Platonists caused D'Israeli to flare up. His wild black eyes
glistened, and his nervous lips poured out eloquence, while a whole
ottomanful of noble exquisites listened in amazement. He gave an
account of Thomas Taylor, one of the last of the Platonists, who had
worshipped Jupiter in a back-parlour in London a few years before. In
his old age he was turned out of his lodgings, for attempting, as he
said, to worship his gods according to the dictates of his conscience,
his landlady having objected to his sacrificing a bull to Jupiter in
her parlour. The company laughed at this story as a good invention,
but Dizzy assured them it was literally true, and gave his father as
his authority. Meanwhile Moore 'went glittering on' with criticisms
upon Grisi and the Opera, and the subject of music being thus
introduced, he was led, with great difficulty, to the piano. Willis
describes his singing as 'a kind of admirable recitative, in which
every shade of thought is syllabled and dwelt upon, and the sentiment
of the song goes through your blood, warming you to the very eyelids,
and starting your tears if you have a soul or sense in you. I have
heard of women fainting at a song of Moore's; and if the burden of it
answered by chance to a secret in the bosom of the listener, I should
think that the heart would break with it. After two or three songs of
Lady Blessington's choice, he rambled over the keys a while, and then
sang 'When first I met thee' with a pathos that beggars description.
When the last word had faltered out, he rose and took Lady
Blessington's hand, said Good-night, and was gone before a word was
uttered. For a full minute after he closed the door no one spoke. I
could have wished for myself to drop silently asleep where I sat, with
the tears in my eyes and the softness upon my heart.'
PART II
Having received invitations to stay with Lord Dalhousie and the Duke
of Gordon, Willis went north at the beginning of September, 1834. The
nominal attraction of Scotland he found, rather to his dismay, was the
shooting. The guest, he observes, on arriving at a country-house, is
asked whether he prefers a flint or a percussion lock, and a
double-barrelled Manton is put into his hands; while after breakfast
the ladies leave the table, wishing him good sport. 'I would rather
have gone to the library,' says the Penciller. 'An aversion to
walking, except upon smooth flag-stones, a poetical tenderness on the
subject of putting birds "out of their misery," and hands much more at
home with the goose-quill than the gun, were some of my private
objections to the order of the day.' At Dalhousie, the son of the
house, Lord Ramsay, and his American visitor were mutually astonished
at each other's appearance when they met in the park, prepared for a
morning's sport.
'From the elegant Oxonian I had seen at breakfast,' writes Willis, 'he
(Lord Ramsay) was transformed into a figure something rougher than his
Highland dependant, in a woollen shooting-jacket, pockets of any
number and capacity, trousers of the coarsest plaid, hobnailed shoes
and leather gaiters, and a habit of handling his gun that would have
been respected on the Mississippi. My own appearance in high-heeled
French boots and other corresponding gear, for a tramp over stubble
and marsh, amused him equally; but my wardrobe was exclusively
metropolitan, and there was no alternative.' It was hard and exciting
work, the novice discovered, to trudge through peas, beans, turnips,
and corn, soaked with showers, and muddied to the knees till his
Parisian boots were reduced to the consistency of brown paper. He came
home, much to his own relief, without having brought the blood of his
host's son and heir on his head, and he made a mental note never to go
to Scotland again without hobnailed boots and a shooting-jacket.
On leaving Dalhousie Willis spent a few days in Edinburgh, where he
breakfasted with Professor Wilson, _alias_ Christopher North. The
Professor, he says, talked away famously, quite oblivious of the fact
that the tea was made, and the breakfast-dishes were smoking on the
table. He spoke much of Blackwood, who then lay dying, and described
him as a man of the most refined literary taste, whose opinion of a
book he would trust before that of any one he knew. Wilson inquired if
his guest had made the acquaintance of Lockhart. 'I have not,' replied
Willis. 'He is almost the only literary man in London I have not met;
and I must say, as the editor of the _Quarterly Review_, and the
most unfair and unprincipled critic of the day, I have no wish to know
him. I never heard him well spoken of. I have probably met a hundred
of his acquaintances, but I have not yet seen one who pretended to be
his friend.' Wilson defended the absent one, who, he said, was the
mildest and most unassuming of men, and dissected a book for pleasure,
without thinking of the feelings of the author.
The breakfast had been cooling for an hour when the Professor leant
back, with his chair still towards the fire, and 'seizing the teapot
as if it were a sledge-hammer, he poured from one cup to the other
without interrupting the stream, overrunning both cup and saucer, and
partly flooding the tea-tray. He then set the cream towards me with a
carelessness that nearly overset it, and in trying to reach an egg
from the centre of the table, broke two. He took no notice of his own
awkwardness, but drank his cup of tea at a single draught, ate his egg
in the same expeditious manner, and went on talking of the "Noctes,"
and Lockhart, and Blackwood, as if eating his breakfast were rather a
troublesome parenthesis in his conversation.' Wilson offered to give
his guest letters to Wordsworth and Southey, if he intended to return
by the Lakes. 'I lived a long time in their neighbourhood,' he said,
'and know Wordsworth perhaps as well as any one. Many a day I have
walked over the hills with him, and listened to his repetition of his
own poetry, which, of course, filled my mind completely at the time,
and perhaps started the poetical vein in me, though I cannot agree
with the critics that my poetry is an imitation of Wordsworth's.'
'Did Wordsworth repeat any other poetry than his own?'
'Never in a single instance, to my knowledge. He is remarkable for the
manner in which he is wrapped up in his own poetical life. Everything
ministers to it. Everything is done with reference to it. He is all
and only a poet.'
'What is Southey's manner of life?'
'Walter Scott said of him that he lived too much with women. He is
secluded in the country, and surrounded by a circle of admiring
friends, who glorify every literary project he undertakes, and
persuade him, in spite of his natural modesty, that he can do nothing
wrong. He has great genius, and is a most estimable man.'
On the same day that he breakfasted with Wilson, this fortunate
tourist dined with Jeffrey, with whom Lord Brougham was staying.
Unluckily, Brougham was absent, at a public dinner given to Lord Grey,
who also happened to be in Edinburgh at the time. Willis was charmed
with Jeffrey, with his frank smile, hearty manner, and graceful style
of putting a guest at his ease. But he cared less for the political
conversation at table. 'It had been my lot,' he says, 'to be thrown
principally among Tories (_Conservatives_ is the new name) since
my arrival in England, and it was difficult to rid myself at once of
the impressions of a fortnight passed in the castle of a Tory earl. My
sympathies on the great and glorious occasion [the Whig dinner to Lord
Grey] were slower than those of the rest of the company, and much of
their enthusiasm seemed to me overstrained. Altogether, I entered less
into the spirit of the hour than I could have wished. Politics are
seldom witty or amusing; and though I was charmed with the good sense
and occasional eloquence of Lord Jeffrey, I was glad to get upstairs
to _chasse-café_ and the ladies.'
Willis aggravated a temporary lameness by dancing at the ball that
followed the Whig banquet, and was compelled to abandon a charming
land-route north that he had mapped out, and allow himself to be taken
'this side up' on a steamer to Aberdeen. Here he took coach for
Fochabers, and thence posted to Gordon Castle. At the castle he found
himself in the midst of a most distinguished company; the page who
showed him to his room running over the names of Lord Aberdeen and
Lord Claude Hamilton, the Duchess of Richmond and her daughter, Lady
Sophia Lennox, Lord and Lady Stormont, Lord and Lady Mandeville, Lord
and Lady Morton, Lord Aboyne, Lady Keith, and twenty other lesser
lights. The duke himself came to fetch his guest before dinner, and
presented him to the duchess and the rest of the party. In a letter to
Lady Blessington Willis says: 'I am delighted with the duke and
duchess. He is a delightful, hearty old fellow, full of fun and
conversation, and she is an uncommonly fine woman, and, without
beauty, has something agreeable in her countenance. _Pour
moi-méme_, I get on better everywhere than in your presence. I only
fear I talk too much; but all the world is particularly civil to me,
and among a score of people, no one of whom I had ever seen yesterday,
I find myself quite at home to-day.'
The ten days at Gordon Castle Willis afterwards set apart in his
memory as 'a bright ellipse in the usual procession of joys and
sorrows.' He certainly made the most of this unique opportunity of
observing the manners and customs of the great. The routine of life at
the castle was what each guest chose to make it. 'Between breakfast
and lunch,' he writes, 'the ladies were usually invisible, and the
gentlemen rode, or shot, or played billiards. At two o'clock a dish or
two of hot game and a profusion of cold meats were set on small
tables, and everybody came in for a kind of lounging half meal, which
occupied perhaps an hour. Thence all adjourned to the drawing-room,
under the windows of which were drawn up carriages of all
descriptions, with grooms, outriders, footmen, and saddle-horses for
gentlemen and ladies. Parties were then made up for driving or riding,
and from a pony-chaise to a phaeton and four, there was no class of
vehicle that was not at your disposal. In ten minutes the carriages
were all filled, and away they flew, some to the banks of the Spey or
the seaside, some to the drives in the park, and all with the
delightful consciousness that speed where you would, the horizon
scarce limited the possessions of your host, and you were everywhere
at home. The ornamental gates flying open at your approach; the herds
of red deer trooping away from the sound of your wheels; the stately
pheasants feeding tamely in the immense preserves; the stalking
gamekeepers lifting their hats in the dark recesses of the
forest--there was something in this perpetual reminder of your
privileges which, as a novelty, was far from disagreeable. I could
not, at the time, bring myself to feel, what perhaps would be more
poetical and republican, that a ride in the wild and unfenced forest
of my own country would have been more to my taste.'
Willis came to the conclusion that a North American Indian, in his
more dignified phase, closely resembled an English nobleman in manner,
since it was impossible to astonish either. All violent sensations, he
observes, are avoided in high life. 'In conversation nothing is so
"odd" (a word that in English means everything disagreeable) as
emphasis, or a startling epithet, or gesture, and in common
intercourse nothing is so vulgar as any approach to "a scene." For all
extraordinary admiration, the word "capital" suffices; for all
ordinary praise, the word "nice"; for all condemnation in morals,
manners, or religion, the word "odd.".... What is called an
overpowering person is immediately shunned, for he talks too much, and
excites too much attention. In any other country he would be
considered amusing. He is regarded here as a monopoliser of the
general interest, and his laurels, talk he never so well, overshadow
the rest of the company.'
On leaving Gordon Castle, Willis crossed Scotland by the Caledonian
Canal, and from Fort William jolted in a Highland cart through Glencoe
to Tarbet on Lomond. Thence the regulation visits were paid to Loch
Katrine, the Trossachs and Callander. Another stay at Dalhousie Castle
gave the tourist an opportunity of seeing Abbotsford, where he heard
much talk of Sir Walter Scott. Lord Dalhousie had many anecdotes to
tell of Scott's school-days, and Willis recalled some reminiscences of
the Wizard that he had heard from Moore in London. 'Scott was the soul
of honesty,' Moore had said. 'When I was on a visit to him, we were
coming up from Kelso at sunset, and as there was to be a fine moon, I
quoted to him his own rule for seeing "fair Melrose aright," and
proposed to stay an hour and enjoy it. "Bah," said Scott. "I never saw
it by moonlight." We went, however, and Scott, who seemed to be on the
most familiar terms with the cicerone, pointed to an empty niche, and
said to him: "I think I have a Virgin and Child that will just do for
your niche. I'll send it to you." "How happy you have made that man,"
I said. "Oh," said Scott, "it was always in the way, and Madam Scott
is constantly grudging it house-room. We're well rid of it." Any other
man would have allowed himself at least the credit of a kind action.'
After a stay at a Lancashire country-house, Willis arrived at
Liverpool, where he got his first sight of the newly-opened railway to
Manchester. In the letters and journals of the period, it is rather
unusual to come upon any allusion to the great revolution in
land-travelling. We often read of our grandfathers' astonishment at
the steam-packets that crossed the Atlantic in a fortnight, but they
seem to have slid into the habit of travelling by rail almost as a
matter of course, much as their descendants have taken to touring in
motor-cars. Willis the observant, however, has left on record his
sensations during his first journey by rail.
'Down we dived into the long tunnel,' he relates, 'emerging from the
darkness at a pace that made my hair sensibly tighten, and hold on
with apprehension. Thirty miles in the hour is pleasant going when one
is a little accustomed to it, it gives one such a pleasant contempt
for time and distance. The whizzing past of the return trains, going
in the opposite direction with the same degree of velocity--making you
recoil in one second, and a mile off the next--was the only thing
which, after a few minutes, I did not take to very kindly.'
Willis adds to our obligations by reporting the cries of the newsboys
at the Elephant and Castle, where all the coaches to and from the
South stopped for twenty minutes. On the occasion that our traveller
passed through, the boys were crying 'Noospipper, sir! Buy the morning
pippers, sir! _Times, Herald, Chrinnicle,_ and _Munning Post_,
sir--contains Lud Brum's entire innihalation of Lud Nummanby--Ledy
Flor 'Estings' murder by Lud Melbun and the Maids of Honour--debate
on the Croolty-Hannimals Bill, and a fatil catstrophy in conskens
of loosfer matches! Sixpence, only sixpence!'
In November Willis returned to London, and took lodgings in Vigo
Street. During the next ten months he seems to have done a good deal
of work for the magazines, and to have been made much of in society as
a literary celebrity. His stories and articles, which appeared in the
_New Monthly Magazine_ under the pseudonym of Philip Slingsby,
were eagerly read by the public of that day. He was presented at
court, admitted to the Athenacum and Travellers' Clubs, and patronised
by Lady Charlotte Bury and Lady Stepney, ladies who were in the habit
of writing bad novels, and giving excellent dinners. Madden, Lady
Blessington's biographer, who saw a good deal of Willis at this time,
says that he was an extremely agreeable young man, somewhat
over-dressed, and a little too _démonstratif_, but abounding in
good spirits. 'He was observant and communicative, lively and clever
in conversation, having the peculiar art of making himself agreeable
to ladies, old and young, _dégagé_ in his manner, and on exceedingly
good terms with himself.'
Not only had Willis the _entrée_ into fashionable Bohemia, but he
was well received in many families of unquestionable respectability.
Elderly and middle-aged ladies were especially attracted by his
flattering attentions and deferential manners, and at this time two of
his most devoted friends were Mrs. Shaw of the Manor House, Lee, a
daughter of Lord Erskine, and Mrs. Skinner of Shirley Park, the wife
of an Indian nabob. Their houses were always open to him, and he says
in a letter to his mother: 'I have two homes in England where I am
loved like a child. I had a letter from Mrs. Shaw, who thought I
looked low-spirited at the opera the other night. "Young men have but
two causes of unhappiness," she writes, "love and money. If it is
_money_, Mr. Shaw wishes me to say you shall have as much as you
want; if it is _love_, tell us the lady, and perhaps we can help
you." I spend my Sundays alternately at their splendid country-house,
and at Mrs. Skinner's, and they can never get enough of me. I am often
asked if I carry a love-philter with me.'
At Shirley Park, Willis struck up a friendship with Jane Porter, and
made the acquaintance of Lady Morgan, Praed, John Leech, and Martin
Tupper. Mrs. Skinner professed to be extremely anxious to find him a
suitable wife, and in a confidential letter to her, he writes: 'You
say if you had a daughter you would give her to me. If you _had_
one, I should certainly take you at your word, provided this
_exposé_ of my poverty did not change your fancy. I should like
to marry in England, and I feel every day that my best years and best
affections are running to waste. I am proud to _be_ an American,
but as a literary man, I would rather _live_ in England. So if
you know of any affectionate and _good_ girl who would be content
to live a quiet life, and could love your humble servant, you have
full power to dispose of me, _provided_ she has five hundred a
year, or as much more as she likes. I know enough of the world to cut
my throat, rather than bring a delicate woman down to a dependence on
my brains for support.'
In March of this year, 1835, Willis produced his _Melanie, and other
Poems_, which was 'edited' by Barry Cornwall. He received the
honour of a parody in the _Bon Gaultier Ballads_, entitled 'The
Fight with the Snapping Turtle, or the American St. George.' In this
ballad Willis and Bryant are represented as setting out to kill the
Snapping Turtle, spurred on by the offer of a hundred dollars reward.
The turtle swallows Willis, but is thereupon taken ill, and having
returned him to earth again, dies in great agony. When he claims the
reward, he is informed that:--
'Since you dragged the tarnal crittur
From the bottom of the ponds,
Here's the hundred dollars due you
_All in Pennsylvanian bonds._'
At the end of the poem is a drawing of a pair of stocks, labelled 'The
only good American securities,' Willis seems to have been too busy to
Boswellise this season, but we get a glimpse of him in his letters to
Miss Mitford, and one or two of the notes in his diary are worth
quoting. On April 22 he writes to the author of _Our Village_ in
his usual flattering style: 'I am anxious to see your play and your
next book, and I quite agree with you that the drama is your
_pied_, though I think laurels, and spreading ones, are sown for
you in every department of writing. Nobody ever wrote better prose,
and what could not the author of _Rienzi_ do in verse. For
myself, I am far from considering myself regularly embarked in
literature, and if I can live without it, or ply any other vocation,
shall vote it a thankless trade, and save my "entusymussy" for my wife
and children--when I get them. I am at present steeped to the lips in
London society, going to everything, from Devonshire House to a
publisher's dinner in Paternoster Row, and it is not a bad _olla
podrida_ of life and manners. I dote on "England and true English,"
and was never so happy, or so at a loss to find a minute for care or
forethought.'
In his diary for June 30, Willis notes: 'Breakfasted with Samuel
Rogers. Talked of Mrs. Butler's book, and Rogers gave us suppressed
passages. Talked critics, and said that as long as you cast a shadow,
you were sure that you possessed substance. Coleridge said of Southey,
"I never think of him but as mending a pen." Southey said of
Coleridge, "Whenever anything presents itself to him in the form of a
duty, that moment he finds himself incapable of looking at it."' On
July 9 we have the entry: 'Dined with Dr. Beattie, and met Thomas
Campbell.... He spoke of Scott's slavishness to men of rank, but said
it did not interfere with his genius. Said it sunk a man's heart to
think that he and Byron were dead, and there was nobody left to praise
or approve.... He told a story of dining with Burns and a Bozzy
friend, who, when Campbell proposed the health of _Mr_. Burns,
said, "Sir, you will always be known as _Mr_. Campbell, but
posterity will talk of _Burns_." He was playful and amusing, and
drank gin and water.'
While staying with the Skinners in August, Willis met his fate in the
person of Miss Mary Stace, daughter of a General Stace. After a week's
acquaintance he proposed to her, and was accepted. She was, we are
told, a beauty of the purest Saxon type, with a bright complexion,
blue eyes, light-brown hair, and delicate, regular features. Her
disposition was clinging and affectionate, and she had enjoyed the
religious bringing up that her lover thought of supreme importance to
a woman. General Stace agreed to allow his daughter £300 a year, which
with the £400 that Willis made by his pen, was considered a sufficient
income for the young couple to start housekeeping upon.
Willis, who had promised to pay Miss Mitford a visit in the autumn,
writes to her on September 22, to explain that all his plans were
altered. 'Just before starting with Miss Jane Porter on a tour that
was to include Reading,' he says, 'I went to a picnic, fell in love
with a blue-eyed girl, and (after running the gauntlet successfully
through France, Italy, Greece, Germany, Asia Minor, and Turkey) I
renewed my youth, and became "a suitor for love." I am to be married
(_sequitur_) on Thursday week.... The lady who is to take me, as
the Irish say, "in a present," is some six years younger than myself,
gentle, religious, relying, and unambitious. She has never been
whirled through the gay society of London, so is not giddy or vain.
She has never swum in a gondola, or written a sonnet, so has a proper
respect for those who have. She is called pretty, but is more than
that in _my_ eyes; sings as if her heart were hid in her lips,
and _loves_ me.... We are bound to Paris for a month (because I
think amusement better than reflection when a woman makes a doubtful
bargain), and by November we return to London for the winter, and in
the spring sail for America to see my mother. I have promised to live
mainly on this side of the water, and shall return in the course of a
year to try what contentment may be sown and reaped in a green lane in
Kent.'
While the happy pair were on their honeymoon, Lady Blessington had
undertaken to see the _Pencillings by the Way_ through the press.
For the first edition Willis received £250, but he made, from first to
last, about a thousand pounds by the book. Its appearance in volume
form had been anticipated by Lockhart's scathing review in the
_Quarterly_ for September 1835. The critic, annoyed at Willis's
strictures on himself in the interview with Professor Wilson, attacked
the _Pencillings_, as they had appeared in the _New York Mirror_,
with all proper names printed in full, and many personal
details that were left out in the English edition. Lockhart always
knew how to stab a man in the tenderest place, and he stabbed Willis
in his gentility. After pointing out that while visiting in London and
the provinces as a young American sonneteer of the most
ultra-sentimental delicacy, the Penciller was all the time the regular
paid correspondent of a New York Journal, he observes that the letters
derive their powers of entertainment chiefly from the light that they
reflect upon the manners and customs of the author's own countrymen,
since, from his sketches of English interiors, the reader may learn
what American breakfast, dinners, and table-talk are _not_; or at
all events what they were not in those circles of American society
with which the writer happened to be familiar.
'Many of _this person's_ discoveries,' continues Lockhart,
warming to his work, 'will be received with ridicule in his own
country, where the doors of the best houses were probably not opened
to him as liberally as those of the English nobility. In short, we are
apt to consider him as a just representative--not of the American mind
and manners generally--but only of the young men of fair education
among the busy, middling orders of mercantile cities. In his letters
from Gordon Castle there are bits of solid, full-grown impudence and
impertinence; while over not a few of the paragraphs is a varnish of
conceited vulgarity which is too ludicrous to be seriously
offensive.... We can well believe that Mr. Willis depicted the sort of
society that most interests his countrymen, "born to be slaves and
struggling to be lords," their servile adulation of rank and talent;
their stupid admiration of processions and levees, are leading
features of all the American books of travel.... We much doubt if all
the pretty things we have quoted will so far propitiate Lady
Blessington as to make her again admit to her table the animal who has
printed what ensues. [Here follows the report of Moore's conversation
on the subject of O'Connell.] As far as we are acquainted with English
or American literature, this is the first example of a man creeping
into your home, and forthwith, before your claret is dry on his lips,
printing _table-talk on delicate subjects, and capable of
compromising individuals_.'
The _Quarterly_ having thus given the lead, the rest of the Tory
magazines gaily followed suit. Maginn flourished his shillelagh, and
belaboured his victim with a brutality that has hardly ever been
equalled, even by the pioneer journals of the Wild West. 'This is a
goose of a book,' he begins, 'or if anybody wishes the idiom changed,
the book of a goose. There is not an idea in it beyond what might
germinate in the brain of a washerwoman.' He then proceeds to call the
author by such elegant names as 'lickspittle,' 'beggarly skittler,'
jackass, ninny, haberdasher, 'fifty-fifth rate scribbler of
gripe-visited sonnets,' and 'namby-pamby writer in twaddling albums
kept by the mustachioed widows or bony matrons of Portland Place.'
The people whose hospitality Willis was accused of violating wrote to
assure him of the pleasure his book had given them. Lord Dalhousie
writes: 'We all agree in one sentiment, that a more amusing and
delightful production was never issued by the press. The Duke and
Duchess of Gordon were here lately, and expressed themselves in
similar terms.' Lady Blessington did not withdraw her friendship, but
Willis admits, in one of his letters, that he had no deeper regret
than that his indiscretion should have checked the freedom of his
approach to her. As a result of the slashing reviews, the book sold
with the readiness of a _succés de scandale_, though it had been
so rigorously edited for the English market, that very few
indiscretions were left.
The unexpurgated version of the _Pencillings_ was, however,
copied into the English papers and eagerly read by the persons most
concerned, such as Fonblanque, who bitterly complained of the libel
upon his personal appearance, O'Connell, who broke off his lifelong
friendship with Moore, and Captain Marryat, who was furious at the
remark that his 'gross trash' sold immensely in Wapping. Like
Lockhart, he revenged himself by an article in his own magazine, the
_Metropolitan_, in which he denounced Willis as a 'spurious
attaché,' and made dark insinuations against his birth and parentage.
This attack was too personal to be ignored. Willis demanded an
apology, to which Marryat replied with a challenge, and after a long
correspondence, most of which found its way into the _Times_, a
duel was fixed to take place at Chatham. At the last moment the
seconds managed to arrange matters between their principals, and the
affair ended without bloodshed. This was fortunate for Willis, who was
little used to fire-arms, whilst Marryat was a crack shot.
In his preface to the first edition of the _Pencillings_ Willis
explains that the ephemeral nature and usual obscurity of periodical
correspondence gave a sufficient warrant to his mind that his
descriptions would die where they first saw the light, and that
therefore he had indulged himself in a freedom of detail and topic
only customary in posthumous memoirs. He expresses his astonishment
that this particular sin should have been visited upon him at a
distance of three thousand miles, when the _Quarterly_ reviewer's
own fame rested on the more aggravated instance of a book of
personalities published under the very noses of the persons described
(_Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk_). After observing that he was
little disposed to find fault, since everything in England pleased
him, he proceeds: 'In one single instance I indulged myself in
strictures upon individual character.... I but repeated what I had
said a thousand times, and never without an indignant echo to its
truth, that the editor of that Review was the most unprincipled critic
of the age. Aside from its flagrant literary injustice, we owe to the
_Quarterly_ every spark of ill-feeling that has been kept alive
between England and America for the last twenty years. The sneers, the
opprobrious epithets of this bravo of literature have been received in
a country where the machinery of reviewing was not understood, as the
voice of the English people, and animosity for which there was no
other reason has been thus periodically fed and exasperated. I
conceive it to be my duty as a literary man--I _know_ it is my
duty as an American--to lose no opportunity of setting my heel on this
reptile of criticism. He has turned and stung me. Thank God, I have
escaped the slime of his approbation.'
The winter was spent in London, and in the following March Willis
brought out his _Inklings of Adventure_, a reprint of the stories
that had appeared in various magazines over the signature of Philip
Slingsby. These were supposed to be real adventures under a thin
disguise of fiction, and the public eagerly read the tawdry little
tales in the hope of discovering the identities of the _dramatis
personæ_. The majority of the 'Inklings' deal with the romantic
adventures of a young literary man who wins the affection of high-born
ladies, and is made much of in aristrocratic circles. The author
revels in descriptions of luxurious boudoirs in which recline
voluptuous blondes or exquisite brunettes, with hearts always at the
disposal of the all-conquering Philip Slingsby. Fashionable fiction,
however, was unable to support the expense of a fashionable
establishment, and in May 1836 the couple sailed for America. Willis
hoped to obtain a diplomatic appointment, and return to Europe for
good, but all his efforts were vain, and he was obliged to rely on his
pen for a livelihood. His first undertaking was the letterpress for an
illustrated volume on American scenery; and for some months he
travelled about the country with the artist who was responsible for
the illustrations. On one of his journeys he fell in love with a
pretty spot on the banks of the Owego Creek, near the junction with
the Susquehanna, and bought a couple of hundred acres and a house,
which he named Glenmary after his wife.
Here the pair settled down happily for some five years, and here
Willis wrote his pleasant, gossiping _Letters from Under a
Bridge_ for the _New York Mirror_. In these he prattled of his
garden, his farm, his horses and dogs, and the strangers within his
gates. Unfortunately, he was unable to devote much attention to his
farm, which was said to grow nothing but flowers of speed, but was
forced to spend more and more time in the editorial office, and to
write hastily and incessantly for a livelihood. In 1839, owing to a
temporary coolness with the proprietor of the _Mirror_, Willis
accepted the proposal of his friend, Dr. Porter, that he should start
a new weekly paper called the _Corsair_, one of a whole crop of
pirate weeklies that started up with the establishment of the first
service of Atlantic liners. In May 1839 the first steam-vessel that
had crossed the ocean anchored in New York Harbour, and thenceforward
it was possible to obtain supplies from the European literary markets
within a fortnight of publication. It was arranged between Dr. Parker
and Willis that the cream of the contemporary literature of England,
France, and Germany should be conveyed to the readers of the
_Corsair_, and of course there was no question of payment to the
authors whose wares were thus appropriated.
The first number of the _Corsair_ appeared in January 1839, but
apparently piracy was not always a lucrative trade, for the paper had
an existence of little more than a year. In the course of its brief
career, however, Willis paid a flying visit to England, where he
accomplished a great deal of literary business. He had written a play
called _The Usurer Matched_, which was brought out by Wallack at
the Surrey Theatre, and is said to have been played to crowded houses
during a fairly long run, but neither this nor any of his other plays
brought the author fame or fortune. During this season he published
his _Loiterings of Travel_, a collection of stories and sketches,
a fourth edition of the _Pencillings_, an English edition of
_Letters from Under a Bridge_, and arranged with Virtue for works
on Irish and Canadian scenery. In addition to all this, he was
contributing jottings in London to the _Corsair_. As might be
supposed, he had not much time for society, but he met a few old
friends, made acquaintance with Kemble and Kean, went to a ball at
Almack's, and was present at the famous Eglinton Tournament, which
watery catastrophe he described for his paper. One of the most
interesting of his new acquaintances was Thackeray, then chiefly
renowned as a writer for the magazines. On July 26 Willis writes to
Dr. Porter:--
'I have engaged a new contributor to the _Corsair_. Who do you
think? The author of _Yellowplush_ and _Major Gahagan_. He has
gone to Paris, and will write letters from there, and afterwards
from London for a guinea a _close_ column of the _Corsair_--cheaper
than I ever did anything in my life. For myself, I think him the
very best periodical writer alive. He is a royal, daring, fine
creature too.' In his published _Jottings_, Willis told his readers
that 'Mr. Thackeray, the author, breakfasted with me yesterday,
and the _Corsair_ will be delighted to hear that I have engaged
this cleverest and most gifted of all the magazine-writers of
London to become _a regular correspondent of the Corsair_....
Thackeray is a tall, athletic-looking man of about forty-five
[he was actually only eight-and-twenty], with a look of talent that
could never be mistaken. He is one of the most accomplished
draughtsmen in England, as well as the most brilliant of
periodical writers.' Thackeray only wrote eight letters for the
_Corsair_, which were afterwards republished in his _Paris
Sketch-book_. There is an allusion to this episode in _The
Adventures of Philip_, the hero being invited to contribute to a
New York journal called _The Upper Ten Thousand_, a phrase
invented by Willis.
When the _Corsair_ came to an untimely end, Willis had no
difficulty in finding employment on other papers. He is said to have
been the first American magazine-writer who was tolerably well paid,
and at one time he was making about a thousand a year by periodical
work. That his name was already celebrated among his own countrymen
seems to be proved by the story of a commercial gentleman at a Boston
tea-party who 'guessed that Goethe was the N.P. Willis of Germany.'
The tales written about this time were afterwards collected into a
volume called _Dashes at Life with a Free Pencil_. Thackeray made
great fun of this work in the _Edinburgh Review_ for October
1845, more especially of that portion called 'The Heart-book of Ernest
Clay.' 'Like Caesar,' observed Thackeray, 'Ernest Clay is always
writing of his own victories. Duchesses pine for him, modest virgins
go into consumption and die for him, old grandmothers of sixty forget
their families and their propriety, and fall on the neck of this "Free
Pencil."' He quotes with delight the description of a certain Lady
Mildred, one of Ernest Clay's numerous loves, who glides into the room
at a London tea-party, 'with a step as elastic as the nod of a
water-lily. A snowy turban, from which hung on either temple a cluster
of crimson camellias still wet with the night-dew; long raven curls of
undisturbed grace falling on shoulders of that indescribable and dewy
coolness which follows a morning bath.' How naively, comments the
critic, does this nobleman of nature recommend the use of this rare
cosmetic!
In spite of his popularity, Willis's affairs were not prospering at
this time. He had received nothing from the estate of his
father-in-law, who died in 1839, his publisher failed in 1842, and he
was obliged to sell Glenmary and remove to New York, whence he had
undertaken to send a fortnightly letter to a paper at Washington. This
was the year of Dickens's visit to America, and Willis was present at
the 'Boz Ball,' where he danced with Mrs. Dickens, to whom he
afterwards did the honours of Broadway. In 1843 Willis made up his
difference with Morris, and again became joint-editor of the
_Mirror_, which, a year later, was changed from a weekly to a
daily paper. His contributions to the journal consisted of stories,
poems, letters, book-notices, answers to correspondents, and editorial
gossip of all kinds.
In March 1845 Mrs. Willis died in her confinement, leaving her
(temporarily) broken-hearted husband with one little girl. 'An angel
without fault or foible' was his epitaph upon the woman to whom, in
spite of his many fictitious _bonnes fortunes_, he is said to
have been faithfully attached. But Willis was not born to live alone,
and in the following summer he fell in love with a Miss Cornelia
Grinnell at Washington, and was married to her in October, 1846. The
second Mrs. Willis was nearly twenty years younger than her husband,
but she was a sensible, energetic young woman, who made him an
excellent wife.
The title of the _Mirror_ had been changed to that of _The Home
Journal_, and under its new name it became a prosperous paper.
Willis, who was the leading spirit of the enterprise, set himself to
portray the town, chronicling plays, dances, picture-exhibitions,
sights and entertainments of all kinds in the airy manner that was so
keenly appreciated by his countrymen. He was recognised as an
authority on fashion, and his correspondence columns were crowded with
appeals for guidance in questions of dress and etiquette. He was also
a favourite in general society, though he is said to have been, next
to Fenimore Cooper, the best-abused man of letters in America. One of
his most pleasing characteristics was his ready appreciation and
encouragement of young writers, for he was totally free from
professional jealousy. He was the literary sponsor of Aldrich, Bayard
Taylor, and Lowell, among others, and the last-named alludes to Willis
in his _Fable for Critics_ (1848) in the following flattering
lines:
'His nature's a glass of champagne with the foam on't,
As tender as Fletcher, as witty as Beaumont;
So his best things are done in the heat of the moment.
* * * * *
He'd have been just the fellow to sup at the 'Mermaid,'
Cracking jokes at rare Ben, with an eye to the barmaid,
His wit running up as Canary ran down,--
The topmost bright bubble on the wave of the town.'
After 1846 Willis wrote little except gossiping paragraphs and other
ephemera. In answer to remonstrances against this method of frittering
away his talents, he was accustomed to reply that the public liked
trifles, and that he was bound to go on 'buttering curiosity with the
ooze of his brains.' He read but little in later life, nor associated
with men of high intellect or serious aims, but showed an
ever-increasing preference for the frivolous and the feminine. In 1850
he published another volume of little magazine stories called
_People I have Met_. This appeared in London as well as in New
York, and Thackeray again revenged himself for that close column which
had been rewarded by an uncertain guinea, by holding up his former
editor to ridicule. With mischievous delight he describes the
amusement that is to be found in N.P. Willis's society, 'amusement at
the immensity of N.P.'s blunders; amusement at the prodigiousness of
his self-esteem; amusement always with or at Willis the poet, Willis
the man, Willis the dandy, Willis the lover--now the Broadway
Crichton--once the ruler of fashion and heart-enslaver of Bond Street,
and the Boulevard, and the Corso, and the Chiaja, and the
Constantinople Bazaars. It is well for the general peace of families
that the world does not produce many such men; there would be no
keeping our wives and daughters in their senses were such fascinators
to make frequent apparitions among us; but it is comfortable that
there should have been a Willis; and as a literary man myself, and
anxious for the honour of that profession, I am proud to think that a
man of our calling should have come, should have seen, should have
conquered as Willis has done.... There is more or less of truth, he
nobly says, in these stories--more or less truth, to be sure there
is--and it is on account of this more or less truth that I for my part
love and applaud this hero and poet. We live in our own country, and
don't know it; Willis walks into it, and dominates it at once. To know
a duchess, for instance, is given to very few of us. He sees things
that are not given to us to see. We see the duchess in her carriage,
and gaze with much reverence on the strawberry-leaves on the panels,
and her grace within; whereas the odds are that that lovely duchess
has had, one time or the other, a desperate flirtation with Willis the
Conqueror. Perhaps she is thinking of him at this very moment, as her
jewelled hand presses her perfumed handkerchief to her fair and
coroneted brow, and she languidly stops to purchase a ruby bracelet at
Gunter's, or to sip an ice at Howell and James's. He must have whole
mattresses stuffed with the blonde or raven or auburn tresses of
England's fairest daughters. When the female English aristocracy read
the title of _People I have Met_, I can fancy the whole female
peerage of Willis's time in a shudder; and the melancholy marchioness,
and the abandoned countess, and the heart-stricken baroness trembling
as each gets the volume, and asks of her guilty conscience, "Gracious
goodness, is the monster going to show up me?"'
In 1853 Willis, who had been obliged to travel for the benefit of his
declining health, took a fancy to the neighbourhood of the Hudson, and
bought fifty acres of waste land, upon which he built himself a house,
and called the place Idlewild. Here he settled down once more to a
quiet country life, took care of his health, cultivated his garden,
and wrote long weekly letters to the _Home Journal_. He had by
this time five children, middle age had stolen upon him, and now that
he could no longer pose as his own allconquering hero, his hand seems
to have lost its cunning. His editorial articles, afterwards published
under the appropriate title of _Ephemera_, grew thinner and
flatter with the passing of the years; yet slight and superficial as
the best of them are, they were the result of very hard writing. His
manuscripts were a mass of erasures and interlineations, but his copy
was so neatly prepared that even the erasures had a sort of 'wavy
elegance' which the compositors actually preferred to print. His
mannerisms and affectations grew upon him in his later years, and he
became more and more addicted to the coining of new words and phrases,
only a few of which proved effective. Besides the now well-worn term,
the 'upper ten thousand,' he is credited with the invention of
'Japonicadom,' 'come-at-able,' and 'stay-at-home-ativeness.' One or
two of his sayings may be worth quoting, such as his request for
Washington Irving's blotting-book, because it was the door-mat on
which the thoughts of his last book had wiped their sandals before
they went in; and his remark that to ask a literary man to write a
letter after his day's work was like asking a penny-postman to take a
walk in the evening for the pleasure of it.
On the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Willis went to Washington as
war-correspondent of his paper. It does not appear that he saw any
harder service than the dinners and receptions of the capitol, since
an opportune fit of illness prevented his following the army to Bull's
Run. The correspondent who took his place on the march had his career
cut short by a Southern bullet. Willis, meanwhile, was driving about
with Mrs. Lincoln, with whom he became a favourite, although she
reproached him for his want of tact in speaking of her 'motherly
expression' in one of his published letters, she being at that time
only thirty-six. He met Hawthorne at Washington, and describes him as
very shy and reserved in manner, but adds, 'I found he was a lover of
mine, and we enjoyed our acquaintance very much.' One of the minor
results of the great Civil War was the extinguishing of Willis's
literary reputation; his frothy trifling suddenly became obsolete when
men had sterner things to think about than the cut of a coat, or the
etiquette of a morning call. The nation began to demand realities,
even in its fiction, the circulation of the _Home Journal_ fell
off, and Willis, who had always affected a horror of figures and
business matters generally, found himself in financial difficulties.
He was obliged to let Idlewild, and return, in spite of his rapidly
failing health, to the editorial office at New York.
The last few years of Willis's career afford a melancholy contrast to
its brilliant opening. Health, success, prosperity--all had deserted
him, and nothing remained but the editorial chair, to which he clung
even after epileptic attacks had resulted in paralysis and gradual
softening of the brain. The failure of his mental powers was kept
secret as long as possible, but in November, 1866, he yielded to the
entreaties of his wife and children, knocked off work for ever, and
went home to die. His last few months were passed in helpless
weakness, and he only occasionally recognised those around him. The
end came on January 20, 1867, his sixty-first birthday.
Selections from Willis's prose works have been published within recent
years in America, and a new edition of his poems has appeared in
England, while a carefully written Life by Mr. De Beers is included in
the series of 'American Men of Letters.' But in this country at least
his fame, such as it is, will rest upon his sketches of such
celebrities as Lamb, Moore, Bulwer, D'Orsay, and D'Israeli. As long as
we retain any interest in them and their works, we shall like to know
how they looked and dressed, and what they talked about in private
life. It is impossible altogether to approve of the Penciller--his
absurdities were too marked, and his indiscretions too many--yet it is
probable that few who have followed his meteor-like career will be
able to refrain from echoing Thackeray's dictum: 'It is comfortable
that there should have been a Willis!'
LADY HESTER STANHOPE
PART I
[Illustration: Lady Hester Stanhope from a drawing by R. J. Hamerton]
There are few true stories that are distinguished by a well-marked
moral. If we study human chronicles we generally find the ungodly
flourishing permanently like a green bay-tree, and the righteous
apparently forsaken and begging his bread. But it occasionally happens
that a human life illustrates some moral lesson with the triteness and
crudity of a Sunday-school book, and of such is the career of Lady
Hester Stanhope, a Pitt on the mother's side, and more of a Pitt in
temper and disposition than her grandfather, the great Commoner
himself. Her story contains the useful but conventional lesson that
pride goeth before a fall, and that all earthly glory is but vanity,
together with a warning against the ambition that o'erleaps itself,
and ends in failure and humiliation. That humanity will profit by such
a lesson, whether true or invented for didactic purposes, is doubtful,
but at least Nature has done her best for once to usurp the seat of
the preacher, 'to point a moral and adorn a tale.' Lady Hester, who
was born on March 12,1776, was the eldest daughter of Charles, third
Earl of Stanhope, by his first wife Hester, daughter of the great Lord
Chatham. Lord Stanhope seems to have been an uncomfortable person, who
combined scientific research with democratic principles, and contrived
to quarrel with most of his family. In order to live up to his
theories he laid down his carriage and horses, effaced the armorial
bearings from his plate, and removed from his walls some famous
tapestry, because it was 'so d----d aristocratical.' If one of his
daughters happened to look better than usual in a becoming hat or
frock, he had the garment laid away, and something coarse put in its
place. The children were left almost entirely to the care of
governesses and tutors, their step-mother, the second Lady Stanhope (a
Grenville by birth) being a fashionable fine lady, who devoted her
whole time to her social duties, while Lord Stanhope was absorbed by
his scientific pursuits. The home was not a happy one, either for the
three girls of the first marriage, or for the three sons of the
second. In 1796 Rachel, the youngest daughter, eloped with a Sevenoaks
apothecary named Taylor, and was cast off by her family; and in 1800
Griselda, the second daughter, married a Mr. Tekell, of Hampshire. In
this year Hester left her home, which George III used to call
Democracy Hall, and went to live with her grandmother, the Dowager
Lady Stanhope.
On the death of Lady Stanhope in 1803, Lady Hester was offered a home
by her uncle, William Pitt, with whom she remained until his death in
1806. Pitt became deeply attached to his handsome, high-spirited
niece. He believed in her sincerity and affection for himself, admired
her courage and cleverness, laughed at her temper, and encouraged her
pride. She seems to have gained a considerable influence over her
uncle, and contrived to have a finger in most of the ministerial pies.
When reproached for allowing her such unreserved liberty of action in
state affairs, Pitt was accustomed to reply, 'I let her do as she
pleases; for if she were resolved to cheat the devil himself, she
would do it.' 'And so I would,' Lady Hester used to add, when she told
the story. If we may believe her own account, Pitt told her that she
was fit to sit between Augustus and Mæcenas, and assured her that 'I
have plenty of good diplomatists, but they are none of them military
men; and I have plenty of good officers, but not one of them is worth
sixpence in the cabinet. If you were a man, Hester, I would send you
on the Continent with 60,000 men, and give you _carte blanche_,
and I am sure that not one of my plans would fail, and not one soldier
would go with his boots unblacked.' This admiration, according to the
same authority, was shared by George III, who one day on the Terrace
at Windsor informed Mr. Pitt that he had got a new and superior
minister in his room, and one, moreover, who was a good general.
'There is my new minister,' he added, pointing at Lady Hester. 'There
is not a man in my kingdom who is a better politician, and there is
not a woman who better adorns her sex. And let me say, Mr. Pitt, you
have not reason to be proud you are a minister, for there have been
many before you, and will be many after you; but you have reason to be
proud of her, who unites everything that is great in man and woman.'
All this must, of course, be taken with grains of salt, but it is
certain that Lady Hester occupied a position of almost unparalleled
supremacy for a woman, that she dispensed patronage, lectured
ministers, and snubbed princes. On one occasion Lord Mulgrave, who had
just been appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, found a
broken egg-spoon on the breakfast-table at Walmer, and asked, 'How can
Mr. Pitt have such a spoon as this?' 'Don't you know,' retorted Lady
Hester, 'that Mr. Pitt sometimes uses very slight and weak instruments
wherewith to effect his ends?' Again, when Mr. Addington wished to
take the title of Lord Raleigh, Lady Hester determined to prevent what
she regarded as a desecration of a great name. She professed to have
seen a caricature, which she minutely described, representing Mr.
Addington as Sir Walter Raleigh, and the King as Queen Elizabeth. Mr.
Pitt, believing the story, repeated it to Addington and others, with
the result that messengers were despatched to all the print-shops to
buy up the whole impression. Of course no such caricature was to be
found, but the prospective peer had received a fright, and chose the
inoffensive title of Lord Sidmouth. Lady Hester despised Lord
Liverpool for a well-meaning blunderer, but she hated and distrusted
Canning, whom she was accustomed to describe as a fiery, red-headed
Irish politician, who was never staunch to any person or any party;
and she declared that by her scoldings she had often made him blubber
like a schoolboy. It cannot be supposed that her ladyship was popular
with the numerous persons, high and low, who came under the ban of her
displeasure, or suffered from her pride; but she was young, handsome,
and witty, her position was unassailable, and as long as her uncle
chose to laugh at her insolence and her eccentricities, no lesser
power presumed to frown.
For her beauty in youth we must again take her own account on trust,
since she never consented to sit for her portrait, and in old age her
recollection of her vanished charms may have been coloured by some
pardonable exaggeration. 'At twenty,' she told a chronicler, 'my
complexion was like alabaster, and at five paces distant the sharpest
eyes could not discover my pearl necklace from my skin. My lips were
of such a beautiful carnation that, without vanity, I can assure you,
very few women had the like. A dark-blue shade under the eyes, and the
blue veins that were observable through the transparent skin,
heightened the brilliancy of my features. Nor were the roses wanting
in my cheeks; and to all this was added a permanency in my looks that
no sort of fatigue could impair.' She was fond of relating an anecdote
of a flattering impertinence on the part of Beau Brummell, who,
meeting her at a ball, coolly took the earrings out of her ears,
telling her that she should not wear such things, as they hid the fine
turn of her cheek, and the set of head upon her neck. Lady Hester
frankly admitted, however, that it was her brilliant colouring that
made her beauty, and once observed, in reply to a compliment on her
appearance: 'If you were to take every feature in my face, and lay
them one by one on the table, there is not a single one that would
bear examination. The only thing is that, put together and lighted up,
they look well enough. It is homogeneous ugliness, and nothing more.'
With Pitt's death in January, 1806, as by the stroke of a magic wand,
all the power, all the glory, and all the grandeur came to a sudden
end, and the great minister's favourite niece fell to the level of a
private lady, with a moderate income, no influence, and a host of
enemies. On his deathbed, Pitt had asked that an annuity of £1500
might be granted to Lady Hester, but in the end only £1200 was awarded
to her, a trifling income for one with such exalted ideas of her own
importance. A house was taken in Montagu Square, where Lady Hester
entertained her half-brothers, Charles and James Stanhope, when their
military duties allowed of their being in town. Here she led but a
melancholy life, for her means would not allow of her keeping a
carriage, and she fancied that it was incompatible with her dignity to
drive in a hackney-coach, or to walk out attended by a servant. In
1809 Charles Stanhope, like his chief, Sir John Moore, fell at
Corunna. Charles was Lady Hester's favourite brother, and tradition
says that Sir John Moore was her lover. Be that as it may, she broke
up her establishment in town at this time, and retired to a lonely
cottage in Wales, where she amused herself in superintending her dairy
and physicking the poor. But she suffered in health and spirits, the
contrast of the present with the past was too bitter to be endured in
solitude, and in 1810 she decided to go abroad, and spend a year or
two in the south. A young medical man, Dr. Meryon, [Footnote:
Afterwards Lady Hester's chronicler.] was engaged to accompany her as
her travelling physician, and the party further consisted of her
brother, James Stanhope, and a friend, Mr. Nassau Sutton, together
with two or three servants. Lady Hester was only thirty when her uncle
died, but it does not seem to have been considered that she required
any chaperonage, either at home or on her travels, nor does it appear
that Lord Stanhope (who lived till 1816) took any further interest in
her proceedings.
On February 10, 1810, the travellers sailed for the Mediterranean on
board the frigate _Jason_. It is not necessary to follow them
over the now familiar ground of the early part of their tour.
Gibraltar (whence Captain Stanhope left to join his regiment at
Cadiz), Malta, Athens, Constantinople, these were the first
stopping-places, and in each Lady Hester was treated with great
respect by the authorities, and went her own way in defiance of all
native customs and prejudices. At Athens her party was joined by Lord
Sligo, who was making some excavations in the neighbourhood, and by
Lord Byron, who had just won fresh laurels by swimming the Hellespont.
Lady Hester formed but a poor opinion of the poet, whose affectations
she used to mimic with considerable effect. 'I think Lord Byron was a
strange character,' she said, many years later. 'His generosity was
for a motive, his avarice was for a motive; one time he was mopish,
and nobody was to speak to him; another, he was for being jocular with
everybody.... At Athens I saw nothing in him but a well-bred man, like
many others: for as for poetry, it is easy enough to write verses; and
as for the thoughts, who knows where he got them? Many a one picks up
some old book that nobody knows anything about, and gets his ideas out
of it. He had a great deal of vice in his looks--his eyes set close
together, and a contracted brow. O Lord! I am sure he was not a
liberal man, whatever else he might be. The only good thing about his
looks was this part [drawing her hand under her cheek, and down the
front of her neck], and the curl on his forehead.'
The winter of 1810 was passed at Constantinople, and the early part of
1811 at the Baths of Brusa. As Lady Hester had decided to spend the
following winter in Egypt, a Greek vessel was hired for herself and
her party, which now consisted of two gentlemen, Mr. Bruce and Mr.
Pearce, besides her usual retinue, and on October 23 the travellers
set sail for Alexandria. After experiencing contrary winds for two or
three weeks, the ship sprang a leak, and the cry of 'All hands to the
pumps' showed that danger was imminent. Lady Hester took the
announcement of the misfortune with the greatest calmness, dressed
herself, and ordered her maid to pack a small box with a few
necessaries. It soon became evident that the ship could not keep
afloat much longer, and that the passengers and crew must take to the
long-boat if they wished to escape with their lives. They contrived,
in spite of the high sea that was running, to steer their boat into a
little creek on a rock off the island of Rhodes, and here, without
either food or water, they remained for thirty hours before they were
rescued, and taken ashore. Even then their state was hardly less
pitiable, for they were wet through, had no change of clothes, and
possessed hardly enough money for their immediate necessities. Lady
Hester described her adventure in the following letter, dated Rhodes,
December, 1811:--
'I write one line by a ship which came in here for a few hours, just
to tell you we are safe and well. Starving thirty hours on a bare
rock, without even fresh water, being half naked and drenched with
wet, having traversed an almost trackless country over dreadful rocks
and mountains, laid me up at a village for a few days, but I have
since crossed the island on an ass, going for six hours a day, which
proves I am pretty well, now, at least.... My locket, and the valuable
snuff-box Lord Sligo gave me, and two pelisses, are all I have
saved--all the travelling-equipage for Smyrna is gone; the servants
naked and unarmed; but the great loss of all is the medicine-chest,
which saved the lives of so many travellers in Greece.'
As they had lost nearly all their clothes, and knew that it would be
impossible to procure a European refit in these regions, the
travellers decided to adopt Turkish costumes. Dr. Meryon made a
journey to Smyrna, where he raised money, and bought necessary
articles for the shipwrecked party at Rhodes. On his return, laden
with purchases, after an absence of five weeks, 'the packing-cases
were opened [to quote his own description], and we assumed our new
dresses. Ignorant at that time of the distinctions of dress which
prevail in Turkey, every one flattered himself that he was habited
becomingly. Lady Hester and Mr. Bruce little suspected, what proved to
be the case, that their exterior was that of small gentry, and Mr.
Pearce and myself thought we were far from looking like
_Chaôoshes_ with our yatagans stuck in our girdles.' Lady Hester,
it may be noted, had determined to adopt the dress of a Turkish
gentleman, in order that she might travel unveiled, a proceeding that
would have been impossible in female costume.
The offer of a passage on a British frigate from Rhodes to Alexandria
was gladly accepted by Lady Hester and her friends, and on February
14, 1812, they got their first glimpse of the Egyptian coast. After a
fortnight spent in Alexandria, they proceeded to Cairo, where the
pasha, who had never seen an Englishwoman of rank before, desired the
honour of a visit from Lady Hester. In order to dazzle the eyes of her
host, she arrayed herself in a magnificent Tunisian costume of purple
velvet, elaborately embroidered in gold. For her turban and girdle she
bought two cashmere shawls that cost £50 each, her pantaloons cost
£40, her pelisse and waistcoat £50, her sabre £20, and her saddle £35,
while other articles necessary for the completion of the costume cost
a hundred pounds more. The pasha sent five horses to convey herself
and her friends to the palace, and much honour was shown her in the
number of silver sticks that walked before her, and in the privilege
accorded to her of dismounting at the inner gate. After the interview,
the pasha reviewed his troops before his distinguished visitor, and
presented her with a charger, magnificently caparisoned, which she
sent to England as a present to the Duke of York, her favourite among
all the royal princes.
The next move was to Jaffa, where preparations were made for the
regulation pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In her youth Lady Hester had been
told by Samuel Brothers, the Prophet, that she was to visit Jerusalem,
to pass seven years in the desert, to become the Queen of the Jews,
and to lead forth a chosen people. Now, as she journeyed towards the
Holy City with her cavalcade of eleven camels and thirteen horses, she
saw the first part of the prophecy fulfilled, and laughingly avowed
that she expected to see its final accomplishment. Lady Hester had now
replaced her gorgeous Tunisian dress by a travelling Mameluke's
costume, consisting of a satin vest, a red cloth jacket shaped like a
spencer, and trimmed with gold lace, and loose, full trousers of the
same cloth. Over this she wore a flowing white burnous, whose folds
formed a becoming drapery to her majestic figure. In this costume she
was generally mistaken by the natives for a young Bey with his
moustaches not yet grown, but we are told that her assumption of male
dress was severely criticised by the English residents in the Levant.
From Jerusalem the party made a leisurely tour through Syria, visiting
Cæsarea, Acre, Nazareth, Sayda, where Lady Hester was entertained by
her future enemy, the Emir Beshyr, prince of the Drûzes, and on
September 1, 1812, arrived at Damascus, where a lengthened stay was
made. Lady Hester had been warned that it would be dangerous for a
woman, unveiled and in man's dress, to enter Damascus, which was then
one of the most fanatical towns in all the Turkish dominions. But the
granddaughter of Pitt feared neither Turk nor Christian, and rode
through the streets daily with uncovered face, and though crowds
assembled to see her start, she received honours instead of the
expected insults. 'A grave yet pleasing look,' writes her chronicler,
'an unembarrassed yet commanding demeanour, met the ideas of the
Turks, whose manners are of this caste.... When it is considered how
fanatical the people of Damascus were, and in what great abhorrence
they held infidels; that native Christians could only inhabit a
particular quarter of the town; and that no one of these could ride on
horseback within the walls, or wear as part of his dress any coloured
cloth or showy turban, it will be a matter for surprise how completely
these prejudices were set aside in favour of Lady Hester, and of those
persons who were with her. She rode out every day, and according to
the custom of the country, coffee was poured on the ground before her
horse to do her honour. It was said that, in going through a bazaar,
all the people rose up as she passed, an honour never paid but to a
pasha, or to the mufti.'
From the moment of her arrival at Damascus, Lady Hester had busied
herself in arranging for a journey to the ruins of Palmyra. The
expedition was considered not only difficult but dangerous, and she
was assured that a large body of troops would be necessary to protect
her from the robber tribes of the desert. While the practicability of
the enterprise was still being anxiously discussed by her Turkish
advisers, Lady Hester received a visit from a certain Nasar, son of
Mahannah, Emir of the Anizys [Footnote: Dr. Meryon's somewhat erratic
spelling of Oriental names is followed throughout this memoir.] (the
collective name given to several of the Bedouin tribes ranging that
part of the desert), who told her that he had heard of her proposed
expedition, and that he came to warn her against attempting to cross
the desert under military escort, since in that case she would be
treated as an enemy by the tribes. But, he added, if she would place
herself under the protection of the Arabs, and rely upon their honour,
they would pledge themselves to conduct her from Hamah to Palmyra and
back again in safety. The result of this interview was that Lady
Hester declined the pasha's offer of troops, and leaving the doctor to
wind up affairs at Damascus she departed alone, ostensibly for Hamah,
a city on the highroad to Aleppo. But having secretly arranged a
meeting with the Emir Mahannah in the desert, she rode straight to his
camp, accompanied by Monsieur and Madame Lascaris, who were living in
the neighbourhood, and by a Bedouin guide. In a letter to General
Oakes, dated January 25, 1813, she gives the following account of her
first experiment upon the good faith of the Arabs:--
'I went with the great chief, Mahannah el Fadel (who commands 40,000
men), into the desert for a week, and marched for three days with
their camp. I was treated with the greatest respect and hospitality,
and it was the most curious sight I ever saw; horses and mares fed
upon camel's milk; Arabs living upon little else except rice; the
space around me covered with living things; 1600 camels coming to
water from one tribe only; the old poets from the banks of the
Euphrates singing the praises of the ancient heroes; women with lips
dyed bright blue, and nails red, and hands all over flowers and
different designs; a chief who is obeyed like a great king; starvation
and pride so mixed that really I could not have had an idea of it....
However, I have every reason to be perfectly contented with their
conduct towards me, and I am the Queen with them all.'
The preparations for the journey occupied nearly two months, the
cavalcade being on a magnificent scale. Twenty-two camels were to
carry the baggage, twenty-five horsemen formed the retinue, in
addition to the Bedouin escort, led by Nasar, the Emir's son. Still
the risk was great, for Lady Hester carried with her many articles of
value, and of course was wholly at the mercy of her conductors, who
got their living by plunder. But she sought the remains of Zenobia as
well as the ruins of Palmyra, and had set her heart upon seeing the
city which had been governed by one of her own sex, and owed its chief
magnificence to her genius. Mr. Bruce, writing to General Oakes just
before the start, observes: 'If Lady Hester succeeds in this
undertaking, she will at least have the merit of being the first
European female who has ever visited this once celebrated city. Who
knows but she may prove another Zenobia, and be destined to restore it
to its ancient splendour?'
The cavalcade set out on March 20, a sum of about £50 being paid over
to the Emir for his escort, with the promise of twice as much more on
the safe return of the party. The journey seems to have been
uneventful save for the occasional sulks of the Bedouin leader, and
the petty thefts of his followers. The inhabitants of Palmyra had been
warned of the approach of the 'great white queen,' who rode a mare
worth forty purses, and had in her possession a book which instructed
her where to find treasure, and a bag of herbs with which she could
transmute stones into gold. By way of welcome a body of about two
hundred men, armed with matchlocks, went out to meet her, and
displayed for her amusement a mock attack on, and defence of, a
caravan. The guides led the cavalcade up through the long colonnade,
which is terminated by a triumphal arch, the shaft of each of the
pillars having a projecting pedestal, or console, on which a statue
once stood. 'What was our surprise,' writes Dr. Meryon, 'to see, as we
rode up the avenue, that several beautiful girls had been placed on
these pedestals in the most graceful postures, and with garlands in
their hands.... On each side of the arch other girls stood by threes,
while a row of six was arranged across the gate of the arch with
thyrsi in their hands. While Lady Hester advanced, these living
statues remained immovable on their pedestals; but when she had
passed, they leaped to the ground, and joined in a dance by her side.
On reaching the triumphal arch, the whole in groups, both men and
girls, danced round her. Here some bearded elders chanted verses in
her praise, and all the spectators joined in the chorus. Lady Hester
herself seemed to partake of the emotions to which her presence in
this remote spot had given rise. Nor was the wonder of the Palmyrenes
less than our own. They beheld with amazement a woman who had ventured
thousands of miles from her own country, and crossed a waste where
hunger and thirst were the least of the perils to be dreaded.' It may
be observed that the people of Syria, excited by the achievements of
Sir Sydney Smith, had begun to imagine that their land might be
occupied by the English, and perhaps regarded Lady Hester as an
English princess who had come to prepare the way, if not to take
possession.
The travellers were only allowed a week in which to examine the ruins
of Palmyra, being hurried away by Prince Nasar on the plea that an
attack was expected from a hostile tribe. After resting for a time at
Hamah, and taking an affectionate farewell of their friendly Bedouins
(Lady Hester was enrolled as an Anizy Arab of the tribe of Melken),
they journeyed to Laodicea, which was believed to be free from the
plague that was raging in other parts of Syria, and here the summer
months were spent. In October Mr. Bruce received letters which obliged
him to return at once to England, and, as Dr. Meryon observes, 'he
therefore reluctantly prepared to quit a lady in whose society he had
so long travelled, and from whose conversation and experience of the
world so much useful knowledge was to be acquired.' Lady Hester had
now renounced the idea of returning to Europe, at any rate for the
present. She had some thoughts of taking a journey overland to
Bussora, and had also entered into a correspondence with the chief of
the Wahabys, with a view to travelling across the desert to visit him
in his capital of Deráych; but she finally decided on remaining for
some months longer in Syria. She had heard of a house, once a
monastery, at Mar Elias, near Sayda (the ancient Sidon), which could
be hired for a small rent. The house was taken, the luggage shipped to
Sayda, and Lady Hester and her doctor were preparing to follow, when
both fell ill of a malignant fever, which they believed to be a
species of plague. For some time Lady Hester's life was despaired of,
but thanks to her splendid constitution, she pulled through, though
she was not strong enough to leave Laodicea until January, 1814.
Lady Hester had now become a sojourner instead of a traveller in the
East, and, abandoning European customs altogether, she conformed
entirely to the mode of life of the Orientals. Mar Elias, which was
situated on a spur of Mount Lebanon, in a barren and rocky region,
consisted of a one-storied stone building with flat roofs, enclosing a
small paved court. 'Since her illness,' writes Dr. Meryon, 'Lady
Hester's character seemed to have changed. She became simple in her
habits, almost to cynicism. Scanning men and things with a wonderful
intelligence, she commented upon them as if the motives of human
action were laid open to her inspection.' The plague having again
broken out in the neighbourhood, the party at Mar Elias were insulated
upon their rock, and during the early days of their tenancy were in
much the same position as the crew of a well-victualled ship at sea,
having abundance of fresh provisions, but no books, no newspapers, and
no intercourse with the outer world.
In the autumn an expedition to the ruins of Baalbec was undertaken,
and at Beyrout, on the way home, a servant brought the news that a
Zâym, or Capugi Bashi, [Footnote: Nominally a door-keeper, according
to Dr. Meryon, but actually a Turkish official of high rank.] was at
that town on his road to Sayda, and was reported to be going to
capture Lady Hester, and carry her to Constantinople. Her ladyship
received the announcement with her usual composure, and it turned out
that she had long expected the Capugi Bashi, and knew the object of
his visit. Scarcely had the travellers arrived at Mar Elias than a
message came to Lady Hester, requesting her to meet the Zâym at the
house of the governor of Sayda, since it was not customary for a
Turkish official to go to a Christian's house. But in this case the
haughty Moslem had reckoned without his host. Lady Hester returned so
spirited an answer that the Zâym at once ordered his horses, and
galloped over to Mar Elias. The doctor and the secretary, knowing
nothing of the mission, felt considerable doubt of his intentions, and
put loaded pistols in their girdles, determined that if he had a
bowstring under his robes, no use should be made of it while they had
a bullet at his disposal. In the Turkish dominions, it must be
understood, a Capugi Bashi seldom comes into the provinces unless for
some affair of strangling, beheading, confiscation, or imprisonment,
and his presence is the more dreaded, as it is never known on whose
head the blow will fall.
In this case, fortunately, the Capugi's visit had no sinister motive.
The fact was now divulged that Lady Hester had been given a
manuscript, said to have been copied by a monk from the records of a
Frank monastery in Syria, which disclosed the hiding-places of immense
hoards of money buried in certain specified spots in the cities of
Ascalon and Sayda. Lady Hester, having convinced herself of the
genuineness of the manuscript, had written to the Sultan through Mr.,
afterwards Sir Robert, Liston, for permission to make the necessary
excavations, at the same time offering to forego all pecuniary benefit
that might accrue from her labours. The custom of burying money in
times of danger is so common in the East that credence was easily lent
to the story, while the fact that treasure might lie for centuries
untouched, even though the secret of its existence was known to
several persons, was possible in a country where digging among ruins
always excites dangerous suspicions in the minds of the authorities,
and where the discovery of a jar of coins almost invariably leads to
the ruin of the finder, who is supposed to keep back more than he
reveals.
The Sultan evidently believed that the matter was worth examination,
for he had sent the Capugi from Constantinople to invest Lady Hester
with greater authority over the Turks than had ever been granted even
to a European ambassador. It was arranged that the first excavations
should be made at Ascalon, and though Lady Hester, having only just
returned from Baalbec, felt disinclined to set out at once on another
long journey, the Zâym urged her to lose no time, and himself went on
to Acre to make the necessary preparations. As her income barely
sufficed for her own expenditure, she resolved to ask the English
Government to pay the cost of her search, holding that the honour
which would thereby accrue to the English name was a sufficient
justification for her demand.
'I shall beg of you,' she said to Dr. Meryon, 'to keep a regular
account of every article, and will then send in my bill to Government
by Mr. Liston; when, if they refuse to pay me, I shall put it in the
newspapers, and expose them. And this I shall let them know very
plainly, as I consider it my right, and not as a favour; for if Sir A.
Paget put down the cost of his servants' liveries after his embassy to
Vienna, and made Mr. Pitt pay him, £70,000 for four years, I cannot
see why I should not do the same.'
On February 15, 1815, Lady Hester left Mar Elias on horseback,
followed by her usual retinue, and on arriving at Acre spent about
three weeks in preparing for the work at Ascalon. In compliance with
the firmans sent by the Porte to all the governors of Syria, she was
treated with distinctions usually paid to no one under princely rank.
'Whenever she went out,' writes Dr. Meryon, 'she was followed by a
crowd of spectators; and the curiosity and admiration which she had
very generally excited throughout Syria were now increased by her
supposed influence in the affairs of Government, in having a Capugi
Bashi at her command.... No Turk now paid her a visit without wearing
his mantle of ceremony, and every circumstance showed the ascendency
she had gained in public opinion.' In addition to her own six tents,
twenty more were furnished for her suite, besides twenty-two
tent-pitchers, twelve mules to carry the baggage, and twelve camels to
carry the tents. To Lady Hester's use was appropriated a gorgeous
tilted palanquin or litter, covered with crimson cloth, and ornamented
with gilded balls. In case she preferred riding, her mare and her
favourite black ass were led in front of the litter. A hundred men of
the Hawàry cavalry escorted the procession, which left Acre on March
18, and arrived at Jaffa ten days later. Here a short halt was made,
and on the last day of March they set off for Ascalon, their animals
laden with shovels, pickaxes, and baskets. On arriving at their
destination the tents were pitched in the midst of the ruins, while a
cottage was fitted up for Lady Hester without the walls. Orders were
at once despatched to the neighbouring villages for relays of
labourers to work at the excavations. These men received no pay, being
requisitioned by Government, but they were well fed and humanely
treated by their English employer. The excavations were carried on for
about a fortnight on the site indicated in the mysterious paper.
During the first three days nothing was found except bones, fragments
of pillars, and a few vases and bottles; but on the fourth day a fine,
though mutilated, colossal statue was discovered, which apparently
represented a deified king. Dr. Meryon made a sketch of the marble,
and pointed out to Lady Hester that her labours had at least brought
to light a treasure that would be valuable in the eyes of lovers of
art, and that the ruins would be memorable for the enterprise of a
woman who had rescued the remains of antiquity from oblivion. To his
astonishment and dismay she replied, 'It is my intention to break up
the statue, and have it thrown into the sea, precisely in order that
such a report may not get abroad, and I lose with the Porte all the
merit of my disinterestedness.' In vain Dr. Meryon represented that
such an act would be an unpardonable vandalism, and was the less
excusable since the Turks had neither claimed the statue, nor
protested against its preservation. Her only answer was: 'Malicious
people may say I came to search for antiquities for my country, and
not for treasures for the Porte. So, go this instant, take with you
half-a-dozen stout fellows, and break it into a thousand pieces.'
Michaud, in his account of the affair, says that the Turks clamoured
for the destruction of the statue, believing that the trunk was full
of gold, and that Lady Hester had it broken up in order to prove to
them their error. Be this as it may, reports were afterwards
circulated in Ascalon that the statue had actually contained treasure,
half of which was handed over to the Porte, and half kept by Lady
Hester.
On the sixth day two large stone troughs were discovered, upon which
lay four granite pillars. This sight revived the hopes of the
searchers, for it was thought that the mass of granite could not have
fallen into such a position accidentally, but must have been placed
there to conceal something of value. Great was the disappointment of
all concerned when, on removing the pillars, the troughs were found to
be empty. The excavations of the next four days having produced
nothing of any value, the work was brought to an end, by Lady Hester's
desire, on April 14. She had come to the conclusion that when Gezzar
Pasha embellished the city of Acre by digging for marble among the
ruins of Ascalon, he had been fortunate enough to discover the
treasure, and she believed that his apparent mania for building was
only a cloak to conceal his real motives for excavating. The officials
and soldiers were handsomely rewarded for their trouble, and Lady
Hester set out on her homeward journey, minus her tents, palanquin,
military escort, and other emblems of grandeur, but with no loss of
dignity or serenity.
On returning to Mar Elias, she caused some excavations to be made near
Sayda, but with no better success, and after a few days the work was
abandoned. Lady Hester had been obliged to borrow a sum of money for
her expenses from Mr. Barker, the British consul at Aleppo, and now,
observes Dr. Meryon, 'as she had throughout proposed to herself no
advantage but the celebrity which success would bring on her own name
and that of the English nation, and as she had acted with the
cognisance of our minister at Constantinople, she fancied that she had
a claim upon the English Government for her expenses. Accordingly, she
sent our ambassador an account of her proceedings, and after showing
that all she had done was for the credit of her country, she asserted
her right to be reimbursed. She was unsuccessful, however, in her
application, and the expenses weighed heavily upon her means. Yet
hitherto she had never been in debt, and by great care and economy she
still contrived to keep out of it.'
Lady Hester having apparently decided to spend the remainder of her
days in Syria, Dr. Meryon informed her that he was anxious to return
to his own country, but that he would not leave her until a substitute
had been engaged. Accordingly, Giorgio, the Greek interpreter, was
despatched to England to engage the doctor's successor, and to execute
a number of commissions for his mistress. During the autumn Lady
Hester was actively employed in stirring up the authorities to avenge
the death of a French traveller, Colonel Boutin, who had been murdered
by the Ansarys on the road between Hamah and Laodicea. As the pasha of
the district had made no effort to trace or punish the murderers, she
had taken the matter into her own hands, holding that the common cause
of travellers demanded that such a crime should not go unpunished. Dr.
Meryon vainly tried to dissuade her from this course of action, urging
that the French consuls were bound to sift the affair, and that she,
in taking so active a part, was exposing herself to the vengeance of
the mountain tribes. As usual, the only effect of remonstrance was to
make her more determined to persevere in the course she had marked out
for herself. In the result, she succeeded in inducing the pasha to
send a punitive expedition into the mountains, and herself directed
the commandant, by information secretly obtained, where the criminals
were to be found. Mustafa Aga Berber, governor of the district, led
the expedition, and carried fire and sword into the Ansary country. It
was reported that he burnt the villages of the assassins, and sent
several heads to the pasha as tokens of his victories. Lady Hester
received a vote of thanks from the French Chamber of Deputies, after a
speech by Comte Delaborde, explaining the services she had rendered.
News of the great events that were taking place in France had now
reached Sayda, and Lady Hester, whose foible it was to think that the
successors of Pitt could do no right, was highly displeased at the
action of the British Government. She gave vent to her sentiments in
the following letter, dated April 1816, to her cousin the Marquis
(afterwards Duke) of Buckingham:--
'You cannot doubt that a woman of my character and (I presume to say)
understanding must have held in contempt and aversion all the
statesmen of the present day, whose unbounded ignorance and duplicity
have brought ruin on France, have spread their own shame through all
Europe, and have exposed themselves not only to ridicule, but to the
curses of present and future generations. One great mind, one single,
enlightened statesman, whose virtues had equalled his talents, was all
that was wanting to effect, at this unexampled period, the welfare of
all Europe, by taking advantage of events the most extraordinary that
have occurred in any era.... Cease therefore to torment me. I will not
live in Europe, even were I, in flying from it, compelled to beg my
bread. Once only will I go to France, to see you and James, but only
that once. I will not be a martyr for nothing. The granddaughter of
Chatham, the niece of the illustrious Pitt, feels herself blush that
she was born in England--that England who has made her accursed gold
the counterpoise to justice; that England who puts weeping humanity in
irons, who has employed the valour of her troops, destined for the
defence of her national honour, as the instrument to enslave a
freeborn people; and who has exposed to ridicule and humiliation a
monarch [Louis XVIII.] who might have gained the goodwill of his
subjects if those intriguing English had left him to stand or fall
upon his own merits.'
The announcement of the arrival of the Princess of Wales at Acre, and
the possibility that she might extend her journey to Sayda, induced
Lady Hester to embark for Antioch, where she professed to have
business with the British consul. It was considered an act of great
daring on her part to go into a district inhabited entirely by the
Ansárys, on whom she had lately wrought so signal a vengeance. But the
Ansárys had apparently no desire to bring upon themselves a second
punitive expedition, and though Lady Hester spent most of her time in
a retired cottage outside the town, in defiance of the warning that
her life was in danger, the tribes forbore to molest her. In September
she returned to Mar Elias; and, a few weeks later, Giorgio returned
from England, bringing with him an English surgeon and twenty-seven
packing-cases filled with presents, to be distributed among Lady
Hester's Turkish friends and acquaintances. On January 18, 1817, Dr.
Meryon, having initiated his successor into Eastern manners and
customs, took leave of his employer, and sailed for Europe, little
thinking that he would ever set foot in Syria again.
PART II
During the next ten or twelve years, we get but a few scanty glimpses
of the white Queen of the Desert. After Dr. Meryon's departure, Lady
Hester removed to a house in the village of Dar Jôon, or Djoun, a few
miles from Mar Elias. To this house she added considerably, laid out
some magnificent gardens, and enclosed the whole within high walls,
after the manner of a mediaeval fortress. Here she seems to have
passed her time in encouraging the Drûzes to rise against Ibrahim
Pasha, intriguing against the British consuls, and attempting to
bolster up the declining authority of the Sultan. In the intervals of
political business she occupied herself with superintending her
building and gardening operations, physicking the sick, and
tyrannising over her numerous servants. At Mar Elias, which she still
kept in her own hands, she maintained an eccentric old Frenchman,
General Loustaunau,[Footnote: Dr. Meryon's spelling.] who had formerly
been in the service of a Hindu rajah, but who, in his forlorn old age,
had wandered to Syria, and there, by dint of applying scriptural texts
to contemporary events, had earned the title of a prophet. Like Samuel
Brothers, he prophesied marvellous things of Lady Hester's future,
which she, rendered credulous by her solitary life in a mystic land,
where her own power and importance were the chief facts in her mental
horizon, came at length to believe.
In the _Memoirs of a Babylonian Princess_ by the Emira Asmar,
daughter of the Emir Abdallah Asmar, the author tells us that as a
girl she paid a long visit to the Emir Beshyr, prince of the Drûzes.
During this visit, which apparently took place in the early
'twenties,' she was sent with a present of fruit to a neighbour's
house, and there found a guest, a tall and splendid figure, arrayed in
masculine costume, and engaged in smoking a narghila. The stranger,
who talked Arabic with elegance and fluency, discoursed on the subject
of astrology, and tried to dissuade the Emira from taking a projected
journey to the west, where she declared the sun had set, and the
hearts of the people retained not a spark of the virtues of their
forefathers. 'Soon afterwards,' continues the author, 'she rose, and
took her departure, attended by a large retinue. A spirited charger
stood at the gate, champing the bit with fiery impatience. She put her
foot in the stirrup, and vaulting nimbly into the saddle, which she
bestrode like a man, started off at a rapid pace, galloping over rocks
and mountains in advance of her suite, with a fearlessness and address
that would have done honour to a Mameluke.' The stranger was, of
course, none other than Lady Hester Stanhope, who, at that time, was
on friendly terms with the Emir Beshyr, afterwards her bitterest
enemy.
In 1826 Lady Hester wrote to invite Dr. Meryon to return to her
service for a time, and he, who seems all his life to have 'heard the
East a-calling,' could not resist the invitation, though his movements
were now hampered by a wife and children. He began at once to make
preparations for his departure, but was unable to start before
September 1827. Meanwhile, Lady Hester had been gulled by an English
traveller, designated as 'X.' in her letters, who had induced her to
believe that he was empowered by the Duke of Sussex, the Duke of
Bedford, and a committee of Freemasons, to offer her such sums as
would extricate her out of her embarrassments, and to settle an income
upon her for life. How a woman who professed to have an almost
supernatural insight into the characters and thoughts of men, could
have been deceived by this story, it is hard to understand; but
apparently the difficulties of her situation, occasioned by her custom
of making large presents to the pashas in order to keep up her
authority, as well as by her benevolence to the poor in her
neighbourhood, rendered her willing to catch at any straw for help.
This 'X' had promised to send her a hundred purses for her current
expenses, and to bring out from England masons and carpenters to
enlarge her dwelling, in order that she might entertain the many
distinguished people who desired to come and see her. In a letter to
Dr. Meryon on this subject, Lady Hester writes:--
'If X.'s story is true, and my debts, amounting to nearly 10,000
pounds, are to be paid, then I shall go on making sublime and
philosophical discoveries, and employing myself in deep, abstract
studies. In that case I shall want a mason, carpenter, etc., income
made out 4000 pounds a year, and 1000 pounds more for people like you,
and 500 pounds ready money that I may stand clear. In the event that
all that has been told me is a lie.... I shall give up everything for
life to my creditors, and throw myself as a beggar on Asiatic charity,
and wander far without one parra in my pocket, with the mare from the
stable of Solomon in one hand, and a sheaf of the corn of Beni-Israel
in the other. I shall meet death, or that which I believe to be
written, which no mortal can efface. On September 7, Dr. Meryon and
his family embarked at Leghorn for Cyprus, but on nearing Candia their
merchant brig, which was taking out stores to the Turks, was attacked
by a Greek vessel, whose officers took possession of the cargo, and
also of all the passengers' property, except that belonging to the
English party, which they left unmolested. The Italian captain was
obliged to put back to Leghorn, and here Dr. Meryon heard the news of
the battle of Navarino, and of the shelter afforded by Lady Hester
Stanhope to two hundred refugee Europeans from Sayda. By this time she
was at daggers-drawn with the Emir Beshyr, whose rival she had helped
and protected. The Emir revenged himself by publishing in the village
an order that all her native servants were to return to their homes,
upon pain of losing their property and their lives. 'I gave them all
their option,' she writes. 'And most of them remained firm. Since
that, he has threatened to seize and murder them here, which he shall
not do without taking my life too. Besides this, he has given orders
in all the villages that men, women, and children who render me the
smallest service shall be cut in a thousand pieces. My servants cannot
go out, and the peasants cannot approach the house. Therefore, I am in
no very pleasant situation, being deprived of the necessary supplies
of food, and what is worse, of water; for all the water here is
brought on mules' backs up a great steep.'
Dr. Meryon was unable to resume his voyage at this time, but in 1828,
the news that a malignant fever had attacked the household at Jôon,
and carried off Lady Hester's companion, Miss Williams, gave rise to
fresh plans for a visit to Syria. The doctor had, however, so much
difficulty in overcoming his wife's fears of the voyage, that it was
not until November, 1830, that he could induce her to embark at
Marseilles on a vessel bound for the East. The party arrived at
Beyrout on December 8, and found that Lady Hester had sent camels and
asses to bring them on their way, together with a characteristic note
to the effect that it would give her much pleasure to see the doctor,
but that, as for his family, they must not expect any other attentions
than such as would make them comfortable in their new home. She hoped
that Dr. Meryon would not take this ill, as she had warned him that
she did not think English ladies could make themselves happy in Syria,
and, therefore, he who had chosen to bring them must take the
consequences. This letter was but the first of a long series of
affronts put upon Mrs. Meryon, the result of Lady Hester's dislike of
her own sex, and probably also of her objection to the presence of
another Englishwoman in a spot where she had reigned so long as the
only specimen of her race.
A cottage had been provided in the village of Jôon for the travellers,
and the ladies were escorted thither by the French secretary, while
the doctor hastened to report himself to Lady Hester, who received him
with the greatest cordiality, kissing him on both cheeks, and placing
him beside her on the sofa. Remembering her overweening pride of
birth, he was astonished at his reception, more especially as, in the
early part of her travels, she had never even condescended to take his
arm, that honour being reserved exclusively for members of the
aristocracy. He found her ladyship in good health and spirits, but
barely provided with the necessaries of life, having been robbed of
nearly all her articles of value by the native servants during her
last illness. A rush-bottomed chair, a deal table, dishes of common
yellow earthenware, bone-handled knives and forks, and two or three
silver spoons, were all that remained of her former grandeur, and the
dinner was on a par with the furniture.
The house, which had been hired at a rental of £20 from a Turkish
merchant, had been greatly enlarged, and the gardens, with their
summer-houses, covered alleys, and serpentine walks, were superior to
most English gardens of the same size. Lady Hester's constant outlay
in building arose from her idea that people would fly to her for
succour and protection during the revolutions that she believed to be
impending all over the world; her camels, asses, and mules were kept
with the same view, and her servants were taught to look forward with
awe to events of a supernatural nature, when their services and
energies would be taxed to the utmost. In choosing a solitary life in
the wilderness, far removed from all the comforts and pleasures of
civilisation, Lady Hester seems to have been actuated by her craving
for absolute power, which could not be gratified in any European
community. It was her pleasure to dwell apart, surrounded by
dependants and slaves, and out of reach of that influence and
restraint which are necessarily endured by each member of a civilised
society. She had become more violent in her temper than formerly, and
treated her servants with great severity when they were negligent of
their duties. Her maids and female slaves she punished summarily, and
boasted that there was nobody who could give such a slap in the face,
when required, as she could. At Mar Elias her servants, when tired of
her tyranny, frequently absconded by night, and took refuge in Sayda,
only two miles away; but at Dar Joon their retreat was cut off by
mountain tracts, inhabited only by wolves and jackals, and they were
consequently almost helpless in the hands of their stern mistress. The
establishment at this time consisted of between thirty and forty
servants, labourers, and slaves, most of whom are described as dirty,
lazy, and dishonest. Between them they did badly the work that
half-a-dozen Europeans would have done respectably, but then the
Europeans would not have stood the slaps and scoldings that the
natives took as a matter of course.
For the last fifteen years Lady Hester had seldom left her bed till
between two and five o'clock in the afternoon, nor returned to it
before the same hour next morning; while for four years she had never
stirred beyond the precincts of her own domain, though she took some
air and exercise in the garden. Except when she was asleep, her bell
was incessantly ringing, her servants were running to and fro, and the
whole house was kept in commotion. During the greater part of the day
she sat up in bed, writing, talking, scolding, and interviewing her
work-people. Few of her _employés_ escaped from her presence
without reproof, and as no one was allowed to exercise his own
discretion in his work, her directing spirit was always in the full
flow of activity. 'On one and the same day,' says Dr. Meryon,' I have
known her to dictate papers that concerned the political welfare of a
pashalik, and descend to trivial details about the composition of a
house-paint, the making of butter, drenching a sick horse, choosing
lambs, or cutting out a maid's apron. The marked characteristic of her
mind was the necessity that she laboured under of incessantly
talking.' Her conversations, we are told, frequently lasted for seven
or eight hours at a stretch, and at least one of her visitors was kept
so long in discourse that he fainted away with fatigue. Dr. Meryon
bears witness to her marvellous colloquial powers, her fund of
anecdote, and her talent for mimicry, but observes that every one who
conversed with her retired humbled from her presence, since her
language was always calculated to bring men down to their proper
level, to strip off affectation, and to expose conceit.
At this time her political influence was on the wane, but a few years
previously, when her financial affairs were in a more flourishing
condition, and when it was observed that the pashas valued her opinion
and feared her censure, she had obtained an almost despotic power over
the neighbouring tribes. A remarkable proof of her personal courage,
and also of the supernatural awe with which she was regarded, was
shown by her open defiance of the Emir Beshyr, in whose principality
she lived, but who was unable to reduce her, either by threats or
persecution, to even a nominal submission to his rule. Not only did
she give public utterance to her contemptuous opinion of the Emir, but
she openly assisted his relation and rival, the Sheikh Beshyr; yet no
vengeance either of the bowstring or the poisoned cup rewarded her
rebellion or her intrigues.