her daughter went out occasionally to bring in the news; the others
never went out. At last the confinement became most irksome to the
Princesses. They entreated Mrs. Stewart to persuade mama to let them go
out. Mrs. Stewart urged it to the Queen, who said, ‘But the Princesses
have all that they need here; they ought to be satisfied.’--‘Pardon me,
your Majesty,’ said Mrs. Stewart; ‘the Princesses have not all they
need; it is necessary for young people to have some change.’ ‘So,’ said
Mrs. Stewart, ‘at last the Queen saw that it was well, and she
consented. She said, “We will not take one of our own carriages, that
would attract too much attention, but we will take Harty’s--that is, my
daughter’s--carriage, and we will drive in that;” for the Queen had
given Harty a little low carriage and a pony. So they set off--the
Queen, Princess Marie, and only the coachman besides. And when they had
gone some way up the hills, the pony fretted under the new traces and
broke them, and, before they knew where they were, it was away over the
hedges and fields, and they were left in the lane with the broken
carriage. Two Prussian officers rode up--for the Prussians were already
in Hanover--and seeing two ladies, beautiful ladies too (for the Queen
is still very handsome), in that forlorn state, they dismounted, and,
like gentlemen as they were, they came up hat in hand, and offered their
assistance. The Queen said, “Oh, thank you; you see what has happened to
us: our coachman has gone after the pony, which has run away, and no
doubt he will soon come back, so we will just wait his return.” But the
coachman did not come back, and the gentlemen were so polite, they would
not go away, so at last the Queen and Princess had to set out to return
home; and the officers walked with them, never having an idea who they
were, and never left them till they reached the gates of Herrenhausen.
So the Queen came in and said, “You see what has happened, my dear; you
see what a dreadful thing has befallen us: we will none of us ever try
going out again,” and we never did.
“‘We used to go and walk at night in those great gardens of
Herrenhausen, in which the Electress Sophia died. The Queen talked then,
God bless her, of all her sorrows. We often did not come in till the
morning, for the Queen could not sleep. But, even in our great sorrow
and misery, Nature would assert herself, and when we came in, we ate up
everything there was. Generally I had something in my room, and the
Queen had generally something in hers, though that was only bread and
strawberries, and it was not enough for us, for we were so very hungry.
“‘One night the Queen made an aide-de-camp take the key, and we went to
the mausoleum in the grounds. I shall never forget that awful walk,
Harty carrying a single lanthorn before us, or the stillness when we
reached the mausoleum, or the white light shining upon it and the
clanging of the door as it opened. And we all went in, and we knelt and
prayed by each of the coffins in turn. The Queen and Princess Marie
knelt in front, and my daughter and I knelt behind; and we prayed--oh!
so earnestly--out of the deep anguish of our sorrow-stricken hearts. And
then we went up to the upper floor where the statues are. And there lay
the beautiful Queen, the Princess of Solms, in her still loveliness, and
there lay the old King, the Duke of Cumberland, with the moonlight
shining on him, wrapped in his military cloak. And when the Queen saw
him, she, who had been so calm before, sobbed violently and hid herself
against me--for she knows that I also have suffered--and said in a voice
of pathos which I can never forget, “Oh, he was so cruel to me, so very,
very cruel to me.” And after that we walked or lingered on the
garden-seats till daylight broke.
“‘The Queen was always longing to go away to her own house at
Marienberg, and at last she went. She never came back; for, as soon as
she was gone, the Prussians, who had left her alone whilst she was
there, stepped in and took possession of everything.
“‘The Queen is a noble, loving woman, but she is more admirable as a
woman than a queen. I _have_ known her queenly, however. When Count von
Walchenstein, the Prussian commandant, arrived, he desired an interview
with her Majesty. He behaved very properly, but as he was going away--it
was partly from gaucherie, I suppose--he said, “I shall take care that
your Majesty is not interfered with in any way.” Then our Queen rose,
and in queenly simplicity she said, “I never expected it.” He looked so
abashed, but she never flinched; only, when he was gone out of the room,
she fainted dead away upon the floor.
“‘The mistake of our Queen has been with regard to the Crown Prince. She
has had too great motherly anxiety, and has never sent out her son, as
the Empress Eugenie did, to _learn_ his world by acting in it and by
suffering in it.”
“To-day Mrs. Stewart has been talking much of the pain of age, of the
distress of being now able to do so little for others, of being ‘just a
creature crawling between heaven and earth.’ She also spoke much of ‘the
comfort of experience,’ of scarcely anything being quite utterly
irrevocable; that ‘in most things, most crimes even, one can trail,
_trail_ oneself in the dust before God and man.’
“In the morning Mrs. Stewart sat for her portrait to Madeleine, in her
picturesque square head-dress. She was pleased at being asked to sit.
‘Il faut vieillir être heureuse,’ she said. She talked much whilst she
was sitting--much of Lady H.’s insolent and often unfeeling sayings. She
spoke of a doctor who had the same inclination, and said to her, ‘Ça ne
me repugne pas de dire les vérités cruelles.’ Talking of self-respect,
she quoted the maxim of Madame George Sand--
‘Charité envers les autres;
Sincérité envers Dieu;
Dignité envers soi-même.’
And added, ‘But who should one be well with if not with oneself, with
whom one has to live so very much.’
“This morning Lady Ducie’s pet housemaid gave warning, because, she
said, Lady Ducie was not so sympathetic to her as she was six weeks ago.
She said that as Lady Ducie was now not nearly so nice to her as she had
been, she should be obliged to marry a greengrocer who had proposed to
her.
“In the afternoon we drove to Daylesford--Warren Hastings’ so beloved
home. It is a very pretty place, picturesque modern cottages amid tufted
trees, and a very beautiful small modern church on a green. This church
was built by Mr. Grisewood, and supplants a so-called Saxon church,
restored after a thousand years of use by Warren Hastings. The
inscription commemorating his restoration still remains, and ends with
the text--‘For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday.’ The
tomb of Warren Hastings, a yellow urn on a pedestal, stands in the
churchyard just under the east window. He left the place to his wife’s
son by her first husband, Count Imhoff. Lady Ducie remembers Countess
Imhoff coming to visit her mother, always with a great deal of state,
and always dressed in white satin and swansdown, like one of Romney’s
pictures. Mr. Grisewood succeeded the Imhoffs, and, when his son became
a Roman Catholic, sold the place to Mr. Bias. We drove to the house,
which stands well--a comfortable yellow stone house in pretty grounds,
with a clear running stream. Its reminiscences and the power of calling
them up made Mrs. Stewart speak with great admiration of those who
‘could find the least bit of bone and create a mastodon.’
“In returning, Mrs. Stewart told the story of Miss Geneviève Ward, the
actress. In early life she was travelling with her mother, when they
fell in with a handsome young Russian, Count Constant Guerra. He
proposed to her, and as the mother urged it, thinking it a good match,
she married him then and there in her mother’s presence, without
witnesses, he solemnly promising to make her his wife publicly as soon
as he could. When he could, he refused to fulfil his promise; but the
mother was an energetic woman, and she appealed to the Czar, who forced
Guerra to keep his word. He said he would do what the Czar bade him, but
that his wife should suffer for it all her life. To his amazement, when
the day for the marriage arrived, the bride appeared with her mother,
led to the altar in a long crape veil as to a funeral. Her brothers
stood by her with loaded pistols, and at the door of the church was a
carriage into which she stepped as soon as the ceremony was over, and
he never saw her again. She is Madame Constant Guerra, and has acted as
‘Guerrabella.’
“When we came home, I told a story in Lady Ducie’s sitting-room. Then
Lord Denbigh told how--
“‘Sir John Acton (whose son was Lady Granville’s first husband) was a
great friend of Lord Nelson, who was at that time occupied in a vain and
hopeless search for the French fleet.[220] One day Sir John was in his
wife’s dressing-room while she was preparing for dinner. As her French
maid was dressing her, a letter was put into her hand, at which she gave
such a start that she ran a pin she was holding into Lady Acton. This
caused Lady Acton to inquire what ailed her. She said the letter was
from her brother, a French sailor, from whom she had not heard for a
long time, and about whom she had been anxious. Sir John Acton, with
great presence of mind, offered to read her the letter while she went on
doing her mistress’s hair. As soon as he had read it he went off to Lord
Nelson. The letter gave all the information so long sought in vain, and
the battle of the Nile was the result of the prick of a pin.’”
* * * * *
“_Prestbury, Oct. 6._--It poured so hard this morning that I put off
leaving Sarsden till late. Mrs. Stewart again talked much of the
Hanoverian Court, of the Guelph love of doubtful stories; how she saved
up any story she heard for the blind King. One day she was telling him
a story ‘about Margaret Bremer’s father’ as they were driving. Suddenly
the horses started, and the carriage was evidently going to be upset.
‘Why don’t you go on?’ said the King. ‘Because, sir, we are just going
to upset.’--‘That is the coachman’s affair,’ said the King; ‘do you go
on with your story.’
“With the Greatheeds, in whose cottage I am staying, I went a long
excursion yesterday up the Cotswold Hills, which have a noble view of
the great rich plain of Gloucestershire. Winchcombe, on the other side,
is a charming old town of quaint irregular houses. We passed through it
to Hailes Abbey, a small low ruin now, of cloisters in a rich meadow,
but once most important as containing the great relic of the Precious
Blood, which was brought thither by Edmund, son of the founder, Richard,
King of the Romans. Thirteen bishops said mass at different altars at
the consecration, and three of the Plantagenets--the founder, his wife,
and his son Edmund--are buried in the church. It is now a peaceful
solitude, with a few ancient thatched cottages standing round the wooded
pastures.
“In returning, we turned aside to Sudeley Castle, the old Seymour house,
where Katherine Parr is buried. It is a picturesque and grand old house,
partially restored, partly now a green courtyard surrounded by ruined
walls and arches. The Queen’s (modern) tomb has a touching sleeping
figure[221] guarded by two angels. As we were coming out of the chapel,
Mrs. Dent[222] pursued us--a picturesque figure in a Marie Antoinette
hat--and brought us in to tea. The Dents made their fortunes as glovers,
and, in their present magnificence, a parcel of their gloves, as from
the shop, is always left in a conspicuous place in the hall, to ‘keep
them humble.’”
* * * * *
“_Tettenhall Wood, Oct. 12._--Whilst with the Corbets at Cheltenham, I
visited Thirlstone, a curious house which belonged to Lord Northbrook.
It was afterwards bought by Sir J. Philipps, the bibliomaniac, and
contains the most enormous and extraordinary collection of books and
pictures imaginable; a few gems, but imbedded in masses of rubbish,
which the present possessor, Mrs. Fenwick, daughter of the collector, is
forbidden to sell or destroy.
“I have been working hard for Mrs. Moore at the Memoir of her husband
the Archdeacon (the object of my visit), and have read through all his
speeches, &c. I see, however, how impracticable it is to help in work of
this kind. Mrs. Moore implores me to cut out what should be omitted. I
select what seems to me utterly trivial and commonplace, and she is
annoyed, saying it comprises the only matters of real importance. She
implores me to correct her diction and grammar: I do so, and she weeps
because her pleasure is destroyed in a work which is no longer her own.”
* * * * *
“_Donington Rectory, Oct. 13._--This is a pleasant place in itself, and
any place would be pleasant within view of the beloved Wrekin.[223] On
arriving, I went on at once to Boscobel, and saw the oak which grew from
an acorn of the tree that sheltered Charles II., and in the ancient
half-timbered house, the hiding-place under the floor at the top of the
turret-stairs, where the Prince is said to have crouched for forty-eight
hours, with his trap-door concealed by cheeses. Well smothered he must
have been, if Staffordshire cheeses smelt then as they do now. There is
a good portrait of Charles, which he presented to the house after the
Restoration. I went on with Henry de Bunsen to White Ladies, now a low
ruin of red walls in a meadow, but entered still by a fine Norman
archway. Inside is a quiet burial-ground for Roman Catholics, amongst
whose lichen-tinted headstones is that of ‘Mistress Joan, who was called
friend by Charles II.’--being one of those who assisted in his escape.
Beyond, in Hubble Lane, is the ruin of the Pendrill house. The
Pendrills[224] were seven brothers, common labourers, but went up to
London and had a pension after the Restoration.
“We went on to Tong--a glorious church, quite a church of the dead, so
full of noble tombs of Stanleys and Vernons. Near it, in low-lying lands
with water, is Tong Castle, the old house of the Durants. The last Mr.
Durant brought in another lady to live with his wife, which she
resented, and she left him. There was a long divorce suit, which they
both attended every day in coaches and six. Owing to some legal quibble,
he gained his suit, though the facts against him were well known, and he
was so delighted at the triumph over his wife that he erected a monument
in honour of his victory on the hill above the castle. The sons all took
part with their mother, and when Mr. Durant was lying in his last
illness, they set barrels of gunpowder surreptitiously under the
monument, and had a match and train ready. They bribed a groom at the
house to ride post-haste with the news as soon as the breath was out of
their father’s body; and the news of his death first became known to
the county by the monument being blown into shivers. The Durants sold
Tong to Lord Bradford.”
* * * * *
“_Bretton, Yorkshire, Oct. 30._--I have been here for a very pleasant
week with a large party of what Lady Margaret (Beaumont) calls her
‘young men and maidens.’ ... There has been nothing especial to narrate,
though our hostess has entertained the whole party with her
never-failing charm of conversation and wit.
“One day I went with Henry Strutt,[225] whom I like much, to Wakefield,
to draw the old chapel on the bridge. What an awful place Wakefield
is--always an inky sky and an inky landscape, and the river literally so
inky that the Mayor went out in a boat, dipped his pen, and wrote a
letter with it to the Commissioners of Nuisances.”
* * * * *
“_Raby Castle, Nov. 1._--I came here on Monday, meeting the delicately
humorous Mr. Dicky Doyle at Darlington, yet with much fear that there
were few other guests; but I was relieved to find ‘Eleanor the Good,’
Duchess of Northumberland, seated at the five-o’clock tea-table, and
have had much pleasant talk with her. She spoke of her absorbing
attachment to Alnwick and the pain it was to leave it; that the things
which make the greatest blanks in life are not the greatest griefs, but
the losses which most affect daily life and habits.... Frederick Stanley
and Lady Constance[226] came in the evening, he very pleasant, and she
almost more full of laughs than any one I ever saw. Other guests are
Colonel and Mrs. Duncombe, young Gage, who will be Lord Gage,[227] and
just before dinner a good-looking youth came in, who turned out to be
Peddie Bennet.[228]
“Yesterday Lord and Lady Pollington came, and old Lord Strathnairn,
looking thinner and more of an old dandy than ever.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 3._--Yesterday, while I was walking with the Pollingtons through
the beech-woods deep in rustling leaves, the castle bell announced the
advent of guests, and returning, we found the Warwicks and Brooke
arrived.”
* * * * *
“_Whitburn Hall, Nov. 7._--There is a great pleasure not only in the
affection, but in the _demonstration_ of affection which one receives
here. Dear old Lady Williamson, in her beautiful tender old age, wins
all hearts by the patience with which she bears her blindness, and the
sweetness with which she sometimes imagines she sees; and Lady
Barrington’s lovely and lovable old face brings sunshine to all around
it.... In the younger generation, all is hospitality and kindness.”
* * * * *
“_Brancepeth Castle, Nov. 8._--Yesterday I went with Augusta Harrington
to visit Edward[229] and Tunie Liddell in their new home at Jarrow. It
is startling to see how the spirit that animated the early martyrs has
induced them to exchange competence for penury, and to give up the elms
and flowers and pleasant sunny rooms of the Rectory at Wimpole. Now they
are amidst a teeming population of blackened, foul-mouthed, drunken
roughs, living in miserable rows of dismal houses, in a country where
every vestige of vegetation is killed by noxious chemical vapours, on
the edge of a slimy marsh, with a distance of inky sky, and furnaces
vomiting forth volumes of blackest smoke. All nature seems parched and
writhing under the pollution. Their days are perfectly full of work, and
they have scarcely ever an evening to themselves.... They said our visit
did them good, and I shall go again.
“Edward had been perplexed by an old woman, one of his parishioners,
always declaring herself to be at least ten years younger than he felt
certain she must be, yet he did not think she was of the kind who would
tell a lie. At last he found that she dated her age from her baptism.
‘The clergy were not so quick upon us then,’ she said, ‘as they are now;
so my father he just waited till we were all born to have us baptized,
and then had us all done together: there were eleven of us.’
“I reached this great castle in pitch darkness. It is a magnificent
place--a huge courtyard and enormous fabric girdled in by tremendous
towers of Henry III. The staircase is modern, but most of the rooms have
still the vaulted ceilings of Henry III.’s time, though the arms of the
Nevilles, with which they were once painted, are gone now. The beer and
wine cellars, with some cells called dungeons, are very curious. The
butler pointed out with pride the _black_ cobwebs which hung in festoons
and cover much of the wine, a great deal of which was in the huge
bottles called ‘cocks’ and ‘hens.’ The white cobwebs he had less opinion
of: they are less healthy.
“Pleasant Lady Haddington[230] and her daughter are here. Lady
Boyne[231] is a most pretty and winning hostess, and her children are
thoroughly well brought up, and take a pleasant easy part in everything.
In the evenings the whole party dance ‘Durham reels’ in the great hall.
“It was disappointing to have snow to-day, but there is much to interest
in the house and in the old church of St. Brandon close by, where some
grand figures of the Nevilles sleep before the altar. The very curious
pews and reading-desk of the time of Bishop Cosin were destroyed in a
mutilation of the church under the garb of ‘restoration’ sixteen years
ago.
“There are several curious pictures by Hogarth here, in which the Lord
Boyne of that day is introduced; but the most remarkable is one of Sir
Francis Dashwood as a monk of Medmenham worshipping a naked woman and
all the good things of life.”
* * * * *
“_Kirklands, Nov. 14._--On Friday I was again at Jarrow, and was warmly
welcomed by the Edward Liddells. Next morning I went with Edward to the
wonderful old church of the seventh century, where Bede’s chair still
stands under the Saxon arches. All around vegetation is blasted; dead
trees rear their naked boughs into the black sky, and grimy rushes
vainly endeavour to grow in the poisonous marshes. The very horror of
ugliness gives a weird and ghastly interest to the place. Edward finds
endless work, and enjoys the struggle he lives in. As Montalembert says,
‘Ce n’est pas la victoire qui fait le bonheur des nobles cœurs--c’est
le combat.’ His is literally a Christian warfare. If he has spare time,
he employs it in looking about the streets for drunken men. As he sees
them come reeling along, he offers to help them, and walks home with
them clinging to his arm. On the way he draws them out, and having thus
found out where they live, returns next day, armed with the silly things
they have let fall, to make them ashamed with. While I was making a
little sketch of the church, a wedding party came in, the bridegroom
being tipsy. Edward accused him of it, and he confessed at once, saying
that he had been in such a fright at the ceremony, he had been obliged
to take some spirits to keep his courage up. Edward said he wondered he
could care for that sort of courage, that was only Dutch courage, real
English courage was the only right sort; and as he supposed he wished
to make his wife happy, that was the sort of courage he must look for;
but being drunk on the day he married was a bad omen for her happiness.
And yet, in the midst of his little scolding, Edward was so charming to
them all that the whole wedding party were captivated, and an
acquaintance, if not a friendship, was founded. It all showed a power of
work in the real way to win souls. And--
‘He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.’[232]
“I came here by a bitterly cold journey of ten hours through the snow.
The train went off the line, and we were delayed so late that I had to
drive all the way from Kelso--a dark bitter drive. Har Elliot[233]
received me most warmly, with her little Admiral, and dear old George
Liddell. The place was built by old Mr. Richardson, the Writer to the
Signet, and now belongs to his daughter Joanna. On Sunday afternoon we
went to Ancrum, the burnt house of Sir William Scott, now being rebuilt
in the old Scotch style; its situation is lovely.”
* * * * *
“_Edinburgh, Nov. 19._--I have been four days at Winton with dear old
Lady Ruthven. She is now blind as well as deaf, and very helpless, but
she is still a loving centre of beautiful and unstinted beneficence.
She says, ‘It is a great trial, a very great trial, neither to see nor
hear, but it is astonishing the amount of time it gives one for good
thoughts. I just know fifty chapters of the Bible by heart, and when I
say them to myself in the night, it soothes and quiets me, however great
the pain and restlessness. It is often a little trial to me--the
unsatisfied longing I have to know just a little more, just _something_
of the beyond. If I could only find out if my husband and my sister knew
about me. There is a little poem I often think of--
‘The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.’[234]
Perhaps it will be so with me; but soon I shall know all, and meantime
God is very good. Since my last great illness I have not been able for
it, but till then I just always went on reading prayers to my servants,
that is, I could not really read, you know, but I just _said_ a chapter
out of my own remembrance, and then I prayed as I felt we needed.’
“Lady Ruthven can repeat whole cantos of Milton and other poets, and her
peculiar voice does not spoil them; rather, when one remembers her great
age and goodness, it adds an indescribable pathos. She likes to be read
to down her trumpet, which is not easy; and the person she hears best
thus is George the under-footman; but, as she says, she ‘has formidable
rivals in lamps.’
“One of her occupations is feeding her pheasants with bread and milk at
the castle door. ‘Ah! I see you are early accustoming them to bread
sauce,’ said Mr. Reeve of the _Edinburgh Review_, when he saw her thus
employed.
“One day we drove to Yester (Lord Tweeddale’s), only remarkable for its
pretty wooded approach. In leaving Lady Ruthven, one could not but feel
one left her for the last time, and _what_ for her the change--which at
ninety must be so near--will be, from blindness, deafness, helplessness,
after her entirely noble and holy life--to light, and hearing, and
power.”
* * * * *
“_Edinburgh, Nov. 20._--A visit to the Robert Shaw Stewarts has given me
a pleasant glimpse of Edinburgh society.