PROTECTIONIST PARTY AT BURGHLEY[51].
Footnote 51:
My Aunt’s visits to Burghley extended over many years. Lord and Lady
Exeter were extremely hospitable, and continued their hospitality
until his death in January 1867. As an Oxford undergraduate, I was
more than once invited to one of the younger parties, and the stately
but courteous manners of the house impressed my mind indelibly. It was
one of the last great houses in which ceremonial at breakfast was
maintained. We were always expected to appear in frock-coats and
faultless garb for the morning meal, to which we went in pairs as
strictly arranged as for dinner. Smoking was absolutely taboo, and I
was never sure whether the action of a younger son of the house in
luring a few adventurous spirits after midnight to the depths of the
servants’ hall was quite approved by his sire. We used to don our
shooting things after having formally conducted the ladies from
breakfast, and we were taken to the _rendez-vous_ on ponies with
impossible mouths. I was always a bad rider, and was invariably run
away with, but generally arrived at the meet somehow. But I well
remember how a gallant guardsman, owner of a historic name, was taken
by his incontrollable steed right through Stamford town, and with
difficulty parried, on a not very triumphant return, a charge of
furious riding. Our mishaps were the source of no little kindly chaff
from the Lord Burghley of those days; but he, like his father and
mother, seemed to have no other object whatever than to make the
hospitality of the grand old place a source of unalloyed pleasure and
enjoyment to the guests.
[Illustration:
BURGHLEY.
]
[Sidenote: ISABELLA, LADY EXETER]
One of the most interesting places which I frequented after my return to
England was “Burghley[52] house by Stamford town.” Here lived one of the
best and kindest of women, the daughter of that beloved uncle, Mr
Poyntz[53] to whom I have so often alluded. Lady Exeter had been before
her marriage one of the most admired and courted of London beauties, and
the suitors for her hand were as numerous as those usually attributed to
a princess of fairyland. Indeed it was a family jest at the morning
meal, when the letters were laid on the breakfast table, “Where is
Isabella’s proposal?” Rather a laughable tribute was once paid her in
later times by a retainer of Burghley, which was called forth by my
mother’s remark to the bailiff: “How noble and good is Lady Exeter!”
“Yes,” returned the man with enthusiasm, “I never look at her ladyship
without saying to myself, ‘that is a fallen angel!’”
Footnote 52:
Lord Tennyson writes of “Burleigh House by Stamford town,” but the
spelling given in the text has been adopted by many generations.
Footnote 53:
Brownlow, second Marquess of Exeter; married, 1824, Isabella, daughter
of William Stephen Poyntz, of Cowdray, and was consequently my aunt’s
first cousin.
It was at Burghley that I first made acquaintance with Mr Stafford
O’Brien, who afterwards became my colleague and fellow-actor in many a
joyous revel and dramatic entertainment at Rockingham, Drayton and
Farming Woods, names, each of which recall many a fond memory and tender
regret. A housekeeper whom I knew at Burghley, and who was what is
ambiguously termed a retired gentlewoman, and was constantly referring
to better days, told me once, that she found a real consolation for all
her troubles when gazing on that magnificent building “especially, Miss
Boyle, the quadrangle by moonlight”; and certainly it was a “sight for
sair e’en,” as it recurs most frequently to my mind one brilliant
winter’s day, rising out of a plain of snow, with its golden gates
resplendent in the sunshine.
I usually occupied the very small apartment called “Queen Elizabeth’s
China Closet,” in which was a portrait by Domenichino far more lovely in
my sight than that of the renowned Cenci, which in some measure it
resembled. To my mother was allotted a room close at hand, and I used to
laugh at her nightly search in manifold hidingplaces, behind the
tapestry, in the turret, etc., lest some one should lie there concealed.
A picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence—one of his earliest, while still imbued
with admiration for the works of Sir Joshua—represents the heroine of
the Laureate’s beautiful ballad,[54] with her husband and “three fair
children,”-“the village maiden” who, in her unexpected transition from
obscurity to splendour—
“Shaped her heart with woman’s meekness
To all duties of her rank—”
was such—
“That she grew a noble lady
And the people loved her much.”
Footnote 54:
Henry, tenth Earl and first Marquess of Exeter, married, _en secondes
noces_, Sarah, daughter of Mr Thomas Hoggins of Bolas, in Shropshire.
He was raised to the Marquisate in 1801, and married, as third wife,
Elizabeth, Dowager Duchess of Hamilton. The phrase
“Not a lord in all the county
Is so great a lord as he,”
is open to comment, save as a poetic licence. The fair children were
1, Brownlow, second Marquess, the husband of my cousin; 2, Lord
Thomas, who married, in 1838, Lady Sophia Lennox; and 3, Lady Sophia,
who married, in 1818, Right Honourable Henry Pierrepont. Lady Sophia
Pierrepont was grandmother of the present Duke of Wellington.
[Sidenote: LORD DERBY—THE CORN LAWS]
Amongst my frequent visits to my cousins Lord and Lady Exeter, at this
magnificent old dwelling, to which I have alluded in a former chapter,
the one most worthy of being remembered was that paid in the year 1850,
when the strife of parties respecting the Corn Laws was still raging. In
fact it immediately preceded the short period of Lord Derby’s
administration, and the house party included the greater part of those
who were destined to become the principal members of his Government. It
was in this manner that I became acquainted with that great
Protectionist leader, and the man who eventually succeeded him as the
head of the Conservative Party, Benjamin Disraeli. Lord Derby was then
in the vigour of physical and intellectual strength, and in the mornings
which he passed with his supporters and colleagues in private Cabinet
councils, his whole time and thoughts were naturally absorbed in the
great question of the day, and in the formation of a system of policy to
be carried out, when, as appeared probable, he would become Prime
Minister. From such important discussions the ladies of the house were
excluded, as a matter of course; for the day had not arrived when women
loudly clamoured for entrance into public life, neither had the gentler
sex the ambition or the spirit of their sisters of the present day, who
demand a right to sit at the official board with the lords of creation,
and share their titles, after a somewhat Hibernian fashion, of
“Alder-_men_ and Council-_men_.”
How delightful, how captivating, was Lord Derby when work gave place to
leisure, how enviable was the position of her who sat beside him at
luncheon or dinner, how ringing his laugh, how brilliant his nonsense,
how irresistible the good-humoured chaff in which he engaged with his
worshipper, Mr Disraeli, who offered an ever-contented front to many a
keen, though not envenomed dart; what a playfellow he was in
conversation, full of mischief and sparkle! In my own mind I always
considered him a perennial school-boy. It appeared to me that the wand
of some enchanter had arrested the beats of his heart and the flow of
his spirits at boyhood point. No wonder he died before old age crept on
him; the very idea appeared incongruous in connection with him.
[Sidenote: DISRAELI]
One evening we had a large ball, to which the town of Stamford and the
surrounding neighbourhood had been invited, and I was much amused by
overhearing a conversation between two Stamfordians: “Do you know which
is Dizzy?” “Well, naturally, because I see _Punch_ every week.” For even
at that remote period, the peculiar features and singular appearance of
the future Lord Beaconsfield had already become familiar to the world
through the cartoons of our London _Figaro_. There was scarcely ever a
man who changed so little in aspect; his face grew thinner, his youthful
locks became sparse and tinged with grey in later years, but he was the
same man grown older, and a portrait of him between the ages of twenty
and thirty might easily be recognised at fifty or sixty. He was, indeed,
a godsend to the portrait-painter, or caricaturist, and I think it
speaks much to his credit that he always gazed on his own effigy in
_Punch_ or elsewhere, however comic it might be, with intense and
unalloyed amusement. In those days, and in the presence of his Chief, as
we used to call Lord Derby, Dizzy did not take so prominent a part in
social conversation as he naturally did in after years; but there was
something which bespoke concentrated power and resolute ambition, at
least to the readers of physiognomy. His demeanour towards his wife was
through life a theme of commendation amongst those who knew him little
or well. The delicate tact with which he warded off the occasional
sallies that her eccentricities provoked, and the manner in which he, so
to speak, shielded her from ridicule, were conspicuous by their
affectionate diplomacy.
Mrs Disraeli, the farmer’s pretty daughter and the widow of a
millionaire, was a hero-worshipper by profession, and laid herself and
her dowry at the feet of the handsome and talented Benjamin. She was a
happy woman, a happy wife, and a happy member of Society, which she
enjoyed to the full. To few people could the epithet _naïve_ be better
applied. She rather lent herself to than resented the laugh which her
unexpected observations would often raise. To me she was especially
amiable, and I confess to having found untold amusement in her
conversation.
At the time of which I am speaking, the interior of Burghley presented
an appearance of more than usual brilliancy. The spacious rooms, whose
walls were decorated by the paintings of old Italian masters, profusely
lighted, the groups of gaily-dressed and richly-jewelled ladies,
enlivened by a sprinkling of Knights of the Bath and Garter, and last,
but not least, as far as the pageant went, the numbers of male
attendants in the traditional garb of the retainers of the house of
Cecil, in their sky-blue livery, resplendent with frogs and aiguillettes
of silver. The whole scene was calculated to impress the spectator as
one of no common splendour.
Mrs Disraeli had been describing to me the distinguished manner in which
she and her husband had been received at the Court of Louis Philippe,
and at that of the President, when she paused, and looking round
complacently, exclaimed: “But I do assure you, dear Miss Boyle, I like
this sort of thing a great deal better.” The speech reminded me in some
measure of that of Caractacus of Rome, yet I could scarcely say that
Burghley House reminded me of a humble cottage in Britain.
[Illustration:
BOWOOD.
]
[Sidenote: BOWOOD]
Entirely unconnected with the preceding pages, either as to dates,
locality, or personages, is the slight sketch, which I cannot refrain
from subjoining, of the constant visits I paid to Bowood. My first
acquaintance with Lord Lansdowne[55] was made while I was staying with
Mrs Sartoris, of whom he was a warm and zealous admirer, and our
friendship ripened so quickly, that I could scarcely imagine that I had
not known that dear, kind old man all my life. He was a frequent visitor
at my little house in London, and a frequent inviter when anything
especially agreeable presented itself in the way of a party at Lansdowne
House or Bowood. Agreeable indeed must the intercourse with those two
houses have ever been to me, for his daughter-in-law who did the honours
of both, rivalled my host in kindness, and I rejoice to think that we
still meet to talk over those happy days of long ago. All that were
remarkable in Politics, Art, and Literature, were constantly grouped
round the hospitable board of the Master of Bowood, in that spacious
dining-room, illuminated in every sense of the word by the shaded lights
round the walls cast on the beautiful _chef-d’œuvres_ of Clarkson
Stanfield. It is the only instance I have ever seen of an apartment thus
lighted, and the effect is as charming as it is singular. The house is
full of Art treasures, of painting and sculpture, all collected by the
Lord Lansdowne of whom I am writing,[56] who told me himself that when
he first succeeded to the estate, and went to inspect the house at
Bowood, the principal furniture consisted of two or three chairs and a
looking-glass or so in the bedrooms. Now what luxury, what beauty at
every step. As one descends the stairs from the drawing-room leading to
the dining-room a magnificent caste of Michel Angelo’s Pensiero[57]
arrests attention in a lofty niche, while priceless paintings of
Murillo, Rembrandt, Salvator Rosa, etc., decorate the walls; and the
lovely features of Mrs Sheridan, as Saint Cecilia, smile upon one from
Sir Joshua’s canvas.
Footnote 55:
Third Marquess of Lansdowne, first known in the political world as
Lord Henry Petty.
Footnote 56:
1889.
Footnote 57:
The statue of Lorenzo de Medici.
Our host was a great patron and connoisseur of the drama, and encouraged
private theatricals; and I remember a successful evening in which Tom
Taylor, and my friend Gowran Vernon[58] assisted me. Lord Shelburne[59]
had lately brought with him from Paris a collection of those monster
heads which are so often introduced into pantomimes, and we were bent on
utilising these valuable properties.
Footnote 58:
Hon. Gowran Vernon, second son of Robert, first Lord Lyveden.
Footnote 59:
The late and fourth Lord Lansdowne.
It chanced that evening that among the guests, both gentlemen and
ladies, there were three or four more than commonly tall, and we
therefore imagined the representation of a scene in the land of
Brobdingnag, each performer wearing one of the pantomime heads. To me
the smallest was allotted, wearing as it did a simpering expression of
innocence, bordering on imbecility, as in a juvenile costume I assumed
the character of the youthful Glumdalclitch.
The eldest hope of the house, then a lovely little boy, dressed in a
sailor’s suit, was supposed (by a stretch of imagination) to have been
washed on shore, as the diminutive Gulliver. He was presented to me by
my gigantic parent as a plaything. Does His Excellency, the
Governor-General of India,[60] remember that evening when he cast upon
me the most captivating glances of anger and indignation, while I knelt
down to caress and admire my newly-acquired flotsam? His anger has long
passed away, but not my admiration, for in the little Gulliver of those
days I honour the independent Politician, and the high-minded statesman
of these.
Footnote 60:
Henry, present Marquess of Lansdowne, was Governor-General of India
from 1888 to 1894.
------------------------------------------------------------------------