1831-1835
_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._
GREENWICH PARK,
[_October or November_] 1831.
MY DEAREST THERESA, I would take a larger sheet of paper, but it does so
happen that ever since we have nominally had stationery for nothing, I
have never been able to find anything in the nature of paper, pen, or
sealing-wax; indeed, for some time one pen served the whole house. It
never came to my turn to have it, as you perceived, and I scorned to buy
one. The country may yet afford a quarter of a hundred of pens, at least
I suppose so.
You were quite right, I really did look at the end of your letter for
your signature. The date, and your beginning, “You must have forgotten
who I am,” and your writing such a simple hand, put me out, and I said
to George, “This must be some Carnegie or Elliot cousin, by the token of
Edinbro’, whom I ought to remember.” I was so pleased when I found it
was you; though your expecting an answer is odd, not to say troublesome.
However, anything to please you.
What a delicious tour you have had. I cannot imagine anything much
pleasanter. The two articles in your letter that disappoint me are, that
it does not appear you are intensely bored by the Scotch, considered as
members of society; nor that you are sufficiently mad about the beauty
of Edinbro’. I think the old town so much the most picturesque thing I
ever saw, and the scenery all about it so beautiful. In short, such a
slow drawly people have no right to such a romantic capital. They are
very tiresome, poor dears! but I suppose they cannot help it; else, if
they would speak a thought quicker, and even catch even the glimmer of a
joke, and give up all that old nonsense about Chiefs and plaids and
pretenders and so on, I should grudge them that town less.
I have been living here very quietly nearly three months, I think--that
is as quietly as is compatible with the times; but it has been an
eventful summer. What with the opening of bridges, crowning Kings and
Queens, and launching ships, I have seen more sights and greater masses
of human creatures than usual; and then there has been some talk of a
Reform in Parliament, a mere playful idea, which may not have reached
you, but which has occasionally been alluded to in conversation here.
What a business they all made of it last week.[367] They speak amazingly
well, those dear Lords, but they are not so happy at voting....
I could quite understand those Tories if I could find one who would say
the Bill is thrown out for good, but I have not seen one who does not
say it must pass in three months, so why refuse to consider it now?
London has been an ugly-looking sight. We drove up to it most days to
see George, and to take him down to the House, because I like to see him
safe thro’ the crowd.
Women in London have made themselves so extremely ridiculous and
conspicuous, by their party violence, and I have no reason for thinking
I should have been wiser than others, if I had been in the same state
of excitement. Besides, it is such a bore to be very eager, it tires me
to death, and yet one catches it, if other people have the same
complaint.
The gardener has taken up all the geraniums. That is not a light
grievance, it portends frost and spoils the garden. I wish you had seen
it this year, I am certain there never were so many flowers in so small
a space.
Anne Robinson[368] came here for three days, and took a fancy for
gardening, but I am afraid it did not last. She paid us such a nice
visit I asked Lord Morpeth to meet her, thinking that a proper
_procèdé_. Then somebody who had been dining at Putney[369] told me I
was quite wrong, and that Mr. Villiers was the person to ask. So I
_driv_ up to town like mad and caught him before dinner-time. I thought
as he had a Dawkins-Pennant to look to, it was rather hard to interfere
with Lord Morpeth’s chance, but I need not have had that delicacy about
a fair division of fortune.
Lord Morpeth came here for a longer visit the following week, and I do
not think he has the remotest intention of making up to Anne, or any
other person. He is absorbed in politics, and says it would bore him to
change his situation. Your ever affect.
E. E.
_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._
30 GROSVENOR STREET,
_Thursday_ [_January 1832_].
MY DEAREST THERESA, Not the least affronted. It never crosses my mind to
invent any other cause for anybody’s silence, but the simple fact that
the bore of writing a letter is almost intolerable, and I never fancy
anything, either that they are affronted or ill, or _hurt_ (don’t you
know how many people are delighted to feel hurt), or dead; but I simply
suppose they are not in a writing humour....
I am glad you liked Bowood. I saw her on Monday on her way through town,
quite enchanted with Paris and with the fuss that had been made with
them. She likes your brother Edward[370] very much, and seemed to have
seen a great deal of him. I have not seen Lord Lansdowne yet, but he is
to stay on in town some days longer. I wish there were any chance of our
meeting you at Bowood, but I fear it is not very likely. In the summer
they said they hoped we would come in the winter, but I never go there
without a renewed invitation for some special time, because it is always
a doubt, I think, whether she likes all the visitors he asks, and I hate
to go in uncertainty.
I have been passing a fortnight at Panshanger--went with George for
three days, and then Lady Cowper made me stay on. It is a most difficult
house to get away from, partly because it is so pleasant, and then that
her dawdling way of saying, “Oh no, you can’t go, I always understood
you were to stay till we go to Brighton,” is more unanswerable than all
the cordiality of half the boisterous friends, who beg and pray, and say
all the kind thoughts that they can think of.
We had heaps of people the first part of my visit: Lievens, Talleyrand,
Madame de Dino, Lady Stanhope, Palmerston[371] and Mahon, George, Lionel
Ashley, Fordwich, and William Cowper (who is a great dear), and heaps of
people who acted and danced, and it was all very pleasant.
People are wonderfully clever, I think, and as for Talleyrand I doat
upon him. I have been dining with him since at his own house, and
elsewhere, and could listen to him for any number of hours. There _are_
weak moments in which I think him handsome, just as it used to cross my
mind sometimes whether the Chancellor was not good-looking--decidedly
pleasanter to look at than that young Bagot, who walks up Regent Street
quite miserable that it is not wide enough for the crowds that he thinks
are looking at him.
My last week at Panshanger I was alone with the family, which is always
pleasant. I do like Lady Cowper’s society so particularly; in short, I
like _her_. She may have a great many faults, but I do not see them, and
it is no business of mine anyhow; and so everybody may reproach me for
it if they please, but I am very fond of her.
As for your plan for me--kind of you, but it won’t do at all. He was
there all the time, and I left him there, and he always honours me with
great attention, but by the blessing of Providence I do not take to him
at all. I am too old to marry,[372] and that is the truth. Lady Cowper
remained convinced of that fact, and told me one day that if I were
younger I should be less quick-sighted to Lord M.’s[373] faults, which
is true enough. I do not think him half so pleasant as Sir
Frederick,[374] whom I met the time before, and probably just as wicked,
and he frightens me and bewilders me, and he swears too much. However,
we ended by being very good friends, which is creditable under the
circumstances, and though I am sure it is very kind of my friends to
wish me married, and particularly kind that anybody should wish to marry
me, yet I think now they may give it up, and give me credit for knowing
my own happiness. “We know what we are, but not what we may be,” as
somebody says, _Ophelia_ I believe; and I know that I am very happy
now, and have been so for some years, and that I had rather not change.
If I change my mind I shall say so without shame, but at present I am
quite contented with my position in life and only wish it may last. If I
were younger, or less spoiled than I have been at home, I daresay I
could put up with the difficulties of a new place; but not now. I cannot
be blind to the faults of the few men I know well, and though I know
many more faults in myself, yet I am used to those, you know, and George
is used to them, and it all does beautifully. But in a new scene it
might fail.
I can derive but little vanity from Lord Melbourne’s admiration. I stand
very low in the list of his loves, and as for his thinking well of my
principles, it would be rather hard if he did not, considering the
society he lives in. And he has found out that I am not clever. I like
him for that, and for saying so.
Lord Alvanley is utterly ruined again, has given up everything, and his
creditors allow him £1200 a year. Poor Colonel Russell[375] leaves
£35,000 of debt. What horrid lives of difficulty those men must lead.
We settled in town a week ago, as the drives from Greenwich were
becoming cold and dark for George. There are several people in town I
know. Maria is looking very well and seems pleased and
contented--neither in great spirits, nor otherwise.
We have seen Colonel Arden very often lately; he and Mr. Warrender
having been kept in town for the hopeless purpose of arranging Lord
Alvanley’s affairs. I suspect dear Alvanley is after all little better
than a swindler. He writes beautiful letters to Lord Skelmersdale, one
of his trustees, and says he feels he deserves all the misery he is
suffering, which misery consists in sitting in an arm-chair from
breakfast till dinner-time cracking his jokes without ceasing. He has
taught his servant to come into the room and ask what time his Lordship
would like the carriage, and what orders he has for his groom, because
he thinks it sounds cheerful, though he has neither carriage nor horses.
But it looks better. When Brooke Greville was describing to him the
beautiful gilding of his house in Hill Street, which is a wonderful
concern, Lord Alvanley said, “My dear Brooke, if you would carve a
little more, and gild a little less, it would be a more hospitable way
of going on.” Yours ever
E. E.
_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._
GREENWICH PARK,
_Thursday evening, April 18, 1832._
MY DEAREST THERESA, I should not much wonder if you _were_ coming to the
crisis; that feeling so well is suspicious. Never mind; “all things must
have their end,” as _Isabella_ says in the Tragedy, and “all things must
have their beginnings,” as your child[376] will probably say if you will
give it an opportunity. I quite forgot to mention to you to let it be a
girl, I like girls best. I see Mrs. Keppel, to save all disputes, has
brought both a boy and girl into the world; but that is such an
expensive amusement, you would not like that. If it is a boy, you ought
to call it Arlington[377] as a delicate attention to Mr. Lister. I
mention these little elegant flatteries out of regard to your domestic
peace, as from various observations I have lately been driven to make
amongst my acquaintances, I do not think wives pay half enough attention
to their husbands, though this does not apply to you.
Yes, as you say, that division is satisfactory to Lord Grey,[378] but
still if there were a shadow of an excuse for making a dozen Peers
without affronting two dozen who _are_ made, I should be glad.
The division was a pleasing surprise to me. I had been awake since four
that night, and at last had settled that George must have come home and
gone to bed, and that nobody had voted for us but just the Cabinet
Ministers, and then I heard the house-door bang, and knew by the way in
which he rushed up stairs how it was. Now it is over, and that our
enemies have not triumphed, I am left with a sort of wish--that is, not
a wish, but an idea--that it might have ended (just for fun) the other
way. I should so like to know what would have come next. It is all so
like a game at chess, and I was anxious to know how Lord Grey would get
out of check. However, I am delighted with the game as it is; only it
_would_ have been a curious speculation, wouldn’t it? I see we are to
have longer holidays, which makes me dote upon them all, both Greys and
Salisburys, for so arranging it, and George is enchanted with it. He
comes to-morrow, which is good for my gardening tastes and bad for my
church-going habits.
There are lectures at the church every evening by an excellent preacher,
and when George is in town, Fanny and I dine early and go to them. But I
behaved so ill last night. I was shown into a large pew, a _voiture à
huit places_, where there were seven old ladies, highly respectable and
attentive, and four of us sat opposite to the other four. The clergyman,
the curate of the parish, made a slight allusion to his superior
_officer_, the rector, who happens to be ill, and made a commonplace
remark on his own inferiority, etc., whereupon one of the old ladies
began to cry. The next, seeing that, began to cry too, and so it went
all round the pew, but so slowly that the last did not begin to cry
till a quarter of an hour _at least_ after she had heard of the rector’s
illness, and till the sermon was fairly directed against some of the
difficulties of St. Paul. Their crying set me off laughing, and you know
what a horrid convulsion that sort of suppressed laughter, which one
feels to be wrong, turns into. I hope they thought I was crying.
Our hyacinths are too lovely; quite distressing to see how large and
double they are, because they will die soon. If they were only single,
poor little wretches, it would not signify their lasting so short a
time. I think the great fault of the garden is the constant flurry the
flowers are in. Perhaps you have not found that out, but fancied they
were quiet amusements; but that is an error. They either won’t come up
at all, or they come at the wrong time, and the frost and the sun and
the rain and the drought all bother them. And then, the instant they
look beautiful, they die. I observe that a genuine fancier, like George,
does not care a straw for the flower itself, but merely for the cutting,
or the root, or the seed. However, I must say he contrives always to
have quantities of beautiful flowers, hurrying on one after the other.
God bless you, dearest. I have not much to say, but my sisters all tell
me to write just before they lie-in--that anything does for an amusement
then; so I suppose it is right. Shall I have “Arlington” to-morrow, do
you think? Your most affectionate
E. E.
_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._
GREENWICH,
_Friday evening, 1832_.
DEAREST THERESA, I shall be charmed to see you any day you like, the
sooner the better. Two or three stray people have suggested themselves
for various days next week, but I am not sure who are the people, or
what days they mean to come. I do not mean anything _pert_ to George,
but if he has a fault, it happens to be a total disregard of all notes
and messages confided to him. However, I do not know of anybody coming
that you would think objectionable. I should have suggested Monday
because, as Caroline Montagu (Lord Rokeby’s sister) is coming to pass
the day with Fanny, she might have brought you, and returned you, which
you would probably prefer; but then what is to become of Mr. Lister?
George cannot be here, and though you and I going one way, and Fanny and
her Caroline the other, and all meeting for dinner would do very nicely,
Mr. Lister would be bored out of his life. But any day you please will
suit me, so as you can let me know in time to cook a bit of vittals for
you.
I went to town yesterday to see Maria[379] and do my congratulations,
and I passed a long time with her, and am quite satisfied that she is
unfeignedly happy and that she really likes him. Sir Joseph[380] cannot
control his joy at all, and was very amusing with his account of his own
manner to Lord Grey and of Lord Grey’s to him. That angel of a man
Charles Greville[381] (quite a new light to see him in) gave himself a
degree of trouble that astounded me to procure places for us to see
Taglioni[382] last night, and he succeeded in fixing us in Devon’s box
with the Harrowbys and found us a carriage--in short, there never was
anything so good-natured. So we stayed and saw her, and drove down here
after it was over.
What a wonderful invention she is. I am satisfied now that she is not a
mere live woman; but probably she is, as she insinuated in the ballet
_La Sylphide_. Monsieur de Voisins sat next to us, and his ecstacies
and Bravos, and the rapturous soliloquies he indulged in, have left me
with a strong impression of his domestic felicity. To be sure, it is a
miracle in our favour, that there should be a man in the world, who is
enchanted to see his wife flying about a theatre with no cloathes on,
and that that individual should have married Taglioni! Your ever affect.
E. E.
_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._
GREENWICH PARK,
_Thursday evening, July 2, 1832_.
DEAREST THERESA, I found your note when we came home late last night
from Richmond, where we had been to pass the day and dine with the G.
Lamb’s; consequently your party was dispersed and you were in a sweet
sleep before I knew you had been “at home,” and I was in a sweet sleep
too, five minutes after I got home, and shall be so again, I hope, as
soon as I have sealed this note. These days in the country are wholesome
in that respect. We came here very early this morning, did our Churches
like good Christians, and have given a dinner like Ditto, for we have a
highly conservative party down here, at least what would have been
conservative if, as my housekeeper justly observed about the
gooseberries, the season for conserving was not gone by.
We have had the Jerseys, Lord Villiers, Lord Carnarvon, and dear C.
Baring-Wall, besides the smart tassel of young Jersey children. George
was as happy as a King with all his old friends, so I am delighted they
came, and after all Lady Jersey is very good-humoured.
Lord Carnarvon[383] has a pouting-pigeon way of talking, which is rather
amusing, but upon the whole I find Tories rather less lively, or perhaps
a shade more dull, than Whigs. They growl more, and do not snap in that
lively way I should have expected. However, I am no judge: “man delights
not me nor woman either,” as dear Hamlet had the candour to observe. He
had seen something of society. I daresay he longed to be left to his
flowers and his Chiswick, and a comfortable chair under the portico. To
be sure his father made a bad business of sleeping in the garden, but
then it could not have been so sweet or so full of flowers as ours.
We go back to town to-morrow afternoon, but I begin to see the time
coming when we shall settle here. I wish you would take to treat
yourself entirely as a sick person for a fortnight. But you won’t, so
there is no use saying anything about it. Your ever affectionate
E. E.
_Viscount Melbourne[384] to Miss Eden._
WHITEHALL,
_August 13, 1832_.
MY DEAR MISS EDEN, Many thanks for your kind enquiries. I have been laid
up for a day or two, but am much better, and in tearing spirits, which
is always the consequence of being laid up. Abstinence from wine and
regularity of diet does me much more good than the malady does me harm.
I hope I shall get into the country soon, for I quite pine for it.
Robert, I am told, is the only man in Hertingfordbury who has
registered. Has Lady Francis written to him for theological arguments? I
understand that she has been simply defeated in religious dispute by an
Atheist of the neighbourhood--a shoemaker, or something of that
sort--and has been seeking everywhere for assistance. The man argued for
Natural Philosophy for so long, that she was not prepared to
controvert.
Do not the Malignants pour somewhat less malignance, or are they more
irritated than ever? Adieu. Yours faithfully,
MELBOURNE.
_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._
_Wednesday_ [_December 1832_].
DEAREST THERESA, I had meant to have written you a long letter, but have
been interrupted in a thousand ways till it is too late; but perhaps a
line will be better than nothing. I was so much obliged to you for
writing me that long letter. It told me exactly all I wanted to know
about you--your health, your feelings, and also the little particulars I
have no means of ascertaining. I never had courage to ask Mr. Villiers
even how you are. Don’t you know the difficulty there is of approaching
even in the slightest degree _the_ subject that one is most anxious
about, and as the _surface_ with him is quite calm, I am always careful
not to venture even on a word that might disturb it. He and Mr. Edward
Villiers dined here yesterday. George is very anxious to have your
George here as much as possible, and thought they had better come for
their Christmas dinner as their own family is away, so he asked them
both, and I was very glad to renew my acquaintance with Edward, though
in some respects, from likeness of voice and manner, which probably you
would not be aware of, it was painful to see those two come into the
room together.
However, they must be a great comfort to each other. I never saw _my_
brother George so occupied with another person’s grief as he is in this
instance. He is asking and thinking every day what can be done for Mr.
Villiers.[385] God knows there is nothing; but still I always recollect
that in those horrid times of trial, affection from anybody is soothing,
if it is nothing more, so I am glad when it is shown.
I was at Oatlands when your letter came, and Lady Charlotte [Greville],
who is a kind-hearted person I always think, was most anxious to know
all about you and Mrs. Villiers. I thought her very well, all things
considered. Lady F.[386] seemed to me particularly out of spirits, and
all her letters have been so since her father’s death. I imagine, that
in addition to any other trials, they are in some trouble about their
affairs, or that Lord F. thinks so, and makes himself unhappy, which
troubles her.
The Gowers have taken Bridgewater House off their hands. Maria Howick is
come back from the North. Everybody talks of her low spirits and
constrained manner. Though I do not think her in high spirits, I do not
think _I_ see much difference in her. She is probably timid with her new
family and her new position, but whenever I see her alone I am quite
convinced she does not think herself unhappy, and when she is quite at
her ease again I think other people will think so too.
God bless you, my darling Theresa, I will write again in a few days.
Your ever affectionate
E. E.
_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._
GROSVENOR STREET,
_Thursday, December 1832_.
MY DEAREST THERESA, I fear that Lord Ribblesdale’s[387] death must be to
you and Mr. Lister an additional grief, as I recollect you were fond of
her, and she seems to have had not the slightest warning of this
calamity. It was very kind of Mr. Lister to write to me, for I was in a
state of great anxiety about your health and with no near means of
hearing anything about you. What can I say to you, dearest? My love for
you and my deep, deep pity for your bereavement you cannot doubt, and as
for any attempt at consolation, who can be sure that even with the
kindest intentions, they may not aggravate the grief they wish to
soothe. I always felt in calamity that though I seemed to want kindness
from everybody, yet that all they did was like the work of surgeons, the
most skilful made the pain of the wound more evident; and I think I may
hurt you if I dwell on your loss, or seem neglectful if I do not, and
yet I know so well all you must be feeling.
I was reading yesterday a book of extracts, etc., that I wrote when I
lost my own darling brother.[388] As there were several things in it
that I thought you might like, and though I did not want anything to
remind me of feelings that seem as _true_ on that subject as they were
years ago, yet it made me better able to follow you in your present
hours of trial and to know what you are going through. With a mother,
husband, and child with you, and all the rest of your family, whom you
love so dearly, assembled about you, you have more earthly support than
many can have to look to; and the consolations of religion none are more
likely to find than yourself. Indeed, that is a subject on which I think
a stranger intermeddleth not, for God alone can comfort the heart He has
cast down, and He, I trust, forgives the repinings which He alone knows.
I wish you would make the exertion of writing one line to me. I love you
very dearly, and never feel it more than when you are in grief. Your
affectionate
E. E.
_Miss Eden to Lady Charlotte Greville._
(At OATLANDS, WEYBRIDGE),
_December 24, 1832_.
MY DEAR LADY CHARLOTTE, ...London is so particularly thick and sloppy
that it would not surprise me if I slipped out of it again soon.
I have got that invitation to Panshanger I wanted, but as I would rather
not go into Hertfordshire till the ball season is over, that will do
later, and Eastcombe is open again now.
I am broken-hearted about the Essex election, and the only gleam of
cheerfulness I have had has been occasioned by half a sheet of notepaper
which I filled with the beginning of my new novel. I wrote nearly a
sentence and a half which I composed in two days. Mr. Sale, the singer,
called here this morning, which he often does, and used to give me
lessons gratis, which was kind but tiresome. To-day he could not,
because there is no pianoforte in the house, so we talked about Mrs.
Arkwright’s[389] songs, which he says he teaches to numbers of his
scholars (there is no end to his pupils). But there are great faults in
the scientific parts of her compositions, which he could correct in five
minutes--in short, he talks of a mistake in counterpoint as we do of
breaking one of the Commandments, and when I said she was a great friend
of mine, he said he should be quite delighted to correct anything she
sent to the Press, and always without touching the “air,” and he was
very polite about it. Do you think it would affront Mrs. Arkwright if I
asked her, or that she would not take it as it was meant, as a kindness,
from such a lump of science as Sale is? Shall I ask her? Yours
affectionately,
E. E.
_Hon. Mrs. Norton[390] to Lord Auckland._
[_July 1833._]
DEAR LORD AUCKLAND, As you are the only person in your family who have
not “cut” me, perhaps you will allow me to apologise _through_ you, to
your Sister, for my rudeness last night.
Say that, as far as concerns her, I consider my conduct on that occasion
vulgar and unjustifiable, and that I beg her pardon. Yesterday was a day
of great vexation and fatigue--which of course is no excuse in the eyes
of strangers (whatever it may be in my own), for rudeness and want of
temper. I am very sorry. My apology may be of no value to her; but it is
a satisfaction to _me_ to make it. Yours truly,
C. NORTON.
_Lady Campbell to Miss Eden._
_October 25, 1833._
DEAREST EMMY, Eleven years ago we were together. To-day is Edward’s
birthday, and I still see that house in Cadogan Place, and the window at
which I sat watching for you, my own dear Friend. I like to think how
long we’ve loved each other without a shade of alteration between us;
_du reste_, I need dwell on such things to smooth my mind after other
rugged bits of life. Your godchild[391] is a good, peaceable, fat lump,
with black eyelashes and a pretty mouth, which is all I can make out of
her yet.
I recovered tolerably well the first fortnight, since that I have been
but poorly. Anxiety and worry keep me back. However, it is all over now,
for our matters are pretty nearly arranged. Sir Guy sells out; it is
our only resource; it is the only way of paying what we owe, getting rid
of debt....
I conclude you are now sitting with your own goldfish under your
fig-tree, you who live under the shadow of your own old Men.[392] By the
bye, with your blue pensioners, I am sure you will feel for us in the
dispersion of our red pensioners. There was a great cry heard in the
Hospital, Kilmainham weeping for her old men, because they are no longer
to be! However, they are respited, for my enemy Ellice[393] put his pen
through their existence, and Mr. Littleton[394] too, and ordered even
the fashion of their dispersion, but forgot to enquire particulars, and
they have stumbled upon an Act of Parliament, and so must wait till
another Act breaks through it. Ellice dropped his pen, and was obliged
to pick it up again. Your affectionate
PAMELA CAMPBELL.
_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._
GREENWICH PARK,
_Sunday, December 15, 1833_.
DEAREST THERESA, I have just had a letter from your brother George,[395]
and though probably you heard from him by the same opportunity, yet it
is always a pleasure to know that one’s brothers are heard of by others
as well as oneself. It makes assurance doubly sure, which that clever
creature Shakespeare knew was not once more than enough, in this unsure
world.
Mr. V. seems very happy and very well, and will probably be more
personally comfortable when he is the owner of a few tables and chairs.
It was such a relief _off_ my mind (as a friend of mine says when
anything is a relief _to_ her mind) to find that he had received an
enormous letter I wrote to him some time ago, a thing like the double
sheet of the _Times_ in private life, and which had been so long
unacknowledged, that I felt sure that it had been captured, and that I
should see a horrible garbled translation of it copied from a Carlist
paper, and headed “Intercepted Correspondence,” whereupon I must simply
have changed my religion, gone into a convent, and taken the veil. The
_propriety_ of my letters surpasses all belief, so I should not have
been ashamed in that sense; but when I write to your brother, or to Lord
Minto, or to that class of correspondents, I always rake together every
possible anecdote and fact--or what is called a fact--and write them all
down just like a string of paragraphs in a newspaper. I always suppose
nonsense would bore them, so the horrid letters are made up of proper
names, and if there is an unsafe thing in the world to meddle with it is
a proper name, and that is the bother of a letter that goes abroad,
particularly to such a country as Spain. I saw George was just as fussy
about a letter he had written to your brother; but now we know our
little manuscripts have found their way safely, we mean to write
again--at least I do, the first time I find anything to say. At present
I am out of that article.
We have been living here rather quietly, not very though,--at least I
dined in town at several great dinners, at the Lievens, etc., that
fortnight the Ministers were all in London, and we went up several times
to the play with the Stanleys, and several of them came and dined here,
and so on during November. Then, George has been frisking about the
country at Woburn, Brocket, etc., shooting; and on Saturday he and I are
going to run down to Bowood for a week. It is an expensive amusement and
not worth the trouble, barring that it is worth while acknowledging the
kindness of the Lansdownes. He rode down here from London to ask us,
but I never go on his invitations. But, however, he wrote again as soon
as he got back, and then Lady Lansdowne wrote to insist on our fixing a
day. So, though I know she never wishes her invitations to be accepted,
yet if she will write, she must take the consequences, and so we are
going. I hear the Nortons[396] are to be there, which will be funny. I
do not fancy her, but still she will be amusing to meet for once.
We settle in town after that, at least Fanny and I do. George is going
to a great meeting of Ministers at Goodwood. I think it such a good
thing, the Ministers have all taken to go shooting about in a body. It
prevents their doing any other mischief. That is the way an enemy might
state it. I, who am a friend, merely presume they must have brought the
country to a flourishing state, since they seem to have so much leisure
for amusing themselves.
We have two of Robert’s boys staying with us while Mrs. Eden is
recovering from her sixth lying-in. The eldest of the five younger
children is just five years old. Pleasant!
I send this to the Council Office as you desire, and have a vague idea
that C. Greville will read it, and throw it into the fire--officially of
course, I mean. Ever, dearest Theresa, your affect.
E. E.
_Miss Eden to Lady Campbell._
GROSVENOR STREET,
_Tuesday_, [1837].
DEAREST PAM, Thank you just for giving me a push off--not that of all
the days in the year I could have chosen _this_ for answering you. I am
in long correspondence with Louisa (Mrs. Colvile) about that
flirtation,[397] that little interesting love story I imparted to you,
and, as usual, the young people are to be very miserable, because that
£100 a year which has been left out of everybody’s income, when incomes
were created, is not forthcoming; and as usual again, I take the grand
line of “all for love and my niece well lost.” Moreover, I think a small
income in these days is as good as a large one twenty years ago; and
that anything is to be preferred to a disappointment. But all
this--together with due attention to dignity one side and love the
other, and no two people ever understanding each other--keeps me writing
at the rate of twelve pages a day. I am quite tired of the manual
labour, and as I feel convinced that three months hence they will be
married, I grudge these _protocols_.
What fun your visit was to me, and I shall always think that last sin of
your drive to Greenwich and back was the best spent wickedest two hours
we ever passed. I have been twice for a few days to Eastcombe. Saturday
and Sunday we pass at Greenwich. George gardens for about fourteen hours
on Sunday, which I suppose is wrong, only that is his way of resting
himself. Your most affectionate
E. E.
_Lady Campbell to Miss Eden._
_March 26, 1834._
DEAREST EMMY, I daresay the very sight of a letter from me frights you.
I was very sorry after I had written the nasty bitter letter. When I
wrote that, I was ill-tempered too! and one always writes harder than
one feels. However, my own Emmy, I had rather have written it to you
than to any other, tho’ you may not thank me for _la préférence_, if any
one can bear with me it is you, however. You mistook me if you thought
that I thought that either dear Lord Auckland or the Lansdownes had not
done their utmost for us! God knows I feel far more sure of Lord
Auckland’s kindness to me than of my own Brother’s. But there is much
danger in our sort of distress of getting embittered, my Darling. I pray
against this temptation, and strive against this most fervently, and I
do trust my cheerfulness has never flagged, and that I blame no one. We
have done all we can, and I will not fret....
Your little Godchild is a dear child, with immense eyes and four teeth.
She is wise, clever and quiet, and all your Godchild ought to be, but
not so pretty as some of her sisters. As they say the commodities are
always in proportion to the demand for them, I expect a great cry for
girls in a few years.
I have been to our Court but twice. I was told it was imposing, and I
did think there was a good deal of imposition. He[398] is sharp and
clever and does work like a horse, but I do think one man about him very
dangerous, and that is Blake the Remembrancer. I cannot help thinking
that man very double, nay, triple. There are no bounds to the gossip of
our little Court; the master likes it and is fed with it. I do not think
he is very popular, but that does not signify; here, the way of flesh
and all parties seems to be discontent, and murmur and grumble. Think of
the Wilt[399] being married,--_Ciel_!... Your own
PAMMY.
_Lady Campbell to Miss Eden._
1834.
I am over head and ears in your affairs. I have so much the bump of
speculation and lottery in my soul that I am decidedly of your opinion,
and would at once keep Greenwich and the Thames, than put my head under
that very excellent and comfortable extinguisher of the Exchequer,
particularly if my head were as _bien meublée_ and well arranged as your
George’s small crop-eared shaven little crown. We always dressed our
heads alike _outside_, no curls. I would most certainly take my chance
and not dowager myself into the Exchequer....
I suppose Government, to hold together, must go upon the principle of
each Minister bringing a certain quantity of sense and an alloy of
folly. Now, surely, some of your colleagues bring a peck of dirt and
very few grains of reason. Are you obliged to eat it all?... My dearest,
tempt me not with the sound of pleasant books, I am all day at Latin and
Greek with the boys, I very nearly wrote your name in Greek letters.
Write to me; it cheers me, and I want cheering often, dear Emmy. I
grieve at your account of Lady Lansdowne.[400] She has not the
constitution for the illness of being cured by the London physicians, I
am very sure. Solomon, after he had taken all the physic in the world,
exclaimed: “Vanity of vanities.”
Your Godchild has a mouthful of teeth. Tell me something of your
Sisters, of William Osborne, of that marriage of your niece, and
particularly of the fate of those _orchises_ we took down that day we
ran to Greenwich, did they ever come up?
_Miss Eden to Lady Campbell_.
GROSVENOR STREET.
[1837.]
...I do not really care about my position in this short life, but I like
to be actually _posished_, don’t you? I believe we shall end by
remaining at Greenwich, influenced chiefly by the enormous price of
villas.
I am sorry Lady Lansdowne writes in bad spirits, for barring the
melancholy circumstances attending Kerry’s marriage, I should not have
thought this a troublesome year to her. The Wilt himself seems full of
attention to her, and if she hates London society, this is a charming
year, as such an article does not exist. You have no idea how odd it is.
Except herself, no person ever thinks of giving either ball or party. I
own I think it quite delightful; no hot rooms, no trouble of any sort,
and a great economy of gowns and bores.
We thought much of the Unions[401] for ten days, but they are going by.
There never was such luck as the Tailors starting by such ridiculous
demands. The middle classes, even down to servants, took against them,
and there seems to be very little doubt that, in a very few weeks, they
will be totally beat and the whole Union fund exhausted.
It is rather amusing to see them wandering about the Parks, quite
astonished at the green leaves and blackbirds. There were about fifty of
them playing at leap-frog the other morning. Only conceive the luxury of
going home after that unusual exercise, and after beating their wives
for making such good waistcoats, sitting down cross-legged to rest
themselves. They cost the Union £10,000 the first week, and £8,000 the
second, and as the whole amount of the Union fund is £60,000, it is easy
to guess how long it may last. It will end in frightful distress. The
great tailors are getting foreigners over, and employing women with
great success.
I have been in a state of agitation with a touch of bother added to it,
which would have made my letters very _hummocky_. That giving up
Greenwich was nearly the death of me, and our glorious promotion[402]
was inflicted on us on a particular Thursday, Epsom race day, which
George and I had set apart for a holiday, and a _tête-à-tête_ dinner,
and a whole afternoon in that good little garden. We went all the same;
but, as for gardening, what was the good of cultivating flowers for
other people’s nosegays! So there I sat under the verandah crying. What
else could be done, with the roses all out, and the sweetpeas, and our
orange-trees, and the whole garden looking perfectly lovely; and George
was nearly as low as I was.
And then we had two or three days of bother for our future lives,
because, though I now never mean to talk politics, and to hear as little
of them as may be, yet I suppose there is no harm in imagining just the
bare possibility that the Government _may_ not last for ever.[403]
However, he is assured now of a retiring pension. If he chooses to play
at the game of politics, he must take his chance of winning or losing;
and moreover, this would not have been a time for separating from poor
Lansdowne, who has behaved beautifully all through these troubles. So
now we are fairly in for it, and after the first troubles are over, I
daresay it will do very well. It is the kind of office he likes, and he
is, of course, flattered with the offer of it, and Lord Grey has been
uncommonly kind to him.
We went on Tuesday to see the Admiralty, and I believe we shall be
moving into it the end of next week. It is a vast undertaking. The
kitchen is about the size of Grosvenor Square, and takes a cook and
three kitchen-maids to keep it going, but the rest of the establishment
is in proportion, which is distressing, as I look on every additional
servant as an added calamity. I will trouble you with the idea of _this_
house--your old acquaintance--with a bill stuck in its window, “To be
sold,”--rather shocking! Looks ungrateful after we have passed our best
days in it; but still I cannot fancy being much attached to _any_ London
house, so I do not mind about this. Our idea is to get a villa
sufficiently small to be adapted to our income, whenever the day of
dignified retirement comes; to move our plants and books to it, and
gradually to furnish it, and then to make it our only home for the rest
of our lives. I should like that better than any other life. Ever your
affectionate
E. E.
_Lady Campbell to Miss Eden_.
_Tuesday, June 10, 1834._
How do you do, and how do you feel? How does one feel when one becomes
sister to the Admiralty?... Stanley[404] seems a terrible loss, but at
this distance I cannot judge, of course. You will think me, of course, a
Radical, but I think he is wrong, for the Irish Church always did strike
me like a Hot-bed for raising Horse-Beans,--some would tell you for
raising thistles, but I don’t go quite so far. I saw Mrs. Ellice, she is
in such a Grey fermentation, it might be dangerous, but she foams it
away in such long talk that it is very safe.
I saw Mrs. Foggy[405] as she is called; pleasant, merry, and going on
very well; people begin to get accustomed to her ways, and, I think,
like her on the whole! Darling dear Foggy is in good humour, and all
seems right. She is amusing, certainly, but certainly _elle parle gras_,
as the French say, when people speak improprieties. I always think part
of her education must have been carried on in the Canal boat, like _Vert
Vert_, when he got away from the nuns.
The Protestants are bristling all over this unfortunate country since
the Reform. I have seen nothing like the excitement among them. The
Catholics do not appear so excited. This is plain enough. The loss to
200,000 is immense, whereas the gain to 8,000,000 is comparatively
small.
_Miss Eden to Lady Campbell._
HAM COMMON,
_Tuesday, July 23, 1834._
Yes, it is very odd--absolutely curious. But tho’ you and I live in two
different islands--two different worlds--yet your letters always are
just what I think, and know, and say, and they fit into my mood of mind,
and you carry on the story I am telling--and you know all I did not tell
you, and say all I did not know--and the whole thing amalgamates. That
Littleton creature![406] Is not there an unity in that story of him with
all I know? Let’s write his life. Did not I meet him at dinner the very
week after the stramash, when everybody crossed the street if they saw
him coming, they were so ashamed _for_ him? It was at a dinner at the
Chancellor’s, the first given after Lord Melbourne’s appointment,[407]
and he was there, and Lord Lansdowne, and several others, and Charles
Grey[408] as sulky as possible. And next to him sat Mr. Littleton--and
the first thing he chose to begin talking about across the table was
something about “one of the _tustles that O’Connell and I have had_.” It
set all our teeth on edge, everybody being naturally with a
predisposition to _edge_-ism, and none of the ferment of the change
having had time to subside--and he the guilty author of it all! I really
would not have alluded for his sake to the letter O. I said to Lord
Lansdowne: “Well, I am surprised at him, for I have refrained from
talking about him, from really expecting his mind must give way, and
that there will be some horrid tragedy to make us all repent having
abused him.” And he said, “That is exactly my feeling. I look at him
with astonishment; I can hardly believe he is what he seems to be.” I
suppose it really was true, and that he did not mind. We tried, for two
or three days, I remember, to declare he looked very ill, but now you
say he had not lost a night’s rest, I give up that point. It never was
very tenable.
The young Greys have all been pre-eminently absurd, Lord Howick more
than all the rest. He told me he had been to all the clubs, and calling
at all the houses he knew, to spread every report against the Chancellor
he could think of, and coming from him, of course, it was set down as
coming from his father, who is as unlike his sons as he well can be. I
do not wish to entrench on Mrs. E.’s[409] province--how tiresome she
must be!--but she can say nothing of Lord Grey I don’t think. He is the
only great man I ever had the good luck to see--consistent and
magnanimous--two qualities that I never met with in any other
politician. I have closed my political accounts with him.... I am sure I
cannot tell you generally anything about the Government. Politics have
answered so ill to me in my private capacity that I gave them quite up,
and can only tell you these private gossipries of the time. I have not
read a debate since last Easter, and can only wonder how I could be so
foolish three years ago as to think politics and office the least
amusing. I suppose to the end of our days we shall all wonder at
ourselves three years ago. But I have had such a horrid uncomfortable
year this year; I never was so tired, so out of breath, so bored. You
may well ask where we lodge. At a little cottage on Ham Common, hired
by the week, without a scrap of garden, but where by dint of hard
labour, a doctor, and quantities of steel draughts, I have recovered a
little of the health I lost entirely by being kept eight months in
London, frying over the coals.
I declare I believe I have lived ten whole lives in the last ten months;
we have been so unsettled, which is the only state I cannot abide. First
George was to have that Exchequer place with Greenwich, and we made up
our plans for that, and were to part with Grosvenor Street; then
Greenwich was cut off from the Exchequer, and we prepared to give that
up; then the Government found it convenient to make him keep the Board
of Trade, and we went back to be as we were.
Then came the Stanley secession and we thought we were all to be out,
and reverted to the Exchequer, and looked at every villa round London.
Then came the Admiralty, and George sent me to Greenwich to pack up and
sell and give up everything, (the only spot of ground I care about in
the world).
Well! That was done, and as the goods were on their road, just turning
into the Admiralty gate, and just after we had paid Sir James Graham for
_his_ goods, and stuck up a bill in Grosvenor St. “To Be Sold”--out went
dear Grey.
Then for two or three weeks we did not know what to do. And then in all
that hot weather, at last we settled to move, and the arrangement of
that great Admiralty was enough to murder an elephant. Then, when George
set off on his Tour of the Ports, we came here, and just as we got
settled, a Mr. Brogden bought Grosvenor Street, so that I had to go up
and pack that up, and rout out the accumulated rubbish of sixteen years,
and move all the books, etc.
However they have done their worst now, we have parted with both our
houses, and all our goods, and when we are turned out, must live in a
tent under a hedge.
I have got a little black King Charles’s spaniel of my own, that I mean
to boil down, and make into a comfortable “sup of broth” when we come to
that particular hedge “where my tired mind may rest and call it home.”
I somehow feel as if I were sitting by watching George’s mad career, and
wondering where it will end.
I never set eyes on him--you have no idea what the labour of the
Admiralty is--he never writes less than 35 letters every day in his own
hand, besides what the Secretary and all the others do.
Every Levée is a crowd of discontented men who would make an excellent
crew for _one_ ship, he says, but as they each want one, he is obliged
to refuse 99 out of every 100. However he is as happy as a king, I
believe, only he has not had time to mention it. He likes his office of
all things.
The Admiralty is a splendid home to live in, but requires quantities of
servants, and the more there are the more discontented they are.
Everybody says what fortunate people we are, and I daresay George is,
but my personal luck consists in having entirely lost his society and
Greenwich, the two charms of my life; in being kept ten months of every
year in London, which I loathe; and in being told to have people to
dinner--without the means of dressing myself so as to be always in
society. I wish Government would consider that, tho’ a man be raised
high in office, yet that the unfortunate women remain just as poor as
ever.
Louisa (Mrs. Colvile) has just had her seventeenth child; Mary (Mrs.
Drummond) her ninth; and Mrs. Eden is going to have her seventh.
Lord Melbourne[410] made a good start in the House of Lords as far as
speaking went. I do not know what ladies have hopes of him, but the
“Fornarina,”[411] as he calls her himself, has him in greater thraldom
than ever. I see him very often and confidentially, but both of us
without any sinister designs.
_Miss Eden to Lady Charlotte Greville._
HAM COMMON,
_Friday [October 1834]._
MY DEAR LADY CHARLOTTE, I sent a note to thank you for my beautiful
purse down to Mr. Spring-Rice to frank, not knowing he was away from
home, and now that is come back to me I may thank you also for your
account of Lady F.[412] I am so glad the business is over at last; it
was very hard upon her to have it hanging over her so long, and I
congratulate you on being at ease about her. As for another
grandchild--your _grand quiver_ is so full of them already, that I
suppose you hardly have room for any more. I think it would be such a
good plan, if after people have as many children as they like, they were
allowed to lie-in of any other article they fancied better; with the
same pain and trouble, of course (if that is necessary), but the result
to be more agreeable. A set of Walter Scott’s novels, or some fine
china, or in the case of poor people, fire-irons and a coal skuttle, or
two pieces of Irish linen. It would certainly be more amusing and more
profitable, and then there would be such anxiety to know _what_ was
born. Now it can be only a boy or a girl.
I expect and hope that Lady F. in about ten days will be walking about
looking younger and stronger than ever.
My purse is quite perfection, and I cannot thank you enough for it. I am
only afraid it is still more attractive than the last you gave me, which
so took the fancy of one of those men who sell oranges in the street,
that he snatched it off the seat of the carriage in which I was sitting
and ran away with it. Your ever affectionate
E. EDEN.
_Lady Campbell to Miss Eden._
[1837.]
Tell me any old news you have by you, for I never see a newspaper by any
chance, and live in the wilds,--woods I would have said, only we are
scarce of trees. I hear news once a month from Mrs. Ellice. I think she
seems Lord Wellesley’s Madame de Pompadour, and so happy! She is quick
and lively, but _furieusement intrigante_ I should imagine, from what I
hear of her; and her vanity has such a maw that she swallows the rawest
compliments. She was recommended to me by Mrs. Sullivan,--not merely
introduced to my acquaintance, but fairly confided to my heart. Well, my
dearest, I went with my friendship in my hand, ready to swear it before
the first magistrate, expecting to find a warm-hearted _étourdie_ full
of talent and genius. Well, we met, and I knocked my head against the
hardest bit of worldly Board you ever met with. Full of business, with a
great deal of the grey claw and _accaparage_. So I buttoned up my heart
to my chin, and we talked good harsh worldly gab, and we are charming
persons together.
_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._
HAM COMMON,
_Monday evening, October 28, 1834._
DEAREST THERESA, I am kind to write to-night, for Fanny and I poked out
an old backgammon board of the General’s[413] and began to play, and I
beat her two single games and a gammon, so that in coming to my letter
I am probably leaving “fortune at the flood, and all my after life will
be bound in flats and shallows.” All your fault.
Our cottage is a real little cottage, belonging to an old General Eden
who, on the score of relationship, let us have it for almost nothing. It
is very clean and old bachelorish, and he lets with it an old housemaid
who scolds for half-an-hour if a grain of seed drops from the bird’s
cage, or if Chance[414] whisks a hair out of his tail; we are grown so
tidy and as she is otherwise an obliging old body, she has been an
advantage to us. We took the house only by the week, and as my health
has entirely recovered the complete break-up it came to, from our long
detention in London, and as his Lordship is living alone at that
Admiralty, we depart on Wednesday to settle ourselves there till the
Government changes, or I am ill again. However, I do not mind London so
much in cold weather. I have been very busy this last week _setting up_
house, as the Ministers will be most of them in town next month without
their families, and George has announced an intention to make the
Admiralty pleasant to his colleagues. I have but one idea of the manner
in which that is to be achieved, and hope the cook may turn out as well
as Mr. Orby Hunter’s recommendation promises. Oh dear! I dread the sight
of their dear old faces again, and of that “full of business” manner
which they get into when they meet in any number.
I wish I could write like Mrs. Hannah More, and have money enough to
build myself a Barley Wood,[415] and resolution to go and live there. I
am so taken by that book and amazingly encouraged by it, for she was as
dissipated and as wicked as any of us for the first half of our life, so
there is no saying whether we may not turn out good for something at
last.
We have been here eleven weeks, quite alone, but walking and driving
eternally, and very few interruptions except an occasional visit from,
or to, the F. Egertons and W. de Roos’s, and a royal dinner, luncheon,
and party at the Studhouse, which always turns out amusing. The King is
so good-natured that it does not signify his being a little ridiculous
or so; it is impossible not to love him. The Albemarles[416] do the
thing in the handsomest manner as far as the dinner, establishment,
etc., goes, and I think the Studhouse a charming possession. She always
gets all the King’s Ministers that she can find to meet him, and it
charms me to hear her _judgments_ of people:--How unlucky that the
Spring-Rices should _look_ less well at a dinner than the Stanleys; and
what luck she was in in having such a showy person as Lady Bingham last
year in the neighbourhood; not adverting to the possibility that one
person may be pleasanter than the others, and admitting that, their
position being changed, they do not amount to being _persons_ at all.
I suppose that things are going on well, for I never saw people in
greater glee than the Ministers are. Lord Melbourne is in the highest
state of spirits, which seems to me odd for the Prime Minister of the
country. They all went off from the last luncheon at the Studhouse
early, leaving only the W. de Roos’s, Fanny and me and Lord Hill[417] to
go round Hampton Court Palace with the King,--a long and curious
process, as he shows it just like a housekeeper with a story for each
picture. It was pitch dark, so it does not much matter if the pictures
were as improper as the stories, for I saw none of them, but it lasted
two hours, and in the meantime the Ministers, having had their dinner
so early, had set fire to the two Houses of Parliament just for a _ploy_
for the evening.[418] That is the sort of view the Tories take of it,
and it sounds plausible, you see; and from Lord Hill’s staying to see
the Palace it is clear he had not been let into that plot.
No, I did not see the fire,--wish I had--will trouble them to do it all
over again when there are more people in town. Is Lord Fordwich the new
Under Secretary? I asked George and he said he did not know, and I asked
Lord Melbourne and he said he could not tell me--both very good answers
in their way and such as I am used to, but it leaves the fact of
Fordwich’s appointment doubtful, and I heard from Lady Cowper three days
ago and she said nothing about it.
There was a great _sough_ of India for about a fortnight, but I always
said it was too bad to be true, which is a dangerous assertion to make
in most cases, it only hastens the catastrophe. But this was such an
extreme case, such a horrible supposition, that there was nothing for it
but to bully it; and the danger is over now. Botany Bay would be a joke
to it. There is a decent climate to begin with, and the fun of a little
felony first. But to be sent to Calcutta for no cause at all!! At all
events, I should hardly have got there before George got home again, for
I should have walked across the country to join him, if I had gone at
all. I think I see myself going into a ship for five months! I would not
do it for £1000 per day.
Good-night, dearest Theresa. I see _Ann Grey_ is out, and rather expect
that will turn out to be yours too. Is it?[419] Your ever affectionat
E. E.
[In November 1834 the King dismissed Lord Melbourne, and sent for the
Duke of Wellington, who advised that Sir Robert Peel should form a
Government. Peel’s return from Italy did not take place till December 9,
and the Duke in the meantime assumed control of various offices, thereby
giving offence to the Whigs. He became Foreign Secretary under Peel.]
_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._
ADMIRALTY,
_Monday, November 23, 1834._
MY DEAREST THERESA, Yes,--you see it all just in the right light; but
what will come of it nobody can say.... The truth is, till Sir Robert or
his answer comes, they have not the least idea themselves what they are
to do, or to say, or to think, and I should not be the least surprised
if he were to refuse to come, and many people think that from the
ridicule of the Duke’s position and conduct now, the whole thing may
crumble away before Sir Robert can arrive.
The King is said to be very cross about it, and at the unconstitutional
state of affairs. It has been the oddest want of courtesy on the Duke’s
part insulting the Ministers for his own _in_convenience. Mr.
Spring-Rice’s[420] _keys_, besides his seals, were sent for two hours
after the Duke kissed hands on Monday, so that he could not remove his
private letters even, and has never been able to get them since. He is
naturally the _gentlest_ man I ever saw, but is in that state of
exasperation that he would do anything to show his resentment.
On Friday the Duke sent to Lord Conyngham to say he begged he would
dispose of no more patronage, to which Lord Conyngham answered very
properly that he had resigned, and was keeping the office solely for the
Duke’s convenience (it is a patent office), and that he would leave it
with pleasure the next minute, but as long as he remained there he
should certainly do what he thought best with his patronage. The
Chancellor[421] was to have given up the seals on Saturday, when he
would have cleared off all arrears and closed the courts, etc., and this
was understood at the beginning of the week; but on Thursday the Duke
wrote to him that he must give up the Great Seal on Friday morning. It
appears that nobody but the King has a right to ask for the Great Seal,
so the Chancellor wrote to tell the Duke what was the proper
_étiquette_, and at the same time wrote to Lord Lyndhurst, with whom he
is on the most amicable terms, saying that the Duke, besides being three
Secretaries of State, President of the Council, etc., was now going to
be Lord Chancellor, so he should give notice to the Bar that the Duke
would give judgment on Friday afternoon, and sit to hear Motions on
Saturday morning. He came here quite enchanted with the serious answer
from Lord Lyndhurst, saying the Duke had no such notion, etc.
I suppose anything equal to the ill-treatment of Lord Melbourne never
was known.
The Tories go on asserting, in the teeth of his _advertised
contradiction_ (for he was driven to that), that he dissolved the
Government, and advised the Duke, etc. There is not a _shadow_ of
foundation for that. He went down to Brighton to propose the new
Chancellor of the Exchequer, not anticipating any difficulty. His
colleagues were all dining here that day, and were expecting him back
perhaps in the evening, as he had so little to do! He found everything
he said met by objection, and at last the King asked for a night’s
consideration, and on Friday put a letter into Lord Melbourne’s hand,
very civil personally to him, but saying he meant to send for the Duke.
Lord Melbourne never expressed any difficulty about carrying on the
government; never complained of difficulties in the Cabinet, which do
not exist; never advised a successor,--in short, it was as great a
surprise to him as to the rest of the world, and as the Court Party go
on saying the contrary, I mention this.
The truth is that that party--Lady T. Sydney, Miss D’Este, the Howes,
Brownlows, etc., have all been working on his, the King’s, fears, and
exacted a promise that when Lord Spencer[422] died the King should try
the Tories, which he has quite a right to do; but he should not have
forced Lord Melbourne to take that office of great responsibility and
then have dismissed him without any reason, or without Lord Melbourne’s
making any difficulties, and he made _none_. I could convince you of
this by several notes from him, besides the fact being now generally
known. He says in one note: “I do not like to tell my story; I cannot.
Besides, I hate to be considered ill-used; I have always thought
complaints of ill-usage contemptible, whether from a seduced
disappointed girl, or a turned out Prime Minister.” So like him! Our
people have all been very cheerful this time, and it has been
_privately_ an amusing week.
Ours is the only official home left open, and as the poor things were
all turned adrift, with nothing to do, and nowhere to go, they have
dined here most days (I have found _such_ a cook!), and several others
have come in, in the evening.
Our plans are beautifully vague. We have no home, and no place, and no
nothing; but as we have a right to a month’s residence after our
successor is gazetted, and as he cannot be appointed for a fortnight,
there is time enough to look about us. George leans to a place in the
country large enough to give _him_ some amusement, and that is cheaper
than a small villa which I should rather prefer, but either would do
very well. In short, I do not much care so as he pleases himself. We
have _esquivéd_ India, a constant source of pleasure to me, though I
keep it snug, as he is rather disappointed at having missed it, so I
must not seem so thankful as I am. I should like to go abroad for a few
months, but the session will probably be an interesting one and he would
not like to be out of the way. Your ever affectionate
E. E.