evening, amidst a magnificent illumination, every tree displayed
+the initials of _la belle Anglaise_, composed of coloured lamps,
+interwoven with wreaths of artificial flowers. Politeness compelled Mrs.
+Robinson to grace with her presence a fete instituted to her honour.
+She, however, took the precaution of selecting for her companion a
+German lady, then resident at Paris, while the venerable chevalier
+Lambert attended them as a chaperon.
+
+Some days after the celebration of this festival, the Queen of France
+signified her intention of dining in public, for the first time after
+her accouchement with the Duke of Normandy, afterward dauphin. The duke
+brought to Mrs. Robinson a message from the queen, expressing a wish
+that _la belle Anglaise_ might be induced to appear at the _grand
+convert_. Mrs. Robinson, not less solicitous to behold the lovely Marie
+Antoinette, gladly availed herself of the intimation, and immediately
+began to prepare for the important occasion. The most tasteful ornaments
+of Mademoiselle Bertin, the reigning milliner, were procured to adorn a
+form that, rich in native beauty, needed little embellishment. A pale
+green lustring train and body, with a tiffany petticoat, festooned with
+bunches of the most delicate lilac, were chosen by Mrs. Robinson for her
+appearance, while a plume of white feathers adorned her head; the native
+roses of her cheeks, glowing with health and youth, were stained, in
+conformity to the fashion of the French court, with the deepest rouge.
+
+On the arrival of the fair foreigner, the Duke d'Orleans quitted the
+king, on whom he was then in waiting, to procure her a place, where the
+queen might have an opportunity of observing those charms by the fame of
+which her curiosity had been awakened.
+
+The _grand convert_, at which the king acquitted himself with more
+alacrity than grace, afforded a magnificent display of epicurean luxury.
+The queen ate nothing. The slender crimson cord, which drew a line of
+separation between the royal epicures and the gazing plebeians, was at
+the distance but of a few feet from the table. A small space divided the
+queen from Mrs. Robinson, whom the constant observation and loudly
+whispered encomiums of her Majesty most oppressively flattered. She
+appeared to survey, with peculiar attention, a miniature of the Prince
+of Wales, which Mrs. Robinson wore on her bosom, and of which, on the
+ensuing day, she commissioned the Duke of Orleans to request the loan.
+Perceiving Mrs. Robinson gaze with admiration on her white and polished
+arms, as she drew on her gloves, the queen again uncovered them, and
+leaned for a few moments on her hand. The duke, on returning the
+picture, gave to the fair owner a purse, netted by the hand of
+Antoinette, and which she had commissioned him to present, from her, to
+_la belle Anglaise_. Mrs. Robinson not long after these events quitted
+Paris, and returned to her native country.
+
+In 1784 her fate assumed a darker hue. She was attacked by a malady, to
+which she had nearly fallen a victim. By an imprudent exposure to the
+night air in travelling, when, exhausted by fatigue and mental anxiety,
+she slept in a chaise with the windows open, she brought on a fever,
+which confined her to her bed during six months. The disorder terminated
+at the conclusion of that period in a violent rheumatism, which
+progressively deprived her of the use of her limbs. Thus, at four and
+twenty years of age, in the pride of youth and the bloom of beauty, was
+this lovely and unfortunate woman reduced to a state of more than
+infantile helplessness. Yet, even under so severe a calamity, the powers
+of her mind and the elasticity of her spirits triumphed over the
+weakness of her frame. This check to the pleasures and vivacity of
+youth, by depriving her of external resource, led her to the more
+assiduous cultivation and development of her talents. But the
+resignation with which she had submitted to one of the severest of human
+calamities gave place to hope, on the assurance of her physician, that
+by the mild air of a more southern climate she might probably be
+restored to health and activity.
+
+The favourite wish of her heart, that of beholding her relations, from
+whom she had been so many years divided, it was now in her power to
+gratify. From her elder brother she had frequently received invitations,
+the most pressing and affectionate, to quit for ever a country where an
+unprotected woman rarely fails to become the victim of calumny and
+persecution, and to take shelter in the bosom of domestic tranquillity,
+where peace, to which she had long been a stranger, might still await
+her. Delighted with the idea of combining with the object of her travels
+an acquisition so desirable, and after which her exhausted heart panted,
+she eagerly embraced the proposal, and set out to Paris, with the
+resolution of proceeding to Leghorn. But a letter, on her arrival, from
+her physician, prescribing the warm baths of Aix-la-Chapelle in Germany,
+as a certain restorative for her complaints, frustrated her plans. Once
+more she proceeded in melancholy pursuit of that blessing which she was
+destined never more to obtain.
+
+During her sojourn at Aix-la-Chapelle, a dawn of comparative
+tranquillity soothed her spirits. Secure from the machinations of her
+enemies, she determined, though happiness seemed no more within her
+reach, to endeavour to be content. The assiduities and attentions shown
+her by all ranks of people presented a striking medium between the
+volatility and libertine homage offered to her at Paris, and the
+persevering malignity which had followed her in her native land. Her
+beauty, the affecting state of her health, the attraction of her
+manners, and the powers of her mind, interested every heart in her
+favour; while the meekness with which she submitted to her fate excited
+an admiration not less fervent, and more genuine, than her charms in the
+full blaze of their power had ever extorted.
+
+Among the many illustrious and enlightened persons then resident at
+Aix-la-Chapelle, who honoured Mrs. Robinson by their friendship, she
+received from the late amiable and unfortunate Duke and Duchess du
+Chatelet peculiar marks of distinction. The duke had, while ambassador
+in England, been the friend and associate of the learned Lord Mansfield;
+his duchess, the _eleve_ of Voltaire, claimed as her godmother Gabrielle
+Emilia, Baroness du Chatelet, so celebrated by that lively and admirable
+writer. This inestimable family, consisting of the duke and duchess,
+their nephews the Counts de Damas, and a niece married to the Duke de
+Simianne, were indefatigable in their efforts to solace the affliction
+and amuse the mind of their fair friend. Balls, concerts, rural
+breakfasts, succeeded to each other in gay and attractive variety; the
+happy effects produced on the health and spirits of Mrs. Robinson were
+considered by this English family as an ample compensation for their
+solicitude. When compelled by severer paroxysms of her malady to seclude
+herself from their society, a thousand kind stratagems were planned and
+executed to relieve her sufferings, or soften the dejection to which
+they unavoidably gave rise. Sometimes, on entering her dark and
+melancholy bath, the gloom of which was increased by high grated
+windows, she beheld the surface of the water covered with rose-leaves,
+while the vapour baths were impregnated with aromatic odours. The
+younger part of the family, when pain deprived Mrs. Robinson of rest,
+frequently passed the night beneath her windows, charming her sufferings
+and beguiling her of her sorrows, by singing her favourite airs to the
+accompaniment of the mandolin.
+
+Thus, in despite of sickness, glided away two agreeable winters, when
+the transient gleam of brightness became suddenly obscured, and her
+prospects involved in deeper shade.
+
+About this period Mrs. Robinson had the misfortune to lose her brave and
+respected father,--a blow as forcible as unexpected, which nearly shook
+her faculties, and, for a time, wholly overwhelmed her spirits. Captain
+Darby had, on the failure of his fortunes, been presented to the command
+of a small ordnance vessel, through the interest of some of his noble
+associates in the Indian expedition. Not having been regularly bred to
+the sea, this was the only naval appointment which he could receive.
+Enthusiastically attached to his profession, he omitted no occasion of
+signalising himself. The siege of Gibraltar, in the year 1783, afforded
+to him an opportunity after which he had long panted, when his small
+vessel and gallant crew extorted by their courage and exertions the
+admiration and applause of the fleet. Having fought till his rigging was
+nearly destroyed, he turned his attention to the sinking Spaniards, whom
+he sought to snatch from the flaming wrecks, floating around him in all
+directions, and had the satisfaction to preserve, though at the hazard
+of his life, some hundreds of his fellow beings. The vessel of Captain
+Darby was the first that reached the rock by nearly an hour. On his
+landing, General Elliot received and embraced him with the plaudits due
+to his gallant conduct.
+
+In the presence of his officers, the general lamented that so brave a
+man had not been bred to a profession to which his intrepidity would
+have done distinguished honour. To this eulogium he added, that, with
+the courage of a lion, Captain Darby possessed the firmness of the rock
+which he had so bravely defended.
+
+To his care was entrusted by the commander a copy of the despatches,
+which Captain Darby delivered four and twenty hours before the arrival
+of the regular vessel. For this diligence, and the conduct which had
+preceded it, he received the thanks of the Board of Admiralty, while on
+the other captain was bestowed the more substantial recompense of five
+hundred pounds. An injustice so glaring was not calculated to lessen
+Captain Darby's distaste for England, which he quitted, after taking of
+his unhappy family an affectionate farewell.
+
+At sixty-two years of age, he set out to regain in a foreign country the
+fortune he had sacrificed in the service of his own. With powerful
+recommendations from the Duke of Dorset and the Count de Simolin, he
+proceeded to Petersburg. From the Count de Simolin he continued to
+experience, till the latest period of his existence, a steady and
+zealous friendship. Captain Darby had been but two years in the Russian
+imperial service when he was promoted to the command of a seventy-four
+gun ship, with a promise of the appointment of admiral on the first
+vacancy. On the 5th of December, 1785, death put a stop to his career.
+He was buried with military honours, and attended to the grave by his
+friends, Admiral Greig, the Counts Czernichef and De Simolin, with the
+officers of the fleet.[43]
+
+This honourable testimony to her father's worth was the only consolation
+remaining to his daughter, whose enfeebled health and broken spirits
+sunk beneath these repeated strokes.
+
+During the four succeeding years of the life of Mrs. Robinson, but few
+events occurred worthy of remark. In search of lost health, which she
+had so long and vainly pursued, she determined to repair to the baths of
+St. Amand, in Flanders, those receptacles of loathsome mud, and of
+reptiles, unknown to other soils, which fasten on the bodies of those
+who bathe. Mrs. Robinson made many visits to these distasteful ditches
+before she could prevail on herself to enter them. Neither the example
+of her fellow sufferers, nor the assurance of cures performed by their
+wonderful efficacy, could for a long time overcome her disgust. At
+length, solicitude for the restoration of her health, added to the
+earnest remonstrances of her friends, determined her on making the
+effort. For the purpose of being near the baths, which must be entered
+an hour before the rising of the sun, she hired a small but beautiful
+cottage near the spring, where she passed the summer of 1787. These
+peaceful vales and venerable woods were, at no distant period, destined
+to become the seat of war and devastation, and the very cottage in which
+Mrs. Robinson resided was converted into the headquarters of a
+Republican French general.[44]
+
+[Illustration: The Prince of Wales From a painting by Sir Thomas
+Lawrence]
+
+Every endeavour to subdue her disorder proving ineffectual, Mrs.
+Robinson relinquished her melancholy and fruitless pursuit, and resolved
+once more to return to her native land. Proceeding through Paris, she
+reached England in the beginning of 1787, from which period may be dated
+the commencement of her literary career. On her arrival in London she
+was affectionately received by the few friends whose attachment neither
+detraction nor adverse fortunes could weaken or estrange. During an
+absence of five years death had made inroads in the little circle of her
+connections; many of those whose idea had been her solace in affliction,
+and whose welcome she had delighted to anticipate, were now, alas!
+no more.[45]
+
+Once more established in London, and surrounded by social and rational
+friends, Mrs. Robinson began to experience comparative tranquillity. The
+Prince of Wales, with his brother the Duke of York, frequently honoured
+her residence with their presence; but the state of her health, which
+required more repose, added to the indisposition of her daughter, who
+was threatened by a consumptive disorder, obliged her to withdraw to a
+situation of greater retirement. Maternal solicitude for a beloved and
+only child now wholly engaged her attention; her assiduities were
+incessant and exemplary for the restoration of a being to whom she had
+given life, and to whom she was fondly devoted.
+
+In the course of the summer she was ordered by her physician to
+Brighthelmstone, for the benefit of sea bathing. During hours of tedious
+watching over the health of her suffering child, Mrs. Robinson beguiled
+her anxiety by contemplating the ocean, whose successive waves, breaking
+upon the shore, beat against the wall of their little garden. To a mind
+naturally susceptible, and tinctured by circumstances with sadness, this
+occupation afforded a melancholy pleasure, which could scarcely be
+relinquished without regret. Whole nights were passed by Mrs. Robinson
+at her window in deep meditation, contrasting with her present situation
+the scenes of her former life.
+
+Every device which a kind and skilful nurse could invent to cheer and
+amuse her charge was practised by this affectionate mother, during the
+melancholy period of her daughter's confinement. In the intervals of
+more active exertion, the silence of a sick-chamber proving favourable
+to the muse, Mrs. Robinson poured forth those poetic effusions which
+have done so much honour to her genius and decked her tomb with unfading
+laurels. Conversing one evening with Mr. Richard Burke,[46] respecting
+the facility with which modern poetry was composed, Mrs. Robinson
+repeated nearly the whole of those beautiful lines, which were afterward
+given to the public, addressed: "To him who will understand them."
+
+      "LINES
+
+      "TO HIM WHO WILL UNDERSTAND THEM
+
+      "Thou art no more my bosom's friend;
+      Here must the sweet delusion end,
+      That charmed my senses many a year,
+      Through smiling summers, winters drear.
+      Oh, friendship! am I doomed to find
+      Thou art a phantom of the mind?
+      A glitt'ring shade, an empty name,
+      An air-born vision's vap'rish flame?
+      And yet, the dear deceit so long
+      Has wak'd to joy my matin song,
+      Has bid my tears forget to flow,
+      Chas'd ev'ry pain, sooth'd ev'ry woe;
+      That truth, unwelcome to my ear,
+      Swells the deep sigh, recalls the tear,
+      Gives to the sense the keenest smart,
+      Checks the warm pulses of the heart,
+      Darkens my fate, and steals away
+      Each gleam of joy through life's sad day.
+
+      "Britain, farewell! I quit thy shore;
+      My native country charms no more;
+      No guide to mark the toilsome road;
+      No destin'd clime; no fix'd abode:
+      Alone and sad, ordain'd to trace
+      The vast expanse of endless space;
+      To view, upon the mountain's height,
+      Through varied shades of glimm'ring light,
+      The distant landscape fade away
+      In the last gleam of parting day:
+      Or, on the quiv'ring lucid stream,
+      To watch the pale moon's silv'ry beam;
+      Or when, in sad and plaintive strains,
+      The mournful Philomel complains,
+      In dulcet tones bewails her fate,
+      And murmurs for her absent mate;
+      Inspir'd by sympathy divine,
+      I'll weep her woes--for they are mine.
+      Driv'n by my fate, where'er I go,
+      O'er burning plains, o'er hills of snow,
+      Or on the bosom of the wave,
+      The howling tempest doom'd to brave,--
+      Where'er my lonely course I bend,
+      Thy image shall my steps attend;
+      Each object I am doom'd to see,
+      Shall bid remembrance picture thee.
+      Yes; I shall view thee in each flow'r,
+      That changes with the transient hour:
+      Thy wand'ring fancy I shall find
+      Borne on the wings of every wind:
+      Thy wild impetuous passions trace
+      O'er the white waves' tempestuous space;
+      In every changing season prove
+      An emblem of thy wav'ring love.
+
+      "Torn from my country, friends, and you,
+      The world lies open to my view;
+      New objects shall my mind engage;
+      I will explore th' historic page;
+      Sweet poetry shall soothe my soul;
+      Philosophy each pang control:
+      The muse I'll seek--her lambent fire
+      My soul's quick senses shall inspire;
+      With finer nerves my heart shall beat,
+      Touch'd by heav'n's own Promethean heat;
+      Italia's gales shall bear my song
+      In soft-link'd notes her woods among;
+      Upon the blue hill's misty side,
+      Thro' trackless deserts waste and wide,
+      O'er craggy rocks, whose torrents flow
+      Upon the silver sands below.
+      Sweet land of melody! 'tis thine
+      The softest passions to refine;
+      Thy myrtle groves, thy melting strains,
+      Shall harmonise and soothe my pains.
+      Nor will I cast one thought behind,
+      On foes relentless, friends unkind:
+      I feel, I feel their poison'd dart
+      Pierce the life-nerve within my heart;
+      'Tis mingled with the vital heat
+      That bids my throbbing pulses beat;
+      Soon shall that vital heat be o'er,
+      Those throbbing pulses beat no more!
+      No--I will breathe the spicy gale;
+      Plunge the clear stream, new health exhale;
+      O'er my pale cheek diffuse the rose,
+      And drink oblivion to my woes."
+
+This _improvisatore_ produced in her auditor not less surprise than
+admiration, when solemnly assured by its author that this was the first
+time of its being repeated. Mr. Burke[47] entreated her to commit the
+poem to writing, a request which was readily complied with. Mrs.
+Robinson had afterward the gratification of finding this offspring of
+her genius inserted in the _Annual Register_, with a flattering encomium
+from the pen of the eloquent and ingenious editor.
+
+Mrs. Robinson continued to indulge in this solace for her dejected
+spirits, and in sonnets, elegies, and odes, displayed the powers and
+versatility of her mind. On one of these nights of melancholy
+inspiration she discovered from her window a small boat, struggling in
+the spray, which dashed against the wall of her garden. Presently two
+fishermen brought on shore in their arms a burthen, which,
+notwithstanding the distance, Mrs. Robinson perceived to be a human
+body, which the fishermen, after covering with a sail from their boat,
+left on the land and disappeared. But a short time elapsed before the
+men returned, bringing with them fuel, with which they vainly
+endeavoured to reanimate their unfortunate charge. Struck with a
+circumstance so affecting, which the stillness of the night rendered yet
+more impressive, Mrs. Robinson remained some time at her window,
+motionless with horror. At length, recovering her recollection, she
+alarmed the family; but before they could gain the beach the men had
+again departed. The morning dawned, and day broke in upon the tragical
+scene. The bathers passed and reprised with little concern, while the
+corpse continued extended on the shore, not twenty yards from the
+Steine. During the course of the day, many persons came to look on the
+body, which still remained unclaimed and unknown. Another day wore away,
+and the corpse was unburied, the lord of the manor having refused to a
+fellow being a grave in which his bones might decently repose, alleging
+as an excuse that he did not belong to that parish. Mrs. Robinson,
+humanely indignant at the scene which passed, exerted herself, but
+without success, to procure by subscription a small sum for performing
+the last duties to a wretched outcast. Unwilling, by an ostentatious
+display of her name, to offend the higher and more fastidious female
+powers, she presented to the fishermen her own contribution, and
+declined further to interfere. The affair dropped; and the body of the
+stranger, being dragged to the cliff, was covered by a heap of stones,
+without the tribute of a sigh or the ceremony of a prayer.
+
+These circumstances made on the mind of Mrs. Robinson a deep and lasting
+impression; even at a distant period she could not repeat them without
+horror and indignation. This incident gave rise to the poem entitled
+"The Haunted Beach," written but a few months before her death.
+
+In the winter of 1790, Mrs. Robinson entered into a poetical
+correspondence with Mr. Robert Merry, under the fictitious names of
+"Laura," and "Laura Maria;" Mr. Merry assuming the title of "Della
+Crusca."[48]
+
+Mrs. Robinson now proceeded in her literary career with redoubled
+ardour; but, dazzled by the false metaphors and rhapsodical extravagance
+of some contemporary writers, she suffered her judgment to be misled and
+her taste to be perverted; an error of which she became afterward
+sensible. During her poetical disguise, many complimentary poems were
+addressed to her; several ladies of the Blue Stocking Club, while Mrs.
+Robinson remained unknown, even ventured to admire, nay more, to recite
+her productions in their learned and critical coterie.
+
+The attention which this novel species of correspondence excited, and
+the encomiums which were passed on her poems, could not fail to gratify
+the pride of the writer, who sent her next performance, with her own
+signature, to the paper published under the title of _The World_,
+avowing herself at the same time the author of the lines signed "Laura,"
+and "Laura Maria." This information being received by Mr. Bell, though a
+professed admirer of the genius of Mrs. Robinson, with some degree of
+skepticism, he replied, "That the poem with which Mrs. Robinson had
+honoured him was vastly pretty; but that he was well acquainted with the
+author of the productions alluded to." Mrs. Robinson, a little disgusted
+at this incredulity, immediately sent for Mr. Bell, whom she found means
+to convince of her veracity, and of his own injustice.
+
+In 1791 Mrs. Robinson produced her quarto poem, entitled "Ainsi va le
+Monde." This work, containing three hundred and fifty lines, was written
+in twelve hours, as a reply to Mr. Merry's "Laurel of Liberty," which
+was sent to Mrs. Robinson on a Saturday; on the Tuesday following the
+answer was composed and given to the public.
+
+Encouraged by popular approbation beyond her most sanguine hopes, Mrs.
+Robinson now published her first essay in prose, in the romance of
+"Vancenza," of which the whole edition was sold in one day, and of which
+five impressions have since followed. It must be confessed that this
+production owed its popularity to the celebrity of the author's name,
+and the favourable impression of her talents given to the public by her
+poetical compositions, rather than to its intrinsic merit. In the same
+year the poems of Mrs. Robinson were collected and published in one
+volume. The names of nearly six hundred subscribers, of the most
+distinguished rank and talents, graced the list which precedes the work.
+
+The mind of Mrs. Robinson, beguiled by these pursuits from preying upon
+itself, became gradually reconciled to the calamitous state of her
+health; the mournful certainty of total and incurable lameness, while
+yet in the bloom and summer of life, was alleviated by the consciousness
+of intellectual resource, and by the activity of a fertile fancy. In
+1791 she passed the greater part of the summer at Bath, occupied in
+lighter poetical compositions. But even from this relief she was now for
+awhile debarred; the perpetual exercise of the imagination and
+intellect, added to a uniform and sedentary life, affected the system of
+her nerves, and contributed to debilitate her frame. She was prohibited
+by her physician, not merely from committing her thoughts to paper, but,
+had it been possible, from thinking at all. No truant, escaped from
+school, could receive more pleasure in eluding a severe master, than did
+Mrs. Robinson, when, the vigilance of her physician relaxing, she could
+once more resume her books and her pen.
+
+As an example of the facility and rapidity with which she composed, the
+following anecdote may be given. Returning one evening from the bath,
+she beheld, a few paces before her chair, an elderly man, hurried along
+by a crowd of people, by whom he was pelted with mud and stones. His
+meek and unresisting deportment exciting her attention, she inquired
+what were his offences, and learned with pity and surprise that he was
+an unfortunate maniac, known only by the appellation of "mad Jemmy." The
+situation of this miserable being seized her imagination and became the
+subject of her attention. She would wait whole hours for the appearance
+of the poor maniac, and, whatever were her occupations, the voice of mad
+Jemmy was sure to allure her to the window. She would gaze upon his
+venerable but emaciated countenance with sensations of awe almost
+reverential, while the barbarous persecutions of the thoughtless crowd
+never failed to agonise her feelings.
+
+One night after bathing, having suffered from her disorder more than
+usual pain, she swallowed, by order of her physician, near eighty drops
+of laudanum. Having slept for some hours, she awoke, and calling her
+daughter, desired her to take a pen and write what she should dictate.
+Miss Robinson, supposing that a request so unusual might proceed from
+the delirium excited by the opium, endeavoured in vain to dissuade her
+mother from her purpose. The spirit of inspiration was not to be
+subdued, and she repeated, throughout, the admirable poem of "The
+Maniac,"[49] much faster than it could be committed to paper.
+
+She lay, while dictating, with her eyes closed, apparently in the stupor
+which opium frequently produces, repeating like a person talking in her
+sleep. This affecting performance, produced in circumstances so
+singular, does no less credit to the genius than to the heart of
+the author.
+
+On the ensuing morning Mrs. Robinson had only a confused idea of what
+had passed, nor could be convinced of the fact till the manuscript was
+produced. She declared that she had been dreaming of mad Jemmy
+throughout the night, but was perfectly unconscious of having been awake
+while she composed the poem, or of the circumstances narrated by
+her daughter.
+
+Mrs. Robinson, in the following summer, determined on another
+continental tour, purposing to remain some time at Spa. She longed once
+more to experience the friendly greeting and liberal kindness which even
+her acknowledged talents had in her native country failed to procure.
+She quitted London in July, 1792, accompanied by her mother and
+daughter. The susceptible and energetic mind, fortunately for its
+possessor, is endowed with an elastic power, that enables it to rise
+again from the benumbing effects of those adverse strokes of fortune to
+which it is but too vulnerable. If a lively imagination add poignancy to
+disappointment, it also has in itself resources unknown to more equal
+temperaments. In the midst of the depressing feelings which Mrs.
+Robinson experienced in once more becoming a wanderer from her home, she
+courted the inspiration of the muse, and soothed, by the following
+beautiful stanzas, the melancholy sensations that oppressed her heart.
+
+      "STANZAS
+
+      "WRITTEN BETWEEN DOVER AND CALAIS,
+
+      "JULY 20, 1792
+
+      "Bounding billow, cease thy motion,
+        Bear me not so swiftly o'er;
+      Cease thy roaring, foamy ocean,
+        I will tempt thy rage no more.
+
+      "Ah! within my bosom beating,
+        Varying passions wildly reign;
+      Love, with proud Resentment meeting,
+        Throbs by turns, of joy and pain.
+
+      "Joy, that far from foes I wander,
+        Where their taunts can reach no more;
+      Pain, that woman's heart grows fonder
+        When her dream of bliss is o'er!
+
+      "Love, by fickle fancy banish'd,
+        Spurn'd by hope, indignant flies;
+      Yet when love and hope are vanish'd,
+        Restless mem'ry never dies.
+
+      "Far I go, where fate shall lead me,
+        Far across the troubled deep;
+      Where no stranger's ear shall heed me,
+        Where no eye for me shall weep.
+
+      "Proud has been my fatal passion!
+        Proud my injured heart shall be!
+      While each thought, each inclination,
+        Still shall prove me worthy thee!
+
+      "Not one sigh shall tell my story;
+        Not one tear my cheek shall stain;
+      Silent grief shall be my glory,--
+        Grief, that stoops not to complain!
+
+      "Let the bosom prone to ranging,
+        Still by ranging seek a cure;
+      Mine disdains the thought of changing,
+        Proudly destin'd to endure.
+
+      "Yet, ere far from all I treasur'd,
+        ----ere I bid adieu;
+      Ere my days of pain are measur'd,
+        Take the song that's still thy due!
+
+      "Yet, believe, no servile passions
+        Seek to charm thy vagrant mind;
+      Well I know thy inclinations,
+        Wav'ring as the passing wind.
+
+      "I have lov'd thee,--dearly lov'd thee,
+        Through an age of worldly woe;
+      How ungrateful I have prov'd thee
+        Let my mournful exile show!
+
+      "Ten long years of anxious sorrow,
+        Hour by hour I counted o'er;
+      Looking forward, till to-morrow,
+        Every day I lov'd thee more!
+
+      "Pow'r and splendour could not charm me;
+        I no joy in wealth could see!
+      Nor could threats or fears alarm me,
+        Save the fear of losing thee!
+
+      "When the storms of fortune press'd thee,
+        I have wept to see thee weep
+      When relentless cares distress'd thee,
+        I have lull'd those cares to sleep!
+
+      "When with thee, what ills could harm me?
+        Thou couldst every pang assuage;
+      But when absent, nought could charm me;
+        Every moment seem'd an age.
+
+      "Fare thee well, ungrateful lover!
+        Welcome Gallia's hostile shore:
+      Now the breezes waft me over;
+        Now we part--to meet no more."
+
+On landing at Calais, Mrs. Robinson hesitated whether to proceed. To
+travel through Flanders, then the seat of war, threatened too many
+perils to be attempted with impunity; she determined, therefore, for
+some time to remain at Calais, the insipid and spiritless amusements of
+which presented little either to divert her attention or engage her
+mind. Her time passed in listening to the complaints of the impoverished
+aristocrats, or in attending to the air-built projects of their
+triumphant adversaries. The arrival of travellers from England, or the
+return of those from Paris, alone diversified the scene, and afforded a
+resource to the curious and active inquirer.
+
+The sudden arrival of her husband gave a turn to the feelings of Mrs.
+Robinson: he had crossed the channel for the purpose of carrying back to
+England his daughter, whom he wished to present to a brother newly
+returned from the East Indies. Maternal conflicts shook on this occasion
+the mind of Mrs. Robinson, which hesitated between a concern for the
+interests of her beloved child, from whom she had never been separated,
+and the pain of parting from her. She resolved at length on accompanying
+her to England, and, with this view, quitted Calais on the memorable 2d
+of September, 1792,[50] a day which will reflect on the annals of the
+republic an indelible stain.
+
+They had sailed but a few hours when the _arret_ arrived, by which every
+British subject throughout France was restrained.
+
+Mrs. Robinson rejoiced in her escape, and anticipated with delight the
+idea of seeing her daughter placed in wealthy protection, the great
+passport in her own country to honour and esteem. Miss Robinson received
+from her new relation the promise of protection and favour, upon
+condition that she renounced for ever the filial tie which united her to
+both parents. This proposal was rejected by the young lady with proper
+principle and becoming spirit.
+
+In the year 1793 a little farce, entitled "Nobody," was written by Mrs.
+Robinson. This piece, designed as a satire on female gamesters, was
+received at the theatre, the characters distributed, and preparations
+made for its exhibition. At this period one of the principal performers
+gave up her part, alleging that the piece was intended as a ridicule on
+her particular friend. Another actress also, though in "herself a host,"
+was intimidated by a letter, informing her that "'Nobody' should be
+damned!" The author received likewise, on the same day, a scurrilous,
+indecent, and ill-disguised scrawl, signifying to her that the farce was
+already condemned. On the drawing up of the curtain, several persons in
+the galleries, whose liveries betrayed their employers, were heard to
+declare that they were sent to do up "Nobody." Even women of
+distinguished rank hissed through their fans. Notwithstanding these
+manoeuvres and exertions, the more rational part of the audience seemed
+inclined to hear before they passed judgment, and, with a firmness that
+never fails to awe, demanded that the piece should proceed. The first
+act was accordingly suffered without interruption; a song in the second
+being unfortunately encored, the malcontents once more ventured to raise
+their voices, and the malignity that had been forcibly suppressed burst
+forth with redoubled violence. For three nights the theatre presented a
+scene of confusion, when the authoress, after experiencing the
+gratification of a zealous and sturdy defence, thought proper wholly to
+withdraw the cause of contention.[51]
+
+Mrs. Robinson in the course of this year lost her only remaining parent,
+whom she tenderly loved and sincerely lamented. Mrs. Darby expired in
+the house of her daughter, who, though by far the least wealthy of her
+children, had proved herself through life the most attentive and
+affectionate. From the first hour of Mr. Darby's failure and
+estrangement from his family, Mrs. Robinson had been the protector and
+the support of her mother. Even when pressed herself by pecuniary
+embarrassment, it had been her pride and pleasure to shelter her widowed
+parent, ands preserve her from inconvenience.
+
+Mrs. Darby had two sons, merchants, wealthy and respected in the
+commercial world; but to these gentlemen Mrs. Robinson would never
+suffer her mother to apply for any assistance that was not voluntarily
+offered. The filial sorrow of Mrs. Robinson on her loss, for many months
+affected her health; even to the latest hour of her life her grief
+appeared renewed when any object presented itself connected with the
+memory of her departed mother.
+
+Few events of importance occurred during the five following years,
+excepting that through this period the friends of Mrs. Robinson observed
+with concern the gradual ravages which indisposition and mental anxiety
+were daily making upon her frame. An ingenuous, affectionate,
+susceptible heart is seldom favourable to the happiness of the
+possessor. It was the fate of Mrs. Robinson to be deceived where she
+most confided, to experience treachery and ingratitude where she had a
+title to kindness and a claim to support. Frank and unsuspicious, she
+suffered her conduct to be guided by the impulse of her feelings; and,
+by a too credulous reliance on the apparent attachment of those whom she
+loved, and in whom she delighted to trust, she laid herself open to the
+impositions of the selfish, and the stratagems of the crafty.
+
+In 1799 her increasing involvements and declining health pressed heavily
+upon her mind. She had voluntarily relinquished those comforts and
+elegancies to which she had been accustomed; she had retrenched even her
+necessary expenses, and nearly secluded herself from society. Her
+physician had declared that by exercise only could her existence be
+prolonged; yet the narrowness of her circumstances obliged her to forego
+the only means by which it could be obtained. Thus, a prisoner in her
+own house, she was deprived of every solace but that which could be
+obtained by the activity of her mind, which at length sank under
+excessive exertion and inquietude.
+
+Indisposition had for nearly five weeks confined her to her bed, when,
+after a night of extreme suffering and peril, through which her
+physician hourly expected her dissolution, she had sunk into a gentle
+and balmy sleep. At this instant her chamber door was forcibly pushed
+open, with a noise that shook her enfeebled frame nearly to
+annihilation, by two strange and ruffian-looking men, who entered with
+barbarous abruptness. On her faintly inquiring the occasion of this
+outrage, she was informed that one of her unwelcome visitors was an
+attorney, and the other his client, who had thus, with as little decency
+as humanity, forced themselves into the chamber of an almost expiring
+woman. The motive of this intrusion was to demand her appearance, as a
+witness, in a suit pending against her brother, in which these men were
+parties concerned. No entreaties could prevail on them to quit the
+chamber, where they both remained, questioning, in a manner the most
+unfeeling and insulting, the unfortunate victim of their audacity and
+persecution. One of them, the client, with a barbarous and unmanly
+sneer, turning to his confederate, asked, "Who, to see the lady they
+were now speaking to, could believe that she had once been called the
+beautiful Mrs. Robinson?" To this he added other observations not less
+savage and brutal; and, after throwing on the bed a subpoena, quitted
+the apartment. The wretch who could thus, by insulting the sick, and
+violating every law of humanity and common decency, disgrace the figure
+of a man, was a professor and a priest of that religion which enjoins us
+"not to break the bruised reed," "and to bind up the broken in heart!"
+His name shall be suppressed, through respect to the order of which he
+is an unworthy member. The consequences of this brutality upon the poor
+invalid were violent convulsions, which had nearly extinguished the
+struggling spark of life.
+
+By slow degrees her malady yielded to the cares and skill of her medical
+attendants, and she was once more restored to temporary convalescence;
+but from that time her strength gradually decayed. Though her frame was
+shaken to its centre, her circumstances compelled her still to exert the
+faculties of her mind.
+
+The sportive exercises of fancy were now converted into toilsome labours
+of the brain,--nights of sleepless anxiety were succeeded by days of
+vexation and dread.
+
+About this period she was induced to undertake the poetical department
+for the editor of a morning paper,[52] and actually commenced a series
+of satirical odes, on local and temporary subjects, to which was affixed
+the signature of "Tabitha Bramble." Among these lighter compositions,
+considered by the author as unworthy of a place with her collected
+poems, a more matured production of her genius was occasionally
+introduced, of which the following "Ode to Spring," written April 30,
+1780, is a beautiful and affecting example:
+
+      "ODE TO SPRING
+
+      "Life-glowing season! odour-breathing Spring!
+      Deck'd in cerulean splendours!--vivid,--warm,
+      Shedding soft lustre on the rosy hours,
+      And calling forth their beauties! balmy Spring!
+      To thee the vegetating world begins
+      To pay fresh homage. Ev'ry southern gale
+      Whispers thy coming;--every tepid show'r
+      Revivifies thy charms. The mountain breeze
+      Wafts the ethereal essence to the vale,
+      While the low vale returns its fragrant hoard
+      With tenfold sweetness. When the dawn unfolds
+      Its purple splendours 'mid the dappled clouds,
+      Thy influence cheers the soul. When noon uplifts
+      Its burning canopy, spreading the plain
+      Of heaven's own radiance with one vast of light,
+      Thou smil'st triumphant! Ev'ry little flow'r
+      Seems to exult in thee, delicious Spring,
+      Luxuriant nurse of nature! By the stream,
+      That winds its swift course down the mountain's side,
+      Thy progeny are seen;--young primroses,
+      And all the varying buds of wildest birth,
+      Dotting the green slope gaily. On the thorn,
+      Which arms the hedgerow, the young birds invite
+      With merry minstrelsy, shrilly and maz'd
+      With winding cadences: now quick, now sunk
+      In the low twitter'd song. The evening sky
+      Reddens the distant main; catching the sail,
+      Which slowly lessens, and with crimson hue
+      Varying the sea-green wave; while the young moon,
+      Scarce visible amid the warmer tints
+      Of western splendours, slowly lifts her brow
+      Modest and icy-lustred! O'er the plain
+      The light dews rise, sprinkling the thistle's head,
+      And hanging its clear drops on the wild waste
+      Of broomy fragrance. Season of delight!
+      Thou soul-expanding pow'r, whose wondrous glow
+      Can bid all nature smile! Ah! why to me
+      Come unregarded, undelighting still
+      This ever-mourning bosom? So I've seen
+      The sweetest flow'rets bind the icy urn;
+      The brightest sunbeams glitter on the grave;
+      And the soft zephyr kiss the troubled main,
+      With whispered murmurs. Yes, to me, O Spring!
+      Thou com'st unwelcom'd by a smile of joy;
+      To me! slow with'ring to that silent grave
+      Where all is blank and dreary! Yet once more
+      The Spring eternal of the soul shall dawn,
+      Unvisited by clouds, by storms, by change,
+      Radiant and unexhausted! Then, ye buds,
+      Ye plumy minstrels, and ye balmy gales,
+      Adorn your little hour, and give your joys
+      To bless the fond world-loving traveller,
+      Who, smiling, measures the long flow'ry path
+      That leads to death! For to such wanderers
+      Life is a busy, pleasing, cheerful dream,
+      And the last hour unwelcome. Not to me,
+      Oh! not to me, stern Death, art thou a foe;
+      Thou art the welcome messenger, which brings
+      A passport to a blest and long repose."
+
+A just value was at that time set upon the exertions of Mrs. Robinson,
+by the conductors of the paper, who "considered them as one of the
+principal embellishments and supports of their journal."
+
+In the spring of 1800 she was compelled by the daily encroachments of
+her malady wholly to relinquish her literary employments.
+
+Her disorder was pronounced by the physicians to be a rapid decline. Dr.
+Henry Vaughan, who to medical skill unites the most exalted
+philanthropy, prescribed, as a last resource, a journey to Bristol
+Wells. A desire once again to behold her native scenes induced Mrs.
+Robinson eagerly to accede to this proposal. She wept with melancholy
+pleasure at the idea of closing her eyes for ever upon a world of vanity
+and disappointment in the place in which she had first drawn breath, and
+terminating her sorrows on the spot which gave her birth; but even this
+sad solace was denied to her, from a want of the pecuniary means for
+its execution. In vain she applied to those on whom honour, humanity,
+and justice, gave her undoubted claims. She even condescended to
+entreat, as a donation, the return of those sums granted as a loan in
+her prosperity.
+
+The following is a copy of a letter addressed on this occasion to a
+noble debtor, and found among the papers of Mrs. Robinson after
+her decease:
+
+'To----
+
+"April 23, 1800.
+
+"MY LORD:--Pronounced by my physicians to be in a rapid decline, I trust
+that your lordship will have the goodness to assist me with a part of
+the sum for which you are indebted to me. Without your aid I cannot make
+trial of the Bristol waters, the only remedy that presents to me any
+hope of preserving my existence. I should be sorry to die at enmity with
+any person; and you may be assured, my dear lord, that I bear none
+toward you. It would be useless to ask you to call on me; but if you
+would do me that honour, I should be happy, very happy, to see
+you, being,
+
+"My dear lord,
+
+"Yours truly,
+
+"MARY ROBINSON."
+
+To this letter no answer was returned! Further comments are unnecessary.
+
+The last literary performance of Mrs. Robinson was a volume of Lyrical
+Tales. She repaired a short time after to a small cottage _ornee_,
+belonging to her daughter, near Windsor. Rural occupation and amusement,
+quiet and pure air, appeared for a time to cheer her spirits and
+renovate her shattered frame. Once more her active mind returned to its
+accustomed and favourite pursuits; but the toil of supplying the
+constant variety required by a daily print, added to other engagements,
+which she almost despaired of being capacitated to fulfil pressed
+heavily upon her spirits, and weighed down her enfeebled frame. Yet, in
+the month of August, she began and concluded, in the course of ten days,
+a translation of Doctor Hagar's "Picture of Palermo,"--an exertion by
+which she was greatly debilitated. She was compelled, though with
+reluctance, to relinquish the translation of "The Messiah" of Klopstock,
+which she had proposed giving to the English reader in blank verse,--a
+task particularly suited to her genius and the turn of her mind.
+
+But, amidst the pressure of complicated distress, the mind of this
+unfortunate woman was superior to improper concessions, and treated with
+just indignation those offers of service which required the sacrifice of
+her integrity.
+
+She yet continued, though with difficulty and many intervals, her
+literary avocations. When necessitated by pain and languor to limit her
+exertions, her unfeeling employers accused her of negligence. This
+inconsideration, though she seldom complained, affected her spirits and
+preyed upon her heart. As she hourly declined toward that asylum where
+"the weary rest," her mind seemed to acquire strength in proportion to
+the weakness of her frame. When no longer able to support the fatigue of
+being removed from her chamber, she retained a perfect composure of
+spirits, and, in the intervals of extreme bodily suffering, would listen
+while her daughter read to her, with apparent interest and collectedness
+of thought, frequently making observations on what would probably take
+place when she had passed that "bourn whence no traveller returns." The
+flattering nature of her disorder at times inspired her friends with the
+most sanguine hopes of her restoration to health; she would even
+herself, at intervals, cherish the idea. But these gleams of hope, like
+flashes of lightning athwart the storm, were succeeded by a deeper
+gloom, and the consciousness of her approaching fate returned upon the
+mind of the sufferer with increased conviction.
+
+Within a few days of her decease, she collected and arranged her
+poetical works, which she bound her daughter, by a solemn adjuration, to
+publish for her subscribers, and also the present memoir. Requesting
+earnestly that the papers prepared for the latter purpose might be
+brought to her, she gave them into the hands of Miss Robinson, with an
+injunction that the narrative should be made public, adding, "I should
+have continued it up to the present time--but perhaps it is as well that
+I have been prevented. Promise me that you will print it!" The request
+of a dying parent, so made, and at such a moment, could not be refused.
+She is obeyed. Upon the solemn assurances of her daughter, that her Last
+desire, so strongly urged, should be complied with, the mind of Mrs.
+Robinson became composed and tranquil; her intellects yet remained
+unimpaired, though her corporeal strength hourly decayed.
+
+A short time previous to her death, during an interval of her daughter's
+absence from her chamber, she called an attending friend, whose
+benevolent heart and unremitting kindness will, it is hoped, meet
+hereafter with their reward, and entreated her to observe her last
+requests, adding, with melancholy tenderness, "I cannot talk to my poor
+girl on these sad subjects." Then, with an unruffled manner and minute
+precision, she gave orders respecting her interment, which she desired
+might be performed with all possible simplicity. "Let me," said she,
+with an impressive though almost inarticulate voice, "be buried in Old
+Windsor churchyard." For the selection of that spot she gave a
+particular reason. She also mentioned an undertaker, whose name she
+recollected having seen on his door, and whom she appointed from his
+vicinity to the probable place of her decease. A few trifling memorials,
+as tributes of her affection, were all the property she had to bequeath.
+She also earnestly desired that a part of her hair might be sent to two
+particular persons.
+
+One evening, her anxious nurses, with a view to divert her mind, talked
+of some little plans to take place on her restoration to health. She
+shook her head with an affecting and significant motion. "Don't deceive
+yourselves," said she; "remember, I tell you, I am but a very little
+time longer for this world." Then pressing to her heart her daughter,
+who knelt by her bedside, she held her head for some minutes clasped
+against her bosom, which throbbed, as with some internal and agonising
+conflict. "Poor heart," murmured she, in a deep and stifled tone, "what
+will become of thee!" She paused some moments, and at length, struggling
+to assume more composure, desired in a calmer voice that some one would
+read to her. Throughout the remainder of the evening she continued
+placidly and even cheerfully attentive to the person who read, observing
+that, should she recover, she designed to commence a long work, upon
+which she would bestow great pains and time. "Most of her writings," she
+added, "had been composed in too much haste."
+
+Her disorder rapidly drawing toward a period, the accumulation of the
+water upon her chest every moment threatened suffocation. For nearly
+fifteen nights and days she was obliged to be supported upon pillows, or
+in the arms of her young and affectionate nurses.[53] Her decease,
+through this period, was hourly expected. On the 24th of December she
+inquired how near was Christmas Day! Being answered, "Within a few
+days," "Yet," said she, "I shall never see it." The remainder of this
+melancholy day passed in undescribable tortures. Toward midnight, the
+sufferer exclaimed, "O God, O just and merciful God, help me to support
+this agony!" The whole of the ensuing day she continued to endure great
+anguish. In the evening a kind of lethargic stupor came on. Miss
+Robinson, approaching the pillow of her expiring mother, earnestly
+conjured her to speak, if in her power. "My darling Mary!" she faintly
+articulated, and spoke no more. In another hour she became insensible to
+the grief of those by whom she was surrounded, and breathed her last at
+a quarter past twelve on the following noon.
+
+The body was opened, at the express wish of Doctors Pope and Chandler.
+The immediate cause of her death appeared to have been a dropsy on the
+chest; but the sufferings which she endured previously to her decease
+were probably occasioned by six large gall-stones found in the
+gall-bladder.
+
+All her requests were strictly observed. Her remains were deposited,
+according to her direction, in the churchyard of Old Windsor; the spot
+was marked out by a friend to whom she had signified her wishes. The
+funeral was attended only by two literary friends.
+
+Respecting the circumstances of the preceding narrative, every reader
+must be left to form his own reflections. To the humane mind, the errors
+of the unfortunate subject of this memoir will appear to have been more
+than expiated by her sufferings. Nor will the peculiar disadvantages, by
+which her introduction into life was attended, be forgotten by the
+candid,--disadvantages that, by converting into a snare the bounties
+lavished on her by nature, proved not less fatal to her happiness than
+to her conduct. On her unhappy marriage, and its still more unhappy
+consequences, it is unnecessary to comment. Thus circumstanced, her
+genius, her sensibility, and her beauty combined to her destruction,
+while, by her exposed situation, her inexperience of life, her tender
+youth, with the magnitude of the temptations which beset her, she could
+scarcely fail of being betrayed.
+
+      "Say, ye severest ...
+      ... what would you have done?"
+
+The malady which seized her in the bloom of youth, and pursued her with
+unmitigable severity through every stage of life, till, in the prune of
+her powers, it laid her in a premature grave, exhibits, in the history
+of its progress, a series of sufferings that might disarm the sternest,
+soften the most rigid, and awaken pity in the hardest heart. Her mental
+exertions through this depressing disease, the elasticity of her mind,
+and the perseverance of her efforts amidst numberless sources of
+vexation and distress, cannot fail, while they awaken sympathy, to
+extort admiration. Had this lovely plant, now withered and low in the
+dust, been in its early growth transplanted into a happier
+soil--sheltered from the keen blasts of adversity, and the mildew of
+detraction, it might have extended its roots, unfolded its blossoms,
+diffused its sweetness, shed its perfumes, and still flourished,
+beauteous to the eye, and grateful to the sense.
+
+To represent the character of the individual in the circumstances of
+life, his conduct under those circumstances and the consequences which
+they ultimately produce, is the peculiar province of biography. Little
+therefore remains to be added. The benevolent temper, the filial piety
+and the maternal tenderness of Mrs. Robinson are exemplified in the
+preceding pages, as her genius, her talents, the fertility of her
+imagination, and the powers of her mind are displayed in her
+productions, the popularity of which at least affords a presumption of
+their merit. Her manners were polished and conciliating, her powers of
+conversation rich and varied. The brilliancy of her wit and the sallies
+of her fancy were ever tempered by kindness and chastened by delicacy.
+Though accustomed to the society of the great, and paying to rank the
+tribute which civil institutions have rendered its due, she reserved her
+esteem and deference for these only whose talents or whose merits
+claimed the homage of the mind.
+
+With the unfortunate votaries of letters she sincerely sympathised, and
+not unfrequently has been known to divide the profits of her genius with
+the less successful or less favoured disciples of the muse.
+
+The productions of Mrs. Robinson, both in prose and verse, are numerous,
+and of various degrees of merit; but to poetry the native impulse of her
+genius appears to have been more peculiarly directed. Of the glitter and
+false taste exhibited in the Della Crusca correspondence[54] she became
+early sensible; several of her poems breathe a spirit of just sentiment
+and simple elegance.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+JANE, DUCHESS OF GORDON
+
+
+
+
+A PASTORAL ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF MRS. ROBINSON
+
+BY PETER PINDAR
+
+
+      Farewell to the nymph of my heart!
+      Farewell to the cottage and vine!
+      From these, with a tear, I depart,
+      Where pleasure so often was mine.
+
+      Remembrance shall dwell on her smile,
+      And dwell on her lute and her song;
+      That sweetly my hours to beguile,
+      Oft echoed the valleys along.
+
+      Once more the fair scene let me view,
+      The grotto, the brook, and the grove.
+      Dear valleys, for ever adieu!
+      Adieu to the daughter of Love!
+
+
+
+
+JANE, DUTCHESS OF GORDON
+
+
+"Few women," says Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, "have performed a more
+conspicuous part, or occupied a higher place on the public theatre of
+fashion, politics, and dissipation, than the Duchess of Gordon."
+
+Jane, afterward Duchess of Gordon, the rival in beauty and talent to
+Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was born in Wigtonshire, in Scotland.
+Her father, Sir William Maxwell of Monreith (anciently Mureith),
+represented one of the numerous families who branched off from the
+original stock--Herbert of Caerlaverock, first Lord Maxwell, the
+ancestor of the famous Earl of Nithsdale, whose countess, Winifred,
+played so noble a part when her husband was in prison during the
+Jacobite insurrection. From this honourable house descended, in our
+time, the gallant Sir Murray Maxwell, whose daughter, Mrs. Carew, became
+the wife of the too well-known Colonel Waugh; the events which followed
+are still fresh in the public mind. Until that blemish, loyalty, honour,
+and prosperity marked out the Maxwells of Monreith for "their own." In
+1681, William Maxwell was created a baronet of Nova Scotia. Various
+marriages and intermarriages with old and noble families kept the blood
+pure, a circumstance as much prized by the Scotch as by the Germans. Sir
+William, the father of the Duchess of Gordon, married Magdalene, the
+daughter of William Blair, of Blair, and had by her six children,--three
+sons and three daughters,--of whom the youngest but one was Jane, the
+subject of this memoir.
+
+This celebrated woman was a true Scotchwoman--staunch to her
+principles, proud of her birth, energetic, and determined. Her energy
+might have died away like a flash in the pan had it not been for her
+determination. She carried through everything that she attempted; and
+great personal charms accelerated her influence in that state of society
+in which, as in the French capital, women had, at that period, an
+astonishing though transient degree of ascendency.
+
+The attractions of Jane Maxwell appeared to have been developed early,
+for before she entered on the gay world, a song, "Jenny of Monreith,"
+was composed in her honour, which her son, the Duke of Gordon, used to
+sing, long after the charms, which were thus celebrated, had vanished.
+Her features were regular; the contour of her face was truly noble; her
+hair was dark, as well as her eyes and eyebrows; her face long and
+beautifully oval; the chin somewhat too long; the upper lip was short,
+and the mouth, notwithstanding a certain expression of determination,
+sweet and well defined. Nothing can be more becoming to features of this
+stamp, that require softening, than the mode of dressing the hair then
+general. Sir Joshua Reynolds has painted the Duchess of Gordon with her
+dark hair drawn back, in front, over a cushion, or some support that
+gave it waviness; round and round the head, between each rich mass, were
+two rows of large pearls, until, at the top, they were lost in the folds
+of a ribbon; a double row of pearls round the fair neck; a ruff, opening
+low in front, a tight bodice, and sleeves full to an extreme at the top,
+tighter toward the wrists, seem to indicate that the dress of the period
+of Charles I had even been selected for this most lovely portrait. The
+head is turned aside--with great judgment--probably to mitigate the
+decided expression of the face when in a front view.
+
+As she grew up, however, the young lady was found to be deficient in one
+especial grace--she was not feminine; her person, her mind, her manners,
+all, in this respect, corresponded. "She might," says one who knew her,
+"have aptly represented Homer's Juno." Always animated, with features
+that were constantly in play, one great charm was wanting--that of
+sensibility. Sometimes her beautiful face was overclouded with anger;
+more frequently was it irradiated with smiles. Her conversation, too,
+annihilated much of the impression made by her commanding beauty. She
+despised the usages of the world, and, believing herself exempted from
+them by her rank, after she became a duchess, she dispensed with them,
+and sacrificed to her venal ambition some of the most lovable qualities
+of her sex. One of her speeches, when honours became, as she thought,
+too common at court, betrays her pride and her coarseness. "Upon my
+word," she used to say, "one cannot look out of one's coach window
+without spitting on a knight." Whatever were her defects, her beauty
+captivated the fancy of Alexander, the fourth Duke of Gordon, a young
+man of twenty-four years of age, whom she married on the 28th of
+October, 1767. The family she entered, as well as the family whence she
+sprang, were devoted adherents of the exiled Stuarts, and carried, to a
+great extent, the hereditary Toryism of their exalted lineage. The
+great-grandmother of the duke was that singular Duchess of Gordon who
+sent a medal to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, with the head of
+James Stuart the Chevalier on one side, and on the other the British
+Isles, with the word "Reddite" inscribed underneath. The Faculty were
+highly gratified by this present. After a debate, they accepted the
+medal, and sent two of their body to thank the duchess, and to say that
+they hoped she would soon be enabled to favour the society with a second
+medal on the Restoration. Duke Alexander, the husband of Jane Maxwell,
+showed in his calm and inert character no evidence of being descended
+from this courageous partisan. He was a man of no energy, except in his
+love of country pursuits, and left the advancement of the family
+interests wholly to his spirited and ambitious wife. They were married
+only six years after George III had succeeded to the throne. Never was a
+court more destitute of amusements than that of the then youthful
+sovereign of England. Until his latter days, George II. had enjoyed
+revelries, though of a slow, formal, German character; but his grandson
+confined himself, from the age of twenty-two, to his public and private
+duties. He neither frequented masquerades nor joined in play. The
+splendours of a court were reserved for birthdays, and for those alone;
+neither did the king usually sit down to table with the nobility or with
+his courtiers. Never was he known to be guilty of the slightest excess
+at table, and his repasts were simple, if not frugal. At a levee, or on
+the terrace at Windsor, or in the circle of Hyde Park, this model of a
+worthy English gentleman might be seen, either with his plain-featured
+queen on his arm, or driven in his well-known coach with his old and
+famous cream-coloured horses. Junius derided the court, "where," he
+said, "prayers are morality and kneeling is religion." But although
+wanting in animation, it was far less reprehensible than that which
+preceded or that which followed it. The Duchess of Gordon,
+irreproachable in conduct, with her high Tory principles, was well
+suited to a court over which Lord Bute exercised a strong influence. She
+had naturally a calculating turn of mind. Fame, admiration, fashion,
+were agreeable trifles, but wealth and rank were the solid aims to which
+every effort was directed. Unlike her future rival, the Duchess of
+Devonshire, who impoverished herself in her boundless charities, the
+Duchess of Gordon kept in view the main chance, and resolved from her
+early youth to aggrandise the family into which she had entered.
+
+Her empire as a wit was undisputed, for the Duchess of Devonshire was
+then a mere girl, at her mother's knee; but that for beauty was disputed
+by Mary, Duchess of Rutland, so well remembered in our own time, as she
+survived till 1831.
+
+This exquisite specimen of English loveliness, compared by some to
+Musidora, as described by Thomson, was the most beautiful woman of rank
+in the kingdom. Every turn of her features, every form of her limbs, was
+perfect, and grace accompanied every movement. She was tall, of the just
+height; slender, but not thin; her features were delicate and noble; and
+her ancestors, the Plantagenets, were in her represented by a faultless
+sample of personal attributes. She was the daughter of a race which has
+given to the world many heroes, one philosopher, and several celebrated
+beauties--that of Somerset; and, as the descendant of the defenders of
+Raglan Castle, might be expected to combine various noble qualities with
+personal gifts. But she was cold, although a coquette. In the Duchess of
+Devonshire it was the _besoin d'aimer_, the cordial nature recoiled into
+itself from being linked to an expletive, that betrayed her into an
+encouragement of what offered her the semblance of affection--into the
+temptation of being beloved. To the Duchess of Gordon her conquests were
+enhanced by the remembrance of what they might bring; but the Duchess of
+Rutland viewed her admirers in the light of offering tributes to a
+goddess. She was destitute of the smiles, the intelligence, and
+sweetness of the Duchess of Devonshire; and conscious of charms,
+received adoration as her due. "In truth," Sir Nathanial Wraxall, who
+knew her well, writes, "I never contemplated her except as an enchanting
+statue, formed to excite admiration rather than to awaken love, this
+superb production of nature not being lighted up by corresponding mental
+attractions."
+
+This lady was united to one of the most attractive and popular of men,
+but one of the most imprudent and convivial. The son of that celebrated
+Marquis of Granby whom Junius attacked, the young Duke of Rutland was a
+firm partisan of Pitt, whom he first brought into the House of Commons,
+and at whose wish he accepted the government of Ireland in 1784. Never
+was there such splendour at the vice-regal court as in his time. Vessels
+laden with the expensive luxuries from England were seen in the Bay of
+Dublin at short intervals; the banquets given were most costly; the
+evenings at the castle were divided between play and drinking; and yet
+the mornings found the young duke breakfasting on six or seven turkey's
+eggs. He then, when on his progress, rode forty or fifty miles, returned
+to dinner at seven, and sat up to a late hour, supping before he
+retired to rest.
+
+The duchess had little place in his heart, and the siren, Mrs.
+Billington, held it in temporary thraldom; but constancy was to a man of
+such a calibre impossible. Nevertheless, when the duke saw his wife
+surrounded by admirers, whom her levity of manner encouraged, he became
+jealous, and they parted, for the last time as it proved, on bad terms.
+One evening, seeing him engaged in play, the duchess approached the
+window of the room in which he sat, and tapped at it. He was highly
+incensed by this interference with his amusements. She returned to
+England, an invalid, in order to consult Doctor Warren, the father of
+the late physician of that name. Whilst residing with her mother in
+Berkeley Square, she heard that the duke was attacked with fever. She
+sent off Doctor Warren to see him, and was preparing to follow him when
+the physician returned. At Holyhead he had heard that the duke was no
+more. He died at the early age of thirty-three, his blood having been
+inflamed by his intemperance, which, however, never affected his reason,
+and was, therefore, the more destructive to his health. His widow, in
+spite of their alienation, mourned long and deeply. Never did she appear
+more beautiful than when, in 1788, she reappeared after her seclusion.
+Like Diana of Poictiers, she retained her wonderful loveliness to an
+advanced age. Latterly, she covered her wrinkles with enamel, and when
+she appeared in public always quitted a room in which the windows, which
+might admit the dampness, were opened. She never married again,
+notwithstanding the various suitors who desired to obtain her hand.
+
+For a long time the Duchess of Gordon continued to reign over the Tory
+party almost without a rival. When, at last, the Duchess of Devonshire
+came forward as the female champion of the Foxites, Pitt and Dundas,
+afterward Lord Melville, opposed to her the Duchess of Gordon. At that
+time she lived in the splendid mansion of the then Marquis of Buckingham
+in Pall Mall. Every evening, numerous assemblies of persons attached to
+the administration gathered in those stately saloons, built upon or near
+the terrace whereon Nell Gwyn used to chat with Charles II on the grass
+below, as he was going to feed his birds in his gardens. Presuming on
+her rank, her influence, her beauty, the Duchess of Gordon used to act
+in the most determined manner as a government whipper-in. When a member
+on whom she counted was wanting, she did not scruple to send for him, to
+remonstrate, to persuade, to fix him by a thousand arts. Strange must
+have been the scene--more strange than attractive. Everything was
+forgotten but the one grand object of the evening, the theme of all
+talk,--the next debate and its supporters. In the year 1780 events took
+place which for some time appeared likely to shake the prosperity of the
+Gordon family almost to its fall.
+
+The duke had two brothers, the elder of whom, Lord William, was the
+Ranger of Windsor Park, and survived to a great age. The younger, Lord
+George, holds a very conspicuous but not a very creditable place in the
+annals of his country. No event in our history bears any analogy with
+that styled the "Gordon Riots," excepting the fire of London in the
+reign of Charles II; and even that calamity did not exhibit the mournful
+spectacle which attended the conflagrations of 1780. In the former
+instance, the miserable sufferers had to contend only with a devouring
+element; in the latter, they had to seek protection, and to seek it in
+vain, from a populace of the lowest description, and the vilest
+purposes, who carried with them destruction wherever they went. Even
+during the French Revolution, revolting and degrading as it was, the
+firebrand was not employed in the work of destruction; the public and
+private buildings of Paris were spared.
+
+The author of all these calamities, Lord George Gordon, was a young man
+of gentle, agreeable manners, and delicate, high-bred appearance. His
+features were regular and pleasing; he was thin and pale, but with a
+cunning, sinister expression in his face that indicated
+wrong-headedness. He was dependent on his elder brother, the duke, for
+his maintenance, six hundred pounds a year being allowed him by his
+Grace. Such was the exterior, such the circumstances of an incendiary
+who has been classed with Wat Tyler and Jack Cade, or with Kett, the
+delinquent in the time of Edward VI.
+
+It was during the administration of Lord North that the Cordon Riots
+took place, excited by the harangues and speeches of Lord George. On the
+2d of June he harangued the people; on the 7th these memorable
+disturbances broke out; Bloomsbury Square was the first point of attack.
+In Pope's time this now neglected square was fashionable:
+
+      "In Palace Yard, at nine, you'll find me there;
+      At ten, for certain, sir, in Bloomsbury Square."
+
+Baxter, the Nonconformist, and Sir Hans Sloane once inhabited what was,
+in their time, called Southampton Square, from Southampton House, which
+occupied one whole side of Bloomsbury Square, and was long the abode of
+Lady Rachel Russell, after the execution of her lord. Like every other
+part of what may be called "Old London," it is almost sanctified by the
+memories of the lettered and the unfortunate. But the glory of
+Bloomsbury Square was, in those days, the house of Lord Mansfield, at
+the north end of the east side; in which that judge had collected many
+valuables, among which his library was the dearest to his heart; it was
+the finest legal library of his time. As soon as the long summer's day
+had closed, and darkness permitted the acts of violence to be fully
+recognised, Hart Street and Great Russell Street were illuminated by
+large fires, composed of the furniture taken from the houses of certain
+magistrates. Walking into Bloomsbury, the astounded observer of that
+night's horrors saw, with consternation, the hall door of Lord
+Mansfield's house broken open; and instantly all the contents of the
+various apartments were thrown into the square, and set on fire. In vain
+did a small body of foot-soldiers attempt to intimidate the rioters. The
+whole of the house was consumed, and vengeance would have fallen on Lord
+Mansfield and his lady had they not escaped by a back door a few minutes
+before the hall was broken into; such was that memorable act of
+destruction--so prompt, so complete. Let us follow the mob, in fancy,
+and leaving the burning pile in Bloomsbury Square, track the steps of
+the crowd into Holborn. We remember, as we are hurried along, with a
+bitter feeling, that Holborn was the appointed road for criminals from
+Newgate to Tyburn. It is now one blaze of light; in the hollow near
+Fleet Market, the house and warehouses of Mr. Langdale, a Catholic--a
+Christian like ourselves, though not one of our own blessed and reformed
+church--is blazing; a pinnacle of flame, like a volcano, is sent up into
+the air. St. Andrew's Church is almost scorched with the heat; whilst
+the figures of the clock--that annalist which numbers, as it stands, the
+hours of guilt--are plain as at noonday. The gutters beneath, catching
+here and there gleams of the fiery heavens, run with spirituous liquors
+from the plundered distilleries; the night is calm, as if no deeds of
+persecution sullied its beauty; at times it is obscured by volumes of
+smoke, but they pass away, and the appalled spectators of the street
+below are plainly visible. Here stands a mother with an infant in her
+arms looking on; there, a father, leading his boy to the safest point of
+observation. We wonder at their boldness; but it is the direst sign of
+affright--in their homes they are insecure--everywhere, anywhere, the
+ruthless unseen hand may cast the brand, and all may perish. At this
+early hour there seemed to be no ringleader--no pillage; it appeared
+difficult to conceive who could be the wretch who instigated, who
+directed this awful riot; but, at the windows, men were seen calmly
+tearing away pictures from the walls; furniture, books, plate, from
+their places, and throwing them into the flames. As midnight drew near,
+the ferocious passions of the multitude were heightened by ardent
+spirits; not a soldier, either horse or foot, is visible. "Whilst we
+stood," says an eye-witness, "by the wall of St. Andrew's churchyard, a
+watchman, with his lanthorn in his hand, passed on, calling the hour as
+if in a time of profound security."
+
+Meantime, the King's Bench Prison was enveloped in flames; the Mansion
+House and the Bank were attacked. But the troops were killing and
+dispersing the rioters on Blackfriars Bridge; a desperate conflict
+between the horse and the mob was going on near the Bank. What a night!
+The whole city seemed to be abandoned to pillage--to destruction.
+Shouts, yells, the shrieks of women, the crackling of the burning
+houses, the firing of platoons toward St. George's Fields, combined to
+show that no horrors, no foes are equal to those of domestic treachery,
+domestic persecution, domestic fury, and infatuation.
+
+It was not alone the Roman Catholics who were threatened. Sir George
+Savile's house in Leicester Square--once the peaceful locality in which
+Dorothy Sydney, Waller's "Sacharissa," bloomed--was plundered and
+burned. Then the Duchess of Devonshire took fright, and did not venture
+to stay at Devonshire House for many nights after dusk, but took refuge
+at Lord Clermont's in Berkeley Square, sleeping on a sofa in the
+drawing-room. In Downing Street, Lord North was dining with a party his
+brother, Colonel North, Mr. Eden, afterward Lord Auckland, the
+Honourable John St. John, General Fraser, and Count Malzen, the Prussian
+minister. The little square then surrounding Downing Street was filled
+with the mob. "Who commands the upper story?" said Lord North. "I do,"
+answered Colonel North; "and I have twenty or thirty grenadiers well
+armed, who are ready to fire on the first notice."
+
+"If your grenadiers fire," said Mr. Eden, calmly, "they will probably
+fire into my house just opposite."
+
+The mob was now threatening; every moment the peril was increasing. Mr.
+St. John held a pistol in his hand; and Lord North, who never could
+forbear cutting a joke, said, "I am not half so much afraid of the mob
+as of Jack St. John's pistol." By degrees, however, the crowd, seeing
+that the house was well guarded, dispersed, and the gentlemen quietly
+sat down again to their wine until late in the evening, when they all
+ascended to the top of the house, and beheld the capital blazing. It was
+here that the first suggestion of a coalition between Lord North and
+Fox, to save the country and themselves, was started, and afterward
+perfected behind the scenes of the Opera House in the Haymarket. During
+this memorable night George III, behaved with the courage which,
+whatever their failings, has ever highly distinguished the Hanoverian
+family. By the vigorous measures, late indeed, but not too late, which
+he acceded to at the Council, London was saved. But the popular fury had
+extended to other towns. Bath was in tumult; a new Roman Catholic chapel
+there was burned. Mrs. Thrale, hearing that her house at Streatham had
+been threatened, caused it to be emptied of its furniture. Three times
+was Mrs. Thrale's town house attacked; her valuables and furniture were
+removed thence also; and she deemed it prudent to leave Bath, into which
+coaches, chalked over with "No Popery," were hourly driving. The
+composure with which the rioters did their work seemed to render the
+scene more fearful, as they performed these acts of violence as if they
+were carrying out a religious duty rather than deeds of
+execrable hatred.
+
+It was not until two or three days after tranquillity had been restored
+that Lord George Gordon was apprehended. Ministers were justly
+reproached for not having sent him to the Tower on the 2d of June, when
+he had assembled and excited the mob to extort compliance with their
+wishes from the House of Commons. Such a step, when the House was
+surrounded by multitudes, and when, every moment, it was expected that
+the door would be broken open, would have been hazardous; had that
+occurred, Lord George would have suffered instant death. General Murray,
+afterward Duke of Atholl, held his sword ready to pass it through Lord
+George's body the instant the mob rushed in. The Earl of Carnarvon, the
+grandfather of the present earl, followed him closely with the
+same intent.
+
+The indignation of the insulted Commons was extreme, and the distress
+and displeasure of Lord George's own family doubtless excessive. The
+House of Commons had never been thus insulted before. It is difficult to
+determine what could be Lord George's motives for the conduct which led
+to these awful results, during the whole of which he preserved a
+composure that bordered on insensibility; he was a perfect master of
+himself whilst the city was in flames. Much may be laid to fanaticism,
+and the mental derangement which it either produced or evinced. When too
+late he tried in vain to abate the fury he had excited, and offered to
+take his stand by Lord Rodney's[55] side when the Bank was attacked, to
+aid that officer, who commanded the Guards, in its defence.
+
+Lord George then lived in Weibeck Street, Cavendish Square, and
+tradition assigns as his house that now occupied by Mr. Newby, the
+publisher, No. 30, and for many years the house of Count Woronzoff, the
+Russian ambassador, who died there. Lord George there prepared for his
+defence, which was entrusted to the great Erskine, then in his prime,
+or, as he was called in caricatures, with which the shops were full,
+from his extreme vanity, _Counsellor Ego_. In February, 1781, the trial
+took place, and Lord George was acquitted. He retired to Birmingham,
+became a Jew, and lived in that faith, or under the delusion that he did
+so. The hundreds who perished from his folly or insanity were avenged in
+his subsequent imprisonment in Newgate for a libel on Marie Antoinette,
+of which he was convicted. He died a very few years after the riots of
+1780, in Newgate, generally condemned, and but little compassionated.
+
+It appears from the letters addressed by Doctor Beanie to the Duchess of
+Gordon, that she was not in London during the riots of June, 1780. The
+poet had been introduced to her by Sir William Forbes, and frequently
+visited Gordon Castle. We find him, whilst London was blazing, sending
+thither a parcel of _Mirrors_, the fashionable journal, "Count Fathom,"
+"The Tale of a Tub," and the fanciful, forgotten romance by Bishop
+Berkeley, "Gaudentio di Lucca," to amuse her solitude. "'Gaudentio,'" he
+writes, "will amuse you, though there are tedious passages in it. The
+whole description of passing the deserts of Africa is particularly
+excellent." It is singular that this dream of Bishop Berkeley's of a
+country fertile and delicious in the centre of Africa should have been
+almost realised in our own time by the discoveries of Doctor
+Livingstone.
+
+To his present of books, Doctor Beattie added a flask of whisky, which
+he sealed with his usual seal, "The three graces, whom I take to be your
+Grace's near relations, as they have the honour, not only to bear one of
+your titles, but also to resemble you exceedingly in form, feature, and
+manner. If you had lived three thousand years ago, which I am very glad
+you did not, there would have been four of them, and you the first. May
+all happiness attend your Grace!"
+
+This graceful piece of adulation was followed by a tender concern for
+"her Grace's" health. A sportive benediction was offered whilst the
+duchess was at Glenfiddick, a hunting seat in the heart of the Grampian
+Hills--a wild, sequestered spot, of which Doctor Beattie was
+particularly fond.
+
+"I rejoice in the good weather, in the belief that it extends to
+Glenfiddick, where I pray that your Grace may enjoy all the health and
+happiness that good air, goats' whey, romantic solitude, and the society
+of the loveliest children in the world can bestow. May your days be
+clear sunshine; and may a gentle rain give balm to your nights, that the
+flowers and birch-trees may salute you in the morning with all their
+fragrance! May the kids frisk and play tricks before you with unusual
+sprightliness; and may the song of birds, the hum of bees, and the
+distant waterfall, with now and then the shepherd's horn resounding from
+the mountains, entertain you with a full chorus of Highland music! My
+imagination had parcelled out the lovely little glen into a thousand
+little paradises; in the hope of being there, and seeing everyday in
+that solitude, what is
+
+      'Fairer than famed of old, or fabled since,
+      Of fairy damsels, met in forests wide
+      By errant knights.'
+
+But the information you received at Cluny gave a check to my fancy, and
+was indeed a great disappointment to Mrs. Beattie and me; not on account
+of the goats' whey, but because it keeps us so long at such a distance
+from your Grace."
+
+When at Gordon Castle, the duchess occupied herself with pursuits that
+elevated whilst they refreshed her mind. She promised Doctor Beattie to
+send him the history of a day. Her day seems to have been partly engaged
+in the instruction of her five daughters, and in an active
+correspondence and reading. It is difficult to imagine this busy,
+flattered woman reading Blair's sermons--which had then been recently
+published--to her family on Sundays; or the duke, whom Doctor Beattie
+describes as "more astronomical than ever," engrossed from morning to
+night in making calculations with Mr. Copland, Professor of Astronomy in
+Marischal College, Aberdeen. Beattie's letters to the duchess, although
+too adulatory, were those of a man who respects the understanding of the
+woman to whom he writes. The following anecdotes, the one relating to
+Hume, the other to Handel, are in his letters to the Duchess of Gordon,
+and they cannot be read without interest.
+
+"Mr. Hume was boasting to the doctor (Gregory) that among his disciples
+he had the honour to reckon many of the fair sex. 'Now tell me,' said
+the doctor, 'whether, if you had a wife or a daughter, you would wish
+them to be your disciples? Think well before you answer me; for I assure
+you that whatever your answer is, I will not conceal it.' Mr. Hume, with
+a smile and some hesitation, made this reply: 'No; I believe skepticism
+may be too sturdy a virtue for a woman.' Miss Gregory will certainly
+remember she has heard her father tell this story."
+
+Again, about Handel:
+
+"I lately heard two anecdotes, which deserve to be put in writing, and
+which you will be glad to hear. When Handel's 'Messiah' was first
+performed, the audience were exceedingly struck and affected by the
+music in general; but when the chorus struck up, 'For the Lord God
+Omnipotent reigneth,' they were so transported that they all, together
+with the king (who happened to be present), started up, and remained
+standing till the chorus ended; and hence it became the fashion in
+England for the audience to stand while that part of the music is
+performing. Some days after the first exhibition of the same divine
+oratorio, Mr. Handel came to pay his respects to Lord Kinnoul, with whom
+he was particularly acquainted. His lordship, as was natural, paid him
+some compliments on the noble entertainment which he had lately given
+the town. 'My lord,' said Handel, 'I should be sorry if I only
+entertained them--I wish to make them better.'"
+
+Beattie's happiest hours are said to have been passed at Gordon Castle,
+with those whose tastes, in some respects differing from his own, he
+contributed to form; whilst he was charmed with the beauty, the wit, the
+cultivated intellect of the duchess, and he justly appreciated her
+talents and virtues. Throughout a friendship of years her kindness
+was unvaried;
+
+      "Ne'er ruffled by those cataracts and breaks
+      Which humour interposed too often makes."
+
+The duchess felt sincerely for poor Beattie's domestic sorrows; for the
+peculiarities of his wife, whom he designated as "nervous;" for the
+early death of his son, in whom all the poet's affections were bound up,
+and to whose welfare every thought of his was directed.
+
+One would gladly take one's impressions of the Duchess of Gordon's
+character from Beattie, rather than from the pen of political writers,
+who knew her but as a partisan. The duchess, according to Beattie, was
+feelingly alive to every fine impulse; demonstrative herself, detesting
+coldness in others; the life of every party; the consoling friend of
+every scene of sorrow; a compound of sensibility and vivacity, of
+strength and softness. This is not the view that the world took of her
+character. Beattie always quitted Gordon Castle "with sighs and tears."
+It is much to have added to the transient gleams of happiness enjoyed by
+so good and so afflicted a man. "I cannot think," he wrote, when under
+the pressure of dreaded calamity--that of seeing his wife insane; "I am
+too much agitated and _distrait_ (as Lord Chesterfield would say) to
+read anything that is not very desultory; I cannot play at cards; I
+could never learn to smoke; and my musical days are over. My first
+excursion, if ever I make any, must be to Gordon Castle."
+
+There he found what is indispensable to such a man--congeniality.
+Amusement was not what he required; it was soothing. It was in the
+duchess's presence that he wrote the following "Lines to a Pen:"
+      "Go, and be guided by the brightest eyes,
+        And to the softest hand thine aid impart;
+      To trace the fair ideas as they arise,
+        Warm from the purest, gentlest, noblest heart;"
+lines in which the praise is worth more than the poetry. The duchess
+sent him a copy by Smith of her portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, a
+picture to which reference has been already made.
+
+In 1782 the duchess grieved for the death of Lord Kaimes, for whom she
+had a sincere friendship, although the religious opinions of that
+celebrated man differed greatly from those of Beattie. Lord Kaimes was
+fifty-six years an author, in company with the eccentric Lord Monboddo,
+the author of the theory that men have had tails. Lord Kaimes passed
+some days at Gordon Castle shortly before his death. Monboddo and he
+detested each other, and squabbled incessantly. Lord Kaimes understood
+no Greek; and Monboddo, who was as mad and as tiresome about Greek and
+Aristotle, and as absurd and peculiar on that score as Don Quixote was
+about chivalry, told him that without understanding Greek he could not
+write a page of good English. Their arguments must have been highly
+diverting. Lord Kaimes, on his death-bed, left a remembrance to the
+Duchess of Gordon, who had justly appreciated him, and defended him from
+the charge of skepticism. Lord Monboddo compared the duchess to Helen of
+Troy, whom he asserted to have been seven feet high; but whether in
+stature, in beauty, or in the circumstances of her life, does
+not appear.
+
+The happiness of the duchess was perfected by the blessings granted to
+her in her family. In 1770 the birth of her eldest son George, long
+beloved in Scotland whilst the Marquis of Huntley, took place. Doctor
+Beattie describes him as "the best and most beautiful boy that ever was
+born." He proved to be one of the most popular of the young nobility of
+that period. Doctor Beattie strongly advised the duchess to engage an
+English tutor, a clergyman, for him, recommended either by the
+Archbishop of York, or by the Provost of Eton. When it afterward became
+a question whether the young heir should go to Oxford or to Cambridge,
+the doctor, who seems to have been a universal authority, allowed that
+Cambridge was the best for a man of study, whilst Oxford had more dash
+and spirit in it: so little are matters altered since that time.
+
+Fifteen years appear to have elapsed before the birth of a second son,
+Alexander. Both these scions of this ducal house became military men:
+the young marquis was colonel of the Scots Fusileer Guards, and served
+in the Peninsular war, and was eventually Governor of Edinburgh Castle.
+Long was he remembered by many a brother officer, many an old soldier,
+as a gallant, courteous, gay-hearted man; with some of the faults and
+all the virtues of the military character. He married late in life
+Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander Brodie, Esq., of Arnhall, N. B., who
+survived him. Lord Alexander Cordon died unmarried; but five daughters
+added to the family lustre by noble and wealthy alliances.
+
+Wraxall remarks "that the conjugal duties of the Duchess of Gordon
+pressed on her heart with less force than did her maternal solicitudes."
+For their elevation she thought, indeed, no sacrifice too great, and no
+efforts too laborious. In the success of her matrimonial speculations
+she has been compared to Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who numbered
+among her sons-in-law two dukes and three earls. But the daughters of
+the proud Sarah were, it has been observed, the children of John
+Churchill, and on them were settled, successively, Blenheim and the
+dukedom. The Ladies Gordon were portionless, and far less beautiful than
+their mother. To her skilful diplomacy alone were these brilliant
+fortunes owing.
+
+Lady Charlotte, the eldest, was eighteen years of age when her mother
+first entertained matrimonial projects for her, and chose for their
+object no less a personage than Pitt, then prime minister. Her schemes
+might have proved successful had not Pitt had that sure impediment to
+maternal management,--a friend. This friend was the subtle Henry Dundas,
+afterward Lord Melville; one of those men who, under the semblance of
+unguarded manners and a free, open bearing, conceal the deepest designs
+of personal aggrandisement. Governing India, governing Scotland, the
+vicegerent in Edinburgh for places and pensions, Dundas was looking
+forward to a peerage, and kept his eye steadily on Pitt, whom he guided
+in many matters, adapting his conduct and his conversation to the
+peculiar tone of the minister's mind. Flattery he never used--dictation
+he carefully avoided; both would have been detrimental to his influence
+with the reserved statesman.
+
+Pitt was by no means calculated to win the affection of a blooming girl
+of eighteen, who, whatever Wraxall may have thought, lived to be one of
+the most beautiful and graceful women of her time. Many years ago,
+during the life of Sir Thomas Lawrence, his portrait of the Duchess of
+Richmond, formerly Lady Charlotte Cordon, was exhibited at Somerset
+House. So exquisite were the feminine charms of that lovely face, so
+elegant the form he had portrayed, that all crowded to look upon that
+delineation of a woman no longer young; whilst beauties in the bloom of
+youth were passed by as they hung on the walls in all the glowing
+colours of girlhood.
+
+On most intimate terms with the duchess, Pitt seems to have been touched
+with the attractions of Lady Charlotte, and to have paid her some
+attentions. He was one of the stiffest and shyest of men, finely formed
+in figure, but plain in face; the last man to be fascinated, the last to
+fascinate. Drives to Dundas's house at Wimbledon when Pitt was there;
+evenings at home, in easy converse with these two politicians; suppers,
+at which the premier always finished his bottle, as well as the hardier
+Scotchman, failed to bring forward the reserved William Pitt. The fact
+was, that Dundas could not permit any one, far less the Duchess of
+Gordon, to have the ascendency over the prime minister that so near a
+relationship would occasion. He trembled for his own influence. A
+widower at that time,--his wife, a Miss Rennie of Melville, who had been
+divorced from him, being dead,--he affected to lay his own person and
+fortune at Lady Charlotte's feet. Pitt instantly retired, and the
+sacrifice cost him little; and Dundas's object being answered, his
+pretensions also dropped through. Two years afterward, Lady Charlotte
+became the wife of Colonel Lennox, afterward Duke of Richmond, and in
+the course of years the mother of fourteen children; one of whom, Henry
+Adam, a midshipman, fell overboard from the _Blake_ in 1812, and was
+drowned. According to Wraxall, the Duke of Richmond had to pay the
+penalty of what he calls "this imprudent, if not unfortunate marriage,"
+being banished to the snowy banks of St. Lawrence under the name
+of governor.
+
+In modern times, our young nobility of promise have learned the
+important truth, ably enforced by Thomas Carlyle, that work is not only
+man's appointed lot, but his highest blessing and safeguard. The rising
+members of various noble families have laid this axiom to heart; and,
+when not engaged in public business, have come grandly forward to
+protect the unhappy, to provide for the young, to solace the old. The
+name of Shaftesbury carries with it gratitude and comfort in its sound;
+whilst that of him who figured of old in the cabal, the Shaftesbury of
+Charles II's time, is, indeed, not forgotten, but remembered with
+detestation. Ragged schools; provident schools; asylums for the aged
+governess; homes in which the consumptive may lay their heads in peace
+and die; asylums for the penitent; asylums for the idiot; homes where
+the houseless may repose,--these are the monuments to our Shaftesbury,
+to our younger sons. The mere political ascendency--the garter or the
+coronet--are distinctions which pale before these, as does the moon when
+dawn has touched the mountains' tops with floods of light. As lecturers
+amid their own people, as the best friends and counsellors of the
+indigent, as man bound to man by community of interests, our noblemen in
+many instances stand before us--Catholic and Protestant zealous alike.
+
+"Jock of Norfolk" is represented by a descendant of noble impulses.
+Elgin, Carlisle, Stanley--the Bruce, the Howard, the Stanley of former
+days--are our true heroes of society, men of great aims and
+great powers.
+
+The Duchess of Gordon was indefatigable in her ambition, but she could
+not always entangle dukes. Her second daughter, Madelina, was married
+first to Sir Robert Sinclair; and secondly, to Charles Fyshe Palmer,
+Esq., of Luckley Hall, Berkshire. Lady Madelina was not handsome, but
+extremely agreeable, animated, and intellectual. Among her other
+conquests was the famous Samuel Parr, of Hatton, who used to delight in
+sounding her praises, and recording her perfections with much of that
+eloquence which is now fast dying out of remembrance, but which was a
+thing _a part_ in that celebrated Grecian. Susan, the third daughter of
+the duke and duchess, married William, Duke of Manchester, thus becoming
+connected with a descendant of John, Duke of Marlborough.
+
+Louisa, the fourth daughter, married Charles, second Marquis Cornwallis,
+and son of the justly celebrated Governor of India; and Georgiana, the
+fifth and youngest, became the wife of John, the late Duke of Bedford.
+
+Such alliances might have satisfied the ambition of most mothers; but
+for her youngest and most beautiful daughter, the Duchess of Bedford,
+the Duchess of Cordon had even entertained what she thought higher
+views. In 1802, whilst Buonaparte was first consul, and anticipating an
+imperial crown, the Duchess of Gordon visited Paris, and received there
+such distinctions from Napoleon Bonaparte, then first consul, as excited
+hopes in her mind of an alliance with that man whom, but a few years
+previously, she would probably have termed an adventurer!
+
+Paris was then, during the short peace, engrossed with fetes, reviews,
+and dramatic amusements, the account of which makes one almost fancy
+oneself in the year 1852, that of the _coup d'etat_, instead of the
+period of 1802. The whirlwinds of revolution seemed then, as now, to
+have left all unchanged; the character of the people, who were still
+devoted to pleasure, and sanguine, was, on the surface, gay and buoyant
+as ever. Buonaparte holding his levees at the Tuileries, with all the
+splendour of majesty, reminds one of his nephew performing similar
+ceremonies at the Elysee, previously to his assuming the purple. All
+republican simplicity was abandoned, and the richest taste displayed on
+public occasions in both eras.
+
+Let us picture to ourselves the old, quaint palace of the Tuileries on a
+reception day then; and the impression made on the senses will serve for
+the modern drama; be it comedy, or be it tragedy, which is to be played
+out in those stately rooms wherein so many actors have passed and
+repassed to their doom.
+
+It is noon, and the first consul is receiving a host of ambassadors
+within the consular apartment, answering probably to the "_Salle des
+Marechaux_" of Napoleon III. Therein the envoys from every European
+state are attempting to comprehend, what none could ever fathom, the
+consul's mind. Let us not intermeddle with their conference, but look
+around us, and view the gallery in which we are waiting until he, who
+was yesterday so small, and who is to-day so great, should come forth
+amongst us.
+
+How gorgeous is the old gallery, with its many windows, its rich roof,
+and gilded panels! The footmen of the first consul, in splendid
+liveries, are bringing chairs for the ladies who are awaiting the
+approach of that schoolmaster's son; they are waiting until the weighty
+conference within is terminated. Peace-officers, superbly bedizened, are
+walking up and down to keep ladies to their seats and gentlemen to the
+ranks, so as to form a passage for the first consul to pass down. Pages
+of the back stairs, dressed in black, and with gold chains hanging
+around their necks, are standing by the door to guard it, or to open it
+when he on whom all thoughts are fixed should come forth.
+
+But what is beyond everything striking is the array of Buonaparte's
+aids-de-camp,--fine fellows, war-worn,--men such as he, and he alone,
+would choose; and so gorgeous, so radiant are their uniforms, that all
+else seem as if in shadow in comparison.
+
+The gardens of the Tuileries meantime are filling with troops whom the
+first consul is going to review. There are now Zouaves there; but these
+are men whom the suns of the tropics hate embrowned; little fellows,
+many of them, of all heights, such as we might make drummers of in our
+stalwart ranks; but see how muscular, active, full of fire they are;
+fierce as hawks, relentless as tigers. See the horse-soldiers on their
+scraggy steeds; watch their evolutions, and you will own, with a young
+guardsman who stood gazing, fifty years afterward, on the troops which
+followed Napoleon III into Paris, that "they are worth looking at."
+
+The long hour is past; the pages in black are evidently on the watch;
+the double door which leads into the _Salle des Marechaux_ is opened
+from within; a stricter line is instantly kept by the officers in the
+gallery. Fair faces, many an English one among them, are flushed. Anon
+he appears, whilst an officer at the door, with one hand raised above
+his head and the other extended, exclaims, "_Le Premier Consul_."
+
+Forth he walks, a firm, short, stolid form, with falling shoulders
+beneath his tight, deep-blue frock. His tread is heavy rather than
+majestic,--that of a man who has a purpose in walking, not merely to
+show himself as a parade. His head is large, and formed with a
+perfection which we call classic; his features are noble, modelled by
+that hand of Nature which framed this man "fearfully," indeed, and
+"wonderfully." Nothing was ever finer than his mouth--nothing more
+disappointing than his eye; it is heavy, almost mournful. His face is
+pale, almost sallow, while--let one speak who beheld him--"not only in
+the eye, but in every feature, care, thought, melancholy, and meditation
+are strongly marked, with so much of character, nay, genius, and so
+penetrating a seriousness, or rather sadness, as powerfully to sink into
+an observer's mind."
+
+It is the countenance of a student, not of a warrior; of one deep in
+unpractical meditation, not of one whose every act and plan had then
+been but a tissue of successes. It is the face of a man wedded to deep
+thought, not of the hero of the battle-field, the ruler of assemblies;
+and, as if to perfect the contrast, whilst all around is gorgeous and
+blazing, he passes along without a single decoration on his plain dress,
+not even a star to mark out the first consul. It is well; there can but
+be one Napoleon in the world, and he wants no distinction.
+
+He is followed by diplomatists of every European power, vassals, all,
+more or less, save England; and to England, and to her sons and
+daughters, are the most cherished courtesies directed. Does not that
+recall the present policy?
+
+By his side walks a handsome youth whom he has just been presenting to
+the Bavarian minister,--that envoy from a strange, wild country, little
+known save by the dogged valour of its mountaineers. The ruler of that
+land, until now an elector, has been saluted king by Napoleon
+the powerful.
+
+On the youth, who addresses him as _mon per_, a slight glance is allowed
+even from those downcast eyes which none may ever look into too full.
+Eugene Beauharnais, his stepson, the son of his ever-loved Josephine,
+has a place in that remorseless heart. "All are not evil." Is it some
+inkling of the parental love, is it ambition, that causes the first
+consul to be always accompanied by that handsome youth, fascinating as
+his mother, libertine as his stepfather, but destitute at once of the
+sensibilities of the former and of the powerful intelligence of
+the latter?
+
+It is on him--on Eugene Beauharnais--that the hopes of the proud Duchess
+of Gordon rest. Happily for her whom she would willingly have given to
+him as a bride, her scheme was frustrated. Such a sacrifice was
+incomplete.
+
+Look now from the windows of that gallery; let your gaze rest on the
+parade below, in the Rue de Rivoli, through which Buonaparte is riding
+at the head of his staff to the review. He has mounted a beautiful white
+horse; his aids-de-camp are by his side, followed by his generals. He
+rides on so carelessly that an ordinary judge would call him an
+indifferent equestrian. He holds his bridle first in one hand, then in
+another, yet he has the animal in perfect control; he can master it by a
+single movement. As he presents some swords of honour, the whole bearing
+and aspect of the man change. He is no longer the melancholy student;
+stretching out his arm, the severe, scholastic mien assumes instantly a
+military and commanding air.
+
+Then the consular band strike up a march, and the troops follow in grand
+succession toward the Champs Elysees. The crowds within the gallery
+disappear; I look around me: the hedges of human beings who had been
+standing back to let the hero pass, are broken, and all are hurrying
+away. The pages are lounging; the aids-de-camp are gone; already is
+silence creeping over that vast gallery of old historic remembrances. Do
+not our hearts sink? Here, in this centre window, Marie Antoinette
+showed her little son to the infuriated mob below. She stood before
+unpitying eyes. Happier had it been for him, for her, had they died
+then. Will those scenes, we thought, ever recur? They have--they have!
+mercifully mitigated, it is true; yet ruthless hands have torn from
+those walls their rich hangings. By yon door did the son of Egalite
+escape. Twice has that venerable pile been desecrated. Even in 152, when
+crowds hastened to the first ball given by Napoleon III., he traces of
+the last revolution were pointed out to the dancers. They have darkened
+the floors; all is, it is true, not only renovated, but embellished, so
+as to constitute the most gorgeous of modern palaces; yet for how long?
+
+It is, indeed, in mercy that many of our wishes are denied us. Eugene
+Beauharnais was even then, destined to a bride whom he had never seen,
+the eldest daughter of that Elector of Bavaria to whom Buonaparte had
+given royalty; and the sister of Ludwig, the ex-King of Bavaria, was the
+destined fair one. They were married; and she, at all events, was fond,
+faithful, nay, even devoted. He was created Duke of Leuchtenberg, and
+Marie of Leuchtenberg was beautiful, majestic, pious, graceful; but she
+could not keep his heart. So fair was she, with those sweet blue eyes,
+that pearl-like skin, that fine form, made to show off the _parures_ of
+jewels which poor Josephine bequeathed to her--so fair was she, that
+when Buonaparte saw her before her bridal, he uttered these few words,
+"Had I known, I would have married her myself." Still she was but
+second, perhaps third, perhaps fourth ('tis a way they have in France)
+in his affections; nevertheless, when he died,--and it was in his youth,
+and Thorwaldsen has executed a noble monument of him in the Dom Kirche
+at Munich,--when that last separation came, preceded by many a one that
+had been voluntary on his part, his widow mourned, and no second bridal
+ever tempted her to cancel the remembrance of Eugene Beauharnais.
+
+For Lady Georgiana Gordon, a happier fate was reserved. She married, in
+1803, John, the sixth Duke of Bedford, a nobleman whose character would
+have appeared in a more resplendent light had he not succeeded a brother
+singularly endowed, and whose death was considered to be a public
+calamity. Of Francis, Duke of Bedford, who was summoned away in his
+thirty-seventh year, Fox said: "In his friendships, not only was he
+disinterested and sincere, but in him were to be found united all the
+characteristic excellencies that have ever distinguished the men most
+renowned for that virtue. Some are warm, but volatile and inconstant; he
+was warm too, but steady and unchangeable. Where his attachment was
+placed, there it remained, or rather there it grew.... If he loved you
+at the beginning of the year, and you did nothing to lose his esteem, he
+would love you more at the end of it; such was the uniformly progressive
+state of his affections, no less than of his virtue and friendship."
+
+John, Duke of Bedford, was a widower of thirty-seven when he married
+Georgiana, remembered as the most graceful, accomplished, and charming
+of women. The duke had then five sons, the youngest of whom was Lord
+John Russell, and the eldest Francis, the present duke. By his second
+duchess, Georgiana, the duke had also a numerous family. She survived
+until 1853. The designs formed by the duchess to marry Lady Georgiana to
+Pitt first, and then to Eugene Beauharnais, rest on the authority of
+Wraxall, who knew the family of the Duke of Gordon personally; but he
+does not state them as coming from his own knowledge. "I have good
+reason," he says, "for believing them to be founded in truth. They come
+from very high authority."
+
+Notwithstanding the preference evinced by the Prince of Wales for the
+Duchess of Devonshire, he was at this time on very intimate terms with
+her rival in the sphere of fashion, and passed a part of almost every
+evening in the society of the Duchess of Gordon. She treated him with
+the utmost familiarity, and even on points of great delicacy expressed
+herself very freely. The attention of the public had been for some time
+directed toward the complicated difficulties of the Prince of Wales's
+situation. His debts had now become an intolerable burden; and all
+applications to his royal father being unavailing, it was determined by
+his friends to throw his Royal Highness on the generosity of the House
+of Commons. At the head of those who hoped to relieve the prince of his
+embarrassments were Lord Loughborough, Fox, and Sheridan. The
+ministerial party were under the guidance of Pitt, who avowed his
+determination to let the subject come to a strict investigation.
+
+This investigation referred chiefly to the prince's marriage with Mrs.
+Fitzherbert, who, being a Roman Catholic, was peculiarly obnoxious both
+to the court and to the country, notwithstanding her virtues, her
+salutary influence over the prince, and her injuries.
+
+During this conjuncture the Duchess of Gordon acted as mediator between
+the two conflicting parties, alternately advising, consoling, and even
+reproving the prince, who threw himself on her kindness. Nothing could
+be more hopeless than the prince's affairs if an investigation into the
+source of his difficulties took place; nothing could be less desired by
+his royal parents than a public exposure of his life and habits. The
+world already knew enough and too much, and were satisfied that he was
+actually married to Mrs. Fitzherbert. At this crisis, the base falsehood
+which denied that union was authorised by the prince, connived at by
+Sheridan, who partly gave it out in the House, and consummated by Fox. A
+memorable, a melancholy scene was enacted in the House of Commons on the
+8th of April, 1787,--a day that the admirers of the Whig leaders would
+gladly blot out from the annals of the country. Rolle, afterward Lord
+Rolle, having referred to the marriage, Fox adverted to his allusion,
+stating it to be a low, malicious calumny. Rolle, in reply, admitted the
+legal impossibility of the marriage, but maintained "that there were
+modes in which it might have taken place." Fox replied that he denied it
+in point of fact, as well as of law, the thing never having been done in
+any way. Rolle then asked if he spoke from authority. Fox answered in
+the affirmative, and here the dialogue ended, a profound silence
+reigning throughout the House and the galleries, which were crowded to
+excess. This body of English gentlemen expressed their contempt more
+fully by that ominous stillness, so unusual in that assembly, than any
+eloquence could have done. Pitt stood aloof; dignified, contemptuous,
+and silent. Sheridan challenged from Rolle some token of satisfaction at
+the information; but Rolle merely returned that he had indeed received
+an answer, but that the House must form their own opinion on it. In the
+discussions which ensued, a channel was nevertheless opened for mutual
+concessions--which ended eventually in the relief of the prince from
+pecuniary embarrassments, part of which were ascribed to the king's
+having appropriated to his own use the revenues of the duchy of
+Cornwall, and refusing to render any account of them on the prince's
+coming of age. It was the mediation of the Duchess of Gordon that
+brought the matter promptly to a conclusion, and through her
+representations, Dundas was sent to Canton House, to ascertain from the
+prince the extent of his liabilities; an assurance was given that
+immediate steps would be taken to relieve his Royal Highness. The
+interview was enlivened by a considerable quantity of wine; and after a
+pretty long flow of the generous bowl, Dundas's promises were
+energetically ratified. Never was there a man more "malleable," to use
+Wraxall's expression, than Harry Dundas. Pitt soon afterward had an
+audience equally amicable with the prince.
+
+From this period until after the death of Pitt, in 1806, the Duchess of
+Cordon's influence remained in the ascendant. The last years of the man
+whom she had destined for her son-in-law, and who had ever been on terms
+of the greatest intimacy with her, were clouded. Pitt had the misfortune
+not only of being a public man,--for to say that is to imply a sacrifice
+of happiness,--but to be a public man solely. He would turn neither to
+marriage, nor to books, nor to agriculture, nor even to friendship, for
+the repose of a mind that could not, from insatiable ambition, find
+rest. He died involved in debt--in terror and grief for his country. He
+is said never to have been in love. At twenty-four he had the sagacity,
+the prudence, the reserve of a man of fifty. His excess in wine
+undermined his constitution, but was source of few comments when his
+companions drank more freely than men in office had ever been known to
+do since the time of Charles II. Unloved he lived; and alone, uncared
+for, unwept, he died. That he was nobly indifferent to money, that he
+had a contempt for everything mean, or venal, or false, was, in those
+days, no ordinary merit.
+
+During the whirl of gaiety, politics, and matchmaking, the Duchess of
+Gordon continued to read, and to correspond with Beattie upon topics of
+less perishable interest than the factions of the hour. Beattie sent her
+his "Essay on Beauty" to read in manuscript; he wrote to her about
+Petrarch, about Lord Monboddo's works, and Burke's book on the French
+Revolution,--works which the duchess found time to read and wished to
+analyse. Their friendship, so honoured to her, continued until his
+death in 1803.
+
+The years of life that remained to the Duchess of Gordon must have been
+gladdened by the birth of her grandchildren, and by the promise of her
+sons George, afterward Duke of Gordon, and Alexander. The illness of
+George III., the trials of Hastings and of Lord Melville, the general
+war, were the events that most varied the political world, in which she
+ever took a keen interest. She died in 1812, and the duke married soon
+afterward Mrs. Christie, by whom he had no children.
+
+The dukedom of Gordon became extinct at his death; and the present
+representative of this great family is the Marquis of Huntley.
+
+
+
+
+
+GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE
+
+[Illustration: Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire From the painting by
+Gainsborough]
+
+
+
+GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE
+
+Notwithstanding the purity of morals enjoined by the court of George
+III., the early period of his reign presents a picture of dissolute
+manners as well as of furious party spirit. The most fashionable of our
+ladies of rank were immersed in play or devoted to politics; the same
+spirit carried them into both. The Sabbath was disregarded, spent often
+in cards or desecrated by the meetings of partisans of both factions;
+moral duties were neglected and decorum outraged.
+
+The fact was that a minor court had become the centre of all the bad
+passions and reprehensible pursuits in vogue. Carlton House, in Pall
+Mall, which even the oldest of us can barely remember, with its elegant
+screen, open, with pillars in front, its low exterior, its many small
+rooms, the vulgar taste of its decorations, and, to crown the whole, the
+associations of a corrupting revelry with the whole place,--Canton House
+was, in the days of good King George, almost as great a scandal to the
+country as Whitehall in the time of improper King Charles II.
+
+The influence which the example of a young prince, of manners eminently
+popular, produced upon the young nobility of the realm must be taken
+into account in the narrative of that life which was so brilliant and so
+misspent; so blessed at its onset, so dreary in its close--the life of
+Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Descended in the third degree from
+Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, Georgiana Spencer is said to have
+resembled her celebrated ancestress in the style of her beauty. She was
+born in 1757. Her father, John, created Earl of Spencer in 1765, was the
+son of the reprobate "Jack Spencer," as he was styled, the misery at
+once and the darling of his grandmother, Sarah, who idolised her
+Torrismond, as she called him, and left him a considerable portion of
+her property. Whilst the loveliness of Sarah descended to Georgiana
+Spencer, she certainly inherited somewhat of the talent, the reckless
+spirits, and the imprudence of her grandfather, "Jack;" neither could a
+careful education eradicate these hereditary characteristics.
+
+Her mother was the daughter of a commoner, the Right Honourable Stephen
+Poyntz, of Midgham, in Berkshire. This lady was long remembered both by
+friends and neighbours with veneration. She was sensible and
+intelligent, polite, agreeable, and of unbounded charity; but Miss
+Burney, who knew her, depicts her as ostentatious in her exertions, and
+somewhat self-righteous and vainglorious. She was, however, fervently
+beloved by her daughter, who afterward made several pecuniary sacrifices
+to ensure her mother's comfort. The earliest years of Lady Georgiana (as
+she became after her father was created an earl) were passed in the
+large house at Holywell, close to St. Albans, built by the famous Duke
+of Marlborough on his wife's patrimonial estate. Aged people, some
+fifteen years ago, especially a certain neighbouring clergyman,
+remembered going to play at cards in this house; and the neighbourly
+qualities of Lady Spencer, as much as her benevolence to the poor,
+endeared her much to the gentry around. She exercised not only the
+duties of charity, but the scarcely minor ones of hospitality and
+courtesy to her neighbours. Before the opening of railroads, such duties
+were more especially requisite to keep together the scattered members of
+country society. Good feelings were engendered, good manners promoted,
+and the attachment then felt for old families had a deeper foundation
+than servility or even custom. As Lady Georgiana grew up, she displayed
+a warm impressionable nature, a passion for all that was beautiful in
+art, strong affections, and an early disposition to coquetry. Her
+character spoke out in her face, which was the most eloquent of all
+faces; yet it was by no means beautiful if we look upon beauty
+critically. There were persons who said that her face would have been
+ordinary but for its transcendent loveliness of expression. Unlike the
+fair Gunnings, she was neither regular in features nor faultless in
+form, yet theirs was baby-beauty compared with hers. True, her hair
+inclined to red, her mouth was wide, but her complexion was exquisite;
+and the lips, ever laughing, were parted over a splendid set of teeth,
+an attribute rare in those days when the teeth were often decayed in
+youth. She had, too, a charm of manner natural to her, and a playfulness
+of conversation, which, springing from a cultivated mind, rendered her
+society most fascinating. "Her heart, too," writes Wraxall, her
+cotemporary, "might be considered as the seat of those emotions which
+sweeten human life, adorn our nature, and diffuse a nameless charm over
+existence."
+
+A younger sister, Henrietta Frances, afterward Lady Duncannon, and
+eventually Countess of Besborough, was also the object of Lady
+Georgiana's warm affection; and, although Lady Duncannon was very
+inferior to her in elegance of mind and personal attractions, she
+equalled her in sisterly love.
+
+During the middle of the last century, literature was again the fashion
+among the higher classes. Doctor Johnson and the Thrales, Miss Gurney,
+Hannah More, still clustered at Streatham; many of our politicians were,
+if not poets, poetasters. It is true, if we except the heart-touching
+poems of Cowper, the Muses were silent. The verses which were the
+delight of polished drawing-rooms were of little value, and have been
+swept away from our memories of the present day as waste paper; but a
+taste for what is refined was thus prevalent, and thus affected the then
+rising generation favourably.
+
+Lady Georgiana Spencer had, however, a very few years allotted her for
+improvement or for the enjoyment of her youth, for in her seventeenth
+year she married.
+
+William, the fifth Duke of Devonshire, at the time when he was united
+to Lady Georgiana was twenty-seven years of age. He was one of the most
+apathetic of men. Tall, yet not even stately, calm to a fault, he had
+inherited from the Cavendish family a stern probity of character, which
+always has a certain influence in society. Weight he wanted not, for a
+heavier man never led to the altar a wife full of generous impulses and
+of sensibility. He was wholly incapable of strong emotion, and could
+only be roused by whist or faro from a sort of moral lethargy. He was,
+nevertheless, crammed with a learning that caused him to be a sort of
+oracle at Brookes's when disputes arose about passages from Roman poets
+or historians. With all these qualities, he was capable of being, in a
+certain sense, in love, though not always with his lovely and engaging
+first wife.
+
+Miss Burney relates a characteristic trait of this nobleman; it was
+related to her by Miss Monckton. The duke was standing near a very fine
+glass lustre in a corner of a room in the house of people who were not
+possessed of means sufficient to consider expense as immaterial; by
+carelessly lolling back, he threw the lustre back, and it was broken. He
+was not, however, in the least disturbed by the accident, but coolly
+said: "I wonder how I did that!" He then removed to the opposite corner,
+and to show, it was supposed, that he had forgotten what he had done,
+leaned his head in the same manner, and down came the second lustre. He
+looked at it with philosophical composure, and merely said: "This is
+singular enough," and walked to another part of the room without either
+distress or apology. To this automaton was the young Lady Georgiana
+consigned; and the marriage was, in the estimation of society, a
+splendid alliance.
+
+Her animal spirits were excessive, and enabled her to cope with the
+misfortune of being linked to a noble expletive. Her good humour was
+unceasing, and her countenance was as open as her heart. Fitted as she
+was by the sweetest of dispositions for domestic life, one can hardly
+wonder at her plunging into the excitements of politics when at home
+there was no sympathy. Hence her bitterest misfortunes originated; but
+one cannot, with all her indiscretions, suffer a comparison between her
+and the Duchesse de Longueville, which Wraxall has instituted. The
+Duchess of Devonshire scarcely merits the covert censure; except in
+beauty and talents there was no similarity.
+
+Buoyant with health and happiness, the young duchess was introduced into
+the highest circles of London as a matter of course. Her husband
+represented one of the most influential families of the Whig
+aristocracy, and his name and fortune made him important.
+
+Three West End palaces, as they might well be termed, Canton House,
+Devonshire House, and Burlington House, were open to every parliamentary
+adherent of the famous coalition,--the alliance between Lord North and
+Charles James Fox. Devonshire House, standing opposite to the Green
+Park, and placed upon an eminence, seemed to look down upon the Queen's
+House, as Buckingham Palace was then called. Piccadilly then, though no
+longer, as in Queen Anne's time, infested with highwaymen, was almost at
+the extremity of the West End.
+
+In right of his descent, on his mother's side from the Boyle family, the
+Duke of Devonshire was also the owner of Burlington House, situated near
+Devonshire House, and inhabited by his brother-in-law, the Duke
+of Portland.
+
+Thus a complete Whig colony existed in that part of London, the head and
+front of their party being no less a person than George, Prince of
+Wales. He was at this time in the very height of his short-lived health
+and youth, and still more short-lived popularity; a man who possessed
+all the exterior qualities in which his father was deficient,--grace as
+well as good nature, the attribute of George III., a certain degree of
+cultivation, as well as of natural talent, a tall, handsome person, with
+a face less German in type than those of his brothers, some generosity
+of character--witness his kindness to Prince Charles Stuart and his
+brother, whom he pensioned--an appearance, at all events, of an
+extremely good heart, and a great capacity for social enjoyments.
+
+Doctor Burney states that he was surprised, on meeting the prince at
+Lord Melbourne's, to find him, amidst the constant dissipation of his
+life, possessed of "much learning, wit, knowledge of books in general,
+discrimination of character, and original humour." He spoke with Dr.
+Charles Burney, the distinguished scholar, quoting Homer in Greek with
+fluency; he was a first-rate critic in music, and a capital mimic. "Had
+we been in the dark," said Doctor Burney, "I should have sworn that
+Doctor Parr and Kemble were in the room." Hence, the same judge thought
+"he might be said to have as much wit as Charles II., with much more
+learning, for his merry Majesty could spell no better than the
+_bourgeois gentilhomme._" Such was the partial description of the prince
+by a flattered and grateful contemporary, who wrote in 1805. Twenty
+years later Sir Walter Scott, after dining with the then prince regent,
+paid all justice to manners; but pronounced his mind to be of no high
+order, and his taste, in so far as wit was concerned, to be condemned.
+
+The prince was, however, just the man to be the centre of a spirited
+opposition. In his heart he was Conservative; but the Whigs were his
+partisans against a father who strongly, and perhaps not too sternly,
+disapproved of his mode of life and his politics.
+
+The circle around him was as remarkable for their talents, and, in some
+respects, as infamous for their vices, as any Lord Rochester, or Sedley,
+or Etherege of the time of the second Charles. In that day, a Protestant
+Duke of Norfolk took an active part in political affairs, and formed one
+of the chief supporters of the Whigs. Carlton House, Devonshire House,
+often received in their state rooms "Jock of Norfolk," as he was called,
+whose large muscular person, more like that of a grazier or a butcher,
+was hailed there with delight, for his Grace commanded numerous
+boroughs. He was one of the most strenuous supporters of Fox, and had
+displayed in the House of Lords a sort of rude eloquence, characteristic
+of his mind and body. Nothing, however, but his rank, his wealth, his
+influences, his Whig opinions, could have rendered this profligate,
+revolting man endurable. Drunkenness is said to have been inherent in
+his constitution, and to have been inherited from the Plantagenets. He
+was known in his youth to have been found sleeping in the streets,
+intoxicated, on a block of wood; yet he is related to have been so
+capable of resisting the effects of wine, that, after laying his father,
+a drunkard like himself, under the table at the Thatched House, St.
+James's, he has been stated to have repaired to another party, there to
+finish the convivial rites. He was often under the influence of wine
+when, as Lord Surrey, he sat in the House of Commons; but was wise
+enough, on such occasions, to hold his tongue. He was so dirty in his
+person, that his servants used to take advantage of his fits of
+intoxication to wash him; when they stripped him as they would have done
+a corpse, and performed ablutions which were somewhat necessary, as he
+never made use of water. He was equally averse to a change of linen. One
+day, complaining to Dudley North that he was a prey to rheumatism,
+"Pray," cried North, "did your Grace ever try a clean shirt?"
+
+This uncleanly form constituted a great feature of the Whig assemblies.
+At that time every man wore a queue, every man had his hair powdered;
+yet "Jack" renounced powder, which he never wore except at court, and
+cut his hair short. His appearance, therefore, must have been a strange
+contrast with that of the Prince of Wales, curled and powdered, with
+faultless ruffles, and an ample snow-white cravat, to say nothing of the
+coat which looked as if it were sewn on his back. It is to the Duke of
+Norfolk that the suggestion of putting a tax on hair powder has been
+ascribed. His life was one series of profligacy. Yet, such was the
+perverted judgment of the day, that this unworthy descendant of the
+Plantagenets was as popular as any peer of his time. When sober, he was
+accessible, conversable, and devoid of pride. When intoxicated, he used
+half to confess that he was still a Catholic at heart. His conversion to
+the reformed faith was held not to be very sincere; and his perpetual
+blue coat of a peculiar shade--a dress he never varied--was said to be a
+penance imposed on him by his confessor. He did no credit to any
+Christian church; and the Church of Rome is welcome to his memory.
+
+Richard Brinsley Sheridan, at this period in his thirty-third year, was
+not then wholly degraded by drinking, debt, and, as far as money was
+concerned, dishonesty. His countenance at this age was full of
+intelligence, humour, and gaiety: all these characteristics played
+around his mouth, and aided the effect of his oratory to the ear. His
+voice was singularly melodious, and a sort of fascination attended all
+he did and said. His face, as Milton says of the form of the
+fallen angel,--
+      "Had not yet lost
+      All her original brightness."
+
+Yet he lived to be known by the name of "Bardolph,"--to have every fine
+expression lost in traces of drunkenness. No one could have perceived,
+in after days, the once joyous spirit of Sheridan in a face covered with
+eruptions, and beaming no longer with intelligence. He resembled, says
+Wraxall, at sixty, one of the companions of Ulysses, who, having tasted
+of Circe's "charmed cup"--
+      "... lost his upright shape,
+      And downward fell into a grovelling swine."
+
+This extraordinary man was the husband of one of the most beautiful,
+and, in being his wife, one of the most unfortunate of women. Miss
+Linley, the daughter of a celebrated musical composer, and called, for
+her loveliness, the "Maid of Bath," had the calamity of being wooed and
+won by Sheridan. Never was there a more touching and instructive history
+than hers. Her beauty was rare, even amid the belles of a period rich in
+attractive women. Dark masses of hair, drawn back on her brow, fell in
+curls on a neck of alabaster. Her features were delicate and regular;
+the expression of her eyes was exquisitely soft and pensive. Her charms
+have been transmitted to her female descendants, Mrs. Norton, the
+Duchess of Somerset, and Lady Dufferin, whilst they have also inherited
+her musical talents, and the wit and ability of their grandfather. Mrs.
+Sheridan, after a life of alternate splendour and privation, died at
+Clifton, of consumption, before middle age. Her death was saddened, if
+not hastened, by her carriage, as she was preparing to drive out on the
+Downs, being seized for her husband's debts. Whilst united to this young
+and lovely wife, Sheridan was one of the brightest stars in the
+dissolute sphere of Carlton House; but for domestic life he had neither
+time nor disposition. His fame was at its climax, when, during the trial
+of Warren Hastings, he spoke for hours in Westminster Hall, with an
+eloquence never to be forgotten; then, going to the House of Commons,
+exhibited there powers of unrivalled oratory. Meantime the theatres were
+ringing with applause, and his name went from mouth to mouth whilst the
+"Duenna" was acted at one house, the "School for Scandal" at another. He
+was, in truth, the most highly gifted man of his time; and he died in
+the fear of bailiffs taking his bed from under him,--an awestruck,
+forlorn, despised drunkard!
+
+But of all the party men to whom the young Duchess of Devonshire was
+introduced, the most able and the most dissolute was Fox. The colouring
+of political friends, which concealed his vices, or rather which gave
+them a false hue, has long since faded away. We now know Fox as he was.
+In the latest journals of Horace Walpole, his inveterate gambling, his
+open profligacy, his utter want of honour, is disclosed by one of his
+own opinions. Corrupted ere yet he had left his home, whilst in age a
+boy, there is, however, the comfort of reflecting that he outlived his
+vices. Fox, with a green apron tied around his waist, pruning and
+nailing up his fruit-trees at St. Ann's Hill, or amusing himself
+innocently with a few friends, is a pleasing object to remember, even
+whilst his early career recurs forcibly to the mind.
+
+Unhappily, he formed one of the most intimate of those whom Georgiana,
+Duchess of Devonshire, admitted to her home. He was soon enthralled
+among her votaries, yet he was by no means a pleasing object to look at
+as he advanced in life. He had dark saturnine features, thought by some
+to resemble those of Charles II, from whom he was descended in the
+female line; when they relaxed into a smile, they were, it is said,
+irresistible. Black shaggy eyebrows concealed the workings of his mind,
+but gave immense expression to his countenance. His figure was broad,
+and only graceful when his wonderful intellect threw even over that the
+power of genius, and produced, when in declamation, the most impassioned
+gestures. Having been a coxcomb in his youth, Fox was now degenerating
+into the sloven. The blue frock coat and buff waistcoat with which he
+appeared in the House of Commons were worn and shabby. Like the white
+rose which distinguished the Stuarts, so were the blue and buff the
+badge of the American insurgents and of Washington, their chief.
+
+Having ceased to be the head of the Maccaronis, as the _beau monde_ were
+then called, Fox had devoted himself to play. Whist, quinze, and
+horse-racing were his passion, and he threw away a thousand pounds as if
+they had been a guinea; and he lost his whole fortune at the
+gaming-table. Before thirty he was reduced to distress, even in the
+common affairs of life. He could not pay the chairmen who carried him to
+the House. He was known to borrow money from the waiters at Brookes's,
+which was the rallying-point of the Opposition. There the night was
+spent in whist, faro, suppers, and political consultations. Dissolute as
+he was, there was a kindness, a generosity of disposition that made his
+influence over man or woman most perilous to both. Then he was one of
+the most accomplished of students in history and general letters; and to
+his studies he could even devote himself after irretrievable losses at
+play. Topham Beauclerk, after having passed the whole night with Fox at
+faro, saw him leave the club in desperation. He had lost enormously.
+Fearful of the consequences, Beauclerk followed him to his lodgings. Fox
+was in the drawing-room, intently engaged over a Greek "Herodotus."
+Beauclerk expressed his surprise. "What would you have me do? I have
+lost my last shilling," was the reply. So great was the elasticity of
+his disposition, sometimes, after losing all the money he could manage
+to borrow, at faro, he used to lay his head on the table, and, instead
+of railing at fortune, fall fast asleep. For some years after the
+Duchess of Devonshire's marriage Fox had continued to represent
+Westminster. So long as he retained that position, Pitt's triumph could
+not be considered as complete, nor the Tory party as firmly established
+in the administration. Three candidates appeared on the hustings in
+April, 1784,--Lord Hood, Sir Cecil Wray, and Fox. So late as the
+twenty-sixth of the month Wray, who had sat for some time for
+Westminster in Parliament, maintained a small numerical advantage over
+Fox. The election, which began on the first of the month, had now gone
+on more than three weeks: ten thousand voters had polled; and it was
+even expected that, since the voters were exhausted, the books would be
+closed, and Wray, who was second on the poll, Lord Hood being first,
+would carry the day.
+
+Happily we have now no adequate notion of the terrors of such an
+election; it was a scene of fun and malice, spirit and baseness,
+alternately. Englishmen seemed hardly men; whilst they one hour
+blustered, the next they took the bribe, and were civil. Fox went down
+to Westminster in a carriage with Colonel North, Lord North's son,
+behind as a footman, and the well-known Colonel Hanger--one of the
+reprobate associates of George IV. (when prince regent), and long
+remembered on a white horse in the park, after being deserted by the
+prince and out of vogue--driving in the coat, hat, and wig of a
+coachman. When Queen Charlotte heard of this exploit of Colonel North's
+she dismissed him from his office of comptroller of her household,
+saying she did not covet another man's servant.
+
+As the month drew to a close, every hour became precious, and Fox gained
+at this critical juncture two new and potent allies. Dressed in
+garter-blue and buff, in compliment to Fox and his principles, forth
+came the young Duchess of Devonshire and her sister, now Lady Duncannon,
+and solicited votes for their candidate. The mob were gratified by the
+aspect of so much rank, so great beauty, cringing for their support.
+Never, it was said, had two "such lovely portraits appeared before on
+a canvas."
+
+It required, indeed, no ordinary courage to undertake collecting votes,
+for a strong disposition to rioting now manifested itself. Nevertheless,
+being provided with lists of the outlying voters, these two young women
+drove to their dwellings. In their enterprise they had to face butchers,
+tailors, every craft, low or high, and to pass through the lowest, the
+dirtiest, and the most degraded parts of London. But Fox was a hundred
+votes below Wray, and his fair friends were indefatigable; they forgot
+their dignity, their womanhood, and "party" was their watchword. They
+were opposed by the Marchioness of Salisbury, whom the Tories brought
+forward. She was beautiful, but haughty; and her age, for she was
+thirty-four, whereas the Duchess of Devonshire was only twenty-six,
+deteriorated from the effect of her appearance.
+
+Forgetting her rank, which Lady Salisbury always remembered, and
+throwing all her powers of fascination into the scale, the young duchess
+alighted during one of her canvassing days at a butcher's shop. The
+owner, in his apron and sleeves, stoutly refused his vote, except on one
+condition,--"Would her Grace give him a kiss?" The request was granted.
+This was one of the votes which swelled the number of two hundred and
+thirty-five above Sir Cecil Wray, and Fox stood second on the poll. Of
+course much stupid poetry was written on the occasion.
+
+      "Condemn not, prudes, fair Devon's plan,
+        In giving _Steel_ a kiss
+      In such a cause, for such a man,
+        She could not do amiss."
+
+Even the Prince of Wales took an active interest in this memorable
+election; and George III. is said to have also interfered. Never was
+political rancour so high, nor conscience so low, as at that period. The
+hustings resembled the stand at Newmarket. "An even bet that he comes in
+second," cried one; "five to four on this day's poll," screamed another.
+Amid all these shouts, gazed at by the lowest of all human beings, the
+low not only in rank but in feeling, the drunken, paid-for voters, stood
+the duchess and a band of fair titled friends supporting Fox, who was
+called the "Man of the People."
+
+It was the 17th of May when Fox, over whose head a scrutiny hung on the
+part of Sir Cecil Wray, and who was not thought even then returned as
+member, was chaired. This procession took place as the poll closed. Fox
+was carried through the streets on a chair decorated with laurel, the
+ladies in blue and buff forming part of the _cortege_. Before him was
+displayed the prince's plume: those three ostrich feathers, the sight of
+which might bring back to our minds the field of Cressy, where they were
+won, and henceforth worn for four successive centuries. A flag, on which
+was inscribed, "Sacred to Female Patriotism," was waved by a horseman in
+the triumphant cavalcade. The carriages of the Duke of Devonshire and
+the Duke of Portland attracted even less attention than that of Fox, on
+the box of which were Colonel North and other friends, partisans of Lord
+North's, who now mingled with their former opponents. As the procession
+turned into Pall Mall, it was observed that the gates of Carlton House
+were open; it passed in, therefore, and saluted, in veering round, the
+Prince of Wales, who, with a number of ladies and gentlemen, stood in
+the balustrade in front. Fox then addressed the crowd, and attempted to
+disperse them; but at night the mob broke out into acts of fury,
+illuminated and attacked those houses which were in sullen darkness.
+
+The next day the prince invited all the rank, beauty, and fashion of the
+coalition party to a fete on his lawn. It wad a bright day that 18th of
+May; and under the delicious shade of the trees the young and gay
+forgot, perhaps, in the enchantments of the scene, politics and
+elections. Lord North, dressed in blue and buff,--his new
+livery,--strutted about amid those who only fifteen months before had
+execrated and denounced him, until, by the coalition with Fox, he had
+made himself their idol. Every one, on this occasion, crowded around the
+minister, whose wit was as inexhaustible as his _sang-froid_, and whose
+conversation in its playfulness resembled that of our great premier of
+1859. Blue and buff pervaded the garden. Colonel North (afterward Lord
+Guildford) and George Byng, hitherto bitter enemies, were seen, dressed
+alike, walking together familiarly. The prince was irresistibly
+fascinating, and nothing could be more splendid than the fete given by
+royalty overwhelmed by debt.
+
+As the party were thus enjoying themselves, by a strange coincidence,
+the famous cream-coloured horses of George III. were beheld proceeding
+in solemn state down St. James's Park. His Majesty was going to
+Westminster to open Parliament. Nothing but a low wall separated Canton
+Gardens from the park, so that the king could not forbear seeing his
+former minister, his son, and the successful candidate disporting
+themselves in all the elation of success.
+
+In the evening Lower Grosvenor Street was blocked up with carriages, out
+of which gentlemen and ladies, all in blue and buff, descended to visit
+the famous Mrs. Crewe, whose husband, then member for Chester, was
+created, in 1806, Lord Crewe. This lady was as remarkable for her
+accomplishments and her worth as for her beauty; nevertheless, she
+permitted the admiration of Fox, who was in the rank of her admirers.
+The lines he wrote on her were not exaggerated. They began thus:
+      "Where the loveliest expression to features is joined,
+      By Nature's most delicate pencil design'd;
+      Where blushes unbidden, and smiles without art,
+      Speak the softness and feeling that dwell in the heart;
+      Where in manners enchanting, no blemish we trace,
+      But the soul keeps the promise we had from the face;
+      Sure philosophy, reason, and coldness must prove
+      Defences unequal to shield us from love."
+
+Nearly eight years after the famous election at Westminster, Mrs. Crewe
+was still in perfection, with a son of one and twenty, who looked like
+her brother. The form of her face was exquisitely lovely, her complexion
+radiant. "I know not," Miss Burney writes, "any female in her first
+youth who could bear the comparison. She uglifies every one near her."
+
+This charming partisan of Fox had been active in his cause; and her
+originality of character, her good humour, her recklessness of
+consequences, made her a capital canvasser.
+
+The same company that had assembled in the morning at Carlton House now
+crowded into Grosvenor Street. Blue and buff were the order of the
+evening, the Prince of Wales wearing those colours. After supper he gave
+a toast,--"True blue and Mrs. Crewe." The room rang with applause. The
+hostess rose to return thanks. "True blue, and all of you," was her
+toast. Nor did the festivities end here. Canton House some days
+afterward received all the great world, the "true blues" of London. The
+fete, which was of the most varied kind, and of the most magnificent
+description, began at noon, went on all night, and was not ended till
+the next day. Nothing could exceed its splendour. A costly banquet was
+prepared for the ladies, on whom his Royal Highness and the gentlemen
+waited whilst they were seated at table. Nothing could exceed the grace,
+the courtesy, the tact of the prince on these occasions, when he forgot
+his two hundred thousand pounds of debt, and added to them. Louis XIV.,
+said an eye-witness, could not have eclipsed him. This was probably the
+brightest era in the life of the Duchess of Devonshire. She was the lady
+paramount of the aristocratic Whig circles, in which rank and literature
+were blended with political characters. Slander soon coupled her name
+with that of Fox; and that name, though never wholly blighted, was
+sullied. Miss Burney, meeting her at Bath, some years afterward,
+describes her as no longer beautiful, but with manners exquisitely
+polite, and "with a gentle quiet" of demeanour. Yet there was an
+expression of melancholy. "I thought she looked oppressed within," was
+Miss Burney's remark. On another occasion she found her more lively, and
+consequently more lovely, vivacity being so much her characteristic that
+her style of beauty required it. "She was quite gay, easy, and charming;
+indeed, that last word might have been coined for her;" and Miss Burney
+soon perceived that it was the sweetness of her smile, her open,
+ingenuous countenance, that had won her the celebrity which had attended
+her career of fashion.
+
+But even then there was a canker in the duchess's felicity. Lady
+Elizabeth Foster, the daughter of the Earl of Bristol, and a contrast to
+her in person,--large, dark, and handsome,--had attracted the duke, her
+husband, and the coldest of men had become, deeply enamoured of this
+woman, whom he eventually married. Gibbon said of Lady Elizabeth that
+she was the most alluring of women. Strange to say, a sort of friendship
+existed between the duchess and Lady Elizabeth, who was with her at
+Bath, when Miss Burney saw them together. Even then a cloud hung
+over--these two ladies of rank; and Mrs. Ord, Miss Gurney's cautious
+friend, reproved her for making their acquaintance.
+
+Three children of rare promise were given to occupy the affections which
+were so little reciprocated by the duke. The elder of the three,
+Georgiana Dorothy, afterward married to the Earl of Carlisle, and the
+mother of the present Duchess of Sutherland, is described by Miss
+Gurney, at eight years of age, as having a fine, sweet, and handsome
+countenance, and with the form and figure of a girl of twelve. She, as
+well as her sister, was at that time under the care of Miss Trimmer, the
+daughter of Mrs. Trimmer, one of the most admirable writers for children
+that has ever delighted our infancy. Miss Trimmer is described as a
+"pleasing, not pretty" young lady, with great serenity of manner.
+
+Lady Henrietta Elizabeth, married to the Earl of Granville, so long
+ambassador at Paris, was, at six years of age, by "no means handsome,
+but had an open and pleasing countenance, and a Look of the most happy
+disposition;" a tribute borne out by the many virtues of that admirable
+lady in after life. The Marquis of Hartington, afterward Duke of
+Devonshire, then only fourteen months old (this was in 1791), had
+already a house, and a carriage to himself, almost in the style of
+royalty. He lived near his father, whilst the duchess was staying with
+her mother, Lady Spencer. To persons of domestic notions this seems a
+singular arrangement.
+
+This apparently happy family party had, however, some trials to obscure
+their supposed felicity. Scandal not only pointed at Lady Elizabeth
+Foster as possessing an undue influence over the duke, but attacked the
+duchess in the most sacred relations of her life. The little marquis was
+reputed to be illegitimate; the report assumed several shapes; of course
+rancorous political partisans pointed to the intimacy with Fox; others
+to the intimacy at Carlton House. Another story also obtained credit,
+and never died away. This was that at the time when the duchess was
+confined, Lady Elizabeth gave birth to a son, the duchess to a daughter,
+and that the children were changed; that the late duke entered into a
+contract with his uncle, the late Lord George Cavendish, never to marry,
+in order that his lordship's children might have an undisputed
+succession at his Grace's death.
+
+There was another source of disquiet to Lady Spencer and the duchess at
+this time, in the deep depression of Lady Duncannon. This lady, the
+mother of Lady Caroline Lamb, so conspicuous for her eccentricity in our
+own time, seems to have been affectionately beloved by her brother, the
+Lord Spencer, the grandfather of the present earl. "He made up to her,"
+says Miss Burney, "with every mark of pitying affection, she receiving
+him with the most expressive pleasure, though nearly silent." This
+afflicted woman lived, nevertheless, to a great age, and survived her
+gay, spirited sister, the Duchess of Devonshire.
+
+Lady Spencer belonged to that class whom we now call evangelical; a
+class earnest in feeling, originating in a sincere desire to renovate
+the almost dead faith of the period; to set an example of piety and
+decorum; and also "to let their light shine before men." Miss Burney
+describes her as too desirous of a reputation for charity and devotion.
+Nevertheless, Lady Spencer could not detach her daughter from the
+gay world.
+
+The duchess continued to take an active part in politics, and to mingle
+with the tumult of elections, faro, and party triumphs, Love, poetry,
+end the fine arts. Her son was born in the dawn of that Revolution in
+France which shook the foundations of all social life. At this very
+period a serious calamity befell their country in the first fit of
+insanity that attacked George III. Up to the very time when France was
+plunged into commotion, his Majesty, apparently in perfect health, had
+held his weekly levees at St. James's until the last week of October,
+1788. Early in November the first paroxysms of his disordered intellect
+occurred at the Queen's Lodge, after dinner, her Majesty and the
+princesses being present. The gates of the Lodge were closed that night;
+no answers were given to persons making inquiries; and it was rumoured
+that his Majesty was dead.
+
+The state of the public mind may readily be conceived. The capital
+exhibited a scene of confusion and excitement only exceeded by that
+displayed four years afterward, when the decapitation of Louis XVI. was
+announced in London.
+
+A regency was proposed; and six physicians were called in to act in
+consultation. Doctor Warren was considered to hold the first place in
+this learned junto. Doctor Addington, the father of the late Lord
+Sidmouth, Sir Lucas Pepys, and Doctor Willis were amongst the rest.
+Warren was disposed to Whiggism, and thought the king's recovery
+doubtful. Willis was a Tory, and pronounced it possible, and indeed
+probable. His dictum was believed at St. James's and at Kew Palace;
+Warren was credited at Carlton House and Devonshire House. If the first
+was the oracle of White's, the second was trusted at Brookes's. The
+famous Duchess of Gordon, the partisan of Pitt and Dundas, supported
+Willis and his views, and was the whipper-in of the Tory party. The
+Duchess of Devonshire was the firm and powerful supporter of the prince,
+in his claims to the regency. The Tories were for the power not only
+over the royal household, but over the council, being vested in Queen
+Charlotte. A caricature was circulated representing the Lord Chancellor,
+Pitt, and Dundas, as the three "weird sisters" gazing at the full moon.
+Her orb was half enlightened, half eclipsed. The part in darkness
+contained the king's profile; on the other side was a head, resplendent
+in light, graciously gazing at the weird sisters; that was the queen. In
+the February of the ensuing year, nevertheless, to the great joy of the
+nation, the king showed signs of amendment. One day, Mr. Greville,
+brother to the Earl of Warwick, was standing near the king's bed, and
+relating to Doctor Willis that Lord North had made inquiries after the
+king's health. "Has he?" said the king. "Where did he make them, at St.
+James's, or here?" An answer being given, "Lord North," said his
+Majesty, "is a good man, unlike the others. He is a good man." The party
+at Carlton House, amongst whom the Duchess of Devonshire must ever be
+ranked, were disappointed at this timely recovery, whilst the
+honest-hearted middle and lower classes of England were unfeignedly
+rejoiced; but there was too much party rancour existing for any better
+spirit to arise and show itself. Even in society, the venom of party was
+suffered to intrude. Lord Mountnorris, being one evening at a ball given
+by the French ambassador, canvassed the whole room for a partner, but in
+vain. He begged Miss Vernon to interfere, and to procure him a partner
+for a country dance. She complied, and presented him to a very elegant
+young lady, with whom his lordship danced, and conversed some time. Soon
+afterward a gentleman said to him, "Pray, my lord, do you know with whom
+you have been dancing?" "No," he replied; "pray who is she?"
+"Coalitions," said the gentleman, "will never end; why, it is Miss Fox,
+the niece of Charles, and sister of Lord Holland." The noble lord was
+thunderstruck. Had Pitt seen him? If so, he was undone. He ran up to
+reproach Miss Vernon. "True," was the reply; "she is the niece of Fox,
+but since she has twenty thousand pounds to her fortune, I thought I had
+not acted improperly in introducing you."
+
+In the famous quarrel between Burke and Fox, the Duchess of Devonshire
+took the office of mediator. Burke thus attacked Fox in the House
+of Commons.
+
+"Mr. Fox," he said, "has treated me with harshness and malignity. After
+harassing with his light troops in the skirmishes of 'order,' he has
+brought the heavy artillery of his own great abilities to bear on me.
+There have," he added, "been many differences between Mr. Fox and
+myself, but there has been no loss of friendship between us. There is
+something in this cursed French constitution which envenoms everything."
+
+Fox whispered, "There is no loss of friendship between us." Burke
+replied, "There is. I know the price of my conduct: our friendship is
+at an end."
+
+Fox was overwhelmed with grief at these words. He rose to reply, but his
+feelings deprived him of utterance. Relieved by a burst of tears, whilst
+a deep silence pervaded the house, he at last spoke.
+
+"However events," he said, in deep emotion, "may have altered the mind
+of my honourable friend,--for so I must still call him,--I cannot so
+easily consent to relinquish and dissolve that intimate connection which
+has for twenty-five years subsisted between us. I hope that Mr. Burke
+will think on past times, and whatever conduct of mine has caused the
+offence, he will at least believe that I did not intend to offend." But
+the quarrel was never reconciled, notwithstanding the good offices of
+the Duchess of Devonshire, the friend of both parties.
+
+Soon after the commencement of the eighteenth century, this party spirit
+was, as it were, rebuked, first by the death of Pitt, and afterward by
+that of Fox, who was long in a declining state. When he heard that Pitt
+had expired, he said, "Pitt has died in January, perhaps I may go off in
+June. I feel my constitution dissolving." When asked by a friend, during
+the month of August, to make one of a party in the country at Christmas,
+he declined.
+
+"It will be a new scene," said his friend. "I shall indeed be in a new
+scene by Christmas next," Mr. Fox replied. On that occasion he expressed
+his belief in the immortality of the soul; "but how," he added, "it acts
+as separated from the body, is beyond my capacity of judgment." Mr. Fox
+took his hand and wept. "I am happy," he added, "full of confidence; I
+may say of certainty."
+
+One of his greatest desires was to be removed to St. Ann's Hill, near
+Chertsey, the scene of his later, his reformed, his happier life. His
+physicians hesitated, and recommended his being carried first to the
+Duke of Devonshire's house at Chiswick. Here, for a time, he seemed to
+recover health and spirits. Mrs. Fox, Lady Holland, his niece, and Lady
+Elizabeth Foster were around his death-bed. Many times did he take leave
+of those dearest to him; many times did death hover over him; yet we
+find no record that the Duchess of Devonshire was amongst those who
+received his last sigh. His last words to Mrs. Fox and Lord Holland
+were, "God bless you, bless you, and you all! I die happy--I pity you!"
+
+"Oh! my country!" were Pitt's last words; those of Fox were equally
+characteristic. His nature was tender and sympathetic, and had he lived
+in other times he would have been probably as good as he was great.
+
+His remains were removed from Chiswick to his own apartments in St.
+James's, and conveyed under a splendid canopy to Westminster Abbey. As
+the gorgeous procession passed Carlton House, a band of music,
+consisting of thirty, played the "Dead March in Saul." The Prince of
+Wales had wished to follow his friend on foot to the grave, but such a
+tribute was forbidden by etiquette.
+
+It is to be regretted that princes must be exempted from so many of the
+scenes in this sublunary life calculated to touch the heart, to chasten
+and elevate the spirit. As the funeral entered the abbey, and those
+solemn words, "I am the Resurrection and the Life," were chanted, the
+deepest emotion affected those who had known and loved him whose pall
+they bore.
+
+Among other tributes to the memory of Fox were the following lines from
+the pen of the Duchess of Devonshire. The visitor to Woburn Abbey will
+find them underneath the bust of the great statesman in a temple
+dedicated to Liberty by the late Duke of Bedford.
+
+      "Here, near the friends he lov'd, the man behold,
+      In truth unshaken, and in virtue bold,
+      Whose patriot zeal and uncorrupted mind
+      Dared to assert the freedom of mankind;
+      And, whilst extending desolation far,
+      Ambition spread the hateful flames of war
+      Fearless of blame, and eloquent to save,
+      'Twas he--'twas Fox--the warning counsel gave,
+      Midst jarring conflicts stemm'd the tide of blood,
+      And to the menac'd world a sea-mark stood!
+      Oh! had his voice in mercy's cause prevailed,
+      What grateful millions had the statesman hail'd:
+      Whose wisdom made the broils of nations cease,
+      And taught the world humanity and peace!
+      But, though he fail'd, succeeding ages here
+      The vain, yet pious efforts shall revere;
+      Boast in their annals his illustrious name,
+      Uphold his greatness, and confirm his fame."
+
+The duchess only survived Fox a year; she died in 1806, beloved,
+charitable, penitent. Her disease was an abscess of the liver, which was
+detected rather suddenly, and which proved fatal some months after it
+was first suspected. When the Prince of Wales heard of her death, he
+remarked: "Then the best-natured and best-bred woman in England is
+gone." Her remains were conveyed to the family vault of the Cavendish
+family in All Saints' Church, Derby; and over that sepulchre one fond
+heart, at all events, sorrowed. Her sister, Lady Duncannon, though far
+inferior to the duchess in elegance both of mind and person, had the
+same warm heart and strong affection for her family. During the month of
+July, 1811, a short time before the death of the Duke of Devonshire (the
+husband of the duchess), Sir Nathaniel Wraxall visited the vault of All
+Saints' Church. As he stood admiring the coffin in which the remains of
+the once lovely Georgiana lay mouldering, the woman who had accompanied
+him showed him the shreds of a bouquet which lay on the coffin. Like the
+mortal coil of that frame within, the bouquet was now reduced almost to
+dust. "That nosegay," said the woman, "was brought here by the Countess
+of Besborough, who had intended to place it herself upon the coffin of
+her sister; but as she approached the steps of the vault, her agony
+became too great to permit her to proceed. She knelt down on the stones
+of the church, as nearly over the place where the coffin stood in the
+vault below as I could direct, and there deposited the flowers,
+enjoining me to perform an office to which she was unequal. I fulfilled
+her wishes."
+
+By others the poor duchess was not so faithfully remembered. Her friend
+Lady Elizabeth Foster had long since become her rival, yet one common
+secret, it was believed, kept them from a rupture. Both had, it was
+understood, much to conceal. The story of the late Duke of Devonshire's
+supposed birth has been referred to: he is supposed to have been the son
+of the duke, but not of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, but of her who
+afterward bore that title, Lady Elizabeth Foster. The inflexible
+determination of the late duke to remain single, according, it is said,
+to an agreement between him and his uncle, then Lord George Cavendish,
+always seemed to imply, in a man of such pure and domestic tastes, so
+affectionate a disposition, and so princely a fortune, some dire
+impediment.
+
+In 1824, Lady Elizabeth Foster, then the second Duchess of Devonshire,
+expired at Rome, where she had lived many years in almost regal
+splendour. Amongst her most intimate friends were the Cardinal Consalvi
+and Madame Recamier, who were cognisant of the report, which was
+confirmed in their minds by the late duke's conduct at her death. Lady
+Elizabeth, as we shall still by way of distinction call her, was then so
+emaciated as to resemble a living spectre; but the lines of a rare and
+commanding beauty still remained. Her features were regular and noble,
+her eyes magnificent, and her attenuated figure was upright and
+dignified, with the step of an empress. Her complexion of marble
+paleness completed this portrait. Her beautiful arms and hands were
+still as white as ivory, though almost like a skeleton's from their
+thinness. She used in vain to attempt to disguise their emaciation by
+wearing bracelets and rings. Though surrounded by every object of art in
+which she delighted, by the society, both of the English, Italian, and
+French persons of distinction whom she preferred, there was a shade of
+sadness on this fascinating woman's brow, as if remembrance forbade her
+usual calm of life's decline.
+
+Her stepson (so reported), the late duke, treated her with respect and
+even affection, but there was an evident reserve between them. At her
+death he carefully excluded all friends to whom she could in her last
+moments confide what might perhaps, at that hour, trouble her
+conscience. Her friends, Madame Recamier and the Duc de Laval, were only
+admitted to bid her farewell when she was speechless, and a few minutes
+before she breathed her last.
+
+This circumstance struck them forcibly as confirmatory of the report
+alluded to; but it must in candour be stated that the duke's precautions
+may have originated in another source. His step-mother was disposed to
+Romanism, and he may have feared that the zeal of her Catholic friends
+should prompt them, if opportunity occurred, to speak to her on the
+subject of her faith, and to suggest the adoption of such consolations
+as their own notions would have thought indispensable at that awful
+moment. The point is one that cannot be settled. It may, however, be
+remarked, that in disposition, in his wide benevolence and courteous
+manners, the late duke greatly resembled the subject of this
+memoir,--the beautiful, the gifted, but the worldly Georgiana, Duchess
+of Devonshire.
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+ENDNOTES.
+
+Note 1: Collins's "Peerage" gives the following account of this lady:
+"Peter, Lord King, married Anne, daughter of Richard Seys, Esq., of
+Boverton, in Glamorganshire, with whom he lived to the day of his death
+in perfect love and happiness, and left by her four sons and two
+daughters."
+
+Note 2: A portrait of my grandmother, when a girl, was seen by my mother
+at Hawell, in Somersetshire, the seat of Sir C. K. Tynt, many years after
+I was born.
+
+Note 3: I may with truth, and without vanity, make this remark. The
+estimable being here mentioned was named John; he died on the 7th of
+December, 1790, at Leghorn, in Tuscany, where he had been many years
+established as a merchant of the first respectability.
+
+Note 4: Hannah More, with her sisters, at this time kept a boarding-
+school for young ladies. Later she became famous as the author of
+tragedies which gained popularity--Ed.
+
+Note 5: Mr. Powel.
+
+Note 6: Thomas Hull, deputy manager of Covent Garden Theatre, was founder
+of the Theatrical Fund for the relief of distressed players. He was an
+actor, the author and translator of several plays, and a writer of poems
+and short stories.--Ed.
+
+Note 7: David Garrick, the famous actor and manager of Drury Lane Theatre,
+made his last appearance on the stage on the 10th of June, 1776, he
+being then in his sixtieth year.--Ed.
+
+Note 8: Arthur Murphy, an Irishman, began life as a clerk, then became a
+journalist, and subsequently an actor, but remaining on the stage only
+for a couple of seasons, he turned dramatist and wrote a number of
+plays, some of which attained great success. Two years after the death
+of David Garrick he wrote a life of the famous player, who had been his
+intimate friend.--Ed.
+
+Note 9: Susannah Cibber, who gained considerable fame as a singer in
+oratorio before becoming an actress. Her first success as a player was
+gained at Covent Garden, but in 1753 she joined Garrick's company at Drury
+Lane, of which she remained a member until her death in 1766. Garrick, who
+greatly admired her genius, on hearing of her demise, declared, "Then
+tragedy is dead on one side." She lies buried in Westminster Abbey.
+
+Note 10: At the time when the banns of her marriage were published she
+admits to being "a few months advanced in her sixteenth year;" and she had
+been four months married when the journey to Bristol was made.--Ed.
+
+Note 11: Mrs. Sophia Baddeley, who was a very beautiful woman, and the
+heroine of many amorous adventures.--Ed.
+
+Note 12: Robert Henley, who, in 1772, succeeded his father as second Earl
+of Northington. Previous to this date he had been made an LL. D. of
+Cambridge, and had held the offices of teller of the exchequer, and
+master of the Hamper Office in Chancery. The year after his succession
+he was made Knight of the Thistle, and in 1783 was appointed Lord
+Lieutenant of Ireland.--Ed.
+
+Note 13: Thomas, second Baron Lyttelton, known as "the wicked Lord
+Lyttelton," in distinction to his father, who in his lifetime had been
+styled "the good Lord Lyttelton." Thomas, Baron Lyttelton, was a man of
+parts and fashion; a politician, a writer of verses, an artist whose
+paintings were supposed to contain the combined excellencies of Salvator
+Rosa and Claude, and withal one of the greatest profligates of the age.
+This is the Lord Lyttelton who, in his thirty-fifth year, and whilst in
+perfect health, dreamt a woman appeared to him and announced he had not
+three days to live. He spoke lightly of his dream, and on the morning of
+the third day felt in such good spirits that he declared he should "bilk
+the ghost." He died suddenly that night, when his friend Miles Peter
+Andrews dreamt Lyttelton appeared to him and said, "All is over."
+
+George Edward Ayscough, a captain in the Guards, was cousin to the
+second Lord Lyttelton. Some years Later than the date of his meeting
+with Mrs. Robinson he produced a version of Voltaire's "Semiramis,"
+which was presented at Drury Lane Theatre in 1776. He is described as "a
+parasite of Lord Lyttelton," and as "a fool of fashion."--Ed.
+
+Note 14: Anna Laetitia Aikin (1743-1825).--Ed.
+
+Note 15: George Robert Fitzgerald, commonly known as "Fighting
+Fitzgerald," from the number of duels in which he took part, was a man of
+good family, noted alike for his gallantry and recklessness. A fracas
+which was the result of his distasteful attentions to Mrs. Hartley, a
+well-known actress, had made him notorious in 1773, some years previous
+to his introduction to Mrs. Robinson. His life, which was one of
+singular adventure, ended on the scaffold, he being executed for murder
+in 1786.--Ed.
+
+Note 16: Mrs. Abington, a distinguished actress who, at the age of
+seventeen, had made her first appearance at the Haymarket Theatre, some
+six years before the author of these memoirs was born.
+
+Note 17: Later she gave birth to a daughter, named Sophia, who lived but
+six weeks.--Ed.
+
+Note 18: Mr. Robinson was educated at Harrow, and was a contemporary of
+Mr. Sheridan.
+
+Note 19: This gentleman's name is Hanway, the person mentioned in the
+former part of this work as Mr. Robinson's earliest friend.
+
+Note 20: Writing of this time, Miss Hawkins states that Mrs. Robinson was
+"eminently meritorious: she had her child to attend to, she did all the
+work of their apartments, she even scoured the stairs, and accepted the
+writing and the pay which he had refused."--Ed.
+
+Note 21: Georgiana, wife of the fifth Duke of Devonshire. The duchess was
+not only one of the most beautiful, vivacious, and fascinating women of
+the day, but was likewise an ardent politician. Whilst canvassing for the
+election of Fox, she purchased the vote of a butcher for a kiss, and
+received from an Irish mechanic the complimentary assurance that he
+could light his pipe at her eyes.--Ed.
+
+Note 22: George Hobart, third Earl of Buckinghamshire, who had a passion
+for dramatic entertainments, and for a time became manager of the opera in
+London.--Ed.
+
+Note 23: Richard Brinsley Sheridan was at this period in his twenty-fifth
+year, and had entered on his mismanagement of Drury Lane Theatre. He had
+already written "The Rivals," which had not proved a success on its
+first appearance; "St. Patrick's Day, or the Scheming Lieutenant," a
+farce; "The Duenna," a comic opera; but he was yet to write "A Trip to
+Scarborough," and "The School for Scandal."
+
+Note 24: In his "History of the Stage," Genest tells us Mrs. Robinson made
+her first appearance on the stage as Juliet, on the 10th of December,
+1776, but leaves us in ignorance regarding the actors who took part in
+the tragedy. Romeo was evidently played by William Brereton, who had
+rehearsed the principal scenes with her in the greenroom before Sheridan
+and Garrick. Genest adds: "Mrs. Robinson was received with great
+applause. She had an engagement previous to her first appearance, and
+received what was considered a handsome salary. She was a most beautiful
+woman, and a very good breeches figure."--Ed.
+
+Note 25: According to Genest, the second character she attempted was
+Statira, in "Alexander the Great," played on the 17th of February, 1777;
+Amanda, in "The Trip to Scarborough," produced seven nights later, being
+her third personation.--Ed.
+
+Note 26: Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, and afterward King of
+Hanover, was the fifth son of George III, and perhaps the most profligate
+and unpopular member of the royal family.--Ed.
+
+Note 27: Horace Walpole, writing to his friend, the Rev. William Mason, on
+the 28th of May, 1780, says: "Lady Craven's comedy, called 'The
+Miniature Picture,' which she acted herself with a genteel set at her
+own house in the country, has been played at Drury Lane. The chief
+singularity was that she went to it herself, the second night, in form;
+sat in the middle of the front row of the stage box, much dressed, with
+a profusion of white bugles and plumes, to receive the public homage due
+to her sex and loveliness.... It was amazing to see so young a woman
+entirely possess herself; but there is such an integrity and frankness
+in her consciousness of her own beauty and talents, that she speaks of
+them with a _naivete_ as if she had no property in them, but only wore
+them as gifts of the gods. Lord Craven, on the contrary, was quite
+agitated by his fondness for her, and with impatience at the bad
+performance of the actors, which was wretched indeed. Yet the address of
+the plot, which is the chief merit of the piece, and some lively
+pencilling, carried it off very well, though Parsons murdered the Scotch
+Lord, and Mrs. Robinson (who is supposed to be the favourite of the
+Prince of Wales) thought on nothing but her own charms and him."
+
+"The Irish Widow" was a farce founded by David Garrick on Moliere's "Le
+Mariage Force," and produced on the 23d of October, 1772.--Ed.
+
+Note 28: Thomas Linley, who was considered "one of the finest violin
+players in Europe," was drowned through the upsetting of a boat on the
+5th of August, 1778. He was a brother-in-law of Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
+--Ed.
+
+Note 29: George Colman, a popular and prolific dramatist, who in 1777
+became manager of the Haymarket Theatre, and continued as such until 1785,
+introducing meanwhile many new players and some dramatic novelties.--Ed.
+
+Note 30: Elizabeth Farren, born 1759, made her first appearance before a
+London audience as Miss Hardcastle, in "She Stoops to Conquer," on June
+9, 1777. After years spent in strolling through the provinces in her
+father's company and that of other managers, she now captivated the
+town. Her beautiful face, exquisitely modulated voice, elegant figure,
+and natural grace, rendered her an ideal representative of the fine
+ladies of comedy. She was welcomed into the most distinguished society
+in London, and whilst acting as manageress of private theatricals at the
+Duke of Richmond's house in Whitehall, met Edward, twelfth Earl of
+Derby, whose wife was then living. This did not prevent him from falling
+in love with Miss Farren, who, it was understood, would succeed his
+first wife as countess did the latter predecease the actress. Lady Derby
+died on March 14, 1797 and on the 8th of the following month Miss Farren
+took leave of the stage in the character of Lady Teazle, and on the 1st
+of May was married to Lord Derby, she being then in her thirty-eighth
+year. Even in this scandal-loving and licentious age no imputation had
+ever been cast upon her honour. Of the three children born of this
+union, but one survived, a daughter, who marred the Earl of Wilton. The
+Countess of Derby lived until 1829.--Ed.
+
+Note 31: Mrs. Robinson played Lady Macbeth on the occasion of her benefit,
+when was also performed a musical farce she had composed entitled, "A
+Lucky Escape."--Ed.
+
+Note 32: The famous politician, Charles James Fox, a friend of the Prince
+of Wales.--Ed.
+
+Note 33: George III. and Queen Charlotte, who frequently attended the
+theatre.--Ed.
+
+Note 34: This performance of "The Winter's Tale" took place on December 3,
+1779, she being at that time in her twenty-second year, and the Prince
+of Wales in his eighteenth year.--Ed.
+
+Note 35: Smith had been educated at Eton and St. John's College,
+Cambridge, with a view to becoming a clergyman, but eventually went on the
+stage and proved himself an excellent actor, whose representation of
+Charles Surface was considered a finished performance.--Ed.
+
+Note 36: George Chapel Coningsby, Viscount Malden, afterward fifth Earl of
+Essex, born November 13, 1757. He married twice, his second wife being
+Miss Stephens, the famous singer.--Ed.
+
+Note 37: Those who have read "The Winter's Tale" will know the
+significance of these adopted names.
+
+Note 38: The writer evidently makes a mistake in fixing the Oratorio for
+the next night, as will be seen from the note on the next page.--Ed.
+
+Note 39: Frederick Augustus, Duke of York and Albany, second son of George
+III., who at the age of six months was elected to the valuable bishopric
+of Osnaburg.--Ed.
+
+Note 40: Another of the "diurnal prints," dated February 12, 1780, is not
+so complimentary in its remarks, which run as follows: "A circumstance of
+rather an embarrassing nature happened at last night's Oratorio. Mrs.
+R----, decked out in all her finery, took care to post herself in one of
+the upper boxes immediately opposite the prince's, and by those airs
+peculiar to herself, contrived at last so to _basilisk_ a certain
+heir-apparent, that his fixed attention to the beautiful object became
+generally noticed, and soon after astonished their Majesties, who, not
+being able to discover the cause, seemed at a loss to account for the
+extraordinary effect. No sooner, however, were they properly informed
+than a messenger was instantly sent aloft desiring the dart-dealing
+actress to withdraw, which she complied with, though not without
+expressing the utmost chagrin at her mortifying removal."--Ed.
+
+Note 41: At this time the Prince of Wales and his brother Frederick
+Augustus, Duke of York, were living in seclusion at Boner Lodge, Kew,
+where their education was being conducted by Doctor Hurd, Bishop of
+Lichfield, Mr. Arnold, and Lord Bruce. A strict discipline was exercised
+over the princes at this period. It was not until January 1, 1781, that
+the Prince of Wales was provided with a separate establishment, a part of
+Buckingham House being allotted to him for that purpose.--Ed.
+
+Note 42: Now Margravine of Anspach.
+
+Note 43: The most affecting tribute which the memory of a gallant father
+could receive was the following pathetic and heartfelt effusion of
+genuine and grateful duty:
+
+TO THE MEMORY OF MY LAMENTED FATHER,
+WHO DIED IN THE SERVICE OF THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA,
+DECEMBER 5, 1786.
+
+        Oh, sire, rever'd! ador'd!
+      Was it the ruthless tongue of DEATH
+        That whisp'ring to my pensive ear,
+          Pronounc'd the fatal word
+        That bath'd my cheek with many a tear,
+      And stopp'd awhile my gasping breath?
+        "He lives no more!
+        Far on a foreign shore,
+      His honour'd dust a laurell'd grave receives,
+      While his immortal soul in realms celestial lives!"
+
+        Oh! my lov'd sire, farewell!
+      Though we are doom'd on earth to meet no more,
+      Still memory lives, and still I must adore!
+      And long this throbbing heart shall mourn,
+      Though thou to these sad eyes wilt ne'er return!
+          Yet shall remembrance dwell
+        On all thy sorrows through life's stormy sea,
+      When fate's resistless whirlwinds shed
+      Unnumber'd tempests round thy head,
+        The varying ills of human destiny!
+
+      Yet, with a soul sublimely brave,
+      Didst thou endure the dashing wave;
+      Still buffeting the billows rude,
+      By all the shafts of woe, undaunted, unsubdued!
+        Through a long life of rugged care,
+      'Twas thine to steer a steady course!
+        'Twas thine misfortune's frowns to bear,
+      And stem the wayward torrent's force!
+        And as thy persevering mind
+      The toilsome path of fame pursued,
+        'Twas thine, amidst its flow'rs to find
+      The wily snake--Ingratitude!
+        Yet vainly did th' insidious reptile strive
+      On thee its poisons dire to fling;
+        Above its reach, thy laurel still shall thrive,
+      Unconscious of the treach'rous sting!
+
+      'Twas thine to toil through length'ning years,
+      Where low'ring night absorbs the spheres!
+        O'er icy seas to bend thy way,
+      Where frozen Greenland rears its head,
+        Where dusky vapours shroud the day,
+      And wastes of flaky snow the stagnate ocean spread,
+        'Twas thine, amidst the smoke of war,
+        To view, unmov'd, grim-fronted Death;
+        Where Fate, enthron'd in sulphur'd car,
+      Shrunk the pale legions with her scorching breath!
+        While all around her, bath'd in blood,
+      Iberia's haughty sons plung'd lifeless 'midst the flood.
+
+        Now on the wings of meditation borne,
+      Let fond remembrance turn, and turn to mourn;
+      Slowly, and sad, her pinions sweep
+      O'er the rough bosom of the boist'rous deep
+        To that disastrous, fatal coast
+        Where, on the foaming billows tost,
+      Imperial Catherine's navies rode;
+        And war's inviting banners wide
+        Wav'd hostile o'er the glitt'ring tide,
+      That with exulting conquest glow'd!
+
+        For there--oh, sorrow, check the tear!--
+        There, round departed valour's bier,
+      The sacred drops of kindred virtue[56] shone!
+        Proud monuments of worth! whose base
+        Fame on her starry hill shall place;
+        There to endure, admir'd, sublime!
+        E'en when the mould'ring wing of time
+      Shall scatter to the winds huge pyramids of stone!
+        Oh! gallant soul! farewell!
+      Though doom'd this transient orb to leave,
+        Thy daughter's heart, whose grief no words can tell,
+      Shall, in its throbbing centre, bid thee live!
+        While from its crimson fount shall flow
+      The silent tear of ling'ring grief;
+      The gem sublime! that scorns relief,
+        Nor vaunting shines, with ostentatious woe!
+
+      Though thou art vanish'd from these eyes,
+      Still from thy sacred dust shall rise
+        A wreath that mocks the polish'd grace
+      Of sculptur'd bust, or tuneful praise;
+        While Fame shall weeping point the place
+      Where Valour's dauntless son decays!
+      Unseen to cherish mem'ry's source divine,
+      Oh I parent of my life, shall still be mine!
+
+        And thou shalt, from thy blissful state,
+      Awhile avert thy raptur'd gaze,
+      To own, that 'midst this wild'ring maze,
+        The flame of filial love defies the blast of fate!
+
+Note 44: Dumouriez.
+
+Note 45: An attachment took place between Mrs. Robinson and Colonel
+Tarleton shortly after the return of the latter from America, which
+subsisted during sixteen years. On the circumstances which occasioned its
+dissolution it is neither necessary nor would it be proper to dwell. The
+exertions of Mrs. Robinson in the service of Colonel Tarleton, when
+pressed by pecuniary embarrassment, led to that unfortunate journey, the
+consequences of which proved so fatal to her health. The colonel
+accompanied her to the Continent, and, by his affectionate attentions,
+sought to alleviate those sufferings of which he had been the
+involuntary occasion.
+
+Note 46: Son of the celebrated Edmund Burke.
+
+Note 47: The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, at that time conductor of the
+_Annual Register_.
+
+Note 48: Mr. Merry had been a member of the "Scuola della Crusca," at
+Florence.
+
+Note 49: Mrs. Robinson's "Poems," vol. ii. p. 27.
+
+Note 50: The date on which the Paris prisons were broken open and twelve
+hundred royalist prisoners slain.--Ed.
+
+Note 51: Boaden, in his Life of Kemble, says: "I remember the warmth with
+which Mrs. Robinson chanted the kindness of Mrs. Jordan in accepting the
+principal character: and I cannot forget the way, when the storm began,
+in which the actress, frightened out of her senses, 'died and made no
+sign.'"--Ed.
+
+Note 52: The Morning Post.
+
+Note 53: Miss Robinson and a friend.
+
+Note 54: Those who have read Gifford's "Baviad" and "Maeviad" will
+understand this allusion.--Ed.
+
+Note 55: Second Baron Rodney, son of the admiral, then a captain in the
+Guards.
+
+Note 56: Captain Darby commanded, at the time of his death, a ship of war
+in the Russian service, and was buried with military honours,
+universally lamented.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Beaux and Belles of England, by Mary Robinson
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