Collected Poetical Works of Mary Robinson

by Mary Robinson

  The influence which the example of a young prince, of manners eminently popular, produced upon the young nobility of the realm must be taken into account in the narrative of that life which was so brilliant and so misspent; so blessed at its onset, so dreary in its close — the life of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Descended in the third degree from Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, Georgiana Spencer is said to have resembled her celebrated ancestress in the style of her beauty. She was born in 1757. Her father, John, created Earl of Spencer in 1765, was the son of the reprobate “Jack Spencer,” as he was styled, the misery at once and the darling of his grandmother, Sarah, who idolised her Torrismond, as she called him, and left him a considerable portion of her property. Whilst the loveliness of Sarah descended to Georgiana Spencer, she certainly inherited somewhat of the talent, the reckless spirits, and the imprudence of her grandfather, “Jack;” neither could a careful education eradicate these hereditary characteristics.

  Her mother was the daughter of a commoner, the Right Honourable Stephen Poyntz, of Midgham, in Berkshire. This lady was long remembered both by friends and neighbours with veneration. She was sensible and intelligent, polite, agreeable, and of unbounded charity; but Miss Burney, who knew her, depicts her as ostentatious in her exertions, and somewhat self-righteous and vainglorious. She was, however, fervently beloved by her daughter, who afterward made several pecuniary sacrifices to ensure her mother’s comfort. The earliest years of Lady Georgiana (as she became after her father was created an earl) were passed in the large house at Holywell, close to St. Albans, built by the famous Duke of Marlborough on his wife’s patrimonial estate. Aged people, some fifteen years ago, especially a certain neighbouring clergyman, remembered going to play at cards in this house; and the neighbourly qualities of Lady Spencer, as much as her benevolence to the poor, endeared her much to the gentry around. She exercised not only the duties of charity, but the scarcely minor ones of hospitality and courtesy to her neighbours. Before the opening of railroads, such duties were more especially requisite to keep together the scattered members of country society. Good feelings were engendered, good manners promoted, and the attachment then felt for old families had a deeper foundation than servility or even custom. As Lady Georgiana grew up, she displayed a warm impressionable nature, a passion for all that was beautiful in art, strong affections, and an early disposition to coquetry. Her character spoke out in her face, which was the most eloquent of all faces; yet it was by no means beautiful if we look upon beauty critically. There were persons who said that her face would have been ordinary but for its transcendent loveliness of expression. Unlike the fair Gunnings, she was neither regular in features nor faultless in form, yet theirs was baby-beauty compared with hers. True, her hair inclined to red, her mouth was wide, but her complexion was exquisite; and the lips, ever laughing, were parted over a splendid set of teeth, an attribute rare in those days when the teeth were often decayed in youth. She had, too, a charm of manner natural to her, and a playfulness of conversation, which, springing from a cultivated mind, rendered her society most fascinating. “Her heart, too,” writes Wraxall, her cotemporary, “might be considered as the seat of those emotions which sweeten human life, adorn our nature, and diffuse a nameless charm over existence.”

  A younger sister, Henrietta Frances, afterward Lady Duncannon, and eventually Countess of Besborough, was also the object of Lady Georgiana’s warm affection; and, although Lady Duncannon was very inferior to her in elegance of mind and personal attractions, she equalled her in sisterly love.

  During the middle of the last century, literature was again the fashion among the higher classes. Doctor Johnson and the Thrales, Miss Gurney, Hannah More, still clustered at Streatham; many of our politicians were, if not poets, poetasters. It is true, if we except the heart-touching poems of Cowper, the Muses were silent. The verses which were the delight of polished drawing-rooms were of little value, and have been swept away from our memories of the present day as waste paper; but a taste for what is refined was thus prevalent, and thus affected the then rising generation favourably.

  Lady Georgiana Spencer had, however, a very few years allotted her for improvement or for the enjoyment of her youth, for in her seventeenth year she married.

  William, the fifth Duke of Devonshire, at the time when he was united to Lady Georgiana was twenty-seven years of age. He was one of the most apathetic of men. Tall, yet not even stately, calm to a fault, he had inherited from the Cavendish family a stern probity of character, which always has a certain influence in society. Weight he wanted not, for a heavier man never led to the altar a wife full of generous impulses and of sensibility. He was wholly incapable of strong emotion, and could only be roused by whist or faro from a sort of moral lethargy. He was, nevertheless, crammed with a learning that caused him to be a sort of oracle at Brookes’s when disputes arose about passages from Roman poets or historians. With all these qualities, he was capable of being, in a certain sense, in love, though not always with his lovely and engaging first wife.

  Miss Burney relates a characteristic trait of this nobleman; it was related to her by Miss Monckton. The duke was standing near a very fine glass lustre in a corner of a room in the house of people who were not possessed of means sufficient to consider expense as immaterial; by carelessly lolling back, he threw the lustre back, and it was broken. He was not, however, in the least disturbed by the accident, but coolly said: “I wonder how I did that!” He then removed to the opposite corner, and to show, it was supposed, that he had forgotten what he had done, leaned his head in the same manner, and down came the second lustre. He looked at it with philosophical composure, and merely said: “This is singular enough,” and walked to another part of the room without either distress or apology. To this automaton was the young Lady Georgiana consigned; and the marriage was, in the estimation of society, a splendid alliance.

  Her animal spirits were excessive, and enabled her to cope with the misfortune of being linked to a noble expletive. Her good humour was unceasing, and her countenance was as open as her heart. Fitted as she was by the sweetest of dispositions for domestic life, one can hardly wonder at her plunging into the excitements of politics when at home there was no sympathy. Hence her bitterest misfortunes originated; but one cannot, with all her indiscretions, suffer a comparison between her and the Duchesse de Longueville, which Wraxall has instituted. The Duchess of Devonshire scarcely merits the covert censure; except in beauty and talents there was no similarity.

  Buoyant with health and happiness, the young duchess was introduced into the highest circles of London as a matter of course. Her husband represented one of the most influential families of the Whig aristocracy, and his name and fortune made him important.

  Three West End palaces, as they might well be termed, Canton House, Devonshire House, and Burlington House, were open to every parliamentary adherent of the famous coalition, — the alliance between Lord North and Charles James Fox. Devonshire House, standing opposite to the Green Park, and placed upon an eminence, seemed to look down upon the Queen’s House, as Buckingham Palace was then called. Piccadilly then, though no longer, as in Queen Anne’s time, infested with highwaymen, was almost at the extremity of the West End.

  In right of his descent, on his mother’s side from the Boyle family, the Duke of Devonshire was also the owner of Burlington House, situated near Devonshire House, and inhabited by his brother-in-law, the Duke of Portland.

  Thus a complete Whig colony existed in that part of London, the head and front of their party being no less a person than George, Prince of Wales. He was at this time in the very height of his short-lived health and youth, and still more short-lived popularity; a man who possessed all the exterior qualities in which his father was deficient, — grace as well as good nature, the attribute of George III., a certain degree of cultivation, as well as of natural talent, a tall, handsome person, with a face less German in type than those of his brothers, some generosity of character — witness
his kindness to Prince Charles Stuart and his brother, whom he pensioned — an appearance, at all events, of an extremely good heart, and a great capacity for social enjoyments.

  Doctor Burney states that he was surprised, on meeting the prince at Lord Melbourne’s, to find him, amidst the constant dissipation of his life, possessed of “much learning, wit, knowledge of books in general, discrimination of character, and original humour.” He spoke with Dr. Charles Burney, the distinguished scholar, quoting Homer in Greek with fluency; he was a first-rate critic in music, and a capital mimic. “Had we been in the dark,” said Doctor Burney, “I should have sworn that Doctor Parr and Kemble were in the room.” Hence, the same judge thought “he might be said to have as much wit as Charles II., with much more learning, for his merry Majesty could spell no better than the bourgeois gentilhomme.” Such was the partial description of the prince by a flattered and grateful contemporary, who wrote in 1805. Twenty years later Sir Walter Scott, after dining with the then prince regent, paid all justice to manners; but pronounced his mind to be of no high order, and his taste, in so far as wit was concerned, to be condemned.

  The prince was, however, just the man to be the centre of a spirited opposition. In his heart he was Conservative; but the Whigs were his partisans against a father who strongly, and perhaps not too sternly, disapproved of his mode of life and his politics.

  The circle around him was as remarkable for their talents, and, in some respects, as infamous for their vices, as any Lord Rochester, or Sedley, or Etherege of the time of the second Charles. In that day, a Protestant Duke of Norfolk took an active part in political affairs, and formed one of the chief supporters of the Whigs. Carlton House, Devonshire House, often received in their state rooms “Jock of Norfolk,” as he was called, whose large muscular person, more like that of a grazier or a butcher, was hailed there with delight, for his Grace commanded numerous boroughs. He was one of the most strenuous supporters of Fox, and had displayed in the House of Lords a sort of rude eloquence, characteristic of his mind and body. Nothing, however, but his rank, his wealth, his influences, his Whig opinions, could have rendered this profligate, revolting man endurable. Drunkenness is said to have been inherent in his constitution, and to have been inherited from the Plantagenets. He was known in his youth to have been found sleeping in the streets, intoxicated, on a block of wood; yet he is related to have been so capable of resisting the effects of wine, that, after laying his father, a drunkard like himself, under the table at the Thatched House, St. James’s, he has been stated to have repaired to another party, there to finish the convivial rites. He was often under the influence of wine when, as Lord Surrey, he sat in the House of Commons; but was wise enough, on such occasions, to hold his tongue. He was so dirty in his person, that his servants used to take advantage of his fits of intoxication to wash him; when they stripped him as they would have done a corpse, and performed ablutions which were somewhat necessary, as he never made use of water. He was equally averse to a change of linen. One day, complaining to Dudley North that he was a prey to rheumatism, “Pray,” cried North, “did your Grace ever try a clean shirt?”

  This uncleanly form constituted a great feature of the Whig assemblies. At that time every man wore a queue, every man had his hair powdered; yet “Jack” renounced powder, which he never wore except at court, and cut his hair short. His appearance, therefore, must have been a strange contrast with that of the Prince of Wales, curled and powdered, with faultless ruffles, and an ample snow-white cravat, to say nothing of the coat which looked as if it were sewn on his back. It is to the Duke of Norfolk that the suggestion of putting a tax on hair powder has been ascribed. His life was one series of profligacy. Yet, such was the perverted judgment of the day, that this unworthy descendant of the Plantagenets was as popular as any peer of his time. When sober, he was accessible, conversable, and devoid of pride. When intoxicated, he used half to confess that he was still a Catholic at heart. His conversion to the reformed faith was held not to be very sincere; and his perpetual blue coat of a peculiar shade — a dress he never varied — was said to be a penance imposed on him by his confessor. He did no credit to any Christian church; and the Church of Rome is welcome to his memory.

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan, at this period in his thirty-third year, was not then wholly degraded by drinking, debt, and, as far as money was concerned, dishonesty. His countenance at this age was full of intelligence, humour, and gaiety: all these characteristics played around his mouth, and aided the effect of his oratory to the ear. His voice was singularly melodious, and a sort of fascination attended all he did and said. His face, as Milton says of the form of the fallen angel, —

  “Had not yet lost

  All her original brightness.”

  Yet he lived to be known by the name of “Bardolph,” — to have every fine expression lost in traces of drunkenness. No one could have perceived, in after days, the once joyous spirit of Sheridan in a face covered with eruptions, and beaming no longer with intelligence. He resembled, says Wraxall, at sixty, one of the companions of Ulysses, who, having tasted of Circe’s “charmed cup” —

  “... lost his upright shape,

  And downward fell into a grovelling swine.”

  This extraordinary man was the husband of one of the most beautiful, and, in being his wife, one of the most unfortunate of women. Miss Linley, the daughter of a celebrated musical composer, and called, for her loveliness, the “Maid of Bath,” had the calamity of being wooed and won by Sheridan. Never was there a more touching and instructive history than hers. Her beauty was rare, even amid the belles of a period rich in attractive women. Dark masses of hair, drawn back on her brow, fell in curls on a neck of alabaster. Her features were delicate and regular; the expression of her eyes was exquisitely soft and pensive. Her charms have been transmitted to her female descendants, Mrs. Norton, the Duchess of Somerset, and Lady Dufferin, whilst they have also inherited her musical talents, and the wit and ability of their grandfather. Mrs. Sheridan, after a life of alternate splendour and privation, died at Clifton, of consumption, before middle age. Her death was saddened, if not hastened, by her carriage, as she was preparing to drive out on the Downs, being seized for her husband’s debts. Whilst united to this young and lovely wife, Sheridan was one of the brightest stars in the dissolute sphere of Carlton House; but for domestic life he had neither time nor disposition. His fame was at its climax, when, during the trial of Warren Hastings, he spoke for hours in Westminster Hall, with an eloquence never to be forgotten; then, going to the House of Commons, exhibited there powers of unrivalled oratory. Meantime the theatres were ringing with applause, and his name went from mouth to mouth whilst the “Duenna” was acted at one house, the “School for Scandal” at another. He was, in truth, the most highly gifted man of his time; and he died in the fear of bailiffs taking his bed from under him, — an awestruck, forlorn, despised drunkard!

  But of all the party men to whom the young Duchess of Devonshire was introduced, the most able and the most dissolute was Fox. The colouring of political friends, which concealed his vices, or rather which gave them a false hue, has long since faded away. We now know Fox as he was. In the latest journals of Horace Walpole, his inveterate gambling, his open profligacy, his utter want of honour, is disclosed by one of his own opinions. Corrupted ere yet he had left his home, whilst in age a boy, there is, however, the comfort of reflecting that he outlived his vices. Fox, with a green apron tied around his waist, pruning and nailing up his fruit-trees at St. Ann’s Hill, or amusing himself innocently with a few friends, is a pleasing object to remember, even whilst his early career recurs forcibly to the mind.

  Unhappily, he formed one of the most intimate of those whom Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, admitted to her home. He was soon enthralled among her votaries, yet he was by no means a pleasing object to look at as he advanced in life. He had dark saturnine features, thought by some to resemble those of Charles II, from whom he was descended in the female
line; when they relaxed into a smile, they were, it is said, irresistible. Black shaggy eyebrows concealed the workings of his mind, but gave immense expression to his countenance. His figure was broad, and only graceful when his wonderful intellect threw even over that the power of genius, and produced, when in declamation, the most impassioned gestures. Having been a coxcomb in his youth, Fox was now degenerating into the sloven. The blue frock coat and buff waistcoat with which he appeared in the House of Commons were worn and shabby. Like the white rose which distinguished the Stuarts, so were the blue and buff the badge of the American insurgents and of Washington, their chief.

  Having ceased to be the head of the Maccaronis, as the beau monde were then called, Fox had devoted himself to play. Whist, quinze, and horse-racing were his passion, and he threw away a thousand pounds as if they had been a guinea; and he lost his whole fortune at the gaming-table. Before thirty he was reduced to distress, even in the common affairs of life. He could not pay the chairmen who carried him to the House. He was known to borrow money from the waiters at Brookes’s, which was the rallying-point of the Opposition. There the night was spent in whist, faro, suppers, and political consultations. Dissolute as he was, there was a kindness, a generosity of disposition that made his influence over man or woman most perilous to both. Then he was one of the most accomplished of students in history and general letters; and to his studies he could even devote himself after irretrievable losses at play. Topham Beauclerk, after having passed the whole night with Fox at faro, saw him leave the club in desperation. He had lost enormously. Fearful of the consequences, Beauclerk followed him to his lodgings. Fox was in the drawing-room, intently engaged over a Greek “Herodotus.” Beauclerk expressed his surprise. “What would you have me do? I have lost my last shilling,” was the reply. So great was the elasticity of his disposition, sometimes, after losing all the money he could manage to borrow, at faro, he used to lay his head on the table, and, instead of railing at fortune, fall fast asleep. For some years after the Duchess of Devonshire’s marriage Fox had continued to represent Westminster. So long as he retained that position, Pitt’s triumph could not be considered as complete, nor the Tory party as firmly established in the administration. Three candidates appeared on the hustings in April, 1784, — Lord Hood, Sir Cecil Wray, and Fox. So late as the twenty-sixth of the month Wray, who had sat for some time for Westminster in Parliament, maintained a small numerical advantage over Fox. The election, which began on the first of the month, had now gone on more than three weeks: ten thousand voters had polled; and it was even expected that, since the voters were exhausted, the books would be closed, and Wray, who was second on the poll, Lord Hood being first, would carry the day.