CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1 89 1 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library DA 536.W98A3 Diaries of a lady of aualltv from 1797 t 3 1924 028 040 453 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028040453 DIARIES A LADY OF QUALITY- LONDON PBINTBD BY 8P0TTIS WOODS AWD 00. NEW-STBEET SQTJABE DIARIES OF A LADY OF QUALITY FKOM 1797 TO 1844. EDITED, WITH NOTES, BY A. HAYWAED, Esq., Q.C. LONDON: LONGMAN, GEEEN, LONGMAN, EGBERTS, & GREEN. 1864. PEEFATORY NOTICE. The manuscript volumes (ten in number) from which this book has been compiled, differ materially from any of the same extent which have fallen under my observation. Although called diaries, they are none of them what is commonly understood or de- scribed by that name. They do not profess to be a record of the writer's daily life : they contain no details of a private or purely personal nature : no flights of egotism, no self-communings, nothing that can be called scandal. At the end of half a century the lives of princes and statesmen belong to history, and the only imfavourable impressions noted down by her relate exclusively to thein. Her very gossip is redeemed by the speakers and the subjects; and her sole object throughout appears to have been to submit her VI PREFATORY NOTICE. understanding to an improving exercise, and to store up for future reference the conversations and com- positions which attracted her attention in the course of her daily intercourse with the most cultivated people and her assiduous study of curious books and manuscripts. How many of us have regretted that we did not make a note at the time of what we heard fall from persons who had been prominent actors on the political or literary stage, or who had even been behind the scenes when a memorable performance was arranged or in progress ! How unlucky, have we thought, that we did not copy the striking passage in the now forgotten book, or the curious letter which we might easily have borrowed for the purpose ; or that we did not cut out and keep the clever newspaper article or quaint paragraph which so much struck everybody ! Then why, on finding that this has been judiciously done by another, should we not profit by his or her sagacity, industry, and taste ? Such were the questions that suggested themselves to me when I had gone over these diaries with the view of deciding whether a book, calculated to reflect credit on the collector, could be compiled from them. PREFATORY NOTICE. Vll Gray went a little too far when (as quoted by Horace Walpole) he laid down that ' if any man were to form a book of what he had seen and heard himself, it must, in whatever hands, prove a useful and entertaining one.' But when a woman of thought and feeling, of cultivation and discernment, has enjoyed such opportunities of seeing' and hearing as this lady of quality, a book so formed by her could hardly fall short of the degree of value and attraction anticipated by Gray. Miss Frances Williarns Wynn, the lady in question, was the daughter of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn (the fourth baronet) and Charlotte, daughter of George Grenville (First Lord of the Treasury, 1763-1765). The uncles to whom she frequently alludes, were the first Marquis of Buckingham, Lord Grenville, and the Eight Honourable Thomas Grenville : the brothers, the Eight Honour- able Charles Williams Wynn, and Sir Henry Williams Wynn (long English minister at Copenhagen). One of her sisters was married to the late Lord Delamere, and the other to Colonel Shipley, M.P., son of the celebrated Dean of St. Asaph, and grandson of Johnson's friend, the Bishop. Lord Braybrooke and Lord Nugent were her near relatives. She died in 1857, in her 77th or 78th year ; when her papers came into the possession viii PREFATORY NOTICE. of her niece, the Honourable Mrs. Eowley,* under whose sanction these selections from them are pub- lished. Simple and easy of execution as my editorial duties may appear, they have really involved no inconsiderable amount of embarrassing responsibility. In the case of each individual entry or transcript, I was obliged to decide on the novelty or originality, as well as on the inherent value or interest, of the narrative, description, or reflections comprised in it. Thackeray used to say that, when Punch was first established, there was a member of its staff who knew every joke that had been made since the beginning of all things. It would require an editor equally well versed in Ana, or anecdote literature, to declare where and when (if ever) each of the stories or traits of character preserved by Miss Wynn had been in print. All I could do was to refer to the likeliest repositories, and having done so, boldly to take for granted that what was still new to me would prove new to the majority of readers. As she professedly copied the details, or wrote them down from memory, and did not * Daughter of the late Colonel and Mrs. Shipley, and wife of Colonel tlie Honourable R. T. Rowley, M.P. PEEFATORT NOTICE. ix invent, it stands to reason that they were once as well known to others as to her ; but it does not follow that a striking incident should be kept back from the existing generation because it may have been familiar to the last. It is also obvious that a fresh and well authenti- cated version of a received anecdote may prove highly valuable to the biographer or historian. Besides endeavouring to supply as succinctly as pos- sible the information required to explain the allusions or show the bearings of the statements, I have done my best to remedy the frequent deficiency of dates. A. H. 8 St. James Street: April 25, 1864. CONTENTS. PAGE The Dead AJive ...... 1—2 The Wynyard Ghost Story .... 2—5 The Innocent Convict ..... 5 — 10 A Convent Tragedy ..... 10—13 Mr. Burke's Ghost Story . .... 14—17 Execution of Charles I. . . . . . 17—20 Earthquake at Naples ..... 20 — 26 The Emperor Alexander ..... 25—26 Extracts from Letters from Germany . . . 26 — 30 Last Moments of Louis XVI. — Escape of the Dues D'Angouleme and Berry .... 80 — 38 Sir Walter Scott's Stories .... 39—40 Buxton Letter ...... 41 — 43 The Tyrone Ghost Story .... 43—54 The Duke of Marlborough — Admiral Barrington — The Gunnings ...... 55 — 58 Account by a Lady of a Visit to Princess Dashkow . 58 — 64 Lord North 64-65 Account of a Hurricane in Jamaica . . . 65 — 70 Napoleon on Board the ' Northumberland ' . . 70 — 76 Napoleon and his Brothers .... 76 — 78 The Pretended Archduke .... 79—86 Anecdotes of Denon ..... 87 — 89 Early Impressions of Celebrated Men — Pitt, Fox, Lord Wellesley, and Windham .... 89-94 Imperial and Royal Visitors in 1814 — Visit to Oxford . 94 — 99 The Stage : Miss Farren, Mrs. Siddons, Miss O'NeU, ' Kemble, Talma 99—108 Pistrucci, the Improvisatore . . • 108 — 110 Xll CONTENTS. PAGE The Rev. Edward Irving . . . 110—120 The Queen of Wiirteniberg, ' n^e Princess Royal of Eng- land' — Napoleon at Wiirtemberg — George the Third's Insanity ..... 120 — J23 God Save the King, and Hyder AUy . . 123—124 Improvisatori .... 124 — 127 Literary Gains 127—129 Napoleon at St. Helena .... 129—134 Execution of the Rebel Lords in 1746 . . 134—137 Dream of the Duchess de Berry . . . 137 — 138 Cannibalism in Sumatra .... 139 — 145 Spinetto on the Pastoral Drama . . . 145 — 147 Balloons and Diving-Bells . . . 147 — 162 Conversations with. General Alava . . 162 — 169 Deaths of the Emperors Alexander and Paul . 159 — 166 Duchesse D'Albany .... 167—169 An Archbishop on False Pretences . . 170 — 171 The Due de Berri .... 171—173 Christophe, King of Hayti . . . 173—181 Louis XVIII. and the Fortune-Teller . . 182—183 Revenge ...... 183—186 Queen Caroline ..... 186 — 188 Extracts from the Works of Francis Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater ..... 188—193 Letters from Bishop Heber . . . 193 — 201 The Ricketts Ghost Story . . . 201 ^210 Insanity of George III. — Sir Henry Halford and George IV. .... . 210—215 Countess Macnamara. The Bourbons . . 216 219 The Old Woman of Delamere Forest . . 220 233 Madame D'Arblay .... 233 ^235 Sir Walter Scott ..... 235 237 Party Feeling in France .... 237 ^240 Manuscripts of Tasso .... 240 243 Duchesse de Berry .... 243 245 Louis Philippe ..... 245—247 Lfiontine Fay ..... 247 Charles Kemble ..... 248 ^249 Mr. Coesvelt's Pictures .... 249 ^250 CONTENTS. XUl PAGE Balloons ...... 250—261 Mi. Davidson's Eastern Stories . 251—266 Kastern Magic ..... 256-260 Jerome, King of Westptalia 261—262 Dr. Playfair'svPatient .... 262—263 Baron Osten's Account of Hs Escape from the Jaws of the Lion in 1827 .... 263—265 Mexican Morals and Maimers 265—267 Authorship of Junius . 267-272 Good Sleepers : Mr. Pitt-The Duie of Wellingt on 272-279 Death of WiUiam IV.— Accession of Queen Victoria 279—282 Macready's Lear .... 282-284 Ohantrey's Studio .... 285—287 Macready's Coriolanus .... 287-289 From the Orders of Charles 11. for the Household 289—290 The Pretender at the Coronation . 290—293 Queen Anne ..... 293—295 Old-Fashioned Manners .... 296—296 Touching for the King's Evil 296-299 The Emperor Nicholas . 299—300 Catherine of Medicis 300—303 Impressions of Ireland in 1840 . 303-307 Lady Morgan • . . . 307—309 Anne of Austria .... 309—311 The Baron Geramb and La Trappe 311—314 Louis Philippe .... 314 Henry the Ninth of England 315—316 Kean ..... 317-320 Lady Hester Stanhope .... 320-329 Clairvoyance .... 329—335 Faustine . . . • ■ 335—337 Addendum to the First News of Waterloo, a ad the Meeting of Wellington and Blucher 888—341 Addendum to the ' The Tyrone Ghost ' . 341—342 Epitaphs, Epigrams, and Inscriptions 343—359 DIARIES &c. THE DEAD ALIVE. London: March \1th, 1803. — ^We passed the evening with the Grrimstones, talking about the Duke of Bridge- water, who, it was then thought, might very possibly be brought to life again, though he had been dead above a week. They told me the following extraordinary story: Many years ago, a Mrs. Killigrew was supposed to have been dead above a week ; when she was to be put into her coffin, her body was so swelled that it was found impossible to get her diamond hoop-ring off without cutting the finger ; this her husband would not consent to ; accordingly, she was buried with the ring. The sexton, who had observed this, determined to steal the ring that night. Having forced open the coffin, he ' proceeded to cut off the finger, but the first gash of the knife brought Mrs. Killigrew to life again. The sexton, frightened, ran away, leaving his lanthorn, which she immediately took, and walked to her own house. There B 2 THE DEAD ALIVE— THE WTNTAED GHOST STOET. her appearance, of course, created great consternation among the servants ; no one would venture to open the door ; fortunately the rumour reached the ears of her disconsolate husband, who went directly to receive her. After this event she lived ten years, and in the course of that time had two children, A maid who belonged to Mrs. Killigrew, after her death lived with Mrs. Walters, grandmother to the Grrimstones : from her they had this story. THE WTNYARD GHOST-STOEY.* Buxton: Oct. 16iA,'1803. — I returned from Blithfield.f The night before my departure, the conversation hap- * No ghost story is more frequently mentioned in society than tHs, but tlie amount of accurate information concerning it may be estimated from Sir Walter Scott's version : ' The story of two highly respectable officers in the British army, who are supposed to have seen the spectre of the brother of one in a hut, or barrack, in America, is also one of those accredited ghost tales which attain a sort of brevet rank as true, from the mention of respectable names as the parties who witnessed the vision. But we are left without a glimpse when, how, and in what terms, this story obtained its currency ; as also by whom, and in what manner, it was first circulated ; and among the numbers by whom it has been quoted; although all agree in the general event, scarcely two, even of those who pretend to the best information, tell the story in the same way.' — Letters on Bemonology and Witchcraft, p. 349. The late Sir E. Peel had a fixed impression that he had seen and spoken with Lord Byron (then ill at Patras) in 1810, in the streets of London. — Moore's Memoirs, vol 6, p. 14. t The seat of Lord Bagot, in Staffordshire. THE ■WTNTARD GHOST STOUT. 3 pening to turn on ghost stories, Lord Bagot mentioned the following, as being very curious from its uncommon authenticity. During the American war. Major Wynyard (who afterwards married Lady Matilda West), Gren. Ludlow, and Col. Clinton, were dining together in a mess-room at New York. In this room there were but two doors, one of which led to a staircase, and the other to a small closet, or rather press, without either door or window. A man entered at the door, when Gren. Ludlow, the only one of the gentlemen whose head was turned to the door, exclaimed, * Grood Grod, Harry ! what can have brought you here?' The figure only waved its hand and said nothing. At his friend's exclamation Major Wynyard turned round, and his astonishment at seeing a brother whom he had left in England was so great, that he was unable to speak. The figure stalked once round the table, and then disappeared through the closet door, pulling it after him, without fastening it. One of the gentlemen rose immediately to open the door, but the figure was already vanished, and no trace of any mode of egress was found in the closet. Col. Clinton, who had never seen Mr. H. Wynyard, and was less horrified than his friends, proposed that they should mark both the day and the hour on which they had seen this strange apparition, believing that they should never hear of it again, hut at the same time, thinking it might be a satisfaction to know the precise time of B 2 EXECTJTION WAEKANTS. SO extraordinary an occurrence. The next mails which came from England brought news of the death of Mr. Henry Wynyard, which had taken place at the same hour, two days after that on which his brother had seen the figure. Some years after this, as Col. Clinton and Gren. Ludlow were walking together in London, Col. Clinton exclaimed : ' There is the figure which we saw in America.' G-en. Ludlow turned round, and saw a man (whose name Lord Bagot had forgot)so famous for being so like Mr. H. Wynyard, that he was perpetually mis- taken for him. This man never had been in America. All these facts were told to Lord Bagot by Col. Wynyard, in the presence of either one or both of the gentlemen who were with him at the time that this extraordinary adventure happened. Another curious fact I heard at Blithfield. The Bishop of Carlisle told Lord Bagot that, in examining the papers of the late Duke of Bridgewater, in the midst of some useless papers which they were burning, they found two original warrants signed by Queen EHzabeth, one for the execution of the Duke of Norfolk, the other for that of Essex. Both warrants bear exactly the same date. Norfolk's is signed in a fine strong hand; that of Essex in one so' trembling, that it is hardly legible. "05 . * * In Park's edition- Of Walpole's 'Royal and Noble Authors ' (vol. 3), ,s a facsimile of the so-called original warrant in IL THE INNOCENT CONTICT. 5 At Blithfield is preserved the cap which Charles I. wore on the day of his execution, and which he sent to Col. Salusbury, an ancestor of the Bagots. The cap is made of crimson satin, richly embroidered with gold and silver. I saw likewise a letter from Charles to Col. Salusbury. It is published by Pennant, but he does not mention where the original is to be found. THE INIS'OCENT CONVICT. Nov. \mh, 1803.— We left Buxton in the midst of a deep snow, and after a very cold and wretched journey arrived at Elton* the next day. During the time we were there, I heard the following story, which appeared to me very interesting : Some years ago some passengers in a vessel bound for Botany Bay, were very much struck by the appearance of a female convict who was on board. She was a very beautiful woman, and appeared to be only 18 or 19 : her elegant manners were as striking as the beauty of her person. To these charms, she added one still more powerful — great modesty and strict propriety of deport- ment. It was this quality, so extraordinary in this most abject situation, which first called forth the Stafford collection, and the signature is clear and firm. There are three flourishes which could not have been executed by a trem- bling hand. * Elton Hall, Oundle : the seat of the Earl of Carysfort. 6 THE INNOCENT CONVICT. attention of her superiors. The captain of the vessel was requested to examine the register which was sent with every convict, detailing their offence and their sentence, and inform th^ passengers what had been the crime of a creature who appeared so lovely. He found that her name was Mary Green, and that she had been convicted on the clearest evidence of stealing a card of lace from a shop in Oxford Street. During a long passage her continued good conduct gained her so much respect that, a maid-servant be- longing to one of the officers having fallen sick on board, his wife took Mary Grreen to supply her place ; she found very soon that she had gained by the change : the more she saw of Mary the better she liked her. At last she tried to persuade herself that her favourite was innocent of the crime laid to her charge. She ques- tioned her as to her former situation, and as to the reasons which could have induced her to the commission of a crime which seemed so foreign to her nature. Mary replied, as she had to all her former enquiries, that no power upon earth could make her reveal any part of her story. She added that she was perfectly resigned to her fate, and determined to pass the rest of her days in New Holland, as she never could revisit her native land. Still, in spite of the mystery which hung about her, she rose every day in the good opinion of her mistress, who, after some time, placed her about her children ; then only she discovered that, in addition to all her amiable THE INNOCENT CONVICT. 7 qualities, Mary possessed, in a superior degree, all the talents and accomplishments which belong to an exalted situation. She spoke several modern languages, and understood both painting and music. In short, she soon became the favourite companion of her mistress, who could no longer treat this superior being as a servant. StUl, however, Mary resisted her urgent entreaties to discover her former situation ; she owned that it had been superior to that rank in which she now found herself; confessed that her present name was assumed; added that she had been very unfortunate, but would never add to her other misfortunes that of thinking that her relations and friends were blushing for her. About three years after this time, the chaplain of the settlement was called upon to attend the death-bed of an old female convict who was lately arrived. Though an old offender who had grown up in the paths of vice, this woman felt in her last moments great con- trition, and made a full confession of all her crimes. She said that what laid the most heavy on her conscience was the recollection of her having laid one of her of- fences to the charge of an innocent young woman. She said, that having gone in one day to a shop in Oxford Street at the same time with a very young girl who appeared to be fresh from the country, she had spoken to her ; and after having stolen a card of lace she followed the young woman out of the shop. Soon after, hearing the cry of ' stop thief,' she made a pretence of her clog 8 THE INNOCENT CONVICT. being untied to ask the assistance of the young woman, who was still close by her, and while she was stooping had contrived to slip the lace into her muff, and to escape herself before their pursuers reached them. She said she had afterwards heard that the poor girl had been convicted of an offence of which she knew her to be perfectly innocent. This account immediately brought to the chaplain's mind the Mary Green who had excited so much curiosity. He went immediately to her, asked for her story, and received from her the usual answer, re- fusing all intelligence on this subject. He, however, pressed her, told her that it might be of the utmost importance to her to confide in him, as some circum- stances had lately come to light which he hoped might lead to her exculpation if she would give him all the particulars of her case. She burst into tears, told him that she was the only daughter of a respectable mer- chant of Birmingham, but still refused to tell the name : she said that at eighteen years of age she had gone to London, for the first time, to an uncle who lived in Newman Street; that a day or two after her arrival she had, in the dusk of the evening, gone to a haberdasher's shop, to which she had been directed as being only a few steps from her uncle's house. On coming out of the shop she had heard a cry of ' stop thief and had hastened home to escape the mob, by whom she had been very much hustled. On the steps of her uncle's THE INNOCENT CONVICT. 9 house sbe was arrested, the piece of lace was found upon her, and she was immediately carried into con- finement. She said that she thought that it was hardly- possible that any testimony of her character could avail against the positive evidence brought against her, more particularly as her only defence was that she knew not how the lace came in her muff. She therefore deter- mined to conceal her name and never apply to her family. This happened just before the time of sessions. Mary's trial and condemnation ensued so soon after, that her relations had not had time to make all the enquiries which they afterwards sent in vain all over the kingdom. These circumstances tallied so exactly with the old woman's confession that the chaplain ventured to tell Mary that he had no- doubt of her acquittal. He in- formed the Governor of the whole transaction, who promised to transmit this information by the first ship to the English Government, and said that her innocence appeared to him so clear that, without instructions, he would venture to say that she should no longer be con- sidered as a convict, but as a planter. In England the strictest enquiry was made, and every circumstance exactly tallied with Mary's deposition. The next ship brought her complete acquittal and conveyed her back to her disconsolate parents, who had not ceased to lament the unaccountable disappearance of their beloved child. Soon after her return she married extremely well to a young clergyman, who had a very good living. 10 A CONTENT TRAGEDY. I was told that this story was perfectly true in every part ; and there can hardly be a stronger instance of vir- tue and innocence triumphing over the most unfortunate false appearances. It was the virtue and modesty of Mary's behaviour which were the first cause of bringing her innocence to light. Had she not been so distin- guished, the chaplain never would have thought of her, but an unjust accusation of theft naturally brought her to his mind. Perhaps it may be said that her beauty contributed in some degree to the celebrity which she obtained, and consequently to her acquittal. A COISrVENT TEAGEDY. Extract from a Letter from Mr. Southey to Charles W. Wynn, dated January 8, 1805.* Jane Power was placed in the Irish Nunnery at Belem, near Lisbon, when but a child ; she grew up there and took the vows. Shortly after there came over a young Irish woman (Louisa Bourke, by name), who went through the year of her probation resolutely, and took the veil. She had left her own country, and then aban- doned the world, in a fit of jealousy : her lover at length traced her, followed her, and spoke with her at the grate. A reconciliation ensued : they corresponded and * A great many letters to Mr. Charles Wynn from Southey have been printed hy his son and his son-in-law, but this particular letter is not amongst them. A CONTENT TEAaEDT. 11 resolved to try to get her out by means of dispensation. The scheme was discovered; its success would have been a great misfortune to the convent, as the large fortune which Louisa had brought must ia that case have been refunded. It was said that she had died very soon after. At this time, Jane Power was ill ; after her recovery, being in a remote part of the convent which was not in use, she heard Louisa's voice, which seemed to proceed from within the wall ; she thought it was her spirit, and much alarmed, asked if she should order any services for her soul. Louisa replied she was still alive, and requested her friend to come to her, giving her at the same time directions to find an en- trance to her place of confinement. It was a small cell on a higher story, matted round, and so entirely remote from aU the inhabited part of the convent and from every ear, that she was even allowed a musical instru- ment there. She had that day got down by finding some means of slipping back a bolt or lock, and by the same means Jane was enabled to visit her, which she did regularly every night for some months. Once she stayed later than usual, because her friend appeared more depressed than she had ever seen her. In consequence of this delay, her lamp was exhausted and went out in the cloisters. She was afraid that in the dark she might mistake her cell and thus be discovered ; she therefore sat herself down to wait for daybreak. When the dawn came, she thought she would go back to tell Louisa 12 A CONTENT TRAGEDY. how she had passed the night ; she knocked and received no answer ; after some time she pushed the door, but found something against it. Having at last succeeded in opening the door, she saw her wretched friend lying on the floor with her throat cut from ear to ear. Jane Power fainted, and in this state was found lying on the bleeding body of the unfortunate Louisa by the nun who brought food to the prisoner. She was carried before the abbess, who made her take the most solemn vow never to reveal what she had seen. She continued several years longer in the nunnery ; the horror which the scene she had witnessed had left upon her mind, made her situation dreadful. Her pros- pect brightened a little upon the arrival of our troops. Her sister's husband, whose name is either Heatley or Headley, had a civil appointment in our army there. During his stay, the frequent visits of her sister and of her English friends, made her life more cheerful than that of a nun usually is. When the troops were moving, she complained bitterly to her sister, and Headley de- termined to carry her off; he conveyed boy's clothes to her, and gave her his watch that she might know the hour at which to make her escape. In order to secure her from interruption from any of the male servants of the convent, he made them all drunk. When Jane, in her disguise, came to the door, the key creaked in the lock. She had resolution enough to return to the dor- mitory and dip it in a lamp. Still she was before the A CONVENT TRAGEDY. 13 hour appointed ; for never having had a watch, she had not wound it up ; and when at last the time came, she flung the watch over the wall instead of a stone. How- ever, she effected her escape. Still there remained a difficulty ; the captain of the packet, after having promised to take her, repented and refused after she was out of the convent. She was got on board by the management of Col. Trent's wife, who went in the same packet ; and the captain of a frigate, who was acquainted with her story, convoyed the vessel out, declaring at the same time that if Todd (the master of the packet) would not take her, he would run all risks and carry her to England himself, rather than that she should be forced to return to the convent. There came on rough weather, and poor Jane whispered that perhaps it was sent because of her. However, she reached Falmouth in safety, and the last I heard of her was that her friends were endeavouring to procure from the Pope a dispensation of her vows. I give you this story as Mrs. Trent gave it me. Mrs. Trent is a very extraordinaiy woman. Her husband was among the persons stopped in France ; she went over, obtained his liberty, and smuggled home the son of Hoppner the painter. When Jane Power saw the mail coach, she said the king was coming; and the first thing she asked for, when she was safely housed, was a looking-glass ; for, since she was five years old, she had never seen her own face. 14 MR. bueke's ghost stokt. ME. BTIEKE'S ghost STORT. December, 1804. — I became acquainted with Mrs. (wife of Colonel) Dixon, first at Acton, afterwards here. From her conversation I gained much amusement, and, I hope some instruction. One or two stories that she told us I am determined not to forget. At a meeting of the Literary Club, at which Dr. ' Johnson, Mr. Burke, and several other eminent charac- ters of the day were present, it was observed that an old gentleman, who had never missed one of the meet- ings of the society, was that day absent. His absence was considered as the more extraordinary because he' happened to be president that day. While the company were expressing their surprise at this circumstance, they saw their friend enter the room, wrapped in a long white gown, his countenance wan and very much fallen. He sat down in his place, and when his friends won- dered at his dress, he waved his hand, nodded to each separately, and disappeared from the room without speaking. The gentlemen, surprised at this circum- stance, and determined to investigate it, called for the waiter, and asked whether anybody had been seen upon the staircase which led to the room where they were sitting. They were answered that no person had been seen either to enter the house or to mount the stairs, and that both the staircase and the entrance had been * Acton Park, Wrexiam : the seat of Sir R. A. Cunliffe Bart. ME. BUEKE'S ghost STORY. 15 constantly filled with comers and goers. Not satisfied with this, they sent to the house of the gentleman whom they had just seen, to enquire whether he had been out. His residence happened to be very near the cofifee-house where they were, and their messenger immediately returned with the following melancholy intelligence: their friend had died about ten minutes before, of a violent fever, which had confined him entirely to his bed for several days. Some of the most eminent men of the club gave themselves great pains to discover the imposition which some thought had been practised upon them; others firmly believed that their friend's ghost had actually appeared to them ; and the latter opinion was confirmed by the total failure of all enquiries. All their efforts proved vain to remove the veil of mystery which hung over this transaction. At last they determined to remove the club to another part of the town, entering at the same time into an engagement never to reveal the circumstance which had occasioned this change. They wisely thought that such a story, supported by the evidence of such men as Johnson, Burke, &c., might do much mischief while the causes remained imexplained. Many years afterwards, as Mr. Burke was sitting at dinner with some friends at his own house, he was told that a poor old woman, who was dying in an obscure garret in the midst of the greatest wretchedness, had just said that she could not die in peace imless she could 16 MK. bueke's ghost stoet. reveal a most important secret to Mr. Bm-ke. This summons appeared so like a fraudulent means of ex- torting money, that Mr. Burke refused to go. In a short time, he received a second message still more pressing, and at the same time, such an account was given of the extreme poverty and misery of the poor expiring object, that his compassion was excited, and he determined to go, in spite of the earnest entreaties of his friends, who still feared for his safety. They accordingly watched in the little obscure alley, saw him ascend the staircase which led to the garret in which he was told that the poor woman was lying, and reminded him that succour was at hand. Mr. Burke soon returned. He told his friends that he had found everything as it had been represented; that the old woman had died after telling him a very extra- ordinary circumstance, which had given him great satis- faction ; he then related aU the former part of this story, and added that the dying woman had confessed that she had been guilty of a neglect which had cost an unfor- tunate man his life. She said that upon her death-bed, she was determined to make all the atonement in her power, confess her error, and had therefore requested his presence, knowing him to be the most intimate friend of the deceased. She said that some years before, she was nurse to a gentleman who was ill of a dangerous fever, and named Mr. Burke's friend. She said that on a par- ticular day — ^which she named — she was told by the ME. bueke's ghost stoet. 17 physician that the crisis of the disease was that day to be expected, and that the ultimate issue of the malady would very much depend upon the patient's being kept perfectly quiet at that moment ; wliich could only be done by incessant watching, as the delirium would pro- bably run very high just before. In that case the physician directed that the patient should be forcibly detained in his bed, as the least cold would prove fatal. He therefore ordered the nurse not to leave the room upon any account the whole of the day. The nurse added that in the afternoon of that day a neighbour had called upon her; that, seeing the gentleman perfectly quiet, she had ventured to leave his room for ten minutes ; when she returned, she found her patient gone. In a few minutes he returned and expired immediately. When she heard the enquiries made, she was well aware what had given birth to them, but was at that time prevented by shame from confessing the truth ! * EXECUTION OF CHAKLES I. Jan. I8th, 1805. — I went to Llangollen; the ladies gave me a paper of which the following is the copy : — ' If anything of tlie kind had occurred at the Literary Club, it could hardly have escaped BosweU. Sir Walter Scott relates a similar story, the scene of which is ' a club of persons connected with science and literature ' at Plymouth. C 18 EXECUTIONEK OF CHARLES I. Copy of an old MS. found behind an ancient engraving of Charles I., in the Parsonage House at Inlcherghe, in the County of Worcester. ' Dr. Ed. Smallbrooke, Bishop of St. David's, informed me that, when he was chaplain of Archbishop Tennison, y« Archbishop told him as follows concerning the person that executed King Charles.' ' When the Archbishop was rector of St. Martin's, he was sent for to pray by a dying man in a poor house in Gardner's Lane, Westminster, He made haste, but found the man just expired. The people of the house told him that the man had been very anxious to see him, and to confess to him that he was the executioner of Bong Charles ; that he was a trooper of Oliver, and that, every man in the troop having refused to do that office, Oliver made them draw lots, and the lot falling upon him he did the work in a mask, and that he immediately mixed in the crowd, hiding the mask ; that he had never been easy in his mind since. He had lived some time in their house, was poor and melancholy, and much distressed for want of consolation from Dr. Tennison. Dr. Tennjison was in great esteem for his good offices about dying persons. Charles lay one night, Saturday, May 10th, 1 645, at the Parsonage at Inkberghe.' * * Assuming this' story to have any foundation in truth, the penitent must have been William Hulet, who was tried on the 15th Oct. 1660, for regicide. Evidence was given that he, and one Walker, were the two men who officiated in disguise on the scaffold ; hut which of them cut off the king's head, and which EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. 19 Extract from a Gazette, entitled ' Every-day Journdll,^ col- lected by J. Walker Clerc, and published by a particular Order of Parliament. Feb. 1st, 1648. — The gazette begins with an account of King Charles' trial and condemnation, and after the sentence passed on him follows this paragraph :■ — ' If the King had been guiltless of the charge, who is so weake to think he would have suffered the sentence of death to have passed on him for want of pleading ? He pleaded the jurisdiction of the Court, wherein he strikes at the people's privileges to question tyrants.' Jan. 30th. — ' This morning a letter was brought from Prince Charles to the King, by one of the gentlemen belonging to the Dutch ambassador, delivered to the captain of the guard, who acquainted the King there- with, but the King refused to receive it, and desired that it might be returned back again.' Then follows the King's speech from the scaffold, as given in all the histories, ending with his requesting held it up, witli tlie exclamation, ' This is the head of a traitor,' was left in doubt. Hulet was found guilty, hut pardoned on the recommendation of the judges, who disapproved the verdict. Various other persons — Lord Stair, Colonel Joyce, &c., &c. — have been named; and the question, 'Who cut off Charles I.'s head?' has been as eagerly discussed as ' Who was the man in the Iron Mask ? ' or, ' Who wrote Junius ? ' The weight of evidence is in favour of Richard Brandon, the common hangman, who died in 1649. See the State Trials for 1660 ; Ellis's Original Letters, New Series, vol. iii. 340, and Notes and Queries, passim. The index to that valuable compilation makes all its treasures easily available. C 2 20 EARTHQUAKE AT NAPLES. Colonel Hacker to ' take care they did not put him to paine.' The gazette then proceeds, — ' after some other circumstances, the executioner severed his head from his body.' ' Those of the King's line that now are, or hereafter shall be, may sadly lay it to heart, and not aspire to monarchy, considering what sad successes their predeces- sors have had. King Charles is beheaded ; his brother was poisoned; his sister put to exile; his eldest son exiled, her eldest son drowned ; his father strongly sus- pected to be poisoned ; his grandfather murthered and hanged on a tree ; and his grandmother beheaded.' N.B. This gazette, was read by Lord Grrenville to the King and the Prince of Orange, a few days after the execution of the unfortunate Louis XVI., to prove to them that, even in committing a great crime, the Eng- lish preserved more of decency and humanity than the French. It was melancholy to read the last paragraph to the dethi-oned Prince of Orange, who, as well as George III., is the immediate descendant of Charles. EAETHQUAKE AT NAPLES. Extract of a Letter from Naples, giving an account of the Earthquake. Naples: July 2Qth, 1805, 12 o'Olock at night— We have had a most dreadful earthquake; it took place about EARTHQUAKE AT NAPLES. 21 a quarter-past ten. I was at the theatre, where I found myself suddenly rolling about in my chair, and the whole house apparently falling : judge of the confusion it occasioned. Everybody rushed to the door, and I was fortunate enough to be one of the first ; several houses had been thrown down, and many lives lost. The front of the house next to Mr. Elliot fell down, and killed a man who was passing. On my return to my house I found the walls cracked, and in many places quite opened. As the mountain remains quiet, only throwing out flames occasionally, we are afraid of a second shock. Elliot and his whole family mean to pass the night in their carriages on the sea-shore : most of those who have carriages have followed his example; the squares are crowded with them. I am not determined what I shall do. 2 d'Gloeh, a.m. — The streets are crowded with pro- cessions: nothing is heard but the howling of the laza- roni; everybody calling on St. Ann, for what reason I have not yet been able to learn. I believe the worst thing to do is to go to bed. July 21 th. — ^We have had no return of the earth- quake. I have been assured by several grave people that we are indebted to St. Ann's interposition for this, as she seems to be in the secret : a heretic may be pardon- ed in saying she might as well have prevented the first shock. Joking apart, we have had a very narrow escape. The shock was excessively severe, and lasted nearly a minute : had it continued with equal violence 22 EARTHQUAKE AT NAPLES. a few seconds longer, we should have had a repetition of all the horrors of the Lisbon earthquake in 1 755. There is scarce a house that has not been damaged more or less. There was nothing in the heavens that indicated the approach of this commotion ; the day had been sultry, and was succeeded by one of those fine Italian nights unknown in the north ; there was not a cloud to be seen in the horizon, nor a breath of air stirring. During the shock, and for some time afterwards, partial eddies of wind brought with them immense clouds of dust, but they were soon dispersed; and the remainder of the night was as fine as the former part, nor is there a cloud to be seen this morning. July 28th. — The whole town passed last night in the squares and open places, as a return of the earthquake was expected. It was the most horrible sight I ever beheld. Notwithstanding the immense crowds, a perfect silence prevailed, interrupted only by the crying of women, and the singing of children, who paraded the streets in processions with flambeaux in honour of the Virgin. Not a smile was seen on any countenance ; the fierce looks of the lazaroni increased the horror of the scene. The havoc is infinitely greater than was at first imagined. The houses destroyed are estimated at five millions of piastres ; whole streets are in ruins. The shock was so strong that the crew of the 'Excellent,' anchored at two miles from the shore, supposed that the ship had struck against the earth, and all the officers EARTHQUAKE AT NAPLES. 23 and men were upon deck en chemise. It is sup- posed that not more than ninety people have been crushed at Naples. Jvily 29iA. — All remains quiet, but we are daily re- ceiving reports from the environs that are truly distressing. Half of the town of Averca is destroyed. At Capua the barracks fell in, and killed or wounded seventy-three soldiers. The towns of Isernia (about sixty miles from hence) and Campo Basso are entirely destroyed. At Aventino they have lost eight hundred persons. At another town (the name of which I have forgot) the loss is upwards of one thousand. I will write again by the next post, that you may not be uneasy on my account. I am, however, in great hopes that all danger is over. Naples: August 6th, 1805. — We have fortunately had no return of the earthquake : the slightest, in the present ruined state of the town, would bring the whole about our ears. The shock has been suflEciently great ; 'tis said twelve thousand persons haveperished, though the government allows but five thousand. Forty-two towns or villages have suffered more or less, some of which are entirely destroyed. The town of Boiardo has totally disappeared, and a lake has been formed in its place. A new volcano is said to have burst out in the chain of the Apennines which runs behind Isernia ; a fortunate event, which has, perhaps, saved us from the renewal of the earthquake by giving vent to the volcanic matter. 24 EAETHQrAKB AT NAPLES. which from some secret cause had set in agitation the bowels of the earth. You may form some idea of the violence of the shock, from the circumstance of some persons being affected by it as by sea-sickness. The children of Sir Grenville Temple, who, from being igno- rant of the danger, cannot be supposed to have been influenced by fear, were affected in this manner in common with several grown people. I myself did not feel any sensation of this sort, perhaps from having been constantly in motion: the same cause prevented my feeling the second and third shocks, which took place at eleven and one o'clock the same night ; but if my imagi- nation does not deceive me, the earth has never ceased to tremble ever since the great shock. One wing of the house in which I live has been declared uninhabitable : my part has not suffered so much ; but it will be necessary that it should undergo a thorough repair, being cracked from top to bottom, and the walls open in several places. August IZth. — At seven o'clock last night we had a most furious eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The lava, a mile and a half in breadth, ran down to the sea a dis- tance of seven miles in three hours, destroying vine- yards, cattle, houses — in short, everything it met in its passage. The damage it has done is immense. The effect it produced when it came in contact with the sea was truly sublime ; for one hundred yards round you.might have boiled an egg in the water, so violent a heat did it communicate. Seven or eight old people only THE EMPEKOR ALEXANDER. 25 have perished. Notwithstanding the destruction it has occasioned, I cannot but look upon it as a fortunate circumstance, as it has probably saved us from a repe- tition of the earthquake. THE BMPEEOB ALEXANDER. Wynnstay : Oct. 1806. — I heard a curious trait of the character of the Emperor Alexander. At one of the great national festivals of St. Petersburgh, where he was greeted by multitudes almost innumerable with the most violent applause, — every one seeming to vie with his neighbour in the mode of best expressing their enthusiastic fondness for their Emperor, — he turned to the Duke of Gr. who was standing near him, and said he could not look at that immense populace without shud- dering when he considered them as absolutely depen- dent upon the will of one man ; adding that he should never feel completely happy till he saw introduced into Eussia, a limited monarchical government similar to that of England * . . . The Duke of Gr. spoke much of the violent detestation expressed by all orders of men for the Archduke Constantine. It seems strange that such statements can be loudly professed with impunity under the government of a son of the Emperor Paul ; but one * Alexander is said to have replied to Madame de Stael, when she spoke of his beneficent rule, that he was only a happy accident. ■ 26 LETTERS FROM GBHMANT. fact which the Duke of Gr. said was related to him by- Alexander, is much more so. The Emperor was one day reproving Count Pannin, his favourite, for expressing so freely his opinion of Constantine. He told him that he must consider it a want of respect to himself when his brother was treated in such a manner : besides, added he, consider what may be the probable consequences to yourself; remember that, if anything should happen to me, Constantine becomes your Sovereign.* Pannin re- plied that no one was more anxious than himself to avoid anything which might appear like disrespect to His Majesty, and therefore would for that reason avoid ex- pressing his opinions on this subject; adding that, as to the other argument, that had no weight with him, ' for Sire,' said he, ' if anything was to happen to you, I wish Archduke Constantine to know, and beg you will tell him from me, that he shall not reign twenty-fotir hours.' EXTRACTS FBOM LETTERS PROM GERMANY. August: 1800.— On the morning before Eatisbonne was taken, a grand and solemn ceremony was performed in the cathedral, of which the band and organ are reckoned the best in Germany. At one passage of the * Panniai might have remembered the reply of Charles 11., when the Duke of York (afterwards James n.) reproached him with not taking precautions against assassins : ' Depend upon it, James, no one will kill me to make you king.' LETTERS FROM GEEMAI^T. 27 Latin service, the fears of the inhabitants of a siege and bombardment seemed to be expressed in the words, ' Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou shalt be made desolate ! ' The prophecy was chanted by a shrill single voice, like one from the dead, at the further end of the long echo- ing cathedral. A dreadfully sublime pause succeeded, and then the whole thunder of the organ, drums, and trumpets, broke in. I never thought terrific music could have reached so high. Two hours after an alarm was given, and the Hungarian infantry were called out to sup- port their defeated countrymen. This music, though less sacred, was also perfect in its kind. Us effect was heightened by the sound of artillery coming nearer and nearer, and the flash of carbines from the neigh- bouring wood, where they were skirmishing in small parties. The sight of men and horses passing, gave a serious aspect to the scene, and convinced the spec- •tator that he was not hearing the drums of a holiday parade. Sept. 1st, 1802, — He gave me an account of the de- molition of the strong castle of Ehrenbreitstein, which human force had never conquered; but the destruction of which was a stipulated article in the Grerman Treaty of Peace. The task is not even yet fully accomplished. He was present at the springing of the principal mine. It must have been a sight terrible and magnificent in the extreme. The mighty structure, compacted and cemented by 28 LETTEES FEOM GEEMANT. the skill of early ages, did not immediately separate, but rose at the explosion in one great mass, slowly and sullenly, to the distance of four feet from the ground ; for a moment it remained in the air in awful equipoise, visibly balancing from side to side, as if in doubt which way to deal devastation ; at last, with resistless impetuosity, and with a crash that rent the air, it forced its way down a shelving precipice of 800 feet into the valley beneath. Near the river's brink was an ancient seat of the Elector Palatine, which had long been desolate and upinhabited. Against this the bastion, still entire, rushed with all its augmented and accelerated force. Feeble was the resistance ; but feeble as it was, the sudden collision loosened all the component parts of the destructive engine, and the tower and the palace form one blended shapeless heap of indiscriminate ruin. Mentz: 1802. — This unfortunate city thrice changed its masters during the war. Custine first took it ; then, after a most severe bombardment, it fell into the hands of the Prussians ; and again it reverted to the French amid the tide of their splendid victories. Its public buildings are all ruined and destroyed ; its religious houses demolished ; the trees which formed a magnificent avenue on the ramparts are felled to the earth; the palace of the Elector and all the adjacent villas so entirely done away, that their place knoweth them no more; the stately cathedral, once the pride and glory of ecclesiastical sovereignty, presented to the LETTERS FROM GERMANY. 29 view little more than a broken dilapidated mass of com- plicated destruction. Here my melancholy walk ended : the evening was far advanced, and there remained just enough light to relieve the dark shadows which the projections of tombs, chapels, and arches threw forward. Except a few wanton mutilations, the superb monuments all remain as in their pristine state : they chiefly consist of busts and statues of the successive Electors, in the purest white marble, from the fifteenth to the middle of the eighteenth century. Amid these splendid specimens of art, the traveller sees in the great aisle a shapeless heap of forage : near the pulpit, all glittering with coloured ornaments, a depot of straw in trusses ; in the choir, which neither war nor sacrilege could entirely deprive of its enrichments, two or three miserable cabriolets ; the western chapel, once embelUshed by all that wealth, ingenuity, or devotion could prompt or suggest, turned into an occasional stable. It was a second Babylon in ruins; full of doleful creatures, profaned, desecrated, devastated. The pavement, formerly in rich mosaic, exhibits evident proof of that furious zeal which ran- sacked the mansions of the dead in order to fabricate engines and weapons of death. The leaden cofiSns were too valuable objects of mihtary consideration to escape the hands of those whose hearts nothing could soften. As my dubious feet were feeling their way along, and it was only not totally dark, my guide, a savage-looking 30 LAST MOMENTS OP LOUIS XVI. ruffian fellow, suddenly and violently seized my arm. I was straining my eyes to catch a glimpse of a gigantic iigure in marble elevated to a considerable height against one of the pillars. I had insensibly prolonged my stay, rapt in musing and meditations congenial to the scene; but when I met with this unexpected attack, and as I deemed assault, it took not a moment to bring me to myself. The man, in his rude jargon between German and French, soon explained to me his kindness and my own danger : at my feet was a hideous chasm through which in the siege a bomb had forced its way into a spacious vault that had ever since remained open ; one moment more, and it would have received another visitor.* LAST MOMEISTTS OF LOUIS XVL — ESCAPE OP THE DUGS D'ANGOULEME AND BEEEY. Stowe: January 9th, 1807.— This morning I have been very much interested by an account given us of some of the horrors of the Eevolution by the Duke de Sirent. He read to us a history of the last moments of Louis XVI., written by Abbe Edgeworth, at the request of the brothers of that unfortunate Monarch. In the history there was little that we did not know before from Clery's * I rather think that Sir R. Wilmot Horton was the writer of these remarkable letters. LAST MOMENTS OF LOTJIS XVI. 31 and other publications : but every particular became doubly interesting — first, from being so authenticated, but still more from the extreme emotion of the reader. This was peculiarly striking when, in describing the anxiety expressed by the King respecting the fate of the clergy, the abbe says he informed him of the kind, hospitable reception they had met with in this country, upon which the King forcibly expressed his gratitude towards the English for the protection they had afforded to his unfortunate subjects. At these words the poor did man's voice faltered, and his eyes filled as he looked towards Lady B. The most striking circumstance mentioned by Edge- worth is a speech of the Deputy of the National As- sembly, who was ordered to accompany him in the fiacre which carried him from the National Assembly to the melancholy abode of the condemned Monarch. After very little communication on indifferent subjects, the man suddenly exclaimed, ' Man Dieu, quelle tache nous avons a remplir ! Quel homme ! quelle resignation ! quel courage ! 11 faut qu'il y ait la quelque chose cle surhumain.^* After this speech the abbe had the pru- * It was tlie Minister of Justice (Garat) who accompanied the abbs on hia way to the Temple, and his soliloquy is thus reported in the DemHres Heures, as printed ; — ' " Grand Dieu ! " s'6cria-t-il, aprSs avoir lev^ les glaces de sa voiture, " de quelle af&euse commis- sion je me vols chargS ! Quelle homme ! " ajouta-t-il en parlant du Roi, "quelle resignation! quel courage! Non, la nature toute seule ne saiu'ait donner tkit de forces ; il y a quelque chose de surhumain." 32 LAST MOMENTS OF LOUIS XVI. dence to preserve perfect silence ; he thought that, though he might be able to work on the mind of this man, it was still more likely, considering the short time they had to pass together, that he might only exasperate him, and be denied the permission of seeing the imfortunate King. The behaviour of Louis in these last trying moments exhibits proofs not only of his uncommon piety, resignation, and meekness, but also of fortitude and resolution, which appear little to accord with the general Weakness and indecision of his character. In reading this melancholy history, it was singular to see that the duke appeared to be most affected by some trifling instances of degradation, which we might other- wise have overlooked. For instance, when Louis was described as receiving the sacrament sans prie-Dieu, sans coussin, in a small bed-room * without any furni- ture but trois mauvaises chaises en cuir, he was deeply affected, probably from the having so frequently been an eye-witness of all the splendour which used to attend this ceremony. Afterwards, the duke gave us the account of his escape from Paris with the sons of the Comte d'Artois, — the Due d'Angouleme and the Duke de Berri. These children " According to the printed copy of the narrative, it was the King's cabinet, 'oii il n'y avait ni tapisserie ni ornemens; un mauvais poele de faience lui tenoit lieu de cheminge, et Ton n'y voyait pour toute meuble qu' una table et trois chaises de cuir.' It was in the adjoining chamber, the King's, where 'le Eoi entendit la messe a genoux par terre, sans prie-Dieu ni coussins.' ESCAPE OF THE FRENCH PEINCES. 33 were entrusted to him not only by their father, but by the King, who both seem on this occasion to have given evident proofs of indecision and weakness of mind. The Comte d'Artois (now Monsieur) having told the duke that he wished him to escape with his sons, whose governor he was, everything was prepared for their departure that night. The father seems to have little troubled himself with any arrangements, saying to the duke, ' Je Tn'en repose sur vous, ce sont vos enfantSy and refusing even to name the place or country to which he was to take them. At last, upon his representing that they were enfants de Vetat, he promised to get from Louis an order em- powering the duke to remove them. Very late at night, not having received this order. Monsieur de Sirent deter- mined to follow Monsieur to the queen's supper, where he knew him to be. He says he never can forget the appearance of deep dejection and consternation which he saw in the faces of all the royal family, assembled after supper in the state bedchamber of the queen. In a window stood the King and the Comte d'Artois, in earnest conversation. Monsieur de Sirent endeavoured once more to obtain further orders ; representing that from various political circumstances, of which he was ignorant, there must be reasons for preferring one country to another for the refuge of the royal children. After a pause, both brothers, nearly in the same words, assured him of their perfect confidence in him, and re- fused to give any further orders ; thus shifting all the D 34 _ ESCAPE OF THE FRENCH PEINCES. weight of responsibility from their own shoulders upon his. They gave, however, one much stronger proof of pusillanimity ; when the duke repeated his request for a written order from the King, His Majesty said, 'a propos, il vous en faut un assurement,' and put into his hands a folded paper. His dismay must have been great when, on his return home, he found this to be only an order to furnish him with post-horses ; in short, a sort of safe conduct for himself, without any mention of the young princes. He had, therefore, to set out on his perilous enterprise with the additional horror of knowing that, if the princes were missed soon enough to be overtaken by the emissaries of the National As- sembly, he had no permission to show ; and, therefore, the whole blame would fall on his devoted head. Besides, it seemed but too probable that they might work on the mind of the weak monarch so far as to make him wish to recall the princes; in which case, he would never avow that he had permitted their departure. Neither of these fears were expressed by M. de Sirent, but from the cir- cumstances, it was easy to imagine what he must feel. At last, in the middle of the night, they set out; the duke, his two pupils, a surgeon, and a servant in one carriage, followed by one in which were the duchess and her daughters. The children had no idea where they were going ; they were told they were going to see the departure of a regiment of hussars which they had much admired. The hairbreadth escapes of this journey made ESCAPE OP THE FEENCH PKINCES. 35 one's blood run cold. Monsieur de Sirent describes the villages as ne finissant point, particularly one near- Paris filled with laundresses, who poured upon them the most violent torrent of abuse. After some hours' travelling, it became necessary to give the children some breakfast, which he thought might be safely obtained at the seat of the Garde des Sceaux, M. de Massieu (I think). He was absent ; but from an old concierge, who knew Monsieur de Sirent to be an old friend of his master, they got breakfast. While the children were eating, the duke was examining the old concierge. Finding that he had lived 20 years with Monsieur de M., he ventured to [tell him that his visitors were the sons of the Comte d'Artois, asking him to procure them horses. In this he suc- ceeded, and for some time they travelled prosperously, the innkeepers too much occupied by passing events to trouble their heads about un simple particulier voyageant a Spa pour .sa sanU avec sa fem/me et ees enfans. At the town of Buonavite, where they intended to sleep and expected to find a bon gite, they found the streets full of populace, who collected round the carriage, calling them aristocrats, and by every other abusive term which seemed to follow of course. They were actually beginning to pull ofi" the papers which were stuck on to conceal the arms on the carriages, when the courier, to whom, fortunately, their intention of stopping had not been communicated, D 2 36 ESCAPE OP THE FEENCH PRINCES. announced the horses to be put to, and they set off again not very sorry to lose sight of the good people of Buona vite. At the next stop they found only a wretched posi house, but the master promised to get them some eggi for supper, and the cushions of the carriages were taker out to make a sort of bed for the princes and the ladies, While they were resting, the duke sat himself down ir a corner of the kitchen chimney, trying to warm him- self; for, though worn out with anxiety, he found it impossible to sleep. The post-master sat down by him, and began to talk of the news of the day, of the wretched condition of the country, of the disturbances hourly expected in the next town of Peronne, &c. On these subjects his sentiments were such as the duke him- self might have expressed, and more effectually warmed his heart than the kitchen fire. At last, having agreed with his host in everything, he asked him how he might prosecute his journey to Spa with most safety and least disturbance. The man replied : Monsieur, il faut, enfin, que les coqui'hs dorment comiTie les honnetes gens, je vous donnerai six bons chevaux a chaque voiture, el vous serez loin d'ici avant quails ne soient eveilUs. They accordingly proceeded without obstacle through the deserted streets of Peronne, which by ten o'clock the next day was in a state of insurrection. During this day's journey they were overtaken by the Prince de Conde, and had the mortification of seeing the horses which had been put to their carriage taken off for his. ESCAPE OF THE PEENCH PRINCES. 37 When he discovered them, he wished to prevent this, but the duke wisely thought that a little delay would be less dangerous than the suspicions excited by such a mark of respect. At last, on the third night of their departure from Paris, when they were within a few miles of Valenciennes, where the duke knew Monsieur would meet them, he informed his pupils of their real destination. Hitherto they had been kept in perfect ignorance. After the story of the hussar regiment, he had invented others to account for their travelling in- cognito. M. de Sirent took this opportunity to inform them fully, and in the most solemn manner, of the melancholy situation of their father, their King, and their country ; expressing at the same time his fears as to their future fate. He then told them that now they must depend upon themselves, they must become from that hour not only men but heroes. All this appears perfectly natural if the princes had been, as we thought when we heard all this, only eight or ten years of age ; but the fact is that these children, kept so perfectly in the dark, delighted with the idea of seeing a hussar regiment, and believing that such a journey was caused and all the apprehensions which they could not but see in M. de Sirent excited by some trivial occasion — these children (as he called them) were, one near sixteen and the other near fourteen. They stayed only a few days at Valenciennes, and then pro- ceeded to Spa; nor was M. de Sirent at ease about 38 ESCAPE OF THE FKENCH PKINCES. them till two months and a half afterwards, when they reached Turin, and were placed under the care of their maternal grandfather. Madame de Sirent, who was dame d'atours to Madame Elizabeth, and had only left her, thinking that she should rather impede than assist her flight after the disaster of Varennes, determined to return to her post. Immediately on her return to Paris, she and her daughter were imprisoned, and were only released at the death of Eobespierre, fourteen months after. Her life was during this time preserved by singular means: one of the inferior agents of Eobespierre was highly bribed, and through his hands passed the awful orders of execution. They were given each decade on ten loose sheets of paper, one for each day ; whenever the name of Madame de Sirent appeared upon the paper, he slipped that sheet underneath, and proceeded to the next. Afterwards she attached herself to the unfortu- nate niece of Madame Elizabeth, and is now with her at Mittau, while her husband, from the same sense of duty, is here with Monsieur and the Due de Berri. N.B.— In 18141 saw Madame de Sirent, a little hump- backed old woman, a^ stray lady of the bedchamber to the Duchesse d'Angouleme, at the reception, or sad mock drawing-room, which she held in South Audley Street, in a small two-roomed house which the Comte d'Artois had hired. A few days after they departed for Paris. SIR WALTER SCOTT'S STORIES. 39 SIK WALTER SCOTT S STORIES. April, 1807. Mr. Scott, the author of the ' Lay,' told us some curious border histories. "We were much pleased with the conclusion of the history of Wat Tynlin. When he was grown old and blind, one of the agents of the Lady of Branksome, in her absence, called upon him for the rent of a small tower which he inhabited ; part of which is standing to this day. Wat, incensed, replied he never had paid rent, nor would at that age. At last he delivered his bow to the steward, and said he would pay the rent to the man who could draw that bow ; the bow was certainly tried, but we will hope that the lady would never have obliged such a man to pay his rent. However, certain it is that some vain attempts were made to draw his bow, and that Wat never paid his rent. Mr. Scott spoke of one story which might make an excellent ballad, but he said he could not write it, as to do it justice much humour, a quality he never pos- sessed* waa required. Scott of Harden, one of his * (Note by Miss Wi/nn.) — When in 1815 Scott published Paul's ' Letters to tis Kinsfolk,' in wHcli the attempts at humour so en- tirely failed, I lamented his having forgotten this declaration. Now, in 1824, when he is considered as the imdoubted, though unac- knowledged, author of so many admirable novels, eontaimng more humour than could probably be found in all the other authors of this century collected together, I wonder at his having made it. I see that when I tell this story nobody believes me, and I feel I should doubt my own recollection if the above had not been written on the very day that I saw Scott, in 1807. 40 SIR WALTER SCOTT'S STOEIES. ancestors, was a famous border thief, and at one time, when he had either spoiled the neighbouring EngKsh of all their cattle or had frightened them all away, he began to fear that from disuse he might become less expert at the honourable trade he pursued ; and to keep his hand in, amused himself with driving the cattle of one of his own countrymen and neighbours, Murray of Elibank, an ancestor of the present Lady Elibank. Murray soon found means of revenging himself, and brought Scott, his followers, his cattle, &c., &c., all prisoners to Elibank Castle. On the walls was sitting his wife, who, perceiving the train that followed him, asked what he meant to do with Scott. ' Why, hang him, to be sure,' was the answer. The more prudent wife exclaimed, ' What ! hang such a winsome mannie as Harden, when we have three such sorry damsels at home ? ' Murray was persuaded by his wife, and sending for one of his daughters, whose ugly face and immense mouth had acquired her the name of Mag o' tnonth Murray, proposed to Scott to marry her, leaving him no other alternative but a halter. The unfortunate prisoner most ungallantly refused the lady; and .the tra- dition says that it was not till the rope was tied to the tree, and he began to feel it tighten, that he repented. He was married, and sorrowfully bent his steps home- wards, taking with him his ugly wife. BUXTON LETTER. 41 BUXTON LETTER. Extract of a Letter from Dr. J n, at Buxton, to his friend, J s B II, Esq., in Scotland. {By Pepper Arden, afterwards Lord Alvanley.) Fortune often delights to exalt what nature has neg- lected, and that renown which cannot be claimed by intrinsic excellence is frequently derived from accident. The Eubicon was ennobled by the passage of Csesar, and the bubbling up of a stream in the middle of a lime quarry has given celebrity to Buxton. The waters in which it is agreed that no mineral properties reside, and which seem to have no better claim to superior heat than what is derived from comparing them with the almost Siberian atmosphere that surrounds them, are said, however, to possess a spirit which, though too volatile and unknown to receive a name from the chymists of graver ages, have, in this fanciful era, when Macaroni philosophers hold flirtation with science, talten the lead of all the other elements, and those whose nerves have not found any relief in change of sky and variety, seek for a refuge here in fixed air. It is, indeed, amazing to see the avidity with which mankind seek after that health which they have volun- tarily alienated, Uke Methodists who hope for salvation through faith withoutworks. Invalids come here in hopes of finding in the well the vigour which they have lost in the bowl, and of absorbing in the bath the moisture 42 BUXTON LETTER. which evaporated in the ball or the masquerade. For this purpose they venture to this dreary spot, which contemplates with envy the Highlands of Scotland, sur- rounded by barren mountains, beaten by storms almost perpetual. Scarce an inhabitant is to be seen unless when the sun, whose appearance is justly considered as one of the wonders of the Peak, draws them out from a curiosity natural to man who wonders into what cavern the storm has retired. Yet this is summer ; and if the winter hold its natural proportion, the inhabitants of the hall — which is not thirty yards distant from the well — must pass months without any communication with it. Yet here, the same folly which created the disease for the cure of which so much is suffered, obstructs the operation of the remedy from which so much is hoped. Animated by the appetite, which even the diluent powers of common water, assisted by the vibrations of diurnal exercise and the collisive hilarity of reciprocal salutation, would give to a body obstructed by gluttony and rest — they devour with deleterious hunger a farinaceous sponge, the interstices of , which are inundated with butter, which might smile at the peristaltic exertions of an elephant, and of which the digestion would be no less an evil than the obstruction. If obstructed, it convulses the stomach with rancid exhalations ; and if by its gravity it finds its way to the bowels, it tumefies them with flatulent paroxysms by its detention : in both it becomes THE TTEONE GHOST STORY. 43 acrimonious and mephitic, and while its fumes arise and salute the brain with palsy, its caput mortuum descends and lays the foundation of fistula. Very providentially, however, the evils of breakfast are not aggravated by dinner. Dinner is rather a cere- mony here than a repast, and those who are delicate and sick, -acquire popularity by disseminating among the multitude that food which nothing but rude health, both of body and mind, can digest. "When it is finished, however, the chaplain calls upon the company to be thankful for what they have received ; and the company, remembering they have breakfasted, join in the thanks- giving. The evils of the day are likewise happily alleviated by the early hour of retiring to bed ; and if sleep for- sakes the pillow, even fancy itself cannot charge it on the supper. There are, notwithstanding, here upwards of two hundred people, who, by talking continually of how much nature has left undone, and how little art has done for the place, increase the spleen they come to cure. THE TTEONE GHOST STOEY. Lord.Tyrone and Lady Beresford were born in Dublin. They were left orphans in their infancy to the care of the same person, who brought them up in the principles of Deism. Their guardian dying when they were about 44 THE TYRONE GHOST STOET. fourteen, they fell into very different hands, and everj means was tried to convince them of the truth of re- vealed religion, but in vain. Though separated, theii mutual affection remained unalterable. After some years they made a solemn vow to each other, that whichever should die first, would (if permitted by the Almighty) appear to the other and declare what religion was most approved by God. Lady Beresford shortly after married Sir Martin Beresford. One morning she came down unusually pale with a black ribbon round her wrist. Sir Martin asked whether she was ill, and whether she had sprained her wrist: she replied she was well, and conjured him never to enquire the cause of her wearing the ribbon. She expressed anxiety for the arrival of the post. Sir Martin asked whether she expected letters. She said she ex- pected to hear that Lord Tyrone was dead ; that he died last Tuesday at 4 o'clock. Sir Martin tried to comfort her, and assured her she was deceived by some idle dream. The letter arrived conveying the intelligence of Lord Tyrone's death, which had happened at the precise time Lady Beresford had specified. She then informed Sir Martin that she had to announce to him that she should shortly give him a son, an event he had long and ardently desired. In some months Lady Beresford was delivered of a son ; she had before given birth to two daughters. Sir Martin survived this event but four years. After bis death Lady Beresford shut THE TTKONB GHOST STOET. 45 herself very much up, she visited no family but that of the clergyman of the village. His family consisted of himself, his wife, and a son, who, at the time of Sir Martin's death, was quite a boy; to this son, however, she was in a few years married. He behaved to her in the most scandalous manner. After having given birth to two daughters, Lady Beresford insisted on a separation from her profligate husband. After a few years she was in- duced by his entreaties to pardon and once more live with him, and in time became the mother of another son. The day she had lain in a month, she sent for Lady Betty Cobb, her intimate friend, requesting her and a few friends to spend the day with her, as it was her birthday; among others, was the clergyman by whom she was baptized. Having observed that she was forty- eight that day, the clergyman assured her she was only forty-seven: telling her he had had frequent disputes with her mother on the subject, and had a few days before searched the register, which proved him to be right and her only forty-seven instead of forty-eight. ' You have signed my death warrant,' said she, and requested the company to leave her, as she had many things to settle before she died. She requested that Lady Betty Cobb and her son by Sir Martin (who was about twelve years old), would come to her, as she had something to communicate to them. When the attendants were withdrawn, she said, ' I have something to communicate to you both before I 46 THE TTKONB GHOST STORY. die, a period which is not far distant. You, Lady Betfc are no stranger to the friendship which always subsiste between Lord Tyrone and myself; we were educate under the same roof, and in the same principles of Deisn When my friends afterwards tried to persuade us t embrace the revealed religion, their arguments, thoug insufScient to convince, had power to stagger our forme faith. In this perplexing state of doubt, we made a vo\ to each other that whichever died first should (if per mitted) appear to the other and declare what religion wa most acceptable to the Almighty. Accordingly, while Si: Martin and I were asleep, I woke suddenly and founc Lord Tyrone sitting by the bed-side. I screamed, and endeavoured to wake Sir Martin. « For Heaven's sake,'^ said I, " by what means, or for what purpose, came you here at this time of night?" "Have you forgot your promise ? " said he; " I died last Tuesday, at four o'clock, and have been permitted by the Supreme Being to appear to you to assure you that revealed religion is the only true faith and the only means by which we can be saved. I am further suffered to inform you that you are with child of a son who shall marry my daughter. Not many years after his birth. Sir Martin will die ; you will be married again to a man whose Ul conduct will make you miserable ; you will bring him two daughters and afterwards a son, in childbed of whom you will die in the forty-seventh year of your age." "Just Heaven," I exclaimed, " and cannot I pre- THE TYRONE GHOST STOET. 47 vent this?" "Undoubtedly, you may," said he, "you are a free agent, and may prevent this by resisting every temp- tation to a second marriage ; but the passions are strong ; hitherto you have had no trials; you know not their power. More I am not permitted to say; but if, after this warning, you persist in your infidelity, your lot in another world would be miserable indeed." " May I not ask," said I, " if you are happy ?" " Had I been other- wise, I should not have been permitted to appear to you." " I may then infer that you are happy; when the morning comes, how shall I be convinced that your appearance has been real, and not the phantom of my imagination ? " — " Will not the news of my death be sufficient to convince you?" "No," returned I, "I might have had such a dream, and that dream by accident come to pass. I wish to have some stronger proof of its reality." " You shall," said he ; then waving his hand, the bed-curtains, which were of crimson velvet, were instantly drawn through a large hook of ivory, by which the tester of the bed, which was of an oval form, was suspended. " In that," said he, " you can't be mistaken ; no mortal arm could have done this." "But we are sleeping, and people have much greater strength then than when awake. I may fancy I have done it in my sleep. I shall still doubt." " You have a pocket-book, on the leaves of which I will write ; you know my handwriting." He wrote. "Still," said I, " I may in the morning have my 48 THE TYRONE GHOST STOET. doubts; though waking I cannot mistake your hand writing ; sleeping I may." " You are hard of belief, j must not touch you ; it would injure you irreparably it is not for spirits to touch mortal flesh." " I do nol regard a slight blemish." " You are a woman of courage, hold out your hand." I did ; he touched my wrist : hif hand was cold as marble. In an instant the sinews shrank up, every nerve withdrew. "Now," said he, " while you live, let no mortal eye behold that wrist ; to see it would be sacrilege." He stopped: I turned to him again ; he was gone. During the time I conversed with him, my thoughts were perfectly calm and col- lected ; but the moment he was gone, I felt chilled with horror ; the bed trembled under me ; I en- deavoured to awake Sir Martin, but in vain. In this state of horror and agitation, I lay for some time; when, a shower of tears coming to my relief, I dropped asleep. ' In the morning Sir Martin arose as usual without perceiving the situation in which the curtain re- mained. When I awoke, I found Sir Martin already gone. I went into the gallery adjoining our apartment, and took from thence a very large broom used for sweeping the cornices: by the help of this, though not without difficulty, I took down the curtain, aa I imagined this extraordinary appearance would excite enquiries among the servants which I wished to avoid. I then went to my bureau, locked up the pocket-book, THE TTEONE GHOST STOEY. 49 and took out some black ribbon, which I bound round my wrist. When I came down, the agitation of my mind had left an impression on my countenance too strong to pass unnoticed by Sir Martin. He enquired the cause of my visible disorder. I told him I was well, but informed him that Lord Tyrone was no more ; at the same time entreated him to drop all enquiries about the black ribbon round my wrist. He kindly desisted from all importunity, nor did he ever after enquire the cause. Tou were born, my son^ as had been foretold, and four years after your ever-to-be- lamented father expired in my arms. 'After this melancholy event, I determined, as the only means by which I might avoid the dreadful event of the prediction, for ever to abandon society, and pass the remainder of my days in solitude; but few can endure to exist long in a state of perfect sequestration. I com- menced an intercourse with one family only, nor could I foresee the fatal consequences that afterwards ensued. Little did I imagine that their son, their only son, was the person intended by fate for my undoing. In a few years I ceased to regard him with indifference ; I endeavoured by every means to conquer a passion the fatal conse- quences of which, if ever I should yield to its impulse, were too well known; and I fondly imagined I had over- come its influence, when the event of one fatal moment undermined my fortitude, and plunged me into that abyss I had so long determined to shun. E 50 THE TTEONE GHOST STOBT. ' He had frequently solicited his parents for leave to go into the army, and at length obtained their per- mission. He came to bid me farewell before his departure : the moment he entered the room he fell on his knees at my feet, told me he was miserable and that I alone was the cause. At that instant my fortitude forsook me. I gave myself up for lost, and considered my fate as inevitable; and without further hesitation consented to a union, the result of which I knew to be misery, and its end death. After a few years were passed, the conduct of my husband amply warranted my demand of a separation, and I hoped by this step to avoid the fatal accomplishment of the prophecy; but, won over by his strong entreaty, I was prevailed on to pardon and once more to reside with him, though not till after I had, as I imagined, passed my forty-seventh year, but I have this day heard from indisputable authority that I am but forty-seven this day. Of the jiear approach of my death I entertain not the least doubt, but I do not dread its arrival : armed with the prospects of Christianity, I can meet the King of Terrors without dismay, and without a tear bid adieu to the regions of mortality for ever. When I am dead, as the necessity of its concealment closes with my life, I could wish that you, Lady Betty Cobb, would unbind my wrist and take from thence the black ribbon, and let my son and yourself behold my arm.' Lady Beresford here paused for some time, but THE TYRONE GHOST STOKY. 51 renewing the conversation she entreated her son to behave so as to merit the honour he would in future receive from a union with the daughter of Lord Tyrone. Lady Beresford then expressed a wish to lie down on the bed, and endeavour to compose herself to sleep. Lady Betty Cobb and her son called the attend- ants to watch their mistress, and, should they observe the slightest change in her, instantly to let them know. An hour passed ; all was silent : they listened at the door ; everything was still, but in about half-an-hour the bell rang violently. They flew to the apartment, but before they reached the door they heard the servant exclaim, ' Oh she is dead, my mistress is dead.' Lady Betty sent the servants out of the room; she approached the bed of Lady Beresford with her son; he knelt by his mother's bedside. Lady Betty lifted up her hand, unbound the black ribbon exactly in the state Lady Beresford had described, — every sinew shrank up, and every nerve withered. N.B. Lady Beresford's son, as had been predicted, is married to the daughter of Lord Tyrone : the black ribbon and pocket-book are in the possession of Lady Betty Cobb in Ireland, or Marlborough Buildings, Bath : who, together with the Tyrone family, will assert its truth, and by whom the above narrative is stated, and was transcribed at Tallerig, on July 24th, 1794, by the Honourable Mrs. Maitland. {Co;py of a Copy taken in 1801.) £ 2 52 THE TYRONE GHOST STOUT. Real 'particulars of the preceding story dictated to ine by Lady E. Butler and Miss Ponsonby (the ladies of Llangollen), who had frequently heard them from many of Lady Beresford^s and of Mr. Gorges^ de- scendants, with some of whom they are intimately connected and related* Miss Hamilton, a rich and beautiful heiress, was early married to Sir Martin Beresford : it was supposed that both before and after her marriage she had been too intimately connected with Lord Tyrone. Some time after her marriage, in the year 1704, it was agreed that Lord Tyrone, Sir Martin and Lady Beresford, should pass one Christmas at Colonel Gorges' house, called Kilbrew, in the county of Meath. One night, after the family were all retired. Lady Beresford was surprised to see the door of her chamber open, and Lord Tyrone walked in, dressed in his robe de chambre. She exclaimed ' G"Ood Grod, what brings you here at this time of night ? ' He walked up to the bedside and replied, ' I left Corraughmore with an intention of coming here. I was taken ill on the road, and have just expired. I am come to you for the ring which I gave you.' Lady * It is amusing to compare these two versions, each professing to rest on the same quality of information, and with equal pretensions to the title of ' real particulars.' The internal evidence, however, is in favour of that furnished by the ladies of Llangollen. The story is not mentioned by Dr. Ferrier, Dr. Hibbert, or Sir Walter Scott. Mrs. Crowe (' Nightside of Nature') merely alludes to it as well known and well authenticated. THE TTKONE GHOST STOEY. 53 Beresfordj horror-struck, pushed Sir Martin to wake him. ' He cannot wake while I am here,' said Lord Tyrone. ' He will die ; you will marry the gentleman of this house ; you will die in childbed of your second son, but you shall see me again ; give me the ring.' Lady Beresford, extremely agitated, could not im- mediately get it off her finger; he seized her hand, and the ring appeared to her to roll off upon the floor. The next morning Lady Beresford tried to persuade herself that the whole of this scene was the effect of imagination, but on her wrist she found the mark of Lord Tyrone's hand ; each finger left a black mark as if it had been burnt. On a desk which stood near the bed, and on which Lord Tyrone had leant, the same trace of five fingers was found. That on Lady Beresford's wrist never was effaced, and to her dying day she wore a black ribbon bracelet to conceal it. The ring was likewise missing ; nor could it after the most diligent search be ever found, though every board of the floor was taken up the next day. In the course of time Sir Martin died, and Lady Beresford did marry Colonel Gorges. By Sir Martin she had one son, born in 1694 ; by Colonel Gorges, three daughters, one of whom married Lord Howth, and another Lord Desart. After these she had a son. Colonel Gorges, fearing that his birth might prey upon her mind, still strongly affected with the re- collection of the vision, persuaded her that her child was 54 THE TYRONE GHOST STOET. a girl. She was got so well after her confinement, that the carriage was ordered for her to take the air. Mean- while, she unfortunately enquired of a housemaid who came into her room, how her child was ; the maid replied, ' He is very well.' ' Se ! ' said Lady B. ; 'it is then a son,' and she burst into tears. Her husband and friend at length succeeded in persuading her that, after having been so long brought to bed, all danger must be over, and she proceeded to take the air as she had intended. As she was going down stairs, she exclaimed, ' There is Lord Tyrone ; I see him on the landiag-plaoe ! ' She fainted, was carried to her bed, and died a few days after. Some years after, in 1717, her son, Sir M. Beres- ford, married Lady C. de la Poer, the daiighter and heiress of Lord Tyrone, and was the grandfather of the present Lord Waterford.* * It is difficult to reconcile the names and dates as stated in Lodge's ' Irish Peerage ' witli either of the versions. According to this authority (confirmed by Burke), Sir Tristram (not Sir Martin) Beresford, third baronet, bom 1669, married, 1687, Nicola Sophia, youngest daughter and coheir of Hugh Hamilton, Baron of Glenawly ; and by her (who remarried with Lieut-General Richard Gorges, of Kilbre-w, county of Meath) had issue one son, Sir Marcus, created Earl of Tyrone in 1746, having in 1717 mar- ried the Lady Catherine Poer, daughter and heir to James Earl of Tyrone, who died in 1704. Sir Tristram died in 1701, three years before Lord Tyrone. THE DUKE OF MAELBOKOUaH. 55 THE DUKE OF MAELBOBOUGH — ADMIEAL BAERINGTON — THE GUISWINGS. April 1810. — Looking at the fine full-length por- trait of John, Duke of Marlborough, Lord Braybrooke told us some interesting and curious anecdotes of him. When this great man, at a very advanced age, was called to attend a council on the best mode of defence from a threatened invasion, he gave his opinion with his usual firmness and penetration. Afterwards he said that for above fifty years he had served his country and should be happy to do so still, but that he was aware his faculties were impaired. At present, he added, he was fully conscious of his deficiency, but he feared the time might soon come when he should be no longer aware of it. He, therefore, made it his earnest request that he might never more be summoned to council, and that if elsewhere, on any occasion, he expressed an opinion, no importance should be attached or deference paid to it. It is melancholy to reflect how low became the de- gradation of that mind, whose decaying powers were equal to such an act of magnanimity. After having had every- thing to gratify— first, as the finest, gayest man in ^ Europe, then as its greatest general, and afterwards as its greatest negotiator and statesman — after all this, in a state of complete imbecility, an absolute driveller, he was actually exhibited by his servants to all who chose to give an additional fee after having stared at all the o6 ADMIRAL BARKINGTON. magnificence of Blenheim. In this manner my grand- father {then a lad just entered at Oxford) beheld the wreck of this great man, and has often described the melancholy spectacle to Lord Brayhroohe.* A similar instance of conscious decay and of mag- nanimity, perhaps even superior to the Duke of Marl- borough, was at the same time mentioned. The late Ad- miral Barrington, being called upon by the Admiralty to take the command of the Channel fleet, refused it, saying that his mental powers were so weakened that he was no longer equal to a situation of such importance, but that he thought himself still very well able to act under an- other, though not to command ; he therefore requested to be second. In the course of the following year his weakness had so increased, that he quarrelled with the Admiralty for not placing him in that very situation for which he had himself told them he was unfit. Some anecdotes were mentioned a few days before of a person who, in a very different way, could boast of a superiority as prominent as the Duke of Marlborough's, I mean the celebrated Lady Coventry. From old Sheridan (the father of Kichard Brinsley) Lord Bray- brooke heard some curious anecdotes of her early life. Mrs. Gunning (her mother) consulted Sheridan as to what she should do with her two beautiful but penni- less daughters. He recommended that they should be * ' In life's last scene what prodigies surprise, Fears of tlie brave, and follies of the wise ! From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow.' THE GUNNINGS. 57 presented at the Castle ; here a great difiBculty occurred: by what possible means were they to procure court dresses ? this Sheridan obviated : he was at that time manager of the Dublin Theatre, and ofifered them a loan of the stage dresses of Lady Macbeth and Juliet. In these they appeared most lovely ; and Sheridan, after having attended the toilet, claimed a salute from each as his reward. Very soon after this, a most diabolical scheme was formed by some unprincipled young men they invited Mrs. Grunning and her two daughters to dinner, and infused strong narcotics in the wine, intend- ing to take advantage of the intoxication which must ensue to carry off the two young women. Fortunately, Sheridan discovered their base designs, and arrived just in time to rescue the ladies. He lived to see one of these girls Duchess of Argyle, and the other Countess of Coventry ; and, it is melancholy to add, lived to see his application for admission to their parties rejected. Lady Coventry enjoyed one very singular triumph. Having one day casually mentioned to the king, that she could not walk in the Mall because the crowd who came to gaze at her pressed round her in a way that was quite alarming, his Majesty gallantly exclaimed that the finest woman in England should not be pre- vented from gracing' the Mall. He desired that when- ever she wished to walk she would send notice to the captain upon guard, and at the same time ordered that she should be attended by a sergeant's guard. She walked several times with this train: of course, the 58 THE PRINCESS DASHKOW. crowd increased ; but they were prevented from pressing upon her, and her vanity, which was excessive, must have received the highest gratification in this singular distinction.* ACCOUNT BY A LADY OF A VISIT TO PRINCESS DASHKOW. ■ Since cold is the order of the day, you may make this passing remark, that habit has no power of Reconcil- ing one to the inclemency of the climate: at least my sister says that she felt the second winter like the evaporation of saltpetre on the skin compared to the first which she scarcely minded, and now she is covered with wadded cloaks, when I need no additional clothing and the Princess is utterly unconscious it is not a summer's day. . . . Eussia is yet barbarous enough to be distin- guished by her hospitality. She has many other nation- alities, no doubt, but my experience has not been able to distinguish any except among the lower orders of the * These stories of tlie Gmmings miglit be amply confirmed from contemporary accounts of them. Walpole states that they hor- rowed court dresses to attend a drawing-room at the Castle, Dublin, from Peg Woffington, and writes thus of them in 1751 : ' There are two Irish girls of no fortune, who are declared the handsomest women alive. I think their being two ao handsome, and both such perfect figures, is their chief excellence, for, singly, I have seen much handsomer figures than either : however, they can't walk in the park, or go to Vauxhall, but such mobs follow them that they are therefore driven away.' THE PRINCESS DASHKOW. 59 people : for, with respect to the higher, I am sorry to say they imitate the French in everything; and though the manners of the French are appropriate. to themselves, I cannot endure the singerie oi Bruin -when he frolics like the monkey on his back. Instead, therefore, of the digni- fied salutation of former days (namely, of bowing seriously to one another till their crowns met together), you are kissed on both the cheeks with an appearance of transport, and are told mechanically how enchanted they are to make your acquaintance, &c. The dress, too, is an imita- tion of the French, and they have universally adopted their language. ... In the midst of all this adoption of manners, customs, and language, there is something childishly silly in their reprobating Buonaparte, when they cannot eat their dinner without a French cook to dress it, when they cannot educate their children with- out an unprincipled adventuress from Paris to act as governess, when every house of consequence (that I have seen at least) has an outcast Frenchman to instruct the heir-apparent; in one word, when every association of fashion, luxury, elegance, and fascination is drawn from France, and, in the midst of this obliteration of themselves, a dying squeak against Buonaparte redeems them in their own eyes from this social and political suicide. . . How I abhor these general observations arising from circumscribed experience ; as mine, I don't know how, induces me to depart from the detail of gossip. Strange 60 THE PRINCESS DASHKOW. to say, this same gossip would lead me to talk of Princess DashkoVs character (as I know more of her than of any- one else), which is diametrically opposite to all singerie; for if ever there was an original upon the face of the earth, it is herself. Though she uniformly behaves to us with the greatest kindness and attention, she exacts (from imperial habits, I suppose) a sort of deference, that surprised one excessively at first sight, from her own country people. For example, no man, though covered with stars, attempts to sit down in her presence without being desired, and not always even when requested^ I have seen a dozen Princes stand out a whole visit. Once I saw them bowed out of the room (when she got deadly tired of them) ; and after she had given them her hand to kiss, they departed.* It never enters into her head or heart to disguise any sentiment, and therefore you may guess what a privileged sort of being she is : and lucky it is that she has sensibility, and gentleness of nature ; otherwise she would be a pest or scourge. She is the first by right, rank, sense, and habit in every company, and prerogative becomes such a matter * The late Sir Robert Adair used to relate that, during his mission to St. Petersburgh, he and the French Ambassador were sitting with Potemkin when an aide-de-camp, a young nobleman, brought him a disagreeable note or missive of some sort. Potemkin started up, and actually kicked the inndbent messenger out of the room. The Princess Dashkofi' was once equally high in the Empress's favom-, and might have indulged her passions or caprices with eq^ual impunity. THE PRINCESS DASHKOW. 61 of course that nothing appears extraordinary that she does.* . . . I believe I never mentioned a fine place the Princess has made herself, situated in the midst of sixteen vil- lages belonging to her. Three thousand peasants (' my subjects ' as she calls them) live most happily under her absolute power; and of all the blessed-hearted beings that ever existed, she is the most blessed, excepting Mrs. C. There are 200 servants (taking in all denomina- tions, inside and outside) belonging to the establishment ; more than 100 horses, 200 cows, and everything else in proportion. The house is enormous, and has wings' at either side which are only connected by balconies raised on iron railings to the second story. Twenty bearded men * She was the third daughter of Count Worowzow, and was married at sixteen under characteristic circumstances. The Prince Dashkow having made a compromising proposal to her, not pour le bon motif, she affected to treat it as a proposal of marriage, and communicated it as such to her family. The prince married her, as the only or best way of getting out of the scrape. He owned her first child, but demiurred to the second. She played a leading part in the intrigues and conspiracies which made Catherine the Second Autocrat of all the Eussias ; but the gratitude of her imperial friend and mistress did not keep pace with her expecta- tions, and a coolness grew up between them which estranged her from the court. The first reward she claimed was the- colonelcy of a crack regiment. This Catherine refused, but made her Director of the Academy, and she is said to have proved fully equal to the post. She was popularly supposed to have been intrusted with the momentous duty of subjecting the empress's male favourites to a kind of competitive examination or test; whence her name of Peprouveuse. 62 THE PRINCESS DASHKOW. are now busily employed in making a temporary wooden passage, as in winter (strange to say) they had provided for no internal communication : so much was sacrificed to the beauty of the outside. There are a hundred whimsical and most ridiculous peculiarities of custom ; such as, letting you provide your own bedclothes in a palace even. We have our own sheets, blankets, and quilts ; and they would think one as extraordinary in expecting that the house was to provide for these things, as you would if, in your house, I laid myself up, and sent for your gown to use as a matter of right. In fact, this system of each person having a separate little establish- ment, is observed in more ways than that; for sauce- pans, candles, candlesticks, tea and coffee equipage, and a hundred etceteras, are regularly found in the care of the femmes de chambre. I might lock my castle door, or my sister's, or Anna's, and we have provisions to keep the citadel a week in flourishing health. The system of hoards is therefore without bounds, and presents appropriate to this comical system are perfectly the fashion. The Princess sent us a pair of silver candle- sticks and a store of wax candles on our arrival here. I expected a spit or a gridiron next ; but though not exactly so, we got presents of iron pans the following day. . . . In the midst of this immense establishment, and in the centre of riches and honour, I wish you could see the Princess go out to take a walk, or rather to look THE PRINCESS DASHKOW. 63 over her 'subjects.' An old worn-out great-coat, and a silk pocket-handkerchief worn to rags about her neck, form her dress ; and well may it be in rags, for she has worn it eighteen years, and will continue to wear it as long as she lives, because it belonged to Mrs. Hamilton. Her originality, her appearance, her manner of speaking, her doing every description of thing, altogether give me the idea of her being a fairy; for she helps the masons to build walls, she assists with her own hands in making the roads, she feeds the cows, she composes music, she sings and plays, she writes for the press, she shells the corn, she talks out loud in church and cor- rects the preacher if he is not devout, she talks out loud at her little theatre here and puts in the per- formers if they are out in their parts. She is a doctor, an apothecary, a surgeon, a farrier, a carpenter, a magistrate, a lawyer ; in short, she hourly practises every sort of incongruity, corresponds with her brother who holds the first place in the empire on his trade, with authors, with philosophers, with Jews, with poets, with her son, with all her relations, and yet appears as if she had her time a burden on her hands. She is unconscious whether she speaks English, French, or Russ, and mingles them in every sentence. She speaks German and Italian equally well, but her pro- nunciation is not clear, which takes from the pleasure I should otherwise receive from her conversation. I have just finished reading Voltaire's, Diderot's, Garrick's, and 64 THE PRINCESS DASHKOW — LORD NORTH. the Abbe Kaynal's letters to her. She has promised me the Empress Catherine's : and it is highly necessary to qualify oneself with the knowledge of public affairs and characters in Eussia since the time of Catherine, for she alludes to them perpetually ; and her mind wanders back so naturally to the court, study, toilette, and boudoir of Catherine, that I am beginning to fancy / recollect her habits of life and conversation, and that I was a party concerned in the; Eevolution. By-the-by, the principal reception-room at Troitska is ornamented with an immense picture of Catherine on horseback in uniform, taken the very day of her husband^s destruction, and (the Princess says) a perfect resemblance. Besides this, there are portraits of her in every room. . . . Don't irritate me by saying, you suppose I am beginning to speak the language. No, let that satisfy you for ever. I feel my powers of duncishness increase daily, my powers of idleness, and of helplessness in everything that is good. So adieu, &c. "W. WiLMOT. Troitska, Sept. 1805. LOED NORTH. Among the many anonymous letters which daily poured in upon the late Lord North, he received one an- nouncing to him the arrival of a box, which was exactly A HUEEICANE IN JAMAICA. 65 described. He was warned not to open this box, as it was so contrived that, upon opening the lock, a loaded pistol which the box contained should be discharged. On the following day (which I forgot to say was the time specified) Lord North received a box exactly answering to the description. Without mentioning the circumstance, he took the portentous box, and, con- cealing it under his great-coat, went immediately and threw it unopened into the Thames.* ACCOUNT OF A HUEKICANE IN JAMAICA. Extract from a letter dated, ' Chester Coffee Estate, three quarter way up the Blue Mountains {Jamaica), from the side of a large wood fire; thermometer 58-g°, the mountain winds blowing almost a hurricane, and the rain descending in Equinoctial torrents. — 15iA October 1815, 10 a.m.' As soon as I was sufiBciently recovered from the effects of the yellow fever to bear the journey, I was brought to this invigorating climate, and wonderful its effects have been in eleven days. This is a higher situation than any I have yet visited, higher even than Mount Atlas. The house is superb, with fireplaces in every room, and the climate that of the south of France. There is a large and beautiful This story was related by Mr. T. Grenville. 66 A HUEEICANE IN JAMAICA. garden, where grow side by side, in the utmost luxuriance and full of fruit, the mangan, cinnamon, and nutmeg trees of the East, the apple, pear, and nectarine of En- gland, and the pine-apple, orange, cocoa tree, guava, &c., of the West. In no other part of the world, perhaps, could you see assembled the productions of so many countries ; and this is from the unvarying temperature of the climate, being neither influenced by the seasons nor ever getting too warm for European plants or too cold for those of the tropics. Kingston, Nov. 5, 1815. — Little did I expect, when I sat down so comfortably at Chester Hill to write to you by my snug fireside, what danger and misery were awaiting me. It was then, as you may see by my date, blowing very strong, but we expected nothing further. I was interrupted at twelve o'clock by a summons to luncheon; in the midst of it we were suddenly alarmed by seeing the fine mangan tree in our garden torn up by the roots, whisked into the air, and carried out of sight; this made us apprehend what soon succeeded — a violent hurricane. After this first gust of wind, fresh ones attacked us, each with increased violence; not one of the beautiful trees was left standing; cedar, orange, apple, and all the large trees being torn up, and the cocoas, cabbages, &c., snapped in the middle. The wind continued raging with tremendous force ; and next, we were terrified beyond description by the whole wing of that part of the house we had just quitted, walls and A HUEKICASE IN JAMAICA. 67 all, giving way, though a most substantial stone build- ing ; the roof entire, without loss of a shingle or beam, being carried up into the air, the walls falling in with a tremendous crash ; and the .beams, boards, &c., of the two floorings were seen flying with amazing velocity through the air, knocking down all that came in contact with them. It was with the utmost difficulty that, on hearing the walls shaking and cracking, we saved our- selves, and got into the farther end, or rather division, of a double house. Here, however, we had not been ten minutes before the wind getting under the remain- ing part of the roof (since the fall of the wing, totally unprotected) tore it up too, throwing down on us the ceilings and some of the beams, by one of which I was knocked down and hurt. However, we contrived to rush out, expecting that the walls, now unroofed, must follow ; and being unable to stand upright from the fear of being taken off our legs, we crawled into the kitchen, an outhouse which, being very low and nearly circular, we hoped might stand. We were disappointed; for after our seeing the coffee-store, coffee-works, overseer's house, all the negro houses, and every possible place of shelter, blown down ; not a tree standing ; beams, trees, branches, and wooden shingles with large nails in them flying about in every direction, with certain death to every living thing they encountered ; night coming on and the gale increasing — the kitchen gave way, injuring F 2 68 A HDEEICANE IN JAMAICA. US all more or less, and, I fear, maiming one negro for life I only received another hard blow. As a last resource and almost forlorn hope, we betook ourselves to a cellar under the ruins of the house, trying to hope that, if the walls fell in (and we heard stones dropping from them every instant), they might not beat in the floor of the dining-room over our heads and crush ua with their fall. That they would fall, we had no doubt, and a very very slender hope that the flooring would withstand them, and no possibility of escape. This was about eight in the evening, when the night was j ust setting in. Our cellar was about nine feet square ; up to our knees in water from the torrents of rain falling through the unroofed ruin a,bove us, under a constant shower-bath in that cold climate that very cold night, in the instant expectation of being crushed to death or horribly mangled, we remained the whole of that dreadful night. Our party consisted, besides myself, of Mr. A., Dr. M., the overseer, the bookkeeper, four black men, and four black women with their six children. What I suffered from cold, and the bruises I had received, exceeded in mere bodily suffering anything I have ever felt or expect to feel — far worse than the surgeon's knife searching for the bullet ; and I certainly never felt the passion of fear before, at least nothing resembling my sensations that night. At about two in the morning one of the walls fell in, luckily so that the wind blew the stones A HrEEICANE IN JAMAICA. 69 &c., from instead of on us ; still a great part fell over our heads on the flooring, of course on boards, with a tremendous crash. We conceived it was the whole house, and the screams of the poor women and children, the (as they supposed) dying prayer of the men, were horrible beyond anything I can conceive. I rose up from sitting on an empty barrel, hoping the beams might strike my head first, and end my sense of suffering for myself and my companions. For that the beams were falling, and that death seemed inevitable, was evident ; but after many alarms of this sort and constant dread, the gale abated at sunrise, after the longest night I ever passed. At 6 A.M. the rain and wind had entirely ceased, and we were able to walk out of our dungeon and witness the scene of destruction. Not a house, a tree, a negro hut or shed, left standing; large trees thrown down or torn away ; small snapped off close to the roots; all the beautiful garden destroyed ; one of the four walls of the house levelled, a wing entirely down, the remainder unroofed : and we had no means of communication with our neighbours, as every rivulet was swelled to an impassable river. At the end of three days, however, we got to the nearest neighbour's house, which had not suffered so much ; and a week after, the roads and rivers admitted of my return here safe and sound. Kingston has suffered much less than the mountains . . . The hurricane has cooled the air, and 70 NAPOLEON ON BOARD THE ' NOKTHUMBEELAND.' now the temperature of Kingston is tolerable even after leaving the Blue Mountains. KAPOLEON ON BOAKD THE ' NOKTHUMBEELAND. Extracts from letters from an officer of Marines. H.M.S. NoETHUMBEELAND : Aug. 5, 1815. It is my guard, and I have to sit in the antechamber of Napoleon, to prevent communication between him and the ship's company, and also to be a check on his own domestics ; it is now one, and I must keep awake till six Napoleon gets very sulky if he is not treated with that deference and respect to which he is accustomed : his own followers treat him with the same respect as if he was still emperor. Beattie, my captain, was at Acre : Buonaparte learnt this in conversation ; seemed quite pleased, caught hold of his ear and gave it a good pinch (which is his custom when pleased), and seems to have taken a great liking to him. He is some- times very communicative : to-day he mentioned the project he had formed for invading England in 1805; declared it to have been his intention to lead the ex- pedition himself, and said it might have succeeded. The plan was this : he sent his fleet to the West Indies for the purpose of drawing our fleets there, which it did, Lord Nelson and Sir Eobert Calder both following NAPOLEON ON BOAED THE ' NOETHrMEEKLAND.' 71 Villeneuve there ; he was to return immediately to the Chamiel, and Napoleon said he calculated that Ville- neuve would be in the Channel at least a fortnight before our fleets could get back. His army was em- barked (200,000 he says), but the plan was discon- certed by Villeneuve's going into Cadiz instead of coming to the Channel. His words were, 'He might as well have been in the East Indies as at Cadiz ; ' and he then declared that if Villeneuve had obeyed his orders he should certainly have invaded England, be the result what it might.* Bertrand is the only one that seems to feel his situa- ation ; he speaks of Napoleon often with tears, and is extremely agitated when conversing on the state of France. He says Napoleon did not calculate upon fighting the English and Prussians at Waterloo. The Prussians were beaten on the 16th, and it was not sup- posed they could have been up to take part in the battle of the 18th. He thinks the French would have been victorious if the Prussians had not come up ; but circumstances were not favourable. The French soldiers fought very well; the officers did not. I asked him what became of the French army after the battle, why they did not retreat in some sort of order ? He said, with a shrug, they were annihilated, there were none ' His plan, as described by M. Thiers, was muob more com- plicated, and required a concurrence of events on which it was pre- posterous to rely. 72 NAPOLEON ON BOAED THE ' NOETnUMBEELAND.' left ; yet, notwithstanding these admissions, they break out gasconading about their victories Napoleon's spirits are better ; he enters into conversa- tion very freely on different parts of his life. The other day he was speaking of Waterloo : he said he had not the least idea of fighting on the ISth : he did not suppose Wellington would have given him battle ; he so fully expected Wellington to retreat that he had not even made preparations for battle, and was a little taken by surprise ; ' but,' said he, ' I never was so pleased as when I saw he intended to fight. I had not a doubt of annihilating his army ; it was the only thing I could have wished. I expected him to abandon Flanders, and fall back on the Eussians ; but when I found he gave me battle singly, I was confident of his destruction. My soldiers behaved well ; my generals did not.' He says it was dusk when his army was thrown into con- fusion; that if he could have shown himself, they would have rallied and been victorious ; but that the rout was so great, he was carried away in the throng. He went to Paris to try to save the honour of France, but found he could not. He positively asserts that, previous to the battle of Waterloo and after his return to France, Austria pro- posed to him to abdicate in favour of Napoleon II., and promised to support him. His followers, too, have men- tioned so many particulars respecting this, that I do not doubt the fact. This proposition had nothing to do with HAPOLEON ON BOAED THE ' NOETHUMBERLAND.' 73 the forged letter of the Duke of Bassano, which they also speak of as a falsehood : none such was shown to him by Murat. He has been talking this evening about his turning Mahometan : he said it was a long time before he could persuade them that he was a true Mussulman ; but ' at last I persuaded them that Mahomet was wrong in some things and I was right, and they acknowledged me to be the greater man.' He says that in his retreat from Acre he lost nearly half his army. Yesterday he remarked that Madame Bertrand was in much better spirits than when she attempted to drown herself, and added, ' a man of true courage will bear up against misfortunes, and finally surmount them, while common minds will sink under them.' He con- verses sometimes on the subject of his making away with himself, and calmly reprobates the idea of his being supposed capable of it.* I believe the object of the guard is to prevent com- munication with the crew. Napoleon told the admiral that he did not doubt he could get many to join him if he tried ; and indeed they are a set of as mutinous rascals as I ever heard of; though I don't think they would assist him to escape. What I am going to state must, for the credit of the country, be a secret : they mutinied, and refused to get anchor up at Portsmouth : the * He seems to have forgotten his own attempt to poison himself at Fontainebleau, clearly proved by M. Thiers. 74 NAPOLEON ON BOARD THE ' NOETHUMBEKLAND,' Artillery company, the 53rd, and ourselves, were under arms for three hours — that is to say, till we had sailed. About twenty of the principal seamen were seized and confined, but sent away from the ship ; and the conduct and language of the sailors now is beyond everything ; they think nothing of striking the midshipmen.* . . . St. Helena. — We arrived at this barren horrid island yesterday, after a passage of ten weeks. In my former travels in these latitudes everything seemed animated ; the sea swarming with fish, water brilliant and phos- phoric, sky without a cloud. Now everything has been the reverse : since we left Madeira, the sun has been constantly obscured with clouds, the weather even on the equator as cold as you can have had it in England : scarcely a fish to be seen ; and what is still more extra- ordinary, the trade winds, which in the tropics are calculated upon as certain, have blown almost from the opposite quarter to what they were expected, and thereby opposed our progress. We crossed the equator on the 23rd September, the same day as the sun ; the great- est height of the thermometer was then only 75°, with a vertical sun ; since it has been as low as 66° : to- day it is only 70°. Napoleon has been in pretty good health and spirits all the voyage, conversing on every subject without the least hesitation. [Here follows the * This state of things appears to have been carefully concealed from the public. NAPOLEON ON BOAED THE ' NOKTHUMBEELAND.' 75 well-known justification of the poisoning of the sick at Jaffa ; execution of the Due d'Enghien, &c. &c.J I have dined three times with Napoleon. I cannot say I think his manners have much of that elegance which might have been expected from a person of his ci-devant rank. He has a particularly disagreeable grunt when he does not understand what you say, and desires a repetition. He converses freely, but not at table, with the Frenchmen ; and takes no more notice of the ladies than if they were a hundred miles off. I have not heard him speak once to Madame Bertrand at table, and seldom elsewhere. Napoleon landed on the 17th of October; he appeared a good deal affected at leaving the ship, and spoke so. Did I tell you that the band, who used to play every day, struck up of their own accord, a few days after we left England, Vive Henri Quatre upon Buonaparte coming after dinner ? Thinking it might hurt his feelings, we stopped them immediately ; but he had heard enough to know what it was, and requested they would play that or any other French tune, as he liked it much ; and afterwards they played the loyal and revolutionary airs indiscriminately. Of the Due d'Enghien's business he said, not a fortnight ago (December 1815) — and you may rely upon he did say, though I did not hear it — it was in dictating to his secretary, Las Casas — that two days after the Due was executed, he received proofs of his innocence, and that 76 NAPOLEON AND HIS BEOTHEES. the Due even solicited employment in his service, stating his poverty ; but that the application was not received till after his death. This Buonaparte certainly said ; for I do not think his secretary would say so if it was not true ; and he said he had it from Napoleon's mouth, as part of papers which he was dictating the day before I had it.* NAPOLEON AND HIS BEOTHEES. Lady H. has been telling us some of the conversation ■which passed at Walcot f while Lucien Buonaparte was there. He was very communicative on the adven- tures of his own and his brother's life, and anecdotes so authenticated are worth remembering. When Lucien was living at his villa on the Lago Bracciano, near Eome, he was requested by his brother Joseph, then King of Naples, to come to him on business of great importance. Joseph told him he wished to consult him on a letter he had just received from Napoleon, offering him the crown of Spain, and desiring him to come and receive it at his hands. Joseph professed himself very much inclined to decline the new honours offered him. This resolution Lucien did his utmost to confirm ; he * Mr. Warren stated in his printed letters that he had seen a copy of the alleged letter from the Due d'Enghien in the possession of Las Casas. t Walcot, Salop ; a seat of the Earl of Fowls. NAPOLEON AND HIS BROTHEES. 77 reminded Joseph of all the difficulties he had found in establishing himself on the throne of Naples. Those were overcome, and the Neapolitans were now perfectly tranquil under his government. In Spain, he would have the whole to go over again, and would probably find the Spaniards much more disinclined towards him. than the Neapolitans had ever been. Joseph ac- cordingly wrote to Napoleon, respectfully declining the crown offered him, and expressiug his gratitude for that he already possessed, and his perfect satisfaction. Un- fortunately for himself (much against the advice of Lucien) he added, that ' il se rendrait aux ordres de sa MajesU,'' and set out to meet Napoleon. He, to use the words of Lucien, "pripara un de ces grands coups qu'il aimait tant et qui lui ont si souvent reussi.' Bayonne was the appointed place of meeting, but Napoleon went farther, met Joseph on the road, and got out of his car- riage to be the first to congratulate the King of Spain. In one moment Joseph found himself surrounded by the numerous suite of his brother, and had received their homage almost before he knew where he was. This public ceremony having taken place, it was no longer possible to retract. In those days, when crowns were literally going a begging, Lucien (by his own account at least) seems to have shown great firmness in rejecting them, not only for himself but for his family. At one time. Napoleon sent for one of Lucien's daughters, offering to marry her to the Prince of Spain (Ferdinand) or to the Prince 78 NAPOLEON AND HIS BEOTHEES. of "Wiitemberg (Paul). Lucien determined to refuse both: ' L'un,^ he said, 'etaitfou, I' autre etait fire que fou, mais il falloit oheir aux ordres supremes de mon frere; et fenvoyai Charlotte a Paris, suivie de ses femmes seulement et de Vahhe 5.' I have forgotten the name, but he was the nephew of Lucien's first wife, and was present when the story was told. When the poor victim arrived at St. Cloud, where the Emperor was, she was immediately presented to him ; and when she knelt to pay her obeisance, he said, ' Levez-vous, Princesse.^ She had the courage to reply, ' Non, Si/re, je ne suis pas Princesse; je ne suis que Charlotte Buonaparte: permettez-moi, Sire, de retourner chez mon phre.^ This permission was granted, and the ' intended Queen of Spain (afterwards Princess Grabriella) was, when this story was related, living with her parents at Ludlow. On the day of Napoleon's coronation, Grarnerin sent up a balloon to make the news fly. This balloon landed near Lucien's Roman villa, in twenty-six hours exactly from the period at which it was launched from Paris. Yet speedy as this communication appears, it might have been still more so ; for, at its first setting out, the balloon was impelled quite in another direction. How soon it took its south-eastern course cannot of course be known.* * In the journal of De las Casas this circumstance is mentioned as related by Napoleon, who speaks of the time as ' en pen d'heures.' THE PRETENDED ARCHDUKE. 79 THE PRETENDED ARCHDUKE. I have heard this evening a strange wild romantic story from Mr. Bankes, almost too improbable for a novel, and yet the leading facts seem established beyond a doubt. A stranger, with one attendant only (I think), ar- rived some years ago at the house of a man of the name of Contessini, then British Consul at Jaffa, who was obliged, on seeing some passports and papers, to bestow a bed and a dinner. The latter was bad enough, but the stranger gave the servants of the consul a gra- tuity three or four times as large as any they had ever received before. Old Contessini, according to the cus- tom of the East, took this fee from his servants ; being an honest man, and being impressed with a strong idea that the liberality of the stranger bespoke a person of consequence, he very much improved his fare on the second day. On the third, the stranger began to open a little ; he asked Contessini whether he was not consul for Austria as well as England, and received a reply in the affirmative. ' Well,' says he, ' you need not hoist the Austrian flag, but I will confide to you a secret of the greatest importance, under the seal of the most invio- lable secrecy. I am travelling in the strictest incog., but I am the Archduke John, the brother of the Emperor of Austria.' The poor consul was overwhelmed with 80 THE PRETENDED ARCHDUKE. confusion : lie got up from the dinner-table at which they were sitting, insisting upon serving behind the chair of his illustrious guest, who had great difficulty in per- suading him, partly by the force of arguments drawn from the necessity of concealment from the servants and partly by that of his arms, to resame his chair. In this state things remained some days : the old con- sul was delighted to see that the archduke took great notice of his son, a fine lad. One day the boy, coming into the stranger's room, found him occupied in taking some things out of a trunk in which were fine uniforms embroidered most richly and covered with stars and orders. The boy told his father of the fine things he had beheld, and not being under any promise of secrecy, re- peated his story to every person he met. Suspicions be- gan to be excited as to the rank of the stranger ; the old consul looked mysterious, and began to whisper his secret This made the residence of Jaffa very unpleasant to the prince: he talked of prosecuting his journey througli the Holy Land, and asked Contessini whether there was any person in Jaffa from whom he could procure money. ' I fear,' replied the old man, ' there may not be a sum sufficient to supply the occasions of your Imperial Highness; but if such a sum (naming something about lOOi.) is sufficient, I can easily find it.' The money was produced : the archduke gave his note, disguised him- self as a monk, and proceeded on his journey to Nazareth, where there was a large convent ; and Contessini, after THE PRETENDED AKCHDUKE. 81 much importunity, obtaiaed leave to acquaint the prior by letter of the real name and rank of the stranger. He took up his abode for some time in the convent : every respect was shown to him ; the prior kept the secret for some time; but much curiosity and many sus- picions were excited by the uncommon liberality of the stranger. He evinced this chiefly by giving at the mass, which he attended with the most exemplary regularity, a contribution for the wants of the convent, which, though it was nearly ten times as much as they were in the habit of receiving from the most liberal of their contributors, was in fact very small. By this and various other means he so established his character without betraying his rank, that the prior made not the smallest difficulty in advancing a large sum from the funds of the convent on his word only, and on his promise of obtaining various immunities and advantages for the convent from the Emperor of Austria. He returned to his old friend the consul at Jaffa ; expressed a wish to fit out a vessel to convey him to the coast of Italy, for the purpose of performing a pilgrimage to Loretto. The attendant or cameriere suggested to the consul that he was mad not to try to take advantage of the partiality which the archduke expressed for his son to try to obtain for him a situation in his household. The permission was given for young Contessinito attend the archduke, and many very vague promises of future protection were made. In return. G 82 THE PEETENDED AECHDUKE. for this the consul could do no less than take upon him- self all the trouble of the purchase of the vessel, and of course he made himself responsible for all the expenses. He was also persuaded by the cameriere to embark several bales of cotton, which the young man, his son, would sell to great advantage.. One of the next adventures of this great personage was at one of the Turkish ports. He was lodged in the house of the Austrian consul, to whom he carried a letter from old Contessini declaring his rank, but still with injunctions of the greatest secrecy. A few days after his arrival the Turkish fleet, with the Captain Pasha (the third man in the empire) on hoard, anchored in the port. The consul with gi-eat difficulty obtained from his guest permission to declare his rank to this great personage ; an invitation ensued to visit the fleet ; every royal honour and observance were paid ; and very large presents of jewels, &c., offered, and of course accepted, by the prince. He then went (I forget where) to another Eastern convent, where he was received with still greater distinction by the archbishop. Here, however, his career seemed very near a close ; the notes or bills had all been protested, and a rumour of the fraud spread very soon after his arrival. He was the first to tell the story to the old archbishop, to inveigh against the tricks of swindlers, and at the ingenuity of one who, having discovered him to be travelling irioog. in the East, had ventured to personate him ; then THE PRETENDED AECHDUKE. 83 followed a dozen stories of exactly similar personations, &c., but he ended in stating, that though loaded with passports, letters of credit, &c., from the emperor, which were all in his vessel, he should be very averse to the appearing publicly in his own character. He said his journey, or rather his pilgrimage, had been under- taken from motives of religion only, very much against the consent of the emperor, who would be still more incensed when he discovered the fraud which had ensued from the circumstance of his travelling incog. It became, therefore, his duty to guard his secret more strictly than ever. Upon this pretence he once more obtained a large sum to enable him to perform his pilgrimage to Loretto, and once more he resumed his travels. When he reached the Continent he professed himself surprised to find the emperor more incensed than ever: the cameriere was dismissed, and young Contessini, who was enthusiastically devoted to him, was persuaded that the life of his illustrious master depended upon his secrecy. After various adventures, hair-breadth escapes, daring frauds, &c., he reached Hamburgh. There he contrived by various forgeries to raise a sum of money, on credit, to charter a vessel for America. This was wrecked somewhere on the British coast. The adven- turer and his faithful Contessini arrived in London. The latter, from whom Mr. Bankes had the whole detail, described with the most beautiful simplicity, in a 2 84 THE PRETENDED AECHDTJKE. his bad Italian, the effect produced in his mind by all that he saw, and especially by the grande bellissimo superbo hotel where they were lodged, and which, with some difficulty, he at last explained to be the Saracen's Head. Among its various merits, he did not enumerate that of its being a peaceful abode. Englishmen were not so easily to be taken in as consuls, pashas, and archbishops in the East. The various frauds and forgeries of the adventurer were soon brought to hght, and the bellissimo hotel full of officers of justice in pursuit of him. However, he contrived once more to escape them by getting out of a garret window upon the roofs of the neighbouring houses. Such was the extrar ordinary simplicity and cred\ility of his faithful attendant that even at this moment, after all that he had witnessed, he described himself as perfectly convinced that his master was going straight to St. James's, meaning at last to avow his rank and resume his native splendour. Judge, then, what must have been his dismay when he found himself safely lodged with the archduke in Newgate. From the extreme ignorance of the narrator it was impossible, Mr. Bankes said, to gain a clear idea of this part of his adventures. By some means they got out of Newgate, and very soon after were sent to a lock-up house. Here the story of the impostor closes, not, as might be expected, by his obtaining the due reward of THE PEETEKDED ARCHDUKE. 85 all Ms iniquities, but by his seducing the wife of the keeper of the lock-up house, carrying off with her every valuable in the house, and contriving to elude every pursuit. Poor Contessini was now left alone to stand his trial, and Mr. Bankes said nothing could be more curious than his admiration, his simple grati- tude for his extraordinary good fortune in having been taken before the most upright, the most humane, the greatest of judges, the only one man in the whole world who would not have hanged him because he had been imposed upon by a rascal, never having had any share in the transactions which made him amenable to justice. A subscription was collected to enable this poor creature to return to his own country, which he did not reach without having been once more wrecked. When Mr. Bankes was at Jaffa, he heard repeatedly of the adventurer, who had imposed himself upon so many persons, and raised large sums of money, as the Archduke John. He was one day questioning the British Consul on the subject, who, from common report, related many of the leading particulars, especi- ally the reception by the Captain Pasha. He added, ' As you seem very curious, if you wish it, I will send for the son of my predecessor Contessini, who for some time followed the fortunes of this adventurer.' He came. Mr. Bankes was so pleased with his extraordinary story, 86 THE PEETBNDED ARCHDUKE. and with his mode of relating it, that he took the man as his servant, though he had little else to recommend him.* * Mr. Baiikes's story is substantially confirmed by Sir William Gell, wbo says in his Memoirs, ' We had been told that one of the Austrian archdukes was passing through Greece at this time, and that he was now (1804) at Modon, giving out that he had quitted Vienna on account of some disagreement with the Austrian imperial family, and was travelling incog. . . . ' A few months after, we heard of an unpleasant accident which happened quite unexpectedly to his Imperial Highness. After he had resided some time at the house of the poor consul, a Polish nobleman. Prince Sapieha, landed at Modon. As he was well acquainted with the Austrian imperial family, he flew to the house of the consul, as soon as he heard the archduke was there. He entered hastily the room where the consul and his guest were diping, eagerly enquiring for his friend the archduke. The consul, distressed at the arrival of a person whom he doubted not was despatched fi'om the court to reclaim the wandering prince, and hoping that the messenger was not personally acquainted with his imperial guest, thought it better to hesitate, and gave no answer till Prince Sapieha demanded with more eagerness to be shown to the room of the archduke. During this time, the adventui'er said not a word, and the consul was at length induced to confess that his Imperial Highness was present. Of course Prince Sapieha needed no further explanation, left the room, and soon quitted Modon, not without having had the charity to advise the owner of the house where he lodged to inform the Austrian consul that he was ruining himself for an impostor. The adventurer was not, how- ever, routed by the unfortunate visit of the prince, for he succeeded in persuading the consul, who was alarmed, and began to expostu- late, that he knew Sapieha well, but was so disgusted at the impertinence of his abrupt entrance during dinner, instead of sending in due form to know when his company would be agree- able, that he did not condescend to acknowledge him.' ANECDOTES OF D^NON. 87 ANECDOTES OF DifiNON.* Mr, Bankes told me that, one morning while he was breakfasting tete-a-tete with Denon, a servant brought in a packet from the mint containing a medal just struck. Denon laid it flat on his hand, considered the reverse, then exclaimed, 'N'ous sommes seuls, mon ami: parlous a cceur ouvert; voilale comhlecle lafiatterie;' then he read, 'Mouse oum resta uratoum — et puis (turning the medal and showing the head of Louis XVIIL), voila cet homme qui a tout fait pour le detruire.' When one recollects what Denon and his old master had done for the Museum ; when one remembers how soon under the new regime he was turned out ; when, besides, one looks not only at the Louvre, which the fate of war has stripped of its finest ornaments, but at the various collections, at the Jardi/n des Plantes, which from neglect and want of encouragement have suffered nearly as much ; when, most of all, one looks at what was the Musee des Monumiens, now totally destroyed and dispersed by bigotry — when one thinks of all these circumstances, one wonders that, speaking a cosur * D^non was tlie most celebrated of the savans who accom- panied Napoleon in the Egyptian expedition, of which he published a scientific and illustrated account in 1802. He was Directeur Gto&-al des Musses under the Emperor, and was displaced on the Restoration. Lady Morgan speaks highly of his conversational powers in her "France." 88 ANECDOTES OF D^NON. ouvert, Denon could express himself so moderately on the subject. One day Mr. Bankes said he expressed to Denon a strong wish to see Roustan, the Mameluke, who is now keeping a small shop. Denon's reply did him honour. ' You will certainly do as you please, but you must allow me to say that, from the moment you condescend to seek such a wretch as that man, I shall consider our acquaintance as ended, and you must not wonder if my doors are closed against you.' Mr. Bankes said he cer- tainly would not incur such a penalty, but remonstrated, alleging that he was far from admiring the character of Roustan, very far from defending his ingratitude to- wards Napoleon, but that he should have much pleasure in learning from his mouth some of the lesser par- ticulars of the domestic life of his master, which have been so variously represented. Denon allowed the truth of all this, but said that if any Englishman of name was known to go to Roustan 's house, he would soon be followed by several of his countrymen; money would flow in, and the wretch would soon be raised from the state of well-deserved contempt and degradation which was the natural consequence of his ingratitude. It seems he was given to Napoleon by one of the pachas, as a thing of much less value than an English- man would consider a dog. Napoleon took a fancy to him, loaded him with favours, kept him always about his person, gave him the means of marrying, EAELT IMPRESSIONS OF CELEBEATED MEN. 89 and in the most trying moments of his life, when he considered himself as going into the greatest dangers, his last thought always seems to have been that of making an additional provision for Eoustan. Even on the eve of leaving Paris in the campaign which terminated his career of glory, he thought of Eoustan. After having thus fattened on Napoleon's prosperity, after having so closely attended on him as always to sleep across the door of his tent or his room, he forsook him in adversity and refused to follow him to St. Helena. EARLY IMPEESSIONS 0¥ CELEBRATED MEN — PITT, FOX, LORD WELLESLEY, AND WINDHAM. I have often thought, in reading Lord Orford's ' Eeminiscences,' that almost anybody might make, by writing down theirs, a book which would at least be sure of giving entertainment to the writer when the recollections it records becomes less vivid. Upon that hint I write, and first I mean to record those sights which are gone and past, and which never can greet my eyes again. Without ever having read Lavater or any one else who has written on physiognomy, I have, as most people probably have, delight in tracing character in countenance, and therefore there are few recollections I love better than those of the faces of the great men whom I have seen at various periods. I can now laugh 90 PITT AND LORD WBLLESLET. at the recollection of my excessive disappointment in the first great man I remember seeing — in society at least. I was about sixteen or seventeen when, at Dropmore*— where I was with Lord and Lady Grenville only — Mr. Pitt arrived for a visit of two days. First, I was disappointed in that tumed-up nose, and in that countenance, in which it was so impossible to find any indication of the mind, and in that person which was so deficient in dignity that he had hardly the air of a gentleman. After this first disappointment my every faculty seemed to me to be absorbed in listening. If not tropes, I fully expected the dictums of wisdom each time that he opened his mouth. From what I then heard and saw, I should say that mouth was made for eating ; as to speaking, there was very little, and that little was totally uninteresting to me, and I believe would have been so to everybody. I was certainly not capable of a very accurate judgment, but I was as certainly in a mood very much to overrate instead of underrating what fell from the great man, and to be quite sure that what I did not understand must be mighty fine. On the second day arrived Lord Wellesley,* whom I thought very agreeable ; partly, I fancy, from his high- bred manners, and still more from his occasionally " It appears from Lord "Wellesley's Correspondence, that he spent some days at Dropmore in the spring of 1797, and this must have been the visit in question.. He left England for India in the November of that year, and did not return till January 1806, when Pitt was dying. PITT, LOED -WELLESLEY, AND FOX. 91 saying a few words to me, and thus making me feel treated as a reasonable creature. After we had retired for the night, I heard from the library, which was under my room, the most extraordinary noises — barking, mewing, hissing, howling, interspersed with violent shouts of laughter. I settled that the servants had come into the room, and had got drunk and riotous ; and I turned to sleep when the noise had ceased. Never can I forget my dismay (it was more than astonishment) when next day at breakfast I heard that my wise uncle and his two wise guests, whom we had left talking, as I supposedj of the fate of Europe, had spyed in the room a little bird ; they did not wish it to be shut up there all night : therefore, after having opened every window, these great wise men tried every variety of noise they could make to frighten out the poor bird. At a later period, in the year 1805, 1 found myself for nearly a week at Stowe, with Mr. Fox ; but as there were above fifty others in the house, with the Prince -Sffgaui at their head, the whole thing was a formal crowd, and I could only gaze at the countenance of the one whom I should most have hked to hear talk. Certainly in this mixed society he hardly ever was heard to speak, but occasionally with some one indi- vidual one saw him entering into an animated whispered conversation, and it was curious to watch the sudden illumination of a countenance which, when silent, had to my fancy a heavy, sullen look. How far it might 92 WINDHAM. even then have been altered by malady, I cannot judge; but I know that the next time I beheld Mr. Fox, not six months after, at Lord Melville's trial, I thought I never had seen the ravages of illness so strongly marked in any human countenance. All its animation had dis- appeared, the leaden eyes were almost lost under the heavy eyebrow, even that appeared to partake in the extraordinary change which all the colouring seemed to have undergone, the pallid or rather livid hue of the complexion deepened the sable line of the dark brow, and the whole countenance assumed a lethargic ex- pression. He lived scarcely three months after the time I mention.* In my recollection, no person appears to have possessed the power of making conversation delightful, as much as Mr. Windham. His peculiar charm seems to me to have been that sort of gay openness which I should call the very reverse of what the French term morgue. To all, this must be agreeable, and it is peculiarly delightful to a young person who is conscious of her own inferiority to the person who condescends * to put her perfectly at ease. During the party at * This account of Fox's appearance in Hs latter years is con- firmed by contemporaries. But, according to Sir William Napier, Pitt retained till -within a year and a half of his death a boyish love of frolic, and (in 1804) was once actually engaged in a struggle to prevent the blackening of his face ■with a cork, whilst two of his colleagues were kept waiting in the anteroom. — Bruce's lAft of Napier, vol. i. p. 31. WINDHAM, GIBBON, AND JUNIUS. 93 Stowe to which I have alluded, I found myself em- harked for the morning's or rather day's amusement, in a carriage with Lady King, Lord Braybrooke, and Mr. Windham. My mother was in some other carriage, my two sisters in a third. When we all met in our own rooms, they with one accord voted they were a little tired and very much bored. I, though much more liable to both these complaints than any of the party, could only say I had been highly amused the whole day. The fact was, they had no Mr. Windham to listen to, and I had ; and yet, truth to say, when I was asked how he had contrived to amuse me so much, 1 had very little to tell even then ; and now after so many years that little has passed away. I do recollect, however, one singular circumstance. Junius happened to be mentioned, and on that old subject Mr. Windham ventured what was to me at least a quite new guess. Gibbon was the person he mentioned as the only man of high talents living at that period in obscurity which might effectually have concealed him. Soon afterwards I mentioned this conjecture to Charles (the late Eight Hon. Charles Wynn), whose accurate merhory immediately produced a proof of its fallacy. He said, ' I cannot help thinking that, at the period of the publication of Junius, Gribbon was not in England.'. Upon referring to the letters of Gibbon, it proved that he was in Switzerland during the greater part, if no^ the whole, of the appearance of Junius. It seems most 94 IMPERIAL AND ROTAL VISITORS IN 1814. singular that Mr. Windham should even mention a conjecture which he had not brought to this obvious test.* IMPEEIAL AND ROYAL VISITOES IN 1814 — VISIT TO OXFOED.f Of the mob of kings, and princes, and foreign gene- rals, whom the events of 1814 brought to London, I believe I did not miss seeing one, nor had I ever any opportunity of doing more than staring at them. Upon the whole, though the appearance of the theatre at Oxford was most striking, still, the scene which made the deepest impression upon my mind, was the entrance of Louis XVIII. into London. We stood in Lord Dudley's balcony ; there were few there, and those few not inclined to talk : so one had time to muse over all the strange occurrences of the day, and over * Miss Wynn and lier brother must liave been under a mis- taken impression as to the period during which the Letters of Junius appeared. Tbe letters under that signature began in January 1769, and ended in January 1772. Gibbon returned to England in 1765, and did not leave it again to reside abroad till 1783 ; but his babits and turn of mind, as developed in bis autobiography, to say nothing of Ms political opinions or bis style, completely pre- clude tbe notion of his being tbe author of Junius. He had been often started as a candidate. t To bring togetber her reminiscences of bistoric, personages. Miss Wynn passes on at once to 1814, when London was crowded witb tbem. It will be remembered that tbe exiled royal family of France had frequently partaken of tbe splendid hospitality of Stowe, and that sbe went to Oxford in tbe suite of her uncle, Lord GrenviUe, the Lord Higb Chancellor of tbe University. IMPERIAL AND EOTAL VISITORS IN 18U. 95 all the historical recollections it naturally suggested. I cannot say that I quite liked to see the British Guards decorated with the white cockade. I was amused at seeing the Prince Eegent sitting backwards in the landau. He had, of course, given the front seat to Louis and the Duchesse d'Angouleme. I wondered how a position so unusual would agree with him ; since the days of absolute childhood, when he might have gone with the king and queen, he never could have found himself in such a one, and I thought of the possibility of an interruption most undignified to the procession. The reception of James II. by Louis XIV. was cer- tainly far more splendid ; but I am inclined to doubt whether, to a feeling heart, the magnificence of St. Grermains — which, by-the-bye, I believe from what remains could have existed only in the imagination of Frenchmen — could be nearly as gratifying as the popu- lar feeling so powerfully excited and so freely expressed on this occasion. I was then, or rather soon after, very much astonished to hear from Lord Arthur Hill, who was in the balcony with us, and afterwards at Paris, how much more tranquil, more tame, had been the entrance of Louis into his own capital. I had then taught myself to believe the French a very demonstrative race, and did not know how much more difiicult it is to excite popular feeling among the mercurial Frenchmen than among the phlegmatic English.* * SDss Wynn appears to have forgotten that the popular feeling was far from favourable to the restored dynasty. 96 IMPERIAL AND KOYAL VISITORS IN 1814. I was not well enongli to go to the drawing-room which Louis held at Grrillion's Hotel, but I went one evening to the Duchesse d'Angouleme's, in Monsieur's dark two-roomed house in South Audley Street,* It was literally hardly possible to see across the room, and the whole thing was, if one could have entertained such a feeling, a burlesque upon royalty. The sour, ill-tempered, vulgar countenance of the blear-eyed Duchess was a great damp to the interest one was pre- pared to feel in one whose fate had been more melan- choly than that of any heroine of romance. The little crumpled Duchess de Sirent might easily be fancied the good fairy whose wand had produced the wondrouB change ; but she had not, like the godmother of Cinder- ella, changed the dusty dirty abode into a palace, or even converted into cloth of gold the dingy brown dress of her protegee. 'Waverley' was not] yet published,! but when I re^d there the account of Charles Edward's drawing-room at Edinburgh, I could think of nothing but the dark rooms in South Audley Street. * No. 72. Madame d'Arblay gives a curious account of the confusion that prevailed both there and at Grillion's diuing the royal receptions. (Diary, vol. 7, pp. 22-39.) In a letter of July 9th, 1814, Sir Walter Scott writes : ' The Duke of Buccleugh told me yesterday of a very good reply of Louis to some of his at- tendants, who proposed shutting the doors of his apartments to keep out the throng of people. "Open the door," he said, "to John Bull ; he has suffered a good deal in keeping the door open tome."' t Waverley was published in 1814. IMPERIAL AND EOYAL VISITOES IN 1814. 97 At Oxford it seemed to me that there was a great want of dignity of manner among the assembled grandees. Even the dandy Alexander seemed to want it ; though he was much better than any of his compeers, excepting, perhaps, our own king when he happened to be in good humour, which was not always the case during his visit to Oxford. As to the King of Prussia, he looked as stupid and as vulgar as I believe he really is. \\Tien compli- mented, he never could look otherwise than embarrasse de sa pe7'sonne,hoied. to death, and could not even make a tolerably gentleman-like bow. His two sons looked fine animated boys ; the eldest was said to have accom- panied the army, and,it was added, had scarcely been pre- vented by those around him from exposing himself most gallantly. They seemed to look at everything with the genuine happy feelings of their age, and are said to have expressed great delight when the measles seemed likely to prove an impediment to their quitting this covmtry, but they got well much sooner than they wished. It did not at that time occur to me as possible that these sovereigns might not understand one syllable of the elegant classical orations made in compliment to them. I have since heard from Dr. Crichton — a Scotch physician belonging to the household of the Empress dowager, who accompanied one of her grand- sons, the brother of Alexander — that neither this young prince nor any one of a numerous suite, excepting one man, understood a word of Latin or Greek. H 98 IMPERIAL AND EOTAL VISITORS IN 1814. I think the illumination of the High Street of Oxford was by far the finest sight of the kind I ever beheld. From the difficulty of getting a sufficient number of coloured lamps, they were obliged to put candles on every window and on every part of every building which would bear them. By this means, the light, instead of intersecting and twisting through all the ornamental part of the architecture, followed the fine broad lines, gave a magnificent contrast of light and shadow, and made that which is naturally so beautiful, much more so. One church was illuminated. It seems very difiicult to find an inscription short enough to be read in lamps ; if it is long, the beginning is burnt out before the end is lighted. The difficulty was much increased by the necessity of making this appropriate to a church. I never heard who had the merit of suggesting the beauti- fully simple 'Our prayers are heard,' The night was beautiful, uncommonly calm and warm. From my window, which looked down upon the High Street, it seemed as if one could really have walked upon the moving mass of heads. In one moment, almost without any previous notice, at least without any that could call the attention of the mob which was so fully occupied, a tremendous storm of thunder and rain came on. The effect was really more like the dissolving of the enchanted spell and the changes of scene in a pantomime, than anything I ever did see or ever expect to see again in real life. The High Street, which was one blaze of light, and one unceasing hum of happiness, THE STAGE. 99 became in the course of five minutes quite dark and quite deserted : nothing was heard but the thunder and the torrents of rain. Where all the multitude could find shelter, I never discovered. I heard afterwards that many who had walked miles from their abodes to see the show, slept upon chairs and tables in the small houses in the suburbs of Oxford. Amidst that crowd in the High Street were, I am told, Alexander and the Grand Duchess,* who, as soon as they could get away from the great dinner in the Eadcliffe library went out to walk incog. This was on the 14th of June. It is curious to remember that the season was so backward that on this day there was the greatest difficulty in pro- curing one small dish of strawberries to deck the royal banquet, the forced strawberries being all over and the natural not ripe. THE STAGE: MISS FAEREN, MRS. SIDDONS, MISS O'NEIL, K.EMBLE, TALMA. The transition from princes and statesmen to actors and actresses, was natural enough in the first quarter of the * The Grand Duchess of Oldenburg, who attracted great at- tention by her showy person and dress. The Oldenburg bonnet speedily became the rage. It was remarkable for the length of the poke and the height of the crown. By way of caricaturing it in the pantomime, Grimaldi appeared with one of the old-fashioned coalscuttles on his head and a chimney-pot on the top. When the restored princes re-entered Paris m 1814, the Duchess of Augouleme gave offence by her quiet style of dress and flat bonnet, supposed to be a servile adoption of English fashions. H 2 !*• GAERICK. century, whatever it may appear now. The stage was an important part of the intellectual life of the contemporaries of the Kembles, Kean, and Miss O'Neil. A striking illustra- tion is given by Dr. Doran, who states that, on one evening in 1804, when young Betty played Hamlet^ ' the House of Commons, on a motion by Pitt, adjourned and went down to the theatre to see him. Charles Fox read ' Zanga ' to the httle actor, and commented on Young's tragedy with such effect that the young gentleman (then in his 14th year) never imdertook the principal character.'* The stage divided the attention of the literary world with poetry and romance. The appearance of Joanna Baillie's ' De Montfort,' Milman's 'Fazio,' Maturin's ' Bertram,' or Shiel's ' Evadne,' was an event httle inferior in interest to the publication of ' Marmion ' or ' The Corsair.' In assigning so prominent a place to the acting drama, therefore, Miss Wynn simply reflects the opiaion of the time. Nothing appears to me more difiScult than even to preserve an idea of the pleasure one has derived from good acting. I am quite convinced no description can give the least idea of that which one has not seen. After having heard and read so much as I have of Garrick, I have often looked at the picture in St. James's Square,-]- and fancied I had some idea of him; but then, when I saw Mr. Angerstein's picture of Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy, I found it so different that all my ideas were overturned. * Their Majesty's Servants: Annals of the English Stage, vol. ii. p. 416. t No. 18, the to-sni house of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, MISS FAEEEN — MBS. SIDDONS. 101 I certainly recollect Miss Farren on the stage, and remember very clearly her taking leave of it, but nothiag remains upon my mind which would lead me from my own knowledge to say that she was an excel- lent actress. I know I was told so ; but in the part of Lady Teazle, in which I saw her frequently, 1 could not point out one prominent part which has left on my mind an impression of excellence. Perhaps the absence of prominent parts may, to a certain degree, be con- sidered as the characteristic of that never-failing elegance and ease which marked her performance. Perhaps, too, it is just the sort of excellence which is the least likely to strike and captivate the imagination of a very young person. I recollect (not the admirable acting in the famous screen scene but) the circumstance of seeing Lord Derby leaving his private box to creep to her behind the scene ; and, of course, we all looked with impatience for the discovery, hoping the screen would fall a little too soon, and show to the audience Lord Derby as well as Lady Teazle.* Mrs. Siddons in her prime is certainly a bright recol- lection, but I did not feel for her acting quite the - Dr. Doran states that Miss Farren took herfinal leave of the stage in Lady Teazle on the 8th April, 1797, S,nd was married to Lord Derby on the May-day following, his countess having died on the 14th of the preceding March. In allusion to the earl's attachment to the actress, Horace Walpole writes to Miss BeiTy in 1791 : 'I have had no letter from you these ten days, though the east wind has been as constant as Lord Derby.' 102 MISS o'neil. enthusiasm that most people profess. It was too artificial for my taste : her attitudes were fine and graceful, but they always seemed to me the result of study : not like Miss O'Neil, who always was graceful merely because she could not help it, because it was impossible to throw those beautifully formed limbs, and especially that neck, into any position that was not beautiful. At the same time I must say, in Isabella, and in Jane Shore, Miss O'Neil struck me as very inferior indeed to Mrs. Siddons. She never excited that deep thrill of horror which made my blood tingle at my fingers' end. I was melancholy, and that was all. Miss O'Neil had sense enough to refuse the character of Lady Macbeth, conscious that her powers were inade- quate to it. I never saw Mrs. Siddons with a good Macbeth ; for Kemble I never reckoned tolerable ; nor did I feel I knew what the character was till I heard Mrs. Siddons read the play. Certainly, in that reading, some speeches of Macbeth's, and almost the whole of the witches', were the parts that struck me most. Probably Lady Macbeth, however excellent, had by frequent re- petition lost some of her power ; certainly (I felt) in that part Mrs. Siddons could no longer surprise me. Yes, she did though. I looked with impatience for the grand sleep-walking scene, and thought I would take advan- tage of my position, which was very near her, to watch the fine, fixed, glassy glare which she contrived to give MES. SIDDONS. 103 to her eyes. Alas ! that was quite gone, whether the diminution of the natural fire of the eye presented this efifect, or whether the muscles were grown less flexible from age and want of constant practice, I know not, but I feel quite certain of the fact. It struck me when I saw her once more, in one of her frequent re-appear- ances, act Lady Macbeth on the opera stage. Then, my pleasure in seeing her was increased by my delight in watching the effect she produced on the very eloquent though plain countenance of Madame de Stael, who sate in the stage box, literally wrapped up in the per- formance. Mr. Grreathead, who had been in the habit of hearing Mrs. Siddons read Macbeth even (he said) from the period of her being his mother's maid,* before she had appeared on any stage up to the present moment, told me he was struck with a great difference in her manner of reading the witches' scenes after the appear- ance of ' Guy Mannering.'t He said it was quite clear to him that Meg Merrilees had explained to Mrs. Siddons, Shakespeare's idea in the witches. This he told * When Mrs. Siddons, then Sarah Kemble, was very young, she left her parents in a pet, because they would not let her marry Mr. Siddons, and entered the service of Mr. and Mrs. Great- head, of Guy's Cliff; whether as reader, nursery maid, or lady's maid, has been disputed, and matters little. Mr. Campbell says her principal employment was to read to Mrs. Greathead {life of Mrs. Siddons). t Guy Mannering was published in 1815. 104 MKS. SIDDONS — MISS O'nEIL. me upon my observing with delight upon their totally altered appearance on Drury Lane Theatre, which I as- cribed to the same cause. I consider this as one of the most singular and at the same time the most glorious triumphs of the genius of the Great Unknown, as it is now the fashion to call him. I can hardly conceive any- thing finer than the expression which Mrs. Siddons gave to the simple reply, 'A deed without a name.'* It seemed full of all the guilty dread belonging to witch- craft ; and it is just this idea of guilt which seems to me so difficult to convey to our minds, which are so engrossed with the folly of the whole thing that we do not recollect it was a sin. My delight, my astonishment, when I first saw Kean in most of his great parts, I recorded at the time and therefore do not mention here. Miss O'Neil gave me great pleasure, but it was altogether a lighter sensation than that excited by Mrs. Siddons or Kean. There was none of that thrill which more exactly answers the idea of pleasing pain than anything I ever felt, and I can hardly attach any other meaning to the words. She was sometimes very affecting, always graceful, pleasing, but I think never great, and certainly never offensive. I am, upon recollection, inclined to doubt whether her scene with Lord Hastings in ' Jane Shore ' might not * Macb. How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags ! What is 't you do ? All. A deed without a name. MISS o'neil. 105 deserve the epithet of great : in the last scene she fell very far short of Mrs. Siddons. I could imagine a person looking at those features, which, though hand- some, are certainly very deficient in expression, and asking how could that face succeed on the stage ? She must have painted her eyebrows, for how could there be any expression in a face so entirely without brow as hers ? I should be puzzled to answer these enquiries, but I believe both Miss O'Neil and Kean (in a lesser degree) may be adduced as instances of expression without features, and may show how much feeling may be betrayed by the human frame, independent of the face. Still there certainly was a powerful charm in the evanescent hue of Miss O'NeU's delicate complexion. I saw her once in Mrs. Haller give interest to the dull scene in which old Tobias pours forth his tedious grati- tude ', her rosy blushes showed how unmerited she felt every commendation bestowed on a creature so guilty. In the whole of this part she appeared to me absolute perfection ; one trait of nature enchanted me. In the last scene, after having been pleased by her appear- ance of deep contrition, her painful consciousness of degradation, I anticipated with pain the sort of disgust which I had always experienced at the return of the jewels. The whole incident seems to me too trifling, and becomes ludicrous when Mrs. Haller, looking to see whether they are all right, makes an oration on each 106 TAIMA. article.* With these feelings what was my delight when Miss O'Neil, who had kept her eyes steadily fixed on the ground and appeared really sinking into it, in taking the box from the stranger looked at him for the first time, and by that look told us more than by words how he was altered, her fears, her love, &c. &c. In short, I looked at her face and quite forgot the jewels, which, even the first time the play was ever acted, nearly made me disgrace myself by laughing in the midst of the tears and screams which Mrs. Siddons called forth. Talma has extremely delighted me. I never go to a French tragedy expecting that close and sober imitation of nature which one looks for on the English stage: one might as well look for it in the midst of opera recitative as in the jingle of rhyme, fcjtill it is pleasure, and great pleasure too, though of a different nature. I think Talma superior to every performer I ever saw in the expression of bitter scorn, especially when it is mixed with irony. Still, I think he never gave me as * Strang. And now I may at least desire you to take back what is your own — your jewels. (Cfives her the casket.) Mrs. Sailer (opens it in violent agitation, and her tears burst upon it). How well I recollect the sweet evening wlien you gave me these ! That evening, my father — ;joined our hands ; and joyfully I pronounced the oath of eternal fidelity. It is broken. This locket you gave me on my birthday. This bracelet I received after William was born. No ! take them — take them ! I cannot keep these, imless you wish that the sight of them should be an uicessant reproach to my almost broken heart. (Gives them hack.) TALMA. 107 much pleasure on the stage, as he did in Lady Charle- ville's drawing-room, where I heard him talk over English and French acting, express his wish to unite the merits of both, and deprecate the horrible accuracy with which the last mortal throes are often represented on our stage. He spoke of Kemble's Macbeth, wondered at his tameness — especially immediately after the commis- sion of the murder, and said that his whole frame ought to have spoken of the horrid deed. Thus far everybody must have agreed with him; but when the very natural question, Qu'auriez vous faitf was put to him, and he proceeded to act his feelings, I, for one, thought it most absurd, because then my ideas were screwed to the pitch of Macbeth and nature. Probably I might have admired if I had been screwed up to the pitch of Oreste and French rant. Much ought to be allowed for the super- abundance of action which the French bestow on the relation of the common events of life, and in ordinary conversation. What would I give to have been present at a scene related to me that evening by Sir J. B. Burgess. He had, a few days before, introduced Talma to Lady Charleville.* After a little commonplace. Talma was * Catherine, Countess of Charleville, wife of the first earl, a woman of many and vaiied accomplishments, and of masculine strength of understanding, ^he died at an advanced age in 1849. The translation of Voltaire's Pucelle, still fretiuently ascribed to her in book catalogues, was always indignantly denied by her. It was executed and printed for private circulation by her second 108 FISTKUCCI. drawn on, as if electrified by finding in her a kindred admiration of his hero. Napoleon ; and related all that passed on the last memorable day of departure from Fontainebleau. He gave the speeches of Talleyrand, of Napoleon, of a physician who acted a conspicuous part, with such an accurate imitation of their several manners, that Sir James told me he felt as if he too had been present at the scene. This evening Talma recited to us Hamlet's soliloquy, in English ; he has been for so large a portion of his early life in England, that the thing was upon the whole much less absurd than might have been expected ; there was no very striking gallicism, excepting the word consu- mation. PISTEUCCI, THE IMPEOVISATOEE. Last night I heard Pistrucci, the improvisatore, for the third time, and my account of him will be far less favourable than if I had written it after the first or second time of hearing him. Even now I cannot believe that it is solely because the charm of novelty is past, and the edge of curiosity blunted, that my feelings are so changed. That this is partly the case I am aware, and feel also, that the more one hears him, the more one becomes aware of the very large husband, the Earl of Charleville, prior to their marriage, and TPaa not at all in her style. She delighted in refined wit and detested coarse humour. PiSTRtrcci. 109 proportion of absolute commonplace which pervades his verses. Still, with all this allowance, I cannot but be- lieve that his performance last night was really inferior to what I had heard before. Last night I liked him best in the return of Corio- lanus to Rome : two attempts were downright failures ; the one was Sancho, in his government of Barataria, the other the destruction of Pompeii. The first proved to me that he does not possess one particle of humour ; but perhaps I maybe wrong, if the total ignorance of the story which he professed be genuine, and if he really took his cue only from the little related to him at the moment. No such excuse can be made for his failure in Pom- peii; the subjectwas necessarily well known to him, and had he succeeded I should not have given him much credit concerning it — one which must have been so frequently given before. As it was, I own I can even now hardly believe anyone could have been so very tame on a topic so inspiring. There was nothing in this evening's per- formance to convince one of the reality of his impromptu talent ; at his public performance, he seized so many of the circumstances arising at the moment, that the most incredulous could no longer doubt his power of versify- ing quite instantaneously ; but I should not say that he rises with his subject. Till I heard him fail in Pompeii, I was inclined to ascribe much of his failure to ignorance of the subject. On one occasion, he gave a new view of a threadbare theme, Waterloo : he took 110 THE EEV. EDWAED lETING. the rising of the third sun on a field of blood, des- cribed finely the cannon obscuring his brightness, &c. &c. THE KEV. EDWARD IRVING. The familiar instance of the Eev. Mr. Spurgeon may help to convey a notion of the more extended popularity and more durable influence of the Eev. Edward Irving, the founder of a sect which is still in full vigour. His successful career as a London preacher commenced in 1822, and lasted tiU 1832, when he was displaced by the Presbytery for preaching doctrines which they reasonably enough deemed heterodox. In July 1823, Lord Eldon writes to Lady M. Bankes : 'All the world here is running on Sundays to the Caledonian Chapel in Hatton Garden, where they hear a Presbyterian orator from Scotland, preaching, as some ladies term it, charming matter, though downright nonsense. To the shame of the King's ministers be it said, many of them have gone to this schism-shop with itching ears. Lauderdale told me that when Lady is there the preacher never speaks of a heavenly mansion, but a heavenly Pavilion. For pther ears, mansion is sufficient. This is a sample.' * The reviewer of an excellent ' Life of Irving,' by Mrs. Oliphant, states that the little church of Hatton Garden was not only crowded, but fiUed, with the very audience after which he had longed, ' with imaginative men, and poHtical men, and legal men, and scientific men, who bear the world . 3 : * Twisa's Life of Eldon, vol, ii. p. 483. THE EET. EDWAKD lETING. Ill in hand. The Duke of York (continues the reviewer)' had been already interested in him at his first outset ; Wilkes soon found out and appreciated his powers ; Brougham is reported as one of his early auditors, and to have taken Mackintosh, who repeated to Canning an expression which he had heard Irving use in prayers, of a bereaved family being thrown on the fatherhood of God — an expression that so struck the statesman that he, too, was drawn to hear him, and to allude to his marvellous eloquence in the House of Commons.' * It was about this time that Miss Wynn heard him, and her description of his oratory gives a much better impression of it than could be collected from, his printed Orations, in which the imagery is chastened and the extravagance toned down. He was a very tall man, with impressive features, and he wore his hair long and parted in the middle, in obvious imitation of the pictures of Christ. Like Balfour of Burley, he ' skeUied fearfully with one eye,' if not with both, but lost no favour on that account. When WUkea's obliquity of vision was objected to him, an enthusiastic partisan vowed that he did not squint more than a gentleman ought to squint ; and the ' angels ' of the Irvingite creed seemed to think that a certain obliquity of vision was becoming in a saint. He died in 1834, in his thirty-ninth year. The contradictory opinions of the press gave rise to an amusing squib, entitled, ' The Trial of the Eev. Edward Irving;' in which the different editors and critics appeared as witnesses. June 29th, 1823. — I am just returned from hearing, for the first time, the celebrated Scotch preacher Irving, » minb. Rev. for Oct. 1862, p. 441. 112 THE EET. EDWARD IRVING. and highly as my expectations were raised, they are more than satisfied. At first, I own I was very much disappointed : his first extempore prayer I did not at all like ; his reading of the 19th chapter of John (for he never gave to any of the Apostles the title of Saint) would have been very fine if its effect had not been frequently spoilt by extraordinary Scotch accents. He spoke of the high-sup, of being crucifeed, scorged, &c. &c. For twenty minutes, he went on talking of the enemies of our faith as if we had been living in the ages of persecution and of martyrdom, of himself as if he were our only teacher and guide, and of the good fight as though it were real instead of being metaphorical. Indeed, his action might almost have led one to suspect that he considered it a pugilistic contest. I thought all this part vulgarly enthusias- tic, self-sufficient, dogmatical. Disappointment is not a word strong enough to describe my feelings, which nearly amounted to disgust. Then he told us that the intention of the following discourse would be to show from the page of history what man had been through all ages, in all countries, without the light of revealed religion. My brother whispered me, 'We have been twenty-three minutes at it, and now the sermon is to begin.'' I felt exactly with him, and yet after this expression, I can fairly and truly say that the hour which followed appeared to me very short, though my attention was on the full stretch during the whole time. THE BET. EDWARD IRVING. 113 Irving began with comparing the infancy of nations to the infancy of individuals ; told us that was generally supposed to be the season of their greatest innocence : took as examples the early ages of Persia, Greece, and Eome. He reprobated the false arguments of those who, in speaking of heathens, adduce such men as Solon, Socrates, &c., as general examples ; as well might we, said he, take the heaven-inspired Milton as the test of the republicans of his day ; the noble-minded Falkland as a specimen of the cavalier soldiers ; Fenelon as one of the Court of Louis XIV. ; D' Alembert as one of the wicked pernicious cotry (as he called it) whose aim was the sub- version of all order civil and religious ; or Carnot as the model of that hellish crew of republicans who destroyed all religion and deluged their country with blood. Then came a splendid burst of eloquence on the vices of the ancients. He appealed to their vases, especially to those intended for the sacred purpose of containing the ashes of the dead ; to the sculpture, still adorning the doors of their temples, as records of such vice as is not known in the most depraved of modern times. He asserted that if it were possible that social virtue, that self-govern- ment, could be attained without the aid of Christianity, Greece, which had discovered perfection in almost every branch of art, and had gone so far in science, would not have remained without these attainments. From them he proceeded to the Eastern nations, of whose vices he I 114 THE RET. EDWAED IRYINO. gave a still more disgusting picture, and especially those of the inild Hindoo, as false sentiment and philosophy have termed them : their language does not even possess words to express many of the virtues most revered among us, chastity, temperance, and honesty.* Having stigmatised most of the heathen nations of ancient and modern times with the vices uniformly found to degrade all savages, he proceeded to speak of those who have been considered as the brightest examples, and first of the Stoics. In the diflBcult task of self- government, they seem to have made much progress; but in steeling the heart against some temptations of passion, &c., they also steeled it against every kindly affection, made its every feeling centre in self. If, he said, stoicism may be said to have enjoyed what he termed the mowihood of the soul, it had none of the womanhood, none of the feelings that adorn, comfort, or endear human nature. He .proceeded to draw a beautiful parallel between the state of the Stoic, and .that of Adam before it had pleased the Almighty to bestow on him a helpmate. He asserted that, in argument, in reasoning, the modern philosophers were very superior to the ancient, and added, that many very commonplace writers were, in this respect, very far superior to the most celebrated ancients, even to Cicero * This is a mistake. There are Hindoo words for each of these virtues, and chastity has been deified. The Hindoo name for the Goddess of Chastity is Arundadi, THE EET. EDWAED lEVING. 115 himself.* This superiority, which by-the-bye I am a little inclined to doubt, he ascribed entirely to the influence of Christianity, and spoke of its effect, even on those who deny its truths and exert their talents to write against it. How, he said, can a man who has sucked with his mother's milk the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, whose mind has been nurtured with the sublime poem of Milton, with the Pilgrim's Progress, nay, even with the plays of Shakespeare — how can this man be said to be free from the effects which Christianity produces on the mind ? He told us he conceived the spirit of religion to be even yet quite in its infancy ; he trusted that we might see it make the greatest progress. If the rulers of the state would be governed by the plain rule of Christian duty, instead of the rules of worldly policy and expediency — if the more graceful part of the creation who govern the manners of this great city, would add the Christian graces to their other graces, would consider themselves as the spouses of Christ — if the critics who govern its literature would attend as much to the rules of Christianity as to those of human learning — what might not be the effects ? It was quite impossible to look at Lord Liverpool and Lord Jersey, placed immediately opposite to the * The modems, in tMs respect, have heen compared by an ad- mirer of the ancients to a dwarf standing on a giant's shoulders, and thus seeing farther than the giant. I 2 116 THE EET. EDWAED lETING. preacher, and not fancy that the first and second of these appeals were addressed to them. As to the third, if Mr. Brougham and Sir James Mackintosh were not in the church, the preacher was likely to have prepared for them, as they have been there very frequently of late. After having written so much about this oratwii {sermon* I cannot call it), it is quite unnecessary to say that I admired it extremely, at least in parts. I am conscious that there were great faults, even n the latter part, in which were also transcendent beauties. Want of simplicity is the greatest ; even all Irving's energy could not give earnestness to such invariably figurative language. With this was occasionally mixed vulgarity bordering on coarseness in the images, excess of actioi^, and occasional repetitions. Still there is extraordinary power, power which m^es me feel I never knew what eloquence was till I had heard Irving, and at the same time leaves me with the most eager desire to hear him again on Sunday, in spite of all the impediments of crowd, heat, distance, and hour. His reading the lesson was very fine, but what de- lighted me most was the solemn, simple, energetic manner in which he gave the blessing. The prayers did not please me : he prayed for our own ancient simple painstaking Church ; then for the Established * Note hy Miss Wynn. — It is singular that I should chance to use the very word by which Irving himself called these oomposi- j tions, when they were published soon after (in 1823). THE EET. EDWARD IRVING. 117 Church, that her dignitaries may be dignified, and may be enabled to take due care of the widely-ex- tended districts committed to their charge. The plain psalm-singing, in which the whole congregation joined, particularly delighted me ; parts of the version seem to me very fine ; but what I like most is the custom of reading the whole psalm first from the pulpit ; it' gives real devotion to a part of the service which, in our Liturgy, is generally the unintelligible squalling of a parcel of charity children, screaming that which nine- tenths of the congregation cannot follow, and of the other tenth a considerable part are disgusted by the absurdity of the version. July 6th. — I have once more heard Irving, and I know not whether it is because the novelty is over that the impression is weakened, but I feel much less dis- pleased, and at the same time much less pleased, than I was last Sunday. I am quite sure the arrogance, the self-sufficiency, the dictatorial spirit, though still but too evident, were much less striking than in the oration of last Sunday. The coarseness and vulgarity were also in great measure avoided, but the metaphors were still very superabundant, and also were generally pushed much too far. It appeared to me that this oration was deficient in clearness, but perhaps my understanding, as vrell as my hearing, was dulled by the various incon- veniences of the sitiiation in which I found myself; close to the door, far removed from the preacher, and separated lis THE KEY. EDWARD IRTING. only by the thin partition of the pew from a crowd who squeezed and made incessant noise. Even when one did not hear some voices crying for mercy and others for silence, the crowd pressed against the pew till they made every board creak, and kept one in continual apprehension that at last they would give way. During the last hour of the oration the people were more quiet ; some servants, who I believe came for the fun of pushing about, were turned out, and we heard better. The general outline of the subject was still to show how inefficacious was mere morality to constitute the happiness of man in this life. He said he had purposely omitted drawing any argument from the future state, as he was anxious to prove his facts from those truths which are admitted even by unbelievers, but he must address one observation to those who, believing in a future state, lived as if they thought of this world only. He said their conduct was like that of a mother who, in bringing up an infant, could fancy that it was always to remain in the same state, was always to be fed as a nursling, to be swathed, to be led like an infant. This simile, though a happy one, was spun out to a length which destroyed its effect. Soon after followed a beautiful hurst of eloquence on that power of Christianity which could bend the rebellious stubbornness of the heart, strengthen the tender heart, prop the weak, and enable it to tear itself from those affections which are dearer far than a right eye. Nature would teach a far different doctrine, THE EEV. EDWAKD lEYING. 119 an eye for an eye ; nature and the world we live in are setting their adverse currents against the proper course of the human heart. Where, but in Christianity, is to be found the electric spark which is to repel them ? ' Where, but in her, is to be found the mighty trident to stem these storms and currents ? One assertion of Irving's was not a little startling : he told us he considered Hume as one of the most powerful advocates of revealed religion who has ever appeared. That able metaphysician has, he said, proved the inefficacy of mere human reason, &c. &c. I own I could not help thinking while he made this strange assertion that it was not unlikely that some one of my neighbours in the aisle would, upon the recommenda- tion of their pastor, take the first opportunity of edify- ing themselves by a perusal of the works of this power- ful advocate of Christianity. I am sure that from his oration they could never have discovered that this was not a plain matter of fact. He gave us a beautiful illustration of Jacob's ladder, calling it emblematical of the Christian dispensation which had opened the communication between heaven and earth : the angels ascending he called the human affections drawn up to heaven, and those descending the divine Spirit shedding its consoling influence in return. An exhortation (which appeared to me very common- place) to those who were leaving the crowded city for the beautiful scenery of nature, concluded the oration. 120 THE QUEEN OF WitKTEMBEE*}. The concluding prayer was the best I have heard from Irving, but it is in this part that the want of sim- plicity is most apparent, and totally destroys all the earnestness which he vainly tries to supply by vehement gesticulation. Some expressions (and those not the* best) were repeated from the prayer of last Sunday; we had again ' ennoble the nobles,' ' dignify the digni- taries,' to which he added, 'with the dignity of religion and virtue.' In the first prayer we had this strange ex- pression, 'Clear our souls from the obscuration of sin.' THE QUEEN OP WtJETEMBEEG, ' Nt^ PKINCESS EOTAL OP ENGLAND ' — NAPOLEON AT "WiJRTEMBERG — GEOK&B THE third's insanity. Stuttgard : Oct. 1823. — In the midst of the incessant gossip of the Queen Dowager, the subject of which is almost always herself and her family, some curious grains may be collected from a quantity of useless chaff. There is no topic on which she seems to me to show such. good sense as in speaking of Napoleon. I heard her say, ' It was of course very painful to me to receive him with civility, but I had no choice ; the least failure on my part might have been a sufficient pretence'for depriving my husband and children of this kingdom. It was one of the occasions on which it was absolutely necessary to f aire borme mine a mauvaisjeu. To me NAPOLEON AT WiJRTEMBERG. 121 he was always perfectly civil.' I have since heard that he gave her facilities for correspondence with her own family at the time that the state of Europe would otherwise have made it nearly impossible. The Queen, who is always trying to puff off the con- jugal tenderness of her husband, told my mother that he left it to her option whether she would receive Napoleon. She said, ' I could not hesitate ; it was my duty.' I do not give her any credit for a determination so perfectly natural ; few women would, I think, have hesitated under the same circumstances, even if the option given her was not an order given in a more polite form. I do give her much credit for the honest candour with which she now speaks of the fallen conqueror, though perfectly aware that it is very disagreeable to most of the members of her own family, and especially to the King. The Queen of Bavaria was not as wise, and upon some occasion when Napoleon was incensed at some slight from her, he said she should remember what she was but for him, la fille cCun miserable petit Margrave (Baden), and imitate the conduct of the Queen of Wiirtfemberg, la fille du plus grand Roi de la Terre. The Queen said that the great preparations made in the palaces at Stuttgard Louisbourg for the reception of Napoleon, were not with her approbation, and that she said to the king, ' Mon ami, vous devriezfaire le pauvre au lieu d'etaler vos richesses, si vous ne voulez pas avoir des fortes contributions a payer.' It was 122 GEOKGE THE THIED's INSANITY. ridiculous enough to hear her say how, when Napoleon admired the Lyons embroidery and said, ' I cannot have such at the Tuileries,' she told him it was her work, adding, ' Grod forgive me, that was a lie.' When he made the same observation on some other instance of magnificence, she told him it was all done by the ' Due, mon beauphre,'' and in relating this, added the same corrective. She said the manners of Napoleon were extremely brusque, even when he was making the civil. She had seen both Josephine and Marie Louise with him, and seems to have been less pleased with the manners of the former than most persons who saw her. Napoleon used to play at whist in the evening, but not for money, playing ill and inattentively. One evening when the Queen Dowager was playing with him against her husband and his daughter (the Queen of Westphalia, the wife of Jerome) the King stopped Napoleon, who was taking up a trick that belonged to them, saying, ' Sire, on ne joue pas id en conqui- ranV The Queen spoke much of her father, of his recovery from his first illness : mentioned the story one has often heard of his vrish to read ' King Lear,' which the doctors refused him, and which he got in spite of them, by asking for Colman's works, in which he knew he should find the play as altered by Colman for the stage. This I had often heard, but the affecting sequel was quite new GOD SATE THE KING, AND HTDER ALLY. 123 to me ; and fatiguing as the visits to Louisbourg are, I wished I had been there to have heard it from the Queen's own mouth. When the three elder princesses went in to the King, he told them what he had been reading. He said, ' It is very beautiful, very affecting, and very awful,' adding, ' I am like poor Lear, but thank God, I have no Eegan, no Groneril, but three Cordelias.' The Queen wept in relating this ; and my mother says, she felt as if she could have done the same. GOD SAVE THE KING, AND HTDEE ALLT. June 1824. — I heard the other day from Miss Stables, a singular instance of the power of music, which I am anxious to remember because it is so well authenticated. When her father was a very young man, he followed his regiment to the East Indies. Upon some occasion (I forget what) this regiment gave a dinner to that savage tyrant, Hyder Ally, who a short time after returned the compliment by sending the greater part of those present to the far-famed Black Hole.* During dinner the regi- mental band played, and ended by playing God save the King. Hyder Ally appeared much struck, and fainted at last from emotion. Mr. Stables was one of those who * This is an obvious mistake. Miss Wynn was probably think- ing of the treatment experienced by the British officers and soldiers after the battle with Hyder AUy of Sept. 10, 1780. 124 IMPEOVISATORI. assisted in removing him from the dining-room, and who, standing by when he recovered, heard him exclaim, 'Is your King a God that you adore him with such music as that ? ' IMPROVISATOR!. June 1824. — I have heard another improvisatore, a man of the name of Eosetti, who, I am told, has pub- blished poems of great merit. His improvisazione I consider as decidedly inferior to almost all I have heard of Pistrucci's. I am inclined to believe that his lines were more harmonious ; but am not quite sure that I may not have been deceived and blinded, or rather deafened, to any harshness of rhythm by the beauty and musicalness of his tones. From what I heard this evening, I am more than ever convinced that with its surprising novelty the talent of improvisazione* has lost its principal charm for me. The numberless expletive expressions which occur so frequently, and seem to fill up each pause as regularly as the accom- panying music, become very fatiguing ; and Eosetti very rarely relieved their sameness by any passage of spirit. The subjects chosen I thought indifferent. The first was the treachery of Csesar Borgia, who invited five * This is a cumbrous, awkward word in English, hut I caimot, like a lady (I forget who, hut I heard her), say, ' He played an improvisatore on the piano.' IMPROVISATOKI. 125 friends to sup with him and murdered them. Very little indeed was said or sung to reprobate the treachery, but much on the tame, commonplace, threadbare subject of the lamentations of the wives, children, &c. &c. of the deceased. The second subject I think much better, and was, therefore, more disappointed in the performance. It ought, however, in fairness, to be remembered that in this Eosetti was, by his own desire, fettered not only by a given measure, the ottavarima, but also by given rhymes for each stanza. The subject was Lorenzo de Medici going in person and alone, with an embassy from the Republic of Florence, to the treacherous Ferdinand King of Naples ; no other Florentine daring to trust himself in the power of this cruel traitor, who is represented as quite overcome by this instance of generous confidence. A short time ago I heard the Marchese Spinetti, in the course of his lectures on modern literature, treat the subject of improvisatores, and was amused at seeing how very much higher he rates the talent than Foscolo, whom I heard lecture upon it last year. I must say that when he enumerated the infinite variety of knowledge, of talent, of feelings, requisite to make a good improvisatore, I thought he required even more than Imlac, in his well-known definition of a poet, and longed to exclaim, like Easselas, 'Enough! thou hast con- vinced me that no human being can ever be an improvi- 126 IMPEOVISATOEI. satore ! ' This Spinetti would have denied ; and if the wonders which he related of the celebrated improvisa- trice, Gorilla,* are well authenticated, her knowledge must have been fully equal to that of the Admirable Crichton. At one sitting she treated twelve different subjects ; these were repeated to us, and certainly — properly filled — would have comprised a vast fund of knowledge; yet I fancied when I thought them over, I could in most discover the loop-hole by which the improvisatore so often contrives to slip out of the given subject, and glide into the beaten track of commonplace. Spinetti told us he under- stands that Eosa Taddei, now living at Florence, is supposed to be nearly equal to Gorilla. Talking on the subject of improvisazione with Prati, to whom Italian is nearly as familiar as his own language (German), I said, 'After all, it is a talent peculiar to the Italians, and depending, in great measure, upon the facility of versification which their language affords.' He assured me, not only that he had frequently heard the thing done in German, but that want of voice for singing alone would prevent him from doing it himself. Spinetti, in his lecture, spoke of a French improvisatore, who, in his own language, versified impromptu, with all the fetters of a given subject, measure, &c. The Italians have been the most assiduous and successiul professors of this art, but they have by no means enjoyed a * Crowned in the capitol in 1776. LITEEAKT GAINS. 127 monopoly of it. Spain and Portugal have produced many much admired improvisator! ; Germany, a few ; France and Holland, one or two each ; and England one, Theodore Hook of surprising and surpassing merit in his way. Sheridan listened with wondering admiration ; Coleridge, under the combined influence of wit and punch, placed him on a par with Dante • and Byron spoke of him as the only Englishman ever equal to the feat. His favourite mode of exhibition was a comic song, or mock opera, to which he played the accompaniment on the piano. It is worthy of remark that only one of the Itahans (Gianni) has submitted his extemporised effusions to the test of print with even moderate success; and that only one (Metastasio) has acquired an independent and permanent celebrity. LITEEART GAINS. . Dropmore: July 29th, 1823. — I heard to-day, from Mr. Eogers, that Constable, the bookseller, told him last May that he had paid the author of ' Waverley ' the sum of 110,000i. To that may now be added the produce of ' Kedgauntlet ' and ' St. Eonan's Well,' for I fancy ' Quentin Durward ' was at least printed, if not published. I asked whether the ' Tales of my Land- lord,' which do not bear the same name, were taken into calculation, and was told they were ; but of course the poems were not. All this has been done in twenty years: in 1803, an unknown Mr. Scott's name was found as the author of three very good ballads in Lewis's ' Tales of Wonder ; ' this 128 LITERARY GAINS. was Kis first publication. Pope, who had till now been considered as the poet who had made the most by his works, died worth about 800^. a year. Johnson, for his last and best work, his ' Lives of the Poets,' published after the ' Eambler' and the Dictionary had established his fame, got two hundred guineas, to which was after- wards added one hundred more. ' Waverley' having been published in 1814, the sum men- tioned by Constable was earned in nine years, by eleven novels in three volumes each, and three series of ' Tales of My Land- lord,' making nine volumes more ; eight novels (twenty-four volumes) being yet to come. Scott's first publication (' Trans- lations from the German') was in 1796, During the whole of his literary life, he was profitably engaged in miscellaneous writing and editing ; and whatever the expectations raised by his continuing popularity and great profits, they were sur- passed by the sale of the corrected and illustrated edition of the novels commenced under his own revision in 1829. Alto- gether, the aggregate amount gained by Scott in his life- time very far exceeds any sum hitherto named as accruing to any other man from authorship. Pope inherited a fortune, saved, and speculated ; and we must come at once to modern times to find plausible subjects of comparison. T. Moore's profits, spread over his life, yield but a moderate income. Byron's did not exceed 20,000i. Talfourd once showed me a calculation by which he made out that Dickens (soon after the commencement of 'Nicholas Nickleby ') ought to have been in the receipt of 10,000/. a year. Thackeray never got enough to live handsomely and lay by. Sir E. B. Lytton is said to have made altogether from' 80,000i. to 100,000i. by his writings. We hear of sums of NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA, 129 500,000 fr. (20,000Z.) having been given in France for histories — toM. M. Thiers and Lamartine, for example — ^but the largest single payment ever made to an author for a book was the cheque for 20,0002. on account, paid by Messrs. Longman to Lord Macaulay soon after the appearance of the third and fourth volumes of his history ; the terms being that he should receive three-fourths of the net profits. NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA. Hastings, January 1822. — By a singular chance I have met at two consecutive public balls, first, an officer just returned from St. Helena, who was there at the moment of Buonaparte's death ; and secondly, one who was on board the 'Northumberland' when he went to St. Helena. From the first I anticipated much amusement, and expected that the second could only have bored one by repeating a tale which one has so often heard, that one feels possessed of almost all that can be told. In both instances the event proved exactly the reverse of my expectations. The first had never seen Buonaparte, and either could not or would not say any- thing about him. He told me that when he arrived at St. Helena, three or four months before the death of Napoleon, the inhabitants seemed to have entirely for- gotten him ; and that the man who so few years ago was the one subject of interest, of curiosity, of conversation K 130 NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA. through the globe, was never mentioned even within the narrow precincts of his insular prison. As to the other officer. Captain Sweeny of the Marines, he had for ten weeks passed some part of every day. with Napoleon, and was quite as ready to tell as I was to hear all that he knew about him. I first asked whether he had ever seen any instance of that violence of temper of which we have heard so much ; he said, 'Never : ' adding that appearing there only as a guest and for a few hours in company, there could not occur any- thing to provoke his passions. Still, as the narrator went on, I thought that, if the ill-temper had been so very near at hand as we have been taught to believe, there must have been occasions more than sufficient to call it forth. From his own people Napoleon continued to exact all the outward tokens of respect which they had shown to the Emperor. One day he was sitting on deck in rain such as I am told can scarcely be conceived by those who have not felt tropical rains : Bertrand, Montholon, and Lascasas were all standing round him bareheaded. My informant spoke to them, and especially to Lascasas, who has very delicate health, telling them they would make themselves ill if they did not put on their hats : they did not answer, and Buonaparte gave him a very angry look, but said nothing. He then said, ' General, you had better send for a cloak : you'll be wetted to the skin : ' he very sternly replied, ' I am not made of sugar or salt.' Napoleon always spoke in the handsomest manner of NAPOLEON AND SIR S. SMITH. 131 his great rival the Duke of Wellington, and did not, like almost al] of the officers who fought under his banner, attribute their defeat at Waterloo to chance, to a mis- take, &c. He expressed the greatest admiration for the British navy. It was one of the singular chances belonging to his extraordinary reverse of fortune that on board the SfitLjiitendi '- " ^ he found a nephew of Sir Sidney Smith, Napoleon one day in conversation with Captain Usher, after high commendation of his officers and of the treatment which he had met with from them, com- plained that there was one from whom he never could get anything but the shortest monosyllables in reply to all he could say to him. He added, ' I am the more provoked, as I hear Smith is a young man of great talents, who speaks French as easily as his own language, and yet I cannot draw him into any conversation.' Cap- tain Usher remonstrated with young Smith; spoke of the respect due to fallen greatness, of th? rank which Napoleon had so recently held. Smith replied that he hoped he should never be found deficient in proper respect, but he could not conceive it to be a part of his duty to enter into conversation with Napoleon; adding, that if he had enquired who he was, he thought he could not wonder at his declining any conversation with the person who had so much persecuted his uncle. When * The ship in which he was conveyed to Elba. K. 2 132 NAPOLEON AND BEETKAND. Napoleon left the ' President ' lie gave a handsome snuff-box to Captain Usher, and rings to every one of his officers but young Smith, who would not accept any present, however trifling, from his hand. Both the officers with whom I have conversed agree in speaking of Bertrand in the highest terms. They say that the only thing they could say against him is that his devotion to his master was sometimes carried so far as to border on servility ; but that conduct which would have been contemptible in the servant of the Em- peror, became respectable in the follower of the exile. His fidelity was the more meritorious when one recollects how many feelings of affection as well as interest militated against it. The scene which Madame Bertrand made, and her attempt at throwing herself into the sea, are well known; but I always doubted whether her repugnance might not have been acted, or rather exaggerated, to increase the merit of the sacrifice which Bertrand was making. By Captain Sweeny's account it was very genuine, and she left no efforts or blandishments untried, by which she could hope to work on his feelings as a father or a husband, to induce Bertrand to relinquish his intention of following his master. That he persisted, we all know, but I did not give him credit for being a very fond husband and father. His son. Napoleon, is I hear now as fine a boy as it is possible to behold. Soon after they landed at St. Helena, Madame Bar- MADAME BEETEAND. 133 trand incurred the displeasure of the fallen despot: it seems that one of the ships of the convoy was com- manded by a Captain Hamilton, who discovered a distant relationship to Madame Bertrand, a Dillon by birth. Of course he showed her more attention on this account, and she received this attention like a Frenchwoman, but with perfect innocence. However, Napoleon was angry, and said to Bertrand : ' Your wife must no longer appear at my table ; she has chosen to receive all the English officers, and from Captain Hamilton these attentions have been most pointed.' To this Bertrand made no answer, and submitted to the being almost entirely separated from his wife, whom he could only see for a very short period. This continued sixteen days, at the end of which time Napoleon, without another word on the subject, said, ' Tell your wife to come to dinner next Sunday.' With all this he treated this devoted servant in a most ungracious manner, and said to him one day before all the English officers : ' As to your fidelity, I value it not ; I know that it is not for my sake that you follow me, but for the sake of the credit you will gain from posterity.' Latterly it is said that Montholon had supplanted Bertrand in his master's favour, and yet he is thought in every respect his inferior. Cap- tain Sweeny said that when, after a tedious voyage of ten weeks, the shores of St. Helena were discovered. 134 EXECUTION OF THE EEBEL LORDS IN 1746. Napoleon seemed at first to feel the joy which animated every other person on board at the idea of leaving the ship ; but when on a nearer approach he discovered the barren rocks and desolate shore of his insulai- prison, the expression of despair, mingled with other feelings, on his countenance was most striking. Napoleon left the deck, went into his cabin, and for many hours would not land. Hopes of escape were not probably at any time entirely extinct, and enabled him to endure his wretched existence longer than could have been expected. While on board the ' Bellerophon ' he said, ' I suppose you, in England, expected me to prove a second Cato, and destroy myself after the battle of Waterloo ; but I was determined to show the world I would be a great man in adversity as well as prosperity.' EXECUTION OF THE EEBEL LORDS IN 1746. Letter describing the execution of the Rebel Lords, in 1746, copied from the original. 'August 20th (1846). — Dear Sir, — As you and Mrs. Grrimstone attended the Lords' tryal, I thought it would not be disagreable to you to have an account of their exit or the last act of their tragedy, especially as I saw part of it, and heard the rest from one who was on the scaffold. The sheriffs came there between 9 and 10 to EXECUTION OF THE KEBEL LORDS IN 1746. 135 see if everything was prepared. The scaffold was nine feet above the ground, with a rail and black bays hang- ing from it. On the floor (which was covered with saw- dust) was fixed the block 2ft. 2in. high and 3 inches broad : near it lay red bags to receive the heads, and two white sheets to wrap the bodies in, and on each side were the coffins with coronets and inscriptions, and on the ground two hearses. The executioner was in blew with gold buttons and a red waistcoat (the cloaths of Fletcher executed by him) : the ax that of a car- penter. ' At 11 the Lords came : Kilmarnock attended by Fos- ter and a young clergyman. Balmerino was dressed in blew turned up with red (his uniform). Groing into the house prepared for them, a spectator asked which was Balmerino, to which he replied, " I am he at your ser- vice." Then turning to Kilmarnock he told him he was sorry he was not the only sacrifice, and asked the sheriffs if they were ready, for he longed to be at home, and said he was asham'd for some of his friends, who shed tears when Lord Kilmarnock came on the scaffold. The bays was turned up that all might see, and the executioner put on a white waistcoat. My Lord had a long discourse with Foster, who pressed him to own there what he had told him privately, — a detestation of the fact for which he suffered; which he did and which Foster has advertised. ' The executioner was a great while fitting him for the 136 EXECUTION OF THE REBEL LORDS IN 1746, block, my Lord rising several times ; and when down on his knees, it was six minutes before he gave the sign, when his head was nearly severed from his body by one blow : a slight cut iinished the execution, and the body fell on its back. . . . ' The scaffold being cleared, and the executioner having put on a clean shirt, Lord Balmerino mounted the stage, and immediately walked to his coffin, and read the inscription, and then called up a warder, and gave him his tye wig, and put on a Scotch plaid cap, and then read a paper denying the Pretender's orders for no quarter, commending him very much: but, being interrupted, he desired (briskly) to go on, and said he should lay down his head with pleasure on that block, pointing to it, and desiring those between him and it to remove. He reflected very much upon General Williamson, but said he had received the Sacrament that morning, and was told it was not proper for a person in his condition to say more of him, hut referred for his character to Psalm 109, from verse 5th to 15th. He said the Pretender gave him leave to enter our service, but, as soon as he could be of service to him, he left us. He talked to the executioner, took the ax in his hand, and tried the block, and told and showed him where to strike (near his head), and gave him three guineas (all he had) ; kneeled down, and presently gave the sign. The first blow did not strike his head off, so that the assistants were forced to lift up DEEAM OF THE DUCHESS DE BEKBT. 137 his body to receive a second, but the third finished him. ' I own I was a great deal more moved when I called on my friend Mr. Gill in the afternoon, and found him in great pain and given over by his Doctor, than I was with what I saw in the morning. ' The Guards attending were 1000, and I am sure the spectators were 100 to 1 of the Guards. ' I am yours and Mr. and Mrs. Grimstons ' Most obliged servant, 'E. Graham.' DEEAM OF THE DUCHESS DE BEKRY. A few months after the death of the Duke, the Duchess had a dream, or vision as they called it, which made a great noise at the time. Lithographic engravings were made of the scene: verses were published before we arrived at Paris in the month of July. It was about this period that the Nuncio gave to M"^ (La Comtesse) Macnamara the paper, of which the following is a copy :— ' Void le Eeve de Mad°. la Duchesse de Berry, tel qu'il a ete conte par cette Princesse a Mons'' I'Eveque d' Amiens, de qui je le tiens : ' Vous connoissez le salon vert de I'Elysee Bourbon. J'y entrais. Je vis centre la cheminee qui est en face de la porte une grande figure blanche qui me fit peur. 138 DEEAM OF THE DUCHESS DE'BEERT. quoiqu'elle n'eut rien de terrible. Elle etoit enve- loppee d'un roanteau parseme de fleurs de lys, et je connus que c'etoit St. Louis. Mad°. de Gontault etoit aupres de moi, tenant deux enfans qui etoient les miens: I'un etait ma fille agee de cinq ans, et I'autre etoit un fils un peu plus jeune que sa sceur. Mad", de Gontault les poussoit vers la figure blanche, et moi je faisais au contraire tout ce que je pouvois pour les retenir. Cepen- dant elle I'emporta surmoi, et mes enfans se trouv^rent tout aupres de St. Louis ; qui posa une couronne sur la tete de ma fille. Je pris cette couronne et la mis sur la tete de mon fils, disant que c'etoit lui qui derait etre couronne. St. Louis reprit cette couronne, et la mit sur la tete de ma fille, mais il en mit une seconde sur la tete de mon fils et je m'eveillai,' This dream produced so strong an effect upon the mind of the Duchess, that the royal family, who at first rejoiced in her deriving consolation from any cir- cumstance, began to grow uneasy at the confidence with which she spoke of all that she would do with her son, just as if he had been actually there.* Monsieur thought it his duty to speak to her most seriously on the subject, and to prepare her for the too probable disap- pointment of her high-raised expectations. The only reply he obtained from her was, ' Ah ! Pwpa, St. Louis en salt plus que vous.' * The Due de Berry was born in the September followinff. CANNIBALISM IN SUMATEA. 139 CANNIBALISM IN SUMATKA, March 1825. — From Sir Stamford Eaffles, I have heard histories of the manners and customs of the Island of Sumatra, so very strange that from any per- son but one who, having been many years governor of the island, was an eye-witness of some of the scenes he described, and in all had opportunity to ascertain the truth, I could not have believed one word. The first undoubted fact which he told me is, that at this time there is in a part (the north-western part, I think) of that island a population of about a million who are canni- bals, and cannibals of a more horrible description than any I ever heard or read of, for they literally eat their victims aKve. This, it seems, is the punishment for three or four great offences : one of which is adultery. An execution for this crime was witnessed by one of the white resident merchants, a person, Sir Stamford says, ' in whom he had perfect confidence,' and was thus described to him : The criminal being tied to a stake, the executioner, armed with a very large sharp knife, asked the injured husband, who on this occasion bad precedence over every person, what piece he chose : he selected the right ear ; which was immediately cat off. An assistant of the executioner placed it on a large silver salver, on which were previously arranged in heaps, salt, pepper of 140 CANNIBALISM IN SUMATRA. various degrees of heat, lemons, &c. The salver was presented to the husband, who, after having seasoned the disgusting morsel to his taste, proceeded to eat it. The next in rank happened to select the nose: the ceremony was repeated ; and the executioner (being a merciful man), after two or three more slices, raD his sword through the body of the wretched victim, and then divided the body among the surrounding multitude, who crowded with savage ferocity to the feast. Sir Stamford told me that, finding that some few among the principal persons expressed disgust at this horrible custom, he exerted his influence to abolish it, but he was answered as if he intended to subvert the pu.blic morals. They made use of the same arguments to defend their practice, as were used in this country to defend one less barbarous, the interment of suicides in the highway.* They said death might happen to any * In 1813 the MU for omitting the embowelling; and quartering in the punishment of high treason, was thrown out in the House of Commons by 75 against 60 ; 'so that (wrote Bomilly) the ministers have the glory of having preserved the British law, by which it is ordained that the bowels of a man convicted of treason shall be torn out of his body whilst yet alive.' The judgment against Captain Walcot (concerned in the Eye House plot) was reversed, because it did not direct that the bowels of the prisoner should be taken out and burned in conspectu ejus et ipso viverde. Lord Russell was one of those who disputed the King's prerogative to remit the hanging and quartering in Lord Stafford's case ; and when his own turn came, the King (Charles 11.) said: 'My Lord Russell shall find that I am possessed of that prerogative which, in the case of Lord Stafford, he thought fit to deny me.' CAHNIBAIISM IN SUMATRA. 141 man, and was not a sufficient punishment to deter from crime : circumstances to excite horror must be added ; and some of those who fed on human flesh seemed to consider themselves as performing a gainful duty. I asked about how many executions might occur in the course of the twelvemonth, and was answered forty or fifty. Among the different villages, besides this, they are in the habit of eating their parents when they become old and useless. These are willing victims. The ceremony begins with music, dancing, and complete intoxication ; and the poor old wretches are killed and roasted before they are eaten by their dutiful children. Latterly, however, some progress was made in civilisation : they began to feel some repugnance at eating their own parents ; and neighbouring villages agreed to exchange their old for food. I naturally asked Sir Stamford whether he did not feel the utmost dread and abhorrence of this savage people. He said, 'Decidedly not: in the other transactions of life, they are a mild, strictly honour- able people.' He gave me a proof of his opinion of them, telling me he had travelled through their district accom- panied by Lady Eaffles, and without any guards or means of defence. They had lodged in their huts, which are very large, and on account of the great moisture of the climate raised on large wooden piles. On one occasion, in one of these huts, above one hundred of these people slept in the same room with the Eaffles' party : but this seems to have been an extraordinary occurrence. 142 CANNIBALISM IN SUMATRA, occasioned by a very stormy night which prevented many from seeking more distant habitations. After all this, nothing is to me so wonderful as the plain historical fact, that Sumatra was discovered by the Portuguese in the year 1 5 1 0, and since that period seems to have been continually the resort of eastward-hound European ships. I conclude that in this large island a remote part has been little visited by Europeans ; still, that little, one should think, must in the course of above 300 years have produced some progress towards civi- lisation. ■ It seems strange, too, that a district large enough to contain a population of a million should be so cut off from all intercourse with the capital and that part of the island which has been so long inhabi- ted by European merchants of different countries. I was astonished to hear that so near the equator a climate so temperate should be found. Sir Stamford said there was hardly a day in the year in which the thermometer did not rise above 80°, and very few in which it was higher than 84°; then, in the night and early morning, it frequently falls to 70°, and this, partly from the extreme moisture and partly from the relax- ation of frame which the previous heat has produced, is felt as severe cold. Sir Stamford says the mermaid is frequently seen on the coasts of Sumatra ; but his report of her appearance is far different from, and much less poetic than, the fabulous histories I have been in the habit of hearing. MEEMAIDS. 143 He describes her appearance as very like that of a cow, and says he cannot conceive how any resem- blance to a woman can have been fancied, excepting in the position of the breasts and in the manner of nursing her young. They have very strong affection for their young, and when these are removed, call them with a loud continual moan, very discordant, and this is the far-famed mermaid's song. This moan is sometimes ac- companied by tears, and a strange property is ascribed to those tears by a kind of poetic superstition. It is sup- posed that the tears which the mother sheds to recall her absent offspring, have the power of attracting towards the person possessing them the one most dear to that person. The precious drops are, therefore, eagerly purchased by lovers, as a kind of talisman to preserve and retain the affections of the beloved object. After writing the above, I looked over Marsden's ' Sumatra ;' I there find the account given by Sir Stam- ford of the race of cannibals exactly confirmed.* The * ' Th^se (offenders) are tried by the people of the trihe where the offence was committed, hut cannot be executed until their own particular raja has been made acquainted with the sentence, who, when he acknowledges the justice of the intended punish- ment, sends a cloth to cover the head of the delinquent, along with a large dish of salt and lemons.' Amongst the many proofs addressed by Mr. Marsden to the incredulous, is the following : — ' When Mr. Giles HoUoway was leaving Tappanuli, and settling his accounts with the natives, he expostulated with a Batta man who had been dilatory in his payments. " I would," said the man, " have been here sooner, but my pangula (superior officer) was detected in familiarity vrith my wife. He was condemned, 144 MERMAIDS. part of the island in which they are found is on the N.E. coast, and is called Batta, and cannot be more than 200 miles from Achin — the northern point where an English factory was established early in the reign of James I. Marsden calls the fish which he says has given rise to the idea of there being mermaids in the tropical seas, the Dayong. He describes the head as covered with shaggy hair, and says the tusks are applied to the same purposes as those of the elephant and, being whiter, are more highly prized. I was conversing on the subject of Sumatra with Mr. Stanley, the Vicar of Alderley, who tells me that it is still more strange that, in this age of discovery, most of the islands in the Indian seas possess unexplored regions in the interior. He instanced Borneo, Ceylon, Mada- gascar (where there seems much reason to believe that there exists a diminutive race, a nation of dwarfs) and the Philippine Islands. As to the latter, he told me that he had the authority of a captain and of a lieutenant of a merchant vessel; who said that two young men mth tails had come to the coast from the interior of the country ; that they came on board their vessel, remained some time, and had even consented to come to England with them, but afterwards either repented and returned and I stayed to eat my share of Mm : tlie ceremony took us tliree days, and it was only last night that we finished him." Mr. Miller was present at this conversation, and the man spoke with perfect seriousness.' — History of Sumatra, p. 394. SPINETTO ON THE PASTORAL DRAMA. 145 home or died (I forget whicli). Mr. Stanley told me he had taken a great deal of pains in examining these men, and never could find any wavering in their testimony, or discover any circumstance which led him to doubt their veracity.* SPINETTO ON THE PASTOEAL DRAMA, •May Wth. — I went yesterday to hear Spinetto's lecture at the institution, when I found that the pastoral drama was the subject. I expected to be much tired, an- ticipating only a discussion on the ' Aminta ' and ' Pastor Fido,' too long and much too full of national partiality for my patience or my estimation of their merits. I was agreeably surprised. Spiuetto is fully aware of the faults of these two dramas, and especially of their tremendous long windedness, and did not dwell upon them very long. He laughed at the attempts made in France at this species of composition, the absurdity of which must be felt by every person who has the least love of poetry or discrimination of character. The French ideas of shepherds and shepherdesses seem to me to be exactly adapted to the stiff, long-stayed, * The Rev. Dr. WolflF stated positively, in the last of his publi- cations, that a nohle English fiimily was distinguished hy the same appendage as these two young men ; and that one of them had the seat of his carriage adapted for the reception of his tail. His nether garments were probably made like Satan's — ' Plis coat it was red, and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole for his tail to come through.' L 146 SPINETTO ON THE PASTORAL DRAMA. hoop-petticoated, powdered, full-wigged caricatures of the human form which Watteau, Boucher, &c., call by these names. When Spinetto came to speak of the pastoral drama in England, he of course began by the 'Faithful Shep- herdess ' of Fletcher.* Praise of the occasional beauties of the poetry and emanations of genius throughout the performance, was nearly overbalanced by blame on occa- sional coarseness and immorality. He then proceeded to the ' Gentle Shepherd,' which he rated higher, adverted to the general diffusion of knowledge in Scotland, and digressing to the eternal never-ceasing topic of additional schools, wished them to prosper, neatly applying a quota- tion from Petrarch, ' Quando luce il sol, ed ovvunque luce.' We then came to ' Comus,' which I feared would scarcely be allowed to come under the denomination of a pastoral drama ; but the praise bestowed upon it fully satisfied my partial feelings. The morality of Spinetto, which I own myself apt to think puritanical and over- strained, was quite in its place when he admired the skill with which the sainted muse of Milton contrived * Can he have forgotten 77ie Passionate Shepherd of Marlow; ' Come live with me and be my love.' The same incongruity may be observed as in the French pastoral : e. g. the damsel is to have — ' Slippers lin'd choicely for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold ; A belt of straw, and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs.' BALLOOJTS.AND DIVING-BELLS. 147 to describe, or rather represent, the licentious couit of Comus without contaminating herself. Spinetto then startled his audience by telling them that we possessed a drama which might be denominated pastoral by a still greater poet. I was puzzled, and could anticipate only the 'Winter's Tale,' which, after all, I think should have been mentioned, though cer- tainly not quite equal to 'As you Like it,' which he terms the most perfect pastoral drama extant. I have often thought that this beautiful play is not generally rated as highly as it deserves, and was delighted at hearing a foreigner commend it so forcibly. At the same time, I cannot go quite as far as my friend Miss Stables, who places it second to ' Hamlet ' only, and above every other play. Now, in reading, I believe I prefer Othello, Lear, and Macbeth. Upon the stage, I am quite sure that the two plays from which I derive most pleasure are ' Macbeth ' and ' As you Like it.' BALLOON'S AND DIVING-BELLS. Stowe : August 1825. — ^Nugent (Lord Nugent) was talking to me on the subject of aerostation, and amused me very much. His sanguine mind still looks, after so many failures, to a degree of progress which may pr6- duce some useful result; and when I expressed utter incredulity,and said, ' Since the discovery of the science, L 2 148 BALLOONS. SO little progress has been made, that I can anticipate very little from the future,' he only replied, 'If from the first discovery of navigation you were to take thirty-five years, you would probably find that, in that period, much less progress was made than has been made in aerostation in the thirty-five years which have elapsed since the discovery.' In the first place, an argument which necessarily rests on probability only, I think worth very little ; but, granting this position, I conceive that the state of science, of knowledge, &c., of that age, will bear so little compari- son with that of the present day, that the parallel must fall to the ground. Though he did not convince me, he surprised me, by telling me how much had been done latterly. By observations on the different currents of wind, with the power of ascending by increasing the quantity of gas, of descending by throwing out ballast, they have acquired some little power of directing the balloon. But the most important discovery is one made by Sadler, which enables them to measure with tolerable accuracy the rate of their flight. A long log-hne is thrown out, and by measuring with great accuracy, by means of a quadrant, the angle which this line makes, they can ascertain the velocity of their flight, and from observation of the compass may form a tolerable idea of their situation. Nugent tells me that a young friend of his ascended with Graham a little time ago ; it was one of the lovely BALLOONS. 149 bright calm days which have been so frequent this sum- mer; still, in the elevated regions of the atmosphere, the cold was intense ; but no peculiar sensation accom- panied this cold. G-eorge (Lord N.) said he asked what was the appearance of the horizon of the earth : ' Cloud,' was the answer ; ' the view was always caught through clouds, which formed an irregular fringe or frame to the picture.' The descent was very perilous : the young man — almost a boy — having asked Graham how high they were, and being told, I forget what, asked 'whether they could not ascend a little higher before they began their descent?' Graham said. Cer- tainly they could, but that he was averse to the idea of expending any more gas, because a small quantity in reserve might be essential to the safety of their descent. When once the ballast is all thrown out and the descent begun, the only means of avoiding any dangerous spot on which the balloon might chance to fall, is by admit- ting a little more of the inflammable gas, rising, and trusting to the wind to convey the machine out of the dangerous neighbourhood. The young man still pressed for a farther ascent; Graham weakly consented ; and the danger he had foreseen actually occurred. As soon as the earth became visible through their glasses, it was evident that they had their choice of dan- gers only : they were coming down between the river and some lime-kilns. The kilns were certain destruc- tion; the moment the balloon approached them the 150 BALLOONS. inflammable gas must have ignited, and they must have been burnt to death. The only alternative was to rise and trust to the wind for conveying them out of this dan- gerous neighbourhood. They had no gas left, and the only means of lightening the balloon was by cutting away the car — without the power (as George observed) of saying 'heads below' — and trusting themselves to the ropes of the balloon itself, which of course rose, having a lighter weight, made still lighter by being close to it, instead of being attached at some distance. At last they fell into the river, and, being both good swimmers, escaped. I forgot to say that another of the modern contri- vances is a pulley, by means of which the aeronaut can draw the car farther from, or nearer to the balloon : by this means the ascent or descent may be checked, and more or less advantage may be taken of the current of wind in which they may happen to find themselves. London, he says, appeared wonderfully regular at this great elevation : every smaller distinction of height disappeared : every building appeared of equal height and of dazzling whiteness. This conversation naturally led us to the diving-bell. I found Greorge had been down in one, in Plymouth Sound. By his account, it must have been precisely similar to that which I saw at Bordeaux. He says, when under the water, you see in the diving-bell about as clearly as you would in a carriage, when the breath has DiyiNG-BELLS. 151 been congealed on the glasses ; though you see very little without, withiu. you can see to read the smallest print. He says, the first thing his companion did, was to direct his attention to the code of signals attached to the side of the bell, and explain them, that George might know what to do in the improbable event of his companion's being seized with a fit. The signals are given by so many strokes of the ham- mer against the side of the bell; the first, and most important of all, which is ' Hold fast where you are,' is given by one stroke ; the second, which is, I shpuld have thought, still more so, is 'Draw up the bell;' the others direct it to be drawn N.j S., E., or W. His companion said, ' Now, you see that pointed rock, if we go on in our present course, the side of the bell must strike against it; it will be overset, and we shall inevitably be destroyed : but there is no hurry ; we will go nearer and examine it.' When they approached he gave the signal to be drawn up higher ; then directing the course so as to come imme- diately over the rock, he desired to be lowered again, and they found themselves with the point of the rock within the bell. George describes the painful sensation in the eais exactly as the man at Bordeaux did; a buzzing and sense of pressure like that arising from a drop of water in the drum of the ear, only stronger. Cotton to deaden this sensation would be a very dangerous 152 CONVEESATIONS WITH GENERAL ALATA. experiment : the compressed air would drive it in so far, it would not be get out again without some instrument. He says, that altogether the sensation is so little dis- agreeable, that he conceives one might remain under water for any length of time. In returning to the air, there is a disagreeable sulphureous smell, for which it is not easy to account, but which is always observed. Greorge did not know whether this smell was experi- enced returning from fresh water as well as from sea water. CONVERSATIONS WITH QENEKAL ALAVA. (Cambronne. Fouch6. Spanish Legate and Aranda. The Popes. Prince de Ligne. The Empress Catherine. First news of Waterloo.) General Alava, for many years Spanish Minister at the Court of Great Britain, is best known as the friend and com- panion in arms of the Duke of Wellington ; who retained through life a warm esteem for him, although political differences may have caused an occasional coolness. Alava, on his part, never wavered in his attachment. After ex- pressing his approval of some measure of Lord Grey's Govern- ment, he suddenly turned round and exclaimed, ' But you must not think I can ever prefer this Government to the Duke of Wellington ; it is he whom I love.' Alava, says Lord Holland in his ' Foreign Reminiscences,' ' was impetuous in temper and heedless in conversation ; but yet so honest, so natural, so cheerful, and so affectionate, that the most reserved man cordd scarcely have given less offence than he, CONTEESATIONS WITH GENERAL ALATA. 153 who commanded the respect of the many by his intrepid openness and sincerity.' Dr. Gleig, after relating the circumstances of the -wound or contusion received by the Duke at the battle of Orthes, adds : ' He was on his feet, however, in a moment, and in a condition to laugh at the Spanish General, Alava, who had likewise been wounded almost at the same instant in that fleshy and very sensitive part of the body, any accident to which is apt to excite the mirth rather than the sympathy of the looker- on. * No one knew better how to interpret the slightest action of his Chief The night before one of the Duke's Peninsular victories, an officer came up to Alava and asked in niuch alarm, ' What will become of us ? We shall have a great battle to-morrow, and Lord Wellington is doing nothing but flirting with Madame de Quintana.' ' I am glad to hear it,' replied Alava, ' if we are to have a great battle to-morrow ; for it is quite certain that all his arrangements are made, if he is flirting with Madame Quintana.' Alava died in 1841. Aix-la-Chapelle : October 9th, 1825. — I am hearing from General Alava a great deal about all those of whom history will one day talk a great deal and tell much that he could contradict on personal knowledge. For instance, he was present when Cambronne was taken, and when he is said to have made the speech so often com- mented upon, 'La Oarde meurt, et ne se rend pas.' He did not say this or anything else, only screamed for a surgeon to dress his wound, having quietly surrendered.! * The Life of Arthur Duke of Wellington, &c. p. 272. t Sibome says that when the French Guards fell back, General Halkett, who had marked out Cambronne, dashed at him with 154 CONYEESATIONS \yiTH GENERAL ALATA, Alava saw the famous correspondence which passed between Fouche and Carnot at the period of the Restor- ation, when the former, as minister of police, was sending all the proscribed into exile. Carnot wrote, Ou veux-tu que faille, traitre ? ' Fouche replied, ' Ou tu voudras, imbecille.^ I am still, after all I have heard in Majorca, asto- nished at the manner in which Madame de Coigny, a professed divote, Alava, and the Prince Pierre d'Aremberg, talk before us heretics of their bishops, cardinals, legates, and even their popes. Alava was telling us of the legate in Spain during the reign of Charles III. He had some discussion with Aranda, then minister, and refused some boon requested for Spain, detailing with great pomp his fears lest the interests of their holy faith might suffer by such concessions. Aranda, provoked, at last said, 'How can you bring forward such arguments to me who know that you are an atheist as well as myself? ' The pious legate quietly replied, ' E vero, ma questo non si dice.' Alava amused me in telling of the same man, the uplifted sword, and was on the point of cutting him down, when Cambronne cried out to him to hold his hand, and surrendered. Just afterwards Halkett's horse fell, and Cambronne made an attempt to escape, but was overtaken by the General, who pulled him back by the aiguillette, and delivered him over to a guard of Osnabruckers. Cambronne himself always denied the historic mot attributed to him, which, according to M. Fournier (L'JEspnt dans I'Histoire), was invented by M. Rougemont, the editor of the Independant, in which journal it originally appeared. THE POPES. 155 manner in which he received the often-repeated question of that fool Charles IV., who made all around him observe the striking resemblance between his son Don Francisco de Paula and the Prince of Peace. The sneer with which the legate first looked at the Queen, then at Manuel, and replied, 'E vero, Sire,' was very weU described. They all speak of the present Pope (Leo XII.) as having been fier libertin, and are not shy of letting you see that they consider his present austerity as mere hypocrisy. Of the late "Pope (Pius VII.) they speak with the veneration which his character seems to demand from all, but which is certainly not felt by the bigoted Catholics, who cannot endure his liberal ideas. They were speaking of the time that he passed in con- finement at Fontainebleau. Napoleon wanted to force him to consent to measures which his conscience dis- approved, and one day, tired out, said to one of his ministers (Fouche,* I believe), 'Why do not you try what ill-treatment can do, short of torture ? I authorise you to employ every means.' The reply was, ' Mais, Sire, que voulez-vous que Von fasse d'un homme qui laisse geler I'eau dans son benitier sans se plaindre de rCavoir pas du feu dans sa chambre ? ' One evening we talked of that extraordinary per- * In his apocryphal M6m.oires, Fouche is made to say that Napoleon, Imowing his repugnance to violent measures against the Pope, never trusted him with the conduct of them. 156 PRINCE DE LIGNE — CATHEEINE. sonage the Prince de Ligne, who for fourscore years had lived with every person of distinction in Europe, and who, to the last rnoment, preserved not only every useful facility, but wit and gaiety besides. He preserved also to the last a singular facility of versification, and was particularly fond of writing epitaphs on himself. They say that he must have written above 500, generally impromptus, and of course worthless.* Madame de Coigny told us an anecdote of that famous progress which Catherine la Grande made through the southern part of her empire, and which the Prince de Ligne has so well described. She was attended by the ministers of the three great European Powers. They arrived at Kiow. She iirst asked the Austrian, Cobentzel, what he thought of the town. He made a set speech on the ruins of the ancient town, contrasting them with the new buildings which she had made, and of course extracting from that part of the subject a long tirade of compliment, &c. &c. When this oration was ended Catherine turns to Segur, the French minister, ' Et vous, Monsieur, qu'en pensez-vous?' ^Madame, il trie semble que Kiow offre le souvenir d'un grand empire et Vespoir d'un autre.' f Catherine then says, ' A voire * He was always writing about Mmself in prose as well M in verse. Amongst the heads of chapters in his Mimoirei et Melanges, we find, 'De Moi pendant le jour,' 'De Moi pendant la nuit,' 'De Moi encore,' 'M^moire par mon coeur,' 'Mes Ecartu, ou Ma Tete en Lihert^.' t Kiow was the capital of the ancient empire of Muscovy. FIRST NEWS OF WATERLOO. 157 tour, Monsieur Fitzherhert (afterwards Lord St. Helens), qu'en dites-vous ? ' ' Ma foi, Madame, je trouve que dest le plus vilain trow que nous ayons encore vu dans toute notre route.' Madame de Coigny says she has laughed at Lord St. Helens about this speech ; he replied that everything that was pretty, everything flat- tering had been said, so that nothing remained for him but the plain truth. She added, ' C'est si Anglais.' I did not know till I heard it from Alava the exact circumstances of the first arrival of the news of the battle of "Waterloo in London. It seems that one morning a partner of the house of Eothschild came to Lord Liverpool, informed him that he had a few hours before received the glorious news, or at least the bare outline; that, having made all the advantage which this exclusive knowledge could give him on the Stock Market, he now came to impart it to Government. He would not answer any enquiries as to the means by which he had acquired the intelligence, and could not give any particulars: he only repeated the assurances of truth of the information. Lord Liverpool thought it cruel on such vague foundations to raise hopes or fears. * S^gm's Tersion is : ' " Comment trouvez-vous la ville de Eaoff? " dit-elle au Comte de Cobentzel. " Madame," r^pliqua le comte avec le ton de I'enthousiasme, " c'est la plus belle, la plus imposante et la plus magnifique ville que j'aie vue." M. Fitzherbert riSpondit a la meme question : " En v6rite, c'est un triste lieu ; on n'y voit que des mines et des masures." Interrog(5 a mon tour, je lui dis, " Madame, Kioff yous ofire le souvenir et I'espoLr d'une grande vUle," ' 158 CONTEESATIONS WITH GENERAL ALATa. To one of his colleagues (Vansittart, I think), who happened to come in, he told the circumstance, and they agreed to conceal it from every other human heing till more was known. There was a cabinet dinner that day at Lord Harrowby's: not one word was said re- specting the news; and Lord Liverpool was returning home full of anxiety. In the street his carriage was stopped by an unknown, who, with some apology, said that he was just come from Downing Street ; that a carriage with six horses, dressed with laurels, French Eagles and colours hanging out of the windows, had arrived : that the glorious news was instantly spread ; and that the messenger was gone to Lord Harrowby's in pursuit of him, through another street from that in which he was met. This, I think, I heard at the time, hut certainly till now never heard the thing accounted for. It seems that the Duke of Wellington, after writing his despatch home, said to Pozzo di Borgo, ' Will you write to Louis XVIII. at Ghent ? tell him only that Napoleon is utterly defeated : that in less than a fort- night I shall be in possession of Paris, and hope very soon after to see him reinstated ; say that excessive fatigue prevents me from writing.'* A messenger was of course immediately sent off to Ghent : when he arrived, Louis and his little Court happened to be assembled at break- * The Duke himself wrote to this effect to Louis XVIII. on the morning of the 19th, but it is highly probable that a brief announcement of the victory was despatched at once. DEATH OF ALEXANDER. 159 fast, in a room whose windows down to the ground were wide open. The embraces, the ejaculations, of course instantly apprised those under the windows of the arrival of good news. Among these was a spy from the house of Eothschild, who had many days been upon the watch: he no sooner heard the news than he rode post to Ostend : there, happening to find a small vessel just sailing, he embarked, and got one tide before the English messenger, who arrived shortly afterwards.* DEATHS OF THE BMPEKOES ALEXANDER AND PAUL. Florence: Dec. 24th, 1825.— We are all here full of speculations upon the subject of the death of Alexander, * The official intelligence of the victory of Sunday, the 18th, did not aiTive in London till late in the evening of Wednesday, the 21st. The despatches were brought by the Honourable Major Percy, brother of the present Earl of Beverley, addressed to Earl Bathurst, and were first opened by Lord Liverpool, at Lord Hare- wood's house in Grosvenor Square. The result -was first announced by the newspapers on the 22nd, but there is a passage in the Times of that day which partially confirms the Rothschild agent story : ' Those who attended to the operations of the Stock Exchange yesterday (21st) were persuaded that the news of the day before would be followed up by something still more brilliant and de- cisive. Omnium rose in the course of the day to six per cent. premium, and some houses, generally supposed to possess the best information, were among the purchasers.' The popular version of the story was that the agent did not stay to verify his conclusion, but started immediately after witnessing the signs of joy mani- fested by the royal party. 160 DEATH OF PAUL. ■which this day's post has announced. Many are incUned to believe that his death has been occasioned by the hereditary complaint which proved fatal to his three predecessors. We had much conversation on the subject, and I heard for the first time that it is now universally believed that Catherine was strangled. There is a species of poetical justice in this, which makes one more inclined to believe than one should otherwise be ; it is even added that Marcoff on his death-bed confessed that he was the agent employed on this occasion. Lord Dillon afterwards gave us the particulars of the death of Paul, derived from a Mrs. Browne and a Miss Kennedy, who were at that time in the nursery of the two younger princes, Nicholas and Michael. It seems that the day before some rumour of the conspiracy reached the ears of Paul: he sent for Count Pannin, who was at that time his minister, and bitterly reproached him for his want of vigi- lance. Pannin, undismayed, professed his perfect acquaintance with all the designs of the conspira- tors; acknowledged himself as one of them, alleging as his motive that all other means of defeating their purpose would have proved vain: and added that now he had all the clue, and had the means of arresting the conspirators as soon as any overt act could be proved against them, which at present was not the case. Paul burst into tears, embraced Pannin, called him his saviour, the guardian of his country, &c. &c. The DEATH OF PArL. 161 Emperor continued oppressed and agitated all the even- ing, which he passed alone with the Empress; saw all his children, kissed and blessed them, and unable to shake off the agitation produced by the conversation with Pannin, retired at an earlier hour than usual. Soon after the conspirators rushed into the room: they were Beningsen (the distinguished general) ; Ou- warow (the man whose tremendous black murderous countenance made such an impression on me when he was in London, as aide-de-camp to Alexander); Subow, a Georgian prince: Pannin, who remained behind a screen.* Paul resisted stoutly, attempted to conceal himself, &c. ; and they seem to have hacked him most cruelly. At last Beningsen and Ouwarow took the sash of one of the sentinels on duty and closed the scene by strangling him, but not till he had received some tremendous blows on the head, and not till one of them (Beningsen, I think) had trampled upon him, and had with his sharp spurs inflicted two wounds in his stomach. Miss Kennedy with her young charge slept in the room immediately over that of the Emperor : she heard the violent uproar ('row,' Lord Dillon called it), trembled, quaked, got the infant out of its own bed * Ttere were in all thirty conspirators, including (Ijesides those named above) two named Subow, Prince Jaschwill, Covmt Pahlen, Tatischeff, &c. The circumstances are differently narrated in each of the best authenticated accounts. M 162 DEATH OF PAUL. into hers, and ■with him in her arms lay expecting some horrible event. This dreadful interval lasted more than an hour, when Madame de Lieven (the mother of the Prince Lieven who was ambassador in England, and then grande maitresse of the Empress) rushed half dressed into the room, and desired Miss Kennedy to bring the Grand Duke to his mother instantly, if she wished to save his life and her own. By the time she reached the apartment of the Empress, all the children and their respective attend- ants were assembled there, half dressed and frightened out of their wits. Alexander and Con stan tine, who were both past twenty, were absent at Petersburg. The Empress, quite frantic, rushed out of the room, collecting her children round her ; and followed by the troop of terrified, half-dressed women, went to the Emperor's room. The sentinels, gained over or terrified by the con- spirators, at first refused her admittance ; but she, partly by her commanding manner, beauty and dignity, and partly by literal strength of arm, overawed them, drove them back, and obtained admission for herself and her terrified train. She threw herself on the mangled body ; would not for a long while believe that life was extinct; then poured forth the most bitter execrations against the murderers, and lamentations for her lost husband ; who (strange to say) brute as he was to everybody else, was kind and still very dear to her. At length, wearied out, she sank half exhausted and half chokiag: one of the DEATH OP PATTL, 163 ladies got her a glass of water ; the rough sentinel who had opposed her entrance, and who probably, at the orders of the conspirators, would have killed her, stopped her from drinking, and said to the attendant, ' Woman, what have you brought ? I insist upon your drinking half the contents of that glass before the Empress touches it.' The feelings of the Empress were naturally most excited by her fears for her children, whom she ex- pected to see murdered before her eyes. In vain the conspirators assured her that she and they were safe : then, with unparalleled brutality, in that chamber, in the presence of her murdered husband, told her all was over, and shouted in her ears, ' Long live Alexander.' That he was privy to the murder there seems but too much reason to fear ; the apology made for him is that he was told by the conspirators that his father must be deposed ; that all resistance was vain : that if he and Constantine wished to avoid sharing his fate, they would remain perfectly quiet, and appear ignorant of what was going on. I should have said before that this scene passed at the summer palace, out of Petersburg; and that the first object of the Empress, when she in any degree recovered her senses, was to get her children into the winter palace at Petersburg, where she felt that in the multitude she should find safety and pro- tection. This was at first refused, but with the spirit of a heroine she rushed amongst the Guards, saying, M 2 164 THE ARCHDUKE CONSTANTINE. ' Who will dare to stop a mother protecting her infant children?' In short, she once more prevailed, and they allowed her to go : two carriages were hrought forward, but she would not hear of being separated from her children, and therefore waited till some old lumbering vehicle was found in which they could all go together. I had always understood that Constantino was a hor- rible brute, but had not an idea of the extent of his cruelty till this event brought his character so much into discussion. I am told that a servant of his said, ' This has been a quieter journey than usual : we have killed only two postillions ; ' and declared that in the last journey Constantine had shot three with his own hand from the carriage. With this ferocity he unites great cowardice. An Englishman now here, a Mr. Aubyn, who has served with him, told me that he has seen him betray great personal fear in action. It was said by somebody that his character was softened, and that since he had been in Poland, where he is Viceroy, you did not hear of such horrid acts of barbarity; which was allowed. And yet, said some one, the following fact took place latterly in Poland : An officer married a young Jewess : he was punished, for this crime, and Constantine sent for her to receive the punishment of the knout. Her beauty produced such an effect upon him that he doomed her to the severer penance of becoming his mistress. The hus- ETJSSIAN BAEBAEISM. 165 band was sent to Siberia: the wretched wife destroyed herself.* ' People do not seem to rate the characters of the other brothers higher. Nicholas, they say, is more dangerous, inasmuch as he has the art to conceal his vices ; Michael seems to be considered as a mere brute. After all, horrible as all this is, it is impossible not to own that in the customs of that semi-barbarous nation, some little excuse is to be found. The person who from childhood has been accustomed to see, or at least hear, the knout administered for the most trivial faults, must in time become hardened in human suffering. I understand that the Eussians resident in this town have been obliged to adopt some other means of punishment for their wretched servants. It was not unusual, on entering a house, to hear the most dreadful screams, and to be told by the lady of the house not to mind : it was only her maid who, having dressed her ill, was receiving so many strokes of the knout.f Complaints were made: the police interfered, and the knout was strictly prohibited. The extremes of splendour and of misery seem to be their habitual modes of life. Demi- doff, who in a state of representation lives more magni- ficently than any person I ever saw, keeping a company * Revolting as this reads, the famous Mar^chal Saxe treated an actor and his wife much in the same fashion with the aid of a lettre de cachet. t Moat probahly of the whip. The knout is reserved for more serious occasions, which, I believe, are defined by law. 166 RUSSIAN BAEBAEISM. of French actors at his own expense, filling his rooms with every magnificence which money can buy — from chairs and tables up to diamonds and pearls, which are exhibited in large cases lined with velvet, and covered with plate glass, exactly like those in Eundell's shop — is living himself in dirt and misery, greater than that of any English cottage. Lord Dillon gave an extraordinary instance of this mixture in Madame Grerebstoff, who passed many years in England. He had some business with her, and went one morning to her house in Harley Street at an hour rather earlier than that of visiting. The servant hesi- tated about letting him in ; he rather insisted on the plea of business, and was taken up to the drawing- room, where he found Madame de G. lying on the couch in a blue silk gown, her hair dishevelled, and a diamond tiara hanging down on one shoulder, the rouge on her cheeks streaked, her person and dress looking as dirty as possible. Seeing probably his amazement, she said: ' Ah ! mon cher,je suis rentr&e si tard hier, que je me suis couche a la Russe. Je vais prendre un bairn, et puis je Tn'habiUerai.' * * ' La superficie en tout ofirait Timage de la civilisation, inaifl sous cette 6corce l^gere, I'observation retrouvait encore facilement cette vieille Muscovie.' — Sec/ur. DUCHkssE d'albaut. 167 DUCHBSSE D' ALBANY. Florence: January 14