Her religious views, at this time, were decidedly complicated in

character. She firmly believed in astrology, of which she had made a

special study, and to some extent in demonology. But more remarkable

was her faith in the early coming of a Messiah, or Mahedi, on which

occasion she expected to play a glorious part. The prophecies of

Samuel Brothers and of General Loustaunau had taken firm possession of

her mind, more especially since their words had been corroborated by a

native soothsayer, Metta by name, who brought her an Arabic book

which, he said, contained allusions to herself. Finding a credulous

listener, he read and expounded a passage relating to a European woman

who was to come and live on Mount Lebanon at a certain epoch, and

obtain power and influence greater than a sultan's. A boy without a

father was to join her there, whose destiny was to be fulfilled under

her wing; while the coming of the Mahedi, who was to ride into

Jerusalem on a horse born saddled, would be preceded by famine,

pestilence, and other calamities. For a long time Lady Hester was

persuaded that the Due de Reichstadt was the boy in question, but

after his death she fixed upon another youth. In expectation of the

coming of the Mahedi she kept two thoroughbred mares, which no one was

suffered to mount. One of these animals, named Laila, had a curious

malformation of the back, not unlike a Turkish saddle in shape, and

was destined by its mistress to bear the Mahedi into Jerusalem, while

on the other, Lulu, Lady Hester expected to ride by his side on the

great day. 'Hundreds and thousands of distressed persons,' she was

accustomed to say, 'will come to me for assistance and shelter. I

shall have to wade in blood, but it is the will of God, and I shall

not be afraid.' Borne up by these glorious expectations, she never

discussed her debts, her illnesses, and her other trials, without at

the same time picturing to herself a brighter future, when the neglect

with which she had been treated by her family would meet with its just

punishment, and her star would rise again to gladden the world, and

more especially those who had been faithful to her in the time of

adversity.

As soon as Mrs. Meryon was settled in her new home, and had recovered

from the fatigue of the journey, Lady Hester appointed a day for her

reception. What happened at the momentous interview we are not told,

except that at the close Lady Hester attired her visitor in a handsome

Turkish spencer of gold brocade, and wound an embroidered muslin

turban round her head. Unfortunately, Mrs. Meryon, not understanding

the Eastern custom of robing honoured guests, took off the garments

before she went away, and laid them on a table, a grievous breach of

etiquette in her hostess's eyes. Still, matters went on fairly

smoothly until, about the end of January, a messenger came from

Damascus to ask that Dr. Meryon might be allowed to go thither to cure

a friend of the pasha's, who had an affection of the mouth. Lady

Hester was anxious that the doctor should obey the call, but, greatly

to her annoyance, he entirely declined to leave his wife and children

alone for three or four weeks in a strange land, where they could not

make themselves understood by the people about them. In vain Lady

Hester tried to frighten Mrs. Meryon into consenting to her husband's

departure by assuring her that there were Dervishes who could inflict

all sorts of evil on her by means of charms, if she persisted in her

refusal. Mrs. Meryon quietly replied that her husband could go if he

chose, but that it would not be with her goodwill. From that hour was

begun a system of hostility towards the doctor's wife, which never

ceased until her departure from the country.

Lady Hester was not above taking a leaf out of the book of her own

enemy, the Emir Beshyr, for she used her influence to prevent the

villagers from supplying the wants of the recalcitrant family, who now

began to make preparations for their departure. They were obliged,

however, to wait for remittances from England, and also for Lady

Hester's consent to their leaving Jôon, since none of the natives

would have dared lend their camels or mules for such a purpose, and

even the consular agents at Sayda would have declined to mix

themselves up in any business which might bring upon them the

vengeance of the Queen of the Desert. Meanwhile, a truce seems to have

been concluded between the principals, and Lady Hester again invited

the doctor's visits, contenting herself with sarcastic remarks about

henpecked husbands, and the caprices of foolish women. She graciously

consented to dispense with his services about the beginning of April,

and promised to engage a vessel at Sayda to convey him and his family

to Cyprus. Before his departure she produced a list of her debts,

which then amounted to £14,000. The greater part of this sum, which

had been borrowed at a high rate of interest from native usurers, had

been spent in assisting Abdallah Pasha, the family of the Sheikh

Beshyr, and many other victims of political malignity.

The unwonted luxury of an admiring and submissive listener led the

lonely woman to discourse of the glories of her youth, and the virtues

of her hero-in-chief, William Pitt. She spoke of his passion for Miss

Eden, daughter of Lord Auckland, who, she said, was the only woman she

could have wished him to marry. 'Poor Mr. Pitt almost broke his heart,

when he gave her up,' she declared. 'But he considered that she was

not a woman to be left at will when business might require it, and he

sacrificed his feelings to his sense of public duty.... "There were

also other reasons," Mr. Pitt would say; "there is her mother, such a

chatterer!--and then the family intrigues. I can't keep them out of my

house; and, for my king and country's sake, I must remain a free man."

Yet Mr. Pitt was a man just made for domestic life, who would have

enjoyed retirement, digging his own garden, and doing it cleverly

too.... He had so much urbanity too! I recollect returning late from a

ball, when he was gone to bed fatigued; there were others besides

myself, and we made a good deal of noise. I said to him next morning,

"I am afraid we disturbed you last night." "Not at all," he replied;

"I was dreaming of the masque of _Comus_, and when I heard you

all so gay, it seemed a pleasant reality...." Nobody would have

suspected how much feeling he had for people's comforts, who came to

see him. Sometimes he would say to me, "Hester, you know we have got

such a one coming down. I believe his wound is hardly well yet, and I

heard him say that he felt much relieved by fomentations of such an

herb; perhaps you will see that he finds in his chamber all that he

wants." Of another he would say, "I think he drinks asses' milk; I

should like him to have his morning draught." And I, who was born with

such sensibility that I must fidget myself about everybody, was sure

to exceed his wishes.'

After describing Mr. Pitt's kindness and consideration towards his

household, Lady Hester related a pathetic history of a faithful

servant, who, in the pecuniary distress of his master, had served him

for several years with the purest disinterestedness. 'I was so touched

by her eloquent and forcible manner of recounting the story,' writes

the soft-hearted doctor, 'and with the application I made of it to my

own tardiness in going to her in her distress, together with my

present intention of leaving her, that I burst into tears, and wept

bitterly. She soothed my feelings, endeavoured to calm my emotions,

and disclaimed all intention of conveying any allusion to me. This led

her to say how little malice she ever entertained towards any one,

even those who had done her injury, much less towards me, who had

always shown my attachment to her; and she added that, even now,

although she was going to lose me, her thoughts did not run so much on

her own situation as on what would become of me; and I firmly believed

her.'

Dr. Meryon sailed from Sayda on April 7, 1831, and for the next six

years we only hear of the strange household on Mount Lebanon through

the reports of chance visitors. After the siege of Acre by Ibrahim

Pasha in the winter of 1831-32, the remnant of the population fled to

the mountains, and Lady Hester, whose hospitality was always open to

the distressed, declares that for three years her house was like the

Tower of Babel. In 1832 Lamartine paid a visit to Jôon, which he has

described in his _Voyage en Orient_. He seems to have been

graciously received, though his hostess candidly informed him that she

had never heard his name before. He explained, rather to her

amusement, that he had written verses which were in the mouths of

thousands of his countrymen, and she having read his character and

destiny, assured him that his Arabian descent was proved by the high

arch of his instep, and that, like every Arab, he was a poet by

nature. Lamartine, in return, represents himself as profoundly

impressed by his interview with this 'Circe of the East,' denies that

he perceived in her any traces of insanity, and declares that he

should not be surprised if a part of the destiny she prophesied for

herself were realised--at least to the extent of an empire in Arabia,

or a throne in Jerusalem.

Lady Hester formed a less favourable opinion of M. Lamartine than she

allowed him to perceive, and she was greatly annoyed at the passages

referring to herself that appeared in his book. Speaking of him and

his visit some years later, she observed: 'The people of Europe are

all, or at least the greater part of them, fools, with their

ridiculous grins, their affected ways, and their senseless habits....

Look at M. Lamartine getting off his horse half-a-dozen times to kiss

his dog, and take him out of his bandbox to feed him, on the route

from Beyrout; the very muleteers thought him a fool. And then that way

of thrusting his hands into his pockets, and sticking out his legs as

far as he could--what is that like? M. Lamartine is no poet, in my

estimation, though he may be an elegant versifier; he has no sublime

ideas. Compare his ideas with Shakespeare's--that was indeed a real

poet.... M. Lamartine, with his straight body and straight fingers,

pointed his toes in my face, and then turned to his dog, and held long

conversations with him. He thought to make a great effect when he was

here, but he was grievously mistaken.' It may be noted that all Lady

Hester's male visitors 'pointed their toes in her face,' in the hope

of being accredited with the arched instep that she held to be the

most striking proof of long descent. Her own instep, she was

accustomed to boast, was so high that a little kitten could run

underneath it.

A far more lifelike and picturesque portrait of Lady Hester than that

by Lamartine has been sketched for us by Kinglake in his

_Eothen_. In a charming passage which will be familiar to most

readers, he relates how the name of Lady Hester Stanhope was as

delightful to his childish ears as that of Robinson Crusoe. Chief

among the excitements of his early days were the letters and presents

of the Queen of the Desert, who as a girl had been much with her

grandmother, Lady Chatham, at Burton Pynsent, and there had made the

acquaintance of Miss Woodforde of Taunton, afterwards Mrs. Kinglake.

The tradition of her high spirit and fine horsemanship still lingered

in Somersetshire memories, but Kinglake had heard nothing of her for

many years, when, on arriving at Beyrout in 1835, he found that her

name was in every mouth. Anxious to see this romantic vision of his

childhood, he wrote to Lady Hester, and asked if she would receive his

mother's son. A few days later, in response to a gracious letter of

invitation, Kinglake made his pilgrimage to Jôon.

The house at this time, after the storm and stress of the Egyptian

invasion, had the appearance of a deserted fortress, and

fierce-looking Albanian soldiers were hanging about the gates.

Kinglake was conducted to an inner apartment where, in the dim light,

he perceived an Oriental figure, clad in masculine costume, which

advanced to meet him with many and profound bows. The visitor began a

polite speech which he had prepared for his hostess, but presently

discovered that the stranger was only her Italian attendant, Lunardi,

who had conferred on himself a medical title and degree. Lady Hester

had given orders that her guest should rest and dine before being

introduced to her, and he tells us that, in spite of the homeliness of

her domestic arrangements, he found both the wine and the cuisine very

good. After dinner he was ushered into the presence of his hostess,

who welcomed him cordially, and had exactly the appearance of a

prophetess, 'not the divine Sibyl of Domenichino, but a good,

business-like, practical prophetess.' Her face was of astonishing

whiteness, her dress a mass of white linen loosely folded round her

like a surplice. As he gazed upon her, he recalled the stories that he

had heard of her early days, of the capable manner in which she had

arranged the political banquets and receptions of Pitt, and the awe

with which the Tory country gentlemen had regarded her. That awe had

been transferred to the sheikhs and pashas of the East, but now that,

with age and poverty, her earthly power was fading away, she had

created for herself a spiritual kingdom.

After a few inquiries about her Somersetshire friends, the prophetess

soared into loftier spheres, and discoursed of astrology and other

occult sciences. 'For hours and hours this wonderful white woman

poured forth her speech, for the most part concerning sacred and

profane mysteries.' From time to time she would swoop down to worldly

topics, 'and then,' as her auditor frankly observes, 'I was

interested.' She described her life in the Arab camps, and explained

that her influence over the tribes was partly due to her long sight, a

quality held in high esteem in the desert, and partly to a brusque,

downright manner, which is always effective with Orientals. She

professed to have fasted physically and mentally for years, living

only on milk, and reading neither books nor newspapers. Her unholy

claim to supremacy in the spiritual kingdom was based, in Kinglake's

opinion, on her fierce, inordinate pride, perilously akin to madness,

though her mind was too strong to be entirely overcome. As a proof of

Lady Hester's high courage, he notes the fact that, after the fall of

Acre, her house was the only spot in Syria and Palestine where the

will of Mehemet Ali and his fierce lieutenant was not law. Ibrahim

Pasha had demanded that the Albanian soldiers should be given up, and

their protectress had challenged him to come and take them. This

hillock of Dar Jôon always kept its freedom as long as Chatham's

granddaughter lived, and Mehemet Ali confessed that the Englishwoman

had given him more trouble than all the insurgents of Syria. Kinglake

did not see the famous sacred mares, but before his departure he was

shown the gardens by the Italian secretary, who was in great distress

of mind because he could not bring himself to believe implicitly in

his employer's divine attributes. He said that Lady Hester was

regarded with mingled respect and dislike by the neighbours, whom she

oppressed by her exactions. The few 'respected' inhabitants of Mount

Lebanon apparently claimed the right to avail themselves of their

neighbours' goods; and the White Queen's establishment was supported

by contributions from the surrounding villages. This is quite a

different account from that given by Dr. Meryon, who always represents

Lady Hester as a generous benefactress, admired and adored in all the

country-side.

In 1836 Lady Hester discovered another mare's nest in the shape of a

legacy which she chose to believe was being kept from her by her

enemies. In August of this year she wrote to Dr. Meryon, who was then

living at Nice, and invited him to come and assist her in settling her

debts, and getting possession of this supposititious property. 'A

woman of high rank and good fortune,' she continues, 'who has built

herself a _palais_ in a remote part of America, has announced her

intention of passing the rest of her life with me, so much has she

been struck with my situation and conduct. [Footnote: This was the

Baroness de Feriat, who did not carry out her intention.] She is

nearly of my age, and thirty-seven years ago--I being personally

unknown to her--was so taken with my general appearance, that she

never could divest herself of the thoughts of me, which have ever

since pursued her. At last, informed by M. Lamartine's book where I

was to be found, she took this extraordinary determination, and in the

spring I expect her. She is now selling her large landed estate,

preparatory to her coming. She, as well as Leila the mare, is in the

prophecy. The beautiful boy has also written, and is wandering over

the face of the globe till destiny marks the period of our meeting....

I am reckoned here the first politician in the world, and by some a

sort of prophet. Even the Emir wonders, and is astonished, for he was

not aware of this extraordinary gift; but yet all say--I mean

enemies--that I am worse than a lion when in a passion, and that they

cannot deny I have justice on my side.'

After his former experience of Lady Hester's hospitality it is

surprising that the doctor should have been willing to accept this

invitation, and still more surprising that his wife should have

consented to accompany him to Syria. But the East was still

'a-calling,' and the almost hypnotic influence which her ladyship

exercised over her dependants seems to have lost none of its efficacy.

Accordingly, as soon as the Meryons could arrange their affairs, they

embarked at Marseilles, landing at Beyrout on July 1, 1837. Here the

doctor received a letter from Lady Hester, recommending him to leave

his family at Beyrout till he could find a house for them at Sayda.

'For your sake,' she continued, 'I should ever wish to show civility

to all who belong to you, but caprice I will never interfere with, for

from my early youth I have been taught to despise it.' Here was signal

proof that the past had not been forgotten, and that war was still to

be waged against the unfortunate Mrs. Meryon. In defiance of Lady

Hester's orders, the whole family proceeded to Sayda, whence Dr.

Meryon rode over to Dar Jôon. He received a warm personal welcome, but

his hostess persisted in her statement that there was no house in the

village fit for the reception of his womenkind, as nearly all had been

damaged by recent earthquakes. It was finally arranged that Mrs.

Meryon and her children should go for the present to Mar Elias, which

was then only occupied by the Prophet Loustaunau.

At this time Lady Hester's financial affairs were becoming desperate,

and she had even been reduced to selling some of her handsome

pelisses. Yet she still maintained between thirty and forty servants,

and when it was suggested to her that she might reduce her

establishment, she was accustomed to reply, 'But my rank!' Her

live-stock included the two sacred mares, three 'amblers,' five asses,

a flock of sheep, and a few cows. A herd of a hundred goats had

recently been slaughtered in one day, because their owner fancied that

she was being cheated by her goatherd. Now she decided to have the

three 'amblers' shot, because the grooms treated them improperly. The

under-bailiff received orders to whisper into the ear of each horse

before his execution, 'You have worked enough upon the earth; your

mistress fears you might fall, in your old age, into the hands of

cruel men, and she therefore dismisses you from her service.' This

order was carried out to the letter, with imperturbable gravity.

After a short experience of the inconvenience of riding to and fro

between Jôon and Mar Elias, Dr. Meryon persuaded his employer to allow

him to bring his family to a cottage in the village; but the nearer

the time approached for their arrival, the more she seemed to regret

having assented to the arrangement. Frequent and scathing were her

lectures upon the exigent ways of women, who, she argued, should be

simple automata, moved only by the will and guidance of their masters.

She lost no opportunity of throwing ridicule on Dr. Meryon's desire to

have his family near him, in order that he might pass his evenings

with them, pointing out that 'all sensible men take their meals with

their wives, and then retire to their own rooms to read, write, or do

what best pleases them. Nobody is such a fool as to moider away his

time in the slipslop conversation of a pack of women.' Petty

jealousies, quite inconsistent with her boasted philosophy, were

perpetually tormenting her. One of the many monopolies claimed by her

was that of the privilege of bell-ringing. The Mahometans, as is well

known, never use bells in private houses, the usual summons for

servants being three claps of the hands. But Lady Hester was a

constant and vehement bell-ringer, and as no one else in the

country-side possessed house-bells, it was generally believed that the

use of them was a special privilege granted her by the Porte. She was

therefore secretly much annoyed when the Meryons presumed to hang up

bells in their new home. She made no sign of displeasure, but one

morning it was discovered that the ropes had been cut and the bells

carried off. Cross-examination of the servants elicited the fact that

one of Lady Hester's emissaries had arrived late at night, wrenched

off the bells, and taken them away. Some weeks later the Lady of Jôon

confessed that she had instigated the act, and declared that if the

Meryons' bells had hung much longer her own would not have been

attended to.

Soon after the doctor's arrival, Lady Hester had dictated a letter to

Sir Francis Burdett, in whom she placed great confidence, informing

him of the property that she believed was being withheld from her, and

requesting him to make inquiries into the matter. When not engaged in

correspondence, discussing her debts, and scolding her servants, she

was pouring out floods of conversation, chiefly reminiscences of her

youth and diatribes against the men and manners of the present day,

into the ears of the long-suffering doctor. 'From her manner towards

other people,' he observes, 'it would have seemed that she was the

only person in creation privileged to abuse and to command; others had

nothing to do but to obey. She was haughty and overbearing, born to

rule, impatient of control, and more at her ease when she had a

hundred persons to govern than when she had only ten. Had she been a

man and a soldier, she would have been what the French call a _beau

sabreur_, for never was any one so fond of wielding weapons, and

boasting of her capacity for using them, as she was. In her bedroom

she always had a mace, which was spiked round the head, a steel

battle-axe, and a dagger, but her favourite weapon was the mace.'

Absurd as it may sound, it was probably her military vanity that led

her to belittle the Duke of Wellington, of whose reputation she seems

to have felt some personal jealousy. Yet she bears testimony to the

esteem in which 'Arthur Wellesley' was held by William Pitt.

'I recollect, one day,' she told the doctor, 'Mr. Pitt came into the

drawing-room to me, and said, "Oh, how I have been bored by Sir Sydney

Smith coming with his box full of papers, and keeping me for a couple

of hours, when I had so much to do." I observed to him that heroes

were generally vain, and that Lord Nelson was so. "So he is," replied

Mr. Pitt, "but not like Sir Sydney. And how different is Arthur

Wellesley, who has just quitted me! He has given me such clear details

upon affairs in India; and he talked of them, too, as if he had been a

surgeon of a regiment, and had nothing to do with them; so that I know

not which to admire most, his modesty or his talents, and yet the fate

of India depends upon them." Then, doctor, when I recollect the letter

he wrote to Edward Bouverie, in which he said he could not come down

to a ball because his only corbeau coat was so bad he was ashamed to

appear in it, I reflect what a rise he has had in the world. He was at

first nothing but what hundreds of others are in a country town--he

danced hard and drank hard. His star has done everything for him, for

he is not a great general. He is no tactician, nor has he any of those

great qualities that make a Caesar, a Pompey, or even a Bonaparte. As

for the battle of Waterloo, both French and English have told me that

it was a lucky battle for him, but nothing more. I don't think he

acted well at Paris, nor did the soldiers like him.'

About the end of October Lady Hester took to her bed, and did not

leave it till the following March. She had suffered from pulmonary

catarrh for several years, which disappeared in the summer, but

returned every winter with increased violence. Her practice of

frequent bleeding had brought on a state of complete emaciation, and

left very little blood in her body. If she had lived like other

people, and trusted to the balmy air of Syria, Dr. Meryon was of

opinion that nothing serious need have been apprehended from her

illness. But she seldom breathed the outer air, and took no exercise

except an occasional turn in the garden. She was always complaining

that she could get nothing to eat; yet, in spite of her profession (to

Kinglake) that she lived entirely on milk, we are told that her diet

consisted of forcemeat balls, meat-pies, and other heavy viands, and

that she seldom remained half an hour without taking nourishment of

some kind. 'I never knew a human being who took nourishment so

frequently,' writes Dr. Meryon, 'and may not this in some measure

account for her frequent ill-humour?'

During her illness the doctor read aloud Sir Nathaniel Wraxall's

_Memoirs_ and the _Memoirs of a Peeress_, edited by Lady Charlotte

Bury, both of which books dealt with persons whom Lady Hester

had known in her youth. In return she regaled him with stories

of her own glory, of Mr. Pitt's virtues, of the objectionable habits

of the Princess of Wales, and of the meanness of the Regent in

inviting himself to dinner with gentlemen who could not afford to

entertain him, the whole pleasantly flavoured by animadversions on the

social presumption of medical men, and descriptions of the methods by

which formerly they were kept in their proper place by aristocratic

patients. At this time, the beginning of 1838, Lady Hester was

anxiously expecting an answer from Sir Francis Burdett about her

property, and, hearing from the English consul at Sayda that a packet

had arrived for her from Beyrout, which was to be delivered into her

own hands, her sanguine mind was filled with the hope of coming

prosperity. But when the packet was opened, instead of the

long-expected missive from Sir Francis, it proved to be an official

statement from Colonel Campbell, Consul-General for Egypt, that in

consequence of an application made to the British Government by one of

Lady Hester's chief creditors, an order had come from Lord Palmerston

that her pension was to be stopped unless the debt was paid. When she

read the letter Dr. Meryon feared an outburst of fury, but Lady

Hester, who, for once, was beyond violence, began calmly to discuss

the enormity of the conduct both of Queen and Minister.

'My grandfather and Mr. Pitt,' she said, 'did something to keep the

Brunswick family on the throne, and yet the granddaughter of the old

king, without hearing the circumstances of my getting into debt, or

whether the story is true, sends to deprive me of my pension in a

strange land, where I may remain and starve.... I should like to ask

for a public inquiry into my debts, and for what I have contracted

them. Let them compare the good I have done in the cause of humanity

and science with the Duke of Kent's debts. I wonder if Lord Palmerston

is the man I recollect--a young man from college, who was always

hanging about waiting to be introduced to Mr. Pitt. Mr. Pitt used to

say, "Ah, very well; we will ask him to dinner some day." Perhaps it

is an old grudge that makes him vent his spite.' Colonel Campbell's

letter had given the poor lady's heart, or rather her pride, a fatal

stab, and the indignity with which she had been treated preyed upon

her health and spirits. She now determined to send an ultimatum to the

Queen, which was to be published in the newspapers if ministers

refused to lay it before her Majesty. This document, which was dated

February 12, 1838, ran as follows:--

'Your Majesty will allow me to say that few things are more

disgraceful and inimical to royalty than giving commands without

examining all their different bearings, and casting, without reason,

an aspersion upon the integrity of any branch of a family that had

faithfully served their country and the House of Hanover. As no

inquiries have been made of me of what circumstances induced me to

incur the debts alluded to, I deem it unnecessary to enter into any

details on the subject. I shall not allow the pension given by your

royal grandfather to be stopped by force; but I shall resign it for

the payment of my debts, and with it the name of British subject, and

the slavery that is at present annexed to it; and as your Majesty has

given publicity to the business by your orders to your consular

agents, I surely cannot be blamed for following your royal example.

'HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.'

This was accompanied by a long letter to the Duke of Wellington, in

which Lady Hester detailed her services in the East, and expressed her

indignation at the treatment she had received. She was now left with

only a few pounds upon which to maintain her house-hold until March,

when she could draw for £300, apparently the quarter's income from a

legacy left her by her brother, but of this sum £200 was due to a

Greek merchant at Beyrout. The faithful doctor collected all the money

he had in his house, about eleven pounds, and brought it to her for

her current expenses, but with her usual impracticability she gave

most of it away in charity. Still no letter came from Sir Francis

Burdett, and the unfortunate lady, old, sick, and wasted to a

skeleton, lay on her sofa and lamented over her troubles in a fierce,

inhuman fashion, like a wounded animal at bay. In the course of time a

reply came from Lord Palmerston, in which he stated that he had laid

Lady Hester's letter before the Queen, and explained to her Majesty

the circumstances that might be supposed to have led to her writing

it. The communications to which she referred were, he continued,

suggested by nothing but a desire to save her from the embarrassments

that might arise if her creditors were to call upon the Consul-General

to act according to the strict line of his duty. This letter did

nothing towards assuaging Lady Hester's wrath. In her reply she

sarcastically observed:--

'If your diplomatic despatches are all as obscure as the one that now

lies before me, it is no wonder that England should cease to have that

proud preponderance in her foreign relations which she once could

boast of.... It is but fair to make your lordship aware that, if by

the next packet there is nothing definitely settled respecting my

affairs, and I am not cleared in the eyes of the world of aspersions,

intentionally or unintentionally thrown upon me, I shall break up my

household, and build up the entrance-gate to my premises; there

remaining as if I was in a tomb till my character has been done

justice to, and a public acknowledgment put in the papers, signed and

sealed by those who have aspersed me. There is no trifling with those

who have Pitt blood in their veins upon the subject of integrity, nor

expecting that their spirit would ever yield to the impertinent

interference of consular authority, etc., etc.' It must be owned that

there is a touch of unconscious humour in Lady Hester's terrible

threat of walling herself up, a proceeding which would only make

herself uncomfortable and leave her enemies at peace. For the present

matters went on much as usual at Dar Jôon. No household expenses were

curtailed, and thirty native servants continued to cheat their

mistress and idle over their work. In March, that perambulating

princeling, his Highness of Pückler-Muskau, arrived at Sayda, whence

he wrote a letter to Lady Hester, begging to be allowed to pay his

homage to the Queen of Palmyra and the niece of the great Pitt. 'I

have the presumption to believe, madam,' he continued, 'that there

must be some affinity of character between us. For, like you, my lady,

I look for our future salvation from the East, where nations still

nearer to God and to nature can alone, some day, purify the rotten

civilisation of decrepid Europe, in which everything is artificial,

and where we are menaced with a new kind of barbarism--not that with

which states begin, but with which they end. Like you, madam, I

believe that astrology is not an empty science, but a lost one. Like

you, I am an aristocrat by birth and by principle; because I find a

marked aristocracy in nature. In a word, madam, like you, I love to

sleep by day and be stirring by night. There I stop; for in mind,

energy of character, and in the mode of life, so singular and so

dignified, which you lead, not every one who would can resemble Lady

Hester Stanhope.'

Lady Hester was flattered by this letter, and told the doctor that he

must ride into Sayda to see the prince, and tell him that she was too

ill to receive him at present, but would endeavour to do so a few

weeks later. The prince was established with his numerous suite in the

house of a merchant of Sayda. Mehemet Ali had given him a special

firman, requiring all official persons to treat him in a manner

suitable to his rank, his whole expenditure being defrayed by cheques

on the Viceroy's treasury. The prince, unlike most other distinguished

travellers who were treated with the same honour, took the firman

strictly according to the letter, and could boast of having traversed

the whole of Egypt and Syria with all the pomp of royalty, and without

having expended a single farthing. Dr. Meryon describes his Highness

as a tall man of about fifty years of age, distinguished by an

unmistakable air of birth and breeding. He wore a curious mixture of

Eastern and Western costume, and had a tame chameleon crawling about

his pipe, with which he was almost as much occupied as M. Lamartine

with his lapdog. The prince stated that he had almost made up his mind

to settle in the East, since Europe was no longer the land of liberty.

'I will build myself a house,' he said, 'get what I want from Europe,

make arrangements for newspapers, books, etc., and choose some

delightful situation; but I think it will be on Mount Lebanon.'

In his volume of travels in the East called _Die Rückkehr_,

Prince Pückler-Muksau has given an amusing account of the negotiations

that passed between himself and Lady Hester on the subject of his

visit. For once the niece of Pitt had found her match in vanity and

arrogance; and if the prince's book had appeared in her lifetime, it

is certain that she would not long have survived it. His Highness

describes how he bided his time, as though he were laying siege to a

courted beauty, and almost daily bombarded the Lady of Jôon with

letters calculated to pique her curiosity by their frank and original

style. At last, 'in order to be rid of him,' as she jokingly said,

Lady Hester consented to receive him on a certain day, which, from his

star, she deemed propitious to their meeting. Thereupon the prince,

who intended that his visit should be desired, not suffered, wrote to

say that he was setting out for an expedition into the desert, but

that on his return he would come to Jôon, not for one day, but for a

week. This impertinence was rewarded by permission to come at his own

time.

Great preparations were made for the entertainment of this

distinguished visitor. The scanty contents of the store and china

cupboards were spread out before the lady of the house, who infused

activity into the most sluggish by smart strokes from her stick. The

epithets of beast, rascal, and the like, were dealt out with such

freedom and readiness, as to make the European part of her audience

sensible of the richness and variety of the Arabian language. On

Easter Monday, April 15, the prince, followed by a part of his suite,

and five mule-loads of baggage, rode into the courtyard. He wore an

immense Leghorn hat lined with green taffetas, a Turkish scarf over

his shoulders, and blue pantaloons of ample dimensions. From the

excellent fit of his Parisian boots, it was evident that he felt his

pretensions to a thoroughbred foot were now to be magisterially

decided. The prince has given his own impression of his hostess, whom

he describes as a thorough woman of the world, with manners of

Oriental dignity and calm. With her pale, regular features, dark,

fiery eyes, great height, and sonorous voice, she had the appearance

of an ancient Sibyl; yet no one, he declares, could have been more

natural and unaffected in manner. She told him that since she had lost

her money, she had lived like a dervish, and assimilated herself to

the ways of nature. 'My roses are my jewels,' she said, 'the sun and

moon my clocks, fruit and water my food and drink. I see in your face

that you are a thorough epicure; how will you endure to spend a week

with me?' The prince, who had already dined, replied that he found she

did not keep her guests on fruit and water, and assured her that

English poverty was equivalent to German riches. He spent six or seven

hours _tête-a-tête_ with his hostess each evening of his stay,

and declares that he was astonished at the originality and variety of

her conversation. He had the audacity to ask her if the Arab chief who

accompanied her to Palmyra had been her lover, but she, not

ill-pleased, assured him that there was no truth in the report, which

at one time had been generally believed. She said that the Arabs

regarded her neither as man or woman, but as a being apart.

Before leaving, the prince introduced his 'harem,' consisting of two

Abyssinian slaves, to Lady Hester, and was presented, in his turn, to

the sacred mares, which had lost their beauty, and grown gross and

unwieldy under their _régime_ of gentle exercise and unlimited

food. Leila licked the prince's hand when he caressed her, and Leila's

mistress was thereby convinced that her guest was a 'chosen vessel.'

She confided to him all her woes, the neglect of her relations and the

ill-treatment of the Government, and gave him copies of the

correspondence about her pension, which he promised to publish in a

German newspaper. To Dr. Meryon she waxed quite enthusiastic over his

Highness's personal attractions, the excellent cut of his coat, and

the handiness with which he performed small services. 'I could

observe,' writes the doctor, towards the end of the visit, 'that she

had already begun to obtain an ascendency over the prince, such as she

never failed to do over those who came within the sphere of her

attraction; for he was less lofty in his manner than he had been at

first, and she seemed to have gained in height, and to be more

disposed to play the queen than ever.'

This, alas, was the last time that Lady Hester had the opportunity of

playing the queen, or entertaining a distinguished guest at Dar Jôon.

In June, when the packet brought no news of her imaginary property,

and no apology from Queen or Premier, she began at last to despair.

'The die is cast,' she told Dr. Meryon, 'and the sooner you take

yourself off the better. I have no money; you can be of no use to

me--I shall write no more letters, and shall break up my

establishment, wall up my gate, and, with a boy and girl to wait upon

me, resign myself to my fate. Tell your family they may make their

preparations, and be gone in a month's time.' Early in July Sir

Francis Burdett's long-expected letter arrived, but brought with it no

consolation. He could tell nothing of the legacy, but wrote in the

soothing, evasive terms that might be supposed suitable to an elderly

lady who was not quite accountable for her ideas or actions. As there

was now no hope of any improvement in her affairs, Lady Hester decided

to execute her threat of walling up her gateway, a proceeding which,

she was unable to perceive, injured nobody but herself. She directed

the doctor to pay and dismiss her servants, with the exception of two

maids and two men, and then sent him to Beyrout to inform the French

consul of her intention. On his return to Jôon he found that Lady

Hester had already hired a vessel to take himself and his family from

Sayda to Cyprus. He was reluctant to leave her in solitude and

wretchedness, but knowing that when once her mind was made up, nothing

could shake her resolution, he employed the time that remained to him

in writing her letters, setting her house in order, and taking her

instructions for commissions in Europe. He also begged to be allowed

to lend her as much money as he could spare, and she consented to

borrow a sum of 2000 piastres (about £80), which she afterwards

repaid.

On July 30, 1838, the masons arrived, and the entrance-gate was walled

up with a kind of stone screen, leaving, however, a side-opening just

large enough for an ass or cow to enter, so that this much-talked-of

act of self-immurement was more an appearance than a reality. On

August 6, the faithful doctor took an affectionate leave of the

employer, who, as Prince Pückler-Muskau bears witness, was accustomed

to treat him with icy coldness, and sailed for western climes. To the

last, he tells us, Lady Hester dwelt with apparent confidence on the

approaching advent of the Mahedi, and still regarded her mare Leila as

destined to bear him into Jerusalem, with herself upon Lulu at his

side. It is to be hoped that the poor lady was able to buoy herself up

with this belief during the last and most solitary year of her

disappointed life. About once a month, up to the date of her death,

she corresponded with Dr. Meryon, who was again settled at Nice. Her

letters were chiefly taken up with commissions, and with shrewd

comments upon the new books that were sent out to her.

'I should like to have Miss Pardoe's book on Constantinople,' she

writes in October, 1838, 'if it is come out for strangers (_i.e._

in a French translation); for I fear I should never get through with

it myself. This just puts me in mind that one of the books I should

like to have would be Graham's _Domestic Medicine_; a good Red

Book (_Peerage_, I mean); and the book about the Prince of Wales.

I have found out a person who can occasionally read French to me; so

if there was any very pleasing French book, you might send it--but no

Bonapartes or "present times"--and a little _brochure_ or two

upon baking, pastry, gardening, etc....

'_Feb._ 9, 1839.--The book you sent me (_Diary of the Times of

George IV_., by Lady Charlotte Bury) is interesting only to those

who were acquainted with the persons named: all mock taste, mock

feeling, etc., but that is the fashion. "I am this, I am that"; who

ever talked such empty stuff formerly? I was never named by a

well-bred person.... Miss Pardoe is very excellent upon many subjects;

only there is too much of what the English like--stars, winds, black

shades, soft sounds, etc....

'_May_ 6.--Some one--I suppose you--sent me the _Life of Lord

Edward Fitzgerald_. It is _I_ who could give a true and most

extraordinary history of all those transactions. The book is all

stuff. The duchess (Lord Edward's mother) was my particular friend, as

was also his aunt; I was intimate with all the family, and knew that

noted Pamela. All the books I see make me sick--only catchpenny

nonsense. A thousand thanks for the promise of my grandfather's

letters; but the book will be all spoilt by being edited by young men.

First, they are totally ignorant of the politics of my grandfather's

age; secondly, of the style of the language used at that period; and

absolutely ignorant of his secret reasons and intentions, and the

_real_ or apparent footing he was upon with many people, friends

or foes. I know all that from my grandmother, who was his secretary,

and, Coutts used to say, the cleverest _man_ of her time in

politics and business.'

This was the last letter that Dr. Meryon received from his old friend

and patroness. She slowly wasted away, and died in June 1839, no one

being aware of her approaching end except the servants about her. The

news of her death reached Beyrout in a few hours, and the English

consul, Mr. Moore, and an American missionary (Mr. Thomson, author of

_The Land and the Book_) rode over to Jôon to bury her. By her

own desire she was interred in a grave in her garden, where a son of

the Prophet Loustaunau had been buried some years before. Mr. Thomson

has described how he performed the last rites at midnight by the light

of lanterns and torches, and notes the curious resemblance between

Lady Hester's funeral service and that of the man she loved, Sir John

Moore. Together with the consul, he examined the contents of

thirty-five rooms, but found nothing but old saddles, pipes, and empty

oil-jars, everything of value having been long since plundered by the

servants. The sacred mares, now grown old and almost useless, were

sold for a small sum by public auction, and only survived for a short

time their return to an active life.

In 1845 Dr. Meryon published his so-called _Memoirs of Lady Hester

Stanhope_, which are merely an account of her later years, and a

report of her table-talk at Dar Jôon. In 1846 he brought out her

_Travels_, which were advertised as the supplement and completion

of the _Memoirs_. From these works, and from passing notices of

our heroine, we gain a general impression of wasted talents and a

disappointed life. That she was more unhappy in her solitude than, in

her unbending nature, she would avow, observes her faithful friend and

chronicler, the record of the last years of her existence too plainly

demonstrates. Although she derived consolation in retirement from the

retrospect of the part she had played in her prosperity, still there

were moments of poignant grief when her very soul groaned within her.

She was ambitious, and her ambition had been foiled; she loved

irresponsible command, but the time had come when those over whom she

ruled defied her; she was dictatorial and exacting, but she had lost

the influence which alone makes people tolerate control. She incurred

debts, and was doomed to feel the degradation consequent upon them.

She thought to defy her own nation, and they hurled the defiance back

upon her. She entertained visionary projects of aggrandisement, and

was met by the derision of the world. In a word, Lady Hester died as

she had lived, alone and miserable in a strange land, bankrupt in

affection and credit, because, in spite of her great gifts and innate

benevolence, her overbearing temper had alienated friends and kinsfolk

alike, and her pride could endure neither the society of equals, nor

the restraints and conventions of civilised life.

PRINCE PÜCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND

PART I

[Illustration: PRINCE PÜCKLER-MUSKAU]

During the early and middle decades of the nineteenth century there

was no more original and picturesque figure among the minor

celebrities of Germany--one might almost say of Europe--than that of

his Highness, Hermann Ludwig Heinrich, Prince Pückler-Muskau.

Throughout his long career we find this princeling playing many

parts--at once an imitation Werter, a sentimental Don Juan, a dandy

who out-dressed D'Orsay, a sportsman and traveller of Münchhausen

type, a fashionable author who wrote German with a French accent and a

warrior who seems to have wandered out of the pages of mediæval

romance. Yet with all his mock-heroic notoriety, the _toller

Pückler_ was by no means destitute of those practical qualities

which tempered the Teutonic Romanticism, even in its earliest and most

extravagant developments. He was skilled in all manly exercises, a

brave soldier, an intelligent observer, and--his most substantial

claim to remembrance--the father of landscape-gardening in Germany, a

veritable magician who transformed level wastes into wooded landscapes

and made the sandy wildernesses blossom like the rose.

To English readers the prince's name was once familiar as the author

of _Briefe eines Verstorbenen_ (Letters of a Dead Man), which

contain a lively account of his Highness' sojourn in England and

Ireland between the years 1826 and 1828. These letters, which were

translated into English under the title of _The Tour of a German

Prince_, made a sensation, favourable and otherwise, in the early

'thirties,' owing to the candid fashion in which they dealt with our

customs and our countrymen. The book received the high honour of a

complimentary review from the pen of the aged Goethe. 'The writer

appears to be a perfect and experienced man of the world,' observes

this distinguished critic; 'endowed with talents and a quick

apprehension; formed by a varied social existence, by travel and

extensive connections. His journey was undertaken very recently, and

brings us the latest intelligence from the countries which he has

viewed with an acute, clear, and comprehensive eye. We see before us a

finely-constituted being, born to great external advantages and

felicities, but in whom a lively spirit of enterprise is not united to

constancy and perseverance; whence he experiences frequent failure and

disappointment.... The peculiarities of English manners and habits are

drawn vividly and distinctly, and without exaggeration. We acquire a

lively idea of that wonderful combination, that luxuriant growth--of

that insular life which is based in boundless wealth and civil

freedom, in universal monotony and manifold diversity; formal and

capricious, active and torpid, energetic and dull, comfortable and

tedious, the envy and derision of the world. Like other unprejudiced

travellers of modern times, our author is not very much enchanted with

the English form of existence: his cordial and sincere admiration is

often accompanied by unsparing censure. He is by no means inclined to

favour the faults and weaknesses of the English; and in this he has

the greatest and best among themselves upon his side.'

As these Letters were not written until the prince had passed his

fortieth year, it will be necessary, before considering them in

detail, to give a brief sketch of his previous career. Hermann Ludwig

was the only son of Graf von Pückler of Schloss Branitz, and of his

wife, Clementine, born a Gräfin von Gallenberg, and heiress to the

vast estate of Muskau in Silesia. Both families were of immense

antiquity, the Pücklers claiming to trace their descent from Rüdiger

von Bechlarn, who figures in the _Nibelungenlied_. Our hero was

born at Muskau in October 1785, and spent, according to his own

account, a wretched and neglected childhood. His father was harsh,

miserly, and suspicious; his mother, who was only fifteen when her son

was born, is described as a frivolous little flirt. The couple, after

perpetually quarrelling for ten or twelve years, were divorced, by

mutual consent, in 1797, and the Gräfin shortly afterwards married one

of her numerous admirers, Graf von Seydewitz, with whom she lived as

unhappily as with her first husband. Her little son was educated at a

Moravian school, and in the holidays was left entirely to the care of

the servants. After a couple of years at the university of Leipzig, he

entered the Saxon army, and soon became notorious for his good looks,

his fine horsemanship, his extravagance, and his mischievous pranks.

Military discipline in time of peace proved too burdensome for the

young lieutenant, who, after quarrelling with his father, getting

deeply into debt, and embroiling himself with the authorities, threw

up his commission in 1804. Muskau having become much too hot to hold

him, he spent the next years in travelling about the Continent, always

in pecuniary difficulties, and seldom free from some sentimental

entanglement.

In 1810 Graf Pückler died, and his son stepped into a splendid

inheritance. Like Prince Hal, the young Graf seems to have taken his

new responsibilities seriously, and to have devoted himself, with only

too much enthusiasm, to the development and improvement of his

estates. In the intervals of business he amused himself with an

endless series of love-affairs, his achievements in this respect, if

his biographer may be believed, more than equalling those of Jupiter

and Don Giovanni put together. Old and young, pretty and plain, noble

and humble, native and foreign, all were fish that came to the net of

this lady-killer, who not only vowed allegiance to nearly every

petticoat that crossed his path, but--a much more remarkable

feat--kept up an impassioned correspondence with a large selection of

his charmers. After his death, a whole library of love-letters was

discovered among his papers, all breathing forth adoration, ecstasy or

despair, and addressed to the Julies, Jeannettes, or Amalies who

succeeded one another so rapidly in his facile affections. These

documents, for the most part carefully-corrected drafts of the

originals, were indorsed, 'Old love-letters, to be used again if

required!'

In 1813 the trumpet of war sounded the call to arms, and the young

Graf entered the military service of Prussia, and was appointed

aide-de-camp to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. He distinguished himself in

the Netherlands, was present at the taking of Cassel, and in the

course of the campaign played a part in a new species of duel. A

French colonel of Hussars, so the story goes, rode out of the enemy's

lines, and challenged any officer in the opposing army to single

combat. Pückler accepted the challenge, and the duel was fought on

horseback--presumably with sabres--between the ranks of the two

armies, the soldiers on either side applauding their chosen champion.

At length, after a fierce struggle, Germany triumphed, and the brave

Frenchman bit the dust. Whether the tale be true or apocryphal, it is

certain that numerous decorations were conferred upon the young

officer for his brilliant services, that he was promoted to the rank

of colonel, and appointed civil and military governor of Brüges.

Pückler took part in the triumphal entry of the Allies into Paris, and

afterwards accompanied the Duke of Saxe-Weimar to London, where he

shared in all the festivities of the wonderful season of 1815, studied

the English methods of landscape-gardening, and made an unsuccessful

attempt to marry a lady of rank and fortune.

After his return to Muskau the Graf continued his work on his estate,

which, in spite of a sandy soil and other disadvantages, soon became

one of the show-places of Germany. Having discovered a spring of

mineral water, he built a pump-room, a theatre, and a gaming-saloon,

and named the establishment Hermannsbad. The invalids who frequented

the Baths must have enjoyed a lively 'cure,' for besides theatrical

performances, illuminations, fireworks and steeplechases, the Graf was

always ready to oblige with some sensational achievement. On one

occasion he leapt his horse over the parapet of a bridge into the

river, and swam triumphantly ashore; while on another he galloped up

the steps of the Casino, played and won a _coup_ at the tables

without dismounting, and then galloped down again, arriving at the

bottom with a whole neck, but considerable damage to his horse's legs.

In 1816 Pückler became acquainted with Lucie, Gräfin von Pappenheim, a

daughter of Prince Hardenberg, Chancellor of Prussia. The Gräfin, a

well-preserved woman of forty, having parted from her husband, was

living at Berlin with her daughter, Adelheid, afterwards Princess

Carolath, and her adopted daughter, Herminie Lanzendorf. The Graf

divided his attentions equally between the three ladies for some time,

but on inquiring of a friend which would make the greatest sensation

in Berlin, his marriage to the mother or to one of the daughters, and

being told his marriage to the mother, at once proposed to the

middle-aged Gräfin, and was joyfully accepted. The reason for this

inappropriate match probably lay deeper than the desire to astonish

the people of Berlin, for Pückler, with all his surface romanticism,

had a keen eye to the main chance. His Lucie had only a moderate

dower, but the advantage of being son-in-law to the Chancellor of

Prussia could hardly be overestimated. Again, the Graf seems to have

imagined that in a marriage of convenience with a woman nine years

older than himself, he would be able to preserve the liberty of his

bachelor days, while presenting the appearance of domestic

respectability.

As soon as the trifling formality of a divorce from Count Pappenheim

had been gone through, the marriage took place at Muskau, to the

accompaniment of the most splendid festivities. As may be supposed,

the early married life of the ill-assorted couple was a period of

anything but unbroken calm. Scarcely had the Graf surrendered his

liberty than he fell passionately in love with his wife's adopted

daughter, Helmine, a beautiful girl of eighteen, the child, it was

believed, of humble parents. Frederick William III. of Prussia was one

of her admirers, and had offered to marry her morganatically, and

create her Herzogin von Breslau. But Helmine gave her royal suitor no

encouragement, and he soon consoled himself with the Princess

Liegnitz. Lucie spared no pains to marry off the inconvenient beauty,

but Pückler frustrated all her efforts, implored her not to separate

him from Helmine, and suggested an arrangement based upon the domestic

policy of Goethe's _Wahlverwandschaften_. But Lucie was unreasonable

enough to object to a _ménage à trois_, and at length succeeded

in marrying Helmine to a Lieutenant von Blucher.

In 1822 the Graf accompanied his father-in-law to the Congress of

Aix-la-Chapelle, and shortly afterwards was raised to princely rank,

in compensation for the losses he had sustained through the annexation

of Silesia by Prussia. By this time the prince's financial affairs

were in so desperate a condition, thanks to the follies of his youth

and the building mania of his manhood, that a desperate remedy was

required to put them straight again. Only one expedient presented

itself, and this Lucie, with a woman's self-sacrifice, was the first

to propose. During a short absence from Muskau she wrote to her

husband to offer him his freedom, in order that he might be enabled to

marry a rich heiress, whose fortune could be used to clear off the

liabilities that pressed so heavily on the estate. The prince at first

refused to take advantage of this generous offer. He had become

accustomed to his elderly wife, who acted as his colleague and helper

in all that concerned his idolised Muskau, and upon whose sympathy and

advice he had learned to depend. But as time went on he grew

accustomed to the idea of an amicable divorce, and at length persuaded

himself that such a proceeding need make no real difference to Lucie's

position; in fact, that it would be an advantage to her as well as to

himself. For years past he had regarded her rather in the light of a

maternal friend than of a wife, and the close _camaraderie_ that

existed between them would remain unbroken by the advent of a young

bride whom Lucie would love as her own child. A divorce, it must be

remembered, was a common incident of everyday life in the Germany of

that epoch. As we have seen, Pückler's father and mother had dissolved

their marriage, and Lucie had been divorced from her first husband,

while her father had been married three times, and had separated from

each of his wives.

The matter remained in abeyance for a year or two, and it was not

until 1826, when the prince probably felt that he had no time to lose,

that the long-talked-of divorce actually took place. This curious

couple, who appeared to be more tenderly attached to each other now

than they had ever been before, took a touching farewell in Berlin.

The princess then returned to Muskau, where she remained during her

ex-husband's absence as his agent and representative, while the prince

set out for England, which country was supposed to offer the best

hunting-ground for heiresses. Week by week during his tour, Pückler

addressed to his faithful Lucie long, confidential letters, filled

with observations of the manners and customs of the British

barbarians, together with minute descriptions of his adventures in

love and landscape-gardening.

The prince, though at this time in his forty-first year, was still, to

all appearance, in the prime of life, still an adept in feats of skill

and strength, and not less romantic and susceptible than in the days

of his youth. With his high rank, his vast though encumbered estates,

his picturesque appearance, and his wide experience in affairs of the

heart, he anticipated little difficulty in carrying off one of the

most eligible of British heiresses; but he quite forgot to include the

hard-hearted, level-headed British parent in his reckoning. The

prince's first letter to Lucie, who figures in the published version

as Julie, is dated Dresden, September 7, 1826, and begins in right

Werterian strain:--

'My dear friend--The love you showed me at our parting made me so

happy and so miserable that I cannot yet recover from it. Your sad

image is ever before me; I still read deep sorrow in your looks and in

your tears, and my own heart tells me too well what yours suffered.

May God grant us a meeting as joyful as our parting was sorrowful! I

can only repeat what I have so often told you, that if I felt myself

without you, my dearest friend, in the world, I could enjoy none of

its pleasures without an alloy of sadness; that if you love me, you

will above all things watch over your health, and amuse yourself as

much as you can by varied occupation.' There are protestations of this

kind in nearly every letter, for the prince's pen was always tipped

with fine sentiment and vows of eternal devotion came more easily to

him than the ordinary civilities of everyday life to the average man.

A visit to Goethe at Weimar, on the traveller's leisurely journey

towards England, furnished his notebook with some interesting

specimens of the old poet's conversation. 'He received me,' writes the

prince, 'in a dimly-lighted room, whose _clair obscure_ was

arranged with some _coquetterie_; and truly the aspect of the

beautiful old man, with his Jovelike countenance, was most stately....

In the course of conversation we came to Walter Scott. Goethe was not

very enthusiastic about the Great Unknown. He said he doubted not that

he wrote his novels in the same sort of partnership as existed between

the old painters and their pupils; that he furnished the plot, the

leading thoughts, the skeleton of the scenes, that he then let his

pupils fill them up, and retouched them at the last. It seemed almost

to be his opinion that it was not worth the while of a man of Scott's

eminence to give himself up to such a number of minute and tedious

details. "Had I," he said, "been able to lend myself to the idea of

mere gain, I could formerly have sent such things anonymously into the

world, with the aid of Lenz and others--nay, I could still, as would

astonish people not a little, and make them puzzle their brains to

find out the author; but after all, they would be but manufactured

wares...."

'He afterwards spoke of Lord Byron with great affection, almost as a

father would of a son, which was extremely grateful to my enthusiastic

feelings for this great poet. He contradicted the silly assertion

that _Manfred_ was only an echo of his _Faust_. He extremely

regretted that he had never become personally acquainted with Lord

Byron, and severely and justly reproached the English nation for

having judged their illustrious countryman so pettily, and understood

him so ill.' The conversation next turned on politics, and Goethe

reverted to his favourite theory that if every man laboured

faithfully, honestly, and lovingly in this sphere, were it great or

small, universal well-being and happiness would not long be wanting,

whatever the form of government. The prince urged in reply that a

constitutional government was first necessary to call such a principle

into life, and adduced the example of England in support of his

argument. 'Goethe immediately replied that the choice of the example

was not happy, for that in no country was selfishness more omnipotent;

that no people were perhaps essentially less humane in their political

or their private relations; that salvation came, not from without, by

means of forms of government, but from within, by the wise moderation

and humble activity of each man in his own circle; and that this must

ever be the chief source of human felicity, while it was the easiest

and the simplest to attain.'

The prince seems always to have played the part of Jonah on board

ship, and on the occasion of his journey to England, he had a terrible

passage of forty hours, from Rotterdam to the London Docks. As soon as

he could get his carriage, horses, and luggage clear of the customs,

he hastened to the Clarendon Hotel, where he had stayed during his

first visit to London. Unlike the American, N. P. Willis, he had come

armed with many prejudices against England and the English, few of

which he succeeded in losing during the two years of his sojourn among

us. In his first letter from London, dated October 5, 1826, he writes:

'London is now so utterly dead to elegance and fashion that one hardly

meets a single equipage, and nothing remains of the _beau monde_

but a few ambassadors. The huge city is at the same time full of fog

and dirt, and the macadamised streets are like well-worn roads. The

old pavement has been torn up, and replaced by small pieces of

granite, the interstices between which are filled up with gravel; this

renders the riding more easy, and diminishes the noise, but on the

other hand changes the town into a sort of quagmire.' The prince

comments favourably on the improvements that had recently been carried

out by Nash the architect, more especially as regards Regent Street

and Portland Place, and declares that the laying out of the Regent's

Park is 'faultless,' particularly in the disposition of the water.

The comfort and luxury of English hotels, as well as of private

houses, is a subject on which the traveller frequently enlarges, and

in this first letter he assures his Lucie that she would be delighted

with the extreme cleanliness of the interiors, the great convenience

of the furniture, and the good manners of the serving-people, though

he admits that, for all that pertains to luxury, the tourist pays

about six times as much as in Germany. 'The comfort of the inns,' he

continues, 'is unknown on the Continent; on your washing-table you

find, not one miserable water-bottle with a single earthenware jug and

basin, and a long strip of towel, but positive tubs of porcelain in

which you may plunge half your body; taps which instantly supply you

with streams of water at pleasure; half-a-dozen wide towels, a large

standing mirror, foot-baths and other conveniences of the toilet, all

of equal elegance.'

The prince took advantage of the dead season to explore the city and

other unfashionable quarters of the town. He was delighted with the

excellent side-pavements, the splendid shops, the brilliant gas-lamps,

and above all (like Miss Edgeworth's Rosamund) with 'the great glass

globes in the chemists' windows, filled with liquid of a deep red,

blue or green, the light of which is visible for miles(!)' Visits to

the Exchange, the Bank, and the Guildhall were followed by a call on

Rothschild, 'the Grand Ally of the Grand Alliance,' at his house of

business. 'On my presenting my card,' says our hero, 'he remarked

ironically that we were lucky people who could afford to travel about,

and take our pleasure, while he, poor man, had such a heavy burden to

bear. He then broke out into bitter complaints that every poor devil

who came to England had something to ask of him.... After this the

conversation took a political turn, and we of course agreed that

Europe could not subsist without him; he modestly declined our

compliments, and said, smiling, 'Oh no, you are only jesting; I am but

a servant, with whom people are pleased because he manages their

affairs well, and to whom they allow some crumbs to fall as an

acknowledgment.'

On October 19 the prince went to Newmarket for the races. During his

stay he was introduced to a rich merchant of the neighbourhood, who

invited him to spend a couple of days at his country-house. He gives

Lucie a minute account of the manners and customs of an English

_ménage_, but these are only interesting to the modern reader in

so far as they have become obsolete. For example: 'When you enter the

dining-room, you find the whole of the first course on the table, as

in France. After the soup is removed, and the covers are taken off,

every man helps the dish before him, and offers some to his neighbour;

if he wishes for anything else, he must ask across the table, or send

a servant for it, a very troublesome custom.... It is not usual to

take wine without drinking to another person. If the company is small,

and a man has drunk with everybody, but happens to wish for more wine,

he must wait for the dessert, if he does not find in himself courage

to brave custom.'

On his return to town the prince, who had been elected a member of the

Travellers' Club, gives a long dissertation on English club life, not

forgetting to dwell on the luxury of all the arrangements, the

excellent service, and the methodical fashion in which the

gaming-tables were conducted. 'In no other country,' he declares, 'are

what are here emphatically called "business habits" carried so

extensively into social and domestic life; the value of time, of

order, of despatch, of routine, are nowhere so well understood. This

is the great key to the most striking, national characteristics. The

quantity of material objects produced and accomplished--_the work

done_--in England exceeds all that man ever effected. The causes

that have produced these results have as certainly given birth to the

dulness, the contracted views, the inveterate prejudices, the

unbounded desire for, and deference to wealth which characterise the

great mass of Englishmen.'

During this first winter in London the prince was a regular attendant

at the theatres, and many were the dramatic criticisms that he sent to

his 'friend' at Muskau. He saw Liston in the hundred and second

representation of Paul Pry, and at Drury Lane found, to his amazement

that Braham, whom he remembered as an elderly man in 1814, was still

first favourite. 'He is the genuine representative of the English

style of singing,' writes our critic, 'and in popular songs is the

adored idol of the public. One cannot deny him great power of voice

and rapidity of execution, but a more abominable style it is difficult

to conceive.... The most striking feature to a foreigner in English

theatres is the natural coarseness and brutality of the audiences. The

consequence is that the higher and more civilised classes go only to

the Italian Opera, and very rarely visit their national theatre.

English freedom has degenerated into the rudest licence, and it is not

uncommon in the midst of the most affecting part of a tragedy, or the

most charming cadenza of a singer, to hear some coarse expression

shouted from the gallery in a stentor voice. This is followed, either

by loud laughter and applause, or by the castigation and expulsion of

the offender.'

The poor prince saw Mozart's _Figaro_ announced for performance

at Drury Lane, and looked forward to hearing once more the sweet

harmonies of his Vaterland. 'What, then, was my astonishment,' he

exclaims, in justifiable indignation, 'at the unheard-of treatment

which the masterpiece of the immortal composer has received at English

hands! You will hardly believe me when I tell you that neither the

count, the countess, nor Figaro sang; these parts were given to mere

actors, and their principal airs were sung by other singers. To add to

this the gardener roared out some interpolated English popular songs,

which suited Mozart's music just as a pitch-plaster would suit the

face of the Venus de' Medici. The whole opera was, moreover, arranged

by a certain Mr. Bishop; that is, adapted to English ears by means of

the most tasteless and shocking alterations. The English national

music, the coarse, heavy melodies of which can never be mistaken for

an instant, has to me, at least, something singularly offensive, an

expression of brutal feeling both in pain and pleasure that smacks of

"roast-beef, plum-pudding, and porter."'

Another entertainment attended by our hero about this time was the

opening of Parliament by George IV., who had not performed this

ceremony for several years. 'The king,' we are told, 'looked pale and

bloated, and was obliged to sit on the throne for a considerable time

before he could get breath enough to read his speech. During this time

he turned friendly glances and condescending bows towards some

favoured ladies. On his right stood Lord Liverpool, with the sword of

state and the speech in his hand, and the Duke of Wellington on his

left. All three looked so miserable, so ashy-grey and worn out, that

never did human greatness appear to me so little worth.... In spite of

his feebleness, George IV. read his _banale_ speech with great

dignity and a fine voice, but with that royal nonchalance which does

not concern itself with what his Majesty promises, or whether he is

sometimes unable to decipher a word. It was very evident that the

monarch was heartily glad when the _corvée_ was over.'

In one of his early letters the traveller gives his friend the

following account of the manner in which he passes his day: 'I rise

late, read three or four newspapers at breakfast, look in my

visiting-book to see what visits I have to pay, and either drive to

pay them in my cabriolet, or ride. In the course of these excursions,

I sometimes catch the enjoyment of the picturesque; the struggle of

the blood-red sun with the winter fogs often produces wild and

singular effects of light. After my visits I ride for several hours

about the beautiful environs of London, return when it grows dark,

dress for dinner, which is at seven or eight, and spend the evening

either at the theatre or some small party. The ludicrous routs--at

which one hardly finds standing-room on the staircase--have not yet

commenced. In England, however, except in a few diplomatic houses, you

can go nowhere in the evening without a special invitation.'

The prince seems to have been bored at most of the parties he

attended; partly, perhaps, out of pique at finding himself, so long

accustomed to be the principal personage in his little kingdom of

Muskau, eclipsed in influence and wealth by many a British commoner.

Few persons that he met in the London of that day amused him more than

the great Rothschild, with whom he dined more than once at the

banker's suburban villa. Of one of these entertainments he writes:

'Mr. Rothschild was in high good-humour, amusing and talkative. It was

diverting to hear him explain to us the pictures round his room (all

portraits of the sovereigns of Europe, presented through their

ambassadors), and talk of the originals as his very good friends, and

in a certain sense his equals. "Yes," said he, "the Prince of -----

once pressed me for a loan, and in the same week on which I received

his autograph letter, his father wrote to me also from Rome, to beg

me, for Heaven's sake, not to have any concern in it, for that I could

not have to do with a more dishonest man than his son...." He

concluded by modestly calling himself the dutiful and generously paid

agent and servant of these high potentates, all of whom he honoured

equally, let the state of politics be what it might; for, said he,

laughing, "I never like to quarrel with my bread and butter." It shows

great prudence in Mr. Rothschild to have accepted neither title nor

order, and thus to have preserved a far more respectable independence.

He doubtless owes much to the good advice of his extremely amiable and

judicious wife, who excels him in tact and knowledge of the world,

though not, perhaps, in acuteness and talents for business.'

Although the prince had not as yet entered the ranks of authors, he

was always interested in meeting literary people, such as Mr. Hope,

author of _Anastasius_, Mr. Morier of _Hadji Baba_ fame, and

Lady Charlotte Bury, who had exchanged the celebrity of a beauty for

that of a fashionable novelist. 'I called on Lady Charlotte,' he says,

'the morning after meeting her, and found everything in her house

brown, in every possible shade; furniture, curtains, carpets, her own

and her children's dresses, presented no other colour. The room was

without looking-glasses or pictures, and its only ornaments were casts

from the antique.... After I had been there some time, the celebrated

publisher, Constable, entered. This man has made a fortune by Walter

Scott's novels, though, as I was told, he refused his first and best,

_Waverley_, and at last gave but a small sum for it. I hope the

charming Lady Charlotte had better cause to be satisfied with him.'

Towards the end of December, his Highness's head-gardener, Rehde, a

very important functionary at Muskau, arrived in London to be

initiated into the mysteries of English landscape-gardening. Together

the two enthusiasts, master and man, made a tour of some of the

principal show-places of England, including Stanmore Priory, Woburn

Abbey, Cashiobury, Blenheim, Stowe, Eaton, Warwick, and Kenilworth,

besides many of lesser note. At the end of the excursion, which lasted

three weeks, the prince declared that even he was beginning to feel

satiated with the charms of English parks. On his return to London he

was invited to spend a few days with Lord Darnley at Cobham, and

writes thence some further impressions of English country-house life.

He was a little perturbed at being publicly reminded by his elderly

host that they had made each other's acquaintance thirty years before.

'Now, as I was in frocks at the time he spoke of,' observes the

prince, 'I was obliged to beg for a further explanation, though I

cannot say I was much delighted at having my age so fully discussed

before all the company, for you know I claim to look not more than

thirty. However, I could not but admire Lord Darnley's memory. He

recollected every circumstance of his visit to my parents with the

Duke of Portland, and recalled to me many a little forgotten

incident.'

The _vie de château_ the traveller considered the most agreeable

side of English life, by reason of its freedom, and the absence of

those wearisome ceremonies which in Germany oppressed both host and

guests. The English custom of being always _en évidence_,

however, occasioned him considerable surprise. 'Strangers,' he

observes, 'have generally only one room allotted to them, and

Englishmen seldom go into this room except to sleep, and to dress

twice a day, which, even without company, is always _de rigueur_;

for all meals are usually taken in public, and any one who wants to

write does it in the library. There, also, those who wish to converse,

give each other _rendezvous_, to avoid the rest of the society.

Here you have an opportunity of gossiping for hours with the young

ladies, who are always very literarily inclined. Many a marriage is

thus concocted or destroyed between the _corpus juris_ on the one

side, and Bouffler's works on the other, while fashionable novels, as

a sort of intermediate link, lie on the tables in the middle.

Early in February the prince paid a visit to Brighton, where he made

the acquaintance of Count D'Orsay, and was entertained by Mrs.

Fitzherbert. He gives a jaundiced account of two entertainments, a

public ball and a musical _soirée_, which he attended while at

Brighton, declaring--probably with some truth--that the latter is one

of the greatest trials to which a foreigner can be exposed in England.

'Every mother,' he explains, 'who has grown-up daughters, for whom she

has had to pay large sums to the music-master, chooses to enjoy the

satisfaction of having the youthful talent admired. There is nothing,

therefore, but quavering and strumming right and left, so that one is

really overpowered and unhappy; and even if an Englishwoman has a

natural capacity for singing, she seldom acquires either style or

science. The men are much more agreeable _dilettanti_, for they

at least give one the diversion of a comical farce. That a man should

advance to the piano with far greater confidence than a David, strike

with his forefinger the note which he thinks his song should begin

with, and then _entonner_ like a thunder-clap (generally a tone

or two lower than the pitch), and sing through a long aria without an

accompaniment of any kind, except the most wonderful distortions of

face, is a thing one must have seen to believe it possible, especially

in the presence of at least fifty people.'

By the middle of April the season had begun in town, and the prince

soon found himself up to the eyes in invitations for balls, dinners,

breakfasts, and _soirées_. We hear of him dining with the Duke of

Clarence, to meet the Duchess of Kent and her daughter; assisting at

the Lord Mayor's banquet, which lasted six hours, and at which the

chief magistrate made six-and-twenty speeches, long and short;

breakfasting with the Duke of Devonshire at Chiswick, being nearly

suffocated at the routs of Lady Cowper and Lady Jersey, and attending

his first ball at Almack's, in which famous assemblage his

expectations were woefully disappointed. 'A large, bare room,' so runs

his description, 'with a bad floor, and ropes round it, like the space

in an Arab camp parted off for horses; two or three badly-furnished

rooms at the side, in which the most wretched refreshments are served,

and a company into which, in spite of all the immense difficulty of

getting tickets, a great many nobodies had wriggled; in which the

dress was as tasteless as the _tournure_ was bad--this was all.

In a word, a sort of inn-entertainment--the music and lighting the

only good things. And yet Almack's is the culminating point of the

English world of fashion.'

Unfortunately for his readers, the prince was rather an observer than

an auditor; for he describes what he sees vividly enough, but seldom

takes the trouble to set down the conversation that he hears. Perhaps

he thought it hardly worth recording, for he complains that in England

politics had become the main ingredient in social intercourse, that

the lighter and more frivolous pleasures suffered by the change, and

that the art of conversation would soon be entirely lost. 'In this

country,' he unkindly adds, 'I should think it [the art of

conversation] never existed, unless, perhaps, in Charles II.'s time.

And, indeed, people here are too slavishly subject to established

usages, too systematic in all their enjoyments, too incredibly kneaded

up with prejudices; in a word, too little vivacious to attain to that

unfettered spring and freedom of spirit, which must ever be the sole

basis of agreeable society. I must confess that I know none more

monotonous, nor more persuaded of its own pre-eminence than the

highest society of this country. A stony, marble-cold spirit of caste

and fashion rules all classes, and makes the highest tedious, the

lowest ridiculous.'

In spite of his dislike to politics as a subject of conversation, his

Highness attended debates at the House of Lords and the House of

Commons, and was so keenly interested in what he heard that he

declared the hours passed like minutes. Canning had just been

intrusted by George IV. with the task of forming a government, but had

promptly been deserted by six members of the former Ministry,

including Wellington, Lord Eldon, and Peel, who were now accused of

having resigned in consequence of a cabal or conspiracy against the

constitutional prerogative of the king to change his ministers at his

own pleasure. In the House of Commons the prince heard Peel's attack

on Canning and the new government, which was parried by Brougham. 'In

a magnificent speech, which flowed on like a clear stream, Brougham,'

we are told, 'tried to disarm his opponent; now tortured him with

sarcasms; now wrought upon the sensibility, or convinced the reason,

of his hearers. The orator closed with the solemn declaration that he

was perfectly impartial; that he _could_ be impartial, because it

was his fixed determination never, and on no terms, to accept a place

in the administration of the kingdom.... [Footnote: In 1831 Brougham

accepted office as Lord Chancellor.] Canning, the hero of the day, now

rose. If his predecessor might be compared to a dexterous and elegant

boxer, Canning presented the image of a finished antique gladiator.

All was noble, simple, refined; then suddenly his eloquence burst

forth like lightning-grand and all-subduing. His speech was, from

every point of view, the most complete, as well as the most

irresistibly persuasive--the crown and glory of the debate.'

On the following day the prince heard some of the late ministers on

their defence in the House of Lords. 'Here,' he observes, 'I saw the

great Wellington in terrible straits. He is no orator, and was obliged

to enter upon his defence like an accused person. He was considerably

agitated; and this senate of his country, though composed of men whom

individually, perhaps, he did not care for, appeared more imposing to

him _en masse_ than Napoleon and his hundred thousands. He

stammered much, interrupted and involved himself, but at length he

brought the matter tolerably to this conclusion, that there was no

"conspiracy." He occasionally said strong things--probably stronger

than he meant, for he was evidently not master of his material. Among

other things, the following words pleased me extremely: "I am a

soldier and no orator. I am utterly deficient in the talents requisite

to play a part in this great assembly. I must be more than insane if I

ever entertained the thought, of which I am accused, of becoming Prime

Minister."... [Footnote: In January 1828 the duke became Prime

Minister.] When I question myself as to the total impression of this

day, I must confess that it was at once elevating and melancholy--the

former when I fancied myself an Englishman, the latter when I felt

myself a German. This twofold senate of the people of England, in

spite of all the defects and blemishes common to human institutions,

is yet grand in the highest degree; and in contemplating its power and

operation thus near at hand, one begins to understand why it is that

the English nation is, as yet, the first on the face of the earth.'

The traveller was by no means exclusively occupied in hearing and

seeing new things. With that strain of practicality which contrasted

so oddly with his sentimental and romantic temperament, he kept firmly

before his eyes the main object of his visit to England. He had

determined at the outset not to sell himself and his title for less

than £50,000, but he confesses that, as time passed on, his demands

became much more modest. His matrimonial ventures were all faithfully

detailed to the presumably sympathising Lucie, for whose sake, the

prince persuaded himself, he was far more anxious for success than for

his own. But he had not counted on the many obstacles with which he

found himself confronted, chief among them being his relations with

his former wife. It was known that the ex-princess was still living at

Muskau with all the rights and privileges of a _chátelaine_,

while the prince never disguised his attachment to her, and openly

kept her portrait on his table. English mothers who would have

welcomed him as a son-in-law were led to believe that the divorce was

only a blind, and that the prince's marriage would be actually, if not

legally, a bigamous union. The satirical papers represented him as a

fortune-hunter, a Bluebeard who had ill-treated his first wife, and

declared that he had proposed for the hand of the dusky Empress of

Hayti, then on a visit to Europe.

Still our hero obstinately pursued his quest, laying siege to the

heart of every presentable-looking heiress to whom he was introduced,

and if attention to the art of the toilet could have gained him a rich

bride, he would not long have been unsuccessful. In dress he took the

genuine interest and delight of the dandy of the period, and

marvellous are the descriptions of his costume that he sends to Lucie.

For morning visits, of which he sometimes paid fifty in one day, he

wore his hair dyed a beautiful black, a new hat, a green neckerchief

with gaily coloured stripes, a yellow cashmere waistcoat with metal

buttons, an olive-green frock-coat and iron-grey pantaloons. On other

occasions he is attired in a dark-brown coat, with a velvet collar, a

white neckerchief, in which a thin gold watch-chain is entwined, a

waistcoat with a collar of _cramoisie_ and gold stars, an

under-waistcoat of white satin, embroidered with gold flowers, full

black pantaloons, spun silk stockings, and short square shoes. Style

such as this could only be maintained at a vast outlay, from the

German point of view, the week's washing-bill alone amounting to an

important sum. According to the prince's calculation, a London

exquisite, during the season of 1827, required every week twenty

shirts, twenty-four pocket-handkerchiefs, nine or ten pairs of summer

trousers, thirty neckerchiefs, a dozen waistcoats and stockings _à

discértion_. 'I see your housewifely ears aghast, my good Lucie,'

he writes, 'but as a dandy cannot get on without dressing three or

four times a day, the affair is quite simple.'

However much the prince may have enjoyed the ceremony of the toilet,

he strongly objected to the process of hair-dyeing, and his letters

are full of complaints of his sufferings and humiliation while

undergoing the operation, which, he declares, is a form of slow

poison, and also an unpleasant reminder that he is really old, but

obliged to play the part of youth in order to attain an object that

may bring him more misery than happiness. As soon as he is safely

married to his heiress, he expresses his determination of looking his

full age, so that people might say 'What a well-preserved old man!'

instead of '_Voilà, le ci-devant jeune homme_!' Still, with all

this care and thought, heiresses remained coy, or more probably their

parents were 'difficult.' The prince's highly-developed personal

vanity was wounded by many a refusal, and so weary did he become of

this woman-hunt, that in one letter to Lucie, dated March 5, 1827, he

exclaims, 'Ah, my dearest, if you only had 150,000 thalers, I would

marry you again to-morrow!'

PART II

The summer months were spent in visits to Windsor and other parks near

London, and in a tour through Yorkshire. In October his Highness was

back in town, and engaged in a new matrimonial venture. He writes to

Lucie that 'the fortune in question is immense, and if I obtain it, I

shall end gloriously.' In the correspondence published after the

prince's death is the draft of a letter to Mr. Bonham of Titness Park,

containing a formal proposal for the hand of his daughter, 'Miss

Harriet,' and detailing (with considerable reservations) the position

of his financial affairs. Muskau, he explains, is worth £4,000 a year,

an income which in Germany is equivalent to three times as much in

England. 'Everything belonging to me,' he continues, 'is in the best

possible order; a noble residence at Muskau, and two smaller chateaux,

surrounded with large parks and gardens, in fact, all that make enjoy

life (sic) in the country is amply provided for, and a numerous train

of officious (sic) of my household are always ready to receive their

young princess at her own seat, or if she should prefer town, the

court of Prussia will offer her every satisfaction.' Owing to the fact

that Muskau was mortgaged for £50,000, he was forced, he confesses, to

expect an adequate fortune with his wife, a circumstance to which, if

he had been otherwise situated, he should have paid little attention.

This missive was accompanied by a long letter, dated Nov. 1, 1827, to

'Miss Harriet,' in which the suitor explains the circumstances of his

former marriage, and of his divorce, the knowledge of which has

rendered her uneasy. 'It is rather singular,' he proceeds, 'that in

the very first days after my arrival, you, Miss Harriet, were named to

me, together with some other young ladies, as heiresses. Now I must

confess, at the risk of the fact being doubted in our industrious

times, that I myself had a prejudice against, and even some dread of

heiresses. I may say that I proved in some way these feelings to exist

by marrying a lady with a very small fortune, and afterwards in

England by never courting any heiresses further as common civility

required. My reasons for so doing are not without foundation. In the

first instance, I am a little proud; in the second, I don't want any

more than I possess, though I should not reject it, finding it in my

way, and besides all this, rich young maidens are not always very

amiable.' The prince continues that he had gone, out of principle,

into all kinds of society, and seen many charming and handsome girls,

but had not been able to discover his affinity. At last, after

renouncing the idea of marriage, he heard again of Miss Harriet

Bonham, not of her fortune this time, but of her many excellent

qualities, and the fact that she had refused several splendid offers.

His curiosity was now at last aroused; he sought an opportunity of

being introduced to her, and--'Dearest Miss Harriet, you know the

rest. I thought--and I protest it by all that is sacred--I thought

when I left you again, that here at last I had found united all and

everything I could wish in a future companion through life. An

exterior the most pleasing, a mind and person equally fit for the

representation of a court and the delight of a cottage, and above all,

that sensibility, that goodness of heart, and that perfect absence of

conceitedness which I value more than every other accomplishment.... I

beheld you, besides all your more essential qualities, so quick as

lively, so playful as whitty (_sic_), and nothing really seemed

more bewitching to me as when a hearty, joyful laugh changed your

thoughtful, noble features to the cheerful appearance of a happy

child! And still through every change your and your friends'

conversation and behaviour always remained distinguished by that

perfect breeding and fine tact which, indeed, is to private life what

a clear sky is to a landscape....'

There is a great deal mere to the same effect, and it is sad to think

that all this trouble, all this expenditure of ink and English

grammar, was thrown away. Papa Bonham could not pay down the fortune

demanded by the prince without injuring the other members of his

family; [Footnote: Mr. Bonham's eldest daughter was the second wife of

the first Lord Garvagh.] and although Miss Harriet deplores 'the cruel

end of all our hopes,' the negotiations fell through.

The prince consoled himself for his disappointment with a fresh round

of sight-seeing. He became deeply enamoured of a steam-engine, of

which newly-invented animal he sends the following picturesque

description to Lucie: 'We must now be living in the days of

the _Arabian Nights_, for I have seen a creature to-day far

surpassing all the fantastic beings of that time. Listen to the

monster's characteristics. In the first place, its food is the

cheapest possible, for it eats nothing but wood or coals, and when not

actually at work, it requires none. It never sleeps, nor is weary; it

is subject to no diseases, if well organised at first; and never

refuses its work till worn out by great length of service. It is

equally active in all climates, and undertakes all kinds of labour

without a murmur. Here it is a miner, there a sailor, a

cotton-spinner, a weaver, or a miller; and though a small creature, it

draws ninety tons of goods, or a whole regiment of soldiers, with a

swiftness exceeding that of the fleetest mail-coaches. At the same

time, it marks its own measured steps on a tablet fixed in front of

it. It regulates, too, the degree of warmth necessary to its

well-being; it has a strange power of oiling its inmost joints when

they are stiff, and of removing at pleasure all injurious air that

might find the way into its system; but should anything become

deranged in it, it warns its master by the loud ringing of a bell.

Lastly, it is so docile, in spite of its enormous strength (nearly

equal to that of six hundred horses), that a child of four years old

is able in a moment to arrest its mighty labours by the pressure of

his little finger. Did ever a witch burnt for sorcery produce its

equal?'

A few weeks later we hear of one manifestation of the new power, which

did not quite come up to the expectations of its admirers. On January

16, 1828, the prince writes: 'The new steam-carriage is completed, and

goes five miles in half an hour on trial in the Regent's Park. But

there was something to repair every moment. I was one of the first of

the curious who tried it; but found the smell of oiled iron, which

makes steamboats so unpleasant, far more insufferable here. Stranger

still is another vehicle to which I yesterday intrusted my person. It

is nothing less than a carriage drawn by a paper kite, very like those

the children fly. This is the invention of a schoolmaster, who is so

skilful in the guidance of his vehicle, that he can get on very fairly

with half a wind, but with a completely fair one, and good roads, he

goes a mile in three-quarters of a minute. The inventor proposes to

traverse the African deserts in this manner, and has contrived a place

behind, in which a pony stands like a footman, and in case of a calm,

can he harnessed to the carriage.'

In the early part of 1828 Henriette Sontag arrived in London, and the

prince at once fell a victim to her charms. The fascinating singer,

then barely three-and-twenty, was already the idol of the public, at

the very summit of her renown. Amazing prices were paid for seats when

she was announced to appear. Among his Highness's papers was found a

ticket for a box at the opera on 'Madame Sontag's night,' on which he

notes that he had sold a diamond clasp to pay the eighty guineas

demanded for the bit of cardboard. He was in love once again with all

the ardour of youth, and for the moment all thoughts of a marriage of

convenience were dismissed from his mind. He was now eager for a

love-match with the fair Henriette, whose attractions had rendered him

temporarily forgetful of those of Muskau. But Mademoiselle Sontag,

though carried away by the passionate wooing of the prince, actually

remembered that she had other ties, probably her engagement to Rossi,

to which it was her duty to remain true. She told her lover that he

must learn to forget her, and that when they parted at the conclusion

of the London season, they must never meet again. The prince was

heart-broken at the necessity for separation, and we are assured that

he never forgot Henriette Sontag (though she had many successors in

his affections), and that after his return to Germany he placed a

gilded bust of the singer in his park, in order that he might have her

image ever before his eyes.

In the hope of distracting his thoughts from his disappointment,

Prince Pückler decided to make a lengthened tour through Wales and

Ireland, and with this object in view he set out in July 1828. Before

his departure, however, he had an interesting rencontre at a

dinner-party given by the Duchess of St. Albans-the _ci-devant_

Harriet Melton. 'I arrived late,' says the prince, in his account of

the incident, 'and was placed between my hostess and a tall, very

simple, but benevolent-looking man of middle age, who spoke broad

Scotch--a dialect anything but agreeable; and would probably have

struck me by nothing else, if I had not discovered that I was sitting

next to ----, the Great Unknown! It was not long ere many a sally of

dry, poignant wit fell from his lips, and many an anecdote told in the

most unpretending manner. His eye, too, glanced whenever he was

animated, with such a clear, good-natured lustre, and such an

expression of true-hearted kindness, that it was impossible not to

conceive a sort of affection for him. Towards the end of the dinner he

and Sir Francis Burdett told ghost-stories, half terrible, half

humorous, one against the other.... A little concert concluded the

evening, in which the very pretty daughter of the great bard--a

healthy-looking Highland beauty--took part, and Miss Stephens sang

nothing but Scottish ballads.'

Before entering upon a new field of observation, the prince summed up

his general impressions of London society with a candour that cannot

have been very agreeable to his English readers. The goddess of

Fashion, he observes, reigns in England alone with a despotic and

inexorable sway; while the spirit of caste here receives a power,

consistency, and completeness of development unexampled in any other

country. 'Every class of society in England, as well as every field,

is separated from every other by a hedge of thorns. Each has its own

manners and turns of expression, and, above all, a supreme and

absolute contempt for all below it.... Now although the aristocracy

does not stand _as such_ upon the pinnacle of this strange social

edifice, it yet exercises great influence over it. It is, indeed,

difficult to become fashionable without being of good descent; but it

by no means follows that a man is so in virtue of being

well-born--still less of being rich. Ludicrous as it may sound, it is

a fact that while the present king is a very fashionable man, his

father was not so in the smallest degree, and that none of his

brothers have any pretensions to fashion; which unquestionably is

highly to their honour.' The truth of this observation is borne out by

the story of Beau Brummell, who, when offended by some action of the

Regent's, exclaimed, 'If this sort of thing goes on, I shall cut

Wales, and bring old George into fashion!'

'A London exclusive of the present day,' continues our censor, 'is

nothing more than a bad, flat, dull imitation of a French _roué_

of the Regency, Both have in common selfishness, levity, boundless

vanity, and an utter want of heart. But what a contrast if we look

further! In France the absence of all morality and honesty was in some

degree atoned for by the most refined courtesy, the poverty of soul by

agreeableness and wit. What of all this has the English dandy to

offer? His highest triumph is to appear with the most wooden manners,

as little polished as will suffice to avoid castigation; nay, to

contrive even his civilities so that they are as near as may be to

affronts--this is the style of deportment that confers on him the

greatest celebrity. Instead of a noble, high-bred ease, to have the

courage to offend against every restraint of decorum; to invert the

relation in which his sex stands to women, so that they appear the

attacking, and he the passive or defensive party; to cut his best

friends if they cease to have the strength and authority of fashion;

to delight in the ineffably _fade_ jargon and affectations of his

set, and always to know what is "the thing"--these are the

accomplishments that distinguish a young "lion" of fashion. Whoever

reads the best of the recent English novels--those by the author of

_Pelham_--may be able to abstract from them a tolerably just idea

of English fashionable society, provided he does not forget to deduct

qualities which the national self-love has erroneously claimed

--namely, grace for its _roués_, seductive manners and witty

conversation for its dandies.'

The foregoing is a summary of the prince's lengthy indictment against

London society. 'I saw in the fashionable world,' he observes in

conclusion, 'only too frequently, and with few exceptions, a profound

vulgarity of thought; an immorality little veiled or adorned; the most

undisguised arrogance; and the coarsest neglect of all kindly feelings

and attentions haughtily assumed for the sake of shining in a false

and despicable refinement; even more inane and intolerable to a

healthy mind than the awkward stiffness of the declared Nobodies. It

has been said that vice and poverty form the most revolting

combination; since I have been in England, vice and boorish rudeness

seem to me to form a still more disgusting union.'

The prince's adventures in Wales and Ireland, with the recital of

which he has filled up the best part of two volumes, must here be

dismissed in as many paragraphs. On his tour through Wales, he left

his card on the Ladies of Llangollen, who promptly invited him to

lunch. Fortunately, he had previously been warned of his hostesses'

peculiarities of dress and appearance. 'Imagine,' he writes, 'two

ladies, the elder of whom, Lady Eleanor Butler, a short, robust woman,

begins to feel her years a little, being nearly eighty-three; the

other, a tall and imposing person, esteems herself still youthful,

being only seventy-four. Both wore their still abundant hair combed

straight back and powdered, a round man's hat, a man's cravat and

waistcoat, but in the place of "inexpressibles," a short petticoat and

boots: the whole covered by a coat of blue cloth, of quite a peculiar

cut. Over this Lady Eleanor wore, first the grand cordon of the order

of St. Louis across her shoulders; secondly, the same order round her

neck; thirdly, the small cross of the same in her buttonhole; and,

_pour comble de gloire_, a golden lily of nearly the natural size

as a star. So far the effect was somewhat ludicrous. But now you must

imagine both ladies with that agreeable _aisance_, that air of

the world of the _ancien régime_, courteous, entertaining,

without the slightest affectation, speaking French as well as any

Englishwoman of my acquaintance; and, above all, with that essentially

polite, unconstrained, simply cheerful manner of the good society of

that day, which in our hard-working, business age appears to be going

to utter decay.'

Thanks to his letters of introduction and the friendships that he

struck up on the road, the prince was able occasionally to step out of

the beaten tourist tracks, and to see something of the more intimate

side of Irish social life. He has given a lively and picturesque

account of his experiences, which included an introduction to Lady

Morgan, [Footnote: See page 142.] and to her charming nieces, the Miss

Clarkes (who made a profound impression on his susceptible heart), a

sentimental journey through Wicklow, a glance at the humours of

Donnybrook Fair, a visit to O'Connell at Derrinane Abbey, a peep into

the wilds of Connaught, an Emancipation dinner at Cashel, where he

made his _début_ as an English orator, and an expedition to the

lakes of Killarney. All this, which was probably novel and interesting

to the German public, contains little that is not familiar to the

modern English reader. The sketch of O'Connell is sufficiently vivid

to bear quotation.