Cordon's influence remained in the ascendant. The last years of the man
whom she had destined for her son-in-law, and who had ever been on terms
of the greatest intimacy with her, were clouded. Pitt had the misfortune
not only of being a public man,--for to say that is to imply a sacrifice
of happiness,--but to be a public man solely. He would turn neither to
marriage, nor to books, nor to agriculture, nor even to friendship, for
the repose of a mind that could not, from insatiable ambition, find
rest. He died involved in debt--in terror and grief for his country. He
is said never to have been in love. At twenty-four he had the sagacity,
the prudence, the reserve of a man of fifty. His excess in wine
undermined his constitution, but was source of few comments when his
companions drank more freely than men in office had ever been known to
do since the time of Charles II. Unloved he lived; and alone, uncared
for, unwept, he died. That he was nobly indifferent to money, that he
had a contempt for everything mean, or venal, or false, was, in those
days, no ordinary merit.
During the whirl of gaiety, politics, and matchmaking, the Duchess of
Gordon continued to read, and to correspond with Beattie upon topics of
less perishable interest than the factions of the hour. Beattie sent her
his "Essay on Beauty" to read in manuscript; he wrote to her about
Petrarch, about Lord Monboddo's works, and Burke's book on the French
Revolution,--works which the duchess found time to read and wished to
analyse. Their friendship, so honoured to her, continued until his
death in 1803.
The years of life that remained to the Duchess of Gordon must have been
gladdened by the birth of her grandchildren, and by the promise of her
sons George, afterward Duke of Gordon, and Alexander. The illness of
George III., the trials of Hastings and of Lord Melville, the general
war, were the events that most varied the political world, in which she
ever took a keen interest. She died in 1812, and the duke married soon
afterward Mrs. Christie, by whom he had no children.
The dukedom of Gordon became extinct at his death; and the present
representative of this great family is the Marquis of Huntley.
GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE
[Illustration: Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire From the painting by
Gainsborough]
GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE
Notwithstanding the purity of morals enjoined by the court of George
III., the early period of his reign presents a picture of dissolute
manners as well as of furious party spirit. The most fashionable of our
ladies of rank were immersed in play or devoted to politics; the same
spirit carried them into both. The Sabbath was disregarded, spent often
in cards or desecrated by the meetings of partisans of both factions;
moral duties were neglected and decorum outraged.
The fact was that a minor court had become the centre of all the bad
passions and reprehensible pursuits in vogue. Carlton House, in Pall
Mall, which even the oldest of us can barely remember, with its elegant
screen, open, with pillars in front, its low exterior, its many small
rooms, the vulgar taste of its decorations, and, to crown the whole, the
associations of a corrupting revelry with the whole place,--Canton House
was, in the days of good King George, almost as great a scandal to the
country as Whitehall in the time of improper King Charles II.
The influence which the example of a young prince, of manners eminently
popular, produced upon the young nobility of the realm must be taken
into account in the narrative of that life which was so brilliant and so
misspent; so blessed at its onset, so dreary in its close--the life of
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Descended in the third degree from
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, Georgiana Spencer is said to have
resembled her celebrated ancestress in the style of her beauty. She was
born in 1757. Her father, John, created Earl of Spencer in 1765, was the
son of the reprobate "Jack Spencer," as he was styled, the misery at
once and the darling of his grandmother, Sarah, who idolised her
Torrismond, as she called him, and left him a considerable portion of
her property. Whilst the loveliness of Sarah descended to Georgiana
Spencer, she certainly inherited somewhat of the talent, the reckless
spirits, and the imprudence of her grandfather, "Jack;" neither could a
careful education eradicate these hereditary characteristics.
Her mother was the daughter of a commoner, the Right Honourable Stephen
Poyntz, of Midgham, in Berkshire. This lady was long remembered both by
friends and neighbours with veneration. She was sensible and
intelligent, polite, agreeable, and of unbounded charity; but Miss
Burney, who knew her, depicts her as ostentatious in her exertions, and
somewhat self-righteous and vainglorious. She was, however, fervently
beloved by her daughter, who afterward made several pecuniary sacrifices
to ensure her mother's comfort. The earliest years of Lady Georgiana (as
she became after her father was created an earl) were passed in the
large house at Holywell, close to St. Albans, built by the famous Duke
of Marlborough on his wife's patrimonial estate. Aged people, some
fifteen years ago, especially a certain neighbouring clergyman,
remembered going to play at cards in this house; and the neighbourly
qualities of Lady Spencer, as much as her benevolence to the poor,
endeared her much to the gentry around. She exercised not only the
duties of charity, but the scarcely minor ones of hospitality and
courtesy to her neighbours. Before the opening of railroads, such duties
were more especially requisite to keep together the scattered members of
country society. Good feelings were engendered, good manners promoted,
and the attachment then felt for old families had a deeper foundation
than servility or even custom. As Lady Georgiana grew up, she displayed
a warm impressionable nature, a passion for all that was beautiful in
art, strong affections, and an early disposition to coquetry. Her
character spoke out in her face, which was the most eloquent of all
faces; yet it was by no means beautiful if we look upon beauty
critically. There were persons who said that her face would have been
ordinary but for its transcendent loveliness of expression. Unlike the
fair Gunnings, she was neither regular in features nor faultless in
form, yet theirs was baby-beauty compared with hers. True, her hair
inclined to red, her mouth was wide, but her complexion was exquisite;
and the lips, ever laughing, were parted over a splendid set of teeth,
an attribute rare in those days when the teeth were often decayed in
youth. She had, too, a charm of manner natural to her, and a playfulness
of conversation, which, springing from a cultivated mind, rendered her
society most fascinating. "Her heart, too," writes Wraxall, her
cotemporary, "might be considered as the seat of those emotions which
sweeten human life, adorn our nature, and diffuse a nameless charm over
existence."
A younger sister, Henrietta Frances, afterward Lady Duncannon, and
eventually Countess of Besborough, was also the object of Lady
Georgiana's warm affection; and, although Lady Duncannon was very
inferior to her in elegance of mind and personal attractions, she
equalled her in sisterly love.
During the middle of the last century, literature was again the fashion
among the higher classes. Doctor Johnson and the Thrales, Miss Gurney,
Hannah More, still clustered at Streatham; many of our politicians were,
if not poets, poetasters. It is true, if we except the heart-touching
poems of Cowper, the Muses were silent. The verses which were the
delight of polished drawing-rooms were of little value, and have been
swept away from our memories of the present day as waste paper; but a
taste for what is refined was thus prevalent, and thus affected the then
rising generation favourably.
Lady Georgiana Spencer had, however, a very few years allotted her for
improvement or for the enjoyment of her youth, for in her seventeenth
year she married.
William, the fifth Duke of Devonshire, at the time when he was united
to Lady Georgiana was twenty-seven years of age. He was one of the most
apathetic of men. Tall, yet not even stately, calm to a fault, he had
inherited from the Cavendish family a stern probity of character, which
always has a certain influence in society. Weight he wanted not, for a
heavier man never led to the altar a wife full of generous impulses and
of sensibility. He was wholly incapable of strong emotion, and could
only be roused by whist or faro from a sort of moral lethargy. He was,
nevertheless, crammed with a learning that caused him to be a sort of
oracle at Brookes's when disputes arose about passages from Roman poets
or historians. With all these qualities, he was capable of being, in a
certain sense, in love, though not always with his lovely and engaging
first wife.
Miss Burney relates a characteristic trait of this nobleman; it was
related to her by Miss Monckton. The duke was standing near a very fine
glass lustre in a corner of a room in the house of people who were not
possessed of means sufficient to consider expense as immaterial; by
carelessly lolling back, he threw the lustre back, and it was broken. He
was not, however, in the least disturbed by the accident, but coolly
said: "I wonder how I did that!" He then removed to the opposite corner,
and to show, it was supposed, that he had forgotten what he had done,
leaned his head in the same manner, and down came the second lustre. He
looked at it with philosophical composure, and merely said: "This is
singular enough," and walked to another part of the room without either
distress or apology. To this automaton was the young Lady Georgiana
consigned; and the marriage was, in the estimation of society, a
splendid alliance.
Her animal spirits were excessive, and enabled her to cope with the
misfortune of being linked to a noble expletive. Her good humour was
unceasing, and her countenance was as open as her heart. Fitted as she
was by the sweetest of dispositions for domestic life, one can hardly
wonder at her plunging into the excitements of politics when at home
there was no sympathy. Hence her bitterest misfortunes originated; but
one cannot, with all her indiscretions, suffer a comparison between her
and the Duchesse de Longueville, which Wraxall has instituted. The
Duchess of Devonshire scarcely merits the covert censure; except in
beauty and talents there was no similarity.
Buoyant with health and happiness, the young duchess was introduced into
the highest circles of London as a matter of course. Her husband
represented one of the most influential families of the Whig
aristocracy, and his name and fortune made him important.
Three West End palaces, as they might well be termed, Canton House,
Devonshire House, and Burlington House, were open to every parliamentary
adherent of the famous coalition,--the alliance between Lord North and
Charles James Fox. Devonshire House, standing opposite to the Green
Park, and placed upon an eminence, seemed to look down upon the Queen's
House, as Buckingham Palace was then called. Piccadilly then, though no
longer, as in Queen Anne's time, infested with highwaymen, was almost at
the extremity of the West End.
In right of his descent, on his mother's side from the Boyle family, the
Duke of Devonshire was also the owner of Burlington House, situated near
Devonshire House, and inhabited by his brother-in-law, the Duke
of Portland.
Thus a complete Whig colony existed in that part of London, the head and
front of their party being no less a person than George, Prince of
Wales. He was at this time in the very height of his short-lived health
and youth, and still more short-lived popularity; a man who possessed
all the exterior qualities in which his father was deficient,--grace as
well as good nature, the attribute of George III., a certain degree of
cultivation, as well as of natural talent, a tall, handsome person, with
a face less German in type than those of his brothers, some generosity
of character--witness his kindness to Prince Charles Stuart and his
brother, whom he pensioned--an appearance, at all events, of an
extremely good heart, and a great capacity for social enjoyments.
Doctor Burney states that he was surprised, on meeting the prince at
Lord Melbourne's, to find him, amidst the constant dissipation of his
life, possessed of "much learning, wit, knowledge of books in general,
discrimination of character, and original humour." He spoke with Dr.
Charles Burney, the distinguished scholar, quoting Homer in Greek with
fluency; he was a first-rate critic in music, and a capital mimic. "Had
we been in the dark," said Doctor Burney, "I should have sworn that
Doctor Parr and Kemble were in the room." Hence, the same judge thought
"he might be said to have as much wit as Charles II., with much more
learning, for his merry Majesty could spell no better than the
_bourgeois gentilhomme._" Such was the partial description of the prince
by a flattered and grateful contemporary, who wrote in 1805. Twenty
years later Sir Walter Scott, after dining with the then prince regent,
paid all justice to manners; but pronounced his mind to be of no high
order, and his taste, in so far as wit was concerned, to be condemned.
The prince was, however, just the man to be the centre of a spirited
opposition. In his heart he was Conservative; but the Whigs were his
partisans against a father who strongly, and perhaps not too sternly,
disapproved of his mode of life and his politics.
The circle around him was as remarkable for their talents, and, in some
respects, as infamous for their vices, as any Lord Rochester, or Sedley,
or Etherege of the time of the second Charles. In that day, a Protestant
Duke of Norfolk took an active part in political affairs, and formed one
of the chief supporters of the Whigs. Carlton House, Devonshire House,
often received in their state rooms "Jock of Norfolk," as he was called,
whose large muscular person, more like that of a grazier or a butcher,
was hailed there with delight, for his Grace commanded numerous
boroughs. He was one of the most strenuous supporters of Fox, and had
displayed in the House of Lords a sort of rude eloquence, characteristic
of his mind and body. Nothing, however, but his rank, his wealth, his
influences, his Whig opinions, could have rendered this profligate,
revolting man endurable. Drunkenness is said to have been inherent in
his constitution, and to have been inherited from the Plantagenets. He
was known in his youth to have been found sleeping in the streets,
intoxicated, on a block of wood; yet he is related to have been so
capable of resisting the effects of wine, that, after laying his father,
a drunkard like himself, under the table at the Thatched House, St.
James's, he has been stated to have repaired to another party, there to
finish the convivial rites. He was often under the influence of wine
when, as Lord Surrey, he sat in the House of Commons; but was wise
enough, on such occasions, to hold his tongue. He was so dirty in his
person, that his servants used to take advantage of his fits of
intoxication to wash him; when they stripped him as they would have done
a corpse, and performed ablutions which were somewhat necessary, as he
never made use of water. He was equally averse to a change of linen. One
day, complaining to Dudley North that he was a prey to rheumatism,
"Pray," cried North, "did your Grace ever try a clean shirt?"
This uncleanly form constituted a great feature of the Whig assemblies.
At that time every man wore a queue, every man had his hair powdered;
yet "Jack" renounced powder, which he never wore except at court, and
cut his hair short. His appearance, therefore, must have been a strange
contrast with that of the Prince of Wales, curled and powdered, with
faultless ruffles, and an ample snow-white cravat, to say nothing of the
coat which looked as if it were sewn on his back. It is to the Duke of
Norfolk that the suggestion of putting a tax on hair powder has been
ascribed. His life was one series of profligacy. Yet, such was the
perverted judgment of the day, that this unworthy descendant of the
Plantagenets was as popular as any peer of his time. When sober, he was
accessible, conversable, and devoid of pride. When intoxicated, he used
half to confess that he was still a Catholic at heart. His conversion to
the reformed faith was held not to be very sincere; and his perpetual
blue coat of a peculiar shade--a dress he never varied--was said to be a
penance imposed on him by his confessor. He did no credit to any
Christian church; and the Church of Rome is welcome to his memory.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, at this period in his thirty-third year, was
not then wholly degraded by drinking, debt, and, as far as money was
concerned, dishonesty. His countenance at this age was full of
intelligence, humour, and gaiety: all these characteristics played
around his mouth, and aided the effect of his oratory to the ear. His
voice was singularly melodious, and a sort of fascination attended all
he did and said. His face, as Milton says of the form of the
fallen angel,--
"Had not yet lost
All her original brightness."
Yet he lived to be known by the name of "Bardolph,"--to have every fine
expression lost in traces of drunkenness. No one could have perceived,
in after days, the once joyous spirit of Sheridan in a face covered with
eruptions, and beaming no longer with intelligence. He resembled, says
Wraxall, at sixty, one of the companions of Ulysses, who, having tasted
of Circe's "charmed cup"--
"... lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine."
This extraordinary man was the husband of one of the most beautiful,
and, in being his wife, one of the most unfortunate of women. Miss
Linley, the daughter of a celebrated musical composer, and called, for
her loveliness, the "Maid of Bath," had the calamity of being wooed and
won by Sheridan. Never was there a more touching and instructive history
than hers. Her beauty was rare, even amid the belles of a period rich in
attractive women. Dark masses of hair, drawn back on her brow, fell in
curls on a neck of alabaster. Her features were delicate and regular;
the expression of her eyes was exquisitely soft and pensive. Her charms
have been transmitted to her female descendants, Mrs. Norton, the
Duchess of Somerset, and Lady Dufferin, whilst they have also inherited
her musical talents, and the wit and ability of their grandfather. Mrs.
Sheridan, after a life of alternate splendour and privation, died at
Clifton, of consumption, before middle age. Her death was saddened, if
not hastened, by her carriage, as she was preparing to drive out on the
Downs, being seized for her husband's debts. Whilst united to this young
and lovely wife, Sheridan was one of the brightest stars in the
dissolute sphere of Carlton House; but for domestic life he had neither
time nor disposition. His fame was at its climax, when, during the trial
of Warren Hastings, he spoke for hours in Westminster Hall, with an
eloquence never to be forgotten; then, going to the House of Commons,
exhibited there powers of unrivalled oratory. Meantime the theatres were
ringing with applause, and his name went from mouth to mouth whilst the
"Duenna" was acted at one house, the "School for Scandal" at another. He
was, in truth, the most highly gifted man of his time; and he died in
the fear of bailiffs taking his bed from under him,--an awestruck,
forlorn, despised drunkard!
But of all the party men to whom the young Duchess of Devonshire was
introduced, the most able and the most dissolute was Fox. The colouring
of political friends, which concealed his vices, or rather which gave
them a false hue, has long since faded away. We now know Fox as he was.
In the latest journals of Horace Walpole, his inveterate gambling, his
open profligacy, his utter want of honour, is disclosed by one of his
own opinions. Corrupted ere yet he had left his home, whilst in age a
boy, there is, however, the comfort of reflecting that he outlived his
vices. Fox, with a green apron tied around his waist, pruning and
nailing up his fruit-trees at St. Ann's Hill, or amusing himself
innocently with a few friends, is a pleasing object to remember, even
whilst his early career recurs forcibly to the mind.
Unhappily, he formed one of the most intimate of those whom Georgiana,
Duchess of Devonshire, admitted to her home. He was soon enthralled
among her votaries, yet he was by no means a pleasing object to look at
as he advanced in life. He had dark saturnine features, thought by some
to resemble those of Charles II, from whom he was descended in the
female line; when they relaxed into a smile, they were, it is said,
irresistible. Black shaggy eyebrows concealed the workings of his mind,
but gave immense expression to his countenance. His figure was broad,
and only graceful when his wonderful intellect threw even over that the
power of genius, and produced, when in declamation, the most impassioned
gestures. Having been a coxcomb in his youth, Fox was now degenerating
into the sloven. The blue frock coat and buff waistcoat with which he
appeared in the House of Commons were worn and shabby. Like the white
rose which distinguished the Stuarts, so were the blue and buff the
badge of the American insurgents and of Washington, their chief.
Having ceased to be the head of the Maccaronis, as the _beau monde_ were
then called, Fox had devoted himself to play. Whist, quinze, and
horse-racing were his passion, and he threw away a thousand pounds as if
they had been a guinea; and he lost his whole fortune at the
gaming-table. Before thirty he was reduced to distress, even in the
common affairs of life. He could not pay the chairmen who carried him to
the House. He was known to borrow money from the waiters at Brookes's,
which was the rallying-point of the Opposition. There the night was
spent in whist, faro, suppers, and political consultations. Dissolute as
he was, there was a kindness, a generosity of disposition that made his
influence over man or woman most perilous to both. Then he was one of
the most accomplished of students in history and general letters; and to
his studies he could even devote himself after irretrievable losses at
play. Topham Beauclerk, after having passed the whole night with Fox at
faro, saw him leave the club in desperation. He had lost enormously.
Fearful of the consequences, Beauclerk followed him to his lodgings. Fox
was in the drawing-room, intently engaged over a Greek "Herodotus."
Beauclerk expressed his surprise. "What would you have me do? I have
lost my last shilling," was the reply. So great was the elasticity of
his disposition, sometimes, after losing all the money he could manage
to borrow, at faro, he used to lay his head on the table, and, instead
of railing at fortune, fall fast asleep. For some years after the
Duchess of Devonshire's marriage Fox had continued to represent
Westminster. So long as he retained that position, Pitt's triumph could
not be considered as complete, nor the Tory party as firmly established
in the administration. Three candidates appeared on the hustings in
April, 1784,--Lord Hood, Sir Cecil Wray, and Fox. So late as the
twenty-sixth of the month Wray, who had sat for some time for
Westminster in Parliament, maintained a small numerical advantage over
Fox. The election, which began on the first of the month, had now gone
on more than three weeks: ten thousand voters had polled; and it was
even expected that, since the voters were exhausted, the books would be
closed, and Wray, who was second on the poll, Lord Hood being first,
would carry the day.
Happily we have now no adequate notion of the terrors of such an
election; it was a scene of fun and malice, spirit and baseness,
alternately. Englishmen seemed hardly men; whilst they one hour
blustered, the next they took the bribe, and were civil. Fox went down
to Westminster in a carriage with Colonel North, Lord North's son,
behind as a footman, and the well-known Colonel Hanger--one of the
reprobate associates of George IV. (when prince regent), and long
remembered on a white horse in the park, after being deserted by the
prince and out of vogue--driving in the coat, hat, and wig of a
coachman. When Queen Charlotte heard of this exploit of Colonel North's
she dismissed him from his office of comptroller of her household,
saying she did not covet another man's servant.