born! All that others gain from experience seems hers by intuition.
I inclose an elegy[3] which I wrote upon the late sad event, in the
course of a few days after my return home. Most part of it was composed
upon that pleasant terrace where we used to read and work on the calm
summer days!
LICHFIELD, SEPT. 1764.
A silence longer than I proposed is, on my part, the less regretted,
because I have a near prospect of conversing with you personally. In
October, my long-existing wish is to be indulged of seeing the great
Babylon. It is true this desire slumbered the instant my Sally sickened,
but it has awakened beneath my mother’s proposal, that Nannette and
myself, accompanied by her father and Mrs A. S----, should pass a few
months in London. We are to have lodgings near your brother’s house
in ---- Square.
Curiosity has no wish so fervent and interesting on this occasion, as
the hope of seeing and conversing with you, and of sharing with yourself
and Nannette the gratifications of the ear and eye. I shall leave my
mother with confidence, in the tender care and attention of Honora.
You will not expect to hear from me again in the interim, since I am to
set out, in a few days, for the habitation of one of the most
interesting and agreeable of women, with whom I shall reside till the
bustle of our races is overpast. On my return home, there will be a
necessity for my writing to several friends whom I am not soon to see.
You are not personally acquainted with this engaging Mrs L----, to whom
I am going, and who has changed her situation and place of abode,
without having changed her name, married, as she is, to her cousin, Mr
L----.
She was, during many years, some of which were prior to my existence,
the soul of every thing that was gay and agreeable at Lichfield.
Eclipsing all the women, she had many enemies amongst her own sex; and,
to say truth, though her temper was remarkably sweet, her wit was a
little unmerciful. She could not resist the temptation of amusing
herself and her company, with the awkwardness, the singularity, the
foibles, and the faults of her acquaintance. She could not spare them
even in those whom she loved, and with whose distress, of every kind,
she could sincerely sympathize.
A combination so uncommon, of softness and irony, gave rise to almost
universal accusations of insincerity from her own sex. The men forgave,
and indeed understood her better; imputing these sallies of raillery,
which spared no one’s absurdity, to their true cause, an irresistible
propensity to amuse the present company, and to inspirit the passing
moment.
Both sexes were drawn to her as by fascination; even those women who
were loudest in their invectives against the satire they dreaded. But
she was the model of them all respecting dress and fashion; and, in her
presence, envy and resentment were soothed, or laughed out of all their
acrimony.
She has married her kindred spirit as to wit. He has more than any
person I know, except herself.--In him it is such an absorbing
propensity, that, for my life, I could never find out whether or not he
had knowledge or taste for the arts, or for works of genius. He always
gives a jocose and generally a ludicrous turn to every subject, as it
arises. Such, at least, I have ever found him; but she can be as
agreeably serious as she is enchantingly lively; has read much more than
the generality of women; and, though without poetic talent, or critical
attention to that charming art, is alive to the beauties of poetic
composition.
Mr L----, the farthest in the world from being an enthusiast in any
other part of his character, has, from the time he was fourteen, loved
her with the Quixotism of former ages. Without hope for himself, he
beheld her successively engaged by several different rivals. David
Garrick was the lover of her early youth. When he quitted Lichfield to
become a theatrical adventurer, he had her promise to be his the instant
his situation became profitable, and brilliant enough to outweigh, in
the breast of her uncle, the objections to his profession. This uncle
had declared he would give his favourite niece five thousand pounds, if
she married with his consent. That is said to be the fortune which some
years afterwards he left her.
Contrary to her advice, the lover made premature proposals, and was
rejected with a disdain which his high spirit could not brook, though
the probable consequence of his own indiscretion. Ungenerously did he
resent her desire of postponing their union, rather than disoblige one
of the kindest friends and guardians, in her indulgent uncle, since she
foresaw that every proud objection would, in time, be over-borne and
lost in the blaze of his growing celebrity. But unreasonably mortified
pride on the part of the lover, and the charms of the fair Violetta,
obliterated the remembrance of those graces, once so passionately
adored. I was not in being at this period, but I learned the
circumstances, partly from my mother, and partly from Mrs L---- herself,
some years before she married, when, in my dawning womanhood, she
honoured me with her friendship and confidence.
After David Garrick’s marriage, from amidst an herd of admirers, and
several rejected lovers, she resigned her attention to two gentlemen in
succession, who would either of them have been an eligible connection.
What prevented their taking place, I do not exactly know; but imagine,
that, being conscious of possessing an heart as capable of feeling
passion as her talents and graces were of inspiring it, she durst not,
when standing on the brink, dare to leap the matrimonial gulph,
unassisted by that potent little deity ordained to rule her fate.
Behold this heart of hers once again delivered, with all its vivacity,
and all its softness, to a Mr Y----s, one of the most lovely and
engaging of men; but he had a rich, covetous, and obstinate old
relation, who, declaring that gentleman his heir, had other and higher
views for him.
As he was old and invalid, our lovers thought it prudent to wait an
event that seemed probable and near, rather than disoblige a wretch who
would assuredly have revenged the offence by disinheritance.
Several years elapsed in this suspense, till, at length, death
exchanged it for certainty. But alas! the capricious tyrant of the tomb
suffered this withered and worthless weed.
“Still longer to infest the earth--and called
His worm to riot on that rose, so red,
Unfaded ere it fell.”
Thus was the heart of this charming woman a second time lacerated; the
then disappointment proved more severe, because it had no resources in
the dignity and exertion which a sense of injury inspires. Many were the
tears with which, in secret, she embalmed the memory of this unfortunate
lover. I have seen her shed them passionately over a miniature picture
of Mr Y----s’, which presented the most beautiful and interesting
countenance I ever beheld. Yet, in company, her native vivacity and
playful spirit continually burst, like the sun, through the clouds of
her sorrows.
When time began to blunt the sharpness of this secret grief, then it was
that her engaging cousin first perceived the gleams of hope breaking in
upon the gloom of fruitless and concealed wishes. I ought to have
informed you, that, during their ungenial empire, he was said to have
been as grave as he afterwards became gay; but I knew him not till he
had resumed his native hilarity, beneath the warm influence of mutual
love.
Miss L----, no longer young, did not cease to be eminently attractive.
Her lover was in his bloom, and very handsome, with graceful and
insinuating, though gay manners. Yet was it three or four years before
she could so far forget him she had lost, as to reward a constancy so
distinguished.
At length she married Mr L----; and, losing her, our little city became
the field of dead souls, instead of dead bodies, which, as you have
heard, is the real meaning of its name, derived from the legendary
battle fought in the time of the Romans, upon a hill near the town,
where three contending kings, with their armies, lost their lives, and
strewed the field with their dead.
You know with how much devotion our Lichfield Minerva, your ingenious
and excellent friend, Miss B----d, has been attached to Mrs L----, from
the moment they first met, three years prior to the marriage of the
latter. This attachment, which seems to pass the bounds of friendship
and the love of women, is extraordinary in a disposition so generally
even and placid as Miss B----d’s, and considering the striking
dissimilarity of character in the two friends. In one respect, it has
been a disadvantage to that young lady, since, with an elevated and
solid understanding, it has injured her native manners, by producing a
studied imitation of what cannot happily be imitated,--those peculiar
graces which adorn Mrs L----; whose form is elegant; whose features,
though never beautiful, were always infinitely agreeable; whose
good-humour delights; whose lively spirits hazard every thing for wit;
whose melting pity for all one’s inquietudes, with its bewitching
vouchers, her April tears, make it impossible to remember having been
the victim of her irony; whose air is modest, even to shyness, yet whose
address is gay; whose virtues are genuine; whose reputation malice and
envy could never lastingly impeach, yet whose conversation is often
almost libertine; who felt with enthusiasm those tender passions which
she continually amused her circles, by placing in a ridiculous and
burlesque point of view, at whatever expence of delicacy that view was
obtained; and in whom these contrarieties were so happily blended, as to
render all she said and did graceful and becoming.
You see that, of a character so curiously original, no imitation is
likely to be fortunate. Miss B----d’s imitative aim is confined only to
the air of person, the look, and manner of speaking; but it is a too
visibly studied resemblance to please.
Miss B----d has a more nervous understanding, more extensive knowledge
of books, and a more elevated imagination; but she has no portion of
that arch and playful wit which is so native in her friend; neither will
her mild, yet inflexible principles of delicacy and discretion permit
her those agreeable foibles that give grace and ease to the air and
address which she has so faithfully, though (since not suited to her
more solid character) not fortunately copied.
Mrs L----, from the time I was fourteen to the present hour, invariably
indulged me with testimonies of her partial tenderness. Stability, where
she has no duties to fulfil, is not reckoned amongst the number of her
virtues.
This apparent fickleness probably arises from her friends not having
taught themselves to take her as she is,--to their groundless
expectation of being exempted, because she loves them, from the sallies
of her wit. Often have people said to me, “You flatter yourself about
Miss L----, and have faith in her professions of friendship; be assured,
she diverts herself and her company as much at your expence as at any
person’s.” My reply was generally to this effect,--“Inevitably! the
leopard cannot change her spots, neither would she be so beautiful
without them. I give Miss L---- leave to laugh at me, so long as she
will give herself leave to love me.”
LICHFIELD, FEB. 13, 1765.
I wish in vain for a Claude, and Salvatorial pencil, to delineate the
promised landscape of my native rocks and hills in Derbyshire. Take it,
however, in the best tints of your friend’s recollection.
Eyam, though but a village, is near a mile in length, and considerably
populous. It sweeps, in a waving line, among the mountains, upon a kind
of natural terrace, perhaps a quarter of a mile in breadth. From the
stupendous Middleton, or Eyam-Dale, for the two places contend which of
their names it shall bear, and which dale lies in the road between
Buxton and Chatsworth, we ascend to Eyam up a steep and narrow lane,
about 300 yards, and enter near the middle of the village. On the right
hand, to its eastern termination, the mountain, in whose bosom it
stands, is crossed by another, and still higher mountain. This mountain
rises opposite the back part of the parsonage, new-fronted by my father,
who made it an excellent house to little purpose, having never been his
home since it was finished.
The top of this eastern elevation, so majestic and picturesque amidst
all its barren brownness, presents us, on ascending it, with the
eagle’s view of several lovely vallies, separated from each other by a
number of smaller hills, winding down to the right, along the range of
those vales; and, at about four miles distance, the eye perceives the
palace of Chatsworth, rising, in golden beauty, from beneath its dark
and pendant woods, which are flanked by a ridge of grey, stony, and
bleak mountains. The epithet golden for Chatsworth, is, as to
appearance, literally just, since the yellowish colour of the beautiful
stone of which it is built, and the gilt window frames, make the
edifice, even at that distance, when the sun shines upon it, seem as if
it were built of pale gold.
Though Chatsworth has not apartments[4] sufficiently spacious for a
ducal palace, yet is its exterior the most elegantly magnificent I have
ever beheld. Here are no wings or bow-windows, which, however internally
pleasant, seem to me excrescent deformities on the outward appearance.
Here is no frittering into parts, no obtrusive grandeur of appertaining
offices, but the eye, at once, perceives one fair and perfect whole. Its
mingled lightness and strength, the invariable result of exquisite
proportion, recall to my memory Milton’s description of Pandæmonium,
whenever I first discern Chatsworth from the neighbouring hills:
“Behold, out of the earth, a fabric large
Rise, like an exhalation!----”
Stoke, Mr Simpson’s light and beautiful villa, is another Chatsworth, in
miniature; it has the same simple grace, the same exemption from
protuberant parts, and from the impertinent grandeur of offices; is
built also of the same warm-tinted stone. It stands upon a green
surrounding lawn, half way down the other side of this East Mountain, to
whose top I have led you.
At Stoke we find all the romantic beauties of mountainous scenery,
except that there are no cataracts. The steeply-sloping walks of the
sylvan gardens wind their course down the remainder of the hill. At its
foot, the rocky channel of the rapid and frothing Derwent produces, by
its frequent shallows, a hoarse murmur of waters, audible in every
apartment of that thrice-lovely villa, and to which we find so much
pleasure in listening during the summer heats.
Horace has a charming ode, in which he speaks of his own villa, near the
loud falls of the river Anio, and upon the banks of the Albunean Lake.
He calls it “the resounding house of Albunea.” Stoke always reminds me
of that villa, whose situation is finely introduced when Lord Lyttleton
enumerates the haunts of the muses, in his beautiful Monody. After
observing that they left their Grecian and Latian shades to open all
their stores to the mind of his Lucy, beneath the mountains of Campden,
he proceeds:
“Nor then did Pindus, or Castalia’s plain,
Nor Aganippi’s fount your steps detain,
Or in the Thespian vallies did you play;
Nor then on Mincio’s bank,
Beset with osiers dank,
Nor where Clitumnus rolls his gentle stream;
Nor where, through hanging woods,
Steep Anio pours his floods,
Nor yet where Meles and Illissus stray.”----
But see what prevalence have these more polished orders of sublimity and
beauty to seduce us from the ruder scenes of unassisted nature! Let us
return to the village, now that we have had a distant view of
Chatsworth, and a nearer one of Stoke.
The south side of my native mansion, the parsonage, (which stands by the
church, in nearly the centre of the village) looks upon a mountainous
knoll, whose surface is always green; the sheep which feed upon it have
made it glossy and smooth as a bowling-turf. From childhood have I
delighted to observe, amidst the gradual clearing of a foggy-day, the
mists which had enveloped the head of this round and lesser mountain,
rolling away by degrees, and its bright green summit peeping through
them, and imbibing the soft gilding of the sun-beams. Its height, above
the village, is moderate. It is called the Cliff, and its top affords a
level and lawny walk, of about an hundred and fifty yards extent, before
it descends. The summit overlooks that stupendous Middleton, or, more
properly, Eyam-Dale, so well known to those who make excursions from
Buxton. This dale is narrow, and the vast and sterile rocks rise, on
each side, to a sublime height. No beauty of wood or field softens the
barren grandeur of the scene. It is here that the sterner graces have
built their aeries; here that the seasons suffer no visible alteration,
except when the craggy steeps are covered with snow, and shoot forth
millions of their pensile and of their horrent icicles. The towers and
turrets of these lofty rocks are, however, continually growing less and
less distinct, picturesque, and noble; broken and ravaged, as from time
to time they are, and will farther be, for the purposes of building, and
of making and mending roads, and this by the force of gunpowder, and by
the perpetual consumption of the ever-burning lime-kilns. They, and the
smelting-houses in this dale, sully the summer skies with their
convolving smoke; but, in the night, they are very fine, emitting their
lurid flames, which seem so many small volcanos. The great turnpike
road between Buxton and Matlock passes through this dale, on the edge of
a clear and sparkling rill, that huddles through its white limestone
channel.
The middle part of our long-extended village stands on the brink of a
dell, which has different and softer features. It is deep, abrupt, and
rocky, still narrower than the savage dale, but grassy and sylvan, the
haunt of the vernal linnet, and of the autumnal red-breast. The descent
from the village, though extremely steep, is a smooth green turf,
interspersed with the straggling nut-tree, the alder, and mountain-ash.
The bottom is scarcely five yards wide, so immediately rise the
perpendicular rocks on the opposite side, curtained with wild shrubs,
only that a few bare parts appear, in fantastic points, and perforated
arches, through which, by glimpses, we catch the horizon. In wet
weather, a small rill passes along the bottom of this dell; but, in
summer, its channel is generally dry, and its pebbles are left to bleach
in the sun. Pines wave over the tops of these opposite rocks, and cliffs
and fields descend from them gradually to the farther and right-hand
termination of the village, which is considerably higher than its
centre.
This grassy dingle curves round to the left, till it meets the sterner
and frowning dale, which seems to say to its verdure and its
umbrage,--“Here shall your wanton growth be arrested, dried up, and
withered.”
The village of Eyam was one of the last, if it were not the very last
place in England visited by that dire contagion in 1666, the year after
that in which, in the city of London, Death, on his pale horse, trampled
on three thousand victims in one ghastly night. Mr Mompesson was then
rector of Eyam, and in the vigour of his youth. He had married a
beautiful young lady, by whom he had a boy and girl, of three and four
years old. The plague was brought thither in patterns of cloth sent from
London to a tailor in our village. It raged with great violence, and
swept away four-fifths of the inhabitants. This village is now much more
thinly peopled, owing to the exhausted state of the lead-mines. Their
wealth, during the last century, and early part of the present,
occasioned the environs of Eyam, their thick-sown little towns and
hamlets, to swarm with inhabitants.
On the commencement of the contagion, Mrs Mompesson threw herself, with
her babes, at the feet of her husband, to supplicate his flight from
that devoted place, but not even the tears and entreaties of a beloved
wife could induce him to desert his flock in these hours of danger and
dismay. Equally fruitless were his persuasions that she would retire
with her infants. The result of this pathetic contest was a resolve to
remove their children, and abide together the fury of the pestilence.
My father is in possession of authentic copies of three letters[5] from
Mr Mompesson, taken, as appears by the dates, at the time the originals
were written. One of them is to his children, designed for their perusal
in riper years; the other to his patron, Sir George Saville; and the
third to his uncle, Mr Beilby, of York. The two first were written
during the rage of the distemper, the last after it had subsided. Mr
Mompesson, constantly visiting and praying by the sick,
“Drew, like Marseilles’ good bishop, purer breath,
When nature sickened, and each gale was death.”
From a rational belief, that assembling in the church for public worship
during the summer heats, would spread and increase the infection, he
agreed with his afflicted parishioners that he should read prayers to
them three times in the week, and deliver his two sermons on the Sabbath
from one of the perforated arches in the rocks of the verdant dingle,
before described. By his directions, they ranged themselves on the
grassy declivity, near the bottom, a yard distant from each other; the
dell being so narrow, a speaker from that rock might be distinctly
heard.
Do you not see this dauntless minister of God stretching forth his hands
from the rock, and preaching to his alarmed and distressed flock in that
little wilderness? How solemn, how pathetic, must have been his
exhortations in those terrific hours!
The church-yard soon ceased to afford room for the dead, which were
afterwards buried in a heathy hill above the village. Curious
travellers[6] take pleasure in visiting those tumuli, and in examining
their yet distinct remains; also in descending from the cliffs, which
brow the summit of the dingle, into the excavated rock from which Mr
Mompesson performed divine service during that awful visitation. The
consecrated rock is called Cucklet Church, by the villagers, to this
day.
We find, from united medical testimony, that the effects of the plague
are very various; sometimes producing a parched, raging, and delirious
fever;--sometimes profuse and caustic perspiration, in which life
dissolves. In other instances, the tokens, as they are called, formed by
a livid spot, about the breadth of half-a-crown, and of impenetrable
hardness, appear when the patient is in apparent health, and mark the
grave’s inevitable victim; since, when the tokens wear that appearance,
the infected never survive longer than a very few hours, and often
remain without perceptible disorder till the moment of expiration. If
they are only discoloured, without being hard, if they suppurate, the
patient generally recovers.
Mr Mompesson remained in health during the whole time of the contagion;
but Providence saw fit to put his fortitude to severer trial than if he
had seen the plague-spot indurated upon his own body.
Amongst other precautions against the disease, Mrs Mompesson had
prevailed upon her husband to suffer an incision to be made in his leg,
and kept open. One day she observed appearances in the wound which
induced her belief that the contagion had found a vent that way, and
that, consequently, the danger was over as to him; the digestion of the
sore being a certain sign of recovery. Instead of being shocked that the
pestilence had entered her house, and that her weakness, for she was
not in health, must next endure its fury, she expressed the most
rapturous gratitude to Heaven for the apprehended deliverance of him,
whom more than her life she loved. His letters, though he seems to think
her conviction groundless concerning his having taken the disease, make
grateful mention of that disinterested joy.