her attention to the embellishment of her husband’s country seat in
Hertfordshire, where, in company with her chosen friend, Mrs. Damer
(alike charming as a woman and an artist), she planned and arranged
the internal decorations of Brocket Hall. Wheatley was again called
in, and, with the assistance of Mortimer, painted the ceilings with
allegorical subjects. The two ladies were also much addicted to the
pastime of private theatricals, as was their mutual friend, the
beautiful Duchess of Devonshire; while such names as Sheridan, Fox,
Horace Walpole, and other celebrities, figured as actors and authors
in Lady Melbourne’s company. It was here, doubtless, that Lord
Egremont (then a youth) imbibed that love of art, and that taste for
the society of artists, which made him so noble and munificent a
patron, to the end of a long life. He was a great friend of the
Melbournes, and loved to see his ‘three young lambs’ gambolling over
the greensward in his spacious park at Petworth.
Lady Melbourne was very popular with the Royal Family, and one day the
Duke of York called on her, and in the course of conversation became
very enthusiastic in his admiration of Melbourne House. He confessed
he was weary of his own at Whitehall, and would gladly move into her
neighbourhood. The lady laughed, and said, for her part, she often
wished to exchange the chimes of St. James’s Church for those of
Westminster Abbey; and they talked on, half jestingly, half in
earnest, till the possibility of an exchange of residence was mooted.
It appeared strange, but perhaps the amateur house-decorator was lured
by the prospect of new walls to beautify, fresh fields to conquer.
Before the Duke took his leave, he had gained her Ladyship’s promise
to discuss the subject with her husband: ‘For you know, dear Lady
Melbourne, you always have your way with everybody, especially with my
Lord.’
His Royal Highness was right: if Lord Melbourne raised any objection
at first, it was soon overcome; the consent of the Crown was gained,
the bargain was struck, the house at Whitehall became Melbourne House,
and the residence in Piccadilly, York House, afterwards changed to the
Albany, where, in the oldest portion and principal apartments of that
paradise of bachelors, the decorations of Cipriani and his colleagues
may still be admired.
All contemporary writers speak of Lady Melbourne as a leader of
fashion and an ornament of society; Horace Walpole, in particular,
alludes to her frequently, ‘in wonderful good looks,’ at the Prince of
Wales’s birthday ball at Carlton House, and again at the French
Ambassador’s, where it was so hot he was nearly stewed, but ‘the
quadrilles were surprisingly pretty, especially that one in which Lady
Melbourne, Lady Sefton, and Princess Czartorisky figured, in blue
satin and gold, with collars mounted _à la reine Elizabeth_.
In 1805 her eldest son died; but the mother seems to have been
consoled by the promise of future greatness shown by her second son,
William, who early evinced a taste for public life, which harmonised
with Lady Melbourne’s views. She took a great interest in political
affairs, was a staunch Whig, and at the time of Charles Fox’s famous
election, she displayed as much zeal and enthusiasm as her rival
beauty, the Duchess of Devonshire. William Lamb’s marriage with the
daughter of Lord Bessborough, which enlarged his connection with all
the principal Whig families, was a source of great pleasure to Lady
Melbourne. It was a pity, with her political predilections, she did
not survive to see her favourite son and her daughter’s second husband
each rise to the coveted position of Prime Minister of England.
We have no authority for stating in what light Lady Melbourne viewed
her daughter-in-law’s infatuation for Lord Byron; but we know, from
his own letters, that he entertained a great admiration for herself.
He had never met with so charming a woman. ‘If she had only been some
years younger, what a fool she would have made of me!’ With her he
kept up unvarying friendly relations during all the vicissitudes of
his love and hate passages with Lady Caroline. One day he called on
Lady Melbourne, and asked her advice and sympathy. She was a model
confidante, and had once given it as her opinion, that few men could
be trusted with their neighbours’ secrets, and scarcely any woman with
her own. Byron assured her he was wearied with his way of life, that
he wished to marry and reform, and settle down at Newstead, and asked
if she would assist him in his choice of a wife. Lady Melbourne
smiled, and said she thought she knew of the very woman to suit
him—her near kinswoman, Miss Milbanke, daughter of Sir Noel Milbanke,
heiress to a large fortune, and a peerage in her own right, as Lady
Wentworth,—no great beauty, but not uncomely, well brought up, well
educated, and amiable. Byron was quite satisfied, but, as may be
expected, when Lady Caroline heard of it, she was furious. ‘The girl
has a bad figure, is given to statistics, and goes regularly to
church,—a pretty wife for a poet!’ The lady refused the man, of whose
moral character she had heard a sorry account; but he persisted, and
the marriage took place in 1816,—an ill-fated union, as might have
been expected, a fact but too well known. Lady Melbourne’s health
began to fail; she drooped gradually, till one day the sentence was
pronounced in her hearing—she had but a short time to live. She heard
the announcement with calmness, took an affectionate leave of those
she loved, and addressed some parting admonitions to her beloved
William, which he never forgot. Lady Melbourne died on the 6th April
1818, at Whitehall, and was buried at Hatfield Church. Her son
Frederick was absent from England at the time.
This portrait was brought from Brocket, where it once hung at the end
of the ball-room. It was engraved by the title of ‘Maternal
Affection.’
------------------
_No. 17._
LADY CAROLINE LAMB.
_White gown. Blue bows. Crop of fair hair._
BORN 1788, DIED 1828.
BY HOPPNER.
SHE was the only daughter of the first Earl of Bessborough, by Lady
Henrietta Spencer, daughter of the first Earl Spencer. She was in
Italy when a child, with her mother, but, on their return to England,
Lady Bessborough being in very delicate health, Lady Caroline was
intrusted for a time to the care of her aunt, the beautiful Duchess of
Devonshire. Throughout her life she kept a diary, and she gives a
detailed record of her early days at Devonshire House. The children
saw very little of their elders, and were brought up with a strange
mixture of luxury and laxity. The nursery table was covered with
dainties, and served with goodly plate, but the young lords and ladies
were allowed to run wild backwards and forwards between the servants’
apartments in search of sweetmeats and ‘goodies.’ Caroline’s education
was little cared for, her knowledge circumscribed, and she only
believed in two classes of society,—aristocrats and beggars. At ten
years old she could scarcely write, and could not spell at all; but
she composed verses, ‘which were pronounced splendid in the family,
and everybody petted me, especially my cousin Hartington (afterwards
Duke of Devonshire), who was my constant companion. My chief delight
consisted in polishing my specimens of Derbyshire spar, washing my
dog, and breaking in a pony.’ Caroline was transferred from Devonshire
to Spencer House, to live with her grandmother, and the change did not
suit her small ladyship. ‘How well I remember the grand housekeeper,
in a hoop and ruffles, who presided over seventy servants.’ Under Lady
Spencer’s roof, of whom the poet Cowper speaks so highly, and to whom
Horace Walpole, with his usual sneer, alludes as ‘the goddess of
wisdom,’ it may be imagined the girl was subjected to a discipline
which was so different from the liberty of Devonshire House that she
soon broke out into open rebellion. ‘I was indeed very naughty, and
used to give way to such paroxysms of rage that a physician was called
in. Dr. Warren forbade all study, and desired that my brain should lie
fallow. I believe he feared for my reason. I was very fond of music,
and cried when I had to give it up. My governess was too severe, my
relations too indulgent.’ It was not until Lady Caroline was fifteen
that she tried to make up for lost time. As regarded her education,
she showed great aptitude for languages,—French, Italian, Latin, ‘and
I had even mastered enough Greek to enable me to enjoy a classical
play, when taken to speech-day at Harrow, where my brother was at
school.’ She could recite an ode of Sappho to admiring listeners at
Devonshire or Spencer House, and was much praised and petted. She
piqued herself on her unconventionality, and would plunge into
intimacy, or manifest her aversion in the most unequivocal manner.
Among the frequent guests at Spencer House was William Lamb, the
second son of Lord Melbourne. It would seem strange that the vigilance
of the young lady’s relations should not have been awakened by the
growing intimacy between her and the captivating younger son. Well
bred, well born, with a ringing laugh and an inexpressible charm,
which never forsook him in advanced life amid the turmoil of politics,
William Lamb had everything to recommend him but a birthright,—and had
it not been settled in the family that Caroline was to make a
brilliant marriage? Lady Caroline, who loved to record her own
adventures, writes to her friend and confidante, Lady Morgan, not very
long before her death, recalling her past life: ‘I fell in love, when
only twelve years old, with a friend of Charles Fox,—a friend of
liberty, whose poems I had read, whose self I had never seen, and,
when I did see him, at thirteen, could I change? I was more attached
than ever. William Lamb was beautiful, and far the cleverest person
then about, the most daring in his opinions, in his love of liberty
and independence. He thought of me but as a child; yet he liked me
much. Afterwards he wished to marry me, and I refused him because of
my temper.’ In another letter she says: ‘I was a fury. He asked me a
second time, and this time he was not refused, for I adored him.’ The
lady’s relations were reconciled to the match, possibly influenced in
some slight degree by the consideration that William Lamb had become
heir to a large fortune and a peerage, in consequence of the death of
his elder brother.
Marriages never come single in a family. Lamb’s sister Emily was
already engaged, and in the year 1805, within a month of each other,
the brother was united to Lady Caroline Ponsonby, and the sister to
Lord Cowper. Mr. Lamb and his wife passed the early days of their
married life between Brocket (Lord Melbourne’s) and Panshanger (Lord
Cowper’s) Houses in Hertfordshire; and when the London season began,
Lady Caroline contributed not a little to the former attractions of
Melbourne House, where she and her husband took up their abode.
Society was at variance as to the bride’s merits; her eccentricities
amused many of the guests, and affronted others,—for some people are
indignant when merely called upon to stare at what is said to them.
The Prince of Wales, an _habitué_ of Melbourne House, was one of those
who encouraged Lady Caroline in her wayward and wilful moods; her
startling speeches, her flighty coquetry, her sudden quarrels, and as
sudden reconciliations, whether with her husband or any other member
of the community, were a great source of amusement to his Royal
Highness. Miss Berry speaks of meeting the Prince at Lady Caroline
Lamb’s in the year 1808. She says in her Diary: ‘It was an immense
assembly. We came away at half-past twelve, and had to walk beyond the
Admiralty to our carriage. Many of the company did not leave till past
three; the Prince of Wales had supped below, in Lady Melbourne’s
apartments, and remained till past six. Sheridan was there, and quite
drunk.’ It would appear by these remarks that Lady Melbourne had
vacated a suite of apartments in favour of her daughter-in-law, who
received on her own account, as in another passage in Miss Berry’s
correspondence there is mention, ‘I am going to Lady Caroline Lamb’s
to-night. She gives a party, to be convenient for hearing what is
going on, about this famous motion in the House of Peers.’ But Lady
Caroline was of too romantic a turn of mind to be absorbed by
politics; she had always some small flirtation on hand, and her
admirers were frequently under age. We read in the Life of the late
Lord Lytton some very early passages between him and this mature
object of his adoration,—assignations entered into, notes passing
clandestinely, engagements to dance broken off and renewed with
playful inconstancy. Excitement, even on so small a scale, seemed
necessary to the lady’s existence; she would have been bored to death
without it. The novelist admired his goddess enough to put her in
print, and describes the compassion she displayed one day, when,
finding a beggar who had met with an accident, she insisted on his
being lifted, rags and all, into the carriage beside her, when she
drove the cripple to his destination.
But a luminary was about to appear on the horizon, which was destined
to eclipse all lesser lights. Here is her own account of her first
acquaintance with Lord Byron: ‘Rogers, who was one of my adorers, and
extolled me up to the skies, said to me one evening, “You must know
the new poet.” He offered to lend me the proofs of _Childe Harold_ to
read. That was enough for me. Rogers said, “He has a club foot, and
bites his nails.” I said, “If he were as ugly as Æsop I must know
him.” Lady Westmoreland had met Byron in Italy; she undertook to
present him. I looked earnestly at him, and turned on my
heel,’—conduct which the poet afterwards reproached her with. London
had gone mad about him. All the ladies were pulling caps for him. He
said once ostentatiously: ‘The women positively suffocate me.’ That
night the entry in Lady Caroline’s Diary was—‘Mad, bad, and dangerous
to know.’ She declared at first she had no intention of attracting
him, but she confesses how she had come in from riding one windy,
rainy day, all muddy and dishevelled, and had been conversing with
Moore and Rogers in that plight, when Byron was announced, and she
flew out of the room to beautify herself. ‘Lord Byron wished to come
and see me at eight o’clock, when I was alone. That was my
dinner-hour. I said he might. From that moment, for many months, he
almost lived at Melbourne House.’
Lord Hartington, Lady Caroline’s favourite cousin, expressed a wish to
have some dancing of an evening at Whitehall, as his stepmother (Lady
Elizabeth Foster) objected to anything of the kind at Devonshire
House, and accordingly for a time the drawing-room at Melbourne House
was turned into a ball-room. But as Lord Byron’s lameness cut him off
from the quadrilles and waltzes, this arrangement did not suit him,
and his word being law with Lady Caroline, the dancing was soon
discontinued. It was a strange flirtation between the poet and the
poetaster. The lady would lie awake half the night composing verses,
which she would repeat the next day to the great man, in the fond hope
of a few crumbs of praise, a commodity of which Byron was very
sparing, he being a great deal more taken up with giving utterance to
his own effusions. Lady Caroline was often mortified, Lord Byron often
wearied,—at least so it would appear. Lord Holland came up to them one
evening as they were sitting side by side as usual, with a silver
censer in his hand. ‘I am come,’ he said, ‘Lady Caroline, to offer you
your due.’ ‘By no means,’ she returned in a tone of pique; ‘pray give
it all to Lord Byron. He is so accustomed to incense that he cannot
exist without it.’
A recent biography describes the situation well when it says: ‘He grew
moody, and she fretful, when their mutual egotisms jarred.’ William
Lamb’s wife was certainly not formed to make home happy. One day she
extolled his generosity and lack of jealousy; another, she accused him
of apathy and indifference with regard to her flirtations. Her conduct
was marked by alternate tenderness and ill-temper: there could be no
doubt of her affection for her invalid boy, yet her treatment of him
was spasmodic and fitful,—now devoted, now neglectful. More than once
a separation had been agreed upon, and Mr. Lamb had even gone so far
as to forbid his wife the house, and believed she was gone. He went to
his own room, locked himself in, and sat brooding over his troubles.
It was growing late, when he was attracted by the well-known sound of
scratching at the door, and he rose to let in his favourite dog. But
lo! the intruder was no other than his wife, who, crouching on the
floor, had made use of this stratagem to gain admittance. Half
indignant, half amused, he did not long resist the glamour which this
eccentric woman knew how to throw around him. Peace was restored for a
short time, but not for long; another explosion, a violent domestic
quarrel, occurred one night in London. Lady Caroline went out, called
a hackney coach, and in her evening dress—a white muslin frock, blue
sash, and diamond necklace—drove to the house of a physician, whom she
scarcely knew. She describes with great unction the surprise and
admiration of the assembled guests, ‘who took me for a child, and were
surprised at my fine jewels.’
It was her cherished vanity to be taken for a young unmarried girl.
Her relations were much alarmed at her disappearance. Lady Spencer
sent to Lord Byron’s house, who disclaimed all knowledge of the
truant. After creating a great excitement in the good doctor’s
drawing-room, the lady returned home, to enjoy another scene and
another reconciliation. Her mother, Lady Bessborough, who was in very
delicate health, was deeply concerned at her daughter’s conduct, the
conjugal quarrels, and the intimacy with Lord Byron, which was so much
talked of in the world. ‘Poor dear mamma was miserable; she prevailed
on me at length to go to Ireland with her and papa.’ On their
departure, Lord Byron wrote to his dearest Caroline a most peculiar
letter, abounding, indeed, in high-flown protestations, assuring her
he was hers only, hers entirely; that he would with pleasure give up
everything for her, both here and beyond the grave; that he was ready
to fly with her, when and whenever she might appoint, etc.; at the
same time reminding her of her duty to her husband and her mother—a
most wonderful mixture of false sentiment and shallow feeling, which
could only have deceived one so blinded as the recipient. ‘Byron
continued to write to me while I was in Ireland. His letters were
tender and amusing. We had arrived at Dublin, on our way home, when my
mother brought me a letter from him,—such a letter!—I have published
it in _Glenarvon_. It was sealed with a coronet, but neither the
coronet nor the initials were his; they were Lady Oxford’s.’ Lady
Caroline was beside herself with rage and jealousy; she fell ill. They
were detained at ‘a horrid little inn’ at Rock. She arrived in England
in the most excited frame of mind. Byron complains of her proceedings,
which were of a most melodramatic nature; she went to see him, dressed
as a page; she vowed she would stab herself, and wished some one would
kill him;—‘in short,’ says the poet, ‘the Agnus is furious; you can
have no idea what things she says and does, ever since the time that I
(really from the best motives) withdrew my homage. She actually writes
me letters threatening my life.’ We have no reference at hand to note
when these lines were written, but we believe after his marriage:—
‘They’ll tell thee, Clara, I have seemed
Of late another’s charms to woo,
Nor sighed nor frowned as if I deemed
That thou wert vanished from my view.
Clara, this struggle to undo
What thou hast done too well for me,
This mask before the babbling crowd,
_This treachery, is truth to thee_,’—
a peculiar and ambiguous form of reasoning, by which it appeared Lady
Caroline was not convinced.
Byron’s well-known stanzas, ‘Farewell! if ever fondest prayer,’ were
said to have been addressed to Lady Caroline when he left England for
ever, having quarrelled with his wife as well as with his friend. The
poem was not calculated to conciliate the lady, and it was not long
before she heard from a third person that Byron had spoken slightingly
of her to Madame de Staël and others. She accordingly sat down, and
wrote him a long account of the childish revenge she had taken, by
burning his effigy in a bonfire, with her own hands.
In her Diary she gives a touching account of her useless endeavours to
pique or persuade her poor boy into cheerfulness, and how, when he saw
her look of disappointment, he would come and sit beside her, take her
hand, and look wistfully into her face. She had consulted many
physicians, she said, and now she would consult a _metaphysician_.
Some time ago she had met Godwin, the author, and taken one of her
sudden fancies for him. She now sat down and asked him to come and pay
her a visit at Brocket; she wished to have some conversation with him
about her son, and indeed about her own unsettled and discontented
state of mind. ‘When I saw you last under painful circumstances, you
said it rested with myself to be happy. I fear you can only think of
me with contempt. My mind is overpowered with trifles. Would you
dislike paying me a little visit? I hold out no allurements; if you
come, it can only be from friendship. I have no longer the excuse of
youth and inexperience for being foolish, yet I remain so. I want a
few wise words of advice. No one is more sensible of kindness from a
person of high intellect. I have such an over-abundance of activity,
and nothing to do. I feel as if I had lived five hundred years, and am
neither better nor worse than when I began. I conduce to no one’s
happiness; on the contrary, I am in the way of many. All my beliefs
and opinions are shaken as with small shocks of moral earthquake; it
is as if I were in a boat without chart or compass.’ Surely she was
not wise in her selection of a navigator.
Godwin obeyed the summons, but, as might have been expected, brought
no consolation in his train. Lady Caroline would often in her
correspondence eulogise her husband in very high terms, and call him
her guardian angel, and there is no doubt she was proud of him; but
his very forbearance and good-humour were often a source of
irritation, and she would upbraid him with treating her as a child,
though, in reality, nothing flattered her more than to be so
considered, and in some of her early caricatures (for she often amused
herself in that way) she represents herself carried about in Mr.
Lamb’s arms as a little girl. Her father-in-law, easy-going as he was,
blamed her for her extravagance, and called her ‘her _laviship_.’
‘Indeed I think I am a good housewife,’ she writes to Lady Morgan,
‘and have saved William money; but he says, “What is the use of saving
with one hand if you scatter with the other?” What is the use—that is
what I am always saying—what is the use of existing at all?’
This unwholesome excitement tended to increase the natural
irascibility of her character. In her Diary she records petty quarrels
with her servants and other inmates of the house. She at length took
to authorship as a consolation, and gives an odd account of the manner
in which her literary labours were carried on. She had a companion,
who began by acting as her amanuensis, but after a time she decided on
having an expert copyist. Even so commonplace an arrangement must be
carried out in a melodramatic manner. She wrote the book, unknown to
all, except to Miss Welsh, in the middle of the night. ‘I sent for old
Woodhead to Melbourne House. I dressed Miss Welsh elegantly, and
placed her at my harp, while I sat at the writing-table, disguised in
the page’s clothes. The copyist naturally took Miss Welsh for Lady
Caroline, and expressed his astonishment that a schoolboy of that age
(I looked about fourteen) could be the author of _Glenarvon_. Next
time he came I received him in my own clothes, and told him William
Ormond, the young author, was dead. When the book was finished, I sent
it to ‘William, who was delighted.’ (Query.) _Glenarvon_ disappointed
the public, not so much on account of its literary shortcomings, which
might have been anticipated, but from its lack of sufficient allusions
to the separation of Lord and Lady Byron, though there was no scarcity
of abuse of the hero. The story was too feeble and vapid to cause much
sensation, yet the authoress found publishers willing to accept
further works from the same pen, and _Graham Hamilton_ and _Ada Reis_
followed.