"Time doth consecrate;
And what is grey with age becomes religion."--SCHILLER.
"I hope I may be able to tell the truth always, and to see it
aright, according to the eyes which God Almighty gives
me."--THACKERAY.
In 1727, the year of George the First's death, Miss Grace Naylor of
Hurstmonceaux, though she was beloved, charming, and beautiful, died
very mysteriously in her twenty-first year, in the immense and weird old
castle of which she had been the heiress. She was affirmed to have been
starved by her former governess, who lived alone with her, but the fact
was never proved. Her property passed to her first cousin Francis Hare
(son of her aunt Bethaia), who forthwith assumed the name of Naylor.
The new owner of Hurstmonceaux was the only child of the first marriage
of that Francis Hare, who, through the influence first of the Duke of
Marlborough (by whose side, then a chaplain, he had ridden on the
battle-fields of Blenheim and Ramilies), and afterwards of his family
connections the Pelhams and Walpoles, rose to become one of the richest
and most popular pluralists of his age. Yet he had to be contented at
last with the bishoprics of St. Asaph and Chichester, with each of which
he held the Deanery of St. Paul's, the Archbishopric of Canterbury
having twice just escaped him.
The Bishop's eldest son Francis was "un facheux détail de notre
famille," as the grandfather of Madame de Maintenon said of his son. He
died after a life of the wildest dissipation, without leaving any
children by his wife Carlotta Alston, who was his stepmother's sister.
So the property of Hurstmonceaux went to his half-brother Robert, son of
the Bishop's second marriage with Mary-Margaret Alston, heiress of the
Vatche in Buckinghamshire, and of several other places besides. Sir
Robert Walpole had been the godfather of Robert Hare-Naylor, and
presented him with a valuable sinecure office as a christening present,
and he further made the Bishop urge the Church as the profession in
which father and godfather could best aid the boy's advancement.
Accordingly Robert took orders, obtained a living, and was made a Canon
of Winchester. While he was still very young, his father had further
secured his fortunes by marrying him to the heiress who lived nearest to
his mother's property of the Vatche, and, by the beautiful Sarah Selman
(daughter of the owner of Chalfont St. Peter's, and sister of Mrs.
Lefevre), he had two sons--Francis and Robert, and an only daughter Anna
Maria, afterwards Mrs. Bulkeley. In the zenith of her youth and
loveliness, however, Sarah Hare died very suddenly from eating ices when
overheated at a ball, and soon afterwards Robert married a second
wife--the rich Henrietta Henckel, who pulled down Hurstmonceaux Castle.
She did this because she was jealous of the sons of her predecessor, and
wished to build a large new house, which she persuaded her husband to
settle upon her own children, who were numerous, though only two
daughters lived to any great age. But she was justly punished, for when
Robert Hare died, it was discovered that the great house which Wyatt had
built for Mrs. Hare, and which is now known as Hurstmonceaux Place, was
erected upon entailed land, so that the house stripped of furniture, and
the property shorn of its most valuable farms, passed to Francis
Hare-Naylor, son of Miss Selman. Mrs. Henckel Hare lived on to a great
age, and when "the burden of her years came on her" she repented of her
avarice and injustice, and coming back to Hurstmonceaux in childish
senility, would wander round and round the castle ruins in the early
morning and late evening, wringing her hands and saying--"Who could have
done such a wicked thing: oh! who could have done such a wicked thing,
as to pull down this beautiful old place?" Then her daughters, Caroline
and Marianne, walking beside her, would say--"Oh dear mamma, it was you
who did it, it was you yourself who did it, you know"--and she would
despairingly resume--"Oh no, that is impossible: it could not have been
me. I could not have done such a wicked thing: it could not have been me
that did it." My cousin Marcus Hare had at Abbots Kerswell a picture of
Mrs. Henckel Hare, which was always surrounded with crape bows.
[Illustration: HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE.]
The second Francis Hare-Naylor and his brother Robert had a most unhappy
home in their boyhood. Their stepmother ruled their weak-minded father
with a rod of iron. She ostentatiously burnt the portrait of their
beautiful mother. Every year she sold a farm from his paternal
inheritance and spent the money in extravagance. In 1784 she parted with
the ancient property of Hos Tendis, at Sculthorpe in Norfolk, though
its sale was a deathblow to the Bishop's aged widow, Mary-Margaret
Alston. Yet, while accumulating riches for herself, she prevented her
husband from allowing his unfortunate elder sons more than £100 a year
apiece. With this income, Robert, the younger of the two, was sent to
Oriel College at Oxford, and when he unavoidably incurred debts there,
the money for their repayment was stopped even from his humble pittance.
Goaded to fury by his stepmother, the eldest son, Francis, became
reckless and recklessly extravagant. He raised money at an enormous rate
of interest upon his prospects from the Hurstmonceaux estates, and he
would have been utterly ruined, morally as well as outwardly, if he had
not fallen in with Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who was captivated
by his good looks, charmed by his boldness and wit, and who made him the
hero of a living romance. By the Duchess he was introduced to her
cousin, another even more beautiful Georgiana, daughter of Jonathan
Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph, and his wife Anna Maria Mordaunt, niece of
the famous Earl of Peterborough; and though Bishop Shipley did
everything he could to separate them, meetings were perpetually connived
at by the Duchess, till eventually the pair eloped in 1785. The
families on both sides renounced them with fury. The Canon of Winchester
never saw his son again, and I believe that Bishop Shipley never saw his
daughter. Our grandparents went to Carlsruhe, and then to Italy, where
in those days it was quite possible to live upon the £200 a year which
was allowed them by the Duchess of Devonshire, and where their four
sons--Francis, Augustus, Julius, and Marcus--were born.
The story of Mrs. Hare-Naylor's struggling life in Italy is told in
"Memorials of a Quiet Life," and how, when the Canon of Winchester died,
and she hurried home with her husband to take possession of
Hurstmonceaux Place, she brought only her little Augustus with her,
placing him under the care of her eldest sister Anna Maria, widow of the
celebrated Sir William Jones, whom he ever afterwards regarded as a
second mother.
The choice of guardians which Mrs. Hare-Naylor made for the children
whom she left at Bologna would be deemed a very strange one by many: but
gifted, beautiful, and accomplished, our grandmother was never
accustomed either to seek or to take advice: she always acted upon her
own impulses, guided by her own observation. An aged Spanish Jesuit was
living in Bologna, who, when his order was suppressed in Spain, had
come to reside in Italy upon his little pension, and, being skilled in
languages, particularly in Greek, had taken great pains to revive the
love of it in Bologna. Amongst his pupils were two brothers named
Tambroni, one of whom, discouraged by the difficulties he met with,
complained to his sister Clotilda, who, by way of assisting him,
volunteered to learn the same lessons. The old Jesuit was delighted with
the girl, and spared no pains to make her a proficient. Female
professors were not unknown in Bologna, and in process of time Clotilda
Tambroni succeeded to the chair of the Professor of Greek, once occupied
by the famous Laura Bassi, whom she was rendered worthy to succeed by
her beauty as well as by her acquirements. The compositions of Clotilda
Tambroni both in Greek and Italian were published, and universally
admired; her poems surprised every one by their fire and genius, and her
public orations were considered unrivalled in her age. Adored by all,
her reputation was always unblemished. When the French became masters of
Bologna, the University was suppressed, and to avoid insult and danger,
Clotilda Tambroni retired into private life and lived in great
seclusion. Some time after, she received an appointment in Spain, but,
just as she arrived there, accompanied by her monk-preceptor Dom
Emmanuele Aponte, the French had overturned everything. The pair
returned to Bologna, where Aponte would have been in the greatest
distress, if his grateful pupil had not insisted upon receiving him into
her own house, and not only maintained him, but devoted herself as a
daughter to his wants. After the Austrians had re-established the
University on the old system, Clotilda Tambroni was invited to resume
her chair, but as her health and spirits were then quite broken, she
declined accepting it, upon which the Government very handsomely settled
a small pension upon her, sufficient to ensure her the comforts of life.
With Clotilda Tambroni and her aged friend, our grandmother Mrs.
Hare-Naylor, who wrote and spoke Greek as perfectly as her native
language, and who taught her children to converse in it at the family
repasts, naturally found more congenial companionship than with any
other members of the Bolognese society; and, when she was recalled with
her husband to England, she had no hesitation in intrusting three of her
sons to their care. Julius and Marcus were then only very beautiful and
engaging little children, but Francis, my father, was already eleven
years old, and a boy of extraordinary acquirements, in whom an almost
unnatural amount of learning had been implanted and fostered by his
gifted mother. The strange life which he then led at Bologna with the
old monk and the beautiful sibyl (for such she is represented in her
portrait) who attended him, only served to ripen the seed which had been
sown already, and the great Mezzofanti, who was charmed at seeing a
repetition of his own marvellous powers in one so young, voluntarily
took him as a pupil and devoted much of his time to him. To the year
which Francis Hare passed with Clotilda Tambroni at Bologna, in her
humble rooms with their tiled floors and scanty furniture, he always
felt that he owed that intense love of learning for learning's sake
which was the leading characteristic of his after life, and he always
looked back upon the Tambroni as the person to whom, next to his mother,
he was most deeply indebted. When he rejoined his parents at
Hurstmonceaux, he continued, under his new tutor, Dr. Lehmann, to make
such amazing progress as astonished all who knew him and was an intense
delight to his mother.
Hurstmonceaux Place was then, and is still, a large but ugly house. It
forms a massy square, with projecting circular bows at the corners, the
appearance of which (due to Wyatt) produces a frightful effect outside,
but is exceedingly comfortable within. The staircase, the floors, and
the handsome doors, were brought from the castle. The west side of the
house, decorated with some Ionic columns, is part of an older
manor-house, which existed before the castle was dismantled. In this
part of the building is a small old panelled hall, hung round with
stags' horns from the ancient deer-park. The house is surrounded by
spacious pleasure-grounds. Facing the east front were, till a few years
ago, three very fine trees, a cedar, a tulip-tree, and a huge silver
fir. In my childhood it often used to be a question which of these trees
should be removed, as they were crowding and spoiling each other, and it
ended in their all being left, as no one could decide which was the
least valuable of the three. The wind has since that time carried away
the cedar. The tulip-tree was planted by our great-aunt Marianne,
daughter of Mrs. Henckel Hare, and I remember that my uncle Julius used
to say that its gay flowers were typical of her and her dress.
For several years our grandparents carried on a most laborious contest
of dignity with poverty on their ruined estate of Hurstmonceaux, where
their only daughter Anna Maria Clementina was born in 1799. Finding no
congenial associates in the neighbourhood, Mrs. Hare-Naylor consoled
herself by keeping up an animated correspondence with all the learned
men of Europe, while her husband wrote dull plays and duller histories,
which have all been published, but which few people read then and nobody
reads now. The long-confirmed habits of Italian life, with its peculiar
hours and utter disregard of appearances, were continued in Sussex; and
it is still remembered at Hurstmonceaux how our grandmother rode on an
ass to drink at the mineral springs which abound in the park, how she
always wore white, and how a beautiful white doe always accompanied her
in her walks, and even to church, standing, during the service, at her
pew door.
Upon the return of Lehmann to Germany in 1802, Francis Hare was sent to
the tutorship of Dr. Brown, an eminent professor in Marischal College at
Aberdeen, where he remained for two years, working with the utmost
enthusiasm. He seems to have shrunk at this time from any friendships
with boys of his own age, except with Harry Temple (afterwards
celebrated as Lord Palmerston), who had been his earliest acquaintance
in England, and with whom he long continued to be intimate. Meanwhile
his mother formed the design of leaving to her children a perfect series
of large finished water-colour drawings, representing all the different
parts of Hurstmonceaux Castle, interior as well as exterior, before its
destruction. She never relaxed her labour and care till the whole were
finished, but the minute application, for so long a period, seriously
affected her health and produced disease of the optic nerve, which ended
in total blindness. She removed to Weimar, where the friendship of the
Grand Duchess and the society of Goethe, Schiller, and the other learned
men who formed the brilliantly intellectual circle of the little court
did all that was possible to mitigate her affliction. But her health
continued to fail, and her favourite son Francis was summoned to her
side, arriving in time to accompany her to Lausanne, where she expired,
full of faith, hope, and resignation, on Easter Sunday, 1806.
After his wife's death, Mr. Hare-Naylor could never bear to return to
Hurstmonceaux, and sold the remnant of his ancestral estate for
£60,000, to the great sorrow of his children. They were almost more
distressed, however, by his second marriage to a Mrs. Mealey, a
left-handed connection of the Shipley family--the Mrs. Hare-Naylor of my
own childhood, who was less and less liked by her stepsons as years went
on. She became the mother of three children, Georgiana, Gustavus, and
Reginald--my half aunt and uncles. In 1815, Mr. Hare-Naylor died at
Tours, and was buried at Hurstmonceaux.
The breaking up of their home, the loss of their beloved mother, and
still more their father's second marriage, made the four Hare brothers
turn henceforward for all that they sought of sympathy or affection to
their Shipley relations. The house of their mother's eldest sister, Lady
Jones, was henceforward the only home they knew. Little Anna Hare was
adopted by Lady Jones, and lived entirely with her till her early death
in 1813: Augustus was educated at her expense and passed his holidays at
her house of Worting, her care and anxiety for his welfare proving that
she considered him scarcely less her child than Anna; and Francis and
Julius looked up to her in everything, and consulted her on all points,
finding in her "a second mother, a monitress wise and loving, both in
encouragement and reproof."[3] While Augustus was pursuing his education
at Winchester and New College, and Marcus was acting as midshipman and
lieutenant in various ships on foreign service; and while Julius (who
already, during his residence with his mother at Weimar, had imbibed
that passion for Germany and German literature which characterised his
after life) was carrying off prizes at Tunbridge, the Charter House, and
Trinity College, Cambridge; Francis, after his mother's death, was
singularly left to his own devices. Mr. Hare-Naylor was too apathetic,
and his stepmother did not dare to interfere with him: Lady Jones was
bewildered by him. After leaving Aberdeen he studied vigorously, even
furiously, with a Mr. Michell at Buckland. From time to time he went
abroad, travelling where he pleased and seeing whom he pleased. At the
Universities of Leipsic and Göttingen the report which Lehmann gave of
his extraordinary abilities procured him an enthusiastic reception, and
he soon formed intimacies with the most distinguished professors of both
seats of learning. At the little court of Weimar he was adored. Yet the
vagaries of his character led him with equal ardour to seek the
friendship and share the follies of Count Calotkin, of whom he wrote as
"the Lord Chesterfield of the time, who had had more princesses in love
with him and perhaps more children on the throne than there are weeks in
the year." At twenty, he had not only all the knowledge, but more than
all the experiences, of most men of forty. Such training was not a good
preparation for his late entrance at an English University. The pupil of
Mezzofanti and Lehmann also went to Christ Church at Oxford knowing far
too much. He was so far ahead of his companions, and felt such a
profound contempt for the learning of Oxford compared with that to which
he had been accustomed at the Italian and German universities, that he
neglected the Oxford course of study altogether, and did little except
hunt whilst he was at college. In spite of this, he was so naturally
talented, that he could not help adding, in spite of himself, to his
vast store of information. Jackson, Dean of Christ Church in his time,
used to say that "Francis Hare was the only rolling stone he knew that
ever gathered any moss." That which he did gather was always made the
most of for his favourite brother Julius, for whose instruction he was
never weary of writing essays, and in whose progress he took the
greatest interest and delight. But through all the changes of life the
tie between each of the four brothers continued undiminished--"the most
brotherly of brothers," their common friend Landor always used to call
them.
After leaving Oxford, my father lived principally at his rooms in the
Albany. Old Dr. Wellesley[4] used often to tell me stories of these
pleasant chambers (the end house in the court), and of the parties which
used to meet in them, including all that was most refined and
intellectual in the young life of London. For, in his conversational
powers, Francis Hare had the reputation of being perfectly unrivalled,
and it was thus, not in writing, that his vast amount of information on
all possible subjects became known to his contemporaries. In 1811, Lady
Jones writes of him "at Stowe" as "keeping all the talk to himself,
which does not please the old Marquis much."
Francis Hare sold his father's fine library at Christie's soon after his
death, yet almost immediately began to form a new collection of books,
which soon surrounded all the walls of his Albany chambers. But his
half-sister Mrs. Maurice remembered going to visit him at the Albany,
and her surprise at not seeing his books. "Oh, Francis, what have you
done with your library?" she exclaimed. "Look under the sofa and you
will see it," he replied. She looked, and saw a pile of Sir William
Jones's works: he had again sold all the rest. And through life it was
always the same. He never could resist collecting valuable books, and
then either sold them, or had them packed up, left them behind, and
forgot all about them. Three of his collections of books have been sold
within my remembrance, one at Newbury in July 1858; one at Florence in
the spring of 1859; and one at Sotheby & Wilkinson's rooms in the
following November.
Careful as to his personal appearance, Francis Hare was always dressed
in the height of the fashion. It is remembered how he would retire and
change his dress three times in the course of a single ball! In
everything he followed the foibles of the day. "Francis leads a rambling
life of pleasure and idleness," wrote his cousin Anna Maria Dashwood;
"he _must_ have read, but who can tell at what time?--for wherever there
is dissipation, there is Francis in its wake and its most ardent
pursuer. Yet, in spite of this, let _any_ subject be named in society,
and Francis will know more of it than nineteen out of twenty."
In 1816-17, Francis Hare kept horses and resided much at Melton Mowbray,
losing an immense amount of money there. After this time he lived almost
entirely upon the Continent. Lord Desart, Lord Bristol and Count d'Orsay
were his constant companions and friends, so that it is not to be
wondered at that attractions of a less reputable kind enchained him to
Florence and Rome. He had, however, a really good friend in John
Nicholas Fazakerley, with whom his intimacy was never broken, and in
1814, whilst watching his dying father at Tours, he began a friendship
with Walter Savage Landor, with whom he ever afterwards kept up an
affectionate correspondence. Other friends of whom he saw much in the
next few years were Lady Oxford (then separated from her husband, and
living entirely abroad) and her four daughters. In the romantic
interference of Lady Oxford in behalf of Caroline Murat, queen of
Naples, and in the extraordinary adventures of her daughters, my father
took the deepest interest, and he was always ready to help or advise
them. On one occasion, when they arrived suddenly in Florence, he gave a
ball in their honour, the brilliancy of which I have heard described by
the older Florentine residents of my own time. Twice every week, even in
his bachelor days, he was accustomed to give large dinner-parties, and
he then first acquired that character for hospitality for which he was
afterwards famous at Rome and Pisa. Spa was one of the places which
attracted him most at this period of his life, and he frequently passed
part of the summer there. It was on one of these occasions (1816) that
he proceeded to Holland and visited Amsterdam. "I am delighted and
disgusted with this mercantile capital," he wrote to his brother
Augustus. "Magnificent establishments and penurious
economy--ostentatious generosity and niggardly suspicion--constitute the
centrifugal and centripetal focus of Holland's mechanism. The rage for
roots still continues. The gardener at the Hortus Medicus showed me an
Amaryllis (alas! it does not flower till October), for which King Lewis
paid one thousand guelders (a guelder is about 2 francs and 2 sous).
Here, in the sanctuary of Calvinism, organs are everywhere
introduced--though the more orthodox, or puerile, discipline of Scotland
has rejected their intrusion. But, in return, the sternness of
republican demeanour refuses the outward token of submission--even to
Almighty power: a Dutchman always remains in church with his hat unmoved
from his head."
The year 1818 was chiefly passed by Francis Hare in Bavaria, where he
became very intimate with the King and Prince Eugene. The latter gave
him the miniature of himself which I still have at Holmhurst. For the
next seven years he was almost entirely in Italy--chiefly at Florence or
Pisa. Sometimes Lord Dudley was with him, often he lived for months in
the constant society of Count d'Orsay and Lady Blessington. He was fêted
and invited everywhere. "On disait de M. Hare," said one who knew him
intimately, "non seulement qu'il était original, mais qu'il était
original sans copie." "In these years at Florence," said the same
person, "there were many ladies who were aspirants for his hand, he was
_si aimable, pas dans le sens vulgaire, mais il avait tant
d'empressement pour tout le sexe feminin_." His aunts Lady Jones and her
sister Louisa Shipley constantly implored him to return to England and
settle there, but in vain: he was too much accustomed to a roving life.
Occasionally he wrote for Reviews, but I have never been able to trace
the articles. He had an immense correspondence, and his letters were
very amusing, when their recipients could read his almost impossible
hand. We find Count d'Orsay writing, apropos of a debt which he was
paying--"Employez cette somme à prendre un maître d'écriture: si vous
saviez quel service vous renderiez à vos amis!"
The English family of which Francis Hare saw most at Florence was that
of Lady Paul, who had brought her four daughters to spend several years
in Italy, partly for the sake of completing their education, partly to
escape with dignity from the discords of a most uncongenial home. To the
close of her life Frances Eleanor, first wife of Sir John Dean Paul of
Rodborough, was one of those rare individuals who are never seen without
being loved, and who never fail to have a good influence over those with
whom they are thrown in contact. That she was as attractive as she was
good is still shown in a lovely portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence. Landor
adored her, and rejoiced to bring his friend Francis Hare into her
society. The daughters were clever, lively and animated; but the mother
was the great attraction to the house.
[Illustration: GLAMIS CASTLE.]
Defoe says that "people who boast of their ancestors are like potatoes,
in that their best part is in underground." Still I will explain that
Lady Paul was the daughter of John Simpson of Bradley in the county of
Durham, and his wife Lady Anne Lyon, second daughter of the 8th Earl of
Strathmore, who quartered the royal arms and claimed royal descent from
Robert II. king of Scotland, grandson of the famous Robert Bruce: the
king's youngest daughter Lady Jane Stuart having married Sir John Lyon,
first Baron Kinghorn, and the king's grand-daughter Elizabeth Graham
(through Euphemia Stuart, Countess of Strathern) having married his son
Sir John Lyon of Glamis. Eight barons and eight earls of Kinghorn and
Strathmore (which title was added 1677) lived in Glamis Castle before
Lady Anne was born. The family history had been of the most eventful
kind. The widow of John, 6th Lord Glamis, was burnt as a witch on the
Castle Hill at Edinburgh, for attempting to poison King James V., and
her second husband, Archibald Campbell, was dashed to pieces while
trying to escape down the rocks which form the foundation of the castle.
Her son, the 7th Lord Glamis, was spared, and restored to his honours
upon the confession of the accusers of the family that the whole story
was a forgery, after it had already cost the lives of two innocent
persons. John, 8th Lord Glamis, was killed in a Border fray with the
followers of the Earl of Crawford: John, 5th Earl, fell in rebellion at
the battle of Sheriffmuir: Charles, 6th Earl, was killed in a quarrel.
The haunted castle of Glamis itself, the most picturesque building in
Scotland, girdled with quaint pepper-box turrets, is full of the most
romantic interest. A winding stair in the thickness of the wall leads to
the principal apartments. The weird chamber is still shown in which, as
Shakspeare narrates, Duncan, king of Scotland, was murdered by Macbeth,
the "thane of Glamis." In the depth of the walls is another chamber more
ghastly still, with a secret, transmitted from the fourteenth century,
which is always known to three persons. When one of the triumvirate
dies, the survivors are compelled by a terrible oath to elect a
successor. Every succeeding Lady Strathmore, Fatima-like, has spent her
time in tapping at the walls, taking up the boards, and otherwise
attempting to discover the secret chamber, but all have failed. One
tradition of the place says that "Old Beardie"[5] sits for ever in that
chamber playing with dice and drinking punch at a stone table, and that
at midnight a second and terrible person joins him.
More fearful than these traditions were the scenes through which Lady
Anne had lived and in which she herself bore a share. Nothing is more
extraordinary than the history of her eldest brother's widow,
Mary-Eleanor Bowes, 9th Countess of Strathmore, who, in her second
marriage with Mr. Stoney, underwent sufferings which have scarcely ever
been surpassed, and whose marvellous escapes and adventures are still
the subject of a hundred story-books.
The vicissitudes of her eventful life, and her own charm and cleverness,
combined to make Lady Anne Simpson one of the most interesting women of
her age, and her society was eagerly sought and appreciated. Both her
daughters had married young, and in her solitude, she took the eldest
daughter of Lady Paul to live with her and brought her up as her own
child. In her house, Anne Paul saw all the most remarkable Englishmen of
the time. She was provided with the best masters, and in her home life
she had generally the companionship of the daughters of her mother's
sister Lady Liddell, afterwards Lady Ravensworth, infinitely preferring
their companionship to that of her own brothers and sisters. Lady Anne
Simpson resided chiefly at a house belonging to Colonel Jolliffe at
Merstham in Surrey, where the persons she wished to see could frequently
come down to her from London. The royal dukes, sons of George III.,
constantly visited her in this way, and delighted in the society of the
pretty old lady, who had so much to tell, and who always told it in the
most interesting way.
It was a severe trial for Anne Paul, when, in her twentieth year (1821),
she lost her grandmother, and had to return to her father's house. Not
only did the blank left by the affection she had received cause her
constant suffering, but the change from being mistress of a considerable
house and establishment to becoming an insignificant unit in a large
party of brothers and sisters was most disagreeable, and she felt it
bitterly.
Very welcome therefore was the change when Lady Paul determined to go
abroad with her daughters, and the society of Florence, in which Anne
Paul's great musical talents made her a general favourite, was the more
delightful from being contrasted with the confinement of Sir John Paul's
house over his bank in the Strand. During her Italian travels also, Anne
Paul made three friends whose intimacy influenced all her after life.
These were our cousin, the clever widowed Anna Maria Dashwood, daughter
of Dean Shipley; Walter Savage Landor; and Francis Hare; and the two
first united in desiring the same thing--her marriage with the last.
Meantime, two other marriages occupied the attention of the Paul family.
One of Lady Paul's objects in coming abroad had been the hope of
breaking through an attachment which her third daughter Maria had formed
for Charles Bankhead, an exceedingly handsome and fascinating, but
penniless young attaché, with whom she had fallen in love at first
sight, declaring that nothing should ever induce her to marry any one
else. Unfortunately, the first place to which Lady Paul took her
daughters was Geneva, and Mr. Bankhead, finding out where they were,
came thither (from Frankfort, where he was attaché) dressed in a long
cloak and with false hair and beard. In this disguise, he climbed up and
looked into a room where Maria Paul was writing, with her face towards
the window. She recognised him at once, but thought it was his double,
and fainted away. On her recovery, finding her family still inexorable,
she one day, when her mother and sisters were out, tried to make away
with herself. Her room faced the stairs, and as Prince Lardoria, an old
friend of the family, was coming up, she threw open the door and
exclaimed--"Je meurs, Prince, je meurs, je me suis empoisonné."--"Oh
Miladi, Miladi," screamed the Prince, but Miladi was not there, so he
rushed into the kitchen, and seizing a large bottle of oil, dashed
upstairs with it, and, throwing Maria Paul upon the ground, poured the
contents of it down her throat. After this, Lady Paul looked upon the
marriage as inevitable, and sent Maria to England to her aunt Lady
Ravensworth, from whose house she was married to Charles Bankhead,
neither her mother or sisters being present. Shortly afterwards Mr.
Bankhead was appointed minister in Mexico, and his wife, accompanying
him thither, remained there for many years, and had many extraordinary
adventures, especially during a great earthquake, in which she was saved
by her presence of mind in swinging upon a door, while "the cathedral
rocked like a wave on the sea" and the town was laid in ruins.
While Maria Paul's marriage was pending, her youngest sister Jane had
also become engaged, without the will of her parents, to Edward, only
son of the attainted Lord Edward Fitz Gerald, son of the 1st Duke of
Leinster. His mother was the famous Pamela,[6] once the beautiful and
fascinating little fairy produced at eight years old by the Chevalier de
Grave as the companion of Mademoiselle d'Orleans; over whose birth a
mystery has always prevailed; whose name Madame de Genlis declared to be
Sims, but whom her royal companions called Seymour. To her daughter
Jane's engagement Lady Paul rather withheld than refused her consent,
and it was hoped that during their travels abroad the intimacy might be
broken off. It had begun by Jane Paul, in a ball-room, hearing a
peculiarly hearty and ringing laugh from a man she could not see, and in
her high spirits imprudently saying--"I will marry the man who can laugh
in that way and no one else,"--a remark which was repeated to Edward
Fitz Gerald, who insisted upon being immediately introduced. Jane Paul
was covered with confusion, but as she was exceedingly pretty, this only
added to her attractions, and the adventure led to a proposal, and
eventually, through the friendship and intercession of Francis Hare, to
a marriage.[7]
Already, in 1826, we find Count d'Orsay writing to Francis Hare in
August--"Quel diable vous possede de rester à Florence, _sans Pauls_,
sans rien enfin, excepté un rhume imaginaire pour excuse?" But it was
not till the following year that Miss Paul began to believe he was
seriously paying court to her. They had long corresponded, and his
clever letters are most indescribably eccentric. They became more
eccentric still in 1828, when, before making a formal proposal, he
expended two sheets in proving to her how hateful the word _must_ always
had been and always would be to his nature. She evidently accepted this
exordium very amiably, for on receiving her answer, he sent his banker's
book to Sir John Paul, begging him to examine and see if, after all his
extravagancies, he still possessed at least "fifteen hundred a year,
clear of every possible deduction and charge, to spend withal, that is,
four pounds a day," and to consider, if the examination proved
satisfactory, that he begged to propose for the hand of his eldest
daughter! Equally strange was his announcement of his engagement to his
brother Augustus at Rome, casually observing, in the midst of
antiquarian queries about the temples--"Apropos of columns, I am going
to rest my old age on a column. Anne Paul and I are to be married on the
28th of April,"--and proceeding at once, as if he had said nothing
unusual--"Have you made acquaintance yet with my excellent friend Luigi
Vescovali," &c. At the same time Mrs. Dashwood wrote to Miss Paul that
Francis had "too much feeling and principle to marry without feeling
that he could make the woman who was sincerely attached to him happy,"
and that "though he has a great many faults, still, when one considers
the sort of wild education he had, that he has been a sort of pet pupil
of the famous or infamous Lord Bristol, one feels very certain that he
must have a more than commonly large amount of original goodness (not
sin, though it is the fashion to say so much on that head) to save him
from having many more."
It was just before the marriage that "Victoire" (often afterwards
mentioned in these volumes) came to live with Miss Paul. She had lost
her parents in childhood, and had been brought up by her grandmother,
who, while she was still very young, "pour assurer son avenir," sent her
to England to be with Madame Girardôt, who kept a famous shop for
ladies' dress in Albemarle Street. Three days after her arrival, Lady
Paul came there to ask Madame Girardôt to recommend a maid for her
daughter, who was going to be married, and Victoire was suggested, but
she begged to remain where she was for some weeks, as she felt so lonely
in a strange country, and did not like to leave the young Frenchwomen
with whom she was at work. During this time Miss Paul often came to see
her, and they became great friends. At last a day was fixed on which
Victoire was summoned to the house "seulement pour voir," and then she
first saw Lady Paul. Miss Paul insisted that when her mother asked
Victoire her age, she should say twenty-two at least, as Lady Paul
objected to her having any maid under twenty-eight. "Therefore," said
Victoire, "when Miladi asked 'Quelle age avez vous?' j'ai répondu
'Vingt-deux ans, mais je suis devenu toute rouge, oh comme je suis
devenu rouge'--et Miladi a répondu avec son doux sourire--'Ah vous
n'avez pas l'habitude des mensonges?'--Oh comme cà m'a tellement
frappé."[8]
My father was married to Anne Frances Paul at the church in the Strand
on the 28th of April 1828. "Oh comme il y avait du monde!" said
Victoire, when she described the ceremony to me. A few days afterwards a
breakfast was given at the Star and Garter at Richmond, at which all the
relations on both sides were present, Maria Leycester, the future bride
of Augustus Hare, being also amongst the guests.
Soon after, the newly-married pair left for Holland, where they began
the fine collection of old glass for which Mrs. Hare was afterwards
almost famous, and then to Dresden and Carlsbad. In the autumn they
returned to England, and took a London house--5 Gloucester Place, where
my sister Caroline was born in 1829. The house was chiefly furnished by
the contents of my father's old rooms at the Albany.
"Victoire" has given many notes of my father's character at this time.
"M. Hare était sevère, mais il était juste. Il ne pouvait souffrir la
moindre injustice. Il pardonnait une fois--deux fois, et puis il ne
pardonnait plus, il faudrait s'en aller; il ne voudrait plus de celui
qui l'avait offensé. C'était ainsi avec François, son valet à Gloucester
Place, qui l'accompagnait partout et qui avait tout sous la main. Un
jour M. Hare me priait, avec cette intonation de courtoisie qu'il
avail, que je mettrais son linge dans les tiroirs. 'Mais, très
volontiers, monsieur,' j'ai dit. Il avait beaucoup des choses--des
chemises, des foulards, de tout. Eh bien! quelques jours après il me
dit--'Il me manque quelques foulards--deux foulards de cette espèce'--en
tirant une de sa poche, parcequ'il faisait attention à tout. 'Ah,
monsieur,' j'ai dit, 'c'est très probable, en sortant peut-être dans la
ville.' 'Non,' il me dit, 'ce n'est pas ça--je suis volé, et c'est
François qui les a pris, et ça n'est pas la première fois,' ainsi enfin
il faut que je le renvoie." It was not till long after that Victoire
found out that my father had known for years that François had been
robbing him, and yet had retained him in his service. He said that it
was always his plan to weigh the good qualities of any of his dependants
against their defects. If the defects outweighed the virtues, "il
faudrait les renvoyer de suite--si non, il faudrait les laisser aller."
When he was in his "colère" he never allowed his wife to come near
him--"il avait peur de lui faire aucun mal."
The christening of Caroline was celebrated with great festivities, but
it was like a fairy story, in that the old aunt Louisa Shipley, who was
expected to make her nephew Francis her heir, then took an
offence--something about being godmother, which was never quite got
over. The poor little babe itself was very pretty and terribly
precocious, and before she was a year old she died of water on the
brain. Victoire, who doated upon her, held her in her arms for the last
four-and-twenty hours, and there she died. Mrs. Hare was very much
blamed for having neglected her child for society, yet, when she was
dead, says Victoire, "Madame Hare avait tellement chagrin, que Lady Paul
qui venait tous les jours, priait M. Hare de l'ammener tout de suite.
Nous sommes allés à Bruxelles, parceque là M. FitzGerald avait une
maison,--mais de là, nous sommes retournés bien vite en Angleterre à
cause de la grossesse de Madame Hare, parceque M. Hare ne voulut pas que
son fils soil né à l'étranger, parcequ'il disait, que, étant le
troisième, il perdrait ses droits de l'héritage.[9] C'est selon la loi
anglaise--et c'était vraiment temps, car, de suite en arrivant à
Londres, François naquit."
The family finally left Gloucester Place and went abroad in consequence
of Lady Jones's death. After that they never had a settled home again.
When the household in London was broken up, Victoire was to have left.
She had long been engaged to be married to Félix Ackermann, who had
been a soldier, and was in receipt of a pension for his services in the
Moscow campaign. But, when it came to the parting, "Monsieur et Madame"
would not let her go, saying that they could not let her travel, until
they could find a family to send her with. "It was an excuse," said
Victoire, "for I waited two years, and the family was never found. Then
I had to _consigner_ all the things, then I could not leave Madame--and
so it went on for two years more, till, when the family were at Pisa,
Félix insisted that I should come to a decision. Then M. Hare sent for
Félix, who had been acting as a courier for some time, and begged him to
come to Florence to go with us as a courier to Baden. Félix arrived on
the _Jeudi Saint_. M. Hare came in soon after (it was in my little room)
and talked to him as if they were old friends. He brought a bottle of
champagne, and poured out glasses for us all, and _faisait clinquer les
verres_. On the Monday we all left for Milan, and there I was married to
Félix, and, after the season at Baden, Félix and I were to return to
Paris, but when the time came M. Hare would not let us."
"Wherever," said Victoire, "M. Hare était en passage--soit à Florence,
soit à Rome, n'importe où, il faudrait toujours des diners, et des
fêtes, pour recevoir M. Hare, surtout dans les ambassades, pas seulement
dans l'ambassade d'Angleterre, mais dans celles de France, d'Allemagne,
etc. Et quand M. Hare ne voyageait plus, et qu'il était établi dans
quelque ville, il donnait à son tour des diners à lui."
"Il s'occupait toujours à lire,--pas des romans, mais des anciens
livres, dans lesquelles il fouillait toujours. Quand nous voyageons,
c'était toujours pour visiter les bibliothèques, ça c'était la première
chose, et il emporta énormément des livres dans la voiture avec lui....
Quand il y'avait une personne qui lui avait été recommandée, il fallait
toujours lui faire voir tout ce qu'il avait, soit à Rome, soit à
Bologne,--et comme il savait un peu de tout, son avis était demandé pour
la valeur des tableaux, et n'importe de quoi."
On first going abroad, my father had taken his wife to make acquaintance
with his old friends Lady Blessington and Count d'Orsay, with whom they
afterwards had frequent meetings. Lady Blessington thus describes to
Landor her first impressions of Mrs. Hare:--
"_Paris, Feb. 1829._--Among the partial gleams of sunshine which
have illumined our winter, a fortnight's sojourn which Francis
Hare and his excellent wife made here, is remembered with most
pleasure. She is indeed a treasure--well-informed, clever,
sensible, well-mannered, kind, lady-like, and, above all, truly
feminine; the having chosen such a woman reflects credit and
distinction on our friend, and the community with her has had a
visible effect on him, as, without losing any of his gaiety, it has
become softened down to a more mellow tone, and he appears not only
a more happy man, but more deserving of happiness than before."
My second brother, William Robert, was born September 20, 1831, at the
Bagni di Lucca, where the family was spending the summer. Mrs. Louisa
Shipley meanwhile never ceased to urge their return to England.
"_Jan. 25, 1831._--I am glad to hear so good an account of my two
little great-nephews, but I should be still more glad to see them.
I do hope the next may be a girl. If Francis liked England for the
sake of being with old friends, he might live here very
comfortably, but if he _will_ live as those who can afford to make
a show, for one year of parade in England he must be a banished man
for many years. I wish he would be as 'domestic' at home as he is
abroad!"
In the summer of 1832 all the family went to Baden-Baden, to meet Lady
Paul and her daughter Eleanor, Sir John, the FitzGeralds, and the
Bankheads. All the branches of Mrs. Hare's family lived in different
houses, but they met daily for dinner, and were very merry. Before the
autumn, my father returned to Italy, to the Villa Cittadella near Lucca,
which was taken for two months for Mrs. Hare's confinement, and there,
on the 9th of October, my sister was born. She received the names of
"Anne Frances Maria Louisa." "Do you mean your ?????????? daughter to
rival Venus in all her other qualities as well as in the multitude of
her names? or has your motive been rather to recommend her to a greater
number of patron saints?" wrote my uncle Julius on hearing of her birth.
Just before this, Mrs. Shelley (widow of the poet and one of her most
intimate friends) had written to Mrs. Hare:--
"Your accounts of your child (Francis) give me very great pleasure.
Dear little fellow, what an amusement and delight he must be to
you. You do indeed understand a Paradisaical life. Well do I
remember the dear Lucca baths, where we spent morning and evening
in riding about the country--the most prolific place in the world
for all manner of reptiles. Take care of yourself, dearest
friend.... Choose Naples for your winter residence. Naples, with
its climate, its scenery, its opera, its galleries, its natural
and ancient wonders, surpasses every other place in the world. Go
thither, and live on the Chiaja. Happy one, how I envy you. Percy
is in brilliant health and promises better and better.
"Have you plenty of storms at dear beautiful Lucca? Almost every
day when I was there, vast white clouds peeped out from above the
hills--rising higher and higher till they overshadowed us, and
spent themselves in rain and tempest: the thunder, re-echoed again
and again by the hills, is indescribably terrific.... Love me, and
return to us--Ah! return to us! for it is all very stupid and
unamiable without you. For are not you--
'That cordial drop Heaven in our cup had thrown,
To make the nauseous draught of life go down.'"
After a pleasant winter at Naples, my father and his family went to pass
the summer of 1833 at Castellamare. "C'était à Castellamare" (says a
note by Madame Victoire) "que Madame Hare apprit la mort de Lady Paul.
Elle était sur le balcon, quand elle la lut dans le journal. J'étais
dans une partie de la maison très éloignée, mais j'ai entendu un cri si
fort, si aigu, que je suis arrivée de suite, et je trouvais Madame Hare
toute étendue sur le parquet. J'appellais--'Au secours, au secours,' et
Félix, qui était très fort, prenait Madame Hare dans ses bras, et
l'apportait à mettre sur son lit, et nous l'avons donné tant des choses,
mais elle n'est pas revenue, et elle restait pendant deux heures en cet
état. Quand M. Hare est entré, il pensait que c'était à cause de sa
grossesse. Il s'est agenouillé tout en pleurs à coté de son lit. Il
demandait si je lui avais donné des lettres. 'Mais, non, monsieur; je ne
l'ai pas donné qu'un journal.' On cherchait longtemps ce journal,
parcequ'elle l'avait laissé tomber du balcon, mais quand il était
trouvé, monsieur s'est aperçu tout de suite de ce qu'elle avait." The
death of Lady Paul was very sudden; her sister Lady Ravensworth first
heard of it when calling to inquire at the door in the Strand in her
carriage. After expressing her sympathy in the loss of such a mother,
Mrs. Louisa Shipley at this time wrote to Mrs. Hare:--
"I will now venture to call your attention to the blessings you
possess in your husband and children, and more particularly to the
occupation of your thoughts in the education of the latter. They
are now at an age when it depends on a mother to lay the foundation
of principles which they will carry with them through life. The
responsibility is great, and if you feel it such, there cannot be a
better means of withdrawing your mind from unavailing sorrow, than
the hope of seeing them beloved and respected, and feeling that
your own watchfulness of their early years, has, by the blessing of
God, caused them to be so. Truth is the cornerstone of all virtues:
never let a child think it can deceive you; they are cunning
little creatures, and reason before they can speak; secure this,
and the chief part of your work is done, and so ends my sermon."
It was in the summer of 1833, following upon her mother's death, that a
plan was first arranged by which my aunt Eleanor Paul became an inmate
of my father's household--the kind and excellent aunt whose devotion in
all times of trouble was afterwards such a blessing to her sister and
her children. Neither at first or ever afterwards was the residence of
Eleanor Paul any expense in her sister's household: quite the contrary,
as she had a handsome allowance from her father, and afterwards
inherited a considerable fortune from an aunt.
In the autumn of 1833 my father rented the beautiful Villa Strozzi at
Rome, then standing in large gardens of its own facing the grounds of
the noble old Villa Negroni, which occupied the slope of the Viminal
Hill looking towards the Esquiline. Here on the 13th of March 1834 I was
born--the youngest child of the family, and a most unwelcome addition to
the population of this troublesome world, as both my father and Mrs.
Hare were greatly annoyed at the birth of another child, and beyond
measure disgusted that it was another son.