A Lady of the Last Century
[Illustration: Garrick and His Wife
_Photogravure from the painting by Wm. Hogarth_]
[Illustration]
A Lady of the Last
Century
BY
JOHN DORAN, LL. D.
PUBLISHED BY
FRANCIS A. NICCOLLS & CO.
BOSTON
_ÉDITION DE LUXE._
_Limited to One Thousand Copies._
No. ....
TO
Andreas J. G. Holtz, Esq.
(TWYFORD ABBEY)
THIS “BIT OF MOSAIC” IS DEDICATED, WITH SENTIMENTS
OF THE MOST SINCERE ESTEEM AND
CORDIAL REGARD.
Preface
In the year 1809, Mr. Matthew Montagu published the first two of four
volumes of letters of his aunt, Elizabeth Montagu. He was not only her
nephew, he was also her adopted son and her executor. On the 5th of
December in that year, the celebrated statesman, William Windham, was
reading those volumes, “in the evening, up-stairs;” and he subsequently
recorded the following judgment of them in his diary: “I think very
highly of them. One of their chief merits is _series juncturaque_.
Nothing can be more easy and natural than the manner in which the
thoughts rise one out of the other, even where the thoughts may appear
rather forced, nor is the expression ever hard or laboured. I see but
little to object to in the thoughts themselves, but nothing can be more
natural or graceful than the manner in which they are put together. The
flow of her style is not less natural, because it is fully charged with
shining particles, and sparkles as it flows.”
In 1813, Mr. Matthew Montagu published two more volumes of his aunt’s
correspondence. The press generally received them with pleasant testimony
of approval. It not only endorsed the judgment of the eminent statesman
quoted above, but it especially pointed out that the letters were genuine
and authentic, which could not be said of a similar collection of
letters then challenging the censure of the town. Mrs. Montagu’s letters
were read with great avidity, and readers for the most part came to the
same conclusion as the statesman and the critics.
The last letter in the series is addressed to Mrs. Elizabeth Carter.
The date is September, 1761. The writer lived nearly forty years after
that date. During that time, she maintained a lively correspondence;
her letters were copied and circulated. After her death, a few,
with fragments of others, found their way into various periodicals.
The correspondence which Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu kept up with her
sister-in-law, Mrs. Robinson, wife of the Rev. William Robinson, and a
few other friends, between 1761 and the close of the last century, was
long in the possession of the late Mr. Richard Bentley, who purchased
them at a sale of autographs. These form the chief portion of the present
volume.
In a note to the letters published by Mr. Montagu, the editor states that
they are “intended to convey in them the biography of the writer, which
the editor thinks he could not so well exemplify by any remarks of his
own as by the letters themselves.” Mr. Montagu gave to his aunt’s readers
every word of every epistle, from the salutation to the signature.
From the letters now printed for the first time there have only been
omitted vain repetitions, formal compliments, and the nothings that may
have once been somethings, but which are now mere dust and ashes, from
which little of value is to be sifted. There have been retained all that
could further “convey the biography of the writer,” with addition of such
anecdotal illustration from the printed letters and from contemporary
records as might serve to show more completely the character and
surroundings of a Lady of the Last Century.
Contents
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
Birth and Parentage of Mrs. Montagu—Long Tom Robinson—Dr.
Conyers Middleton—Early Training of Mrs. Montagu—Funeral
at York Cathedral—Mrs. Makin—Her System of Female
Education—School at Tottenham High Cross—Early Habits of Mrs.
Montagu—The Duchess of Portland—Mary-le-Bone Gardens—“La
Petite Fidget” at Bath, at Tunbridge Wells—Lord Noel
Somerset—Bath Life in 1740—Lord Lyttelton—Scarlet Beaux and
Country Polyphemuses—Modern Marriages—Garrick’s Richard the
Third—Offers of Marriage to Miss Robinson 1
CHAPTER II.
Edward Montagu—Wedding Tour—Allerthorpe—Pursuits There—Lord
Dupplin—Character of Mrs. Montagu’s Neighbours—Unwelcome
Visitor—Habits of Mind—Lite in London—Birth of a Son—Little
“Punch”—Death of Her Son—Visits Tunbridge Wells—Doctor
Young and Colley Cibber There—The Vicar of Tunbridge—The
Rebellion of 1745—Death of Mrs. Montagu’s Mother—Wilton—Death
of Her Brother—Mode of Life at Bath—Mrs. Gilbert West—Mrs.
Montagu’s Tastes—Love of Books—Her Analysis of Clarissa
Harlowe—Mrs. Pilkington—Lady Sandwich—Miss Chudleigh at the
Masquerade—Letter to Mr. Montagu 23
CHAPTER III.
Visits London—George Lewis Scott—Marries Mrs. Montagu’s
Sister—Their Separation—Death a Friend—Lady Hester
Pitt—The Refugee, Bower—Lady Townshend’s Ball—Lady
Essex—“Bluestockings”—Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet—Rumours of
War—Life in the Country—Mrs. Elizabeth Carter—Mr. Montagu
Succeeds to a Rich Inheritance—Dangerous Mistake—Doctor
Monsey—Doctor Johnson—Mrs. Ogle’s Benefit—Mrs. Montagu’s
Character of Burke—Writes a Criticism and Misses a
Ball—Dissipations and Diversions—Two Old Lovers—Mrs.
Montagu as an Authoress—“Dialogues of the Dead”—French in
the Shades—Female Education—Longing after Rest—Accession
of George the Third—House in Hill Street—Furniture in
Fashion—Mrs. Montagu a Political Economist—Anecdote of an
Old Scotch Woman—“The Penitents”—Warburton—His Treatment of
Shakespeare—William Robinson—His Life of Inaction—Sir Charles
Williams—Hammond’s “Elegies” 42
CHAPTER IV.
Anecdote of the Young King—Lord Anson—Retirement of Mr.
Speaker Onslow—Death of Beau Nash—Mr. Pitt—His Character—Lord
Bute—Marriage of the King—Portrait of Queen Charlotte—Lord
Hardwicke Reads an Account of Her in Public—Preparations
for the Coronation—Arrival of the Queen—Doctor Young’s
New Poem—London on the Night of the Coronation—Duke of
Ancaster—Lady Hardwicke—Regret at Mr. Pitt’s Resignation—His
Reception in the City—Speech in the Commons—George
Grenville—_Bon Mot_ of Lady Townshend—“Millennium Hall”—Kitty
Hunter—“The School for Lovers”—Change of Costume—Lord Clive at
Bath 64
CHAPTER V.
Retirement of the Duke of Newcastle—The King’s Purchase of
Buckingham House—Violent Distemper in London—Death of the
Duke of Portland and Mrs. Donellan—Lord Halifax—Death of Sir
Edward Dering—Mr. Harrison’s Watch—_Bon Mot_ of the Duke of
Newcastle—His Character—Declines a Pension—Pension to Doctor
Johnson—Birth of “The First Gentleman in Europe”—The Duke
of Bedford—Englishmen Naturally Politicians—Instalment of
the Knights of the Garter—Return to England of Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu—Her Death—Her Character—Her Reception of Mrs.
Montagu—Lady Mary Leaves Her Son One Guinea—His Singular
Character—Gathering at Hagley—The New Cold, “L’Influenza”—Mrs.
Montagu Visits Oxford, Blenheim, Kenilworth, Warwick
Castle—Mrs. Montagu at Sandleford—Lord Bath Proposed To—His
Death—His Great Wealth—Mrs. Montagu Visits Alnwick, Edinburgh,
Glasgow, the Trossachs—The Vale of Glencoe—Visit to Lord
Kames—Literary Evenings in Edinburgh—The Poet Gray—His
Reserve—The Art of Conversation—Lady Cornewall Abroad 83
CHAPTER VI.
Critical State of Public Affairs—Voltaire’s Attack on
Shakespeare—Mrs. Montagu’s Defence—Reception of Her
Essay—Countess Gower’s Criticism—Doctor Johnson’s Opinion of
It—Garrick—Cowper’s Opinion—Mrs. Montagu Falls Ill—Visits
Edinburgh—Mrs. Chapone—Lord Buchan—Lord Kinnoul—Lord
Breadalbane—Lord Kames—Scotch Hospitality—Death of
George Grenville—Rumours of War—The King’s Speech—Lord
Chatham—Conversations of Lord Kames and Mrs. Montagu—Voltaire’s
Abuse of Lord Kames—William Emerson—Cheated by His
Father-in-law—Burke—George Grenville—Death of the
Duke of Bedford—His Character, Wealth, and Political
Influence—Legacies—Foreign Politics—Ladies’ Schools 106
CHAPTER VII.
The Duchess of Portland—Fineness of the Weather—Visit
to Winchester—Smuggling—Visit to Mr. Burke at
Beaconsfield—Character of Mr. Burke—Lord Temple—Lord
Nuneham—Mrs. Montagu’s Relations—Gray the Poet—Compared
to Pindar—Changes in Newspapers—Extinction of
Letter-Writing—Failure of Sir George C——e—Bad State of the
Country—Good Luck in Smuggling—Requirements of a Young
Lady in 1773—Christmas Festivities—Character of Mrs.
Montagu’s Niece—Lord Stanhope—Lord Mahon—Observations on
the Bringing-up of Children—Miss Gregory—The Price of a
Dull Man—Doctor Johnson—Mrs. Montagu Settles an Annuity on
Mrs. Williams—Serious Illness of Mr. Montagu—His Love of
Mathematics—His Death—Prospects of His Widow—Horace Walpole to
Mason 122
CHAPTER VIII.
Mrs. Montagu’s Attention to Her Affairs—Visits Sandleford
and Denton—Visits Her Estate at Burniston—Entertains Her
Tenants—Drought in 1775—Charitable Institutions—Visits Her
Collieries—Difference between Her Northumbrian and Yorkshire
Tenantry—Anecdote of Walter Scott—Lord Villiers Acts Lord
Townley—The French Ambassador—Lord Granby—Mrs. Montagu
in Paris—Voltaire Sends a Paper to the Academy against
Shakespeare—Mrs. Montagu Is Present at the Reading—Her Ready
Reply to M. Suard—A Judicious Idleness—Quantity of Rouge Used
in Paris—The Emperor of Austria—“The School for Scandal”—The
Duchess of Devonshire—Run of Bad Weather—Sir William
Temple—Doctor Robinson’s History of America—Lord Shelburne—Abbé
Raynal—Prevalence of Influenza—Engagement of Lady Mary
Somerset—Death of Morris Robinson—Jack the Painter—Doctor
Dodd—Lord Chesterfield—Lady Strathmore’s Conduct at the
Elections—Stoney Bowes 139
CHAPTER IX.
Nuneham—Society There—The French Ambassador—The Taking of
Ticonderoga—Morris Robinson’s Widow—Building of the Haymarket
Theatre—Mrs. Montagu’s Heir—The Minuet—Family Affairs—Kindness
to Mrs. Morris Robinson—Accident to Mrs. Scott—Lord Percy’s
Divorce—The Duke of Hamilton—Miss Burrell—False Report of the
Death of Mrs. Montagu’s Father—Accident to Lord Chatham—His
Appearance in the House of Lords—Speech There in Reply to
the Duke of Richmond—Sinks Speechless in a Fit—Mothers and
Daughters in 1778 161
CHAPTER X.
Character of Miss Coke—The New Singer at the Pantheon—Society
at Tunbridge Wells—The Minuet Goes Out of Fashion—Decay of
Mrs. Montagu’s Father—The Camp at Coxheath—Prosperity of the
North of England—Lord Kames—Victory of Lord Rodney—Completion
of the Circus at Bath—Commencement of the Crescent There—Life
in Bath—Cards the Chief Business There—Mr. Anstey—Four by
Honours—Riots in England—The Nabobs—Marriage of Mrs. Montagu’s
Niece—Mrs. Montagu’s New House—Corruption of London Society
in 1779—Three Divorces in One Session—Lord Percy—Lord
Carmarthen—Lord Derby—The Duke of Dorset—Mrs. Macaulay 174
CHAPTER XI.
The Bluestockings—Mrs. Chapone as Lady Racket in the
_Rambler_—The _Rambler_ Attacks Card-Playing—Sunday Night
Parties—Madame Du Bocage—Card-Parties at the Duke of
Richmond’s—A Breakfast at Mrs. Montagu’s—Frederick, Prince of
Wales—His Accomplishments—Breakfast Parties Yield to Evening
Coteries—Origin of “Bluestocking”—Mr. Stillingfleet—Eminent
Persons Who Met at the Assemblies of Mrs. Montagu, Mrs.
Vesey, and Mrs. Ord—The Club—Sir Joshua Reynolds—Doctor
Johnson—Hawkins—Beautiful Ceiling and Chimney-piece at Mrs.
Montagu’s—Lord Chesterfield’s New House—Dangers Surrounding
It in 1748—Doctor Johnson at Montagu House—Soame Jenyns’
Epitaph on Johnson—Mrs. Garrick—Manner of Her First Appearance
on the Stage—Lady Clermont’s Al Fresco Gatherings—Syllabubs
in Berkeley Square—Footpads on Hay Hill—Garrick Recites
from “Macbeth” at Lady Montagu’s—Lady Spencer’s Eyes—Doctor
Johnson at Mrs. Vesey’s—Contest of Gallantry with Mrs.
Buller—Miss Monkton, Afterward Lady Cork—Conversation
of Mrs. Montagu—Walpole on Bluestockings—Hannah More’s
Description of the _Bas-Bleu_ Meetings—The People Who
Attended the Bluestocking Assemblies—Johnson’s Quarrel
with Mrs. Montagu—His Life of Lyttelton—Horace Walpole—His
Criticism on Mrs. Montagu—“Château Portman”—The Parnassus
at Batheaston—Introduction of _Bouts-rimés_—Walpole’s
Satirical Account of the Parnassus Fair—Mrs. Montagu in
Montagu House—Mrs. Montagu as Vanessa, in _The Observer_—Miss
Siddons—Miss Mitford on the Batheaston Meetings 190
CHAPTER XII.
Queen Charlotte—Miss Burney—The New House in Portman
Square—Improvements in Her Property—Character of the French,
Dutch, and English—Lord Edward Bentinck—Miss Cumberland—Lord
Bristol—Mr. Brown’s Improvements at Sandleford—Bishop of
Durham—Madame de Genlis—Mrs. Montagu’s “New Palace”—The
Harcourts—Mrs. Montagu’s Advice to a Niece—Johnson’s “Lives of
the Poets”—Sir Richard Jebb—Mrs. Montagu Sets Up a New Sort of
Carriage by the Advice of Sir Richard Jebb—Miss Gregory—Letter
to Morris Robinson’s Widow—Air-Balloons—The Prince of Wales—Is
Hissed at the Theatre—The French Ambassador—French Bribery in
England—Doctor Johnson’s Testimony to Mrs. Montagu 218
CHAPTER XIII.
Air-Balloons—Fire at Sandleford—Feather-Work—Mrs. Montagu
at the Drawing-Rooms—Mr. Jerningham’s Lines on the Occasion
of Her Fall There—Engagement of Her Heir and Nephew to
Miss Charlton—Character of Her Nephew—Of Miss Charlton—Mr.
Pitt—Marriage of Mrs. Montagu’s Heir—Breakfast at Salt
Hill—Lord Lansdowne—Lady Sutherland—Lord Trentham—Declining
Health of Mrs. Vesey—Lady Spencer—Lord Grimston—Mrs. Montagu
Visits Her Newcastle Property—Lord Mount-Stewart—Lord
Carlisle—Lord Ravensworth—Sir Henry Liddell—Cowper’s Verses
on Mrs. Montagu—Employments of Young Mr. Montagu—His
Maiden Speech Answered by Mr. Fox—Wraxall’s Allusion to
It—General Montagu Matthew—His Disclaimer of Connection
with Matthew Montagu—Southampton—London in Winter—The
Commencement of Troubles in France—The Duke of Dorset
Introduces a “Thé”—Described by Hannah More—The King’s
Illness—Mr. Fox’s Illness—Lord Mount Edgcumbe—Bath—Mr.
Montagu—Lord Harrowby—Party at Mrs. Montagu’s, at
Which Burke Is Present—Mackenzie, Author of “The Man of
Feeling”—Wilberforce—Great Dinners to Great People—Mrs.
Montagu’s Failing Health—Mrs. Carter—Education of Girls—Mrs.
Montagu’s Interest in the Subject—Summary of Her Life and
Character 232
List of Illustrations
PAGE
GARRICK AND HIS WIFE (_See page 162_) _Frontispiece_
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU 62
“I ALLOWED MY FRIZEUSE TO PUT ON WHATEVER ROUGE WAS USUALLY WORN” 150
THE MINUET 186
ON THE SEA-WALL AT SOUTHAMPTON 245
A Lady of the Last Century
CHAPTER I.
Elizabeth Robinson, who became so well known, subsequently, as Mrs.
Montagu, belongs altogether to the eighteenth century. She was born at
York, in October, 1720. She died in the last year of that century, 1800.
Miss Robinson was of a family, the founder of which, William Robinson, a
London merchant, but a descendant of a line of Scottish barons, bought,
in 1610, the estate of Rokeby, in Yorkshire, from Sir Thomas Rokeby,
whose ancestors had held it from the time of the Conquest. Her father,
Matthew Robinson, was an only son of a cadet branch of the Robinsons. He
was a member of the University of Cambridge, where he wooed the Muses
less ardently than he did Miss Elizabeth Drake, a beautiful heiress, whom
he married when he was only eighteen years of age. The very young couple
settled at Edgeley, in Yorkshire; but the husband (owner, through his
wife, of more than one estate in the country) preferred the shady side of
Pall Mall to fields of waving corn or groves vocal with nightingales.
Of the twelve children of this marriage, seven sons and two daughters
survived their youth. The daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah, were endowed
with the same literary tastes. Sarah wrote the more books, but Elizabeth
is the better remembered. The church, the law, politics, and commerce
attracted one or other of the sons.
In 1730, the head of the elder branch of the Robinsons, Thomas, was
created a baronet. He was that famous Long Tom Robinson of whom so many
well-known stories are told. Chesterfield slightly touched him in an
epigram, and Walpole seldom referred to him without a sarcasm. At the
coronation of George the Third, Sir Thomas was mock Duke of Normandy,
who, with an equally English and mock Duke of Aquitaine, was supposed
to indicate that the King of England was as much King of France, by
the grace of God, as he pretended to be. Long Sir Thomas was so truly
an Englishman that he went to France, and into French society, in his
hunting-suit. A satirical French abbé, hearing his name and looking at
his marvellous attire, gravely asked him if he were Robinson Crusoe.
Long Sir Thomas Robinson sold Rokeby to the Morritts in 1769. When he
died, in 1777, his title went to his next surviving brother, Richard.
This Richard was an English clergyman, who, in 1731, had commenced a
successful career in Ireland, as chaplain to two viceroys, and he was
successively Bishop of Killala, of Leighlin and Ferns, and of Kildare.
Finally, he was raised to the dignity of Archbishop of Armagh, primate of
Ireland. In the year that Sir Thomas died, Richard was created an Irish
peer, Baron Rokeby of Armagh, with remainder to Mrs. Montagu’s father,
Matthew Robinson. The father did not live to succeed to the title, but
his son Matthew did. The present Lord Rokeby is Mrs. Montagu’s great
grandnephew, and was born when she was yet living, A. D. 1798. The first
lord figures largely in this lady’s letters. His good works made him
popular in Ireland, which his Grace found to be a fine country to live
out of, as much as was, more or less, consistent with duty. He was one
of the best-known characters at Bath during successive seasons; he also
suffered much from the gout; but he endured with alacrity all the port
and claret that were necessary to keep it out of his archiepiscopal
stomach.
Thus much for Mrs. Montagu’s family. She derived from it a certain
distinction; but she enjoyed greater advantage, for a time at least, from
the marriage of her maternal grandmother, who took for her second husband
the learned and celebrated Dr. Conyers Middleton. Doctor Middleton’s home
was at Cambridge, where a few of Miss Robinson’s youthful years were
profitably and curiously spent.
Curiously—from the method which the biographer of Cicero took with the
bright and intelligent girl. Among the divines, scholars, philosophers,
travellers, men of the world who were, together or in turn, to be met
with at Doctor Middleton’s house, the figure of the silent, listening,
and observant little maid was always to be seen. Her presence there was
a part of her education. Doctor Middleton trained her to give perfect
attention to the conversation, and to repeat to him all that she could
retain of it, after the company had dispersed. When she had to speak of
what she did not well understand, Doctor Middleton enlightened his little
pupil. This process not only filled her young mind with knowledge, but
made her eager in the pursuit of more.
How readily she received impressions at an early age, and how indelibly
they were stamped on her memory, she has herself recorded. “One of the
strongest pictures in my mind,” she wrote to Lord Lyttelton, in 1759, “is
the funeral of a Dean of York, which I saw performed with great solemnity
in the cathedral, when I was about four years old. Whether the memory
of it, added to the present objects, may not have made the place appear
the more awful to me, I do not know; but I was never so affected by any
edifice.” She loved York, and in her early Yorkshire home the plan of
education went far in advance of the views, and perhaps of the powers, of
family governesses. Masters, as well as mistresses, were there for the
instruction of both sons and daughters; but Elizabeth’s father sharpened
and stimulated her intellect by encouraging her to make smart repartees
to his own witty or severe judgments. In this cudgelling of brains
Matthew had great delight till he found that his daughter was too much
for him at his most favourite weapons. Matthew then bit his lips, and
ceased to offer challenge or give provocation.
Matthew Robinson’s wife seems to have been educated according to the
traditions of a school founded in 1673 for the purpose of raising women
to the dignity and usefulness which distinguished their ancestresses.
The lady, Mrs. Makin, who originated this school for English maidens,
stated her object in an essay, of which a few words may be said, as
illustrative of a system of female education in England which, founded
nearly half a century before Elizabeth Robinson was born, had not lost
all its influence till after she herself was to be reckoned among learned
young ladies. The work in question was called “An Essay to revive the
Ancient Education of Gentlewomen in Religion, Manners, Arts, and Tongues:
With an Answer to the Objections against this way of Education.” In the
dedication to the Lady Mary, daughter of James, Duke of York, the author
says: “The barbarous custom to breed women low is grown general amongst
us, and hath prevailed so far, that it is verily believed that women are
not endowed with such reason as man.” Of old, Mrs. Makin says, women
were highly educated; but now, “not only learning, but virtue itself,
is scorned and neglected as pedantic things, fit only for the vulgar.”
The remedy enjoined for this matter is thus stated: “Were a competent
number of schools erected to educate Ladies ingeniously, methinks I see
how ashamed men would be of their ignorance, and how industrious the next
generation would be to wipe off the reproach!” The author adds: “Let not
your Ladyship be offended that I do not, as some have wittily done, plead
for female preëminence. To ask too much, is the way to be denied all.”
To prove that women were formerly educated in arts and tongues, the
author names a score and more of Greek, Roman, and other ladies
celebrated for their proficiency in those respects.
“How,” asks the author, “could the Sibyls have invented heroic, or Sappho
‘sapphick,’ or Corinna have thrice beaten Pindar at lyric verses, if they
had not been highly educated?” And to prove that the young ladies of
both Greece and Rome were instructed in all kinds of good literature, the
writer refers to a learned duel between twenty ladies a side, from each
nation, in which the Grecian women came off the better in philosophy, and
the Roman superior in oratory.
As instances of admirably educated English women, the following persons
are named, with much eulogistic comment:
The Lady Jane Gray. The “present Duchess of Newcastle, who, by her
own genius, rather than any timely instruction, overtops many grave
Gown-men.” The Countess Dowager of Huntingdon, a pupil of Mrs. Makin’s;
“well she understands Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Spanish,” and
“what a proficient she is in arts subservient to Divinity, in which (if I
durst, I would tell you) she excels.” The Princess Elizabeth, daughter to
King Charles the First, to whom Mrs. Makin was tutoress, “at nine years
old, could write, read, and in some measure understand Latin, Greek,
Hebrew, French, and Italian: had she lived, what a miracle she would have
been of her sex. Mrs. Thorold, daughter of the Lady Car, in Lincolnshire,
was excellent in philosophy, and all sorts of learning. I cannot, without
injury, forget the Lady Mildmay and Doctor Love’s daughters: their worth
and excellency in learning is yet fresh in the memory of many men.”
Finally, as the greatest sample of all, the author describes Queen
Elizabeth at some length, who, “according to Ascham, read more Greek in a
day than many of the doctors of her time did Latin in a week.”
In the Postscript to the above essay, the following passages occur:
“If any enquire where this education may be performed, such may be
informed that a school is lately erected for Gentlewomen, at Tottenham
High Cross, within four miles of London, on the road to Ware, where Mrs.
Makin is governess, who was formerly tutoress to the Princess Elizabeth,
daughter to King Charles the First. Where, by the blessing of God,
Gentlewomen may be instructed in the Principles of religion, and in all
manner of sober and virtuous Education: more particularly in all things
ordinarily taught in other schools.
“As Works of all sorts }
Dancing }
Musick } Half the time to
Singing } be spent in these
Writing } things.
Keeping accompts }
“The other half to be employed in gaining the Latin and French tongues;
and those that please may learn Greek and Hebrew, the Italian and
Spanish: in all which this Gentlewoman hath a competent knowledge.
“Gentlewomen of eight or nine years old, that can read well, may be
instructed in a year or two (according to their parts) in the Latin and
French tongues; by such plain and simple Rules, accommodated to the
Grammar of the English tongue, that they may easily keep what they have
learned, and recover what they shall lose; as those that learn Musick by
Notes.
“Those that will bestow longer time may learn the other languages
aforementioned, as they please.
“Repositories also for Visibles shall be prepared; by which, from
beholding the things, Gentlewomen may learn the Names, Natures, Values,
and Use of Herbs, Shrubs, Trees, Mineral-pieces, Metals, and Stones.
“Those that please may learn Limning, Preserving, Pastry, and Cookery.
“Those that will allow longer time may attain some general knowledge in
Astronomy, Geography, but especially in Arithmetick and History.
“Those that think one language enough for a Woman, may forbear the
Languages, and learn only Experimental Philosophy, and more or fewer of
the other things aforementioned, as they incline.
“The Rate certain shall be £20 per annum: But if a competent improvement
be made in the Tongues, and the other things aforementioned, as shall be
agreed upon, then something more will be expected. But the parents shall
judge what shall be deserved by the Undertaker.
“Those that think these Things Improbable, or Impracticable, may have
further account every Tuesday, at Mr. Mason’s Coffee-house, in Cornhill,
near the Royal Exchange; and Thursdays, at the ‘Bolt and Tun,’ in Fleet
Street, between the hours of three and six in the afternoon, by some
person whom Mrs. Makin shall appoint.”
Mrs. Makin’s school, under herself and her successors, and her system,
adopted by imitators, had good influences in their “little day.” Those
influences continued beyond that period in families like that of Mrs.
Robinson, where every variety of knowledge was accounted valuable. It was
a period when grace of carriage was held by others to be as necessary as
a well-stored mind; and very popular in some English households was a
little volume from the French, called “The Art of being Easy at all Times
and in all Places, written chiefly for the use of a Lady of Quality.”
In the Robinson family, personal grace came naturally; but the mind was
cultivated. Indeed, in that household, the wits were not allowed to rust.
It was the delight of those bright girls and boys to maintain or to
denounce, for the sport’s sake, some particular argument set up for the
purpose. Occasionally the pleasant skirmish would develop into something
like serious battle. The triumphant laugh of the victor would now and
then bring tears to the eyes of the vanquished. At such times there was
a moderator of the excited little assembly. The mother of the young
disputants sat at a table close at hand. She read or worked; sometimes
she listened smilingly, sometimes was not without apprehension. But she
was equal to the emergency. Her children recognised her on such occasions
as “Mrs. Speaker;” and that much-loved dignitary always adjourned the
house when victory was too hotly contested, or when triumph seemed likely
to be abused.
It is hard to believe that Elizabeth Robinson, who was the liveliest
of these disputants, assumed or submitted to the drudgery of copying
the whole of the _Spectator_, when she was only eight years of age. Her
courage and perseverance, however, were equal to such a task; but her
energies were often turned in another direction. She was as unreservedly
given to dancing, she tells us, as if she had been bitten by a tarantula.
She as ardently loved fun—“within the limits of becoming mirth”—as she
devotedly pursued learning.
“My mind used to sleep,” she writes to Lord Lyttelton, “eight or ten
hours without even the visitation of a dream, and rose in the morning,
like Aurora, throwing freshness and joy on every object, tricked itself
out in sunbeams, and set in gay and glowing colours.” With a head
furnished with knowledge beyond that possessed by most girls of her age;
with feet restless and impatient to join any dance anywhere; she had
a heart most sisterly and tenderly attuned to love for, and sympathy
with, her brothers. “I have seven of them,” she wrote, while she was yet
in her teens, “and would not part with one for a kingdom. If I had but
one, I should be distracted about him. Surely, no one has so many or so
good brothers.” This is only one out of a score of such testimonies of
sisterly affection.
There are some significant traces of the effects of this lady’s early
training in the letters which she wrote from the time she was twelve
years of age till she had reached her twenty-second year, when she
married. These letters were addressed to a friend older than herself,
Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, who, in 1734, became Duchess of Portland.
They are sprightly and forcible, but they are not “girlish.” In one of
the earliest, written at Horton, near Hythe, Kent (one of the estates
which Matthew gained by his marriage), she says: “My papa is a little
vapoured, and last night, after two hours’ silence, he broke out into
a great exclamation against the country, and concluded by saying, that
living in the country was sleeping with one’s eyes open. He has ordered
me to put a double quantity of saffron in his tea.” For what purpose this
remedy was ordered, may be guessed from a passage in a comedy of Charles
the Second’s time, by Howard. “Saffron-posset-drink is very good against
the heaviness of the spirits,” says Mrs. Arbella, in “The Committee.”
Young Miss Robinson was fond of illustrating her early letters by images
taken from life, and set up after the fashion of popular novelists. One
of these figures occurs in a letter addressed to the Duchess of Portland,
in May, 1734, when the lively writer had not yet completed her fourteenth
year: “I am surprised that my answer to your Grace’s letter has never
reached your hands. I sent it immediately to Canterbury, by the servant
of a gentleman who dined here; and I suppose he forgot to put it in the
post.... If my letter were sensible, what would be its mortification,
that, instead of having the honour to kiss your Grace’s hands, it must
live confined in the footman’s pocket, with greasy gloves, rotten apples,
mouldy nuts, a pack of dirty cards, and the only companion of its sort—a
tender epistle from his sweetheart, ‘tru till Deth;’ perhaps, by its
situation, subject to be kicked by his master every morning, till at
last, by ill-usage and rude company, worn too thin for any other use, it
may make its exit by lighting a tobacco-pipe.”
The young writer of the above was not only remarkably observant of all
that passed around her, but generally showed her reading by a quotation
that should give force to the description of what she observed. Thus,
in writing to her dear duchess, who had been suffering from fever (A. D.
1734), Miss Robinson remarks: “I shall put on as musty a face at your
Grace’s fever as Miss W—— could make at the face of Doctor Sandys, to
describe the horror of which would require at least as tragic a bard
as Lee; for then she would look, good gods! how she would look!” This
may smack of priggishness; but there was nothing of that, nor of false
prudery, in Elizabeth Robinson’s character. Before she was fifteen, she
had some experiences not likely to fall to the lot of young ladies of
the present day. “I have in winter,” she writes to Mrs. Anstey, “gone
eight miles to dance to the music of a blind fiddler, and returned
at two o’clock in the morning, mightily pleased that I had been so
well entertained.” Indeed, young ladies seem to have been thoroughly
emancipated, and to have been abroad in the “wee sma’ hours ’ayont the
twal,” enjoying all the perils consequent on such rather wild doings.
In 1738, when our young lady was not quite eighteen, she went, with
two of her brothers and her sister, eight miles to the play, from her
Kentish home; and she tells the Duchess of Portland, “After the play,
the gentlemen invited all the women to a supper at the inn, where we
stayed till two o’clock in the morning, and then all set out for our
respective homes.” The frolicsome damsel adds, “Before I had gone two
miles, I had the pleasure of being overturned, at which I squalled for
joy.” It was, perhaps, this indulgence in fun and late hours, joined to
much solid reading, that made this youthful reveller and student hate
early morning hours as she hated cards. But her “quality” was favourably
shown in her ready observance of the law and custom of the house in which
she happened to be a sojourner. There is no better proof than this of
what is understood by “good breeding.” She would rather have gone down
to breakfast at noon than at nine; but if the breakfast-hour of her
entertainers was at eight, there was the young guest at table, fresh
as the rose and brighter than the dawn. She amusingly illustrated this
matter once, by writing from a house where she was tarrying, “Six o’clock
in the morning; New Style.”
In fact, few things came amiss to her. No doubt she preferred
Mary-le-bone Gardens to those at Edgeley or at Horton. She was happy
in both, but happier in the fashionable gardens nearer London; for
Mary-le-bone was still out of town. Elizabeth Robinson’s day is
described, on one of these occasions, as breakfasting in Mary-le-bone
Gardens at ten; giving a sitting to Zincke after midday, for her
well-known miniature portrait as Anne Boleyn; and spending the evening
at Vauxhall. At the nobility’s private balls given in the first-named
suburban paradise, Elizabeth Robinson was amongst the gayest and fairest
of the revellers. Before the dance began in those days the ladies’ fans
were thrown upon a table, and the men then drew them for partners, each
taking for his own the lady to whom the fan which he had drawn, and which
he presented to her, belonged. It was not all breakfasting and dancing
in those gardens. There was a large plunging-bath there, much used by
fashionable Naiads, who rose from silken couches, donned a bathing-dress,
took headers into the waters, gambolled in and under them till they were
breathless, and then went home to dress for other enjoyments. When the
Duchess of Portland heard of her young friend’s plunging delights, she
expressed herself “frightened out of her wits.” But, on the other hand,
Lord Dupplin wrote a couple of verses on this particular Naiad, and in
honour of the poet, the laughing nymph again and again took headers into
the glad waters of Mary-le-bone.
The home scenes of her life in the country come out strong in contrast
with those of her life in London. In a lively sketch of one of these
scenes, drawn for the duchess’s amusement, the youthful artist thus
joyously describes herself and her doings:
“One common objection to the country is, one sees no faces but those of
one’s own family; but my papa thinks he has found a remedy for that,
by teaching me to draw; but then he husbands these faces in so cruel
a manner, that he brings me sometimes a nose, sometimes an eye, at a
time; but on the king’s birthday, as it was a festival, he brought me
out a whole face, with its mouth wide open.” In another letter, she
says: “I would advise you not to draw old men’s heads. It was the rueful
countenance of Socrates or Seneca that first put me out of conceit with
it. Had my papa given me the blooming faces of Adonis and Narcissus, I
might have been a very apt scholar; and when I told him I found their
great beards difficult to draw, he gave me St. John’s head in a charger.
So, to avoid the speculation of dismal faces, which, by my art, I
dismalised ten times more than they were before, I threw away my pencil.
If I drew a group of little figures, I made their countenances so sad
and their limbs so distorted, that from a set of laughing Cupids, they
looked like the tormented infants in Herod’s cruelty, and smiling, became
like Rachel weeping for her children.” After more in this strain, she
calls herself the best hospital painter; “for I never drew a figure that
was not lame or blind, and they had all something of the horrible in
their countenances ... you would have thought they had seen their own
faces in the glass.”
Her failure in the above respect at home found ample compensation in
success at Tunbridge Wells, at Bath, and at country races, at all of
which Elizabeth Robinson’s beauty attracted all eyes; her vivacious wit
charmed or stung all ears. At these places, she studied life quite as
much as she enjoyed its pleasures; and she could not go down a dance at
the Wells or at “The Bath,” without making little mental epigrams on the
looks of newly married people, the manners of lovers, and the doings of
eccentric folk. These found their way, in writing, to her ducal friend,
who had already bestowed on the restless maiden the nickname of “La
Petite Fidget.”
At Bath, she was as restless, as observant, and as epigrammatic as at
Tunbridge Wells. She describes Bath life, in 1740, as consisting all the
morning of “How d’ye does?” and all night of “What’s Trumps?” The women,
in the “Ladies’ Coffee House,” talk only of diseases. The men, “except
Lord Noel Somerset, are altogether abominable. There is not one good; no,
not one.” Among the lady eccentrics, was a certain dowager duchess, who,
said Miss Robinson, “bathes, and, being very tall, had nearly drowned a
few women in the Cross Bath; for she had ordered it to be filled till it
reached her chin; and so all those who were below her stature, as well as
her rank, were obliged to come out or drown.”
The glance thus obtained into the Bath itself only gives, as it were, a
momentary view of the fashionable people in those fashionable waters.
They who compare old accounts with what is now to be seen will agree that
he who looks, at the present day, into the dull, dark, and simmering
waters can have no conception of the jollity, frolic, riot, dissipation,
and indecorum which once reigned there. There was a regular promenade
in the waters, and the promenaders were of both sexes. They were in
bathing-costumes, and walked with the water nearly up to their necks. The
heads of the shorter people appeared to be floating. At the same time,
they were frolicking, or flirting, or otherwise amusing themselves. Those
who came for sanitary purposes were hanging on by the rings in the wall,
and were sedulously parboiling themselves. The Cross Bath was the famous
quality bath. Handsome japanned bowls floated before the ladies, laden
with confectionery, or with oils, essences, and perfumery for their use.
Now and then one of these bowls would float away from its owner, and her
swain would float after it, bring it again before her, and, if he were in
the humour, would turn on his back and affect to sink to the bottom, out
of mere rapture at the opportunity of serving her. The spectators in the
gallery looked on, laughed, or applauded till the hour for closing came.
Therewith came half-tub chairs, lined with blankets, whose owners plied
for fares, and carried home the steaming freight at a sharp trot and a
shilling for the job.
Elizabeth Robinson’s friendship with Lord Lyttelton is well known. At a
court assembly, at St. James’s, in 1740, the gentleman in question was
present. He was then plain Mr. Lyttelton, son and heir of Sir Thomas, and
about a year over thirty. The young lady observed him in the brilliant
scene more closely and more approvingly than she did others. “The men
were not fine,” she writes to her Grace; but she makes exception. “Mr.
Lyttelton was, according to Polonius’ instruction, rich, not gaudy;
costly, but not exprest in fancy.” In her eyes and to her mind, he was
a perfect gentleman and scholar. “Mr. Lyttelton has something of an
elegance in all his compositions, let the subject be ever so trifling....
Happy is the genius that can drink inspiration at every stream and gather
similes with every nosegay.” Alas! the elegance of the last century
embraced much that was otherwise. The present Lord Lyttelton would not
dare to read aloud to a company of ladies and gentlemen the once popular
and elegant poem which his ancestor addressed to Belinda!
In the days here referred to, there were two circumstances to which
all maidens looked forward as their probable but not equally desirable
lot, namely, marriage and the smallpox. The latter fell on Elizabeth
Robinson’s sister Sarah, when the family were resident at Horton, near
Hythe. The elder sister was sent to a neighbouring gentleman farmer’s,
so called solely because he tilled a few acres of his own. Here, the
Iphigenia aroused unwonted sympathies in the breast of the Squire Cymons.
She would have nothing to do with furthering the humanising process of
those dull and thirsty clods. Their scarlet waistcoats did not impress
her like Mr. Lyttelton’s birthday suit at court. One heaving swain, she
thought, would make an admirable Polyphemus! He stared at her just as
the calves did; but the calves had instinct enough not to say anything
to her. They were preferable to the squire, to whom the young girl, with
her bright intellect, could not be persuaded “to lend out her liking on
land security.” There is a world of meaning in what she wrote on that
occasion to her correspondent: “I liked neither him nor myself any better
for all the fine things he said.” She was a creature not to be wooed or
won by a tippling, foxhunting clown, rich in the possession of dirt. She
had finely strung sensibilities, which would not attune themselves to
“the loud laugh which speaks the vacant mind.” Mrs. Pendarves, who saw
much of her in the town and country mansions of the Duchess of Portland,
recognised the above fact. “Fidget,” she wrote, in the year last named,
“is a most interesting creature; but I shall not attempt to draw a
likeness.... There are some delicate touches that would foil the skill of
a much abler artist than I pretend to be.”
Just then her fears for her sister were even stronger than her
antipathies for her Kentish lovers. In order to satisfy her eagerness
to be assured that the sister she loved was out of danger, the latter
was allowed to walk veiled into the fields, within speaking distance of
the other. Veiled, because she had cruelly suffered, and it was thought
better not to shock the elder sister by a sight of the devastation which
the foul disease had worked temporarily on the beauty of the younger.
Thus, the sisters stood, for a brief time, speaking all that love and
hope suggested, and the sound of the convalescent sister’s voice fell
like delicious music on the heart of the listener.
With renewed health came uninterrupted happiness, and gay mingling in
gay society, and audacity of expression when describing it. Elizabeth
Robinson had felt almost as much contempt for the fops among the soldiers
of her day, as disgust for the country Polyphemuses who made her wrathful
with their wooing. Very severe was she on “the scarlet beaux,” who were
ordered to Flanders. “I think,” she says, “they will die of a panic and
save their enemies’ powder. Well! they are proper gentlemen. Heaven
defend the nunneries! I will venture a wager Flanders increases in the
christenings more than in the burials of the week.”
In describing changes in fashion, she makes singular application of her
historical knowledge. In 1741, she wrote to her sister, from town: “I do
not know what will become of your fine shape, for there is a fashionable
make which is very strange. I believe they look in London as they did in
Rome after the Rape of the Sabines!”
As this fair young Elizabeth remembered her history on one occasion, so
did she show on another that she had not forgotten her church catechism.
“As for modern marriages,” wrote the lady, just then going out of her
teens, “they are great infringers of the baptismal vow; for it is
commonly the pomps and vanities of this wicked world on one side, and the
sinful lusts of the flesh on the other.”
There are traces throughout Miss Robinson’s early letters of how it went
with her own heart and its sympathies. In her eighteenth year, she wrote
to the Duchess of Portland: “I never saw one man that I loved.” She added
to this assertion such an endless list of virtues, merits, qualities,
etc., which she expected to find in that happy individual, as to lead to
the conclusion that a monster so faultless would never be created. She
even half-acknowledged as much; for she wrote, “I am like Pygmalion, in
love with a picture of my own drawing; but I never saw an original like
it in my life. I hope when I do, I shall, as some poet says, find the
‘statue warm.’” In her nineteenth year, she gave utterance to a pretty
petulance in these words: “I wish some of our neighbours had married two
and twenty years ago; we should have had a gallant young neighbourhood;
but they have lost time, and we have lost lovers by that delay.” To a
remark of her sister’s, that, if she were not heedful, some handsome fool
would win her in spite of herself, she replied, that, to win her heart,
“it must be rather fair-spoken than fair-faced.” She was not much moved
when rivals in beauty passed into the married state before her. In 1741,
there are the following autobiographical details in letters to the wife
of the Reverend Mr. Freind, of Canterbury: “I saw some fine jewels that
are to adorn my fair enemy, Mrs. S——. I beheld them without envy, and
was proud to think that a woman who is thought worthy to wear jewels to
adorn her person, should do me the honour to envy and hate me.... Surely,
of all vanities, that of jewels is the most ridiculous; they do not even
tend to the order of dress, beauty, and cleanliness; for a woman is
not a jot the handsomer or cleaner for them.” And again: “I am confined
again by a little feverishness. I thought, as it was a London fever, it
might be polite, so I carried it to the Ridotto, court, and opera, but
it grew perverse and stubborn, so I put it into a white hood and double
handkerchief, and kept it by the fireside these three days, and it is
better; indeed, I hope it is worn out. On Saturday, I intend to go to
Goodman’s Fields, to see Garrick act ‘Richard the Third’ that I may get
one cold from a regard to sense. I have sacrificed enough to folly, in
catching colds at the great puppet-shows in town.”
Subsequently, she would have her friend’s husband believe that she was
another fair vestal of the west, who meant to pass through the world
in maiden meditation, fancy-free. She writes to the Reverend Dean of
Canterbury: “I have lately studied my own foibles, and have found that
I should make a very silly wife and an extremely foolish mother, and
so have as far resolved as is consistent with deference to reason and
advice, never to trouble any man or to spoil any children.” This was
but banter. Only the year before, her sister having made a jest of her
love for heroes of antiquity, Elizabeth Robinson oracularly answered, “I
believe I shall do my errand before many people think; but prudence shall
be my guide. A living man,” exclaims the wise virgin, “is better than a
dead hero!”
In 1741, this decided young lady was wooed by a fashionable lover, and
also by a noble lover who was her senior by a good many years. The former
was dismissed, and the young lady wrote to her sister in the above year:
“Poor M. B. takes his misfortune so to heart, that I really pity him;
but I have no balsam of heartsease for him. If he should die, I will have
him buried in Westminster Abbey, next to the woman who died with the
prick of a finger, for it is quite as extraordinary; and he shall have
his figure languishing in wax, with ‘Miss Robinson fecit,’ written over
his head. I really compassionate his sufferings and pity him; but though
I am as compassionate, I am as cold as charity. He pours out his soul in
lamentations to his friends, and all—
‘But the nymph that should redress his wrong,
Attend his passion, and approve his song!’
... I am glad he has such a stock of flesh to waste upon.... I am really
quite fat; and if there were not some hope that I might get lean again,
by raking in town, I should be uneasy at it. I am now the figure of
‘Laugh-and-be-fat,’ and begin to think myself a comely personage. Adieu!
Supper is on table.”
And the saucy nymph “really did her errand” before many thought. She
declined the offer of the man of fashion, and said “Yes” to the suit of
the older scholar and gentleman.
The practical conclusion came in due time. In the _Gentleman’s Magazine_
for August, A. D. 1742, there is the record of eleven marriages. Four of
them saucily chronicle the fortunes of the brides. Among the other seven
may be read this brief announcement: “August 5, Edward Montagu, Esq.,
member for Huntingdon, to the eldest daughter of Matthew Robinson, of
Horton, in Kent, Esq.”