DURING my blindness I was hospitably housed in Eaten Place by Mr.
Whitbread, the head of the renowned firm. After my recovery I had the
good fortune to meet there Lady Morgan, the once famous authoress of the
‘Wild Irish Girl.’ She still bore traces of her former comeliness, and
had probably lost little of her sparkling vivacity. She was known to
like the company of young people, as she said they made her feel young;
so, being the youngest of the party, I had the honour of sitting next her
at dinner. When I recall her conversation and her pleasing manners, I
can well understand the homage paid both abroad and at home to the bright
genius of the Irish actor’s daughter.
We talked a good deal about Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb. This arose out
of my saying I had been reading ‘Glenarvon,’ in which Lady Caroline gives
Byron’s letters to herself as Glenarvon’s letters to the heroine. Lady
Morgan had been the confidante of Lady Caroline, had seen many of Byron’s
letters, and possessed many of her friend’s—full of details of the
extraordinary intercourse which had existed between the two.
Lady Morgan evidently did not believe (in spite of Lady Caroline’s mad
passion for the poet) that the liaison ever reached the ultimate stage
contemplated by her lover. This opinion was strengthened by Lady
Caroline’s undoubted attachment to her husband—William Lamb, afterwards
Lord Melbourne—who seems to have submitted to his wife’s vagaries with
his habitual stoicism and good humour.
Both Byron and Lady Caroline had violent tempers, and were always
quarrelling. This led to the final rupture, when, according to my
informant, the poet’s conduct was outrageous. He sent her some insulting
lines, which Lady Morgan quoted. The only one I remember is:
Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!
Among other amusing anecdotes she told was one of Disraeli. She had met
him (I forget where), soon after his first success as the youthful author
of ‘Vivian Grey.’ He was naturally made much of, but rather in the
Bohemian world than by such queens of society as Lady Holland or Lady
Jersey. ‘And faith!’ she added, with the piquante accent which
excitement evoked, ‘he took the full shine out of his janius. And how do
ye think he was dressed? In a black velvet jacket and suit to match,
with a red sash round his waist, in which was stuck a dagger with a
richly jew’lled sheath and handle.’
The only analogous instance of self-confidence that I can call to mind
was Garibaldi’s costume at a huge reception at Stafford House. The
_élite_ of society was there, in diamonds, ribbons, and stars, to meet
him. Garibaldi’s uppermost and outermost garment was a red flannel
shirt, nothing more nor less.
The crowd jostled and swayed around him. To get out of the way of it, I
retreated to the deserted picture gallery. The only person there was one
who interested me more than the scarlet patriot, Bulwer-Lytton the First.
He was sauntering to and fro with his hands behind his back, looking
dingy in his black satin scarf, and dejected. Was he envying the Italian
hero the obsequious reverence paid to his miner’s shirt? (Nine tenths of
the men, and still more of the women there, knew nothing of the wearer,
or his cause, beyond that.) Was he thinking of similar honours which had
been lavished upon himself when _his_ star was in the zenith? Was he
muttering to himself the usual consolation of the ‘have-beens’—_vanitas
vanitatum_? Or what new fiction, what old love, was flitting through
that versatile and fantastic brain? Poor Bulwer! He had written the
best novel, the best play, and had made the most eloquent parliamentary
oration of any man of his day. But, like another celebrated statesman
who has lately passed away, he strutted his hour and will soon be
forgotten—‘Quand on broute sa gloire en herbe de son vivant, on ne la
récolte pas en épis après sa mort.’ The ‘Masses,’ so courted by the one,
however blatant, are not the arbiters of immortal fame.
To go back a few years before I met Lady Morgan: when my mother was
living at 18 Arlington Street, Sydney Smith used to be a constant visitor
there. One day he called just as we were going to lunch. He had been
very ill, and would not eat anything. My mother suggested the wing of a
chicken.
‘My dear lady,’ said he, ‘it was only yesterday that my doctor positively
refused my request for the wing of a butterfly.’
Another time when he was making a call I came to the door before it was
opened. When the footman answered the bell, ‘Is Lady Leicester at home?’
he asked.
‘No, sir,’ was the answer.
‘That’s a good job,’ he exclaimed, but with a heartiness that fairly took
Jeames’ breath away.
As Sydney’s face was perfectly impassive, I never felt quite sure whether
this was for the benefit of myself or of the astounded footman; or
whether it was the genuine expression of an absent mind. He was a great
friend of my mother’s, and of Mr. Ellice’s, but his fits of abstraction
were notorious.
He himself records the fact. ‘I knocked at a door in London, asked, “Is
Mrs. B— at home?” “Yes, sir; pray what name shall I say?” I looked at
the man’s face astonished. What name? what name? aye, that is the
question. What is my name? I had no more idea who I was than if I had
never existed. I did not know whether I was a dissenter or a layman. I
felt as dull as Sternhold and Hopkins. At last, to my great relief, it
flashed across me that I was Sydney Smith.’
In the summer of the year 1848 Napier and I stayed a couple of nights
with Captain Marryat at Langham, near Blakeney. He used constantly to
come over to Holkham to watch our cricket matches. His house was a
glorified cottage, very comfortable and prettily decorated. The dining
and sitting-rooms were hung with the original water-colour
drawings—mostly by Stanfield, I think—which illustrated his minor works.
Trophies from all parts of the world garnished the walls. The only
inmates beside us two were his son, a strange, but clever young man with
considerable artistic abilities, and his talented daughter, Miss
Florence, since so well known to novel readers.
Often as I had spoken to Marryat, I never could quite make him out. Now
that I was his guest his habitual reserve disappeared, and despite his
failing health he was geniality itself. Even this I did not fully
understand at first. At the dinner-table his amusement seemed, I won’t
say to make a ‘butt’ of me—his banter was too good-natured for that—but
he treated me as Dr. Primrose treated his son after the
bushel-of-green-spectacles bargain. He invented the most wonderful
stories, and told them with imperturbable sedateness. Finding a
credulous listener in me, he drew all the more freely upon his invention.
When, however, he gravely asserted that Jonas was not the only man who
had spent three days and three nights in a whale’s belly, but that he
himself had caught a whale with a man inside it who had lived there for
more than a year on blubber, which, he declared, was better than turtle
soup, it was impossible to resist the fooling, and not forget that one
was the Moses of the extravaganza.
In the evening he proposed that his son and daughter and I should act a
charade. Napier was the audience, and Marryat himself the orchestra—that
is, he played on his fiddle such tunes as a ship’s fiddler or piper plays
to the heaving of the anchor, or for hoisting in cargo. Everyone was in
romping spirits, and notwithstanding the cheery Captain’s signs of
fatigue and worn looks, which he evidently strove to conceal, the evening
had all the freshness and spirit of an impromptu pleasure.
When I left, Marryat gave me his violin, with some sad words about his
not being likely to play upon it more. Perhaps he knew better than we
how prophetically he was speaking. Barely three weeks afterwards I
learnt that the humorous creator of ‘Midshipman Easy’ would never make us
laugh again.
In 1846 Lord John Russell succeeded Sir Robert Peel as premier. At the
General Election, a brother of mine was the Liberal candidate for the
seat in East Norfolk. He was returned; but was threatened with defeat
through an occurrence in which I was innocently involved.
The largest landowner in this division of the county, next to my brother
Leicester, was Lord Hastings—great-grandfather of the present lord. On
the occasion I am referring to, he was a guest at Holkham, where a large
party was then assembled. Leicester was particularly anxious to be civil
to his powerful neighbour; and desired the members of his family to show
him every attention. The little lord was an exceedingly punctilious man:
as scrupulously dapper in manner as he was in dress. Nothing could be
more courteous, more smiling, than his habitual demeanour; but his bite
was worse than his bark, and nobody knew which candidate his agents had
instructions to support in the coming contest. It was quite on the cards
that the secret order would turn the scales.
One evening after dinner, when the ladies had left us, the men were drawn
together and settled down to their wine. It was before the days of
cigarettes, and claret was plentifully imbibed. I happened to be seated
next to Lord Hastings on his left; on the other side of him was Spencer
Lyttelton, uncle of our Colonial Secretary. Spencer Lyttelton was a
notable character. He had much of the talents and amiability of his
distinguished family; but he was eccentric, exceedingly comic, and
dangerously addicted to practical jokes. One of these he now played upon
the spruce and vigilant little potentate whom it was our special aim to
win.
As the decanters circulated from right to left, Spencer filled himself a
bumper, and passed the bottles on. Lord Hastings followed suit. I,
unfortunately, was speaking to Lyttelton behind Lord Hastings’s back, and
as he turned and pushed the wine to me, the incorrigible joker, catching
sight of the handkerchief sticking out of my lord’s coat-tail, quick as
thought drew it open and emptied his full glass into the gaping pocket.
A few minutes later Lord Hastings, who took snuff, discovered what had
happened. He held the dripping cloth up for inspection, and with perfect
urbanity deposited it on his dessert plate.
Leicester looked furious, but said nothing till we joined the ladies. He
first spoke to Hastings, and then to me. What passed between the two I
do not know. To me, he said: ‘Hastings tells me it was you who poured
the claret into his pocket. This will lose the election. After
to-morrow, I shall want your room.’ Of course, the culprit confessed;
and my brother got the support we hoped for. Thus it was that the
political interests of several thousands of electors depended on a glass
of wine.