You know our history up to Saturday last, when Lord and Lady Grenville
left Bowood: there remained Mr. Thomas Grenville, Le vieux Célibataire,
two Horts, Sir William and his brother, Mr. Gally Knight, and Lord and
Lady Bathurst, with their two daughters. Mr. Grenville left us
yesterday, and the rest go to-day. Mr. Grenville was very agreeable:
dry, quiet humour: grave face, dark, thin, and gentlemanlike: a lie-by
manner, entertained, or entertaining by turns. It is curious that we
have seen within the course of a week one of the heads of the
ministerial, and one of the ex-ministerial party. In point of ability,
Lord Grenville is, I think, far superior to any one I have seen here.
Lord Lansdowne, with whom I had a delightful _tête-à-tête_ walk
yesterday, told me that Lord Grenville can be fully known only when
people come to do political business with him: there he excels. You know
his preface to Lord Chatham's _Letters._ His manner of speaking in the
House is not pleasing, Lord Lansdowne says: from being very near-sighted
he has a look of austerity and haughtiness, and as he cannot see all he
wants to see, he throws himself back with his chin up, determined to
look at none. Lord Lansdowne gave me an instance--I may say a
warning--of the folly of judging hastily of character at first sight
from small circumstances. In one of Cowper's letters there is an absurd
character of Lord Grenville, in which he is represented as a
_petit-maître._ This arose from Lord Grenville taking up his
near-sighted glass several times during his visit. There cannot, in
nature or art, be a man further from a _petit-maître._
Lady Bathurst is remarkably obliging to me: we have many subjects in
common--her brother, the Duke of Richmond, and all Ireland; her aunt,
Lady Louisa Connolly, and Miss Emily Napier, and all the Pakenhams, and
the Duchess of Wellington. The Duke lately said to Mrs. Pole, "After
all, home is what we must look to at last."
Lady Georgiana is a very pretty, and I need scarcely say,
fashionable-looking young lady, easy, agreeable, and quite unaffected.
This visit to Bowood has surpassed my expectation in every respect. I
much enjoy the sight of Lady Lansdowne's happiness with her husband and
her children: beauty, fortune, cultivated society, in short, everything
that the most reasonable or unreasonable could wish. She is so amiable
and so desirous to make others happy, that it is impossible not to love
her; and the most envious of mortals, I think, would have the heart
opened to sympathy with her. Then Lord and Lady Lansdowne are so fond of
each other, and show it, and _don't show it_, in the most agreeable
manner. His conversation is very various and natural, full of
information, given for the sake of those to whom he speaks, never for
display. What he says always lets us into his feelings and character,
and therefore is interesting.
_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH