Deck'd in cerulean splendours!--vivid,--warm,
Shedding soft lustre on the rosy hours,
And calling forth their beauties! balmy Spring!
To thee the vegetating world begins
To pay fresh homage. Ev'ry southern gale
Whispers thy coming;--every tepid show'r
Revivifies thy charms. The mountain breeze
Wafts the ethereal essence to the vale,
While the low vale returns its fragrant hoard
With tenfold sweetness. When the dawn unfolds
Its purple splendours 'mid the dappled clouds,
Thy influence cheers the soul. When noon uplifts
Its burning canopy, spreading the plain
Of heaven's own radiance with one vast of light,
Thou smil'st triumphant! Ev'ry little flow'r
Seems to exult in thee, delicious Spring,
Luxuriant nurse of nature! By the stream,
That winds its swift course down the mountain's side,
Thy progeny are seen;--young primroses,
And all the varying buds of wildest birth,
Dotting the green slope gaily. On the thorn,
Which arms the hedgerow, the young birds invite
With merry minstrelsy, shrilly and maz'd
With winding cadences: now quick, now sunk
In the low twitter'd song. The evening sky
Reddens the distant main; catching the sail,
Which slowly lessens, and with crimson hue
Varying the sea-green wave; while the young moon,
Scarce visible amid the warmer tints
Of western splendours, slowly lifts her brow
Modest and icy-lustred! O'er the plain
The light dews rise, sprinkling the thistle's head,
And hanging its clear drops on the wild waste
Of broomy fragrance. Season of delight!
Thou soul-expanding pow'r, whose wondrous glow
Can bid all nature smile! Ah! why to me
Come unregarded, undelighting still
This ever-mourning bosom? So I've seen
The sweetest flow'rets bind the icy urn;
The brightest sunbeams glitter on the grave;
And the soft zephyr kiss the troubled main,
With whispered murmurs. Yes, to me, O Spring!
Thou com'st unwelcom'd by a smile of joy;
To me! slow with'ring to that silent grave
Where all is blank and dreary! Yet once more
The Spring eternal of the soul shall dawn,
Unvisited by clouds, by storms, by change,
Radiant and unexhausted! Then, ye buds,
Ye plumy minstrels, and ye balmy gales,
Adorn your little hour, and give your joys
To bless the fond world-loving traveller,
Who, smiling, measures the long flow'ry path
That leads to death! For to such wanderers
Life is a busy, pleasing, cheerful dream,
And the last hour unwelcome. Not to me,
Oh! not to me, stern Death, art thou a foe;
Thou art the welcome messenger, which brings
A passport to a blest and long repose."
A just value was at that time set upon the exertions of Mrs. Robinson,
by the conductors of the paper, who "considered them as one of the
principal embellishments and supports of their journal."
In the spring of 1800 she was compelled by the daily encroachments of
her malady wholly to relinquish her literary employments.
Her disorder was pronounced by the physicians to be a rapid decline. Dr.
Henry Vaughan, who to medical skill unites the most exalted
philanthropy, prescribed, as a last resource, a journey to Bristol
Wells. A desire once again to behold her native scenes induced Mrs.
Robinson eagerly to accede to this proposal. She wept with melancholy
pleasure at the idea of closing her eyes for ever upon a world of vanity
and disappointment in the place in which she had first drawn breath, and
terminating her sorrows on the spot which gave her birth; but even this
sad solace was denied to her, from a want of the pecuniary means for
its execution. In vain she applied to those on whom honour, humanity,
and justice, gave her undoubted claims. She even condescended to
entreat, as a donation, the return of those sums granted as a loan in
her prosperity.
The following is a copy of a letter addressed on this occasion to a
noble debtor, and found among the papers of Mrs. Robinson after
her decease:
'To----
"April 23, 1800.
"MY LORD:--Pronounced by my physicians to be in a rapid decline, I trust
that your lordship will have the goodness to assist me with a part of
the sum for which you are indebted to me. Without your aid I cannot make
trial of the Bristol waters, the only remedy that presents to me any
hope of preserving my existence. I should be sorry to die at enmity with
any person; and you may be assured, my dear lord, that I bear none
toward you. It would be useless to ask you to call on me; but if you
would do me that honour, I should be happy, very happy, to see
you, being,
"My dear lord,
"Yours truly,
"MARY ROBINSON."
To this letter no answer was returned! Further comments are unnecessary.
The last literary performance of Mrs. Robinson was a volume of Lyrical
Tales. She repaired a short time after to a small cottage _ornée_,
belonging to her daughter, near Windsor. Rural occupation and amusement,
quiet and pure air, appeared for a time to cheer her spirits and
renovate her shattered frame. Once more her active mind returned to its
accustomed and favourite pursuits; but the toil of supplying the
constant variety required by a daily print, added to other engagements,
which she almost despaired of being capacitated to fulfil pressed
heavily upon her spirits, and weighed down her enfeebled frame. Yet, in
the month of August, she began and concluded, in the course of ten days,
a translation of Doctor Hagar's "Picture of Palermo,"--an exertion by
which she was greatly debilitated. She was compelled, though with
reluctance, to relinquish the translation of "The Messiah" of Klopstock,
which she had proposed giving to the English reader in blank verse,--a
task particularly suited to her genius and the turn of her mind.
But, amidst the pressure of complicated distress, the mind of this
unfortunate woman was superior to improper concessions, and treated with
just indignation those offers of service which required the sacrifice of
her integrity.
She yet continued, though with difficulty and many intervals, her
literary avocations. When necessitated by pain and languor to limit her
exertions, her unfeeling employers accused her of negligence. This
inconsideration, though she seldom complained, affected her spirits and
preyed upon her heart. As she hourly declined toward that asylum where
"the weary rest," her mind seemed to acquire strength in proportion to
the weakness of her frame. When no longer able to support the fatigue of
being removed from her chamber, she retained a perfect composure of
spirits, and, in the intervals of extreme bodily suffering, would listen
while her daughter read to her, with apparent interest and collectedness
of thought, frequently making observations on what would probably take
place when she had passed that "bourn whence no traveller returns." The
flattering nature of her disorder at times inspired her friends with the
most sanguine hopes of her restoration to health; she would even
herself, at intervals, cherish the idea. But these gleams of hope, like
flashes of lightning athwart the storm, were succeeded by a deeper
gloom, and the consciousness of her approaching fate returned upon the
mind of the sufferer with increased conviction.
Within a few days of her decease, she collected and arranged her
poetical works, which she bound her daughter, by a solemn adjuration, to
publish for her subscribers, and also the present memoir. Requesting
earnestly that the papers prepared for the latter purpose might be
brought to her, she gave them into the hands of Miss Robinson, with an
injunction that the narrative should be made public, adding, "I should
have continued it up to the present time--but perhaps it is as well that
I have been prevented. Promise me that you will print it!" The request
of a dying parent, so made, and at such a moment, could not be refused.
She is obeyed. Upon the solemn assurances of her daughter, that her Last
desire, so strongly urged, should be complied with, the mind of Mrs.
Robinson became composed and tranquil; her intellects yet remained
unimpaired, though her corporeal strength hourly decayed.
A short time previous to her death, during an interval of her daughter's
absence from her chamber, she called an attending friend, whose
benevolent heart and unremitting kindness will, it is hoped, meet
hereafter with their reward, and entreated her to observe her last
requests, adding, with melancholy tenderness, "I cannot talk to my poor
girl on these sad subjects." Then, with an unruffled manner and minute
precision, she gave orders respecting her interment, which she desired
might be performed with all possible simplicity. "Let me," said she,
with an impressive though almost inarticulate voice, "be buried in Old
Windsor churchyard." For the selection of that spot she gave a
particular reason. She also mentioned an undertaker, whose name she
recollected having seen on his door, and whom she appointed from his
vicinity to the probable place of her decease. A few trifling memorials,
as tributes of her affection, were all the property she had to bequeath.
She also earnestly desired that a part of her hair might be sent to two
particular persons.
One evening, her anxious nurses, with a view to divert her mind, talked
of some little plans to take place on her restoration to health. She
shook her head with an affecting and significant motion. "Don't deceive
yourselves," said she; "remember, I tell you, I am but a very little
time longer for this world." Then pressing to her heart her daughter,
who knelt by her bedside, she held her head for some minutes clasped
against her bosom, which throbbed, as with some internal and agonising
conflict. "Poor heart," murmured she, in a deep and stifled tone, "what
will become of thee!" She paused some moments, and at length, struggling
to assume more composure, desired in a calmer voice that some one would
read to her. Throughout the remainder of the evening she continued
placidly and even cheerfully attentive to the person who read, observing
that, should she recover, she designed to commence a long work, upon
which she would bestow great pains and time. "Most of her writings," she
added, "had been composed in too much haste."
Her disorder rapidly drawing toward a period, the accumulation of the
water upon her chest every moment threatened suffocation. For nearly
fifteen nights and days she was obliged to be supported upon pillows, or
in the arms of her young and affectionate nurses.[53] Her decease,
through this period, was hourly expected. On the 24th of December she
inquired how near was Christmas Day! Being answered, "Within a few
days," "Yet," said she, "I shall never see it." The remainder of this
melancholy day passed in undescribable tortures. Toward midnight, the
sufferer exclaimed, "O God, O just and merciful God, help me to support
this agony!" The whole of the ensuing day she continued to endure great
anguish. In the evening a kind of lethargic stupor came on. Miss
Robinson, approaching the pillow of her expiring mother, earnestly
conjured her to speak, if in her power. "My darling Mary!" she faintly
articulated, and spoke no more. In another hour she became insensible to
the grief of those by whom she was surrounded, and breathed her last at
a quarter past twelve on the following noon.
The body was opened, at the express wish of Doctors Pope and Chandler.
The immediate cause of her death appeared to have been a dropsy on the
chest; but the sufferings which she endured previously to her decease
were probably occasioned by six large gall-stones found in the
gall-bladder.
All her requests were strictly observed. Her remains were deposited,
according to her direction, in the churchyard of Old Windsor; the spot
was marked out by a friend to whom she had signified her wishes. The
funeral was attended only by two literary friends.
Respecting the circumstances of the preceding narrative, every reader
must be left to form his own reflections. To the humane mind, the errors
of the unfortunate subject of this memoir will appear to have been more
than expiated by her sufferings. Nor will the peculiar disadvantages, by
which her introduction into life was attended, be forgotten by the
candid,--disadvantages that, by converting into a snare the bounties
lavished on her by nature, proved not less fatal to her happiness than
to her conduct. On her unhappy marriage, and its still more unhappy
consequences, it is unnecessary to comment. Thus circumstanced, her
genius, her sensibility, and her beauty combined to her destruction,
while, by her exposed situation, her inexperience of life, her tender
youth, with the magnitude of the temptations which beset her, she could
scarcely fail of being betrayed.
"Say, ye severest ...
... what would you have done?"
The malady which seized her in the bloom of youth, and pursued her with
unmitigable severity through every stage of life, till, in the prune of
her powers, it laid her in a premature grave, exhibits, in the history
of its progress, a series of sufferings that might disarm the sternest,
soften the most rigid, and awaken pity in the hardest heart. Her mental
exertions through this depressing disease, the elasticity of her mind,
and the perseverance of her efforts amidst numberless sources of
vexation and distress, cannot fail, while they awaken sympathy, to
extort admiration. Had this lovely plant, now withered and low in the
dust, been in its early growth transplanted into a happier
soil--sheltered from the keen blasts of adversity, and the mildew of
detraction, it might have extended its roots, unfolded its blossoms,
diffused its sweetness, shed its perfumes, and still flourished,
beauteous to the eye, and grateful to the sense.
To represent the character of the individual in the circumstances of
life, his conduct under those circumstances and the consequences which
they ultimately produce, is the peculiar province of biography. Little
therefore remains to be added. The benevolent temper, the filial piety
and the maternal tenderness of Mrs. Robinson are exemplified in the
preceding pages, as her genius, her talents, the fertility of her
imagination, and the powers of her mind are displayed in her
productions, the popularity of which at least affords a presumption of
their merit. Her manners were polished and conciliating, her powers of
conversation rich and varied. The brilliancy of her wit and the sallies
of her fancy were ever tempered by kindness and chastened by delicacy.
Though accustomed to the society of the great, and paying to rank the
tribute which civil institutions have rendered its due, she reserved her
esteem and deference for these only whose talents or whose merits
claimed the homage of the mind.
With the unfortunate votaries of letters she sincerely sympathised, and
not unfrequently has been known to divide the profits of her genius with
the less successful or less favoured disciples of the muse.
The productions of Mrs. Robinson, both in prose and verse, are numerous,
and of various degrees of merit; but to poetry the native impulse of her
genius appears to have been more peculiarly directed. Of the glitter and
false taste exhibited in the Della Crusca correspondence[54] she became
early sensible; several of her poems breathe a spirit of just sentiment
and simple elegance.
JANE, DUCHESS OF GORDON
A PASTORAL ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF MRS. ROBINSON
BY PETER PINDAR
Farewell to the nymph of my heart!
Farewell to the cottage and vine!
From these, with a tear, I depart,
Where pleasure so often was mine.
Remembrance shall dwell on her smile,
And dwell on her lute and her song;
That sweetly my hours to beguile,
Oft echoed the valleys along.
Once more the fair scene let me view,
The grotto, the brook, and the grove.
Dear valleys, for ever adieu!
Adieu to the daughter of Love!
JANE, DUTCHESS OF GORDON
"Few women," says Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, "have performed a more
conspicuous part, or occupied a higher place on the public theatre of
fashion, politics, and dissipation, than the Duchess of Gordon."
Jane, afterward Duchess of Gordon, the rival in beauty and talent to
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was born in Wigtonshire, in Scotland.
Her father, Sir William Maxwell of Monreith (anciently Mureith),
represented one of the numerous families who branched off from the
original stock--Herbert of Caerlaverock, first Lord Maxwell, the
ancestor of the famous Earl of Nithsdale, whose countess, Winifred,
played so noble a part when her husband was in prison during the
Jacobite insurrection. From this honourable house descended, in our
time, the gallant Sir Murray Maxwell, whose daughter, Mrs. Carew, became
the wife of the too well-known Colonel Waugh; the events which followed
are still fresh in the public mind. Until that blemish, loyalty, honour,
and prosperity marked out the Maxwells of Monreith for "their own." In
1681, William Maxwell was created a baronet of Nova Scotia. Various
marriages and intermarriages with old and noble families kept the blood
pure, a circumstance as much prized by the Scotch as by the Germans. Sir
William, the father of the Duchess of Gordon, married Magdalene, the
daughter of William Blair, of Blair, and had by her six children,--three
sons and three daughters,--of whom the youngest but one was Jane, the
subject of this memoir.
This celebrated woman was a true Scotchwoman--staunch to her
principles, proud of her birth, energetic, and determined. Her energy
might have died away like a flash in the pan had it not been for her
determination. She carried through everything that she attempted; and
great personal charms accelerated her influence in that state of society
in which, as in the French capital, women had, at that period, an
astonishing though transient degree of ascendency.
The attractions of Jane Maxwell appeared to have been developed early,
for before she entered on the gay world, a song, "Jenny of Monreith,"
was composed in her honour, which her son, the Duke of Gordon, used to
sing, long after the charms, which were thus celebrated, had vanished.
Her features were regular; the contour of her face was truly noble; her
hair was dark, as well as her eyes and eyebrows; her face long and
beautifully oval; the chin somewhat too long; the upper lip was short,
and the mouth, notwithstanding a certain expression of determination,
sweet and well defined. Nothing can be more becoming to features of this
stamp, that require softening, than the mode of dressing the hair then
general. Sir Joshua Reynolds has painted the Duchess of Gordon with her
dark hair drawn back, in front, over a cushion, or some support that
gave it waviness; round and round the head, between each rich mass, were
two rows of large pearls, until, at the top, they were lost in the folds
of a ribbon; a double row of pearls round the fair neck; a ruff, opening
low in front, a tight bodice, and sleeves full to an extreme at the top,
tighter toward the wrists, seem to indicate that the dress of the period
of Charles I had even been selected for this most lovely portrait. The
head is turned aside--with great judgment--probably to mitigate the
decided expression of the face when in a front view.
As she grew up, however, the young lady was found to be deficient in one
especial grace--she was not feminine; her person, her mind, her manners,
all, in this respect, corresponded. "She might," says one who knew her,
"have aptly represented Homer's Juno." Always animated, with features
that were constantly in play, one great charm was wanting--that of
sensibility. Sometimes her beautiful face was overclouded with anger;
more frequently was it irradiated with smiles. Her conversation, too,
annihilated much of the impression made by her commanding beauty. She
despised the usages of the world, and, believing herself exempted from
them by her rank, after she became a duchess, she dispensed with them,
and sacrificed to her venal ambition some of the most lovable qualities
of her sex. One of her speeches, when honours became, as she thought,
too common at court, betrays her pride and her coarseness. "Upon my
word," she used to say, "one cannot look out of one's coach window
without spitting on a knight." Whatever were her defects, her beauty
captivated the fancy of Alexander, the fourth Duke of Gordon, a young
man of twenty-four years of age, whom she married on the 28th of
October, 1767. The family she entered, as well as the family whence she
sprang, were devoted adherents of the exiled Stuarts, and carried, to a
great extent, the hereditary Toryism of their exalted lineage. The
great-grandmother of the duke was that singular Duchess of Gordon who
sent a medal to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, with the head of
James Stuart the Chevalier on one side, and on the other the British
Isles, with the word "Reddite" inscribed underneath. The Faculty were
highly gratified by this present. After a debate, they accepted the
medal, and sent two of their body to thank the duchess, and to say that
they hoped she would soon be enabled to favour the society with a second
medal on the Restoration. Duke Alexander, the husband of Jane Maxwell,
showed in his calm and inert character no evidence of being descended
from this courageous partisan. He was a man of no energy, except in his
love of country pursuits, and left the advancement of the family
interests wholly to his spirited and ambitious wife. They were married
only six years after George III had succeeded to the throne. Never was a
court more destitute of amusements than that of the then youthful
sovereign of England. Until his latter days, George II. had enjoyed
revelries, though of a slow, formal, German character; but his grandson
confined himself, from the age of twenty-two, to his public and private
duties. He neither frequented masquerades nor joined in play. The
splendours of a court were reserved for birthdays, and for those alone;
neither did the king usually sit down to table with the nobility or with
his courtiers. Never was he known to be guilty of the slightest excess
at table, and his repasts were simple, if not frugal. At a levee, or on
the terrace at Windsor, or in the circle of Hyde Park, this model of a
worthy English gentleman might be seen, either with his plain-featured
queen on his arm, or driven in his well-known coach with his old and
famous cream-coloured horses. Junius derided the court, "where," he
said, "prayers are morality and kneeling is religion." But although
wanting in animation, it was far less reprehensible than that which
preceded or that which followed it. The Duchess of Gordon,
irreproachable in conduct, with her high Tory principles, was well
suited to a court over which Lord Bute exercised a strong influence. She
had naturally a calculating turn of mind. Fame, admiration, fashion,
were agreeable trifles, but wealth and rank were the solid aims to which
every effort was directed. Unlike her future rival, the Duchess of
Devonshire, who impoverished herself in her boundless charities, the
Duchess of Gordon kept in view the main chance, and resolved from her
early youth to aggrandise the family into which she had entered.
Her empire as a wit was undisputed, for the Duchess of Devonshire was
then a mere girl, at her mother's knee; but that for beauty was disputed
by Mary, Duchess of Rutland, so well remembered in our own time, as she
survived till 1831.