when Mr. Kemble was announced. Lady C——k reproached him as “the late Mr.
Kemble;” and then, looking significantly at me, told him who I was.
Kemble, to whom I had been already presented by Mrs. Lefanu, acknowledged
me by a kindly nod; but the intense stare which succeeded, was not one
of mere recognition. It was the glazed, fixed look, so common to those
who have been making libations to altars which rarely qualify them for
ladies’ society. Mr. Kemble was evidently much pre-occupied, and a little
exalted; and he appeared actuated by some intention, which he had the
will, but not the power, to execute. He was seated _vis-à-vis_, and had
repeatedly raised his arm, and stretched it across the table, for the
purpose, as I supposed, of helping himself to some boar’s-head in jelly.
Alas, no!—the _bore_ was, that my head happened to be the object which
fixed his tenacious attention; and which being a true Irish _cathah_
head, dark, cropped, and curly, struck him as a particularly well
organized Brutus, and better than any in his _répertoire_ of theatrical
perukes. Succeeding at last in his feline and fixed purpose, he actually
struck his claws in my locks, and addressing me in the deepest sepulchral
tones, asked—“Little girl, where did you buy your wig?”
Lord Erskine “came to the rescue,” and liberated my head.
Lord Carysfort exclaimed, to retrieve the awkwardness of the scene, “_les
serpents de l’envie ont sifflés dans son cœur_;” on every side—
“Some did laugh,
And some did say, God bless us;”
—while I, like Macbeth—
“Could not say, Amen.”
Meantime Kemble, peevish, as half tipsy people generally are, and ill
brooking the interference of the two peers, drew back, muttering and
fumbling in his coat-pocket, evidently with some dire intent lowering in
his eyes. To the amusement of all, and to my increased consternation, he
drew forth a volume of the “Wild Irish Girl,” (which he had brought to
return to Lady C——k) and, reading, with his deep, emphatic voice, one of
the most high-flown of its passages, he paused, and patting the page with
his fore-finger, with the look of Hamlet addressing Polonius, he said,
“Little girl, why did you write such nonsense? and where did you get all
these d——d hard words?”
Thus taken by surprise, and “smarting with my wounds” of mortified
authorship, I answered, unwittingly and witlessly, the truth: “Sir, I
wrote as well as I could, and I got the hard words out of Johnson’s
dictionary.”
The eloquence of Erskine himself would have pleaded my cause with less
effect; and the “_J’y allois_” of _La Fontaine_ was not quoted with more
approbation in the circles of Paris, than the _naïveté_ of my equally
veracious and spontaneous reply. The triumph of my simplicity did not
increase Kemble’s good humour; and, shortly after, Mr. Spenser carried
him off in his carriage, to prevent any further attacks on my unfortunate
head—inside or out.
Talking over this scene, not long since, at Lady C——k’s, with a lady who
had been present, it came back with all its circumstances to my memory,
and with a keen recollection of the pains and penalties incidental to
inexperienced and unprotected female youth, when forced by necessity to
step across the threshold of domestic privacy, and to carry to the mart
of public suffrage the feeling and fancy, intended by nature for home
consumption. Between my first and my last appearance in the elegant and
hospitable salons of New Burlington-street, what a difference!—in person,
feeling, sensations, intellect,—the all that should make identity, yet
does not! I cannot trace the least similitude between Mr. Kemble’s
“little girl,” and the proscribed of emperors and the excommunicated of
popes. There is more philosophy in the little woman who went “to market
her eggs for to sell,” than the world is aware of: and I have been
tempted to quote her “Lord have mercy on me! _sure this is none of I?_”
as often as my illustrious countryman Daniel O’Connell has applied to his
own Ireland his favourite quotation of
“Great, glorious, and free,
First flow’r of the ocean, first gem of the sea.”
I have repeated it, when telling a droll Irish story to the minister who
had set his seal to Ireland’s ruin; in the Tuileries, when I stood face
to face, “bandying compliments with majesty;” in the Quirinal, when in
_tête-à-tête_ with a cardinal secretary, amid scenes that belonged to
the middle ages; in the Palace Borghese with the family of Napoleon
Bonaparte; on the Pontine Marshes, when receiving the confessions of a
Carmelite monk, on his pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Peter; and in the
vice-regal circles of Dublin Castle, when a liberal Lord Lieutenant shook
my right hand, at the same moment that a grand master of an orange lodge
shook my left!
I remember relating my _début_ at Lady C——k’s, and my scene with Mr.
Kemble, to the late Marquess of A——, as something more true than
possible. He told me that he had known him to do things more eccentric,
when under the influence of that _one_ glass too much; and he quoted an
anecdote which occurred at the ——. “Kemble was seated between the two
Scotch Dukes of H——, and of A——; the conversation turned on genealogy,
and the two peers grew warm upon the relative antiquity of their houses.
Kemble, who had not drunk pending the argument, and who saw with despair
the bottle in abeyance between their graces, after muttering his
impatience for some time, broke out on a sudden with, ‘D—— both your
bloods, send round the wine!’ Nobody,” added Lord A——, “appeals to Kemble
sober against Kemble tipsy—he is such an excellent fellow, and such a
perfect gentleman.”
Perhaps no actor of any age or country (Garrick excepted) lived upon
such intimate and equal terms with the great, as Kemble. There was such
a natural patent of gentility about him, that the highest nobility of
the land gave way to it. He and Talma were the last of their class and
caste. Not but that there are now as perfect gentlemen on the stage as
ever: but the heroic age of the theatre is over. For me, as long as
Potier and Perlet, and Liston, remain, _je ne demande pas mieux_. I
would rather laugh with Falstaff, than shudder with Macbeth; and with
respect to French tragedy and French declamation, I am just where I was,
when I wrote “France.” Notwithstanding all the “_Lettres adressés à Mi
Ladi Morgan_,” to prove that she is a blockhead and knows nothing of the
matter, she at least knows what amuses and what bores her—and all she has
done, is to say so.
To observe of any gentleman, now, that he drank, would be to utter a
disgraceful reproach. Yet, up to the last quarter of the century, the
male nobility and even royalty of Great Britain, gave themselves up
to inebriety; so that to be “as drunk as a lord,” was, in reality, a
patrician distinction. Charles the Second was frequently seen reeling to
his home in Whitehall, through the streets of London, in the midst of his
brawling riotous courtiers, with “the fiddles” in his van, to serenade
the Duchess of Portsmouth, on his return from “poor Nelly’s” lodgings.
In more recent and refined times, modern Falstaffs, and Heirs Apparent,
have had their “Boar’s Heads,” as favourite resorts, though not in
Cheapside. Hereditary legislators and representatives of the people,
have staggered home together in the neighbourhood of St. Stephen’s—and
the representative of majesty itself, lying under his own dinner-table,
has given rise to the Catholic witticism of a great law officer, who
observed, that “the _Host_ wanted elevation.” Even in times still fresh
in the memories of many, sobriety was deemed a suspicious virtue, as
well as a vulgar one; and to be a seven-bottle-man, was to qualify for
the highest society. But where, now, is the nobleman or gentleman, who
would not shrink from such a reputation? School of the sticklers for the
good old times, and for the wisdom of our ancestors—you, who place the
excesses of intemperance among the social virtues—what say you to the
sobriety of the present generation?
LORD ERSKINE.
Poor Lord Erskine! how the memory of the first odd and pleasant evening
which introduced me to the distinction of his notice, refreshes all my
after remembrance of his unchanging kindness, from the moment that we met
in Lady C——k’s conservatory, until within a few weeks of his death. Among
the brightest, and often falsest illusions of our youth, are the ideas we
conceive of eminent persons, of whom we have long read and heard. I could
write volumes on the impressions which I received in my early and obscure
youth, of the eminent and the celebrated, whose names had danced before
my eyes, or tingled in my ears, in books and news-papers, in rumours and
reports; and of the disappointment which followed, when my own notoriety
brought me within their sphere. The first time I read of Lord Erskine
was in Miss Seward’s works. What a splendid picture of humanity, for one
whose imagination, like the style of the fair author whose pages she
gloated over, was all exaggeration and effervescence! Oh! how very much
in love I then was with the _idea_ of Lord Erskine!
A little further on in life, I met with an old pamphlet, in the parlour
window of a country house, and found it was the famous trial of Horne
Tooke. The speech of Lord Erskine revived my early and warm impressions
of that splendid person; and he of whom it had been said that “he had
spoken on that momentous occasion like a man inspired, and at once
redeemed the honour of his profession, and established the safety of his
country,” was to me just that sort of person, whom to behold but for a
moment, I would have made a pilgrimage barefooted from Tipperary (where I
then was) to any given spot which he inhabited.
I met Lord Erskine, therefore, under these exaggerated notions of his
genius and character; and was a little disappointed to find that he
spoke like other persons—was a thin, middle-aged gentleman, and wore a
brown wig. This was not exactly the impersonation of my _beau-idéal_!
Genius was then with me a mode of being, splendid in its form as in its
spirit. Already a little disabused, I yet could not reconcile myself to
inspiration in a bob wig. Still it was a great epoch in my life, when I
found myself seated by one of the gods of my idolatry—for I then had a
great many; and worshipped a sort of polytheism of prepossession, which
kept me in a constant alternation of hope and disappointment:—my gods
being too frequently false gods, and my golden idols, images of clay. It
was a still more flattering distinction, when his lordship called on me,
the day after our introduction, at Lady C——’s.
From that time, till his death, we met frequently, and corresponded
occasionally; just seeing enough of each other, to become intimate with
nothing but our respective good qualities. He was always delightful,
always amusing, frequently incoherent—and, I thought, sometimes
affectedly wild, at least paradoxical. Of this, an instance occurs to me,
connected with an important epoch, and with some amusing scenes, _que
voilà_.
It was during that grand political æra—the very hegira of ratting—when
the Prince of Wales, becoming regent, left it a moment in doubt whether
the old ministry would join the whig sovereign, or the whig sovereign
adopt the sentiments of the tory ministers. I was then enjoying my
brilliant existence, at that Alhambra of fashion, and of ministerial
politics, the P—— at St——re. The noble owner of that hospitable mansion
was an aristocrat in feeling and a tory in principle. The blood of the
Stuarts ran in his veins; the beauty of the Darnley and the hauteur of
the Bothwell were the characteristics of his distinguished person. He was
so organized to be the man he was, that no education nor example could
have made him otherwise. Had he occupied the throne of his ancestors, he
would have been the justest despot that ever reigned; for though he loved
power much, he loved truth more;—and truth is—justice. Lord A—— was a
frank, aboveboard, and uncompromising politician. His pride, with which
he was reproached as a vice, was his virtue. It rendered him untractable
to the meanness of manœuvre, intrigue, and corruption. His opinions
were in such perfect coincidence with his interest, that his marquisate
and blue ribbon were not the rewards of a purchased conformity, but
testimonials of ministerial good will, for voluntary and independent
services, conscientiously rendered; and much as he was said to have loved
such distinctions, I am sure he would rather have resigned the title and
the garter, than have changed sides, or given up any cause he deemed to
be based in justice.
From Saturday till Monday, (the weekly interval of public business,)
was always a carnival at the P——, when the upper and lower houses
seemed to send their most distinguished members to recreate in its
elegant _salons_. The first Saturday after the appointment of the Regent
brought down a multitude of visitors, the _élite_ of the statesmen and
stateswomen of both parties. Among these were Lord Erskine and the
Duchess of G——. It was my good fortune to be seated on a sofa with Lord
Erskine, when the duchess did us the honour to make a third in our
conversation. “Oh, my lord,” she said, “you ha’ got the Wild Irish Girl
all to yourself. Weel, she’s a clever creature, but I’ve a great fault
to find with her. She has no more sentiment than a London Missy! The
first time I met her was at the Irish chancellor’s. Jannie M—— and I had
been living among the heaths and the roses of Glengarry, and had been
gloating on her ‘Wild Irish Girl’ and ‘Novice;’ and when I arrived in
Dublin I was longing to know her. Weel, Lord M—— made a dinner expressly.
But, what was my disappointment when she said, ‘Oh! Lord M——, think
how unlucky I am. The very day I left B—— C——, a whole jaunting car of
officers were expected from Strabane.’ Eh! gude God, there was sentiment
with a vengeance.”
This brought on the chapter of romance, national peculiarities, fetches,
second-sights, &c. &c.; in the latter of which, both Lord E. and the
duchess acknowledged their belief. I could not avoid expressing some
surprise that such persons should give way to the influence of such
irrational superstition. The duchess was displeased, and said, “I don’t
like to see young ladies setting themselves above their superiors, and
giving in to free thinking. I never knew any one cry down what is called
superstition, but those who have no religion.”
It was in vain that “I rose to explain.” Prostration of intellect,
and profound obedience in the young and inexperienced, were the order
of the day; and her grace related a very curious and romantic tale of
second-sight in her own family, which amused, if it did not convert
me—while the affecting manner in which it was told, left no doubt as to
the sincerity of the relator.
“I also,” said Lord Erskine, “believe in second-sight, because I have
been its subject. When I was a very young man, I had been for some time
absent from Scotland. On the morning of my arrival in Edinburgh, as I
was descending the steps of a close, on coming out from a bookseller’s
shop, I met our old family butler. He looked greatly changed, pale,
wan, and shadowy, as a ghost. ‘Eh! old boy,’ I said, ‘what brings you
here?’ He replied, ‘To meet your honour, and solicit your interference
with my lord, to recover a sum, due to me, which the steward at our last
settlement did not pay.’ Struck by his looks and manner, I bade him
follow me to the bookseller’s, into whose shop I stepped back; but when
I turned round to speak to him, he had vanished.
“I remembered that his wife carried on some little trade in the old town.
I remembered even the house and the flat she occupied, which I had often
visited in my boyhood. Having made it out, I found the old woman in
widow’s mourning. Her husband had been dead for some months; and had told
her on her death-bed, that my father’s steward had wronged him of some
money, but that when Master Tom returned, he would see her righted. This
I promised to do, and shortly after, fulfilled my promise. The impression
was indelible; and I am extremely cautious how I deny the possibility
of such ‘supernatural visitings’ as those which your grace has just
instanced in your own family.”
Either Lord Erskine did, or did not, believe this strange story; if
he did, what a strange aberration of intellect!—if he did not, what a
stranger aberration from truth! My opinion is, that he _did_ believe
it. I had not, however, then learned upon what trifling points human
credulity turns, how little even our opinions are our own, and how far
the strongest minds are inconsistent with themselves, and obstinately
retain the dog’s-ears and folds of early impression.
Notwithstanding my heresy in the matter of second-sight, I continued
to receive marks of friendship from Lord E.; and for years after my
marriage, he sent me any thing he produced in a literary way. The
following note, which was written a few months before his death, closed
our correspondence; it was accompanied by his pamphlet on the Greeks.
It is worth citing, as a testimony to prove that years do not make age,
and that freshness of feeling, and youthful ardour in a great cause, may
survive the corporeal decay, which time never spares, even to protracted
sensibility:—
“DEAR LADY MORGAN,
“A long time ago, in one of your works (all of which I have
read with great satisfaction), I remember your having expressed
your approbation of my style of writing, and a wish that I
would lose no occasion of rendering it useful. I wish I could
agree with your ladyship in your kind and partial opinion; but
as there never was an occasion in which it can be more useful
to excite popular feeling than in the cause of the Greeks, I
send your ladyship a copy of the second edition [of my work],
published a few days ago.
“I have the honour to be,
“With regard and esteem,
“Your ladyship’s faithful humble servant,
“ERSKINE.”
“_No. 13, Arabella Row, Pimlico, London, October 11, 1822._”
“_Lady Morgan, Dublin._”
The pamphlet which accompanied this note, abundantly proved, that
neither the talent nor the feelings of this singularly gifted writer had
abandoned him; yet circumstances had occurred, and become notorious,
which implied that age had, in some respects, made sad havoc with his
powerful intellect. There is nothing more curious in the history of the
human mind, than the manner in which it falls to ruin; and in which
splendid and magnificent fragments can subsist, in all their pristine
beauty, amidst the total decay of the rest of the intellectual fabric.
LORD CASTLEREAGH.
To go back once more to the P——. How often have I seen Whigs and Tories
united round its splendid hearths in the great drawing-room, innocently
playing their “small games,” after having played, through the preceding
week, their great game, on the opposite sides of the two houses. How
often have I seen the ministerial red box, (“big with the fate of Cato
and of Rome,” bearing the busy tale of some of Napoleon’s unwelcome
victories, or welcome defeats, or, haply stuffed with the materials
of some green-bag disclosure,) scarcely deposited in the hands of its
diplomatic owner, before it was suddenly jerked up into the air by the
playful ingenuity of a romping peeress, and its mysterious contents
scattered on the floor, while the laughing contriver of the overthrow
exclaimed—“_Autant en emporte le vent!_” How often have I seen presidents
of the council and lords comptrollers of royal households, taking
lessons, there, in waltzing, at that time a novelty, fresh imported from
D—— House: while “many a saint and many a hero,” who were then sinners
and subalterns, trod upon those Persian carpets, which covered the paved
cloisters and knee-worn cells of the ancient monks of St——e.
It was during the time passed in this delightful retreat (which was
no retreat), that I had frequently _the pleasure_ of meeting Lord
Castlereagh. I say the pleasure, for (I take him here in his social
phases only) he was one of those cheerful, liveable, give-and-take
persons, in private, who are so invaluable in villa-life, where pleasure
and repose are the object and the end. His implacable placidity, his
cloudless smile, his mildness of demeanour, his love of music, his
untunable voice, and passion for singing all the songs of the Beggar’s
Opera,[29] (in which I had always the honour of accompanying him,
because nobody else would), his expertness at small plays, and the
unalterable good humour with which he stood the brunt of the frequent
practical jokes played off at his expense, rendered him most welcome
in all the circles which he frequented, in the pauses of his arduous
avocations.
I had then no acquaintance with European politics; but I was a furious
little Irishwoman; and Lord Castlereagh used frequently to say, “no one
cares for Ireland, but Miss O. and I.” I took this for sober earnest;
and, in the pride of my ignorance and credulity, would repeat poor
Louis the Sixteenth’s “_il n’y a que moi et Monsieur Turgot qui aime le
peuple!_”
It is the recollection of that liberal and urbane spirit, which brought
men of the most opposite opinions in public life, thus to mingle in the
harmony of social confidence,—men who, in the high and courteous breeding
of their elevated station, never suffered the acrimony of party to shed
its venom on the graces of the private circle,—it is this recollection
that has so often made me turn in disgust from the vulgar and brutal
party feeling, which has prevailed among the ascendancy faction in
Ireland, making political differences the ground for anti-social
insolence, and carrying into the club and the drawing-room, the virulence
and uncharitableness of public hostility.
Between social complaisance and political compliance there is no
necessary connexion; and a stern adherence to principle is not
incompatible with a good-humoured forbearance to opponents. Lord A——, as
I have said, was a warm, and a sincere politician: and, much as he lived
with both parties, he would have been the last to forgive or tolerate an
act of baseness in his own. On the morning of the day which decided the
turn of affairs, on the Prince’s assumption of the Regency, I remember
his saying to me, “Lord Castlereagh dines with us to-day; if he goes
with the tide, if he rats, it will be for the last time—there is an end
of our friendship for ever.” Lord Castlereagh, however, did not rat, and
we enjoyed his society at frequent intervals through the rest of the
season, with that of his always joyous, pleasure-stirring Lady.
The last time I saw Lord Castlereagh was at Paris, in the year 1818, at
the opening of the session by Louis the Eighteenth—a memorable epoch,
and a most striking scene! I shall never forget the impression made on
that occasion by the appearance of General La Fayette;—it was at the
moment when the king, seated on his throne, (the princes of his family on
either side, and his “_beloved peers_” and faithful commons around him,)
received the oath of fidelity from all. Each individual, in his turn,
on being called out by name, stretched forth his hand and pronounced
“_Je jure_.” The emphasis, the petulance (so peculiar to French people
in speaking), with which many eagerly and anxiously called out “_Je
jure_,” who had made the same vow to every form of power which had
successively followed, was finely contrasted by the calm, and dignified
air, and slowly articulated enunciation of La Fayette,—who, of all that
vast assemblage, was the one who had never uttered his “_Je jure_,” nor
pledged himself to the power that was not based in the rights of the
people.