intimacy with Lady Caroline, with whose remarkable powers of
conversation he was thoroughly fascinated. She was eighteen years
older than he was, but looked much younger, a fact due probably to
her slight rounded figure and a childlike mode of wearing her pale
golden hair in close curls. Bulwer describes her appearance, and it is
interesting to see how she must have retained nearly all the features
and qualities she possessed as a girl. She had large hazel eyes,
capable of much varied expression, exceedingly good teeth, a pleasant
laugh, and a musical intonation of voice. She had to a surpassing
degree the attribute of charm, and never failed to please if she
wished to do so. Her talk was, according to Bulwer, wildly original,
“combining great and sudden contrasts, from deep pathos to infantine
drollery; now sentimental, now shrewd, it sparkled with anecdotes of
the great world and of the eminent people among whom she had lived. Ten
minutes after, it became gravely eloquent with religious enthusiasm, or
shot off into metaphysical speculations--sometimes absurd, sometimes
profound--generally suggestive and interesting.”
Bulwer delighted to listen to what she could tell him about Byron.
Lady Caroline, of course, was pleased to imagine herself in love with
Bulwer, and the young man’s vanity was hugely flattered. On his return
to Cambridge the pair corresponded, and a third person reading the
letters might have thought that they were actually lovers, but that was
not the case.
Lady Caroline fell ill, and when she was somewhat recovered sent for
Bulwer to tell him that she felt she had acted wrongly in loving him,
and was endeavouring to overcome her feeling. He was to be her dearest
friend, or like a son might be to her, but in no way her lover. Bulwer,
still fascinated, agreed, and went away more in love than ever.
Later on he was invited to Brocket for the purpose of attending a
ball at Panshanger. He arrived at three or four in the afternoon and
found the house full of company. He did not see Lady Caroline until
dinner. To his surprise and chagrin she avoided speaking to him, and
did not allow him to drive to the ball in her carriage. She had, in
the meantime, found another admirer in the person of Mr. Russell,[9]
a natural son of the Duke of Bedford, a very handsome man, very
fashionable, in the prime of life. She took no notice of Bulwer until
the end of the evening, and by that time he was furiously angry. As
they all went up to bed he said to her, “I shall be gone to-morrow
before you are up. Good-bye.” About nine o’clock the next morning she
sent a little note to his room imploring him not to go till he had
seen her. He then went to her room, and was received with affection.
Lady Caroline wept, entreated forgiveness, and finally persuaded
Bulwer to stay on. He went out riding with her and Mr. Russell, but
felt so miserable he soon returned to the house, retired to his room,
and gave way to his feelings. In this state she found him, and again
tried to pacify him. On rejoining the party downstairs he noticed that
Mr. Russell was wearing a ring which Byron had given Lady Caroline,
and which she only allowed those she loved to wear. Bulwer had had the
privilege of wearing it; Lady Caroline had even wanted him to accept
it, but he would not on account of its costliness. Bulwer’s resentment
increased. The rest must be told in his own words: “After dinner I
threw myself upon the sofa. Music was playing. Lady Caroline came to
me. ‘Are you mad?’ said she. I looked up. The tears stood in my eyes.
I could not have spoken a word for the world. What do you think she
said aloud? ‘Don’t play this melancholy air. It affects Mr. Bulwer so
that he is actually weeping.’ My tears, my softness, my _love_ were
over in a moment. I sprang up, laughed, talked, and was the life of
the company. But when we broke up for the evening, I went to her and
said: ‘Farewell for ever. It is over. Now I see you in your true light.
Vain and heartless, you have only trifled with my feelings in order to
betray me. I despise as well as leave you. Instead of jealousy I only
feel contempt. Farewell. Go, and be happy.’”
Bulwer records that a fever ensued and that he lost twenty ounces of
blood, but that he endeavoured and with success to forget the whole
episode, an easy feat since his feeling had chiefly been a mixture of
vanity and imagination. He also testified to Lamb’s kindness to him. “I
think he saw my feelings. He is a singularly fine character for a man
of the world.”
The episode, however, left a deep impression on Bulwer, for he drew her
in several of his early sketches for novels.[10] He also described her
in a satirical sketch of Almack’s, which expresses Bulwer’s belief that
her attachments were as innocent as they were fickle:
“But all thy woes have sprung from feeling;
Thine only guilt was not concealing;
And now mine unforgotten friend,
Though thou art half estranged from me,
My softened spirit fain would send
One pure and pitying sigh to thee.”
For a time Lady Caroline continued to correspond with him, and her
letters give a picture of her life at Brocket. “Happy, healthy, quiet,
contented, I get up at half-past four, ride about with Haggard, and
see harvest men at work in this pretty, confined green country, read
a few old books, see no one, hear from no one, and occasionally play
at chess with Dr. Goddard, or listen to the faint high warblings of
Miss Richardson. This contrast to my sometime hurried life delights
me. Besides, I am well. And that is a real blessing to one’s self and
one’s companions.”[11] She also says that she now, in her soothed and
chastened spirit, detests wit and humour and satire. Bulwer seems to
have made Lady Caroline his confidante in his love affair with Rosina
Wheeler, the haughty, brilliant, and beautiful girl whom he married.
For a time she sat at Lady Caroline’s feet, and in some ways resembled
her model in temperament.
Lady Caroline affected or more probably sincerely imagined that she
possessed a love of literature, and frequented the literary salons of
the day, and was to be seen at Lady Cork’s, Lady Charleville’s, Miss
Spence’s, and Miss Lydia White’s. Again, any one who had known Byron
possessed a passport to her favour. Thus she made the acquaintance of
Isaac Nathan, the musical composer who had been intimate with Byron,
and for whom Byron wrote the “Hebrew Melodies” for Nathan to set to
music, and asked him to come and sing to her. “Come,” she writes,
“and soothe one who ought to be happy but is not.” Nathan composed
the music to many of her own verses, which he published in 1829 in
a curious little volume entitled _Fugitive Pieces_. It contains the
lines written by Lady Caroline that form a strange comment on her
husband’s well-known inveterate and incurable habit of decorating his
conversation with oaths:
“Yes, I adore thee, William Lamb,
But hate to hear thee say God d----:
Frenchmen say English cry d---- d----,
But why swear’st thou? thou art a _Lamb_.”
Hobhouse went to see her at Melbourne House, in 1824, and had a two
hours’ talk with her, and found her furious at what she considered the
misrepresentation of her and of her attachment to Byron in Medwin’s
_Conversations with Byron_. She wrote Medwin a long letter which,
making allowance for her vivid imagination, may be regarded as her
_apologia_. She also sent Hobhouse sixteen quarto volumes of journals
kept by her since 1806, which he returned, assuring her that no
purpose would be served by their publication.
Another literary acquaintance was a man she was pleased to call a
rising poet, Wilmington Fleming. His works have not survived, and
judging by the verses he wrote describing the eccentric fashion in
which Lady Caroline celebrated her wedding-day at Brocket, the world is
scarcely the loser. He may have helped Lady Caroline to some extent,
probably in the capacity of secretary, with her own literary work. For
this assistance she seems to have paid him when she had any money,--she
was the most extravagant of women, her father-in-law always called her
“Her Lavishship,”--and there is a curious letter in which she tells
Fleming, who has evidently asked for payment: “I received no money but
just what the servants got for their food. I have been much too ill to
write or see you.” She evidently tried to help him to get his poems
published.
But Lady Caroline’s health was shattered, and despite the separation
she turned more and more to her husband as her best protector and
truest friend. The last years were spent at Brocket, and under wise
surveillance, or more probably on account of enfeebled vitality, she
had grown calmer and more reasonable. In November 1827 she underwent
an operation, and in the middle of December alarming symptoms set in,
and she was brought from Brocket to London (to Melbourne House) in
order to have better medical assistance. She herself was in a state of
calmness and resignation, complaining little, and unwilling to see many
people. Her husband had been appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland in
May, and was of course resident at Dublin. He was kept informed of her
condition. She knew she had no chance of recovery, and was only anxious
to live long enough to see Lamb again. He was summoned in time, and
she was able to talk to him and enjoy his society. She died peacefully
about nine o’clock on Sunday evening, 26th January 1828, and was buried
at Hatfield. Lamb felt her death deeply, and her influence over him
never quite died away. Years later he used to ask, “Shall we meet in
another world?”
* * * * *
Something must be said of Lady Caroline Lamb as a writer. She published
three novels, of which _Glenarvon_ is the most important, and some
fugitive verse.
_Glenarvon_ was published by Colburn anonymously--though
uncontradicted rumour attributed it to her--in three volumes in 1816.
An Italian translation appeared in Venice in 1817, and it was reprinted
in one volume in London in 1865 under the title of _The Fatal Passion_.
It is an autobiographical novel, of which the hero is Byron (Glenarvon)
and the heroine herself (Lady Calantha Avondale), whose character she
thus describes:
“Her feelings, indeed, swelled into a tide too powerful for the unequal
resistance of her understanding; her motives appeared the very best;
but the actions which resulted from them were absurd and exaggerated.
Thoughts swift as lightning hurried through her brain; projects,
seducing but visionary, crowded upon her view; without a curb she
followed the impulse of her feelings, and those feelings varied with
every varying interest and impression.
“Calantha turned with disgust from the slavish followers of prejudice.
She disdained the beaten track, and she thought that virtue would be
for her a safe, a sufficient, guide ... a fearless spirit raised her,
as she fondly imagined, above the common herd.”[12]
She actually printed in the novel, without alteration or disguise, the
farewell letter that Byron had sent her, but in other directions her
portrait of Byron is a mere caricature. In a letter to Moore he said:
“The picture can’t be good. I did not sit long enough.” Lady Holland
is introduced into the story as the Princess of Madagascar, Rogers as
the pale poet, William Lamb as Lord Avondale, Lord and Lady Melbourne
as Sir Richard and Lady Mowbray, Lady Oxford as Lady Mandeville.
Barbary House is Holland House, and Monteith House, Brocket Hall. It
is a rhapsodical tale, sentimental and melodramatic, yet written with
eloquence and vivacity. The scene in which one of the women characters
commits suicide by wrapping her cloak over her horse’s eyes and calmly
riding over the cliff is almost fine. The novel contains a song, “The
Waters of Elle,” that is the best poem Lady Caroline wrote.
In 1822 she published, also anonymously, in two volumes, her second
novel, _Graham Hamilton_, in which she endeavours to show the
difficulties and dangers involved in weakness and irresolution. The
manuscript was placed in Colburn’s hands two years earlier, with the
injunction not to publish it then or to name the author. It contains
the following verses, which had been written many years before:
“If thou couldst know what ’tis to weep,
To weep unpitied and alone,
The livelong night, whilst others sleep,
Silent and mournful watch to keep,
Thou wouldst not do what I have done.
If thou couldst know what ’tis to smile,
To smile whilst scorn’d by every one,
To hide, by many an artful wile,
A heart that knows more grief than guile,
Thou wouldst not do what I have done.
And oh! if thou couldst think how drear,
When friends are changed, and health is gone,
The world would to thine eyes appear,
If thou, like me, to none wert dear,
Thou wouldst not do what I have done.”
Her last excursion into fiction was _Ada Reis_, published in three
volumes in 1823, a fantastic Eastern tale, very Byronic in character.
Her husband, somewhat disturbed by his wife’s literary labours, wrote
to John Murray severely criticising this book before publication, and
begging him to prevail on the author to amend it. It contains two
songs, one of which, beginning, “Weep for what thou’st lost, love,” is
accompanied by the music specially composed for it by Isaac Nathan.
Another edition of the book, in two volumes, was published the next
year in Paris.
In “A New Canto,” published anonymously in 1819, she made an attempt at
satire, obviously on the Byronic model. The poem describes the end of
the world, and opens thus:
“I’m sick of fame--I’m gorged with it--so full
I almost could regret the happier hour
When northern oracles proclaimed me dull,
Grieving my Lord should so mistake his power--
E’en they, who now my consequence would lull,
And vaunt they hail’d and nurs’d the opening flower
Vile cheats! He knew not, impudent Reviewer,
Clear spring of Helicon from common sewer.”
All Lady Caroline’s works, both prose and verse, are forgotten and
repose unread on the topmost shelves of old libraries. But they form
an index to her mind and character, and should be studied side by
side with her recorded actions. It is usual to dismiss her as mad and
unaccountable for her actions. That is the easiest way, but is it the
justest? Her gifts were by no means inconsiderable, but in the circle
into which she was born there was, in the early nineteenth century,
no outlet for the special activities and for the original turn of
mind she possessed. Even her capacity for feeling degenerated into
sentimentality. She lacked training. Under wise, skilful, and gentle
guidance she would most probably have developed into a fine woman. As
it was, she certainly did not help and probably retarded her husband’s
political career. But vivacity, high spirits, originality, courage
combined with sensibility, are not too common in this world, and when
such qualities run to waste, it is an irreparable loss out of life.
II
LADY PEEL
“... thou upon the statesman’s path hast cast
The quiet sunshine of domestic gladness.”
Julia Floyd, the third child and second daughter of General Sir John
Floyd, Bart., K.B., was born in India, on 19th November 1795. Her
father had a distinguished military career and came of a family of
soldiers.--Documentary evidence points to a certain Thomas Floyd as an
ancestor of the family who obtained a commission in the 1st Dragoon
Guards in 1680. His son John became a captain in the same regiment and
was present at the battle of Minden on 1st August 1759, and died on
duty in Germany in the following September. He left two sons, John and
Thomas, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Caroline. Thomas went into the
Navy, and as a midshipman volunteered for the expedition to the North
Pole in 1773 under the command of Captain Constantine Phipps. Horatio
Nelson, also as a midshipman, took part in the expedition. Thomas
Floyd kept a journal of his adventures in the Arctic regions.[13] He
told his brother that “it was always his opinion that in favourable
years--and at the proper season--it was very possible to approach much
nearer the Pole than they did.” Thomas died in 1778.
[Illustration: LADY PEEL
_After the painting by Lawrence_]
Of the daughters, Elizabeth never married, and Caroline became the wife
of John Christopher Rideout of Banghurst House, Hants.
In accordance with the custom in the eighteenth century, John Floyd
received his commission as Cornet in Elliott’s Light Horse in 1760,
when he was only twelve years old. He had lost his father two years
before. He saw active service that year, having his horse shot under
him at the battle of Emsdorf, and was only saved from death at the hand
of a French dragoon by the intervention of Captain (afterwards General)
Ainslie. The boy then had two years’ leave of absence and finished
his education at Utrecht under Lord Pembroke’s care, who saw to it
that he should also become proficient in horsemanship. He was gazetted
Lieutenant in 1763 and Captain-Lieutenant in 1770. He made the grand
tour of Europe, 1777-79, with Lord Herbert. In 1781 he was appointed
Lieutenant-Colonel of the 23rd (afterwards the 19th) Light Dragoons,
the “glorious old XIXth” of Indian history. In February 1782 the
regiment sailed for India, arriving at Madras eight months later; Floyd
wrote a long and most interesting letter describing the voyage to Lady
Pembroke. Warren Hastings was Governor-General of India.
John Floyd’s letters are delightful and instructive reading. They
reveal a highly intelligent and observant man, a keen soldier,
possessing great gentleness of character and a strong affection for his
family and friends. He describes the country, its flora and fauna, and
writes himself down a pre-Darwinian when he tells Lord Pembroke, “The
monkeys are far the most innocent part of the _human species_--for I
hope you do not doubt that they are a branch of our family.” He was not
wholly dissatisfied with his life in India, though he longed for active
service. “When I am to return to England God only knows; I endeavour
to avoid thinking of it. I am sensible the chances are against my
returning at all. I aim indeed at a little fame, and I would fain
return so as to venture to marry.”
When in 1790 he was at length ordered to the field, he writes to his
sister Elizabeth that he has made all provision for her, “but I do
not think I shall die a bit the sooner on this account, for I propose
marrying when I go back to England, and having a prodigious number of
children.”
Floyd commanded the cavalry with distinguished ability during the
Mysore campaigns of 1790, 1791, 1792, and 1799. It had always been his
opinion that the first military miracle to be performed in India would
be wrought by cavalry, that a small body of well-disciplined Europeans
on horseback, judiciously led, would defeat and destroy myriads of
Indian enemies.
During the lull between the campaigns of 1790 and 1791 Floyd found
time to carry out the wish that had long been in his heart. He was
now forty-three years of age, and had fallen in love with Rebecca
Juliana, the beautiful daughter of Charles Darke, a free merchant of
Madras. The wedding took place at Madras, 29th January 1791, and in
February Floyd was in the field again. There were four children of the
marriage, all born in India, three girls--Miranda born in 1792, Julia
(the future Lady Peel) in 1795, and Flavia in 1797--and one boy, Henry,
born in 1793. Both parents were devoted to their children. Mrs. Floyd
attended to them entirely herself, and would not allow a native servant
to go near them, for her husband writes: “She unfortunately dislikes
all natives, from His Highness the Nawab to the meanest of them.” The
children were all healthy and good looking. Mrs. Floyd used to send
her husband affectionate little notes about herself--her health was
not good--and the children, referring to Julia as a delightful little
kitten. These notes, in accordance with the regulations then in force
for private letters sent to the army in the field, had to be 2 inches
wide by 6-3/8 inches long, and to be rolled, not folded.
In 1798 Floyd, who was now a Major-General, began to wish to return to
England as soon as all was quiet, and he could be spared, but it was
July 1800 before, with his wife and four children, he reached England.
Julia, with Miranda and Henry, were placed with the Rev. M. Sketchley
at Parson’s Green, while a permanent abode for the family was searched
for and made ready for their reception. Floyd was prepared to spend a
sum of £10,000 to £15,000 on the purchase of a suitable country house.
He took the very greatest interest in his children’s education from
their earliest years, and when Miranda was only seven we find his wife
telling him that she is trying all possible ways to bring her on in her
reading, and that she sketches quite prettily, and turns a letter with
her pen better than her mother can do. Floyd’s letters to his children
when he was separated from them are delightful. In May 1801--he had
become Lieutenant-General in January--he went to Tunbridge Wells with
his wife and little daughter Flavia, and his sister Elizabeth, and
wrote to Miranda:
“Harry’s[14] desire was told his mamma that she should buy
him a wife, but as that is thought to be an affair of great
consequence, Harry must be very exact in describing the sort of
wife he would like, whether long or short, thick or thin, young
or old. Handsome, no doubt. There are some sweet creatures in a
pastry-cook’s shop from three inches to a matter of six inches
tall. But if one of these wives is sent I am afraid he will be
so fond that he will quite eat her up. In the meantime, he may
consider the matter....
“You must read my letters to Harry and Julia, for though I
address them to you as a young lady considerably advanced in
her education, they in part belong to you all, for I love you
all most tenderly.”
A house had been found at Farnborough Hill, and at the end of the
month the family settled there. But unhappily it was not to be for
long. At the end of January 1802 the little Flavia was taken ill with
scarlet fever. Her mother insisted on nursing her herself, and took the
infection. The child died on 1st February, and Mrs. Floyd, who was only
thirty years of age, on 3rd February. They were buried at Farnborough,
and there is a tablet to their memory in the church. The three
remaining children were now taken care of by their aunt, Miss Elizabeth
Floyd, who lived at Chalk Farm, near Bromley, Kent. Their father, when
away from them on duty, continued to exhort the children to attend to
their studies, counselled them to take great pains with their writing,
for “you will find it becomes fully as easy to write well as to scrawl
so that nobody can read what you say,” and promised if they made good
progress to take them to Sidmouth for a reward. Besides the writing of
a clear hand[15] he laid much stress on good reading aloud, and also
on reading to improve their minds and to form their style of writing.
They are not to read novels, “for ninety-nine times in a hundred they
are sad stuff, and very poor in thought. Read solid sense--history,
poetry, Shakespeare’s plays, Pliny’s letters,” and this to children
of whom the eldest was only twelve, the very age, her father reminded
her, at which he set out from home to seek his fortune. They are to
study arithmetic, geography, and music, especially singing. Needlework
and, above all, dancing--“I think, with such insteps and ankles as
some folks have, it would be sad indeed if _some folks_ did not skip
over the ground in true airy style of a fairy, preserving always the
beautiful _aplomb_, or plumb line, without stiffness”--are not to be
neglected.
On 29th July 1805 Floyd took a second wife, Anna, daughter of Crosbie
Morgell of Castle Morgell, Ireland, and widow of Sir Barry Denny,
Bart., of Tralee Castle, Co. Kerry. The children still remained with
their aunt in England, and Lady Denny--Floyd never calls her anything
else in his letters--with her husband in Dublin, where he was now on
duty. He became a full General on 1st January 1812, and was appointed
Governor of Gravesend and Tilbury Forts in 1814. His elder daughter
Miranda married, 18th November 1815, General Sir Joseph Fuller.[16] In
1816 Floyd was created a baronet for his services in India seventeen
years before. He died at his house in London, 10 Mansfield Street,
10th January 1818, aged seventy, and was buried in St. James’s Church,
Hampstead Road, London. His wife survived him until 4th December 1844.