01

Deposited by the
Linonian and Brothers Library
1908

A COMPARATIVE VIEW

SOCIAL LIFE

ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
Printed by Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW

SOCIAL LIFE

ENGLAND AND FRANCE,
FROM THE EESTORATION OF CHARLES THE SECOND
TO THE PRESENT TIME,

BY THE EDITOR OF
MADAME DU DEFFAND'S LETTERS.
TO WHICH ARE NOW FIRST ADDED,
THE LIVES OF THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND AND
OF RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL — FASHIONABLE
FRIENDS, A COMEDY, &C.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

M

^acN^ iDi2.-«-»~y

A NEW EDITION.

IN

TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. IL

LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,

^ubUsl^et in ©rBinare to let JWajesis.

1844.
i5t*t

ORIGINAL PREFACE

SECOND VOLUME.

The vast and important changes which have
taken place, and the new direction given by them
to the political and social existence of Europe
during the last forty years, will occupy the pen of
future historians, and afford matter of deep interest
to future philosophers.
The attempt made in the following Pages by a
contemporary, to give an idea of the general colour
ing of Social Life in England and France during
this period, is the sequel of a volume published
nearly three years ago, under the title of " A Com
parative View of the Social Life of England and
France, from the Restoration ol Charles the Second
to the French Revolution."
On a nearer approach to our own times the same
subject might become more attractive, as the facts

VI PREFACE.
are more familiar, and the associations they suggest
are more immediately interesting. But on the
other hand it must be owned, that an endeavour to
avoid suspected partialities, a fear of offending feel
ings, or of producing impatience by details of too
recent, or too familiar circumstances, create diffi
culties in the execution of this attempt, which the
Author can hardly hope to have entirely surmounted.

London, 15th March, 1831.

CONTENTS

THE SECOND VOLUME.

CHAPTER I.
State of Society in England at the period of the French Revo
lution — Character of Lucia, her Political influence — The
Prince of Wales, his brilliant youth, and effect in Society
— Horace Walpole had made Literary Amusements fashion
able — Consequences of the impossibility of Foreign Travel,
from the convulsed state of Europe, on the Youth of Eng
land — Financial Difficulties of England — The Income Tax —
Increase of Prices, and Depreciation of Money — Their
effects on Society in general . . .1—16
CHAPTER II.
Pressure of the Public Burdens necessitating Economy in
every Order of the State — Its effects advantageous to
Society — State of the National Theatre from the Death of
Garrick — Mrs. Siddbns — Kemble — Effects of their Talents
and their personal character on the Public and on their
Profession — Slow progress of taste in England — Professors
of the Fine Arts not admitted into company till late in the
Reign of George III — Burke's E^say on the Sublime and
Beautiful — Mr. Payne Knight — Mr. Price — Sir George

VlU CONTENTS.
Beaumont — Travellers to Greece — Lord Byron — Joanna
Baillie— Dramatic entertainments neglected previous to the
Fall of Buonaparte— Conduct and sentiments of England at
this Time  17-34
CHAPTER III.
Conduct of Buonaparte towards England on his first seizure
of Supreme Power— The Effects of the Conquering Armies
of France on the Social Existence of Europe — ^The Charac
ter and Merits of those Armies — The Peace of Amiens —
State of Society in Paris at that time— Remarkable Anoma
lies in it — The Popular Literature — Theatres — Dress —
Buonaparte's conduct during the ensuing Eleven Years —
Altered state of Society when called together under the Im
perial Govemment, in the Upper Orders, among the Trades
people, in the Theatres — Mademoiselle Clairon — CoUe —
Memoirs of Madame du Barri , . . 35 — 61
CHAPTER IV.
Europe deceived by the misconduct of the French Revolution,
as to the Real Intentions and Will of the Nation — The
effects of their successive Misgovernments — Caution of
Buonaparte's First Steps to Despotic Power — Difficulty of
the Country recovering from the dazzling effects of his
Military Glory — Mistaken Views on his Fall — His Social
Character — Its effects on his Contemporaries, and on
France — No parallel between him and Cromwell . 62 — 79
CHAPTER V,
France immediately after the Restoration of the Bourbons —
Unwise measures which led to the Return from Elaa —
Effects of the enormous Armies brought together for, and
against, Buonaparte — Conduct of the Royahsts in 1815 —
General dissatisfaction during the first Ten Years of Peace,
both in England and France — Duke of Berry's Assassina-

CONTENTS. IX
tion — Its effects on the Government — National Prosperity
of France— Number of English in Paris— Change in French
Society since the Restoration— Reasons of Discontent exist
ing in all its Classes— Social Habits of the Nation resuming
their sway— Their effects on the different orders of So
ciety ...... 80—101
CHAPTER VI.
The domestic habits of France much improved since the
Revolution — The altered habits of, the young Men —
Theatre not representing the improved Morals of the Day
— France now reaping what benefits could be derived from
Emigration — ^Architecture a proof of the Political and Social
State of a country — Present state of buildings in France —
England less altered than France since the Revolution —
Application of the great discoveries in Science producing an
improved State of general existence — Inevitable Evils
brought along with it — Their effects on the Character of
France and England. .... 102 — 120
Chapter vii .... . 121 — 143

Advertisement to the Letters Addressed by Lord Orford to the
Miss Berrys ..... 144 — 157
Some Account of the Life of the Marquise du Deffand
158—188
Some Account of the Life of Rachael Lady Russell 189 — 309
Lady Russell and Mademoiselle de Sevigne considered as Con
temporaries ..... 310 — 314
The Fashionable Friends, a Comedy . . 315 — 375

COMPARATIVE VIEW.

CHAPTER L
STATE OF SOCIETY IN ENGLAND AT THE PERIOD OP THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION  CHARACTER OF LUCIA, HER POLI
TICAL INFLUENCE  THE PRINCE OF WALES, HIS BRIL
LIANT YOUTH AND EFFECT IN SOCIETY  HORACE WAL
POLE HAD MADE LITERARY AMUSEMENTS FASHIONABLE
 CONSEQUENCES OF THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FOREIGN
TRAVEL, FROM THE CONVULSED STATE OF EUROPE, ON
THE YOUTH OF ENGLAND  FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES OF
ENGLAND  THE INCOME TAX  INCREASE OP PRICES,
AND DEPRECIATION OF MONEY  THEIR EFFECTS ON
SOCIETY IN GENERAL.
Before the rapid and alarming progress of the
French revolution had swept away every minor in
terest in its vast career, the rivalry of Mr. Pitt
and Mr. Fox, on several important questions of
internal policy, had roused a party spirit in England,
and produced political divisions in society, which
had slumbered since the days of Queen Anne. The
social world of London was split into two parties
who, to avoid unpleasant collisions, seldom met but
VOL. II. B

2 LUCIA.
in great assemblies ; where those who had violently
attacked each other in the House of Commons half
an hour before, could pass their adversaries with
only a civil bow. The houses then were few, where,
as in our calmer or more calculating times, all
parties could unite in the pursuit of amusement.
In recording particulars of the social life of En
gland about this period, a female character, whom
the reader must receive under the name of Lucia,
cannot be omitted — placed as she was, by acclama
tion, on the throne of fashion, possessed of so many
qualities which designated her for such a sove
reignty, and so many which raised her superior
to it.
Lucia appeared in the world before she was seven
teen, in a situation pre-eminent in rank, in fortune,
and in consequence. Nature had admirably assimi
lated her person and features to her mind and cha
racter. With the bloom of Hebe, and the air
of lEuphrosyne, she united to the wild spirits of youth
and innocence a heart overflowing with every vir
tuous affection, a mind capable of every cultivation,
and an ardent admiration of every excellence.
Thus adorned, and thus endowed, she dawned on
society at the moment when (as we have before
observed) the national prosperity of England had a
marked effect on the social habits of society. Every
eye followed her, every heart beat at her-approach ;
selfishness forgot itself in her presence, and avarice
became liberal while under her influence ; her every
wish was anticipated, and her wishes were those of
benevolence and intelligence. Thus surrounded by
a flattering world, no wonder its illusions sometimes
succeeded in carrying her benevolence beyond the

THE PRINCE OF WALES. 3
limits of prudence, and sometimes in deceiving her
intelligence in the choice of her associates : but they
remained inefficient when attacking her unalterable
love of truth — her admiration of genius — her protec
tion of talents — and her appreciation of every thing
that was really good and great in her age, in her
country, and in human nature. Her habitual society
consisted of all those distinguished for wit, for
talents, for intellect, and for situation. Her
suppers were blamed only by those who were
not admitted to them — by those who knew not
that her good taste, as well as her principles, per
mitted no unbecoming levity on any subject, for the
improper discussion of which neither wit nor rank
were deemed an excuse; and that the tone of her
society was as perfectly proper, as if it had consisted
of the dullest individuals who took upon them to
censure her.
A young and brilliant Prince now animated society
by his popular manners, his love of pleasure, and
his taste for magnificence. Endowed by nature
with every personal advantage, and possessed, in an
eminent degree, of all the charms, as well as all the
advantages of youth, an education iU suited to his si
tuation and prospects, and whose restrictions were en
forced too long, sufficiently apologised for an immo
derate pursuit of pleasure on his first emancipation.
His generous sentiments, his social qualities, the
warmth of his private friendships, and the liberality
of his political opinions, conciliated all voices in his
praise, and excited all hopes in the promise of
his maturer years. How he fulfilled the expecta
tions of his country, and justified the opinions
of his early friends, it is for the pen of History
B 2

4 HORACE WALPOLE.
to record. To our work belongs only to recall
his brilliant youth — the eclat of his f^tes — the popu
larity of his character, and its effects on the society
in which he lived. Many circumstances associated
him with Lucia : the same love of gaiety and dissi
pation — the same taste for magnificence — the same
poHtical sentiments and friendships. Their intimacy
was an honour to both. He treated her on the foot
ing of a beloved and trusted sister; assuming no
distinctions but those acquired by his amiability,
nor exercising any exemption from the general tone
of her society.
The Court of the Heir Apparent was no less
socially than politically in opposition to the ministry
of the day. The gay, the lively, the fashionable,
were marshalled on the one side, against power,
place, and preferment on the other. Wit, as well as
beauty, shone in the ranks of opposition. The mis
takes, the peculiarities, and the ridicules of the
ministry and their adherents — the amusements and
society of the old Court were commented on in
verses, the admirable wit and classical allusions of
which might weU have adorned more permanently
interesting subjects. Horace Walpole had some
years before introduced literary pursuits into the
best company, and had led the way in familiarising
and making fashionable a taste for the Fine Arts,
which had almost ceased to exist during the reign of
the two first Georges. Mr. Walpole's writings exhi
bited, for the first time, the lively language and
views of a man of the world applied to dry subjects.
He succeeded in inspiring a curiosity about artists,
as well as about their works, and in interesting
the vanity of his own caste in the literary merits of

LUCIA. 5
their ancestors. " The Castle of Otranto," and " The
Mysterious Mother," which a celebrated English
genius* has called " the first of our romances, and
the last of our tragedies," proved that antiquarian
research, and historical disquisitions, were compatible
with the liveliest imagination — with a conversation
as singularly brilliant as it was original — and with
epistolary talents which have shown our language
capable of aU the grace and all the charms of the
French of Madame de Sevign^. But the pen of the
author is arrested by a fear, that suspected partiality
should destroy confidence in this cursory mention of
the character and of the accomplishments of a friend,
so intimately known, so highly valued, and so deeply
regretted. The magnificent fgtes of the Prince, of which
Lucia was sometimes the object, always tbe chief
ornament, — the splendid diversions in which she
was often the leader, were in fact all equally un
necessary to interest and amuse ber unsophisticated
mind. Tkose who saw her in the calm of the
country, surrounded by her adoring children, and
occupied with the various resources of her cultivated,
taste, — who witnessed the expression of all the warm
and noble affections of her heart, — they best knew
how to appreciate the real value of a character,
which, unlike most others, was mistaken only by
those who were determined to resist being capti
vated by it. That such a being paid the debt of
suffering, too surely exacted from human nature,
none can doubt. That she was removed from these
sufferings before age had attacked her feelings, pr
* Lqrd Byrori,

b LUCIA.
weakened the feelings which she inspired — those
who thought the most highly of her, perhaps, the
least regretted; although to them her loss has re
mained irreparable, her place unfilled, her charms
unrivalled, her remembrance indelible.
The family to which Lucia belonged being one of
those considered as at the head of the Whig interest,
the situation in which she was placed, seconded by
the charms of her character and person, gave her a
party influence rarely before exercised by any woman
in England. An enthusiast in the character of Mr.
Fox, she was attached to his political principles by
reason and by habit ; and to his individual character,
by a taste for all his accomplishments, and an indul
gence for all his errors.
The success of a popular election, against the
utmost efforts of a ministry, in a moment of great
party violence, Mr. Fox owed entirely to the popu
larity, and to the irresistible attractions of Lucia.
The triumph was at the moment great — was decisive
— was intoxicating — was what no other woman had
before effected on so great a theatre as the metro
polis. It was hailed by the one party, as a proof
of the powers of her character and of her fascination;
and blamed by the other, as an improper and indeli
cate abuse of both.
Better reasons may surely be given, than any that
were then alleged on either side, against English
women seeking political interference or distinction.
When Lucia, with all her powers and all her means
exerted to the utmost, only succeeded in carrying
one election for the House of Commons; poor must
be the ambition of that woman, who, conscious of
superior abilities, would willingly risk their exertions

POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF WOMEN. 7
and their defeat, with no hope of more important
consequences ! Let the political influence of women
in England be exerted in the much more dignified
and more efficient line of confirming and encouraging
their husbands and brothers in every independent
sentiment, and instilling into their children every
liberal idea ; in soothing and obliterating the aspe
rities of party feeling ; in watching over the interests
of those whose time is devoted to the interests of
their country; in being their faithful friends, and
incorruptible counsellors, — fitting themselves, by the
cultivation of their minds, and by all the graces and
all the accomplishments of their sex, to aid, adorn,
and give effect to any situation which their imme
diate connexions may be called to fill. " Ha tibi
erunt artes." Let the rest be left to those whose
minds are incapable of appreciating the real im
portance and appropriate distinction of their sex —
who are satisfied with hearing themselves speak on
subjects which their ignorance prevents them li-om
being aware how little they understand — and who, like
the fly on the wheel, believe they are aiding exer
tions, which their insignificance (unlike the fly) does
not always prevent them from impeding.
Among the many evils arising to England from
the disastrous state in which the French Revolution
had placed Europe, must be reckoned its influence
on the character of our youth, by debarring them
from all power of seeing various modes of social
life, or living in any society but that of their own
country. Foreign travel, however incapable of supplying
the wants of a neglected education, must surely be
considered as particularly necessary to the develop-

8 NECESSITY OF
ment of mind, in the inhabitants of an island. It is
the more so, perhaps, to those of Great Britain, from
a certain reserve and uncommunicativeness of cha
racter,, partly proceeding from peculiarities of or-f
ganisation beyond our ken, and partly from a high
appreciation of the political advantages to which they
are bom. So strongly are these impressed on every
mind called into activity by cultivation, that it has
been justly remarked, few Englishmen can bear a^n
uninterrupted existence of many years in their own
country, without acquiring a certain rust of preju
dices, essentially detrimental to general superiority
of character.
Little good could be effected by sending our
young men, when they left their schools and col
leges, to a country occupied, or a metropolis de-r
fended, by a British army; where they lived as
they did at home, but in worse and more idle
society; encouraging each other in false ide^s,
which they had no means to correct, and in bad
habits, which they had no opportunity to improve.
Many of the most distinguished young men of that
day bore the marks of an irreparable deficiency in
their education. Those of lively parts, of highly
cultivated minds, of much ambition, and a strong
desire of distinction, had a certain lounging, careless
ease about their manners, which proved that they sa
tisfied their own ideas of what those manners should
be, when in fact they had no manners at all ; — a
professed indulgence in every gratification ; — a study
of little personal comforts, which more varied habits
of life would have made them find unnecessary, and
a more general acquaintance with the world un
graceful; — a total absence of that appearance of

FOREIGN TRAVELLING. 9
interest in the pleasures and conveniences of others,
which can alone interest others in theirs ; — a neglect
of all general courtesy to women, of all those little
friendly acts of protection, so becoming in the one
sex, and so captivating to the other — attentions
which the most manly and superior characters will
always be found the first to bestow. Had our
young men seen more of the world, however trifling,
or however perverse it might have appeared to them,
they would have been ashamed of what might be
called the homeliness of their manners ; their ideas
of an accomplished gentleman would have been
more just, and their attempts at the character more
successful. The sneers, which they were apt to
bestow liberally on the little peculiarities and mis
takes of others, would then not have been due to
themselves from the more enlarged minds and
better manners which theirs offended. Nor were
these manners confined to the young men of high
rank, or heirs to great estates, whom we may
suppose to have been confirmed in their ignorance
and neglect of others by the attentions of the
women who wished to marry them, or by the
flattery of the men who hoped , to live on them.
Even those whose success in life depended on
pleasing, and whose birth and situation, in any
other country, would have taught them the ne
cessity of it — those whose talents and whose wit
was to be their only passport to the society they
sought, professed the same super-eminent love of
indulgence, and the same necessity of personal
comforts and gratifications. Their conversation and
social powers partook of all the evils attending the
contracted sphere of their ideas and observation,
B 3

10 CHARACTER
A ludicrous image of some familiar object, or the
ridicule of some little national peculiarity, was all
they attempted. Luckily their talents and their
taste, such as they were, suited for the most part
those of their audience ; which (as Champfort has
justly observed) forms the success of half the books
and of half the characters in the world. Their own
ignorance happily secured them from being aware
of the light in which they were considered by those
whose character and manners had not suffered under
the same disadvantages as their own.
The causes which are here enumerated, as having
been essentially disadvantageous to the young and
the idle, were acting in an opposite sense on our
military population, and on all those actively em
ployed in the pubhc service. Our navy not only
acquired new fame by their unexampled exploits, but
its leaders, and indeed the whole corps of its com
manding officers, were often called upon, from the
nature of their distant service, to take active political
measures, and decided steps, on a variety of occa
sions, which could neither be foreseen in their
orders, nor provided for by their Government. In
the course of their long warfare in all quarters of
the globe, they were often obliged to act as Ambas
sadors in foreign Courts — to protect, in their mihtary
capacity, the persons of Princes — to represent their
Sovereign, on many occasions of ceremony — and to
meet and treat with statesmen hardened in the
ways of the world ; thus opposing the frank and
downright character of a British seaman to all the
arts of Courts, and all the tricks of diplomacy.
From this severe but efficient school arose cha
racters, as refined in their manners, as accomplished

OF NAVAL OFFICERS. 1 I
in their minds, as generally well-informed of the
great interests of Europe, as they were unrivalled
in the knowledge and conduct of their arduous pro
fession. The political subterfuges of their enemies
often fell as harmless on their unsophisticated un
derstandings, as the billows of the ocean on the
planks of their ships. Thus a Maitland, when the
great culprit of Europe most unexpectedly sought
his protection, received him with every respect due
to his genius and to his misfortunes, but with such
a clear and frank declaration of the terms on
which that reception could alone take place, as
defied all the arts of prevarication and finesse to
mistake. From this school, too, arose a CoUingwood,
who, in spite of age, of impaired health, and of fond
attachment to domestic life, pertinaciously kept the
sea for more than three uninterrupted years after the
death of the immortal Nelson, and maintained the
sovereignty of the Mediterranean for his country.
His Life and Letters have since proved that his un
derstanding was not less acute and intelligent, nor his
political views less sound, than his arm had been
efficient in every combat in which he was engaged.
A crowd of other names attached to brilliant achieve
ments here force themselves on the remembrance.
The author has selected these two only, as having
been accidentally thrown into remarkable situations,
the difficulties of which did not naturally arise from
their profession, and consequently for which they
might have been supposed ill-prepared.
The army, since the inglorious end of the inglo
rious war against American independence, had been
considered as a resource for those who had no pecu
niary means of choosing another way of life ; an idle

12 THE GREAT CAPTAIN.
occupation for the idly disposed in the beginning of
their career, to be abandoned in maturer years, not
as a permanent profession, to be pursued at the
peril of life, and the sacrifice of ease and personal
indulgence. The long duration of the revolutionary
war with France; the continental nations having
fallen successively under her dominion ; the threats
of invasion ; the absolute necessity of calling forth
all the powers of the country in its own defence;
and, above all, the great military characters which
at last arose in its ranks, infused a new spirit into
our youth, and opened visions of glory and distinc
tion to their view. Their opposition in arms with
other nations, more habitually military than them
selves ; their long warfare in the Peninsula, which
was for some time more distinguished for obstinate
valour than for conquest ; prepared them for the
brilliant career of the great Captain, who led them
from repeated victories to the memorable combat
which sealed for ever their reputation, his own
glory, and the independence of Europe.
In the progress of all these combined circum
stances, the military profession in England assumed
a new character. An appropriate education and
studies were found necessary to distinction in it.
The severe service in which every corps of the army
had partaken, in which the Guards, previously quar
tered, for the most part, in the metropolis, had
particularly distinguished themselves both by disci
pline and by valour, proved the life of a soldier to be
no longer a retreat for the idle, but a profession to
be actively cultivated and unweariedly pursued.
The gigantic but ill- directed financial exertions of
England, in her repeated unsuccessful coalitions

INCOME TAX. 13
against France, during the first twelve years of the
revolutionary war, was felt in every fibre of the
social body.
The imposition of the income tax was odious to
the nation, although to the unassisted eye of reason
it appears the fairest mode of taxation that can be
adopted, when the sacrifice of the tenth part of the
income of a nation becomes unfortunately necessary
to save the rest; it laid open the affairs of every
one, in a manner peculiarly obnoxious to English
habits. The whole system of our commercial pros
perity being grounded on credit, much aversion
exists to exposing the individual foundation on
which it rests. This has given to all Englishmen
habits of reserve on the subject of their financial
means, habits often leading to very false estimations
of character; the rich always being thought much
richer than they are, and consequently often stigma
tised with want of liberality ; and the possessors of
smaller fortunes, by the same miscalculation, ar
raigned for extravagance, of which they are, in fact,
not guilty.
The operation of the income tax discovered many
curious sources of unexpected wealth, and laid open
many still more curious traits of national character
in the acquirement and in the use of it. Persons
trafficking in stalls, or small shops, actuated by that
strict sense of honesty which had probably been the
foundation of their success, gave in incomes of
£4000 and £5000 a year ; and paid, with scrupulous
exactness of calculation to Govemment, yearly sums
four times greater than any they had ever expended
on themselves. The same inquisitorial process in
jured many brilliant commercial reputations, and

14 INFLUX OF PAPER MONEY.
stopped many in a dangerously rapid pursuit of for
tune. In general, the whole body of retail dealers,'
who, contrary to the ideas and habits of other coun
tries, had been accustomed to see every additional
tax, and the weight of all public burdens, fall on
their customers, and not on themselves, endured,
with less patience than any other order of people,
the privation of indulgencies to which they had been
accustomed themselves. They, therefore, so in^
creased the price of every article of their commerce,
as at once to secure to themselves the same indul
gencies and the same profits ; thus eluding all con
tribution to the public necessities, at the expense of
the consumers. The immense influx of paper money,
from the year 1797, having raised the nominal price
of every thing, and the spirit of our Government
being adverse to all interference with internal policy,'
allowed this manoeuvre of the retail dealers to pass
unnoticed. It is to these times that must be referred
the great demoralisation, on the score of fair-dealing
with their employers, which has taken place in this
whole order of people. The large fortunes acquired
in the public funds, the improvident expenditure
necessarily entailed by war, and the carelessness of
those who profited by it, allowed of a sort of reci
procity in the imposition of exorbitant charges,
which has been since established into a regular
system, instead of having ceased with the disastrous
times which gave it birth.
The equality of political rights seemed to bestow
an equality of rights to every indulgence of expense ;
a degree of fortune, something like opulence in any
other country, being absolutely necessary to a social
existence in England. This rivalry in luxury was by

BUONAPARTE. 15
no means favourable to the interests of society. As
nobody chose to give a worse dinner than their
neighbour, many a social meal was prevented among
those endowed with every power to enliven them,
and many a dull dinner, with all its expensive accom
paniments, devoured at the table of a still duller
host, by those, who would have fled from the inflic
tion of the same society if offered with a mutton
chop. Many a tattered reputation was pieced to
gether on the reputation of their cook, and airs of
superiority claimed and allowed on the same flatter
ing and respectable pretensions.
Meanwhile, our navy supported the honour of our
country, and our commerce its means of existence.
Our triumphs on the sea equalled those of the com
mon enemy on the land. In spite of every arbitrary
measure which despotism could dictate, and violence
enforce, — in spite of blockades and restrictions, —
our commerce and our manufactures contrived to
alleviate, in some degree, the evils of war to all those
engaged in it, and to supply the means of defence to
ourselves. It was, perhaps, well for Europe that the intellect
of Buonaparte on commercial subjects, and on all
great views of political economy, was remarkably
deficient. One of the most enlightened persons em
ployed by him in these matters, and his devoted ad
vocate and admirer,* assured the author, that he had
had difficulty to make him comprehend even the
axioms which lay on the surface of these subjects,
and gave, as an instance, his never having been able
to convince him that gold and silver could have any
* M, Rosderer.

1 6 BONAPARTE.
real value whatsoever but as a token of exchange ;
adding, that had his understanding been as deep, and
his views as clear, on these subjects as on all others,
he would certainly have possessed one ofthe greatest
intellects ever called to the government of men.
Whatever may be thought of this opinion, it is
certain that Buonaparte, against his intentions, has
been the means of affording to future ages the most
decisive and incontrovertible proof of what may be
effected by civil liberty, — by a Representative Govern
ment interesting all orders in the state of its preserva
tion ; for we may be well assured, that after all the
errors, and all the failures, and all the mistakes of
the moment are forgotten, England having defended
.herself single-handed against Europe, united under
such an adversary, will be held up to the latest pos
terity as a bright example to other states, who must
endeavour, by securing the same means of defence,
to secure their permanent independence.

17

CHAPTER II.
PRESSURE OF THE PUBLIC BURDENS NECESSITATING ECO
NOMY IN EVERY ORDER OF THE STATE  ITS EFFECTS
ADVANTAGEOUS TO SOCIETY  STATE OF THE NATIONAL
THEATRE PROM THE DEATH OF GARRICK  MRS. SIDDONS
 KEMBLE  EFFECTS OF THEIR TALENTS AND THEIR
PERSONAL CHARACTER ON TBE PUBLIC AND ON THEIR
PROFESSION  SLOW PROGRESS OF TASTE IN ENGLAND 
PROFESSORS OF THE FINE ARTS NOT ADMITTED INTO
COMPANY TILL LATE IN THE REIGN OP GEORGE III 
BUBKE's ESSAY ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL  MR.
PAYNE KNIGHT  MR. PRICE  SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT 
TRAVELLERS TO GREECE  LORD BYRON  JOANNA BAILLIE
 DRAMATIC ENTERTAINMENTS NEGLECTED PREVIOUS TO
THE FALL OF BUONAPARTE  CONDUCT AND SENTIMENTS
OF ENGLAND AT THIS TIME.
One of the great constitutional advantages of
England being that of having no marked and inde
lible Une of separation between the different orders
of the state ; all her citizens having it equally in their
power, by industry, by activity, and by intellect, to
rise upwards in the scale ; the pressure of the public
burdens, during this period, and the depreciation of
money, fell peculiarly hard on those who, having
achieved a step in the hierarchy pf society, fo.und

18 PUBLIC BURDENS.
themselves by their increased expenses, and their
stationary means, thrown back to the situation from
whence they had risen, or at least quite unable to se
cure to their children their acquired station in life.
Many of those whose birth entitled them to every
indulgence of affluence, found themselves cruelly
straitened by the public calls on their property.
All those living on annuities, or fixed salaries, who
had every thing to purchase and nothing to sell, were
every succeeding year deprived of some accustomed
comfort. Instances of economy, unknown before in
the classes adopting them, were professed and boasted
of; many pf these remain permanent habits, for the
practice of which every one is the better, now that
the occasion is forgotten. Few of the great landed
proprietors could afford to occupy their residences in
the country, accompanied by all the expenses, and
all the largesses which were expected to surround
them. The public places of summer resort were
filled with persons who left palaces in their counties,
to occupy crowded and inconvenient lodgings at Tun-
bridge or at Brighton, not from preference, but from
poverty; many of their inmates generously preferring
a suppression of the enjoyments of their own country
houses, to that of the charities they had been in the
habit of distributing there. Others gave up their
annual visit to London, and let, or endeavoured to
part with, their houses in town ; but the purchasers
were so few, that the only chance of lessening the
charge of a house, not inhabited by its owner, was
letting it furnished ; and from this time only, dates
the now universal custom, even among opulent in
dividuals, of letting their unoccupied houses in Lon
don. To this period likewise, namely, to that of the

NECESSARY ECONOMY, 19
heavy taxation caused by the war, may be referred
the great families of England getting rid of a crowd
of useless retainers, unnecessary carriages, unem
ployed sets of horses, and all those appendages of
riches, which, without contributing to the comforts
or luxuries of their owners, were formerly considered
as part of the state of an English nobleman. Such
things still exist among the great of other countries,
but in England they are extinct. From the moment
that servants, carriages, horses, &c. became objects
of taxation, every one began to consider with how
many he could dispense ; and nobody has retained a
greater number than (considering his situation in
hfe) he can fairly make use of. Such limitations have
caused establishments in general to be better ap
pointed than they were in the days of our ancestors,
when numbers were the principal criterion of mag
nificence. The same necessary retrenchments in the scale
of expense became evident in the diminished num
ber of costly entertainments, of public breakfasts,
of balls accompanied by suppers, which none but the
rich could give, and none but the great had hitherto
thought of giving. Riches, however, accumulating
in the commercial and manufacturing orders of the
State, the great were soon imitated and rivalled by
those whose wealth was more independent ofthe situa
tion of the country ; and which, in many instances, was
augmented by it; the whole commerce of Europe, by
the distraction of the times, having been forced into
our hands. These persons now came forward in
society. To the young and dissipated they offered
entertainments they could no longer afford them
selves, for np pther remuneratipn than the hpnour

20 ORIGIN OF
of receiving them in their houses, and being in
return admitted into their society. They succeeded
in obtaining the first part of the reward with a
facility not honourable to those who were so little
willing to grant them the second. Hence arose
f&tes and entertainments, where the masters of the
house were strangers to three-fourths of the com
pany, who were all invited by some fashionable
friend, willing thus to give a ball to her own ac
quaintance at the expense, of her complaisant pro
tegee. Strange mistakes sometimes took place at
these meetings, from th.e ignorance of the guests
of the person of their host,, amd demands for re
freshments made in a tone of authority to him
who paid for them, mistaken and addressed as the
individual hired to administer them.
But the more refined and better thinking part
of society soon found that the crowded meetings^
and expensive entertainments, which economy had
at first made them relinquish, were, in fact, far
from contributing to the cultivation of society ; that,
on the contrary, they incapacitated those constantly
frequenting them from any power of enjoyment in
smaller circles, while the constant frequenters of
these crowds were all reduced to the same undis
tinguished level of abilities. General invitations
were, therefore, left to a few great houses, whose
space admitted of a thousand or fifteen hundred
guests without internal inconvenience, and whose
owners preferred thus acknowledging an acquaint
ance, and paying wholesale a debt of civility, to
retailing out their time, and individualising their
attentions to half the town. All those who, in
imitation of their superiors, had hitherto crammed

PUBLIC DANCES. 21
small houses half a dozen times a year with as
many card-tables, and with more people than they
could hold, now affected to despise card-players,
to hate great assemblies, and to talk of nothing
but the charms of small parties, and of conversa
tion ; although the previous habits of few, at this
time, had quahfied them for the real enjoyment
of either. A few years afterwards, a public meet
ing for dancing was established, which, although
originating in necessary economy,, by the good taste
and by the popularity of its institutors and direc
tresses, soon rose to distinction and celebrity. An
admission to it became a sort of necessary licence
to practise in the best company, while its expense
was not the tenth part of any former fdtes pre
pared for the same society, and the price of ad
mission too low to exclude the most attenuated
finances. All those who thought that by their
own former entertainments they had purchased the
freedom of the company to which they were am
bitious to belong, now found themselves cruelly
thrown out : for in a country where no bar exists
between any order of society, exclusions, like block
ades, will inevitably take place, whenever the power
of any portion of individuals is sufficient to enforce
the one, or to establish the other. Thus, parties'
in our society, like parties in our political State
will always exist, and will serve, in both instances
to keep the ruhng powers in order, and to animate
the exertions and cultivate the talents of those who
have hopes of one day succeeding to their dis
tinction. The stage, and a taste for dramatic entertain
ments, had declined in England since the death

22 GARRICK.
of Garrick, in '1779. This great actor had been
equally distinguished in both walks of the drama ;
equaUy excellent in the expression of the sublime
conceptions of Shakspeare, in the representation of
the humourists and originals of Ben Jonson, or in
catching up and embodying every evanescent fashion
of the day. By his social liveliness and wit, his
agreeable manners and respectable conduct, he had
been received a welcome guest in the best company.
As a dramatic writer, his pieces, although not ofthe
first order of comedy, yet assisted by his own
acting, and by his consummate knowledge of the
theatre, raised him to consideration in the ranks
of literature. By his prudence and good conduct
he became the proprietor of the .first theatre in
the metropolis, and acquired an opulence, of which
he made an honourable use. In his villa at Hamp
ton, and at his house in the Adelphi, he received
not only the best company of his own country,
but all distinguished foreigners, who sought his
acquaintance with eagerness from the fame of his
talents, and to whom his social existence was then
a matter of curiosity.
After his death, the first event which reanimated
the theatre over which he presided was the success
of the comedies of Sheridan, and particularly the
remarkable popularity of the " School for Scandal,".
first exhibited when its author was already a po
litical character, and an admired speaker in the
House of Commons. This piece rallied back, not
only the enlightened public, but the world of
fashion, to the national theatre ; encouraged men
of the world to attempt dramatic composition ; and
produced some good comedies of character, which.

PRIVATE THEATRICALS. 23
if they had not much of the wit of their great comic
predecessors, had at least none of their coarseness.
General Burgoyne's " Heiress" was a faithful tran
script of the manners of the day, and served for
ever to stamp the fame of the first, and hitherto
of the last, actress* in the highest walk of comedy,
who has adorned the English stage since the days of
CoUey Cibber.
Mr. Walpole's "Mysterious Mother," although
not published, was already in the hands of many ;
and, in spite of the unfortunate choice of subject,
which for ever precluded representation, had asto
nished by its terrible conception, vigorous verses,
and forcible effect..
Theatrical entertainments, and the encouragement
and protection of theatrical talents, now became a
fashion, and an interest in the first society in Lon
don. The plays acted by a part of that society at
the Duke of Richmond's in 1785 and 1786 were at
once an effect and a cause of this fashion. The
first artists were employed to decorate the little
theatre, constructed in the dining-room of Rich
mond House, at WhitehalLf Persons not less dis
tinguished by their talents, than by their birth and
situation, filled the parts. Mrs. Siddons and Miss
Farren, no unworthy representatives of the Tragic
and Comic Muse, assisted at these performances ;
and such was the interest taken in them, and such
the eagerness to be admitted to them, that a motion
in the House of Commons was actuaUy postponed,
to allow Mr. Pitt (then the first Minister) to be
present at one of the representations.
* Miss Farren, afterwards Countess of Derby.
t Afterwards consumed by fire.

24 MRS. SIDDONS.
A far more essential cause of permanent illustra
tion to dramatic art in England was already in
activity. The great female tragedian, who was des
tined to raise to an unexampled height not only her
own fame, but to establish on a new basis that of
her profession, who had appeared in early youth,
unnoticed, in some subaltern parts before the death
of Garrick, — Mrs. Siddons, — now burst on the
London world in the full bloom of her beauty, the
fuU force of her feelings, and the full exercise of her
excellent understanding and taste. The effect was
marvellous. All orders of society bowed to the
impression made on feelings common to their nature.
All public entertainments became insipid in compa
rison of the scenes of Shakspeare, represented by
such a form, animated by such expression, and inter
preted by such a judgment. Fashion, and the con
tagious feelings of great crowds, so exalted those of
the female world, that few representations took place
without interruption, from the uncontrolled emotion
of some of the audience obliging them to leave the
theatre. The Universities, and all the distinguished clubs
of London, offered her, by deputation, the homage
of their united admiration of her conduct and of ber
talents ; often accompamed by more essential marks
of their favour, in a common purse, presented as
some remuneratipn fpr the pleasure received from
her art.
The endowments of her brother, who had profited
by a coUege education intended to have fitted him
for a learned profession, gave him great advantages
in that which an irresistible impulse led him to adopt,
guided him in effecting many necessary and impor
tant imprpvements in the cpstume and arrangements

MRS. SIDDONS — J. KEMBLE. 25
of the theatre, qualified him for an accurate critic in
theatrical language and literature, and soon made
him the companion and intimate of all the con
temporary men of letters who were at all interested
in the drama.
The professional excellence of this accomplished
brother and sister, when acting together, and some
times representing characters where their strong
family resemblance heightened the illusion, will be
long remembered by all those who had the advan
tage of seeing, in the zenith of their powers both
moral and physical, their unequalled representations
of the immortal dramas of Shakspeare.
All the best tragedies of the English theatre re
ceived a new lustre by their means, and many
acquired a celebrity which they hardly merited, from
the interest lent them in representation. Thus, while
their great talents, joined to remarkable personal
beauty, gave a new vogue to the theatre, and recalled
all the world to dramatic entertainments, the pro
priety of their conduct, and the respectability of their
private characters, placed their profession on a foot
ing which it had never before attained either in our
own, or any other country. All the first company
in London, as regarded rank, talents, or situation,
opened their doors to them. They were received on
a footing of equality and of respect due to their ac
complishments, and which the unaltered propriety
of their manners amply justified. The suppers given
by Kemble were frequented and sought after by all
who were distinguished in society, as well as by all
who pretended either to wit, or talents, or even to
their due appreciation.
The personal consideration thus acquired by irre-
VOIi. II. G

26 DOMESTIC IMPROVEMENTS
proachable conduct and honourable bearing insen
sibly raised the tone of feeUng throughout the whole
profession. Purity of conduct was no longer con
sidered as incompatible with it. The stage ceased
to be either the school or the refuge of female pro
fligacy. Men of better education and prospects
adopted a profession which no longer led necessarily
into bad company.
These advantages, — and advantages they certainly
were of no mean description, as having led the way
to honourable distinction, are entirely owing, or at
least entirely originated with the influence and the
example of the family of Kemble, which in all its
branches connected with the theatre, has exhibited a
rare union of talents and of worth.
An inconvenience has been said ' to arise, frpili
having thus removed all stigma from the character,
and destroyed all prejudices against the profession of
persons, otherwise likely, from^ their talents, to be
endued with great powers of captivation, — the in
creased number of unequal marriages which have
since been contracted with actresses. But this, it
must be allowed, argues at least as great an improve
ment on the one side, as any dereliction of noble
sentiments on the other. Indeed, before the time
here alluded to, much laxity of moral conduct and
sentiments had prevailed among the professors of
the fine arts, and among those artists in any way
connected with the ornamental luxuries of society.
The unvarnished etiquette, and German homeli
ness of the Courts of the two first Georges, having
followed immediately on the dulness of Anne and
the unsociable moroseness of William, had materially
influenced and retarded the progress of any taste for

IN ENGLAND. 27
the fine arts in England ; or any desire of those
elegant luxuries of private life, to which the arts
contribute, and which alone, when combined with
them, give a zest and a variety to the indulgences of
wealth. The first persons who interested themselves on
these subjects, and showed themselves sensible to
domestic improvements, had, almost all, either from
accident or necessity, lived much out of their own
country, and had brought back with them a taste for
certain habits of life to which they had been accus
tomed elsewhere. Any adoption of these habits was
stigmatised by all intolerant lovers of their own
country, who sturdUy withstood every thing leading
to a supposition that either comfort or merit could
exist out of its precincts. Coarse, plain, uncompro
mising manners were received as the type of good
principles and of integrity of conduct, and all refine
ments of taste as proofs of corruption of morals.
The smallest innovOTions in domestic arrangements
were looked on with an evil eye, as to the indepen
dent character of such as adopted them.
No man intending to stand for his county, or
desirous of being popular in it, would have permitted
his table at his country-house to be served with
three-pronged forks, or his ale to be presented but
in a tankard, to which every mouth was successively
to be applied. Sofas conveyed ideas of impropriety ;
and oaths, and every extra attention to cleanliness
and purity of person, were habits by no means sup
posed to refer to superior purity of mind or manners.
EvU to him whose constitution or sedentary habits
prevented his following field sports. A taste for
c 2

28 SOCIAL IMPROVEMENTS
music or painting, or any disposition to cultivate
either, was enough to destroy a man's character
among his country neighbours, or in his county club
in London. He was set down for a humourist or
a fribble, incapable and unworthy of the manly
pleasures of wine and vulgar debauchery, in which
his detractors indulged with perfect self-satisfaction,
and much credit among their associates.
Except as a rendezvous for female profligacy,
every thing that had to do with the theatre, or
the public exhibition of any talent, was peculiarly
obnoxious to the morality of these home-bred cen
sors. Authors, actors, composers, singers, mu
sicians, were all equally considered as profligate
vagrants. Those whose good taste, or whose
greater knowledge of the world, led them to make
some exceptions, were implicated in the same moral
category. A very numerous body of people were thus
excommunicated from all respectable society in
their own class, as well as from that of the classes
above them, without being rewarded, as they were
in France, by fashion restoring them to the social
consideration of which the institutions of their
country deprived them. The lively feelings and
excitable minds which a genius for the imitative
arts almost necessarily supposes, remained thus
in constant contact with other minds as excitable,
and feelings as little under control, as their own.
We can hardly wonder, therefore, at the lax edu
cation, and absence of all wholesome restraint, to
which this whole class of persons were exposed.
Of this a late biography furnishes a remarkable
example, in recording details of the early youth

IN ENGLAND. 29
of two families both distinguished for talents ; the
consequences of this want of control on their
first steps in life, and the influence it maintained
over the whole future existence of two of the most
favoured individuals of those families, whose fate
was united,* and whose extraordinary endowments
soon raised them to every social distinction of which
either were capable.
It was not till late in the reign of George III
that sculptors, architects, and painters (with the
single exception of Sir J. Reynolds) were received,
and formed a part of the best and most chosen
society of London. Three Scotch brothers, of
the name of Adam (and of a family since distin
guished both by worth and abilities in every order
of the state,) after a long professional study of
architecture in Italy, on their return to the ex
ercise of their art in England, first applied the
internal ornaments qf the ancient apartments (then
lately discovered at Rome and at Pompeii) to the
decoration of London drawing-rooms. The appli
cation was bad; the taste minute and faulty — cal
culated for no room larger than a bath, and that
in a warm country, where all hangings and paper
were to be avoided. But their substitution of the
Greek fret, the honeysuckle, the husk, and other
ornaments of graceful contour, instead of the non-

* Miss Linley, married to R. B. Sheridan. See the account
of the circumstances attending their previous acquaintance in
"Moore's Life of Sheridan." Miss Linley seems, on every
occasion of her after-life, to have been almost equal in natural
abilities, and superior in every quality of the heart, to her
husband.

30 SIR G. BEAUMONT.
descript angular flourishes, which every thing sus
ceptible of decoration, from a snuff-box to the front
of a house, had hitherto indiscriminately shared, was
an apprpach to something Uke truth. Burke's
Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, although faulty
in its reasonings, and fanciful in their application,
was marked by the enthusiastic mind of its author ;
and served to rouse, some years afterwards, a spirit
of profound investigation into the principles of taste
in all the imitative arts, and their appUcation to the
embeUishment of social life.
The subject was taken up by persons whose
education and habits of life and of reading, as weU
as their own existence in society, peculiarly fitted
them for such inquiries. In their writings, it
allowed them to establish a sort of bill of rights in
taste, which it will be found difficult to improve,
while it adapts itself to every wholesome liberty and
innovation of original genius.
An amicable contention between Mr. Payne
Knight and Mr. Uvedale Price, on the illusory
powers of imagination, elicited, on both sides, proofs
of great knowledge, as well as of much thought
and combination, on the subjects they treated ;
whUe their friend Sir George Beaumont's candid
mind and enthusiastic feelings were called forth
in every walk of art, and were eager in the pro
tection and encouragement of every rising excel
lence. As a landscape painter, "his own example
strengthened all his laws." His works remain
distinguished among those of professional artists;
and the remembrance of his mind, his genius, and
his character, among our strongest feeUngs for de
parted excellence.

LORD BYRON — JOANNA BAILLIE. 31
From this time the principles of taste, on all
subjects amenable to its laws, were sought, under
stood, and foUowed. As the political circumstances
of the day precluded all access to Italy, our tra
vellers and our artists poured into Greece, and
there beheld at their source those models of art
which the Romans had never equalled, and had often
disfigured. The architecture (misnamed Gothic)
was, meanwhile, studied and cultivated by artists
at home, who soon convinced others, as well as
themselves, that, when applied appropriately, it
was capable of assuming every character of domestic
purpose; was, of all other styles of buUding, the
best suited to the habitations of a northern country
and a bad cUmate ; and lent itself to every graceful
and picturesque combination with EngUsh landscape.
Thus, we have since seen arise many magnificent
castellated mansions ; many additions m^de to hum
bler monastic remains, which, without any outward
incongruities, possess every modern comfort of
internal arrangement, and are pecuUarly capable of
every richness of ornament-
The common link which is said to unite all the
fine arts* soon touched the lyre of Joanna BailUe
and of Lord Byron, and amazed a busy and cal
culating world with bursts of original pathos and
poetry, worthy of the more poetic ages of society,
and recaUing aU the great models which had adorned
them. Tbe Muse of the one possessed a strength and
vigour of wing, which woijld have soared to any
height, had it not been repressed and recalled to
* " Habent inter se quodam commune vinculum."

32 BYRON's HEROINES.
earth by foolish professions of profligacy, and a vain
idea of rising above his age and his feUows, by treat
ing as niusion and prejudice every thing the most
real and stable in our moral existence. The other,
born a Poet in the truest and most exalted sense of
the word, from her sex, situation, and Umited ac
quaintance with the world, and stiU more from a
diffidence in her own vast powers, has not allowed
them a sufficiently extensive field on which to ex
ercise their magic. The retired nature and virtupus
habits of women confine their observation of human
life and passion within a much smaller circle than
that always open to man. If Joanna Baillie,
therefore, in her exquisitely portrayed characters
of excellence and of virtuous feeUng, sometimes
betrays an unwiUingness to step into the dominion
pf vice, and to encounter the storm of violent and
degrading passions. Lord Byron by choice, and
perhaps by his long preference for Eastern subjects,
has also given a sameness to many of his heroes,
and reduced all his heroines to one model. They
are all fond females, clinging to a protector, without
the smallest discrimination, or opinion, or even
curiosity, as to the character or situation of the
man to whom they are attached; and this with a
baldness of sexual passion, which not all the author's.
delicate and admirable descriptions of their personal
beauty can at all conceal. He never calls in the
associations, sentiments, and feelings, founded on
individual choice, admiration of excellence, and com
parative merit. He equally neglects the combats
between duty and love, in minds capable of ap
preciating the one, and of exalting the other from
desire to passion ; to say npthing of parental affec-

Byron's heroines. 33
tion, and the yet more sublime, because more per
fectly disinterested, sacrifices of friendship. He
confines himself to paint women as the mere females
of the human species, who, except that they share
with man, " that paragon of animals," superior
personal beauty, are described as Uttle distinguished
from the females of any other animals ; inspire the
same sort of blind and furious passion to those of
the other sex ; are treated with little more ceremony
while together; and are left as easily, in quest of
prey or of revenge.
Who but must regret to find Lord Byron's Muse
thus fettered, instead of having taken advantage of
subjects that would have opened an inexhaustible
field to her various powers ? — For who can doubt the
variety of those powers, when reading the exquisite
and exalted descriptive poetry scattered over all his
works — always associating the scene he describes
with the most invigorating sentiments of the human
mind? That he, who so felt and so described these sen
timents, and all the power, and all the terror, of
conscience and of memory on the spiritual being
of man — that he should have doubted of that
spiritual being, of which his own energetic verses
must confiirm the belief to his readers, and the
feelings that dictated them ought to have assured
himself — that he should have excluded himself from
the most powerful source of the sublime, as well as
from much of the beauties of sentiment — must
astonish those the most, who the most admire the
poetic heights he has attained without such aid.
During the long struggle of the revolutionary war,
dramatic entertainments seemed to have again lost

34 NATIONAL DECISION.
4nuch of their attraction. The great drama then acting
in Europe superseded all imaginary interests, and
rendered insignificant all fictitious adventures. The
astonishing progress, elevation, and fall of the Con
queror, and the desperate chances which hung on
bis fortunes, exceeded all poetic fancy, and out
stripped the imagination of romances.
From the continuance of a state of warfare, and
its general and wide-spread consequehces, the politi
cal events of Europe became a history, in whose
pages almost every individual family found an epi«-
sode, or a paragraph, connected with some of their
nearest or dearest interests and affections. Almost
every peasant had a loss to deplore, which served to
inform him of some national victory, or national
disaster, of which he might otherwise have remained
happily ignorant.
But, in spite of public and private catastrophes —
in spite of severe privations, severely felt by every
order of the state, a dejected or despairing spirit was
unknown. The measures of ministers were severely
canvassed, and often warmly opposed, in the Coun
cils of ParUament ; but whenever the submission of
other nations, or any circumstances connected with
it, seemed to threaten our own national independ
ence, one mind and one will rose against the yoke
that had been imposed on continental Europe; all
difference of party disappeared; and the veteran
Grattan, long distinguished in political opposition
to the conduct of the war, advocating its continuance
after the faUure of the negotiations at ChatiUon,
rather than submit to any unworthy sacrifice for
peace — wiU ever remain a proof of that wholesome
enthusiasm with which free institutions pnly can
inspire liberal minds.

35

CHAPTER III.
CONDUCT OF BUONAPARTE TOWARDS ENGLAND ON HIS FIRST
SEIZURE OF SUPREME POWER  THE EFFECTS OF THE CON
QUERING ARMIES OF FRANCE ON THE SOCIAL EXISTENCE
OF EUROPE  THE CHARACTER AND MERITS OF THOSE
ARMIES  THE PEACE OF AMIENS  STATE OF SOCIETY IN
PARIS AT THAT TIME  REMARKABLE ANOMALIES IN IT 
THE POPULAR LITERATURE  THEATRES  DRESS  BUONA-
PARTe's CONDUCT DURING THE ENSUING ELEVEN YEARS
 ALTERED STATE OF SOCIETY WHEN CALLED TOGETHER
UNDER THE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT, IN THE UPPER
ORDERS, AMONG THE TRADESPEOPLE, IN THE THEATRES
 MADEMOISELLE CLAIRON  COLLE  MEMOIRS OP MA
DAME DU BARRI.
France, after being reduced to the lowest level
both of morals and of manners, by the anarchical
rule of a succession of demagogues, and by the yet
more degrading profligacy, the disrespectable and
disrespected power of the Directory,* seized hold,
with eagerness and gratitude, of the strong arm held
* " La politique obtuse de ce gouvernement entretenoit la
lutte des partis. Le pouvoir suprSme manquoit d'hommes
assez forts pour etre justes, et assez irreprochables pour ne
craindre ni les Republicains purs, ni les Royalistes incorrupti-
bles," — La Cour et la Ville, vol, ii. p. .t92.

36 MILITARY SUCCESS.
out to raise her from the abject state into which she
felt herself fallen.
One of the first effects produced by the powerful
and astute intellect of Buonaparte was the destruc
tion of aU respect for the EngUsh name and cha
racter. Hitherto the French nation, considering the
EngUsh as their preceptors in politics, had treated
their prejudices and their peculiarities with indul
gence, and seemed only desirous of proving to them
that they had far outstripped their masters, both in
the theory and practice of civil Uberty.
Buonaparte, wisely profiting by the self-admiration
of a vain people, and by our first ill-directed combi
nations against the excesses into which they had
been led, succeeded in putting the English name and
nation out of fashion in Europe. Our pecuUarities
were dwelt on with harshness, our former pretensions
laughed at, our national pride considered as intoler
able insolence ; our policy was declared to be en
tirely selfish, our exertions confined to English ob
jects only, and our faith called in question to allies
who had not succeeded with our support. The very
Princes we were subsidising, while their own na
tional existence leagued them with England, were
taught, as individuals, to laugh in their sleeves at
the lavish hand with which those subsidies were be
stowed, at their faulty organisation, and at our sup
posed reluctance to contribute, otherwise than by
money, to the safety of the Continent.
Meanwhile the armies of France had traversed
Europe. A system of pillage was too well managed
for the advantage of the commanders, to be often pro
fitable to the soldier. Triumph, and all its intoxi
cating consequences, foUowed their arms. The

OF THE FRENCH. 37
French troops defiling before a victorious general,
in all " the pomp, pride, and circumstance" of war,
became often an exhilarating show to the thoughtless
youth of the dull continental towns, which had slum
bered for half a century under the quiet minutiae of
German despotism, and the dull daily etiquette
of some electoral Government. The young men
of Italy were rpused by the passage and by the
presence of successive hosts of French officers, who
disturbed the quiet of their evening lounge from the
door of the caf6 to the theatre, and who laughed
at the daily airings of a corso, and the sleepy loves
of a cicisbeo.
The young ItaUans were too happy to be offered a
fine uniform and a plumed cap, and to be allowed to
figure as hussars or lancers in the streets of their
native cities, before they were marched off, with the
command of some new-raised troops as ignorant
as themselves, to swell the ranks of the Conqueror
of Italy, to secure his interest in the families to
which they belonged, and on the first occasion of
danger to be sacrificed for the preservation of the
veteran and more valuable troops of France. The
younger branches of the same families were mean
while enlisted in the service of the Conqueror's
Court, and sent away to receive among his pages at
Paris an education which certainly much surpassed
any instruction they could have hoped for under the
tuition of an Abbate di casa in the paternal man
sion. Thus, while Europe was losing aU shadow of na
tional individuality, and was in fact moulding into
one unwieldy mass on which to erect a colossus
of military despotism, — while its people were in tum

38 MILITARY SUCCESS
suffering aU the privations, horrors, and devastation
pf war, and its Princes and Ministers making una-
vaiUng leagues, to secure a permanence to Govern^
ments which, in fact, but few of them deserved,—
the social world— tb^ general mind (if the expression
may be allowed) of continental Europe adopted the
opinions, the views, and the ideas of the triumphant
party ; thus unconsciously conspiring to seal the loss
of her own independence; whUe her conqueror,
with almost equal bUndness, discerned not, in the
means he was obliged to employ for her subversion,
the future seeds of a regenerated existence.
Statesmen and politicians will probably look down
with contempt on the supposed influence of causes
so independent of their sphere of action, and gene
rally so little considered by them. It is for the
quiet, philosophic observer of human nature, and of
the various impressions it is ever liable to receive in
evil, as well as in good, justly to appreciate the
effects here alluded to.
During the disreputable and inefficient govern
ment of the Directory, the whole active virtue of
France took refuge in her armies. There the honour
and the love of their country still warmed the heart
and nerved the arm of those who had neither judg
ment nor perseverance, nor a sufficiently command
ing intellect to arrest the ever-changing measures,
and the exaggerated ideas, that disgraced the at
tempts made at the establishment of civil liberty.
In the armies still flourished every thing that
honours and distinguishes the French character —
briUlant valour, daring enterprise, unwearied spirits,
and unmatched celerity, both of perception and of
action. The genius of Buonaparte turned all these

OF THE FRENCH. 39
national virtues to his own aggrandisement, and to
the destruction of that freedom to which France had
so mistaken the road. Nothing, perhaps, made his
.superior judgment in the art of governing men more
evident than his first strides to power. These were
always made by appearing to lead, to adopt, and to
be guided by the popular impulse of the time,
grounding the establishment of his dominion on na
tional propensities and pecuUarities of character.
The martial spirit inherent in the French nation
had been exalted and sublimated into a passion for
their country, which left far behind all their former
devotion to the will of their Princes. Military habits
and miUtary honours, which had formerly been con
fined to their nobiUty, were rendered general among
the people at large. These habits Buonaparte im
mediately encouraged and excited; and thus suc
ceeded in as completely depreciating all peaceful
employment of talentsj time, or property, as ever
Louis XIV had done during the most brilliant pe
riod of his reign.
Buonaparte, having gratified their vanity by a
series of victories, led them triumphant from one
capital of Europe to another. He thus served
the double purpose of establishing his own military
omnipotence, and bUnding them to the spirit that
was destroying every thing but the empty and ex
aggerated forms of a Republican Government at
home. He then sought moments of temporary
peace, to allow them to compare the state in which
he had placed, to that in which he had found thera,
and to avail himself of their enthusiastic gratitude to
forward his own progress to unlimited power. That
neither he, nor the nation, were prepared for a per-

40 Buonaparte's reflections.
manent peace, he weU knew. His desire of power
increased (of course) with its possession, and his
successful flattery of the foibles of the nation had
turned its every virtue against itself. Distinctions
of honour, he was aware, were as necessary to gratify
those foibles as military glory. Sure of finding a
responsive feeling in every bosom, he boldly stepped
forward to restore and bestow hereditary honours,
which they had themselves, with childish impatience,
abolished not ten years before ; sure of being allowed
to seize on superior power himself, provided he gave
them a chance of being assimilated to it, and even to
place himself on a throne, the steps of which they
were again to be allowed to occupy.
In the many visions in which he indulged in con
versation with Las Cases at St. Helena, he gives
an admirable account of his intentions, and of his
system in the re-institution of hereditary honours
and distinctions. His only mistake was, in sup
posing that any other result could arise from this
system (while acted upon) than a military despotism,
which might, and would, have overshadowed Europe
with its baleful influence, without in any respect
changing its nature by its extension.
Provoked at the unbending spirit of England,
against the continued aggressions of his all-devour
ing ambition, and secure, in this instance as in
every other, of the popular prejudices and vanities
of France supporting his measures and falling into
his arguments, he succeeded in representing the
English Government as so far from capable of sug
gesting any thing politically good, that it had
become a vile despotic oligarchy, uniting all the
pride and all the prejudices of the old system of
legitimacy and hereditary honours, with all the

THE PEACE OF AMIENS. 41
meanness and all the self-interest ascribed to com
mercial habits. Writers were sent to. England to
misstate our institutions, and to misconstrue our
laws ;* and the daily publications were full of sanc
tioned falsehoods, sometimes emanating from the
pen of the master himself, whose style was always
recognisable. Unfortunately the efforts of England, however
great, however meritorious, however persevering in
the cause of European independence, were, for
many years, so misdirected, that in the eyes of
Europe the national character obtained not the
credit it deserved. The Government, like many
individuals supposed to possess inexhaustible riches,
was flattered, deceived, pUlaged, and ridiculed.
The peace of Amiens was necessary to both
countries : in England, to convince the nation that
its ministers desired peace ; and in France, to allow
its dictator to prepare and to organise a more
general and interminable war. The power of Buona
parte, which he had thought proper (like the Emperors
of Rome) to possess under a consular title, was now
undisputed and supreme. He thus allowed France
to slip back into her old habits of obedience to
arbitrary power, with a salvo to her conscience, and
much gratification to her vanity.
When the two nations of England and France met
in social intercourse, during the short interval ofthe
peace of Amiens, after a twelve years' separation,
they were surprised to find how much they had
grown out of each other's acquaintance. But the
curiosity of England was much more excited than
that of her neighbour, as to aU the alterations that
* Fi^v^e, and many others.

42 REPUBLICAN FORMS.
had taken place during their separation. In France,
these alterations were indeed of no ordinary descrip
tion, and were singularly interesting to the observer
pf social life and manners.
The exaggerated and impossible equaUty of the
demoeratieal repubUc of 1793— the profligate and
degrading manners of the Directory — the newly ac
quired power and efforts of Buonaparte to estabUsh
a better order of social life — the remnant of the old
nobiUty, who, intrenched in the recesses of the
Faubourg St. Germain, had carefully preserved
every prejudice, and (as has been justly observed)-
had neither forgotten nor learnt any thing ; all these
discordant elements, at the peace of Amiens, formed
strange and irreconcilable discrepancies in society;
while every party still believed its force so nearly
poised, that all had hopes of reassuming the domi
nion they had successively lost. The republican
forms of language, and its calendar, were still in use,
-T-were still those of the Government, and of those
employed by it. You were invited on a Quintidi of
such a Decade of Ventose, or of Prairial, to a dinner^
or an evening meeting ; and you were received in an
apartment which bore no mark of change from
former monarchical days, excepting the company it
contained; — the women in the half-naked costume
of Directorial fashion, or the Grecian tuniques and
Grecian coiffures of more recent days ; — the men in
pivil uniforms of all sorts, and all colours of embroi?
dery, with which the Directory (to separate them
selves from the bonnet rouge and the carmagnole of
the Republioans) had thought proper to decorate
themselves and all those put in authority under
them. Among these figured the briUiant miUtary
costumes of the conquering generals, who had

POPULAR LITERATURE. 43
many of them risen from the ranks by merit which
fitted them more for distinction on a field of battle
than in a drawing-room : the manners of their
previous life forsook them not in their peaceful
capacity, and the habits of a guard-room followed
them into the salons of Paris.
The popular literature of the day, — that which
was meant as descriptive of manners, and conse
quently must receive its colour from them, proved
the general moral degradation which had taken
place. A traveller passing through Paris in the
year 1802, at the beginning of a long journey,
applied to a great and respectable bookseUer for
some trifling works to read on the road. Nearly a
hundred volumes were immediately sent to choose
out of; they were part of the novels, romances, and
anecdotes of the last ten years. There was no time
for selection, and the purchaser took at haphazard
thirty or forty volumes of the most inviting titles.
On examination they were found, with hardly an
exception, to be such disgusting repetitions of the
vilest profligacy, such unvaried pictures of the same
disgraceful state of society and manners, without
even the apology of wit or the veU of decency, that
the traveller successively threw the volumes half
read out of the carriage window, to avoid being sup
posed the patient reader of such revolting trash.
The theatres partook of the bad taste, the exagge^r
ration, and the licence of the times. More numerous
and more crowded than ever, their altered audiences,
— altered not less in manners* than in appearance, —
• In the year 1802, two ladies, shown into one of the first
boxes of the Vaudeville Theatre, found a roan alone, wrapped

44 THE FRENCH OPERA.
no longer the arbiters of taste, impressed (as is ever
the case) their own colour on what they allowed to
contribute to their amusement. Exaggerated senti
ments, and strange unnatural situations in patriotism
and in passion, were alone admired ; and every allu
sion Tto their former prejudices or their former go
vernment was marked with an execration, certainly
due to the situations in which the author placed his
characters, and the language they were made to
hold. Their Comic Muse, so long and so justly
admired for her good taste, deigned often to en
velope herself in a veil of continued puns. Whole
pieces were written in this amphibological language,
where all story, all character, all interest, was
sacrificed to combinations of similar sounds, on
which a meaning was forced, the farther fetched
the better.
Their Opera flourished, and was at this time the
theatre the most in fashion. It was here, too,
that the greatest difference was observable in the
appearance of the audience. The lobby, where
formerly were to be seen brilliant groups of all
the young men and women of fashion, and of all
the most distinguished courtezans, who pften ri-

up in a large rough great coat, occupying the front row. He
took not the least notice of the two persons who entered the
box, neither offering them to occupy or to share his place, but
continued chewing tobacco, and disposing of it most uncere
moniously, the whole time the individuals in question remained
in the box. In former times, so strictly was the public feeling
of attention to women maintained, that no man could sit in the
front row of any theatre, while a woman was placed behind
him, without attracting public animadversions, and being
obliged to quit his position.

THE FRENCH THEATRE. 45
vailed and surpassed them in dress and appearance,
was now crowded by a strange medley of ill-
dressed, dirty looking persons; the men with an
affectedly neglected appearance, and the women
with no other distinction of dress or attraction
than valuable shawls and expensive lace veils,
which were often to be detected on persons whose
general appearance was below that of a femme de
chambre of former days. Dancing, however little
analogous either its study or practice might have
been supposed in times of terror and confusion,
had been more cultivated, and had become more
a science than ever, both on the theatre particu
larly appropriated to its exhibition, and in society.
Balls were given, where Vestris the younger
(still maintaining his wonted priority) was re
ceived as a guest to dance in quadrilles, and
compare his talent with that of the best dancers
in society.*
The decorations of the theatre, the scenes, and
the subjects of the ballets, had been much im
proved from the recent occupation of Italy by the
French armies : but, in these improvements, the
character of the times, and the exaggeration whidh
accompanied them, were every where observable.
In mythological subjects, or in those taken from the
Greek or Roman story, the costumes of the different
ages or countries were perfectly and pedantically
observed, even when they sometimes trenched con
siderably on what had hitherto been considered as

* The author saw him, in the year 1802, thus dancing at a
ball given by M, Demidoff, then inhabiting the H6tel de Mon-
tholon, on the Boulevard Montmartre,

46 Buonaparte's future intentions
due to public decency in attire. Calypso in the
ballet of Telemaque, as represented by Mile. Clotiide
in the year 1802, had exactly the same, and not
more, drapery than the beautiful ancient statue of
the Diana Cacciatrice : the nymphs who accom
panied her wore merely one transparent petticoat
over a tight dress of flesh-coloured knitting, leaving
the whole form clearly defined ; — in short, they
were exact copies of the least draped statues of
antiquity. Buonaparte, already living in the Tuileries, and
already, in fact, possessed of supreme power, wisely
made no unnecessary display of it ; while .he ne
glected nothing to confirm its possession to himself,
and to reconcile the nation to its exercise. While a
concordat was settling with Rome the re-establish
ment of a national Church in France, no attempt.
was made to return to or enforce the observance
of any Catholic rites, or of any holidays, but those
of the republic : — while no man, whatever his poverty
or his station in life, would condescend to wear the
livery of another; and while no servant in Paris
would accompany his employer (for the term of
master had ceased) otherwise than by walking at
his side ; — Buonaparte paved the way for a return
to the old hierarchy of menial ranks, by allowing
Josephine to assume a livery for the household of
the wife of the First Consul. While such of the
Faubourg St. Germain as had not emigrated were
left in the peaceful possession of every thing which
the altered condition of their country allowed them,
and while they were returning to some of the enjoy
ments of society among themselves, persons who
were admitted to that society found it, in every

for remodelling FRENCH SOCIETY. 47
particular, so unchanged, that they could hardly
forget their hosts were not all they ever had been.
While such was the case in more than one quarter
in Paris, in another a celebrated mantua- maker* gave
a ball, to which every member of the already all-
powerful Buonaparte family were invited, and where
every one of them went, except the First Consul
himself, who, for reasons which he details to Las
Cases at St. Helena, had already found it necessary
to take measures against the natural familiarity of
the nation, which he felt would have been essentially
adverse to his future views.
He now made advances to England, which, had
they been less contemptuously received, might have
considerably influenced both his destiny, and that of
the Continent. Had he not been provoked to im
mediate war by the rebuff of his first attempt to
treat individually as a sovereign power, he could not
have faUen directly on prostrate Europe, and all but
annihilated the independent existence of both Russia
and Austria; France might have had leisure to
open her eyes to the ultimate views of her leader,
and the nations opposed to her have been allowed
breathing time to recover from the panic occasioned
by the successes of France, and to observe whither
the adoption of her principles was leading them.
But England was, at this time (from the effects of
the entire separation already noticed,) lamentably
ignorant of the real state of France, both with regard
to politics and habits of society. The nations of the
Continent had, to their cost, acquired more just
ideas of her means, her power, and her influence.
* Madame Germon.

48 ADVANCE IN INDUSTRY.
Our insular situation had been at once our security
and our bUnd. We asked for the " evidence of
facts," when they were notorious to all Europe
but ourselves J and we asked it from a man who
sought our alliance and support, while conscious of
powers which made him independent of them.
His first measure in the war which ensued on the
rupture of the Peace of Amiens, was one of vindic
tive vengeance for the affront he had received from
England, and of treason against the good faith and
social confidence of Europe.
The arrest of all English travellers found on the
continent, during a moment of peace, was a flagrant
breach of the law of nations, and an insolent con
tempt of the rights of those countries who were yet
willing to believe themselves independent. This
event, in 1803, drove back all the English who
escaped his bonds to their island, and to the duties
which its dangers and its defence required of them.
An entire separation now again took place between
the two countries, until England, in 1814, headed
the vanguard of combined and indignant Europe in
the re-assertion of her independence, and in her
triumphant entry into the capital of her oppressor.
During the eleven intervening years, in spite of
the perpetual war which the boundless ambition of
Buonaparte, and his intolerable pretensions on other
countries, entailed on France, she had made rapid
strides in industry, and in the means of supplying
herself with every thing which the mistaken policy
of her leader prevented her from receiving from
other lands. At the same time, every endeavour
was made on his part, by recalling and encouraging
internal luxury and expense, to vivify her own pe-

IMPERIAL MAGNIFICENCE, 49
culiar manufactures, and, by great and well directed
public works, to employ every arm not included in
the military conscription of the year.
Vast buildings and vast demolitions, for ornament
as well as for convenience, projected and prosecuted
while he was leading the conquering armies of
France abroad, were the means of securing his abso
lute power at home. The same principle of national
vanity, which gloried in these expenses, afterwards
allowed him to assume a title, of which he already
possessed the power, but which was new and grati
fying to the nation. The establishment of the Im
perial Court, and that with which he surrounded
every member of his family, was more numerous,
more expensive, and more magnificent, than that of
any of his legitimate predecessors.
Many ridiculous particulars are related of the
rigid etiquettes exacted and observed by the persons
he appointed to the state offices of the Crown, who
seemed to conceive that their correct observance
of all the ceremonial of their offices, supplied every
deficiency in their own habits, and made them every
thing that the former possessors of the same offices
could have been.*
But the great man himself judged wisely, that
it was by the dazzling brilliancy of a numerous
Court that he could alone hope to attract and at-
' Xot less strange to some of his enriched Marshals, was the
magnificence they saw around them in their newly furnished
hotels at Paris, The Mar^chale Duchesse de Dantzig, who had
been a vivandikre of the army when the Mar^chal (Leflvre) was
a sergeant in the ranks, remarked on the inutility of the quan
tity of books she saw in their library ; " Car mon mari n'est
pas Lecturier, et moi, je ne suis pas Lisarde."
VOL. II. D

50 FORMATION OF
tach some of those, who had been brought up in the
idea that the glory of their country and their Court
was one and the same thing, and found it now in
convenient, as well as difficult, to separate the two
ideas. How justly Buonaparte calculated on these
effects, and how duly he appreciated the advantages
he meant to draw from them, are admirably detaUed
in a letter to Fouche, while his Minister of PoUce,
in 1809, to whom he says,* — "Je vous envoie, par
mon premier page, mille sept cent quatre vingts huit
demandes que m'ont adressees dans mes voyages, et
a differentes ^poques, des individus qui desirent des
places dans ma maison, ou dans celles des Princes.
J'ai fait ecarter dans le tems toutes celles qui
n'etoient pas admissibles. II s'agit de faire un
choix parmi ces dix-huit cents personnes."
Talleyrand's advice and counsel, which he sends
along with the list, he does not think sufficient to
settle his opinion. He then gives Fouch^ his own
ideas on the subject; on the formation and the pur
poses of a Court, on the characters necessary to
support and adorn it, and on what he expects of
the persons he appoints. He will have nobody
without fortune, as he does not mean to give regular
salaries to any of the officers of his palace. " Je
veux faire sortir des provinces ces messieurs qui me
demandent des places a genoux, qui font assi^ger les
portes de mes anti-chambres par leurs protecteurs, et
qui affectent publiquement de dedaigner les faveurs
du gouvernement  Les officiers du palais
feront une service aupres des rois et des princes
* Bibllotheque Historique, v. \0. cahier 6, published at Paris,
the 13th Nov. 1819, contains the whole letter at length.

Buonaparte's court. 51
etrangers, lorsqu'il en viendra a la cour. Je les
destine a remplir des missions de peu d'importance
dans les cours etrangeres. 11 faut des hommes qui
soient jeunes, et d'une physique agrdable, qui aient
de belles maniferes, afin que les Strangers prennent
de nos moeurs une idee avantageuse. Des gens de
la cour qui plaisent au premier coup-d'oeil sont plus
utiles a servir certains inter^ts politiques, qu'un
Chancelier Oxenstiern s'U 6toit borgne ou boiteux.
La moitie des Princes de I'Europe va arriver a
Paris ; leurs yeux sont accoutum^s a voir de pres ;
I'eclat de la cour fera plus d'impression sur leur
esprit, que les plus belles negociations du ministre
des affaires etrangeres (Talleyrand), dont iis se d^-
fient." He then tells Fouche that, from this fatras
of papers, he must make him a Hst of three or four
hundred persons, with exact details of their age,
fortune, mental and personal qualities, and of their
moral character. Their claims from having occu
pied places in the former Court, or from ancient birth,
which many of them put forward, he does not mean
to take into account : but, " comme il y a question
de vivre a la cour, il faut des personnes qui aient
v^cus dans la bonne compagnie."  " Qu'ils
regrettent ou non I'ancien regime, cela m'est egal ;
en nous voyant de pres, iis verront que nous valons
mieux que ce qu'ils ont perdu."  " Je ne suis
pas fache de faire taire tous ces clabaudeurs, ou de
les faire changer de langage." He then gives a
Ust of certain names of persons he had known in
the provinces, and desires an inquiry to be made
as to what they had been doing during the Con
sulate. Ha adds other names recommended by
Cambaceres, and some by his mother, and then
D 2

52 SELECTION OF OFFICERS.
says, " Dites-moi ce que c'est que MM. de Lou-
vois, St. Aulaire, Juste de NoaiUes, Gontaut, Gram-
mont, Aug. Chabot, Vieuville," &c. accompanied
by many other of the first families of France. He
desires him to confine himself strictly to the pe
titions he sends him : ". Je ne veux nommer personne
qui ne I'ait demand^ et mime solicit^. Vous por-
terez sur votre liste toutes les personnes recom-
mandees par I'Imperatrice Josephine, et par la Reine
Hortense." Nothing can more strongly mark the character
of Buonaparte's mind and politics than this letter,
and the whole of the transaction. Nothing could
be better imagined, or more expedient in his cir
cumstances towards the nation he had to do with,
than what he proposes, and his whole view of the
subject; at the same time nothing more entirely
without that sentiment of individual honour, which,
not feeling himself, he seemed anxious to destroy
or stifle in others. The task was not difficult. It
would be curious to see Fouche's Memoir, which
was ordered to be ready for the first "conseil de
ma maison" to which he should call him at the
end of the month, — the abhorred, degraded Fouche's
report on the character, views, conduct, and man
ners of half the first names of France, then made
dependent on a stroke of his pen for the accom
plishment of their wishes, in attaching them to that
very palace where many of them have since figured
as the devoted courtiers of the Bourbons.
The licence which had taken place in France,
during the twelve first years of her revolution —
the professed disregard to all religion, and the public
neglect of all its rites — parental authority considered

MENTAL IMPROVEMENT. 53
as incompatible with the dignity of free-bprn man,
and the indissolubility of marriage as a still more
insufferable badge of former slavery, — these senti
ments spread, and were communicated with the
eagerness of proselytism to all the adjacent countries :
political freedom seemed to be considered as neces
sarily accompanied by moral licence. The opinions
of Europe thus regenerated, were a new proof how
much farther astray men are at first liable to go on
principles fundamentally right, than on those funda
mentally wrong. In the present instance, no
proffigacy of manners, no corruption of principles,
no tyrannical cruelty of rulers, nor any baseness
of submission in their subjects, during the worst
periods of former French history, equalled that of its
successive revolutionary Governments. But at no
time was the lamp of reason or the inspirations of
truth extinct. Thousands, whilst patiently suffering,
were assiduously cultivating powers of mind, and
prosecuting the acquisition of talents, which sup
ported them under oppression, and rendered them
back to their country, when in a state to appreciate
their merits, with purified minds, cultivated intellects,
and improved characters : many had been obliged to
recur to the exercise and improvement of those
talents, for the means of bread ; all had been
witnesses of such awful changes in the social exis
tence of man, accompanied by such severe inflictions
on their own personal enjoyments, as necessarily
turned their minds from the intercourse of a world
in which they found nothing but reverses and crimes,
to seek comfort and support in the bosoms of their
own famiUes. At the very moment, therefore, when
the most offensive licence was tolerated by the

54 GREAT MORAL CHANGE
pubUc morals of the day, a great, a wholesome, and
a radical reform, was actually taking place in the
domestic habits and feelings of France.
From the aboUtion of all convents and other
seminaries for education, the early youth of children
was passed with their parents. During the three
long years of the Reign of Terror, retirement and
insignificance afforded the only means of safety;
re-unions in society were foregone, and habits
acquired of living much at home, in the hope of
being forgotten rather than distinguished. While
thousands of blood-stained hands were crowding the
many theatres of Paris, both there and in the pro-
vine' al towns they were almost entirely deserted by
their former frequenters, — every body was too much
occupied with fears of the present, or with hopes
of the future, to make further excitement necessary.
As before this time the revolution, and all its
accompanying evils, had fallen on every order of the
State, and crushed and disjointed every spring which
had hitherto held them together ; so the social exis
tence and habits of every order had undergone an
essential change. When the " disjecta membra" of
society were collected together by the strong arm
'of the Imperial Government, this change was per
haps more remarkable in the middle and lower
classes of society, than among those who had now
placed themselves in the upper rank.
The whole host of artisans employed before the
revolution in the service of luxury, all the great
professors of fashion in dress and ornament, were
formerly self-important characters — individuals often
ludicrously distinguished by their high opinion of
themselves, and their exaggerated ideas of the im-

IN SOCIAL HABITS. 55
portance of their own particular art. A fashionable
milliner or mantua-maker generally exhibited on her
own person a sample of an elegant dishabille, or a
demi-toilette, in which their customers sometimes
found it difficult to rival tlie easy grace with which
it was worn by its inventor. These artistes often
found in the boudoirs of the ladies to whom they
were exposing their goods, the same cavaliers who
were sometimes not less well received in their own,
and who perhaps had charmed the duU hours of
previous labour, by their gaUant conversation, and
assisted by their taste in the composition of the very
fashion which they were now called on to judge and
to approve.
These priestesses of fashion were always sur
rounded by a crowd of Aleves, who often rivalled
their instructress in charms and gentillesse, and
aspired to aU her accomplishments. On their per
sonal attractions she often counted more than on
their professional talents ; a seat next the window
to the street, in a fashionable shop, was the ambition
of all its inmates, and the reward of the favoured
few. Good conduct was no more looked for behind
their counters, than in the coulisse of the opera ;
indeed, the one was often a preparatory step to the
other. The revolution swept away from the surface
of republican France all these self-conceited persons,
together with their more uselessly self-conceited
employers. Mile. Martin, who for almost half a
century had improved the complexions of all the
Courts of Europe by her unrivalled rouge, lived to
see the day when herself and her commodity were
equally proscribed. To have been suspected of
wearing it, or of living by its means, during the Reign
of Terror, would have been equally dangerous ; and

^6 ADMINISTRATION OF THE OPERA.
she and her rouge disappeared together, till called
forth again to the Consular Court of Buonaparte,
where the much more moderate use of her cosmetic
must have left strong prejudices in her mind, in
favour of the old regime, and of the old toUette, of
which she herself, at past eighty, exhibited a sample,
in a high-powdered head, a small hat, placed on the
summit of it, a hoop, and high-heeled shoes.*
The whole legal administration of the Opera, and
the privileges attached to it, seemed to have been
especially contrived to keep up a focus of profligacy,
and to offer a reward' to misconduct and licentious
ness in the lower orders of the female world. A
reception on the establishment of the Opera, either
as a singer or as a dancer, although of the lowest
order, and receiving no emolument, took the person
so received entirely out of the power of their parents,
and made them independent of every control but
that of the administration of the Opera, which, it
may be easily supposed, was not severe on the score
of conduct. The consequences were inevitable: it
became the refuge of all the profligate. From its
ranks were chiefly selected those courtesans, whom
the fashion of the day allowed to brave public decency
by their extravagant expenditure, ostentatiously ex
hibiting on every occasion a magnificence in dress and
equipage unattainable by honest means ;t rivalling
* In this costume the author saw her at Paris, in the year
1802, t On Thursday of the Holy Week, 1775, at Longchamp,
" Mile. Du Thd s'y est fait voir dans une voiture fl^ante,
attelee de six chevaux, dont les harnois etoient de marroquin
bleu recouvert de plaques d'acier poll, qui refl^chissoient les
rayons da soleil de toutes parts," — Lettres Secriies et Politiques,
&c. tom, I, p. 272.

MLLE. CLAIRON, . 57
one another in the sums allowed them, and the ruin
they soon entailed on those who from taste or vanity
purchased their favours, and the honour of being
known to supply their uncontrolled extravagance.
Nor was the Opera the only preparatory school for
such characters: the heroines of all the theatres
were supposed equally ready for the same prefer
ment — although their being constantly in the habit
of expressing all the delicacies of sentiment, and all
the struggles of virtue and honour, might have been
supposed to have made them more sensible to both
in their own conduct.
How much their profligate lives injured their
talents, some among themselves had the good sense
to discover. Mademoiselle Clairon, in the interest
ing account she has given of her life and of her art,
although pretending to no farther purity herself than
that of being faithful to one lover, very justly
urges the impossibility of passing the whole of life
in degrading society, except the hour on the stage,
during which actresses are called on to transform
themselves into the representatives and the organ
of the most elevated sentiments and the most vir
tuous sacrifices ! — But neither France nor England
had at that time seen, or seen enough to believe in,
the union of great theatrical talents with purity
of manners, and prudence of conduct. In France,
indeed, such union must have been long retarded,
and rendered difficult, by the shameful prejudices
entertained in public opinion against the profession
ofthe theatre — prejudices which were sanctioned by
the laws, by the exclusion of actors from all the
rights of citizenship, and from aU the benefits of
D 3

58 COLL^.
their reUgion. WhUe remaining in the exercise of
their profession, they were excommunicated from
their church ; and any gentleman's son becoming a
comedian was, by the act itself, disinherited.
Mademoiselle Clairon having the honour and the
interests of the profession, to which she was a dis
tinguished ornament, much at heart, and flattered
by the social distinction which her great talents had
procured for her, made a vain attempt (as is well
known) in the reign of Louis XV, to restore her
fellow- sufferers to the rights of other citizens.
Having retired for a time from the theatre, where
her loss was irreparable to the public, she made her
return to the stage dependent on her success in
obtaining the removal of the excommunication of
the church.
Coll^, a dramatic author of considerable talent,*
and otherwise of respectable character, whom one
might suppose, from his necessary connexion with
actors, rather to favour their pretensions than to
crush them, thus speaks of Mademoiselle Clairon's
attempt, and his opinion of its propriety : — " Elle
demandoit qu'on lev&t I'excommunication dont
I'eglise s'est toujours aide centre ces messieurs:
qu'ils fussent declares expressement citoyens, ^gaux
aux autres citoyens ; et qu'une ancienne ordonnance
de nos rois, qui permet aux peres de famille de
desheriter leurs enfans, pour cause d'histrionage,
fftt abolie.
"Mais quand iis auroient obtenus des lettres
patentes du roi, pour 6tre au niveau des autres
• Author of the Partie de Chasse d'Henri IV.

MADAME DU BARRI. 59
citoyens ; quand ces lettres auroient ^te enrdgistr^es
au parlement; auroient-ils par la d^truit I'opinion
publique ? En seroient-ils rest^s moins infames
dans l'idee de toute la nation ? En supposant m^me
que ce soit un pr^jugt', son extinction peut-elle ^tre
operee par des lettres patentes, et par I'arrfit qui les
enregistre ?
"Je ne parle pas ici de I'atteinte qui pouvoit
donner aux mceurs le consentement du roi, contre
I'opinion gdnerale. 11 n'est pas necessaire d'em-
ployer de nouveaux vehicules pour achever de cor-
rompre entiferement nos mceurs."*
Thus wrote, and thus thought, a dramatic author
in the year 1766 ; — thus lately were these disgraceful
prejudices entertained, even by informed minds, in
France ; and thus was all moral truth of sentiment
and of conduct, confounded and buried under a load
of absurd and arbitrary contradictions, between the
practice of society and the principles on which it was
constituted. The Memoirs lately published under the name of
the "Comtesse du Barri," — (their not being com
posed in their present form by her is little to the
purpose, the facts having been already known from
various other sources) — these Memoirs show to what
a condition a great, powerful, intelligent people may
be reduced, by having no institutions to recur to —
no barriers to secure — no examples to encourage —
no remembrances to oppose to the decrees of a poor
degraded Prince, fallen into the hands ofthe vilest

Journal Historique de Colle, tom. iii, p, 248-

60 PROFLIGATE MANNER
and most contemptible of his subjects. They exbi-
bit a frightful picture of the French nation, go
verned by a Due d'AiguUlon, at the head of her
foreign affairs— a man pubUcly dishonoured by the
first tribunal of his country, indebted for his im
punity to an extraordinary exertion of arbitrary
power in the Sovereign, and individually odious for
the vindictive tyranny of his private character ;— by
a ChanceUor Maupeou, whose violent measures had
brought into contempt even the institutions which
had hitherto been considered as the least contami
nated ; — by an Abb^ Terray, who, at the head of her
finances, allowed the general bankruptcy of the
State to be hurried on by boundless extravagance,
and by a compliance with the most unblushing
demands for the vilest purposes;— by a Due de
la Vrillifere, contemptible even to his contemptible
associates, whose base subservience in the issue of
lettres de cachet placed the personal liberty of every
individual in their hands. These persons, intrusted
with the interests of a great country, thus obeying
every dictate, complying with every fancy, and in
fact holding their power from a woman raised from
the lowest ranks of profligacy, proessing no virtue
but an absence of hypocrisy, and pretending to no
merit but that of not persecuting worth or talents as
long as they kept out of the way. Such a history
of such a crisis, and of such characters, may surely
be regarded as a politically mobai, work ; for what
incentive can be so strong, what motives so pressing,
to consolidate a Constitutional Government ?— a go
vernment depending on institutions, and not on
individuals ; and securing, as far as human foresight

OF GOVERNING FRANCE, 61
can secure, from the danger of falUng again under
the degrading profligacy of a Louis XV, the ruinous
despotism of a Buonaparte, or the still more dread
ful anarchy and excesses, to which all misgovernment
must inevitably lead.

62

CHAPTER IV.
EUROPE DECEIVED BT THE MISCONDUCT OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION, AS TO THE REAL INTENTIONS AND WILL
OF THE NATION  THE EFFECTS OF THEIR SUCCESSIVE
MISGOVERNMENTS  CAUTION OP BUONAPARTB's FIRST
STEPS TO DESPOTIC POWER  DIFFICULTY OF THE COUNTRY
RECOVERING FROM THE DAZZLING EFFECTS OF HIS MILI
TARY GLORY  MISTAKEN VIEWS ON HIS FALL  HIS
SOCIAL CHARACTER  ITS EFFECTS ON HIS CONTEMPO
RARIES, AND ON FRANCE  NO PARALLEL BETWEEN HIM
AND CROMWELL.
The follies, the excesses, the atrocities which
accompanied the first period of the French Revolu
tion seemed to deceive Europe as to the real state
of the national mind and character. The puerilities
which often determined their most serious discus
sions, in consequence of the infancy of their political
existence ; the outrages and the licence which dis
graced all their popular movements, often proceeding
from an ill- calculated opposition to their just de
mands ; and, above all, that total want of faith on
both sides, which mutually (and too justly) pre
vented all confidence in the concessions of the one
party, or in the demands of the other;— these com
bined causes, acting on a lively, intelligent, and
excitable people, consigned them, during the first

SUCCESSIVE GOVERNMENTS. 63
twelve years of emancipation from their old tram
mels, to the anarchical rule of a succession of despi
cable demagogues. From these they took refuge in
the temporary and disjointed Government of an in
sufficient Directory, whose excessive misrule, and
the general disorganisation which was its conse
quence, soon obliged them to accept with gratitude
the protecting arm of arbitrary power, and finally
to receive with acclamation a military despotism,
much more efficient in its power and means of
oppression than that which they had destroyed;
while their dazzled eyes, and flattered vanity, saw
not, with Europe prostrate before their chief, that in
lending their arm to deprive her of independence,
they had allowed themselves to be deprived of every
security for political freedom.
But, under all these successions of folly and of
crime, of frightful licence and of base submission,
of wild visions of impossible freedom, and of tame
obedience to despotic power, — still the universal in
tention of the nation — its general will — was one and
the same, from its first emancipation in the States-
General of 1789, through all the eventful changes of
its Republican, Directorial, Consular, Imperial, and
restored Governments. It willed a general partici
pation in the political, as well as the social existence
of the country — a deliverance from all monopoly,
and all privilege, and security against all great con
centrations either of power or of property. These
it sought with all the ardour of novelty, all the
fickleness of inexperience, and all the credulity of
self-sufficiency and vanity. But still it sought them ;
whUe Europe, deceived by its excesses, and by the
versatility of its submission, persisted in considering

64 PRETENDED AGENTS.
it as a revolted, and not as a regenerated people.
Hence, in the varipus coaUtions in favour of the
Bourbons, both before and after the dissolution of
the monarchy, the nation seemed never to have been
considered as a contracting party. Such coalitions,
therefore, succeeded in nothing, but uniting the
most discordant elements, and riveting one only and
super-eminent will — that of independence.
The profligate manners, the absence of all moral
truth, and the neglect of all religious principle,
which had long preceded the revolution, now acted
on minds emancipated from every control both
human and divine : all aimed at power by excesses
in conduct, and by exaggerations in opinion ; and
France, for some time, exhibited a state of society
unheard of in any civilized country, — a succession of
crimes and cruelties in those obtaining an ephemeral
rule in the Government, which it is difficult to
credit, and of subjection to their will, to which it is
hardly possible to suppose any people infatuated
enough to submit. The country and provinces de
luged by their satellites, and by the idle and worth
less, who, in the general disorganization of all
wholesome government, pretended to be their agents,
and acted in their name.*
* Vidocq tells us, that at Brussels, in the year 1794, he re
ceived from another knave like himself, " non pas un brevet,
mais une feuiUe de route de sous-lieutenant de 6me Chasseurs,
voyageant avec son cheval, ayant droit au logement et aux dis
tributions. C'est ainsi que je me trouvois incorpor^ dans
cette arm4e roulante, composee d'ofliciers sans brevet, sans
troupe, qui, muni de faux ^tats, et de fausses feuilles de route,
en imposoient d'autant plus facilement aux commissaires dea
guerres, qu'il y avoit moins d'ordre & cette Epoque dans leg

RETURN TO RELIGION. 65
The sufferings entailed by emigration, the exer
tions and the privations which it made necessary,
and the virtues which it elicited, — the dreadful scenes
witnessed by those who more manfully remained at
their post, — the loss of friends, of fortune, and of
consequence — an existence which no innocence could
insure, no justice defend, which was often a pro
longed agony of day after day passed in the shadow
of death, — through this long series of sufferings and
of crimes. Providence, by the inscrutable ways,
against which we so often revolt in their progress
towards ends, of whose benevolence even our limited
capacities cannot avoid being aware. Providence
thus prepared a great people for liberty and pros
perity, as soon as they had learnt to merit, and
were capable of preserving such blessings.
The disgraceful excesses, and monstrous crimes,
which had accompanied the professed disbelief in aU
religion, and the neglect of every practice, and
every principle of Christianity, had, during their
sufferings, served to reclaim them, and to re-attach
them to the divine truths of the Catholic reUgion,
purified from many of its superstitious observances,
and much of its intolerance.
The sale of the confiscated property, appropriated
by the nation, had interested thousands in the peace,
welfare, and strength of the State. The most active

administrations militaires. Ce qu'il y a de certain, c'est que
dans une tournee que nous fimes dans les Pays-Bas nous
touch&mes partout nos rations, sans qu'on fit la moindre obser
vation. Cependant Varmie roulante n'etoit pas alors composee
de moins de deux mille aventuriers, qui vivoient 1&, comme le
poisson dans I'eau." — Vidocq, vol, i. p. 74.

66 MILITARY POWER.
of all incitements, that of individual property, was
given to industry. It re-assumed a wholesome acti
vity, even under the military despotism of Buona
parte, and all the smaller provincial towns and
villages wore a new aspect. The cultivation and
improvement of their own field or garden, the em
bellishment of their own house, or the extending
their traffic, was prosecuted with an activity and an
intelligence, unknown while they depended for aid,
advancement, or protection, on a Seigneur, occasion
ally inhabiting the ch&teau of their village, or on the
Commandant du Roi of their town. Conscious of
their own rights, and of an equality, which, however
abused, they fully resolved never to forego ; all the
former self-sufficient airs of the professors of the
arts of luxury, all the idle pretensions of forfeited
nobility, and of former magnificence, were forgotten
in the newly-acquired dignity of the citizens of a free
state, of which, under whatever tyranny or misrule,
they still believed themselves possessed.
Meanwhile a new generation arose, to whom the
abuses of the old monarchy, the Assembly of the
Notables, the States-General, and the Declaration of
the Rights of Man, were already history. They were
born to ideas of liberty and equality, and rose to
manhood in a military world, led by a conquering
chief. They saw everything attainable by military
prowess, and if they felt the iron arm of despotic
power, its grasp was sanctioned by success, and con
cealed by laurels. The long probation of France
was not yet finished ; its regeneration was not yet
complete. After having undergone all the horrors
of anarchy, and all the degradation of a weak
Government, it had now to suffer from all the dearly

THE HOUSE OF BOURBON. 67
bought honours of a powerful military despotism :
vanity, yet uncorrected and an undue appreciation of
miUtary glory, delivered it up, the willing instrument
of the wildest ambition, and of the most profligate
abuses of power, until indignant Europe united, if
not to correct, at least to deprive it of the power of
doing mischief.
As the various exaggerated schemes of liberty,
and attempts at a Republicaa constitution, during
the first twelve years of the Revolution, ended in a
military despotism, — so the military despotism, after
threatening universal empire, and inundating Europe
with blood, ended in bringing the ravages of war
into their own provinces, settling an army of occu
pation on their frontiers, subjecting them to an
imposition of seven hundred millions of francs, and
necessitating the return of their former dynasty.
But their noviciate was now performed; their
probation was over ; their sufferings at an end.
They were now called to admit a Representative
Government, and a Constitutional Monarchy, re
constructed on the improved principles of the times.
They might now have made their own terms with
their restored monarch, and added to the Charter,
which he wisely volunteered, whatever they had
thought necessary for the further security of their
freedom. They might now have distinctly stated,
that they received the Charter as a compact between
the King and the people, containing the terms on
which they agreed to receive again the House of
Bourbon as their Sovereigns : — terms to which the
King, in the circumstances in which he was placed,
must have acceded. But, by allowing hira the
initiative in these terms, to which no objection

68 DISSATISFACTION
was made, the restored Prince doubted not that
he already possessed within himself, and had it
in his gift to bestow, what, in fact, now, for the
first time, devolved on the nation — the power of
choosing its own Government. It was for the Na
tion to have offered to Royalty all the rights it could
harmlessly exercise, and to have surrounded it with
" all the pomp, pride, and circumstances " with
which it has ever been found necessary to decorate
and to conceal the insignificance and the deficient
education of hereditary Princes. These decorations
France, of all other countries, would have been
the most liberal to bestow, from taste as well as
from habit. But she was, at that moment, unfor
tunately situated either for asserting her own rights
or those of others. Her country was occupied by
foreign armies ; her capital full of foreign Princes ;
who, after having destroyed, for their own sakes,
the despot of Europe, would have seen, with no
partial or protecting eye, the sober assertion of
rights originating with the people : — a source of
power of which none of them had, at that time,
allowed the legitimacy. Among their ministers and
counsellors no character started up, at once wise
and bold enough to warn them how much the
future peace, and well-being of Europe, was likely
to depend on the permanent settlement of France.
They, therefore, concurred in a restoration of the
banished family, but left the conditions on which
it was to take place to be settled by those the most
immediately concerned in it. The King believed
that he had the power, as well as the right, to
bestow what portion of Uberty he considered as
compatible with his authority, and the nation felt

UNDER THE BOURBONS. 69
that it had a right to every thing it deemed necessary
to its independence.
The fifteen following years, therefore, were, on
the one side, a vain and fruitless endeavour to
repossess the monarch of his former power, at the
least possible expense of exploded principles, de
tected errors, and obnoxious privileges; a constant
struggle to avoid following up the liberal spirit of
the Charter : on the other side, a continued jealousy
of infringement on the principles of the Charter, and
a suspicion of the ultimate intentions even of benefi
cial measures.
The great moral deficiency, an indifference to
truth and good faith, still spreading its baneful
influence around, and destroying confidence in all
sentiments professed, and all arrangements pro
posed by both parties, while both still betrayed
an almost equal ignorance of the wholesome ad-
piinistration of a Representative Government. Hence,
instead of being occupied in the discussion of any
great national measures, or of the many internal
regulations required by the country, and necessary
to the creation of a public opinion — their political
parties are reduced to a perpetual warfare in their
daily publications. Here, their natural quickness,
and facility in writing, allows them to indulge them
selves and their readers in endless forms of abuse
and recrimination, felt by aU but believed by none.
In recapitulating excellent principles of Govem
ment, to which neither party adhere, and which
their opponents generally refute, by recalling and
citing directly opposite opinions in their own an
terior writings.
From this interminable dilemma, in which a want

70 IMPROVED MORAL IDEAS
of plain dealing has placed them, it might seem
that nothing but great political convulsions could
extricate. Happily, however, thirty years of revo
lution have not been lost on the nation, whatever
they may have been on its statesmen. The nation,
under all the political changes it has undergone, has
continued in a state of progressive advancement in
industry, in information, in the acquisition of
property, and of inteUigence in its management.
Informed and confident in its own resources, it is
no longer to be roused to madness by orators in
clubs, or to be bribed by the price of a day's
debauchery, to endanger an habitually productive
industry.* Could it be supposed that Paris was
ever again to be excited to her former excesses,
France would no longer follow the impulsion.
France, warned and enlightened by her past suffer
ings, would ponder before she followed the steps
of the metropolis ; would weigh the consequences
before she adopted its opinions, and would oppose
the soberer judgment and less excitable passions
of her great manufacturing and commercial cities, to
any sudden ebuUition, either of power or of patriot
ism, in Paris.
But, at the period we are recording, the delirium
of mUitary glory which her abdicated chief had
been so careful to excite and to increase had not
subsided. Time was stUl wanting to restore to
their dazzled sight the power of looking steadily
at the objects vitally essential to that Uberty, for
whose sake they had so suffered, and in whose
* The late Revolution has proved the truth of all these
assertions.

OF THE FRENCH NATION. 71
name they had allowed themselves to be so led
astray. The best intellects among them still held
to men, and not to institutions ; to individual
character, instead of general securities : while the
more thoughtless regretted the impulse that had
been given in all directions by a Revolutionary
Government, and seemed to consider that all great
works, all national improvement, aU general activity,
were necessarily connected with a military despot
ism. They saw, without pleasure, the general
emancipation ; and because Europe, reeling on her
basis, did not immediately recover her equilibrium,
and that every one did not find his place in the
peaceful reorganisation of society, they affected to
regret the fall of despotic power, and to feel no
benefit from the relieved respiration of the social
world. Their bewildered understanding had con
fused the calculations of a selfish despotism, with
the dictates of liberal ideas, and the uncontrolled
activity of absolute power with the progress of
civil liberty. These ideas were unfortunately not
confined to France; but we must suppose, that
being already abandoned by the great majority of that
nation, they are now disowned by aU the liberal
minds of Europe. For such tardy return of judg
ment, and such misguided enthusiasm, many ex
cuses present themselves for the French, which
cannot be offered for those of other nations who fell
into the same mistakes.
France had been raised to a pitch of military glory,
and to a dominion in Europe, unthought of, even in
the most triumphant days of Louis XIV. The first
steps of the conqueror Buonaparte towards despotic
power were made with consummate prudence, taking

72 BUONAPARTE.
care by new institutions to interest a new population
in the support and stabiUty of his Government, be
fore he ventured to expose to them the frightful
nudity of despotism. It has been seen ai last, to be
shunned for ever; whether varnished over by mili
tary glory, or its features disguised under the mask
of Uberal institutions.
Their former idol they now view as he will be
viewed by all posterity, as one of the few who, for
the scourge of their contemporaries on this earth,
have appeared in the character of a conqueror. The
list (if confined to the European world) is happily
short, and certainly the name of Buonaparte will oc
cupy as large a space in the eye of history as that of
Alexander the Great, or of Ceesar, and be recorded
as one having deserved better, both of his age and
of human nature, than either of those who can alone
be called his competitors ; — as one having no natural
disposition to cruelty, except when betrayed into it
by violence of temper, or by obstacles in the way of
his ambition ; — as one possessed of a cultivated in
tellect and inexhaustible power of imagination,* the
suggestions of which being backed by almost unli
mited power, made him suppose every thing attain
able by arms, and encouraged him in dreams of uni
versal empire.
This empire once obtained, he endeavoured to
persuade himself and others, that he was to produce
some new and better order of things, forgetting, in
the brilliant visions suggested by his marvellous ima-

* See, in Las Cases, Napoleon's ideas of what he was to
make France, when he had completed the conquest of Europe,
and what he was to do in England.

Buonaparte's despatches. 73
gination, that the old material, man, was what alone
he had to work with, and to work upon. In the
mean time, he allowed the same neglect of all moral
truth, which had destroyed the former Government,
to undermine his own — to pervade the lying buUe-
tins of his armies — to exaggerate all his successes —
to report doubtful combats into victories — and to
augment at pleasure the returns of his own numbers,
and of the losses of his enemy. His secretary M.
de Bourienne, the most impartial and best informed
of his historians, says, — " II ne balanpait jamais a
d^guiser la verite lorsqu'elle pouvait effleurer sa
gloire. II appeloit niaiserie de ne pas le faire."
And in confirmation of his assertion, he gives the
draft of the bulletin of the disastrous combat of
Ab :)ukir as written by him, avowing the destruction
of the fleet ; and as written by Buonaparte, who tells
his secretary, — "Vous ne connaissez pas les hommes :
laissez-moi faire — ecrivez ;" and dictates to him the
long despatch in which his combats with the Turks,
Arabs, &c. are detailed at length, and a few lines
only given to the battle of Aboukir, where the loss
ofthe ships is laid entirely on Bruey^s, the Admiral,
for not having obeyed a letter from Buonaparte, or
dering him to go to Corfu, which letter the veracious
secretary proves, by the clearest evidence, was never
written. The same incontestable authority tells us, relative
to the death of Dessaix at the battle of Marengo, —
" Je n'ai pas besoin de dire que les paroles que lui
pr^ta le fabuleux bulletin ^taient imaginaires. II
n'est pas mort dans les bras de son aide-de-camp,
comme j'ai Ad ecrire sous la dictee du premier Con-
VOL. II. K

74 Buonaparte's policy.
sui. II n'a pas plus prononc^ le beau discours que
j'^crivis de la mSme maniere."*
Buonaparte must be allowed to have possessed
much natural and general good taste, except when
its dictates interfered with a puerile vanity, which
his unparaUeled elevation seemed to increase instead
of diminish. He exercised withal an extraordinary
influence over the minds of those under his com
mand, or within the sphere of his attraction, partly
from the experience of his abilities and of his re
sources, and partly from certain ebullitions of tem
per, which, while they sometimes led to offensive
consequences, oftener gratified by laying open an
otherwise impracticable character — a character bear
ing prosperity much better than adverse fortune,
and falling at last much more from the deficiencies
of his heart, than from those of his intellect. Having
persuaded himself that virtue and vice, the whole
domain of the moral world, was merely a matter of
calculation, in which the wise succeeded and the
weak failed ; no feeling, no habit of mind led him to
be more cruel or more merciful, more liberal or more
mean, more daring or more cautious, than the occa
sion seemed to require, whether it was to gain an
alliance or to destroy an enemy — whether to attach an
ancient noble to his household, or to raise a dragoon
to the rank of a marshal, and endow him with the
estate of a prince — whether to exhibit himself as the
severe censor of female character and conduct, or to
encourage by every art extravagant expenditure in all
those attached to his Court, as the old and sure means
* Vol. IV. p. 128.

BUONAPARTE. 75
of securing dependence on his will, and submission
to his power. Every virtue and every fault of his
private life, was dictated by this spirit of calculation,
in which he had stifled every sentiment of his heart,
and to which he had reduced every inspiration of his
genius. " Ses injures s^rieuses, ses vives apos
trophes, I'^clat de sa colore, tout cela etoit calculi et
prepare d'avance."*
His vast military talents, his unparalleled power of
wielding immense bodies of men, his no less asto
nishing alacrity at organising his conquests,! his mar
vellous activity and resources, are all recorded by
many, equally able to judge and to criticise them.
They are only considered here as they affected his
private character, and his influence on the social
existence of his contemporaries. Comparisons have
been lately instituted between his character and that
of Cromwell. It appears to the author, that the
grounds from whence they started, were on too en
tirely different a level, — the political situation of

* " Un des plus grands malheurs de Buonaparte etoit de ne
pas croire a I'amitie, et de ne pas eprouver le besoin d'aimer, le
sentiment le plus dou-x donne a I'homme. Combien de fois ne
m'a-t-il pas dit, ' L'amitie n'est qu'un mot, je n'aime personne,
pas m6me mes freres. Joseph peut-^tre un peu — encore si je
I'aime, c'est par habitude. C'est parce qu'il est mon atne.' "
Such a reason for affection or friendship, proves how little the
person avowing it was capable of either. — See Bourienne's Mi-
moires, vol. III. p. 118.
+ Bourienne speaking of the first days of his occupation of
Cairo, on the Egyptian expedition, says, " II faut I'avoir va
dans ces temps ott il ^toit dans toute la force de sa jeunesse ;
rien n'echappoit a sarare intelligence, h. sa prodigieuse activity."
Vol, II. p, 118.
E 2

76 comparisons between
England before the civil war, and of France before
her Revolution, were too essentially dissimilar to ad
mit of any satisfactory parallel.
The people of England, in 1642, required security
for their civil liberties, by the obligation of frequent
Parliaments, the reformation of the Courts of Jus
tice, and by the independence of the judges. The
general morals ofthe country had suffered little from
the degrading reign of James I, which had disgusted
rather than seduced ; and the characters who imme
diately appeared, and who were produced by the
great ensuing struggle, proved the intellectual health
and strength of the country.
The Government of France, before 1789, was
that of Turkey, without the bow-string, and with
such ameliorations only as were produced by the
progression of public opinion, and the general im
provement of Europe. Her moral existence was
corrupted to the core. Were it not for a mass of
contemporary evidence, it would be difficult to be
lieve either the private or the political profligacy to
which France was abandoned from the death of
Louis XIV to her Revolution. At that great crisis
the tone of her sentiments, at once false and exag
gerated, seemed incapable of producing, during the
first twelve years of her emancipation, any thing but
visionaries and assassins.
Cromwell destroyed all the established laws of a
Representative Government, and broke down every
barrier existing between the King and the people,
to possess himself of an unconstitutional power.
Having reduced his country to military subjection,
and enforced the perpetration of an act, which has
justly been described by a late writer as no less im-

CROMWELL AND BUONAPARTE. 77
politic than it was illegal,* he possessed himself of
more than regal power, and was then obliged to re
establish most of the institutions he had destroyed,
as the best supports of his own authority.
Buonaparte did not " steal the precious diadem
from a shelf," but found it in the kennel ; placed it
on his own head ; surrounded himself with new in
stitutions, and with-\he semblance of a much more
liberal, and the reality of a much more efficient,
Government than France had ever before expe
rienced. Had Buonaparte been placed in the situation of
CromweU, we cannot but suppose he would have
been equaUy jealous of the honour of the country in
all its foreign relations, and equally eager to support
its rights and to enforce its claims by arms ; while
we can hardly believe he would have left it internaUy
the prey of two factious and canting sects, who
brought religion into disrepute even with the pious,
and laboured especiaUy to stop the progress of that
cultivation of mind, and those Uberal studies,, which
the general improvement of the age required.
Had CromweU, whose mind, either naturally con
fused, or habitually ill-arranged by the hypocrisy
which he had made natural to him — had Cromwell
been placed in the situation of Buonaparte, would he
have been able to embrace at once all the wants, and
to give energy to all the various constituent parts

* "The blow which terminated his (Charles I's) life, at
once transferred the allegiance of every royalist to an heir ; and
an heir who was at liberty ; — to kill the individual was truly,
under such circumstances, not to destroy, but to release the
King." — Edinburgh Review, No. 95. p. 139.

78 comparisons between -
of a great empire ; to encourage her arts, while he
triumphed with her arms ; to restore worship in her
Churches, and respect to her religion, activity to her
manufactures, education to her youth, and reason
and equity to her new-modelled laws ?
What Cromwell did, he did weU. He was cer
tainly the first among those bold and determined
spirits who sought the libertieg, of their country in
the field, after having struggled in vain to obtain
them otherwise. But the theatre of his miUtary
exploits was neither various nor extensive; and
perhaps the most laudable part of his character was
his avoiding occasions of making it more so. He
began public life too late to allow much change to
take place in his social habits. No great praise,
therefore, can be due to his forbearance, in living at
Whitehall without much exterior pomp and magni
ficence, in allowing his son to remain a mere Hert
fordshire squire, and his wife a mere frugal house
keeper. His distribution of England into mUitary
districts, under the authority of Major-Generals,
accords ill with his panegyrist's opinion, that " even
when almost compelled to govern by the sword, he
was still anxious to leave a germ from which, at a
more favourable season, free institutions might
spring."* He left his absolute authority as entirely
without any stipulations for the future security of
the people, or any constitutional checks on his
usurped power, as ever Buonaparte did, when he
graciously signified to the French nation, that he
was wiUing to withdraw himself, and to entail on
them his son and his despotism to all generatipns.
* Edinburgh Review, No. 9 5. p. 143.

CROMWELL AND BUONAPARTE. 79
Cromwell died "with all his blushing honours
thick upon him," at an age when he might be for
given for thinking that he had yet time to make
final arrangements. But the great culprit, whom
united Europe accused, against whom millions of
witnesses deposed, after having broken faith with
those whom he affected to consider separately as
only his equals, but aU of whom he had treated as
his slaves, was at last overtaken by punishment —
by punishment in no way commensurate or relative
to his moral perversity or his moral merits, which
can be judged only at the great tribunal of Heaven.
But to his continued aggressions against the lives and
happiness, the social rights and independent exis
tence, of his fellow-creatures. Confinement to a
smaU island, where he was precluded from the
possibility of doing either harm or good, while no
difficulties were thrown in the way of his quiet
existence, (except those which he obstinately created
to himself,) wiU be considered by posterity, when
aU contemporary prejudices, passions, and vanities
are forgotten, to have been neither an unappropriate
nor an unmerciful punishment for such a delinquent.
That the office of his gaoler should have devolved
on England will then be attributed to its true and
honourable cause, that amidst combined Europe her
moral faith alone was equally trusted by all her
allies.

80

CHAPTER V.
FRANCE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE RESTORATION OF THB
BOURBONS  UNWISE MEASURES WHICH LED TO THE
RETURN FROM ELBA  EFFECTS OF THE ENORMOUS AR
MIES BROUGHT TOGETHER FOR, AND AGAINST, BUONA
PARTE  CONDUCT OP THE ROYALISTS IN 1815  GENE
RAL DISSATISFACTION DURING THE FIRST TEN YEARS
OF PEACE, BOTH IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE  DUKE OF
berry's ASSASSINATION  ITS EFFECTS ON THE GOVERN
MENT  NATIONAL PROSPERITY OF FRANCE  NUMBER
OF ENGLISH IN PARIS  CHANGE IN FRENCH SOCIETY
SINCE THE EESTORATION  REASONS OF DISCONTENT
EXISTING IN ALL ITS CLASSES  SOCIAL HABITS OF THE
NATION RESUMING THEIR SWAY  THEIR EFFECTS ON
THE DIFFERENT ORDERS OF SOCIETY.
When France began at last to open her eyes to the
character and the intentions of her conquering
chief — when Fortune, wearied by his unreasonable
demands on her, at last abandoned him — when in
dignant Europe at last succeeded in recovering that
independence which her States had separately lost, —
a new era in the social existence of France may be
said to have commenced. In considering its pecu
Uarities, the ten months' reign of Louis, and the
Hundred Days' of Napoleon, must be set against each

RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII. 81
other, and our speculations begin after the second
Restoration, in 1815. It would be invidious, on the
one hand, to dwell in detail on the foolish and con
temptible pretensions of many who had left their
country as fugitives, and returned to it with the
airs of conquerors ; or to notice, on the other hand,
the sudden convictions of the insufficiency of the
Charter, and the want of faith in its donor, while
unlimited confidence was immediately obtained for
an Acte additionnel to an already experienced despo
tism, and to a Champ de Mai, whose power and
whose promises nobody even pretended to under
stand. As the second return of Louis and his family to
the capital was unfortunately accompanied by
150,000 foreign troops, and by the Conqueror of
Waterloo; by a great pecuniary impo.sition, and by
the military occupation of the frontiers, we cannot
wonder at the discontent, the mortification, and the
ill-humour of France during the first years ofthe
Peace — a Peace whose terms, the circumstances in
which they were granted, and the sacrifices they
entailed, might (if nations were taught by experi
ence) have materially assisted in advancing that
political education, in which France seems still to
have much to learn. The restored regal Govern
ment appeared at first to act as if insensible to the
mighty change effected during the five and twenty
foregone years ; certainly the most eventful that had
ever taken place in the civilised world. The admi
nistration appeared to forget, that the spirit of re
ligious toleration was now professed by all sects
of Christians. The revolutionary spirit had raged
most intensely in the southern provinces of France,
E 3

82 MISTAKEN IDEAS.
where the wealth, importance, and liberal sentiments
of the Protestant part of the population had made
them tbe first and most active leaders in the iU-
directed pursuit of civU liberty. The Government
now allowed a reaction to take place, which sheltered
the vilest crimes under the banner of loyalty, and
afterwards allowed the same pretence to succeed
in procuring for those crimes a disgraceful impunity.
The returned RoyaUsts had forgotten that a genera
tion had arisen during their absence, to whom the
restored Royal Family were strangers, — a generation
who had been brought up in an age of military
glory founded on their adversity, and whose vanity
had been flattered in a brilliant Court, which was
that of their enemy. They had forgotten, in their
long absence, and their intercourse with other na
tions, the distinctive characteristics of their own, —
its excessive vanity, the mobility of its sentiments,
and its active and buoyant mind. The unexampled
miUtary glory acquired under the tri-coloured
cockade made the re-adoption of the white so repug
nant to the feelings of the whole military popula
tion, .xiat it is perhaps not too much to say that hopes
of the success of Napoleon's return from Elba
might have been crushed by a change in the colour
of a riband !
The irritable vanity of tbe new nobility, not
satisfied with their recognition by the restored
monarch, led them to suspect a contempt for their
honours, and a disinclination to their society, in
the old nobility; while the sober intelligence of
all the best heads of France in every order of the
State, saw with regret the regal Government profit
ing by many of the abuses, and adopting none of the

NEY — LA VALETTE. 83
improvements, which had been introduced into the
administration of the Empire. The consequences
are too well known ; — their arch enemy took advan
tage of the glaring misconduct pf the Government,
and counted on the credulity and the mobility of the
people, by which he weU knew half his former suc
cesses had been obtained.
How truly he calculated, the event showed ; and
Europe and France have still, in their burdened
finances, and their increased standing armies, to
curse the last effort of a wUd and selfish ambition,
which has prolonged their financial difficulties, and
furnished an excuse for the maintenance of their
armies. That the principles and conduct of Buonaparte's
Government, both consular and imperial, had retro
graded the moral improvement of France, in all
feeUng and practice of truth and good faith, the con
duct both of Ney and La Valette (however con
sidered as martyrs by their party) sufficiently prove.
The one falsifying not only his professional oaths,
but his individual and solemn promises to Louis,
reiterating them at night to his army at Lons-le-
Saulnier, and the next morning waving his hat for
Napoleon. The other at the head of the Post-office,
appointed by and having sworn fidelity to Louis,
stopping the despatches of his Government, and
forwarding those of the Usurper (for Usurper, after
his return from Elba, if there is any meaning
in language, he must be called). These persons,
and many others in nearly similar situations, claim
ing with assurance exemption from the name and
from the punishment of traitors, prove an absence
of any clear perception of truth and good faith.

84 NATURAL CONSEQUENCES
The same great defect had destroyed the old Go
vernment, where it had penetrated every order of
the State, and insulated every one in the circle
of his own interests. It had led to all the excesses
that foUowed; it had undermined the towering
glory of Buonaparte : it had restored him by the
same false means, to meet a worse fate ; and even
now it is the great and fundamental cause that,
in spite of all the increased and increasing intel
ligence, experience, and intellectual lights of France
— even now prevents her Government from doing
half it might, and her people from reaping half
the advantages of their commanding situation.*
The frequent recurrence to a principle which is
more palpable when treated in detail, and applied to
individual circumstances, than thus generalised, may
possibly be ridiculed by many. But the author
abandons with confidence the general assertion to
every deeply thinking mind, convinced that in all
circumstances (unconnected with party or with petty
poUtics) the application of this principle of truth
and good faith to the affairs of men will be found to
give the exact measure of good or evil in human
institutions. On the cessation of a state of warfare which had
lasted above twenty-five years, the natural impa
tience of mankind to profit immediately by the
advantages of peace, — advantages which had been
so often held out to them as the reward of all their
sacrifices, and the term of all their labours, —
created general discontent. It gave rise every where
to ill-judged regrets of the past, and impossible
* This was written before the Revolution of July, 1830.

OF A DEFECTIVE SYSTEM. 85
schemes to remedy the present. It was in vain to
attempt avoiding the unavoidable evil of a third part
of the active population of a whole country at once
changing their means and their habits of existence,
and being returned into society on a peace estab
lishment. It was equally impossible, their being
immediately absorbed into the regular and healthy
circulation of their country. Yet how necessary
this return to peace was (whatever its inconve
niences), the very evils here enumerated eminently
proved. Had a state of warfare continued but a
few years longer, or had Buonaparte's political exis
tence been prolonged, war would have become the
habitual state of European society, and intervals
of peace merely occasional. The enormous bodies
of men which Buonaparte had occasioned to be
brought, and to be kept together so long, both for
and against his power, had engrossed so great a
portion of the population of the countries to which
they belonged, that they had become separately
constituted bodies. When they met at last, in one
great focus at Paris, in the year 1815, they were
so dangerously near discovering their own immense
numerical force — so near generating a spirit of inde
pendent power, and of dictating to their leaders —
that the greatest Captain of the present day has
since confessed, that he and his associates in com
mand found the necessity of securing terms of
peace, and allowing the retreat of the French army
beyond the Loire, to facilitate the immediate dis
persion of the other great armed associations of
Europe, which could not with impunity have re
mained longer in contact.
In England, the impatience at not immediately

86 FALSE SPECULATIONS.
experiencing the benefits of peace was as severely
felt as in France. Here the great body of the
people Jiad been spared the spectacle of the ravages
of war. Its evils had been principally felt in the
embarrassed state of commerce, and the immense
burden of taxation. To freedom for the first, and to
relief from the second, they looked with a confidence
which the enormous expenses and after- reckonings of
so long a state of warfare made it impossible to
satisfy. From this impatience arose immense and
ill-combined mercantile speculations, which over
stocked all the markets of the world with the
manufactures of England, and increased the evU
they sought to relieve. The same causes, within a
few years, produced a mania of projects, of associa
tions, and of joint-stock companies, which nearly
rivaUed the bubbles of the famous South Sea year
(1721), both in the knavery of the projectors, the
folly of those who trusted them, and the distress
and bankruptcy which they shortly produced. There
were mining companies for every part of the world ;
Eldorado, it seemed, was believed really to exist in
South America. The funds of these mining com
panies rose and fell twenty and thirty per cent, in
the course of a week ; and the sums sometimes
obtained in the gambling speculations of buying
one day, to sell the next, led to the serious loss of
thousands. After the mining companies, which, from
some idea of having to do with the actual production
and increase of money, seem always to have been
favourites in all scheming times, came a company to
weigh up the specie sunk in the Spanish galleons at
Vigo, eighty years before ! — a company of pearl-
fishers, to supply the world with more pearls than

INDECISION OF THE FRENCH. 87
had ever been before produced. Then, for those
liking to place their money nearer home, there were
companies for supplying the metropolis with milk
and cream — general washing companies — companies
for brick-making — and many other similar schemes,
whose detail filled the columns of the newspapers
for nearly a twelvemonth, and then disappeared
"like the baseless fabric of a vision," leaving only
a considerable deficit in the pockets of aU concerned,
except the treasurers and secretaries, and a few
fraudulent speculators, who were generally the
authors of the schemes in question, for the purpose
of plundering their more guUable associates.
The population of France, not ha^dng these
resources (such as they were) to occupy their unem
ployed activity and capital, it was found a more
difficult task to amalgamate the discordant elements
out of which was to be formed a Representative
Government, to administer their now chartered
rights. The younger part of the population, bom to
ideas of liberty and equality, had had their under
standing confused, and their political education
marred, by the dazzUng despotism of Buonaparte.
The demagogues who had survived the furies of the
Reign of Terror, and whose impotent rage had sunk
into insignificance, anxiously watched and sought
the means of creating confusion, which could alone
bring them again to the surface. The Republicans,
who were yet dreaming of attaining their visionary
end by a violent re-action from the late despotism —
the real patriots of 1789, whose desire of rational
freedom had been as unalterable as their attempts
towards it had been misguided, felt awkward that,
after having passed through " such variety of

88 ERRONEOUS IDEAS
wretchedness" in forms of Government, they should
be at last found quietly submitting to arbitrary
power forced down their throats, with the prostitut
ed phraseology of freedom, and under the name of
institutions to which they had attached ideas of
liberty. To all these must be added the old inveter
ate upholders of all the prejudices and pretensions
of their own age, martyrs to ideas which found no
longer any sympathy, and sufferers from causes
honoured by none but themselves ; resting the
whole pretensions of a great body of insignificant,
but of inveterably obstinate people, on the faithful
and devoted attachment of a part of their order to
the fallen and desperate fortunes of their Sovereign
and his family; claiming remuneration for losses
which (for the most part) their own errors had in
curred, and which the country regarded with a
jealous eye.
It belongs not to this work to enter into detaUs
of the various parties and fractions of parties which
were engendered in this incongruous mass ; of the
various administrations, composed, and altered, and
dismissed, and composed again, to be again dis
missed ; of the many suspected plots for indefinite
ends, and petty conspiracies of insignificant and
powerless individuals, which clogged and impeded
the wholesome progress of the constitutional mon
archy during the first ten years of its existence. The
violence of party feelings, and the bitterness of
adverse opinions, were infinitely greater after the
second Restoration than they had been after the
first. The enormous national mistake (to give it no
harsher name) which allowed the return of Buona
parte, demanded a severe national expiation. A

OF THE FRENCH NATION. 89
great and enlightened people, who had been reason
ing, acting, and suffering for above a quarter of a
century, to secure political freedom, aUowing them
selves to be replaced by their own armed force,
under the iron sceptre of a military despot, instead
of wisely securing all they further wanted, from a
sovereign power capable to grant, but too weak to
refuse them — an army which had been allowed thus
to dispose of the liberties, laws, and securities of
their country, — must both expect severe retribution
to follow such monstrous offences against reason,
good faith, and common sense. Hence, when
awakened by the cannon of Waterloo from the
feverish and bewildered dream ofthe Hundred Days,
the nation was exposed to all the excesses of the
year 1815. The first Assembly of its representatives
under its constitutional King, almost rivaUed the
judicial cruelties of the revolutionary tribunals ; and
the agents it employed, their violence. Hence the
army made its disbandment necessary, and any
amalgamation with that of the reigning Sovereign
difficult and dangerous.
Notwithstanding all these jarring elements — not
withstanding the dissonance, the excitement, and
the disrespectability (if the term may be aUowed)
of the political world of France at this period — had
the Government, after having wisely prefaced its
assumption of power by the grant of a Charter
assuring every means of rational liberty ; had it as
wisely proved itself to be advancing openly and
decidedly in the sense of that Charter, interpreting
its articles liberally, and acting in its spirit ; it would
have set an example of confidence and good faith,
which must have created similar sentiments. It

90 MISTAKEN COUNSELLORS.
must have convinced the Republicans that liberty
was compatible with a constitutional monarchy ; it
must have destroyed every hope of the anarchists,
and of the Buonapartists, and gratified every wish of
the patriots of ] 789; but, unfortunately, the Govem
ment seemed always acting under an impression of
the same want of confidence that it inspired. A
rapid change of councils and of counseUors kept the
people and their representatives in perpetual doubt
and anxiety with regard to the two great points on
which, in fact, hinged the peace and satisfaction of
the country, and the stabUity of the throne — the law
of their popular elections, and the security of their
national domains.
Neither the ministers of the crown, nor the
deputies of the people, had as yet acquired, or were
prepared to act, on the tme principles of a Repre
sentative Government. The most liberal of their
politicians stiU dwelt on and deprecated the mis
conduct and weakness of individuals, instead of
profiting by that weakness, to secure and confirm
institutions, which can alone render Governments
independent of personal character. The counseUors
of their Princes seemed to consider every concession
to the wishes pf the people a diminution of their
power and security. They were frightened at every
trifling expression of popular feeUng, which they
repressed, instead of aUowing to evaporate, and thus
clear the political atmosphere, by proving that such
passing clouds have no power to affect the mUd
temperature pf a Representative Gpvemment ; cpn-
vincing the liberals that their estates were safe and
their rights secure, in spite pf all the ridiculpu^
dpctrines and siUy conduct pf the Ultra-Rpyalists ;

ASSASSINATION OF THE DUC DE BERRI. 91
and convincing the Ultra-Royalists that neither
anarchy, proscriptions, nor confusion, ensued from
a limited monarchy and the freedom of the press.
In the mean time, the people at large were, in fact,
enjoying quiet and prosperity. By their natural
mobility of spirit, they had returned to habits of
peaceful occupation ; agriculture was active — com
merce improving — industry inventive and enterpris
ing — building and repairs going on in every little
town and viUage — gardens surrounding almost every
cottage — and various marks of natural ease and
welfare. The insulated crime of the assassination
of the Due de Berri, in February, 1820, afforded, at
the moment in which it happened, a convincing
proof of the advance made by the public mind in the
true principles of penal government, and the aid
they already received from pubUc opinion. Instead
of the severe, strange, and cruel precautionary
measures, which were taken on former attempts at
simUar crimes in the old monarchy; this startling
event, although it took place the very night before
three strong restrictive measures — on the civil liber
ty of the subject, on the liberty of the press, and on
the law of elections were to be brought forward by
the ministers of the crown in the Chamber of
Deputies, produced no arrests but that of the crimi
nal himself. The barriers of Paris were never shut.
His examination was conducted according to the
existing laws; and the culprit, meanwhUe, treated
much like other criminals ; and this, notwithstanding
a great part of the Court, and those attached to it,
professed to believe, and actually to accuse a favou
rite minister of the King of having been an accessary

92 WEAKNESS OF LOUIS XVIII.
and an accomplice in the murder of his nephew.*
When the strange local colouring of these times
shall have faded and passed away, it wUl be difficult
to extort belief for the existence of such a perversion
of reason and common sense, in any part of a great
community, at the same moment that an improve
ment was manifested in the judgment and conduct
of the whole. Had Louis XVIII possessed energy
of mind, and purity of political intention, sufficient
to have resisted the prayers of his family, and the
clamour of those who basely gave in to a calumny
which it was impossible to suppose they could
beUeve, his favourite, Decazes, remaining minister,
must necessarily have strengthened his administra
tion, by calling in some of the most distinguished of
the constitutional party; and might possibly have
succeeded in giving France a strong, efficient, and
liberal administration, acting in the sense and on the
principles ofthe Charter.
Peace had no sooner been restored, and the social
relations of Europe relieved from dependence on the
breath of a military despot, than England poured
* When Madame de Cazes (the wife of the minister)
went to St, Cloud four days after the event, as all the
Court and all the ministers had done, to make their in
quiries after the Duchesse de Berri, no living soul spoke to
her, except a very few civil words addressed to her out of
compassion by the Comtesse de N  . The Princes were
obliged to pass through the apartment in which she was wait
ing, and both Charles Dix (then Monsieur) and the Duchesse
d'AngoulSme hurried through the room, turning their faces
away from her — while their attendants exclaimed, almost within
her hearing, at the audace of her venturing under the very roof
of their victime.

DISAPPOINTED EXPECTATIONS. 93
forth her islanders, impatient of their confinement,
but resolved never again to risk a residence at Ver
dun in exchange for it. Paris M'as immediately fiUed
with all the young, and all the rich, and all the idle,
who had been so long denied participation in plea
sures, and gaieties, and grandeurs, of which either
they had heard so much, or of which they had re
tained such agreeable recollections. Many arrived
with ideas of intimate friendships contracted with
French individuals in emigration, by whom they
conceived they were to be received with such grate
ful remembrance of the past, as would lead to a
renewal of former intimacy, and to much enjoyment
in their society.
All pretenders to beauty or wit anticipated a new
theatre for their successes in regenerated France,
which, from all it had gained, and all it had lost,
by its Revolution, would be more aware of their
merits, and more willing to do justice to them. All
those who remembered France in the moment of
Anglo-mania which immediately preceded the Revo
lution, fancied that they should still find some re
mains of good-will to the country which she had
then looked to as her model, and some respect for
those who had so long preceded her in the enjoy
ment of civil liberty. AU our men of science were
eager to make the acquaintance and seek the society
of those, distinguished by similar pursuits in France,
To their acquirements they had always done ample
justice, and they sought to re-establish that com
munication of discoveries and improvements, which
the late troubled state of Europe had somewhat
interrupted. In these expectations every one was,
more or less, disappointed.

94 DISAPPOINTED EXPECTATIONS.
The young and gay, who came frill of the reputed
charms and perfection of French society, found that
into which they were admitted much less gay, more
formal, and more uniform than their own. All
pretensions, whether to beauty, or wit, or talents,
instead of being allowed, were hardly noticed, or
noticed only to be criticised. Those who brought
testimonials of any sort of social distinction in their
own country, were those the most severely judged.
The favourites, if any, were always selected from
among persons hitherto unnoticed at home — no one
acquaintance led to another. The women in the
first society made it a rule that no one was to pro
pose the introduction of a foreigner. This restric
tion, indeed, was for the most part confined to the
female sex; but our young Englishmen found so
much to occupy them in the public amusements, the
theatres, and the various interests of a great
metropolis, that very few of them ever submitted to
undergo the severe noviciate required by French
society, in order to attain any degree of ease and
intimacy in it. Our ladies certainly seemed to
receive an intimation from those of France, that
they had renounced all idea of ever leaving their own
country again, by their marked neglect of the
travellers of all other countries. The remembrances
of emigration could not be agreeable, and, conse
quently, the debts of friendship were in general paid
as succinctly and with as little trouble as possible,
without any renewal of past intimacy. Those old
enough to remember the opinions of France for
England before the Revolution, heard with astonish
ment all the vulgar prejudices against her constitu
tion, her laws, and her public principles, which had

DISSIPATION STILL UNCHANGED. 95
been propagated by Buonaparte, repeated not only by
those of his fallen party, but by the returned
Royalists, and by the professed Constitutionalists.
The supercUious manners of some of the greatest
names in science, and their unaccommodating igno
rance, or obstinacy, in not speaking our language
themselves, or being patient and indulgent to their
own language ill-spoken, made their social com
munications with most of our men of science dry
and unsatisfactory — rendered them insensible to the
colloquial merits of a Playfair, and ignorant of many
other hardly less interesting and unpretending cha
racters. The loss of fortune in the Revolution, and the
general derangement of affairs from the recent
disturbances, was a sufficient excuse for an absence
of hospitaUty. During the first five or six years
aftei: the Restoration, all the great fetes and enter
tainments were almost exclusively given by the
diplomatic body, or by some of the foreign indi
viduals then estabUshed at Paris. The eagerness
eviftced to be present on all these occasions, proved
that the national taste for dissipation had in no
respect diminished with the means of indulging
in it.
When the society of the metropolis again re
assembled under the restored monarchy, all found
that their own domestic habits had undergone a
material change. The business of a Representative
Government, which occupied not only those belong
ing to the two Chambers, but likewise the many
dependent on them, necessarily influenced the hour
of aU social meetings. Dinners at six o'clock were

96 DISSATISFIED PRETENSIONS.
almost too late to admit of the theatres forming a
part of the amusement of the evening as formerly,
and precluded the habit of supping, or of making
suppers the social meal. The residence of the
Sovereign and his family, and all attached to them,
— the ministers and the public officers being now in
Paris, instead of at twelve miles' distance from it,
immensely increased the numbers of those fre
quenting the Court, the levees of ministers, and aU
other public meetings.
The many persons who had been called into
society during the last thirty years by the events of
the Revolution, — those who had now retired from
the command of armies, or from the pro-consular
powers which had been delegated by Buonaparte, —
all now poured into the society of Paris — all brought
with them pretensions and recollections founded on
the past, which indisposed them to be satisfied with
the present.
The recent nobility regretted the extravagant
splendour of the Imperial Court, where they flou
rished unrivalled, and free from any awkward com
parisons or mortifying neglects. The old nobility
remembered the more select and chosen society of
Marie Antoinette, and mourned over that refinement
of manners, and those exclusive distinctions, which
were allowed by the prejudices of the day, and
secured by the ridicule that would have followed the
slightest neglect, or the slightest infringement of
them. The military, who had seen crowns and
coronets distributed among their ranks during the
empire, found it difficult to confine their views and
their ambition to the honours and distinctions of

SOCIAL CHANGES. 97
their profession, when reduced to the existence
which belongs to it in the due administration of a
constitutional monarchy.
Among the lower orders, throughout all the class
of servants, shopkeepers, and workmen, all those
who, incapable of abstract reasoning on matters of
Government, are struck only by the immediate
associations around them — all had, either in their
own famiUes, or those of their acquaintance, witnessed
such sudden elevations of fortune — such distinctions
of rank or of riches, acquired by their equals, their
school-feUows, or their fellow-labourers, that, mis
taking the arbitrary will and partial benefactions of
despotic power, for equality of rights, they aU
regretted a Government where such distinctions (no
matter by what means) were attainable ; it was to
them a lottery, where every one was content to lose
something, and many to be ruined, provided only
that their chance for the £20,000 prize was stUl
open. Great assemblies, crowded balls, and dinners of
forty people, which had been exploded from London,
seemed to have been adopted at Paris, little to the
advantage of the real purposes or enjoyments of
society. But these enjoyments were still more
destroyed by the rancour of party feeling, and the
violence of political opinions : one half of the world
could not meet the other half, except in an assembly
large enough to allow each to avoid the other.
Literature, the theatre, science, everything but
politics, were banished from conversation ; and these
poUtics were so discordant, that their discussion
could only take place among persons of the same
side of the question. Even in houses where, from
VOL. II. F

98 SOCIAL HABITS.
the proprietors being of domestic habits, and having
no political character to support, the society was
small enough to have admitted conversation, the men
all retired into groups, talking of the subject of the
day among themselves, and the women were left
seated, in sad symmetry, opposite to each other,
without any encouragement or help towards amuse
ment. But these unsocial habits could not long maintain
their ground in social France. The respectable of
alj. parties, forgetting former opinions, began to
respect each other. The young women'had received
an education in every way superior to that of former
days. They united, to the perfect good manners to
which those days exclusively pretended, principles
of conduct, and acquirements which were rare be
fore. Marriages were soon contracted between the
new nobiUty and the old, which afforded mutual ad
vantages, duly appreciated by both. These mar
riages, though still arranged by parents, were, for
the most part, settled with such regard to the tastes
and wishes of the contracting parties, as to make
them feel responsible for their subsequent conduct.
Domestic habits had become as much the fashion,
as the contrary had been in other times. Husbands
and wives visited together, and generally, although
not exclusively, frequented the same societies.
What would have been remarked on and distin
guished as a bon menage in former days, was now,
apparently, that of all the world. Social habits, by
degrees, were again adopted ; persons were again
found, in their own houses in the evening, without
a crowd; a certain number of intimates were sure
to assemble round them ; conversation again resumed

FRENCH SOCIETY REFORMED. 99
its value, was lively and trifling without vapidity,
and grave without prosing or dulness. A language
singularly calculated for colloquial purposes (perhaps
from having been more and longer applied to them
than any other) was again made the medium of that
quick perception of character, those accurate shades
of sentiment, that playful versatility of imagination,
and that power of making serious subjects assume a
familiar form, which mark French conversation in
its best manner. Talents, if possessed, were pro-
' duced without difficulty or affectation; they were
considered as the property of the society, to be
drawn on at pleasure, but for which the possessor
was amply repaid by the applause which they cer
tainly produced. Nobody remained longer in these
societies than they wished, or left them sooner ; —
nobody, therefore, thought it necessary to apologize
for accidental dulness, or to torment themselves
with efforts to excite gaiety. Nobody went to one
place that they might be asked to another, which
they, in fact, cared equally little about. BaUs and
great meetings were, for the most part, left to the
young of both sexes. " Les veterans de la fatuit^"
were less numerous ; in short, society in the upper
classes began to exhibit those best forms which did,
and do, and it is to be hoped ever will, distinguish
France. Among the bourgeoisie and in the com
mercial world, a change hardly less remarkable, and
an improvement not less perceptible, had taken
place. The fashionable tradespeople, and professors
of the arts of luxury, now feeling independent of all
protection from their superiors, trusted entirely to
the superiority of their talent, or their taste, for
success ; and, secure of their means of indepen-
F 2

100 SOCIAL DISPOSITIONS
dence, were become quiet and unassuming in their
manners and appearance. A first-rate mantua-
maker or milliner was at the same time a bonne
mere defdmille, and attended to her business in a
dress, and with manners, which precluded all ideas
of lightness of conduct. Their eleves, for the
most part, sought, by industry, good conduct, and
cleverness in business, to recommend themselves to
a marriage in their own line of life, where the
women are generally found the most active and
intelligent assistants in conducting the business of
their husbands.
Among the common people there existed always
the same social dispositions — the same love of harm
less gaiety and dancing in their hours of relaxation
— the same happy disposition to enjoy life as it
passes, to spend the produce of their labour with
little memory of the past, and still less care for the
future ; but always with a spirit of social intelli
gence, of decency and good breeding, an amenity of
manners towards the female sex, and an absence of
all disgusting excesses, which mark and distinguish
the character of the lower orders of people in
France from the same rank in any other country :*

* The author remembers, in the year 1802, at the com
mencement of the Consulate of Buonaparte, to have been
present at a meeting in Paris, known under the name of Les
Soirees amusantes, where the entry was thirty sous for the gen
tleman, with liberty to bring a lady along with him. Of the
thirty sous, either of the parties might have teii sous en consom-
mtition, that is to say, any refreshment taxed at that sum by
the proprietors of the establishment. At this meeting how
ever composed, (and certainly nothing calling itself good com
pany entered into that composition,) every thing was as orderly

OF THE FRENCH. 101
a character which resisted even the political agita
tions of the Revolution; except when, under the
immediate excitement of the demagogues of the
day, the whole population was assimilated with
those dregs of society, which, for its disgrace, exist
in all great cities, and are always capable of being
stirred up to the surface.
and well-behaved, as entirely without violence, noise, or im
propriety of any kind, as could have been the case in the flrst
ball-room in Paris.

102

CHAPTER VI.
THE DOMESTIC HABITS OF FRANCE MUCH IMPROVED SINCE
THE REVOLUTION  THE ALTERED HABITS OF THE YOUNG
MEN  THEATRE NOT REPRESENTING THE IMPROVED
MORALS OF THE DAY  FRANCE NOW REAPING WHAT
BENEFITS COULD BE DERIVED FROM EMIGRATION 
ARCHITECTURE A PROOF OF THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL
STATE OF A COUNTRY  PRESENT STATE OF BUILDINGS
IN FRANCE  ENGLAND LESS ALTERED THAN FRANCE
SINCE THE REVOLUTION  APPLICATION OF THE GREAT
DISCOVERIES IN SCIENCE PRODUCING AN IMPROVED
STATE OF GENERAL EXISTENCE  INEVITABLE EVILS
BROUGHT ALONG WITH IT  THEIR EFFECTS ON THE
CHARACTER OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND.
In resuming the circumstances relative to the
social life of England and France which have
passed in review in the foregoing pages — in adverting
particularly to the situation in which fifteen years of
peace have now placed the two countries — we shall,
it is believed, be led to a conclusion, that France has
gained most in a moral and poUtical point of view,
and England in the details of social life.
The ordeal through which France passed during
her Revolution, so necessary to the entire regenera
tion of the upper classes of her society, has pro-

IMPROVED DOMESTIC HABITS. 103
duced effects on her moral habits, which no one,
but those ignorant of what they were before that
period, can either mistake or deny. Children are
no longer separated from their parents immediately
Eifter their birth, and sent into the country to be
nursed by strangers : they are no longer deprived of
those first impressions of tenderness, so powerful in
influencing future character, when proceeding from
the persons by whom they ought to be excited.
They no longer return to the paternal house almost
strangers to their parents, while those parents, who
had shared none of the anxiety as well as none of
the pleasure of rearing their infancy, could hardly
have been aware of the social duties imposed on
them. The necessary consequence of the former
habits had been, that, from a home where the
father and mother often lived almost as much sepa
rated from each other as from their children ; the
girls were better placed in a convent, and the boys
had a better chance of leading a regular life in a gar
rison, than at home, with an abb^ for a tutor, who
winked at their faults and at their idleness, to allow
of his own ; and with a father who troubled his head
neither with tutor nor pupil. The lively account
given by Madame de Genlis of the family of the
Vicomte de Limours, in her " Adele et Theodore,"
contains a true and accurate picture of the common
education of the higher ranks before the Revolution,
and of its effects in after Ufe. Such an education
duly prepared for such marriages as were then con
tracted exclusively by the will of parents, and were
considered by the children exclusively as the means
of liberty and emancipation from their control.
From this unengaging picture of domestic life, if

104 EDUCATION — MARRIAGES.
we look around us at the present day, we shall find
infancy reared in the bosom of parents with such
rational and well-understood care of early education,
both physical and moral, that the chUdren of France
are now remarkable for their beauty, activity, and
intelligence. The girls remain at home under the
eye of their mother, and generaUy (with the assist
ance of an English servant or governess) are ac
quiring two languages almost as soon as they can
articulate either; grammar and history are often
taught them by frequenting classes of their own age,
where the utmost industry and attention are neces
sary to satisfy the extreme emulation that is excited.
The accomplishments generally considered as most
essential to females are given in no superficial man
ner ; while they are, at the same time, taught to
consider them in the secondary Ught they deserve,
more for social purposes, or for solitary resource,
than for show, or to exhibit the talents of an artist,
where an artist will always surpass them.
Their marriages are no longer arranged at an age
when they cannot have a choice, and ought not to
have a will of their own. But, accustomed to rely
on their parents for the initiative on this important
subject, they enjoy, without any degrading conside
rations of interest, or any humiliating advances, the
pleasures of their age, free from an anticipation of
the cares of future life. It must be added, that the
now equal division of property between all the
children of the same marriage (whatever may be its
political tendency or consequences) certainly conduces
to domestic peace, and the union and good-wUl of
famiUes. The chUdren have nothing to envy, and
nothing to expect from each other ; no sisters are

ALTERED HABITS OF YOUNG MEN. 105
condemned to convents to increase the family suc
cession — no brother sees with envious eyes the
indulgences and the expenses of his elder.
An improvement hardly less remarkable has taken
place in the education and pursuits of the young
men. When the first rudiments of learning instilled
into them as children are over, they almost univer
sally follow courses of instruction under tutors in
public colleges. These are followed up by series of
lectures on all the great subjects most interesting to
society and to science, given in various national in
stitutions by the most eminent intellects of the
country — persons whose researches have neither ab
stracted them from its society, nor from its political
interests ; an advantage, perhaps, yet greater to the
pupils than to the professors. How much such
advantages are afterwards improved, must depend on
the ability and industry with which they are foUowed
up : but idleness, so far from being a fashion, is
become a ridicule, and ignorance a slur, which every
young man, whatever his pretensions, would wish to
avoid. With the altered times, and the improved
state of domestic morality, the current both of the
foUies and of the expenses of youth has altered.
From a home where their parents are living in good
intelligence with each other, and no longer strangers
to their children, they are no longer driven into
early debauchery as a resource from idleness — are no
longer taught to consider the reputation of a libertine
as either graceful or distinguishing. The whole race
of courtesans no longer affront public propriety by
the ostentatious display of their ill-gotten gains : and
those who frequent their society, or fall into connec
tions with them, throw a veil over what they would
F 3

106 ALTERED HABITS
formerly have professed and boasted of. A stUl
greater change has taken place in the habits of the
young men in respect to general gallantry, and that
constant occupation in the society of women, which
formerly belonged to Frenchmen of every age : these
habits, together with the profession of a man d bonnes
fortunes, are now equally out of date : the first would
be despised as a trifler, and the second avoided as
worse. The improvement in domestic habits and
happiness has quite altered the terms on which the
influence of women yet exists and flourishes in
France : they aim rather at being the centre of a
society, than at individual conquests ; and at in
fluencing by the general charm of their manners, or
by an imposing respectability of character, rather
than seeking by petty intrigues to compass some
intended purpose — something to be attained, or to
be concealed, by equally despicable means.
The marriages of young men, so far from being
considered, as with us, a step in life which none but
the rich can prudently take, is here, by the equal
distribution of property, counted on as a certain
means of increase of fortune, generally bringing more
into the common stock than the expenses arising
from it. Such marriages are, for the most part, con
tracted while the parents are yet of an age to partake
of, and enjoy society. The establishment, therefore,
of the new-married couple in the paternal house for
the first years of their union, which sometimes forms
an article of the marriage contract, is often without
confinement or regret to the young people, and gene
rally a comfort and amusement to their seniors.
This younger generation, which has been born to
ideas of liberty, and nursed in political discussions —

OF THE YOUNG MEN. 107
which has received a better education than their
fathers, and lived in more enlightened times —view
former discords and prejudices in the light of history,
and without the irritation either of self-suffering or
self-mortification. They may well, therefore, be
allowed to suppose that their admission into the
councils of their country, in the Chamber of Depu
ties, at an earlier age, would be a measure likely to
render that assembly less factious, more united in
opinion, less extravagant in projects, and more ca
pable of establishing on its true principles a Repre
sentative Government, than the two Chambers
constituted as at present. At the same time the
possibility of young men entering sooner into an
active political life would encourage that turn for
serious occupation, and the acquirement of solid
instruction, which marks the present era.
A residence at their country seats being no longer
prescribed to them, under the name of exile, as a
punishment in consequence of what was called dis
grace at Court, a country life has become fashion
able. All those possessing country-houses pass
many months at them, wisely taking that part of the
year which is most favourable to the real enjoyment
of the country ; while much expense and attention are
bestowed both in the ornament and the improvement
of these residences. No dismissed minister wUl ever
again be sent, as a punishment, to his Chanteloup —
no leave be ever again required from Court to visit
him there.
Whatever may yet be the insecurity or insuffi
ciency of the political institutions of the French,
personal liberty is as completely enjoyed and estab
lished, as if lettres de cachet and arbitrary imprison-

108 THE PUBLIC THEATRE,
ments had not existed in the memory pf many yet
living, and of some yet regretting their loss.
By an odd anomaly, while the manners of society
have become much purer, the theatre, which is sup
posed to reflect those inanners, has become more
licentious both in its language and in the intrigue of
its pieces. All the sentimental difficulties, the deU
cate dUemmas, the nice distinctions of the Marquises
and the Countesses of la haute comedie, have been
obliged to give way to tbe popularity of pieces, whose
plot as well as whose dialogue would not have been
suffered on the public theatre by the chaste ears of
the intimate society of Louis XV.*
While no consideration for the feeUngs or the
sufferings of the people existed in the Government,
the greatest delicacy was observed in order to avoid
hurting either on the stage •.' — now, all the follies and
all the horrors of the Revolution are dramatized on
their most frequented theatres. Crowded and de
lighted audiences applaud scenes, in which all the
assistants (past the age of forty-five) must, or might,
have been actors or spectators — must have seen or
experienced in their own persons, or in those of their
nearest relatives, the dangers and the sufferings ex
hibited before them. Such the " Maison du Rem-
part,"\ which, though peopled with the personages
* I say on the publie theatre : for the pieces admitted to re
presentation on private theatres in the first company, at that
period see the account given by Colle, the author of some of
the most admired farces of this kind, on whose profligacy and
licentiousness he was himself the first, and perhaps the only
one, to remark. — ColU's Memoirs, passim.
t " La Maison du Rempart," acted at the Theatre des
Nouveaut^s ; " Avant, Pendant, et Apres," by Scribe, acted

"SEPT HEURES," 109
of the Fronde, brings a rabble of Paris on the stage,
armed with all sort of domestic weapons, and pulling
down the house of a quiet citizen about his ears :
such "Avant, Pendant, et Apres," which exhibits
with much wit, the insolence and the immorality of
" Avant, and the republican horrors and fooleries of
Pendant : such " Sept Heures," where the episode of
Charlotte Corday, in the infamous and degraded life
of Marat, is deprived of the only interest it could in
spire, by making her dagger directed by revenge for
the death of a lover, instead of leaving the fact as it
really was — an exaltation of patriotism, and a hatred
of the horrors she saw around her, in a young,
ardent, and uninformed mind.
By the happy versatility which on no occasion,
nor in any circumstances, seems to desert the French
character, they have, however, emancipated their
theatre from all the classical trammels, and from all
• the modern formalities to which their tragedy was so
long subjected. They have received the muse of
Shakspeare with open arms, and are endeavouring to
follow (at an unmeasurable distance) the star which
has at last appeared to them from the banks of the
Avon. They have at once given up the unities of
Aristotle, and the etiquettes of the Court of Louis
XIV ; and, in their attempt at historical drama,
are more in danger of falling into untheatrical
atrocities, than into their former inflated sentiments,
long monologues, and wordy expressions of passion.
France, indeed, may be said to be now reaping the
only advantages she could ever receive from emigra-
forty-seven times at the Vaudeville Theatre, and then stopped
by an order of the Police ; " Sept Heures," acted at the theatre
of the Porte St. Martin. "

110 ADVANTAGES OF EMIGRATION.
tion, and from her long warfare in all parts of Eu
rope, — the removal of many local prejudices, and a
great change in the domestic habits of the least cor
rigible part of her population. This change is mani
fest in the more frugal and regular habits of the
upper orders of society, the more equal distribution
of their whole expenditure, and in a preference to
the habitual comforts of life rather than occasional
show and magnificence. Instead of a train of un
necessary servants, those only are retained for whom
they have employment ; they are better paid than
formerly, and are treated with less famiUarity, though
with more consideration. But as every condition of
society has its disadvantages, little remains of the
patriarchal attachment of generations of servants to
generations of masters, — of persons having lived and
died in the service of those whose birth they had
witnessed, and whose fortunes they had followed ;
and France may, probably, soon experience the same
inconvenience as England, from the perfect inde
pendence and political equality of an order of people,
brought too nearly into contact with their superiors
not to catch their faults, without the power of ac
quiring, likewise, their redeeming merits.
The same improved taste for convenience, instead
of show, has led to the general adoption of the
fashions of their English neighbours in their carriages
and equipage. Light, easy, plain carriages, equally
suited for town or country, have universally suc
ceeded to the vehicles, all gilding without and all
velvet within, which formerly filled the streets of
Paris, while calashes, britskas, and every borrowed
form of open carriage, have superseded the awkward
chaise de poste frani^aise on their Tpuhlic roads. The

ADVANTAGES OF EMIGRATION. Ill
stable expenses of the opulent comprise every thing
that is necessary for use and comfort, without run
ning into those lavish, and often disgraceful, sums
squandered on coachmakers and horse-dealers in
England : nor does a fashionable and distinguished
existence in the first society of Paris at all depend
on the carriage which conveys any individual to that
society, or the appointments of the servants that ac
company it. However conducted to the salon, the
most perfect equality of rights to please, and to be
pleased, takes place when there : there, neither the
old nobility reclaim any exclusive rights, nor the new
expect any.
It has been said, and truly, that architecture wit
nesses to the political and social state of a country
more than any other contemporary evidence. The
buUdings of all the principal towns in Italy might be
cited as furnishing proofs of this assertion. The
enormous structures of ancient Rome, which still
puzzle all modern conceptions of magnificence either
to occupy or to people, prove a population of slaves,
working at the will of despotic power for their daily
subsistence. The hardly less vast remains of the
papal grandeur of Rome, equally prove unwieldy
and unwholesome wealth coUected among a few,
and devoting to sordid poverty the many. The
severe prison-like palaces of Florence, with their
high and small windows, and their square tower,
at once for defence and for the power of breathing
a freer air than in the dull chambers below, betray
the want of security, and the turbulent manners of a
republic, whose chiefs could never agree among
themselves, nor ever succeed in subduing the spirit
of an industrious people, blessed with a favoured
soil and climate.

112 MODERN ARCHITECTURE
The more modern architecture of France will
equally tell its own story. The immense and magni
ficent houses which existed in every quarter of
Paris, date from times, when partial taxes, partial
immuhities, and the uncontrolled wiU and favour
of weak Sovereigns, had raised up a nobility too
powerful for the Crown, and no less pppressive to
the people. When the strong arm of arbitrary
povirer at last succeeded in reducing these nobles
to political insignificance, their ambition was con
fined to Court favour, and their means of distinction
to a luxury and magnificence which, being securely
guarded by exclusive privileges, neither industry
nor merit could ever possibly attain, or even hope to
rival. Hence we see a whole quarter of the metro
polis, in which the habitations of the Tiers Etat oc
cupy as small a share, and are kept as much out
of sight, as their rights, their convenience, and their
comforts were in the Government of their country —
whole streets of high walls surrounding large en
closures, which defended their inhabitants from the
necessity of ever coming in contact with their in
feriors, and too surely gave token of the line of de-
marcEition existing in society between a nobility
assuming rights sustained only by possession, and a
people deprived of rights which no possession can
forfeit. Already, before the end of the reign of Louis XV,
many of these enormous mansions, however well
suited for great fStes and entertainments, had been
found very inconvenient for the domestic purposes
of their owners : selfish indulgence found its account
in smaller habitations, which could only hold those
who were to minister to its gratifications ; hence
sprung up a number of pavilions, ornamented with

OF FRANCE. 113
porticoes and pediments, and columns without, but
within, untenable for the occupation of a famUy ;
sufficiently demonstrative of the careless prodigality
and selfish luxury of the day.
What it has been agreed to call Grecian taste
was then quite new in France, and every thing was
to be a la Grecque. It was not till a more intimate
acquaintance with Italy and with Greece, taught
them that a heathen chapel large enough to contain
the priest and the statue of his God, was incom
patible with the lodging a Christian family, and that
in all attempts at enlarging the size, or altering the
position of such ancient buildings, that beauty is
lost, which at best can ill compensate for the want of
internal conveniences in habitual life.
During the disorders and confiscations of the
Revolution, most of the great hotels of Paris, be
coming national property, changed both inhabitants
and owners. On the return to peaceable times,
those which had not been converted into public
offices, or appropriated to the abodes of the Minis
ters of the Crown, or irrevocably alienated by the
sale of national property, were restored to their
original proprietors. But to the altered habits of
the time, and the altered succession of property,
they have been found so iU suited, that in many
instances they have been converted into two or
three separate habitations ; these, from their inter
nal arrangements being more compact, allow of their
rooms being better lighted, more thoroughly warmed,
and more capable of constant occupation, than could
ever have been the vast salons dores of the former
edifices, of which these houses form sometimes Uttle
more than a wing, or even an apartment.

114 RIVAL LUXURIES.
However, in spite of the two opposite excesses
that we have mentioned in the domestic architec
ture of France, it is still in Paris that we must look
for the most admirable models of a town residence,
where sufficient space is allowed, both before and
behind, for a free circulation of air, for a seclusion
from too immediate neighbours, and for the luxury
of reposing the eye on verdure and vegetation, in
the midst of a great city — where carriages approach
under cover, and persons on foot are protected
from the weather, before they are admitted into the
apartments — where all the rooms habitually occu
pied are on the same floor — of a size capable of
every social enjoyment, and with separate commu
nications, allowing of the attendance of servants in
the immediate neighbourhood of their required ser
vices. If we add to this, accommodation for car
riages and horses within the same enclosure, sepa
rated from those of others, we must allow that, in
the rival luxuries of the two metropolises, there is
nothing so much to envy, and in nothing are we so
much surpassed as in our town residences. And
here again architecture may tell the tale of a great
commercial as well as manufacturing city, where
the ground has been long too valuable to be ex
pended in gardens and courts — where the Tiers Etat
is as conspicuously placed, and (in proportion) bet
ter lodged than the nobles, whose habitations are on
all sides hemmed in by plebeians, fast rising to
every distinction possessed by their great neigh
bour, whose ancestor, perhaps, acquired those dis
tinctions by the very same means ; — of a nation
where every man possessed of wealth has long pre
ferred the country as the scene of his enjoyments

IMPROVED ARCHITECTURE. 1 1 o
and his luxuries, considering London as only afford
ing the means to industry and ambition, of securing,
in time, such an existence in the country, as will
give its owner every right possessed by his noble
neighbour in London.
Admitting architecture still as an evidence of the
political and social state of a country : the buildings
and repairs going on in every little town and village
in France, the great extension of the Faubourgs of
Paris, the infinite number of small houses for single
families, springing up in the immediate neighbour
hood of all the great towns, and the immense in
crease of such houses in Paris, prove what the
subdivision and change of property caused by the
Revolution, the equality of public burthens, and
the chartered rights of the people, have already
done in France. It is to these rights, and to the
feelings given by the acquisition of property secured
by these rights, and not either to her statesmen, or
her writers, that France wUl owe her future poUtical
tranquillity, and the final establishment of a Repre
sentative Monarchy. It is these feeUngs that will
confine to rhetorical phrases the visionary schemes
of her Republicans, will reduce to nullity the more
foolish and antiquated doctrines of their opponents,
and will for ever rescue her from that anachronism to
common sense, an Absolute Government.
While a regeneration of ideas has taken place,
not only in England and in France, but in all the
European states, it must be matter of astonishment
to the philosophic observer, that all these states, aifter
fifteen years' peace, should continue to think it either
necessary, or advisable, or furthering their own in
dividual prosperity, to constitute themselves in a

116 COMMERCE NOT ENCOURAGED
state of permanent blockade with respect to one
another ; to beset their frontiers with custom-house
fortresses, guarded by an army of officers, paid by
each state for impeding commerce, and preventing
the produce of one country from being immediately
bartered for that of another, with mutual advantage,
and the relief of mutual wants : while, at the same
time, the peaceful, unarmed inhabitants of these
states, require a licence to carry their industry and
their riches, or their wants and their miseries,
where they may best obviate the one or relieve the
other. If any statesman could abstract himself from the
common and vulgar ideas of encouraging commerce
by duties or by bounties, or could look beyond
the necessity of an immediately productive taxa
tion ; if a country could for a moment be considered
as a great landed estate, of which its stewards (the
Government) were appointed to make the most, and
procure the greatest affluence at once to the land
lord (the Sovereign) and to the tenants (the people),
would it ever be attempted, by preventing the pro
duce of the estate from being freely sold, to pur
chase what grew more abundantly, or was cultivated
Wiith less cost on a contiguous property ? Would it
be by attempting to throw impediments on the
obcasional egress or ingress of tenants for their
improvement, emolument, or pleasure ? Would it be
by subtracting a considerable part of those tenants
from all useful labour, and subsisting them on the
wages of the others ? Yet what else are all pro
hibitory systems of commerce ? What else are cus
tom-houses, passports, and standing armies ? Let
not these ideas, however, be considered as Utopian

BY DUTIES OR BOUNTIES. 117
dreams. Nobody endued with common sense can
suppose that either custom-houses, passports, or
standing armies can be entirely done away with,
any more than taxes and public revenue ; but it
may surely be recommended to statesmen to recur
more frequently in their combinations to these
first simple irrefragable principles, and to assure
themselves, that the less they are lost sight of,
the nearer their measures approximate to them,
the more permanent and useful they are likely to
prove — the more essentially profitable to the inte
rests of the country for which they act.
France had much to destroy, much rubbish to
remove, before she could set about the re-edifica
tion of her political existence made necessary by
long and complicated abuses. England had Uttle
to gain, and much to lose by any conflicts either
with herself or her neighbours: — her prosperity,
after the total emancipation of her American colo
nies, might have taught her a great and useful
lesson, which, if nations profited by experience,
would have led to the earUer relief of Ireland from
all political disabilities. The excesses of revolu
tionary France repressed the discontents of England,
restored her to a sense of her real advantages, and
allowed her to profit by the immense increase of her
commerce, and by the wealth poured into her funds
in consequence of the disturbed state of the con
tinent. These combined causes masked to her
people, and disguised even to the eyes of her
ministers, the frightful expenditure of the repeated
ill-conducted coalitions against France, and pre
vented any just calculation of half the weight of
its consequences.

1 1 8 IMPROVEMENTS OF SCIENCE
One great and severe draft on the finances of a
country, however difficult and embarrassing at the
moment, is soon recovered ; France, therefore, has
long ceased to feel the seven hundred millions which
her vertigo of a Hundred Days had cost her. But
when will England recover from the effects of an
annual public expenditure not compatible with her
means, during a peaceful existence ? When will the
habits of luxury and indulgence in private life, and
of careless dissipation of the public fortune, acquired
during a depreciated currency and a fictitious opu
lence — when will they yield to, and how will they
meet the increasing demands on the whole body of
proprietors for the support of an increasing and un
employed population ?
The successful appUcation of science to the
common purposes of life — the wonders performed
by steam and by machinery in annihilating dis
tance and doubling the produce of labour — the
improvements in diet and habits of cleanUness
materially obviating much disease, and consider
ably increasing the chances of human life — the
general extension of education, all these advantages
combine towards forming an universaUy improved
state of human existence.
That they should be accompanied by many diffi
culties, and appear to lead (at no very distant
period) to much unavoidable distress, is perhaps
one of the strongest propfs given by Omnipotence
of the finite powers and nature of man. With
every thing improving around him — with every
view expanding, every pursuit successful — ^the mis
takes of former times recognised and avoided, this
very success seems necessarily to conceal within it

IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 119
the seeds of what must for ever prevent the possi-
biUty of carrying beyond certain limits, the immea
surable hopes, unbounded wishes, and noblest aspi
rations of our nature.
If, in comparing the general effects which have
arisen, and the situation in which England and
France are placed, from the political agitations
of the last forty years, we should be led to con
sider our country as indicating some degree of the
inactivity and languor of advancing years, and the
long undisturbed enjoyment of political liberty; if
the other country manifests the petulance of youth,
and the impatience of novelty, in the pursuit and
acquirement of all the advantages their activity and
abiUties lead them to attempt; — we must surely
allow that the combined will of two such countries,
the immense influence of such a mass of intellectual
superiority joined to such imposing political force,
must and ought to dictate to Europe ; to constitute
the inteUectual soul of an enlightened world ; to be
improved by their science, to be enriched by their
discoveries, and to be advanced by their example in
all the great principles of civil liberty and social
happiness. A liberal and informed policy will teach
such an association to abstain from all interference
with the domestic or commercial arrangements of
other nations, or with any internal changes of
Government, which an independent people may
deem necessary for their welfare ; while the weight
of such a combination of influence and authority
may effectually prevent the meditated changes from
molesting or embroiling their neighbours.
If England and France, from paltry jealousies of
power, from ill-calculated commercial rivalry, or

120 INTELLECTUAL POWER.
from any selfish individual ambition, refuse this
high caUing; refuse to unite their powers in placing
themselves at the head of the intellectual world and
assuming this universal sovereignty — the only one
possible, — what dominion, what glory can either
ever hope to attain comparable to such a destiny !
What honours equal to such an association ! What
approach can ever be made towards the supposed
perfectibility of our species that can equal the allied
intellectual power of England and France — enlight
ened as to their own real interests, and combined to
encourage, to foster, and tp protect, the general
interests of human nature !
St, Germain, June, 1830.

121

CHAPTER VII.
With the concluding sentiments of the last
chapter the author meant to have closed these
considerations, and to have left to statesmen and
politicians their further development, and the appli
cation of their results to the affairs of the two
countries in question ; but having been present at
the marvellous events which lately took place in the
political existence of France, the author feels it im
possible not to notice so remarkable a passage in
the civil history of mankind, and so striking a
change in the character and conduct of the nation
where it took place. '
A King of France, reigning in undisturbed splen
dour and unquestioned authority on Sunday the
25th of July, and on Sunday the 1st of August,
in one little week, the same Being having become a
fugitive without power and without rights, hardly
allowed to remain two days longer in the disturbed
and uncertain occupation of the most distant of his
palaces. These events seem more like the necro
mantic catastrophe of an eastern tale, than facts
actually taking place in the most regularly organised
European Government. The inhabitants of a great
luxurious capital defending themselves without arms
and without leaders above thirty-six hours against
VOL. II. G

122 REVOLUTION OF 1830.
regularly trained and perfectly appointed troops, and
in the next twenty-four hours, when partially armed
and partially led, driving these troops before them
and taking entire military possession of the metro
polis entrusted to their guard, are events which,
thus stated in their result only, sound like romance ;
and having been present at the scenes, and a witness
of their consequences, scarcely lessens the wonder
they excite, and still leaves them hardly credible.
A yet more remarkable circumstance follows these
military triumphs ; — a perfect moderation and ab
sence of all unnecessary violence, all desire of blood
shed, all intemperance of valour in the moment
of conquest, and an equal absence of all enthusiasm
and exaggeration in the measures taken in conse
quence of the uncontrolled power left in the hands
of the conquerors. This is such a new view of
the French national character, and, indeed, is so
entirely unlike the conduct of any other nation
hitherto placed in anything like similar circum
stances, that even a recapitulation of the immediate
causes of discontent and of the previous situation of
the public mind will scarcely be found adequate
to such stupendous effects.
France, although in a state of immense general
prosperity, had been for the last three or four years
accumulating much poUtical discontent and sup
pressed ill-will against the Government. The ge
neral causes for this discontent, already enumerated
in Chapter V, were increased by their duration,
and by the unvarying spirit which seemed to
animate all the Ministers called to the administra
tion of the Government. That of M. de ViU^le,
by far the longest lived, after existing nearly six

CHANGE OF MINISTRY. , 123
years, became particularly obnoxious from its sup
posed protection of the Jesuits, and its concurrence
in the views of the Court to allow an undue
influence to the Clergy, or what was designated
politicaUy le parti pr^tre.
From the manner in which a few broken windows
and an insignificant riot had been suppressed in the
Rue St. Denis during the winter of 1827, the people
acquired the assurance that there would be no back
wardness, either in the Ministry or the Court, to
apply military force on the smallest expression of
popular discontent.
The succeeding administration, in which M. de
la Ferronaye was at the head of the foreign affairs,
and M. de Martignac, Minister of the Interior,
was at first popular, at least appeared so ; after the
dismissal of that, which had been designated by
the epithet of the ministere deplorable. On the
retreat of M. de la Ferronaye, from illness, the
indecision and delays in the choice of his successor
gave suspicion of an intention of replacing him by
the Prince de Polignac; the idea was already so
unpopular as to be dropped for the moment.
The King's progress into Alsace, in the following
summer, accompanied by the Minister of the In
terior, was successful in advancing for the moment
the popularity both of the King and of the Minister.
The wishes of the people seemed to be better under
stood by the Court, and the Court less suspected by
the people. But' when the Chambers met in the
ensuing session, the Ministry fell into disgrace with
the Liberals, for not bringing forward long promised
popular measures ; and out of favour with the Court
for too great condescension to popular opinion. G 2

124 INDECISION OF PUBLIC AUTHORITIES.
The departmental and municipal laws, which the
country had long and anxiously looked to as neces
sary to its internal prosperity, and as the only means
of creating a public opinion, were at last proposed
by Government. They were violently opposed by
the Liberal party in the Chamber of Deputies,
as inverting the order in which they ought to
take place, and allowing an opening to despotic
application. The Government, when they found
a difficulty of carrying their measures without the
proposed amendments, instead of endeavouring to
conciUate, or to yield any points to public opinion,
immediately withdrew the proposal altogether ; and
as the initiative of the laws then belonged only to
the Government, the people were left without any
hope of seeing these measures renewed.
In the whole of this transaction, both parties
seem to have betrayed much ignorance of the due
administration of a Representative Government :
the Deputies, by not accepting what was offered
them, and thereby placing themselves on the vantage
ground, where more might have been obtained ; the
Government, in betraying an unwiUingness to listen
to any modifications of the Chambers. In the same
ill-understood conduct of public business was the
attack made on Peyronnet the keeper of the seals,
on the subsequent discussion of the budget, for the
appropriation of a sum of 35,000 francs of public
money in addition to that already allowed by Go
vernment for the arrangements of the House be
longing to his office. However necessary and proper
the establishing the principle of culpability in any
such diversion of public money, the manner in
which the inquiry was conducted was factious, mi-

PUBLIC PRESS. 125
nute, and invidious. The fall of a Ministry, and the
dissolution of a Chamber, which neither pleased the
Court, nor satisfied the country, were unavoidable.
Not so the new Ministry, which was immediately
declared, with the Prince de Polignac at its head.
Nobody conceived that such a combination of ob
noxious names would have been ventured on at
once. The press, which had been moderate, and had
advocated sufficiently sound doctrines during the
ministry of Martignac, now varied every possible
form of abuse and contempt against Polignac and
his associates, carefully avoiding, however, all dis
respect to royalty, and professing great attachment
and loyalty to the King. Before the new chamber
met on the 8th of March 1830, the great majority
of liberal members which it contained, their indepen
dent spirit, and the general colour of their sentiments
were well known. The King's speech unwisely
alluded to them, and to the means with which he
meant to meet them. The Chamber of Deputies,
after the usual complimentary professions, declared
that they could concur in none of the measures
proposed to them, until the ministry was changed.
Now, as the ministry since their appointment had
remained positively inert, they were guiltless of any
measures good or bad, and could only be attacked
as to intention. No Sovereign could have complied
with a request, to dismiss his ministers so made, and
in such circumstances ; but instead of a temperate,
dignified negative from the throne, a few dry, severe
words were addressed to the Chambers, and they
were dissolved after a session of ten days. Here
again the same ignorance of the conduct of a Repre-

126 PUBLIC PRESS.
tative Government seems evident. Unluckily too,
the Prince de Polignac had evinced, in the only
attempt he made at public speaking, such an absence
of all method, argument, or facility of language, as
proved him quite unequal to defending either his
own measures, or those of his colleagues, from the
tribune. Still the public press respected the King,
he was always separated from his ministers and
advisers in the various and inexhaustible diatribes
of the diurnal press, not only of Paris, but of every
city in France. To stop this torrent of abuse the
editors were prosecuted in almost every court in the
kingdom. These trials gave occasion to the public
discussion of the principles which the accused support
ed, and were sure to secure the editors from greater
punishment than a few days' seclusion, and an in
significant fine. In short, as the ministers afterwards
aUowed in their fatal Rapport au Roi, the laws were
found quite inadequate to suppress the voice of the
people ; — and yet these infatuated men were them
selves deaf to that voice, and conceived themselves
above those laws.
The two or three daily papers written in the
interest of the Court (often with much acuteness),
professed principles and doctrines worthy of the
seventeenth century as to regal power and Govern
ment; daring openly to abjure every measure which
inferred any acknowledgment of the sovereignty of
the people in their representatives. The sentiments
of the Gazette de France on these subjects up to
the latest moment of its existence under the reign of
Charles X, is a curious monument of the per
version of human intellect, even in the most enUght-
ned periods.

THE POLIGNAC MINISTRY.

127

In the mean time the better informed heads of
France were aware, that till the first principle of all
Government was fairly acknowledged, — till the ridi
culous idea had been done away with, that a portion
of liberty, retractable at will, had been conceded
[octroy^) by a Prince who at his restoration had no
power to bestow, and was in fact himself received
only, dum bene placito, — in short, till the Charter
became a fair contract between the King and the
people, they must be always mutually accusing each
other ; on the one side of factious attempts, and on
the other of arbitrary intentions. An occasion
only was wanting to bring about this necessary
revision of the Charter ; but, for this occasion, it
was much doubted that the Court would give any
plausible pretext. Many people thought, and as
many feared, that on the meeting of the Chambers
summoned for the 3rd of August, the Court would
think it advisable to use more conciliatory language —
the deputies be less peremptory in their demands ; —
that the ministers would bring forward some popular
measures, and that thus things might rub on much
as they had done.
No one, no one, I am intimately convinced, from
the Duke of Orleans downward, either foresaw, or
suspected the incalculable imprudence of the minis
ters, or the astonishing effects to be produced by it.
The success of the expedition to Algiers, was the
drop that overflowed the measure of self-sufficiency
and confidence on the part of the ministry. The
lustre of the conquest their ignorance fancied would
flatter the vanity of the people, and blind the eyes
of their representatives to what was going on at
home; while the treasures of the Dey encouraged

128 DUKE OF ORLEANS.
the Court in the vain idea of having secured the
means of carrying on their plans, without any im
mediate application for money.
That the most enlightened among 'the patriots of
France had begun to consider what measures were
to be kept with a ministry who abjured all conces
sions, and a King who boasted that he would never
recede, we cannot doubt ; that in their meditations
on this subject, and on its possible consequences,
they must often have recurred to the lucky circum
stance of the existence of a Prince, possessing the
advantages of hereditary rights, but differing in
education, in character, in endowments, in every
thing that can distinguish an individual in a race of
Princes. This Prince, deservedly esteemed by all
those sufficiently independent of the Court to be free
from its influence ; having passed honourably through
the severest trials of the school of adversity, whence
he had drawn a great knowledge of human nature,
and an intimate acquaintance with his native coun
try, both generally and individually — it must have
been obvious that such a Prince, surrounded by a
numerous and well educated family, perfectly inde
pendent of the Court, and of its favours, by his
large hereditary possessions, and by their well-regu
lated administration, gave every security the nation
could require for assisting her in the revision of her
Charter, and for its estabUshment on the true prin
ciples of a contract between the Governor and the
governed : that the Duke of Orleans, on his part,
aware of the wants and wishes of his country,
partaking of its ideas of civil liberty, an observing
witness of the vacillating measures and crooked
policy of the restored Government — that he should

DUKE OF ORLEANS. 129
not have considered the part he might be called upon
to act, by the incorrigible blindness of the Court, —
it is impossible not to believe.
His cautious, prudent, penetrating character, must
often have presented to him the possible results of
his situation in the country, and probably may have
anticipated to him his present elevation : but that
any combination was formed between him and the
liberal members of the two chambers, before the late
Revolution, either to push matters to extremity, or in
any foreseen and previously arranged case, to place
him on the throne — history, when the marvellous
events of these days are submitted to her calm ob
servation, and severe scrutiny, will entirely absolve
both him and his adherents. That he had been long
an object of suspicion to the Court — that, although
exact in the performance of all ceremonial duties
towards it, no cordiality existed in their familiar in
tercourse, was well known. Louis XVIII had re
monstrated against the Duke of Orleans sending his
son to participate in the education given in a public
college at Paris; and Charles X saw, with a jealous
eye, persons of distinguished merit in every order
of the state well received at Neuilly, and at the
Palais Royal, and the public profiting of every oc
casion to mark their respect both for him and his
famUy. Under these circumstances we cannot won
der, that, when the Ordinances of the 25th of July
were determined on, and conscience suggested to
their authors a possibility of some resistance, that it
likewise suggested the necessity of securing the
person of the Duke of Orleans. This intention was
communicated (for we cannot call it betrayed) by
the wife of a deputy to the Duchess of Orleans.
g3

130 DUKE OF ORLEANS,
The means the Duke took to preserve his personal
liberty, was by mounting his horse in the morning,
and riding about the country the whole day. When
a deputation from the praise-worthy citizens, who,
during the week of Revolution, had constituted them
selves into a Provisional Government at the Hotel de
Ville, came to desire his presence and assistance, he
was on one of these expeditions, and his family ab
solutely ignorant where to find him ; a fact which
the deputation seemed so Uttle to believe, that his
sister, with a readiness doubly graceful in so quiet
and unassuming a character, offered to accompany
the messengers to the Hdtel de Ville, and remain
there till her brother made his appearance. Late in
the evening of that day, the 30th of July, he walked
unaccompanied from Neuilly into Paris, and slept
at the Palais Royal. On the next morning he went,
surrounded by multitudes, to the H6tel de ViUe,
where he was received at the door with open arms
by La Fayette ; and from that moment, and not be
fore, the crown of France was assured to him. Had
La Fayette received him cooUy, instead of earnestly
seconding his nomination to the Lieutenant-Gene-
ralcy of the kingdom, — had he himself hesitated a
moment in unqualified obedience to the wishes of
the people, — France would have been a repubUc,
with La Fayette, in the first instance, at its head ;
and honour is due to the veteran, who, conscious of
his power, sacrificed both his republican prejudices
and his own elevation in that decisive moment.
It is not meant here to recapitulate the circum
stances which immediately preceded or foUowed the
Duke of Orleans's elevation to the throne. They
have been stated in various accounts, and will in

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL OF FRANCE. 131
future constitute the most interesting pages of the
history of France. But on the state of public
feeling — on the remarkable character of reason and
calmness, which accompanied these transactions —
on the total change which had taken place in the
conduct and the views of the French nation from
the Revolution in 1789, we may be aUowed to re
mark. Ten days after Paris had seen her whole population
in arms, and her streets stained with the blood of
her citizens, — on the 7th August, when the Chamber
of Deputies were actuaUy debating on the form of
Government to be adopted, and were called on to
decide (and that without delay), on the future sove
reign to be placed at its head, — the town and its
suburbs were perfectly tranquil; labourers were at
their work ; and the daily occupations of a great me
tropolis were going on as usual. Round the door of
the Chamber of Deputies two or three hundred
decently-dressed persons were assembled, anxiously
waiting their decision. When it was made known
to them by some persons from within, it was re
ceived with universal satisfaction, but without any
noisy marks of exultation. The whole body of de
puties immediately proceeded to the Palais Royal
to announce the result of their deliberations. They
went on foot, with no other accompaniment than a
few National Guards, and many of the persons who
had been surrounding their doors. Their passage
through the most populous streets was uninterrupted
either by acclamation or abuse. The citizens seemed
satisfied with the business their representatives
were transacting for them, and left it to them to
complete. In the courts of the Palais Royal another

132 INSTALLATION OF THE DUKE OF ORLEANS.
crowd was waiting their arrival, in the same con
tented mood, and with the same absence of all ex
citation. Two days afterwards, on the 9th of August, when
the Duke of Orleans came to receive the Crown of
France from the Peers and Deputies assembled, and
to swear observance of the terms on which alone it
was offered, the whole transaction, instead of a
Court pageant, bore the character of a solemn trans
fer between two aontracting parties, of vital interests,
deliberately stated and distinctly understood on both
sides. The absence of all military but the National
Guard, deprived it of splendour ; and the greatness
of the occasion, and the serious attention of all the
persons concerned, showed it to be no formal, hack
neyed ceremony, to be forgotten as soon as over.
In the circular gallery allotted to the spectators,
which surrounded the hall where the two Chambers
were assembled, in a part of it undistinguished from
the rest by any decoration, appeared the Duchess of
Orleans, with the Duke's sister, and all his children,
excepting the two eldest sons, who were placed,
during the whole ceremony, on each side of their
father. The unobtrusive dress and demeanour of
the whole family, — the absence of every appearance
of exultation in the circumstances in which they
were placed, — their undivided attention to what was
going on, and the serious air with which the whole
scene was regarded by them, — were remarked even
by those the most occupied in the important business
of the day. The vacant throne from which every
vestige of a fleur-de-lis had disappeared, under the
tri-coloured drapery with which alone it was cano
pied, seemed to suggest to their thoughtful minds a

COMPARISONS. 133
recent and striking instance of the instability of all
human greatness.
At the Revolution of 1789, the profound corrup
tion which then pervaded every order of the State
produced the dissolution of the whole social body.
All rights, all privileges, all associations were at
tacked, and were still attempted to be defended, until
ruthless anarchy involved aggressors and aggressed
in one common ruin, and then exalted terror as the
only means of securing liberty to the abject slaves it
had made.
Far different was the situation of the country when
it effected the marvellous Revolution which we have
just witnessed. France, with a regenerated people,
had enjoyed fifteen years' peace under the restored
Government of the Bourbons. The national vanity
had been offended at their returning with Europe in
arms, but felt assured against any open attacks on
that liberty which Louis XVIII boasted having be
stowed. Wliile, unfortunately, both he and his coun
sellors were too blind and too narrow-minded to act
in the spirit of his Charter, or to be satisfied with
the power it left in their hands. Great general pros
perity had arisen from the subdivision of landed
property, and from the security at last felt in the
possession of national domains. The remembrance
of their former sufferings, the atrocities of their Re
pubUc, the disgrace of their Directory, their ruinous
dreams of conquest and military despotism, had al
ready become history to the more reasoning and
better educated population of the present day.
The blessing of peace, the security of personal
liberty, and the enjoyment of the fruits of their in
dustry, were so justly appreciated, that nothing less

134 HONESTY OF THE PEOPLE.
than the monstrous and infatuated attack made at
once on all the rights they most valued, could have
called forth the sudden and signal vengeance which
such incorrigible perversity provoked. But this ven
geance was confined to the Prince, who had excited
it, and to the Ministers, who had weakly and basely
made themselves his instruments. No body of peo
ple were obnoxious, no individuals, but the Ministers
and a few dignitaries of the Church, who were sup
posed to have inculcated Jesuitical doctrines, and to
have encouraged the King, and his favourite Minister,
in arbitrary measures, and attempts to establish the
lost authority of the Church. The palace of the
Archbishop of Paris was the only building, public
or private, on which the people wreaked their ven
geance during the memorable days of July. And
here no robbery was committed, but the whole fur
niture and interior of the house pulled to pieces, and,
together with the books of the library, left strewed
about the floors. Summary justice was administered
by the people on those among them (and they were
few) who were detected pillaging or secreting any
articles of value, even during those moments of
confusion. At the Tuileries some busts of Charles
X, and the wardrobe of his family, were all that was
touched by the people, armed and unarmed, who
rushed through the apartments of that palace on the
29th of July. The busts were thrown out of the
windows ; and the scattered female attire served to
dress up some of the rabble, who appeared, thus
accoutred, at the windows, to the np small amuse
ment of the crowd below.*

* At one of the windows of the Duchesse de Berri's apart
ment in the Pavilion Marsan, where a magnificent ball had

ABSTEMIOUSNESS OF THE PEOPLE. 135
Wine or spirits they avoided, and rejected when
offered ; so afraid did they seem of being led into
excesses which might make them disgrace their cause,
or incapacitate them from its accomplishment.*
A people thus conducting themselves — thus re
sisting both intemperance and pillage — guiltless of
any outrages on individuals, or any destruction of
property, but what was absolutely unavoidable in the
pursuit of their purpose, forms a striking and re
markable contrast with the same people in 1 790, —
besieging their King in his palace, and their own
Deputies in their Chamber, — encouraging violence,
and justifying bloodshed by their murderous and
cruel punishment of individuals, and by their at
tempted destruction of every thing that most
honoured and distinguished their country, — bewil
dered by the most extravagant and flimsy sophisms,
and led by the vilest demagogues, who ended by
covering their country with scaffolds, and deluging
it with blood.

been given, not six weeks before, to the two Courts of Naples
and France, a man appeared in a silver gauze goWn, and a hat
with high feathers, his face covered with rouge, calling to his
companions below, " Venez, messieurs, je re9ois, je re^ois !"
* On the Boulevard, almost immediately at the corner of the
Porte St. Martin, where a murderous attack was kept up by
the people, mounted on the projecting parts of the arch, on the
troops below, who were thus placed between two fires, the
mistress of a Uttle pastry-cook's shop, who with her family had
retired to the farthest part of their small tenement, to avoid the
baUs which flew around them, were at last summoned to their
door by such knocking as they dared not refuse. It was merely
to implore a draught of water, of which the woman declared
she had given away during the night eighty buckets, in single
goblets, indiscriminately to the people and the troops, equaUy
dying of thirst, and rejecting wine.

136 THE TROOPS DISPIRITED.
On the late occasion, the moment the arms were
out of the hands of the people, and the citv in com
plete possession of its inhabitants, every thing re
turned, as if by magic, to its natural course. On the
Monday of the week succeeding that of the Revolu
tion, while the streets were yet rough with the
unreplaced stones which had served for the barri
cades, and the leaves were yet green on the trees
which strewed the Boulevards for the same purpose,
the shops were all open, the business of a great
town going on, and every body quietly wondering
and rejoicing at what had taken place. In the garden
of the Tuileries not a flower-bud was injured, not an
orange tub displaced, although, four days before,
horse, foot, and artillery of the Royal Guard had
been driven through them pell-mell, pursued by the
impetuous and irresistible rush of the triumphant
people. Certain it is, however, that these troops
were as much morally as physically vanquished.
They fought without either obstinacy or spirit. Re
sistance had been so little calculated on by the Court,
that no precautions had been taken to supply the
immediate wants of the troops they employed. They *
were exhausted by hunger and thirst ; they hated the
service on which they were engaged, and were af
fected by the overwhelming heat of the weather,
which passed unheeded by their opponents, during
the excitement of their valorous resistance.
A considerable body of the guards, who had been
marched from St. Cloud, and who had not yet been
called on to act, were lying in the Champs Elysees,
already complaining of fatigue and exhaustion : when
they were at length (not without some difficulty)
brought up to the garden-front of the TuUeries to

REMOVAL OF VALUABLES. 137
support their comrades in the Place du Carousel,
and assist in defending the palace from the fierce
assault of the people on that side. Numbers of
hands were thrust through the iron railing of the
Rue de Rivoli, with a five-franc piece, offered in
vain, for sustenance of any kind, while the wants
of the people were eagerly supplied by the whole
population not actuaUy with weapons in their hands.
These feelings, however, ceased with resistance, and
numberless instances could be given of every kind
care and attention being paid to the wounds of those
who had been observed bravely to discharge their
odious duty. While thus circumstanced, about noon
of Thursday, the 29th of July, a party of lancers
were observed issuing from the middle gate of the
Tuileries, followed by a fourgon with four horses,
and evidently very heavily laden ; then another
party of lancers and a second fourgon followed as
before, while three more carriages of the same des
cription took the road by the river side towards St.
Cloud. From this moment, it was remarked that
all spirit of aggression or of defence seemed to have
abandoned the troops, convinced, as they must have
been, that their employers now despaired of their
cause, by endeavouring thus to secure valuables they
had no longer any hope to defend. The flame which
had broken forth with such unextinguishable force
at Paris, quickly communicated itself to all the sur
rounding towns and villages. The tri-colour flag,
which the Restoration had so unwisely rejected, and
had thereby converted into a rallying point for
certain sentiments, as well as into the colours of a
party, — the tri-colour was every where immediately
hoisted by the people ; but so perfectly without

138 THE NATIONAL GUARD.
opposition, so much with the consent and approba
tion of the better order of inhabitants, that every
thing that followed in consequence was free from
the character of malignity and devastation which
accompanied the first Revolution. To maintain
order, the National Guard of every district imme
diately formed itself. The old uniforms, which had
been proscribed for above two years, again made
their appearance. Among their numbers were soon
enrolled not only the most respectable inhabitants,
but hundreds of others, who had no other recom
mendation but good will to lend their arm to the
cause. Their dress and appearance certainly gave
no promise of the orderly manner in which they
conducted themselves, — half clothed, and less than
half armed ; some with a rusty hanger, others with
a single pistol or an old gun, hundreds with nothing.
but a stick ; many without stockings, some without
shoes, not a iew without hats, and many more
without coats ; — such was the appearance of fifteen
hundred men who marched into St. Germain on the
morning of the 2d of August, arriving from Rouen,
and the surrounding parts of Normandy, to the aid
and assistance of their victorious countrymen at
Paris. They were divided into six companies, each
having a tri-colour flag, of various substance, and
size, belonging to it, all inscribed La Charte, or
merely Paris, where, although the combat was over,:
they persisted in going, to show, as they said, their
good will to the cause, and what their deputies had
to count upon in case of further resistance. The
town of St. Germain was apprised of their arrival.
They were immediately marched under the alleys of
trees on the terrace, and were, in a moment, all

HOSPITALITY OF ST. GERMAIN. 139
seated around their banners on the grass, and
reposing themselves, after a march of four leagues,
from Mantes. Here, in half an hour, they were
supplied by the Municipality with a plentiful break
fast of bread, wine, sausages, ham, and other cold
meats. One man presided over the distribution to
each company. Every body was orderly, in good
humour, and satisfied with their fare. Those
wearing the uniform of the National Guard, and the
other well-dressed persons among them, (of whom
there were many, the sons and brothers of the
tradespeople in the towns of Normandy,) — these
persons were, for the most part, provided for in the
inns and private houses of St. Germain : the others
never left the shaded aUeys of the terrace. After
eating and drinking as much as they chose, but
with a care to avoid inebriety, which caused a great
part of a remaining barrel of wine to be actually
emptied on the earth, to exclude the possibility
of any abuse of its contents, — they then began
dancing, after the fashion of their province, rounds
of fifty or sixty men together, to the untuneful
music of their own singing ; and afterwards playing
at single-stick, for which Normandy, it seems, is
famous. The hospitality of St. Germain was not
confined to eating and drinking. Between two
and three hundred pairs of shoes had been provided
for such as had worn out theirs on the journey, or
who had begun it without any. They were, in a
few minutes, aU appropriated by those whose neces
sities were certainly undeniable.
After having been thus refreshed and thus
treated, between two and three o'clock they were,
by beat of drum (the only music they had with

140 MARCH TO RAMBOUILLET.
them) recalled, every man to his own banner, and
were marched away, without leaving a single
straggler, as quietly and as orderly as could have
been the best equipped and best disciplined Regi
ment of Guards.
Of exactly the same complexion were the twenty
thousand inmates of Paris, who, on the very same
day, voluntarily joined the party of National Guards
which General Pajol was leading to Rambouillet,
to hurry the departure of the abdicated King and
his family. In the agitated state of the pubUc mind,
their personal safety in the neighbourhood of Paris
could no longer be assured. Warned of the visit
they were about to receive, the departure of the
Court anticipated its necessity; and the whole of
this vast undisciplined body returned peaceably to
Paris, satisfied with having effected their purpose
before they had reached the place of their destina^
tion, and bringing back with them (for the most
part undamaged) the horses and carriages of aU
descriptions which they had civilly, but peremp-
torUy, demanded of their owners in the streets of
Paris, to aid in cpnveying them to a distance of
thirty miles.
When all these great purposes were effected —
when they had banished for ever from the soil of
France the abdicated Family — when they had seated
on the throne a Prince of their own choosing, on
their own terms — when they had seen their Charter
reformed, enlarged, and re-assured to them, their
National Guard springing into existence and activity
over the whole country, their culpable muiisters in
prison, and those caUed to the administration pf

POWER OF THE PEOPLE. 141
affairs in the new-modelled monarchy submitted
anew to the choice of their fellow-citizens, as their
representatives, in these circumstances, when nothing
seemed wanting to their political felicity, the natural
mobiUty of their disposition, their lively and ex
citable feelings, have been leading them again to risk
the peaceful enjoyment of all the blessings in their
power. The great body of workmen and artisans,
whom the ebuUition of the moment had called off
from all sober occupation, and deprived of their daily
means of living — the numerous individuals dependent
on the employment or the favours of the Court,
formed a mass of idle and discontented population,
which was prompt to receive any impressions, and to
be led into any excesses. Numerous bodies of this
description infested their streets, instigated by a
daily press, which, having ruled omnipotent in the
late convulsion, was unwilling to be reduced to the
sober influence allowed to it in a well-established
Government. The people, too, recently made aware
of their power, and having (unfortunately by the
misdeeds of the Court) been put into the right as to
their late assumption of that power, recurred to the
same means to overawe justice, to insult the King
of their own choice, and to frighten their sober
fellow-citizens. The high-minded forbearance and
patient measures of the King have hardly yet re
pressed these excesses. But now that their institu
tions are defined, that their Government is really
actuated by the spirit it professes, they must learn
the (perhaps) harder lesson, of placing with confi
dence such power in the hands of their Sovereign as
wUl enable him to maintain his own rights as well as
theirs. Conscious that these rights are imprescrip
tible, they must surround him with such splendour

142 POWER OF THE KING,
as will gratify their natural taste for magnificence.
They must allow him all the honours and all the
attractions which he can no longer misuse, and which
no longer lead either to poUtical power or obnoxious
privileges. They must convince themselves, that it
is not by reducing their King to the condition of a
citizen, that they raise their citizens in importance :
that the ujosfc distant approach to anarchy, to con
tempt of the laws, or to a government (under what
ever name) too weak to defend itself, conducts more
surely to despotism, than any power confided to the
hands of those legally appointed to exercise it : that
the first necessity of a free government is strength ;
and that both strength and freedom depend on the
means of maintaining the institutions of that govern
ment against all individual character or preponde
rance, and against all combinations of circumstance.
What may be the effect of the late revolution, and
the order of things induced by it, on the future social
existence of France, it is impossible to foresee.
What new era in the history of civilised man this
revolution has probably commenced, is another ques
tion, of yet deeper and more serious import.
The population of most of the European states,
crowded by a fifteen years' peace, appears to have
received a simultaneous impulse.
The great question of numerical majorities mar
shalled against all exclusive institutions, and against
all accumulations of property, seems about to be
placed, in the most unequivocal terms, before all the
Governments of Europe, On the manner in which
they receive and reply to these intimations depend
such fearful chances as the mind almost recoils from
investigating. On the one side, more pppular institutions may be

ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 143
feared, as possibly leading to a want of public peace
and security : on the other side, strengthening the
arm of power in the old institutions may serve only
to envenom opposition, and to produce prolonged
disorder. England must not forget that she was
long, to France, the guiding star of liberty. England
had her Rebellion, stained, as in France, by the un
necessary sacrifice of her least offending monarch.
England, too, had her worthless Restoration, which
soon, as in France, ended in the necessary and final
dismissal of a famUy that no misfortunes could either
alter, or amend. What England has enjoyed for
near a century and a half, France, by her late glo
rious effort, is now endeavouring to secure and to
consolidate. We may feel an honest pride in having
thus led the way in the career of enlightened and
rational liberty : but it becomes England to watch
with jealous attention the language and the conduct
of demagogues, who, in this as in every other
country, seek individual distinction at the price of
public tranquUUty, and point to the easy (because
well deserved) overthrow ofthe ancient monarchy in
France, rather as an example to follow, than as a
necessity to avoid.
May both England and France, by the liberal
wisdom of their conduct in these difficult circum
stances, and by their superior intellectual lights serve
to guide the other European states as to their real
interests, and allow us to witness and to profit by
the great changes in political and social existence
which are inevitably taking place, unscathed by their
effects !
London, March, 1831.

ADVERTISEMENT
TO THE
LETTERS ADDRESSED BY LORD ORFORD
TO THE MISS BERRYS.*

To the first edition of Lord Orford's works, which
was published the year after he died, no Memoir of
his Life was prefixed : his death was too recent, his
life and character too well known, his works too
popular, to require it. His political Memoirs, and
the collections of his Letters which have been sub
sequently published, were edited by persons, who,
though well qualified for their task in every other
respect, have failed in their account of his private
life, and their appreciation of his individual cha
racter, from the want of a personal acquaintance
with their author.
The Life contained in Sir Walter Scott's Biogra
phical Sketches of the English Novelists labours
under the same disadvantages. He had never seen

* First published in Bentley's Chronological Edition of Lord
Orford's Letters.

ADVERTISEMENT TO L". ORFORD'S LETTERS, 145
Lord Orford, nor even lived much with such of his
intimates and contemporaries in society as survived
him. Lord Dover, who has so admirably edited the first
part of his correspondence with Sir Horace Mann,
knew Lord Orford only by having been carried
sometimes, when a boy, by his father Lord Clifden
to Strawberry Hill. His editorial labours with these
letters were the last occupation of his accomplished
mind, and were pursued while his body was fast
sinking under the complication of disease, which so
soon after deprived society of one of its most dis
tinguished members, the arts of an enlightened
patron, and his intimates of an amiable and attach
ed friend. Of the meagreness and insufficiency of
his Memoir of Lord Orford's Life prefixed to the
letters, he was himself aware, and expressed to the
author of these pages his inability then to improve
it, and his regret that circumstances had deprived
him, while it was yet time, of the assistance of those
who could have furnished him with better materials.
His account of the latter part of Lord Orford's Life
is deficient in details, and sometimes erroneous as
to dates. He appears likewise to have been un
acquainted with some of his writings, and the cir
cumstances which led to and accompanied them.
In the present publication these deficiencies are
supplied from notes, in the hands of the writer,
left by Lord Orford, of the dates of the principal
events of his own Life, and of the writing and
publication of all his works. It is only to be
rigretted that his autobiography is so short, and
so entirely confined to dates.
In estimating the character of Lord Orford,
VOL. II. H

146 ADVERTISEMENT TO LORD ORFORD's
and in the opinion which he gives of his talents,
Lord Dover has evinced much candour and good
taste. He praises with discrimination, and draws
no unfair inferences from the pecuUarities of a
character with which he was not personally ac
quainted. It is by the Review* of the Letters to Sir Horace
Mann, that the severest condemnation has been
passed and the most unjust impressions given, not
only of the genius and talents, but of the heart and
character of Lord Orford. The mistaken opinions
of the eloquent and accompUshed author of that
Review are to be traced chiefly to the same causes
which defeated the intentions of the two first bio
graphers. In his case, these causes were increased,
not only by no acquaintance with his subject, but
by still farther removal from the fashions, the social
habits, the little minute details, of the age to which
Horace Walpole belongs, — an age so essentially
different from the business, the movement, the
important struggles, of that which claims the critic
as one of its most distinguished ornaments. A
conviction that these reasons led to his having
drawn up, from the supposed evidence of Wal
pole's works alone, a character of their author so
entirely and offensively unlike the original, has
forced the pen into the feeble and faUing hand
of the writer of these pages, has imposed the pious
duty of attempting to rescue, by incontrovertible
facts acquired in long intimacy, the memory of an
old and beloved friend, from the giant grasp of an
author and a critic, from whose judgment, when
* See Edinburgh Review.

LETTERS TO THE MISS BERRYS. 147
deliberately formed, few can hope to appeal with
success. The candour, the good-nature of this
critic, — the inexhaustible stores of his literary ac
quirements, which place him in the first rank of
those most distinguished for historical knowledge
and critical acumen, — will allow him, I feel sure,
to forgive this appeal from his hasty and general
opinion to the judgment of his better informed
mind, on the peculiarities of a character often
remarkably dissimilar from that of his works.
Lord Dover has justly and forcibly remarked,
" that what did the most honour both to the head
and the heart of Horace Walpole, was the friend
ship which he bore to Marshal Conway; a man
who, according to all the accounts of him that
have come down to us, was so truly worthy of
inspiring such a degree of affection."*
He then quotes the character given of him by
the editor of Lord Orford's works in 1798. This
character of Marshal Conway was a portrait drawn
from the Life, and, as it proceeded from the same
pen which now traces these lines, has some right
to be inserted here. '' It is only those who have
had the opportunity of penetrating into the most
secret motives of his pubUc conduct, and into the
inmost recesses of his private life, who can do
real justice to the unsullied purity of his character;
— who saw and knew him in the evening of his
days, retired from the honourable activity of a
soldier and of a statesman, to the calm enjoy
ments of private life; happy in the resources of

* Sketch of the Life of Horace Walpole, by Lord Dover.
See vol, I, p. 14.
H 2

148 ADVERTISEMENT TO LORD ORFORD 's
his own mind, and in the cultivation of useful
science, in the bosom of domestic peace — unen-
riched by pensions or places — undistinguished by
titles or ribbons — unsophisticated by public life,
and unwearied by retirement."
To this man. Lord Orford's attachment, from
their boyish days at Eton school to the death of
Marshal Conway in 1795, is already a circumstance
of sufficiently rare occurrence among men of the
world. Could such a man, of whom the foregoing
lines are an unvarnished sketch — of whose character,
simplicity was one of the distinguished ornaments —
could such a man have endured the intimacy of
such an individual as the Reviewer describes Lord
Orford to have been ? Could an intercourse of un
interrupted friendship and undiminished confidence
have existed between them during a period of nearly
sixty years, undisturbed by the business and bustle
of middle life, so apt to cool, and often to terminate,
youthful friendships ? Could such an intercourse
ever have existed, with the supposed selfish indiffe
rence, and artificial coldness and conceit of Lord
Orford's character ?
The last correspondence included in the present
publication will, it is presumed, furnish no less con
vincing proof, that the warmth of his feelings, and
his capacity for sincere affection, continued unen-
feebled by age. It is with this view, and this alone,
that the correspondence alluded to is now, for the
first time, given to the pubUc. It can add nothing
to the already established epistolary fame of Lord
Orford, and the public can be as Uttle interested in
his sentiments for the two individuals addressed.
But, in forming a just estimate of his character

LETTERS TO THE MISS BERRYS, 149
the reader will hardly fail to observe, that those
sentiments were entertained at a time of life when,
for the most part, the heart is too little capable
of expansion to open to new attachments. The
whole tone of these letters must prove the unim
paired warmth of his feelings, and form a striking
contrast to the cold harshness, of which he has
been accused in his intercourse with Madame du
Deffand, at an earlier period of his life. This harsh
ness, as was noticed by the editor of Madame du
Deffand's letters, in the preface to that publication,
proceeded solely from a dread of ridicule, which
formed a principal feature of Mr. Walpole's cha
racter, and which, carried, as in his case, to excess,
must be called a principal weakness. "This ac
counts for the ungracious language in which he
so often replies to the importunities of her anxious
affection ; a language so foreign to his heart, and so
contrary to his own habits in friendship."*
Is this, then, the man who is supposed to be " the
most eccentric, the most artificial, the most fasti
dious, the most capricious of mortals — his mind
a bundle of inconsistent whims and affectations — his
features covered with mask within mask, which,
when the outer disguise of obvious affectation was
removed, you were still as far as ever from seeing
the real man?" "Affectation is the essence of
the man. It pervades all his thoughts, and all his
expressions. If it were taken away, nothing would
be left.f

* See Preface to Madame du Deffand's Letters, p. xi ; and
vol. v. p. 152 of this Collection. 4to.
t See Edinburgh Review, vol. lviii, p. 233.

150 ADVERTISEMENT OF LORD ORFORD's
He affected nothing ; he played no part ; he was
what he appeared to be. Aware that he was ill quali
fied for politics, for public life, for parliamentary busi
ness, or indeed for business of any sort, the whole
tenour of his life was consistent with this opinion of
himself. Had he attempted to effect what belongs only
to characters of another stamp — had he endeavoured
to take a lead in the House of Commons — had he
sought for place, dignity, or office — had he aimed at
intrigue, or attempted to be a tool for others — then,
indeed, he might have deserved the appellation of
artificial, eccentric, and capricious.
From the retreat of his father, which happened
the year after he entered Parliament, the only real in
terest he took in politics was when their events
immediately concerned the objects of his private
friendship. He occupied himself with what reaUy
amused him. If he had affected anything, it would
certainly not have been a taste for the trifling occu
pations with which he is reproached. Of no person
can it be less truly said, that " affectation was the
essence of the man." What man, or even what
woman, ever affected to be the frivolous being he is
described ? When his critic says, that he had " the
soul of a gentleman usher," he was little aware that
he only repeated what Lord Orford often said of
himself— that from his knowledge of old ceremonials
and etiquettes, he was sure that, in a former state
of existence, he must have been a gentleman usher
about the time of Elizabeth.
In poUtics, he was what he professed to be, a
Whig, in the sense which that denomination bore
in his younger days — never a Republican.
In his old and enfeebled age, the horrors of

LETTERS TO THE MISS BERRYS. 151
the first French Revolution made him a Tory; while
he always lamented, as one of the worst effects
of its excesses, that they must necessarily retard to a
distant period the progress and establishment of
civil liberty. But why are we to believe his con
tempt for crowned heads should have prevented his
writing a memoir of " Royal and Noble Authors ?"
Their literary labours, when all brought together by
himself, would not, it is believed, tend much to
raise, or much to alter his opinion of them.
In his letters from Paris, written in the years
1765, 1766, 1767, and 177I, it wUl be seen, that
so far from being infinitely more occupied with " the
fashions and gossips of VersaUles and Marli than
with a great moral revolution which was taking place
in his sight," he was truly aware of the state of
the public mind and foresaw all that was coming
on. Of Rousseau he has proved that he knew more,
and that he judged him more accurately, than Mr.
Hume and many others who were duped by his mad
pride and disturbed understanding.
Voltaire had convicted himself of the basest of
vain lies in the intercourse he sought with Mr. Wal
pole. The details of this transaction, and the
letters which passed at the time, are already printed
in the quarto edition of his works. In the short
notes of his life left by himself, and from which
all the dates in this notice are taken, it is thus men
tioned :
" Although Voltaire, with whom I had never had
the least acquaintance, had voluntarily written to me
first, and asked for my book, he wrote a letter to the
Duchesse de Choiseul, in which, without saying
a syUable of his having written to me first, he told

1 52 ADVERTISEMENT OF LORD ORFORd's
her I had officiously sent him my works, and de
clared war with him in defiance ' de ce bovffon de
Shakspeare,' whom in his reply to me he pre
tended so much to admire. The Duchesse sent
me Voltaire's letter ; which gave me such a con
tempt for his disingenuity, that I dropped all cor
respondence with him."
When he spoke in contempt of d'Alembert, it was
not of his abiUties ; of which he never pretended to
judge. Professor Saunderson had long before, when
he was a lad at Cambridge, assured him, that it
would be robbing him to pretend to teach him mathe
matics, of which his mind was perfectly incapable;
so that any comparison " of the inteUectual powers
of the two men" would indeed be as "exquisitely
ridiculous" as the critic declares it. But Lord
Orford speaking of d'Alembert complains of the
overweening importance, which he and all the men
of letters of those days in France, attributed to their
squabbles and disputes.
The idleness, to which an absolute government
necessarily condemns nine-tenths of its subjects,
sufficiently accounts for the exaggerated importance
given to and assumed by the French writers, even
before they had become, in the language of the
Reviewer, "the interpreters between England and
mankind." He asserts, moreover, " that aU the
great discoveries in physics, in metaphysics, in poUti
cal science, are ours ; but no foreign nation, except
France, has received them from us by direct com
munication: isolated in our situation, isolated by
our manners, we found truth, but did not impart
it."* It may surely be asked, whether France wiU
* Edinburgh Review, vol. lviii. p. 233.

LETTERS TO THE MISS BERRYS. 153
subscribe to this assertion of superiority, in the
whole range of science ? If she does, her character
has undergone a greater change than any she has
yet experienced in the course of all her revolu
tions. Lord Orford is believed by his critic to have
" sneered'' at every body. Sneering was not his
way of showing dislike. He had very strong preju
dices, sometimes adopted on very insufficient
grounds, and he therefore often made great mis
takes in the appreciation of character ; but when
influenced by such impressions, he always expressed
his opinions directly, and often too violently.
The affections of his heart were bestowed on few;
for in early life they had never been cultivated, but
they were singularly warm, pure, and constant ; .cha
racterised not by the ardour of passion, but by the
constant pre-occupation of real affection. He had
lost his mother, to whom he was fondly attached,
early in life ; and with his father, a man of coarse feel
ings and boisterous manners, he had few sentiments
in common. Always feeble in constitution, he was
unequal to the sports of the field and to the drinking
which then accompanied them ; so that during his
father's retreat at Houghton, however much he
respected his abiUties and was devoted to his fame,
he had little sympathy in his tastes, or pleasure in
his society. To the friends of his own selection his
devotion was not confined to professions or words:
on all occasions of difficulty, of whatever nature, his
active affection came forward in defence of their
character, or assistance in their affairs.
When his friend Conway, as second in command
under Sir John Mordaunt, in the expedition to St.
H 3

154 ADVERTISEMENT TO LORD ORFORD's
Maloes, partook in some degree of the public cen
sure called forth by the failure of these repeated
ill-judged attempts on the coasts of France, Wal
pole's pen was immediately employed in rebutting
the accusations of the popular pamphlet of the day
on this subject, and in establishing his friend's exemp
tion from any responsibility in the failure. When,
on a more important occasion, Mr. Conway was not
only dismissed from being Equerry to King George
III, but from the command of his regiment, for his
constitutional conduct and votes in the House of
Commons, in the memorable affair of the legality of
General Warrants for the seizure of persons and
papers, Walpole immediately stepped forward^ not
with cold commendations of his friend's upright and
spirited conduct, but with all the confidence of long-
tried affection, and all the security of noble minds
incapable of misunderstanding each other, he insisted
on being allowed to share in future his fortune with
his friend, and thus more than repair the pecuniary
loss he had incurred. Mr. Conway, in a letter to
his brother, Lord Hertford, at this period, says:
" Horace Walpole has on this occasion shown that
warmth of friendship that you know him capable
of so strongly, that I want words to express my
sense of it;"* thus proving the justice he did to
Walpole's sentiments and intentions.
In the case of General Conway's near relation
ship and intimacy from childhood, the cause in
which his fortunes were suffering might have warmed
a colder heart, and opened a closer hand than Mr.
Walpole's; but Madame du Deffand was a recent
* See vol, IV, p, 416.

LETTERS TO THE MISS BERRYS. 153
acquaintance, who had no claim on him, but the
pleasure he received from her society, and his desire
that her blind and helpless old age might not be
deprived of any of the comforts and alleviations
of which it was capable. When, by the financial
arrangements of the French Government, under the
unscrupulous administration of the Abb^ Terray,
the creditors of the state were considerably reduced
in income, Mr. Walpole, in the most earnest man
ner, begged to prevent the unpleasantness of his old
friend's exposing her necessities and imploring aid
from the minister of the day, by her allowing him to
make up the deficit in her revenue, as a loan, or in
any manner that would be most satisfactory to her.
The loss, after all, did not fall on that stock from
which she derived her income, and the assistance
was not accepted ; but Madame du Deffand's confi
dence in, and opinion of, the offer, we see in her
letters. During his after life, although no ostentatious
contributor to pubUc charities and schemes of im
provement, the friends, in whose opinion he knew
he could confide, had always more difficulty to re
press than to excite his liberality.
That he should have wished his friend Conway
to be employed as commander on military expedi
tions, which, as a soldier fond of his profession, he
naturally coveted, although Mr. Walpole might dis
approve of the policy of the minister in sending out
such expeditions, surely implies neither disguise,
nor contradiction in his opinions.
The dread which the reviewer supposes him to
have had, lest he should lose caste as a gentleman,
by ranking as a wit and an author, he was much too

156 ADVERTISEMENT TO LORD ORFORD's
fine a gentleman to have believed in the possibihty
of feeling. He knew he had never studied since
he left coUege; he knew that he was not at all a
learned man : but that the reputation which he had
acquired by his wit and by his writings, not only
among fine gentlemen but with society in general,
made him nothing loathe to cultivate every opportu
nity of increasing it. The account he gave ofthe
idleness of his life to Sir Horace Mann, when he
disclaims the title of " the learned gentleman," was
literally true; and it is not easy to imagine any
reason why a man at the age of forty-three, who
admits that he is idle, and who renounces being
either a learned man or a politician, should be
" ashamed" of playing loo in good company till two
or three o'clock in the morning, if he neither ruins
himself nor others.* He wrote his letters as rapidly
as disabled fingers would allow him to form the
characters of a remarkably plain hand. No rough
draughts or sketches of familiar letters were found
amongst his papers at Strawberry Hill ; but he was
in the habit of putting down on the backs of letters,
or on slips of paper, a note of facts, of news, of
witticisms, or of anything he wished not to forget,
for the amusement of his correspondents.
After reading "The Mysterious Mother," who
will accede to the opinion, that his works are
" destitute of every charm that is derived from
elevation, or from tenderness of sentiment ?"
With opinions as to the genius, the taste, or
the talents of Lord Orford, this littie notice has
* See Edinburgh Review, vol. lviii, p. 232.
t Idem, p. 237.

LETTERS TO THE MISS BERRYS. 157
nothing to do. It aims solely at rescuing his
individual character from misconceptions. Of the
means necessary for this purpose, its writer, by the
"painful pre-eminence" of age, remains the sole
depositary, and being so, has submitted to the task
of repeUing such misconceptions. It is done with
the reluctance which must always be experienced in
differing from, or calling in question, the opinions of
a person, for whom is felt all the admiration and
respect due to super-eminent abilities, and aU the
grateful pride and affectionate regard inspired by
personal friendship.
M. B.
October, 1840.

SOME ACCOUNT
OF THE
LIFE OF THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND.*

It would be difficult now to give a detailed ac
count of the early part of the life of the Marquise
du Deffand, and it would certainly ill repay the
trouble it might cost, by any interest it could afford
to an English reader.
The three Volumes of her Letters, or rather of
Letters addressed to her, published at Paris, are
prefaced by a Notice Historique sur Madame du Def
fand, which contains little more than' the name of
her family, the dates of her birth, marriage and
death, and some of the bon-mots attributed to her.
In the little that is added relative to her education,
to her society, and to her habits of life at different
periods, there is a crowd of inaccuracies. The Editor
of the present volumes has been enabled to avoid
these inaccuracies, and to supply many of the
particulars wanting, from the large mass of letters,
and other original papers bequeathed by Madame
* Prefixed to her Letters to the Hon. Horace Walpole.

THE LIFE OF THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 159
du Deffand to Mr. Walpole, from many memoranda
of his dictated by her, and from the editor's acquaint
ance with several persons, who lived in intimacy
with her during the last twenty years of her life, a
period subsequent to the date of any of the letters
pubUshed at Paris. It has not therefore been found
necessary to alter, or to skorten, any part of the
following account, written some time before the
appearance of the French publication.
Marie de Vichy Chamrond, Marquise du Deffand,
was born in 1697, of a noble family in the province
of Burgundy. Her eldest brother, the Comte de
Vichy Chamrond, after acquiring the rank of Mare-
chal de Camp in the French service, retired in the
year 1743, on account of his health, to his estate of
Chamrond, near Roanne, in that district of Bur
gundy called Briennois. He had married a lady
of good family, of the same province, of the name
of d'Albon, by whom he had a daughter, and two
sons, both in the army.
She had a younger brother in the church, the
Abbe de Chamrond, who became Tresorier de la
Sainfe Chapelle at Paris, and lived at Montrouge
near that city. By their grand-mother, a Duchesse
de Choiseul,* they were connected, though distantly,
by the ties of blood, with the Due de Choiseul, so
long prime minister in France ; and it is on this
account that Madame du Deffand, in the course of
the following letters, always calls the Due and
Duchesse de Choiseul mes parens, and by a sort of
anachronism in their relationship, grand-papa and
* Marie Boutillier de Chavigny, wife of Caesar Auguste,
Due de Choiseul.

160 THE LIFE OF
grand-mama. The Duchesse de Luynes, long a
favourite attendant of the Queen of Louis XV, was
Madame du Deffand's aunt, and obtained for her,
after she became bUnd, a pension of six thousand
livres from the Queen, which she enjoyed tiU her
death, Brienne de Lomenie, Archbishop of Toulouse,
and afterwards Cardinal de Lomenie, was her great
nephew. The spirit of poUtical intrigue, which
distinguished his character, and of which Madame
du Deffand seems to have been early aware, at
length succeeded in raising him to the administration
of affairsjduring the last struggles of the old Govern
ment of France, and exposed him to the contempt
he deserved for aspiring to such a situation at such
a moment.* She mentions in her letters a sister settled at
Avignon, who died in 1769, with whom she seems
never to have had much connexion. Her nephew,
the Marquis d'Aulan, whom she sent for to Paris
in the year 1778, was son to this sister.
Mademoiselle de Chamrond, for so Madame du
Deffand was called before her marriage, was edu
cated, like other young French women of fashion, in
a convent at Paris. She was placed in that of La
Madeleine de Trenelle, in the rue de Charonne.
Among her papers are preserved several letters
addressed to her, between the age of sixteen and
nineteen, by a priest, who attended the pupUs of
this convent as confessor, or as he was then called
directeur, which letters prove, that she had thus
* He was nicknamed by the populace of Paris the Cardinal
de VIgnominie.

THE MARaUISE DU DEFFAND. 161
early entertained doubts upon religious subjects,
which were unfortunately rather increased than dimi
nished by the zealous, but iU-directed arguments of
the priest. Mr. Walpole says, that, " her parents,
alarmed at her sentiments, sent her the famous Mas-
siUon to talk to her. She was not awed by his cha
racter, nor dazzled by his arguments, but defended
herself with good sense, and the prelate was more
struck by her ingenuity and beauty, than shocked
at her heresy." He adds that, " from that time till
her death, at the age of eighty-three, she never af
fected scepticism, and always wished to be devout, as
the state of the greatest happiness even in this
world." This happy state, however, from the mis
management of her mind in early youth, and its sub
sequent want of all proper culture, she never attained.
From the frequent complaints she makes in her
letters of the badness and neglect of her education,
we must suppose that the instruction given to the
pupils of la Madeleine de Trenelle was not better
calculated to form the mind, or to cultivate the
understanding, than that of the other seminaries
of the same kind, at that period. Indeed, she
repeatedly expresses the regret, which every woman
endued with any degree of superiority of inteUect
must feel, for not having received that real, regular
education, that method, and those habits of think
ing which are indiscriminately inculcated on men;
among whom, perhaps, it is rather a matter of
surprise, that a greater number should not have
distinguished themselves, than that few women
should have risen to eminence, under the various
difficulties and inconveniences which they have to
encounter.

162 THE LIFE OF
It has been justly offered, by one of their own
sex, as a reason for their inferiority upon all sub
jects, that their exertions must always be half
spent in overcoming the obstacles which this want
of education and habits of thought necessarUy oc
casion.* As MademoiseUe de Chamrond's fortune was
very small, she was married by her parents to
the Marquis du Deffand,t probably the first person
considered as a suitable match that offered for her,
and the union was settled with as little attention to
her feelings as was usual in French marriages of that
age. Fashion and custom, while they rendered all
previous remonstrance on these occasions both un
usual and ineffectual, seem likewise to have es
tablished a tacit but acknowledged right on the
part of the persons thus disposed of, to indulge
in that liberty of choice after marriage, which
before, had been absolutely denied to them.
Madame du Deffand appears to have availed
herself of this privilege, and separated herself from
M. du Deffand on finding him a weak character
and a tiresome companion ; how long after their
marriage does not appear. Mr. Walpole says they
always continued upon good terms, and that upon
her husband's death-bed, at his own express desire,
she saw him.

* " Si les femmes, meme celles qui sont cflebres, ont tou
jours ^te mediocres, c'est qu'elles ont use leurs forces k vaincre
les obstacles,"— See Melanges de Madame Necker, vol. ii.
seconde partie, p. 82.
t In August 1718,

THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 163
All those who knew her agree, that she never
alluded to any particulars of her married Ufe, and
was averse to all recollections connected with it.
If the subjoined account, given in a late pub
lication of letters among those of Mademoiselle
d'Aiss^, be true, and from the character of truth
and candour impressed upon the letters of that
extraordinary and ill-fated person, there seems no
reason to doubt it, Madame du Deffand must,
indeed, have reflected with pain on conduct, at
once so weak and so disgraceful ; and to the melan
choly remembrance of past misfortune, of which
she often complains as tormenting her sleepless
nights, must have been superadded that most op
pressive of all evils, the consciousness of having
deserved it.* * Paris, 1728.
Je veux vous parler de Madame du Deffand : elle avait un
violent desir, pendant long-temps, de se raccommoder avec
son mari ; comme elle a de I'esprit, elle appuyait de tres
bonnes raisons cette envie ; eUe agissait dans plusieurs occa
sions de fafon k rendre ce raccommodement desirable et
honnete. Sa grande mere meurt, et lui laisse quatre miUe
livres de rente ; sa fortune devenant meilleure, c' etait un
moyen d'offrir a son mari un ^tat plus heureux que si elle avait
^te pauvre. Comme U n'etait point riche, elle pretendait
rendre moins ridicule son mari de se raccommoder avec elle,
devant desirer des heritiers. Cela reussit comme nous I'avions
prevu. Elle en re9ut des complimens de tout le monde.
J'aurais voulu qu'elle ne pressat pas autant, il fallait encore
un noviciat de six mois ; son mari devant les passer naturelle-
ment chez son pere, j'avais mes raisons pour lui conseiller
cela ; mais comme cette bonne dame mettait de TeBprit, oU
pour mieux dire de I'imagination au lieu de raison et stabilise,
elle emballa la chose de maniere que le mari amoureux rompt
son voyage et vient s'etablir chez elle, c'est-k-dire k diner et

164 THE LIFE OF
As some extenuation of her conduct in this
respect, it must be remembered that her youth

souper, car pour habiter ensemble elle ne voulut pas entendre
parler de trois mois, pour eviter tout soupfon injurieux pour
elle et son mari. C'etait la plus belle amitie du monde
pendant six semaines; au bout de ce teiAps-la, elle s'est
ennuyee de cette vie, et a repris une aversion pour son mari.
Outree, et sans lui faire des brusqueries, elle avait I'air si
desesperee et si triste, qu'il a pris le parti d'aller chez son
pere. Elle prend toutes les mesures imaginables pour qu'il
ne revienne point, Je lui ai represente durement toute
I'infamie de ses precedes : elle a voulu par instances, et par
pitie me toucher et me faire revenir a ses raisons ; j'ai tenu
bon, j'ai reste trois semaines sans la voir ; eUe est venue me
chercher, II n'y a sorte de bassesses qu'elle n'ait mis en
usage pour que je ne I'abandonnasse pas, Je lui ai dit que le
public s'eloignoit d'elle comme je m'en ^loignois ; que je
souhaiterois qu'elle prit autant de peine k plaire k ce public,
qu'a moi ; qu'a mon egard, je le respectois trop pour ne lui
pas sacrifier mon goilt pour elle. Elle pleura beaucoup, je
n'en fus point touchee. La fin de cette miserable conduite
c'est, qu'eUe ne peut vivre avec personne, et qu'un amant
qu'elle avoit avant son raccommodement avec son mari, exced^
d'elle, I'avoit quittee, et quand il apprit qu'elle etoit bien avec
M. du Defiand, il lui a ecrit des lettres pleines de reproches ;
il est revenu. L'amour-propre ayant reveille des feux mal
eteints, la bonne dame n'a suivi que son penchant, et sans
reflexion, elle a cru un amant meilleur qu'un mari; elle a
oblige ce dernier k abandonner la place. II n'a pas ete parti,
que I'amant I'a quittee. Elle reste la fable du public, blslmee
de tout le monde, m^prisee de son amant, delaiss^e de ses
amies ; elle ne sait plus comment debrouiller tout cela. Elle
se jette a la tete des gens pour faire croire qu'elle n'est pas
abandonnee ; cela ne reussit pas : I'air delibere et embarrasse
regne tour a tour dans sa personne, Voil^ oil elle en est, et
oil j'en suis avec elle, — See "Lettres de Mesdames de Villars,
de la Fayette, de Tencin, de Coulanges, de Ninon de VEnclos,
et de Mademoiselle d'Arni." Paris, 1806, Vol. iii.

THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 165
was passed at a moment when the profligacy of
French manners was at its acme. The example
of the Regent had given to vice a sanction and
an authority, which precluded even the necessity
of a mask; audit was not Ukely that in the suc
ceeding reign of a weak Prince, who had breathed
from his infancy this corrupted atmosphere, any
reform should take place, or any alteration be
observable, except in the fashion of evil. Gallantry,
under certain arbitrary, and often fanciful ideas
of decency was permitted with impunity to both
sexes. Excess in the use of wine was by no
means considered as disgraceful even to women of
the highest rank : and, at their private suppers,
the license both of conversation and manners would
have startled the better taste, if not better morals,
of the intimate society of the much abused and
insulted Marie Antoinette.
In the midst of this general depravity, this sanc
tioned profligacy of manners, one must rather wonder
that Mme. du Deffand should have preserved a strong
and incorruptible love of truth and sincerity, and a
lively sense of her own failings and weakness, than
that such weakness, unsupported by any religious
principle, and unassisted either by virtuous habits, or
virtuous example, should have betrayed her youth
into irregularities she saw practised so generally, and
with such impunity. It is said that she had the dis
reputable honour pf pleasing the Regent, Duke of
Orleans, and of being for a short time the object of
his licentious and degrading love.
As she was only twenty-six years old when the
Regent died,* this connexion (if indeed it existed)
* The Regent Duke of Orleans died in the year 1723,

166 THE LIFE OF
must have taken place early in her life, and long
before the circumstance related by MademoiseUe
d'Aiss^. Her intimacy, many years afterwards, with the
President Henault, was of a very different descrip
tion. By the license of French manners, connexions
between those who had no legal tie upon their per
sons or affections were so far from ^being considered
as disgraceful, that however they might commence,
if they lasted long enough to deserve the name and
assume the character of friendship, they were not
only suffered, but often respected ; and, in many
cases, a marriage between persons so circumstanced
would, instead of rendering their mutual senti
ments more respectable, have been considered as
imprudent and discreditable to both parties. In
whatever manner, or at whatever period, her ac
quaintance with the President Henault began, it
lasted without interruption till his death, in the year
1770, though with little real satisfaction on her side
during the last years of his life, and with none on
his, if we may believe Marmontel, who says in his
Memoirs, speaking of Madame du Deffand, " Qu'elle
tyrannisoit encore le President Henault, qui naturelle-
ment tres-timide etoit reste esclave de la crainte,
long-tems apres avoir cesse de I'^tre de I'amour."
But Marmontel's evidence upon this subject is
suspicious, because he belonged to another of the
many factions which at that time divided the literary
world of Paris. With one or the other of these
factions all the pretended wits and pretended patrons
sided and took an active part, while their associates
of the, female sex, never the most moderate either in
their feeUngs or demonstrations, were often falsely
judged, and immoderately praised or as immoderately

THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 167
blamed; — the common fate of all women who, in
fluenced by fashion, by custom, or by choice, step out
of that dignified retirement, where they can alone
exert with propriety superior talents, superior intel
lect, or even superior virtues.
Madame du Deffand, in her letters to Mr. Wal
pole, often regrets her having in an evil hour ac
quired the reputation of a bel-esprit, as exposing her
to the siUy display of every pretender to wit ; and
often, as she thought, to the serious malice and ill-
will of those whose claims to distinction were better
founded. In the year 1732, we find her already in corres
pondence with Voltaire, who tells her, " Ce qui est
beau et lumineux est votre [element. Ne craignez
pas de faire la disserteuse, ne rougissez point de
joindre aux graces de votre personne la force de
votre esprit ; faites des nceuds avec les autres femmes,
mais parlez-moi raison."
Her acquaintance with Voltaire had probably com
menced at the little Court of Sceaux, where the
Duchesse du Maine had retired, after her release
from the consequences of that incomprehensible con
spiracy against the power of the Regent, into which
the vague ambition of a weak mind had induced her
to precipitate both herself and her husband. At
Sceaux, instead of plotting revolutions, or rather
changes in the decorations of despotism, with Celle-
mare and Alberoni, she contented herself with con
triving plans for fetes, suggesting subjects for son
nets, and reigning over a circle of dependants and
beaux esprits, with probably but little more, or little
less ennui than she would have experienced in the
larger field of politics, where she had by such iU-cal-

168 THE LIFE OF
culated measures attempted to shine. It was at
Sceaux likewise that Madame du Deffand became
acquainted with Madame de Staal, whose Memoirs,
written by herself, and long since pubUshed, give so
entertaining, because so natural and unaffected, a
picture of her own character and adventures, and
of those of her capricious, self-conceited Princess.
Early in the year 1752, Madame du Deffand began
to feel, and to dread the approach of a calamity al
most sufficient to justify her subsequent complaints
of human life, and her regret at the necessity of ex
istence. Her sight became so feeble, that we find, by
a letter from Voltaire to M. de Formont, in Feb
ruary, 1752, her difficulty in writing already obliged
her to have recourse to an amanuensis.* Soon
afterwards she made a journey into her native
province of Burgundy, probably on account of her
health ; and in AprU of this year, we find her estab
lished at Chamrond, the seat of her brother the
Comte de Vichy, where she remained till the Novem
ber following. She afterwards spent some months
at Macon and Lyons, and did not return to Paris till
the end of the year 1754.
During the whole of this time, her eye-sight had
been growing gradually worse and worse, and it now
totaUy forsook her. In March, 1754, she writes to
her aunt, the Duchesse de Luynes, " Je suis aveugle,
Madame; on me loue de mon courage; mais que
gagnerois-je a me desesperer ? Cependant je sens
tout le malheur de ma situation." And Voltaire,
who was not aware of her total want of sight, had
* Voltaire's Works, Correspondance ginirale. Vol. Liv
Beaumarchais' edition.

THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 169
before thus addressed himself to M. Formont, the
correspondent already quoted : — " Ce que vous me
dites des yeux de Madame du Deffand, me fait une
peine extreme. lis Etoient autrefois bien brillans et
bien beaux. Pourquoi faut-il qu'on soit puni par oii
on a p6clie ! et quelle rage a la nature de g^ter ses
plus beaux ouvrages 1 Du moins Madame du
Deffand conserve son esprit, qui est encore plus

beau

que ses yeux

., „

After this gallant lamentation upon the loss of
Madame du Deffand's eyes, it may be here the most
proper place to bring some corroborating evidence
of their beauty, and to give some idea of the general
character of her person. Besides the instances of
individual admiration, which we have already noticed,
every body who knew her old, concur in asserting
that she must have been remarkably pretty in her
youth. Mademoiselle d'Ai'sse, who only knew her
young, says, "elle est belle, eUe a beaucoup de
grace." The loss of sight to a woman of fifty-seven,
considered only as a diminution in the brilliancy of
her eyes, would indeed have been a loss of compara
tively small importance, and especially to Madame
du Deffand, in whose countenance it induced no
deformity. Her eyes were closed, but in no respect disfigured,
and the rest of her features remained unaltered ; they
were neat, regular, and uncommonly well formed,
and there was an air of cleanliness and delicacy
diffused over her whole person, which she retained
to extreme old age, and which is perceivable even in
the original of the engraving prefixed to the present
work. She was particularly averse to exciting pity by
her misfortune, and endeavoured to make it forgotten
VOL. II. I

170 THE LIFE OF
as much as possible in society, by always looking at the
person she addressed and the thing she was doing ;
and by being singularly quick and adroit at avoiding
in every respect tiie awkward manners of a bUnd
person. While the event of her total loss of sight
remained doubtful, she described herself to Mr,
Walpole as having suffered much agony of mind^ and
dreadful depression of spirits; but after it became
a certain and irremediable evil, she seems to have
submitted to it with a resolution and calmness which
did her honour ; and it appears that her friends (in
society at least) were sensible of no diminution of
her natural liveliness and vivacity.
When Mr. Walpole first became acquainted with
her, she had already been blind eleven years, and it
was certainly in her correspondence only that he
complained of her want of gaiety, and her disposition
to melancholy reflections. Her conversation is de
scribed by every body who has ever partaken of it,
as singularly lively and entertaining ; and, above all,
as marked by a degree of sincerity in her sentiments,
and a frank avowal of her opinions, that must have
formed a striking -and agreeable contrast with the
artificial manners, and subdued feelings, which the
state of society in which she lived made almost
necessary to those who took a more active part in
tbe world.
But her power of entertaining others could be of
little avail to herself, during those hours of oppres
sive soUtude, in which her mind must naturally have
dwelt with anguish upon her then recent misfor
tunes, and the melancholy future it entailed upon her.
In such circumstances, one cannot wonder at her
seeking to secure to herself some certain means of

THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 171
avoiding the dark chasms which solitude must now
make in her existence. It was under these impres
sions, during her residence with her brother, the
Marquis de Vichy, at Chamrond, that she became
acquainted with MademoiseUe de Lespinasse, after
wards better known as the friend of d'Alembert, and
since introduced to the more intimate acquaintance
of the public by three volumes of her Letters, pub
lished at Paris. These letters outstrip all romance
in their exaggerated expression of sentiment, and
their bold security of justifying every excess of pas
sion by its violence. Their author abjures the dic
tates of reason, not with regret and self-reproach at
abandoning an unerring guide, whose excellence we
acknowledge even while unable to obey its injunc
tions ; but triumphs in having freed herself from an
odious trammel, to be despised, and set at nought by
all minds capable of the delirious exaltation of un
governable passion.
Mademoiselle de Lespinasse was born at Lyons,
in the year 1732. She was a natural child of Mme.
d'Albon, whose legitimate daughter the Marquis de
Vichy had married. The illegitimacy of Mademoi
selle de Lespinasse's birth, and the circumstances
attending it, were well known at Lyons, and in the
register of the parish in which she was born, she was
designated as the legitimate child of a citizen of
Lyons, whose name was given to her.* Yet as she

* The following is the certificate of her baptism, which
Madame du Deffand had had copied from the parish register at
Lyons, and verified before a magistrate there, in the year 1753.
" Le dix-neuvieme Novembre, mil sept cent trente deux a
ete baptisee, Julie Jeane Eleonore, nee hier, fille legitime du
I 2

172 THE LIFE OF
was born in wedlock, the d'Albon family seem always
to have entertained a dread, from which Madame
du Deffand herself was not exempted, that she might
some time or other attempt to legitimate her birth,
and give herself a, right to share the fortune of her
parents ; and we see in her letters, that she acquired
much credit in the world by the sacrifice of these
supposed rights, from motives of delicacy to the
memory of Madame d'Albon, her mother. Upon
the death of this mother, with whom MademoiseUe
de Lespinasse was then living, she was immediately
received by M. and Mme. de Vichy, at Chamrond,
where she had already passed four years when
Madame du Deffand found her there in 1752, in the
capacity of a sort of governess to their children, and
of humble companion to themselves. This situation,
which probably under any circumstances she could
have ill brooked, they made so disagreeable, that
before Madame du Deffand arrived, she had deter
mined to leave the Marquis de Vichy's family, and
lodge herself in a convent at Lyons, upon the
wretched pittance of a hundred crowns, (about twelve
pounds sterling a year), which had been settled upon
her by Madame d'Albon, and was all she had in the
world to depend upon.
Sieur Claude Lespinasse, bourgeois de Lyon, et de dame
Julie Navare, le Parrain est Louis Basiliat, chirurgien jure de
Lyon, la Marraine dame Juhe le Chat, representee par dame
Madeleine Gannivet, epouse du dit Sieur Basiliat. Le dit enfant
est ne chez le Sieur Basiliat. Le p6re n'a signe pour ^tre ab
sent : ces deux t^moins ont signe la minute.
" Basiliat, — Ambrose Vicaire.''
" Extrait mot k mot des Registres de St. Paul de Lyon, ex-
p^di^le29 Avril, 1753,
" Signe Caibb, Vicaire de St. Paul."

THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 173
Madame du Deffand, after trying in vain, at her
brother's desire, to persuade her to remain in his
house, formed the project of attaching her to herself,
as the companion which her now confirmed blindness
seemed to require.
Mademoiselle de Lespinasse had left Chamrond in
October, 1752, while Madame du Deffand was still
an inmate there. From this time a correspondence
of letters took place between them, and in the April
following, when Madame du Deffand was herself at
Lyons, she first communicated her plan to the person
most immediately concerned in its execution, offering
her a lodging in the apartment she was herself going
to occupy in a convent at Paris, and an annuity of
four hundred livres a year.
This proposal, as may be guessed, was gratefully
received by Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. It was
opposed by the Marquis de Vichy and his wife's
family, merely, as Madame du Deffand says, out of
pique at Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, for having per
sisted in her resolution of leaving them ; but pro
bably their opposition was corroborated by the fears
already mentioned, of her entertaining some idea of
being able to legitimate her birth, by the assistance
of the friends she might acquire in the world. How
ever, as the forlorn situation in which fortune had
placed her, gave her at least the absolute power of
disposing of her person, she availed herself of her
liberty to accept Madame du Deffand's offer, and in
May, 1754, became an inmate of the community of
St. Joseph, in the Rue St, Dominique, where Madame
du Deffand, since her return from Burgundy, had
fixed her residence at Paris . This community had
been estabUshed by the celebrated Madame de

174 THE LIFE OF
Montespan, and the apartment which Madame du
Deffand occupied within its walls, was a part of that
which had been reserved by the pious Foundress for
her occasional retreats from the Court, and from the
King, which the fashionable devotion of that day had
made necessary, or advisable, at the great festivals of
the Church, even to those, who at all other times,
lived the least according to its precepts.
This apartment, although within the enclosure of
a convent, was entered by a separate court, and had
nothing to do with the hours, or restrictions of the
community. The first years of Madame du Deffand's association
with her young companion were a blessing and a
comfort to both parties ;* and by no means what
Marmontel, in his Memoirs, has thought fit to
describe it, a melancholy slavery to Mademoiselle de
Lespinasse. That there must have been mutual
faults in the conduct and circumstances which led to
their separation in 1764, that there was an unwar
rantable jealousy and suspicion on the one side, and
a visible failure in attention and marks of interest on
the other, could hardly be doubted by any one who
has read Marmontel's intended panegyric on the
subsequent conduct of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse,
and his account of her cruel behaviour to d'Alembert.
It is stUl further confirmed by the publication of her
letters, where we see a mind so entirely engrossed.

* In corroboration of this opinion, two letters from Made
moiselle de Lespinasse to Madame du Deffand, selected from
several others in the same style, written about this time, during
Madame du Deffand's occasional absences from Paris, are sub
joined.

THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 175
not by one, but by a succession of great passions,
as must, and by her own avowal did, make all other
interests, occupations, and company, not only indif
ferent, but troublesome to her.
It has been already mentioned, that Madame du
Deffand and MademoiseUe de Lespinasse separated
in the year 1764, ten years from their first meeting.*
In the autumn of the following year, Madame du
Deffand became acquainted with Mr. Walpole.
From this time her own letters will best fill up the
story of her remaining life. It would be superfluous,
and indeed impossible to trace the beginning of
Madame du Deffand's acquaintance with the series
of distinguished persons who frequented her society,
and courted her correspondence.
All the letters addressed to her prove how much
both the one and the other were sought, by those
from whom such a distinction would be the most
flattering; and all her own letters prove how un
availing the applause of friends, the flattery of wits,
and the homage of the world, to the real comfort
and happiness of life, to that enviable situation of
mind " Quod se sibi retldat amicum.
Quod pure tranquiUet."
This Madame du Deffand seems never to have
known. Courted as she was, to the last moment
of a protracted life, by all the great, the gay, and the
distinguished, both of her own country and those
of every other, whom business or pleasure led to
Paris, she might naturaUy be supposed to enjoy
* The only communication which ever afterwards took place
between them, were two letters, written within a month after
their separation. They are subjoined to this account.

176 THE LIFE OF
the most agreeable existence that her age, sex, and
infirmity could admit : yet we see Madame du Def
fand devoured by that ennui which she considers
the most insupportable iU of the human mind, and
which her whole life seems to have been consumed
in an ineffectual effort to avoid.
We see her repeatedly complaining of existence
as an irremediable evil, and yet owning her repug
nance to quit it. We see her by turns dissatisfied
with aU her friends, and for ever doubting the reality
of friendship ; though eagerly seeking its support,
exacting its attentions, and indeed, on her own part,
fulfilUng its duties. We see her yet more constantly
discontented with herself than others : " Si je ne
fais pas cas des autres, j'en fais encore moins de
moi." — "J'ai plus de peine en v^rit^ a me sup
porter, que je n'en ai a supporter les autres." Much
of this ennui must certainly be attributed to her
blindness, which making her entirely dependent
upon others for every species of occupation and
amusement, converted society and conversation,
from an indulgence and a luxury, into an absolute
necessary of life ; but much too, must fairly attach
to her character ; to the habits of a mind naturally
lively and acute, uncorrected by any real education,
unsustained by any real religious principles, and
consequently unenlightened by any of those great
and benevolent views of human nature, which assure
superior minds of the existence both of virtue and
friendship, while it leads them to tolerate deviations
from the one, and to forgive neglects in the other ;
because they consider the human character, in spite
of all its vices and all its follies, as the work of an
infinitely benevolent Being, in which, as in all His
creation, benevolence must necessarily predominate.

THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 177
Of herself, her talents, and endowments, she
seems to have entertained a very humble opinion,
and she owns all the faults and weaknesses of her
mind with a sincerity, a regret, and an absence of
aU affectation, which certainly formed the principal
charm of her character, and indicated its capability
of becoming much superior to what it ever really
was. Mr. Walpole, in a manuscript note upon her
character, drawn by herself, says — " Her severity to
herself was not occasional or affected modesty. She
constantly thought and spoke unfavourably of her
own amazing parts ; and knowing no language but
her own, and never having taken any studied pains
(though she had read a vast deal) to improve herself,
she imagined that she was more ignorant than many
others. But the vivacity and strength of her mind,
her prodigious quickness, her conception, as just as
it was clear, her natural power of reasoning, her
wit, the simplicity of her eloquence, her scorn of
whatever was false, or affected, and her long ac
quaintance with, and knowledge of the world, her
intercourse with the brightest geniuses of the age,
and of that best age (at least such as remained),
raised her to a level with them."
Her natural quickness, indeed, seems sometimes
to have hit upon truths which she had no power
of detecting by thought, or of applying by inference.
She often feelingly regrets to Mr. Walpole that she
is not devout, seeing only in the practises of devo
tion an occupation of time, and a defence against
her dreaded enemy ennui, without seeming aware
that nothing but fixed principles on the subject of
religion, an unshaken belief in the wisdom and
benevolence of the dispensations of a Creator, cau
I 3

178

THE LIFE OF

reconcUe us in advancing years to the increased
evils, and diminished comforts of existence. Nothing,
indeed, but a perfect and devout reUance on that
Being, incapable of the changes we feel in ourselves
and see in aU around us, can produce resignation to
the present, and hopes of the ftiture; the only real
support of a protracted Ufe.
Reading, unanimated by any of these consoling
ideas, unconnected with any serious subject, and
deprived of all pursuit but the mere passing of the
present moment, became as intolerable to her as
much of the society in which she had formerly de
lighted. It was wittily said by one of that society,*
that when she talked to him of her reading, it
always put him in mind of the common French
phrase on the subject of expense, " Qu'eUe ne
s'etoit jamais rien refuse que le necessaire" Having
lived all her Ufe with wits and beaux-esprits, she
had the sense to despise their follies, to see their
mistakes, and to laugh at their arrogance, without
possessing those real acquirements, and that sound
ness of inteUect which would have aUowed her to
correct, or supply in her own mind, the deficiencies
she saw in theirs. She for ever, therefore, com
plains of the dullness, insipidity and bad taste of
the age.
The increasing dread of solitude, which her blind
ness entailed upon her, with her increasing years
and infirmities, induced her in the year 1767, to
receive another inmate into her family, much upon
the same footing as Mademoiselle de Lespinasse
had been, although of very different abUities and
* M. du Bucq. — See Melanges de Madame Neckar, vol, i.
p, 319.

THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 179
character. Mademoiselle Sanadon had none of
the liveliness, either of parts or feelings, that dis
tinguished Mademoiselle de Lespinasse ; and though
Madame du Deffand often complains of her
dullness, and the small resources of her conver
sation, yet she seems always sufficiently con
tent with her conduct towards herself, and aware
that some constant companion, some company
which she could always command, had become
absolutely necessary to secure her mind against
that dread of desertion and abandonment, which
now began to associate itself to all her former
aversion to soUtude. As an additional check to
this constitutional malady, and (to use her own
expression) as a sort of parapet, to prevent her
imagination from considering too intensely, and
dwelling too constantly ujDon this melancholy view
of her situation, in the year 1778 she sent for her
nephew, the Marquis d'Aulan, to Paris. After he
had remained there some months, she invited his
wife to join him, and lodged them both within the
precincts of the community of St. Joseph.
Monsieur and Madame d'Aulan remained with
her tUl the latter end of the year 1779, when she
aUowed them to return to their usual residence at
Avignon, convinced that she sought in vain to re
lieve, or palliate the incurable evil of a diseased and
enfeebled mind.
At length that hour arrived which, though it was
to terminate a life she had long borne with disgust,
was still to bring before her a dissolution which she
had never contemplated without extreme anxiety —
that hour, which though common to all, every one
seems equaUy disposed to forget, tiU its immediate

180 THE LIFE OF
approach leaves them neither time for thought, nor
power for rational exertion.
To Madame du Deffand, who had the misfortune
to be insensible to the consoUng nature of these
tenets, and the encouraging hopes they hold outj
the idea of immediate dissolution must at any pe
riod have been sufficiently appalling. But death
seems at last to have approached by such slow and
gradual steps, as to have made the final stroke
hardly perceivable.
In her letters of July and August, 1 780, she com
plains of being more than usually languid, and in
that of the 18th of August, seems to intimate that
it might be the last time Mr. Walpole would hear
from herself. This intimation proved true. From
the 22nd of August she kept her bed, more from
excess of weakness and entire want of sleep, with
consequent fever, than from any positive complaint
or pain. On the 8th of September, Mr. Walpole
had written to herself, expressing his extreme
anxiety about her. To his inquiries she showed
herself still much alive, and desirous, but unable to
dictate an answer. Her anti-room continued every
day crowded with the persons who had before sur
rounded her supper table, and the Marechale de
Luxembourg quitted her bedside but a few hours
previous to her death. Mr. Walpole continued to
receive twice a week an exact account of her situa
tion from her secretary Wiart. The fever sometimes
increased, sometimes diminished, but never entirely
left her. Her weakness became excessive, but she
suffered no pain, and possessed her memory, under
standing, and ideas, tiU within the last eight days of
her existence, when a lethargic insensibility took

THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 181
place, which terminated in death, without effort or
struggle, on the 24th of September, 1780.*
* The foUowing letter, from her faithful and intelligent ser
vant to Mr. Walpole, giving an account of her death, and
some particulars relative to her interment, may not be uninte
resting to the reader. '¦Paris, 22 Oct, 1780,
" Vous me demandez. Monsieur, des details de la maladie,
et de la mort de votre digne amie. Si vous avez encore la
derniere lettre qu'elle vous a Merite, relisez-la, vous y verrez
qu'elle vous fait un ^ternel adieu, et cette lettre est, je crois,
datee du 1 8 Aoiit, EUe n'avoit point encore de fievre alors,
mais on voit qu'eUe sentoit sa fin approcher, puisqu'elle vous
dit, que vous n'auriez plus de ses nouveUes que par moi. Je
ne puis vous dire la peine que j'eprouvois en &rivant cette
lettre sous sa dictee, je ne pus jamais achever de la lui relire
aprls I'avoir ecrite — j'avois la parole entrecoupee de sanglots.
EUe me dit : vous m'aimez done. Cette scene fut plus triste
pour moi qu'une vraie tragedie; parceque dans celle-ci on
sait que c'est une fiction, et dans I'autre je ne voyois que
trop qu'elle disoit la verite, et cette verite me peryoit I'ame.
Sa mort est dans le cours de la nature, elle n'a point eu de
maladie, ou du moins elle n'a point eu de souffrances. Quand
je I'entendois se plaindre, je lui demandois si elle souffroit de
quelque part, et eUe m'a toujours repondu non, Les huit der-
niers jours de sa vie a ete une lethargie totale — elle n'avoit plus
de sensibilite; eUe a eu la mort la plus douce, quoique la
maladie ait et^ longue,
" II s'en faut beaucoup. Monsieur, qu'elle ait desire des
honneurs apres sa mort : elle a ordonne par son testament
I'enterrement le plus simple, Ses ordres ont et6 executes ;
eUe a aussi demande a, etre enterree dans I'eglise de St.
Sulpice sa paroisse, et c'est oil elle repose. On ne souffriroit
pas dans la paroisse qu'elle fAt deeoree apres sa mort de
quelques marques de distinction ; ces Messieurs n'ont pas et^
parfaitement contens. Cependant, son Cure I'a vue tous
les jours, et avait m^me commence sa confession ; mais il n'a
pas pu achever, parce que la t^te s'est perdue, et qu'elle n'a pu

182 THE LIFE OF
She was buried, according to her own directions,
in the plainest manner, in her parish church of St.
Sulpice. By her wUl, she made the Marquis d'Aulan
her heir, and appointed him and the Prince de
Beauvau her executors.
To her faithful servant and secretary, Wiart, she
bequeathed nearly a thousand pounds in money,
and an annuity of about fifty pounds a year for his
own and his wife's life ; to the Prince de Beauvau,
as a friendly remembrance, some of her ornamental
china, and a choice of her books : to Mr. Walpole,
the whole of her MSS. papers, letters, and books, of
every description, with a permission to the Prince
de Beauvau to take a copy of any of the papers he
might desire, before he conveyed them to Mr. AVal-
pole.* This permission Mr. Walpole suspected he had
extended to the subtraction of some of the original
papers. The rest were aU deposited at Strawberry Hill,
together with the voluminous correspondence which
had taken place between Madame du Deffand and
Mr. Walpole.
recevoir ses sacremens : mais M. le Cure s'est conduit a
merveUle, il a cru que sa fin n'etoit pas si prochaine, Je
garderai Tonton* jusqu'au depart de Mr. Thomas Walpole ;
j'en ai le plus grand soin. II est tres doux, il ne mord per
sonne, il n'etoit m&hant qu'aupres de sa mattresse, Je me
souviens tres bien. Monsieur, qu'elle vous a pri^ de vous en
charger apres elle."
* To this permission was probably owing the publication of
three volumes of Madame du Deffand's Correspondence, which
appeared at Paris ; the originals of almost aU of which, were at
Strawberry Hill. " Her dog.

THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 183
Mademoiselle de Lespinasse ct Madame la Marquise
du Deffand, cl Montmorenci. Vendredi, neuf heures,'
Enfin, Madame, j'ai eu de vos nouveUes, et quoi
qu'il soit assez simple que je n'en aie refu qu'au-
jourd'hui, j'etois pr^te a me plaindre de ce que vous
ma faisiez souffrir une privation qui m'dtoit aussi
sensible. Si vous pouviez juger de tout ce que
votre absence me codte, cela me vaudroit sinon un
second baptSme, du moins une seconde agonie. II
est singulier, mais il est pourtant vrai, que c'est un
des momens les plus heureux de ma vie que celui de
cette agonie, puisque j'ai le bonheur de vous con-
vaincre de la tendresse et de la sinc^rite de mon
attachement. C'est ce mfime sentiment qui fait que
j'apprends avec chagrin que vous ne vous portez pas
mieux que quand vous 6tes partie. Mais, Madame,
Ites-vous de bien bonne foi avec vous-mdme, quand
vous dites que vous n'avez rien a vous reprocher ?
Non, sans doute vous ne raangez point trop, peut-
fitre meme pas assez, mais ne pourroit-on point
trouver a redire a l'espece et la qualite des choses
dont vous mangez ? Je vous avoue que je le crains,
et je vous assure que c'est apres avoir mieux exa
mine que cet homme qui faisait des representations a
M, le President.
Je suis bien flattee, Madame, et encore plus
touchee, s'il est possible, de la bonte et de I'amitie
dont votre lettre est remplie ; vous m'avez fait sentir
que la sant^ n'est pas le premier bien, car s'il est
vrai, comme vous voulez bien me le dire, que mon
absence vous ait ^t^ un peu penible, j'ai un vrai
regret de ne vous I'avoir pas sacrifi^, mais assure-

184 THE LIFE OF
ment j'aurois ete d^solee d'avoir pris aujourd'hui des
pUlules a Montmorenci; jamais je n'en ai et^ aussi
fatiguee, et aussi malade. Je ne suis pas sortie de
ma chambre, et si je ne suis pas mieux demain, je
ne sortirai pas de mon Ut, quoique je sois pri^e a
souper chez M. de Boufflers. J'ai I'honneur de vous
souhaiter le bon soir, Madame. Dieu veuille que
votre nuit soit meilleure que la derniere !
J'ai envoye Cassandre a M. de Clermont; j'ai
donn^ vos ordres a M. Deschamps. Non seulement
je ne vous manderai point de nouveUes, mais je ne
sais pas meme s'U y en a. On conte une belle his
toire d'un chat et d'un savetier de la paroisse de St.
Roch, mais comme elle m'a paru un peu longue, je
n'en ai ^cout^ que la moiti^ mais j'espere bien
qu'elle me reviendra. Pour lors, Madame, si vous
ne la saveZ point, j'aurais I'honneur de vous la
conter moins ennuyeusement, s'il m'est possible,
que je ne I'ai entendue aujourd'hui. J'avois bien
envie de vous nommer les gens que j'avois vus, mais,
Madame, vous choisiriez et nommeriez le contour.
Voyons done cependant si vous ne vous meprendrez
point : j'ai vu M. Bourgelat ; fai vuM.de Condom ;
fai vu M. Dusse;/«i vu Mademoiselle Sanadon.
Non, Madame, celui que vous pensiez, n'y etoit
point.

Mademoiselle de Lespinasse a Madame la Marquise
du Deffand, a Montmorenci. Samedi, trois heures.
Je sors de chez MademoiseUe de Courton, oii j'ai
din^ avec MademoiseUe Sanadon: eUes m'ont chargee,
Madame, I'une et I'autre, de vous faire miUe tres-

THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 185
humbles complimens. Mademoiselle de Courton va
partir pour Grosbois, et Mademoiselle Sanadon va
venir aux Tuileries avec moi.
II me tarde bien d'apprendre que votre nuit a ete
meilleure. Vous voyez bien que je n'avois pas tort
de dire que vous aviez quelques reproches a vous
faire, du giteau, de la m^decine, et de la brioche ne
sont pas faits pour votre estoinac.
Non, Madame, je n'oublierai point ce que vous
avez ordonne pour lundi, et je ferai de mon mieux
pour vous mener M. d'Alembert. Je dois le voir
aujourd'hui, et m^me passer une partie de la soiree
avec lui chez Madame de Boufflers : c'est ce qui fait
que j'ai I'honneur de vous Ecrire a I'heure qu'U est,
pour ne pas deranger I'ordre etabli d'aller tous les
matins a I'hotel de Luxembourg. Je suis bien re-
connoissante des bontes de Madame la Duchesse de
Boufflers, et je regrette bien de n'etre pas a portde
de cultiver celles de MademoiseUe Amelia.
Vous savez bien que Madame de ChatiUon est ac-
coucbee d'une fille.
VoUa cette histoire que je vous ai promise, Ma
dame. Samedi, k une heure apres minuit.
II est trop tard pour conter. Je sors de chez
Madame de Boufflers ou j'ai soup^, ou plutot ont
soup^ MM. les Abb^s Erfai, et Bon ; M. Turgot,
M. d'Alembert, et Madame de Beson. La soiree a
ete tres-gaie : je suis persuad^e que vous vous seriez
divertie. Je suis bien trompee si I'Abbe Bon ne
vous plaisoit beaucoup : il m'a paru d'une conversa
tion facile, raisonnable, avec une gait^ douce, et un
bon ton. Vous vous moquerez de moi d'oser juger;

186 THE LIFE OF
mais, Madame, je proteste contre la decision, ainsi
vous me pardonnerez.
Je vais sans doute vous surprendre en vous appre-
nant que M. d'Alembert part demain pour St. Mar
tin pour ne revenir que jeudi. On ne lui a point
demande s'il vouloit faire ce voyage, on lui a dit
qu'il le falloit, et en consequence Madame de Bouf
flers dit qu'elle I'enleve demain. II m'a fait pro
mettre de vous mander qu'il avoit beaucoup de regret
au voyage de Montmorenci, car il comptoit bien y
venir ; il se faisoit un grand plaisir d'avoir I'honneur
de faire la cour a Monsieur, et a Madame la Mare
chale, et il s'afflige, Madame, d'etre aussi long-tems
sans vous voir.
M. de Condom a dA vous remettre les factum
pour et contre Madame Allot. J'ai pense que vous
pourriez en ^tre curieuse : je vous supplie de vouloir
bien ne les pas preter, parce que je ne les ai point
lus, et que je dois les rendre. II est bien heureux
(et je vous en fais mon compliment) que Madame la
Marechale ait abandonn^ le projet du voyage de Lor
raine ; j'espere que vous en profiterez et qu'eUe n'y
substituera point d'autres absences. J'ai dit a M.
Deschamps ce que vous lui ordonniez. Je vais me
coucher, il est un peu tard, ayant un bain, et une
messe dans ma matinee.
Je relis ma lettre, et je ne comprends pas ce qui a
pu me porter a vous parler de Madame de Ch&tillon.
Vous savez mieux que moi la separation de Madame
la Duchesse de Grammont : je I'ai apprise ce soir a
I'hdtel de Goufier.

THE MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 187
Mademoiselle de Lespinasse a Madame la Marquise
du Deffand, a St. Joseph. Mardi, 8 Mai, 1764.
Vous m'avez fix^ un terme, Madame, pour avoir
I'honneur de vous voir: ce terme me paroit bien
long, et je serois bien heureuse si vous vouliez I'a-
breger. Je n'ai rien de plus a coeur que de meriter
vos bontes. Daignez me les accorder, et m'en
donner la preuve la plus chere, en m'accordant la
permission de vous aUer renouveler moi-meme I'as
surance d'un respect, et d'un attachement qui ne
finira qu'avec ma vie, et avec lesquels j'ai I'honneur
d'etre, Madame, votre tres-humble,
et tres-obeissante servante,
Lespinasse.

Madame du Deffand a Mademoiselle de Lespinasse.
Mercredi, 9 Mai, 1764.
Je ne puis consentir a vous revoir sitot. Mademoi
selle. La conversation que j'ai eue avec vous, et qui
a determinee notre separation, m'est dans le moment
encore trop presente. Je ne saurois croire que ce
soit des sentimens d'amitie qui vous fassent desirer
de me voir : " il est impossible d'aimer ceux dont on
sait qu'on est deteste, abhorre, etc. etc., par qui
l'amour-propre est sans cesse humilie, ecrase, etc.
Ce sont vos propres expressions, et la suite des
impressions que vous receviez depuis long-tems
de ceux, que vous dites etre vos veritables amis ; iis
peuvent I'etre en effet, et je souhaite de tout mon

188 THE LIFE OF MME. DU DEFFAND.
cceur qu'ils vous procurent tous les avantages que
vous en attendez ; agrement, fortune, consideration,
etc. etc. Que feriez-vous de moi, aujourd'hui — de
quelle utilite pourrois-je vous etre ? Ma presence
ne vous seroit point agreable, elle ne serviroit
qu'a vous rappeler les premiers temps de notre
connoissance, les annees qui Font suivie, et tout
cela n'est bon qu'a oublier. Cependant, si par
la suite vous veniez a vous en souvenir avec plaisir,
et que ce souvenir produisit en vous quelque remords,
quelque regret, je ne me pique point d'une fermete
austere et sauvage, je ne suis point insensible, je
demele assez bien la verite. Un retour sincere
pourroit me toucher, et reveiller en moi le goftt et la
tendresse que j'ai eus pour vous. Mais en attendant.
Mademoiselle, restons comme nous sommes, et con-
tentez-vous des souhaits que je fais pour votre bon
heur.

SOME ACCOUNT

LIFE OF RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL.

The biographers of those who have been distin
guished in the active paths of life, who have directed
the councils or fought the battles of nations have,
perhaps, an easier task than those who engage to
satisfy the curiosity sometimes excited by persons
whose situation, circumstances, or sex, have confined
them to private life. To the biographers of pubUc
characters, the pages of history, and the archives
of the state, furnish many of the documents re
quired; while those of private individuals have to
coUect every particular from accidental materials,
from combining and comparing letters, and other
wise insignificant papers, never intended to convey
any part of the information sought in them.
In this predicament the author of the following
pages is placed. The veil which covered the unas
suming virtues of Lady Russell in early life, natu
raUy increases a desire, in inteUigent minds, to
become acquainted with her sentiments and situa
tion before she was caUed to the exercise of the most
difficult virtues, and the display of the most heroic
courage.

190 THE LIFE OF
Few of her sex have been placed in such a dis
tinguished situation. StiU fewer, after having so
conducted themselves, have, like her, shrunk from
aU public notice, and returned to the unobtrusive
performance of accustomed duties, and the unosten
tatious consolations of accustomed piety.
The incidents in the life of Lady RusseU wiU be
found so few, and her superior merits remain so
much confined within the pale of private life and
female duties, that, unlike most heroines, her cha
racter deserves to be held up yet more to the exam'
pie than to the admiration of her countrywomen.
Lady Rachael Wriothesley was the second daugh
ter of Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton,
by his first wife, Rachael de Ruvigny, of an ancient
Hugenot family in France. She was born about the
year 16"36 : her mother died in her infancy ; and her
father married, for his second wife, Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir Francis Leigh, afterwards created
Earl of Chichester, by whom he had four other
daughters, one of whom only survived him.
As Lady Rachael was born at the beginning of
those political disturbances which so long agitated
England, her early education was probably less sedu
lously attended to, and fewer means of accomplish
ment afforded her than would have been the case in
more peaceable times. This may be conjectured
from the many grammatical errors, and the often
defective orthography in all her unpremeditated
letters in early life; until the practice of writing
much on her own and her children's affairs had
given her greater habits of correctness.
Lord Southampton, during the first period of the
disputes between Charles and his Parliaments, (as

RACHiVEL LADY RUSSELL. 191
his illustrious friend Lord Clarendon informs us,)
disapproved of the measures of the Court, and con
ceiving himself also to have been individually op
pressed, kept so much aloof from all intercourse
with it, that he was considered as one of the peers
the most attached to the cause of the people. Lord
Straffijrd's Government he also greatly disliked;
and it was nut till after he had seen the course of
justice perverted on his trial, and the popular tide
setting so violently against all Monarchical Govern
ment, that Lord Southampton reluctantly allowed
himself to be attached to the Court first, by being
made a privy councUlor, and soon after gentleman of
the bed-chamber to the King. As he had previously
refused to sign the protestation of the two Houses
of Parliament, for disabling their members from
holding any place either in Church or State, he was
believed to have accepted these offices, expressly to
show how little he regarded the framers and advisers
of such measures.
He afterwards accompanied the King to York
and to Nottingham, was present at Edgehill, and
went from thence to Oxford, where he remained
with the Court during the rest of the war ; — a war,
of whose success he despaired from the beginning,
and during the whole course of which, he was the
unvarying and indefatigable advocate of peace.
During the conferences at Uxbridge, which lasted
twenty days, and which, together with Sir Edward
Nicholas, the Secretary of State, he conducted on
the part of the King, Lord Clarendon remarks of
him, that " although a person naturaUy loving his
ease, and aUowing himself never less than ten hours'
repose, he was then never more than four hours in
bed ;" bending his whole soul towards effecting an

192 THE LIFE OF
union which he never ceased to consider as the
greatest blessing which could befall his afflicted
country. After this attempt, which violence on the one
side and obstinacy on the other rendered abortive,
Lord Southampton faithfully persevered in his atten
dance on the daily-diminishing Court of the mis
guided Charles, whilst he was yet a free agent.
Afterwards, when he was a prisoner, in the power of
his own provoked subjects, now become enraged
persecutors. Lord Southampton made every possible
attempt to deliver him from their hands ;* and when
at length the sacrifice of his life expiated the culpa
ble weaknesses of his character, and eventually se
cured the permanent liberty of his people. Lord
Southampton was one of the four faithful servants
who asked and obtained permission to pay the last
sad duty to his remains, divested of all accustomed
ceremonial. After this event Lord Southampton
retired to his seat at Tichfield, in Hampshire, obsti
nately rejecting every subsequent advance from
Cromwell to court his friendship or engage his com-
pUance.t * The King was for some time at Lord Southampton's
house at Tichfield, in Hampshire, as the visiter, and under the
protection of the old Countess of Southampton, his mother,
after he left Hampton Court, and before he was conducted by
Colonel Hammond to the Isle of Wight.
f " When Cromwell was near his house in the country, upon
the marriage of his son in those parts,' and had a purpose to
have made him visit ; upon a private notice thereof, he im
mediately removed to another house at a greater distance.''
Clarendon's Life, p, 414, fol, edition,
* Richard Cromwell was married to a daughter and co
heiress of Richard Major, Esq, of Hursley, in Hampshire."

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 193
During this retirement, which lasted from 1648 to
the Restoration, his daughter, Lidy Rachael, born
about IG36, must have been exactly at the age
dedicated to those occupations which it has been
agreed to call the education of females.
Under such circumstances, though her opportu
nities of acquiring the usual accomplishments of her
sex and station might be few and insufficient, yet
the cultivation of her mind and heart was probably
not neglected ; and the same integrity of character,
the same piety and purity of conduct which distin
guished her father, must have been instilled, both by
precept and example, into the minds of his children.
In Lady Rachael, they were implanted in a soil
congenial with every noble sentiment, both of the
heart and of the intellect.
Her first ideas on the subject of Government we
must suppose to have been all favourable to royalty,
and to the unfortunate famUy who had been deprived
of its honours. In religion, she was educated a strict
Protestant, with every predUection for its doctrines,
which her mother's family, professing a faith perse
cuted in the country to which they belonged, were
likely to encourage.
Lord Southampton's liberality of sentiment on
matters of religion is thus commemorated by Cla
rendon, who, in speaking of his toleration towards
Dissenters, thinks it proper to make, what must now
be considered a very unnecessary apology for his
friend's opinions. " He was a man of exemplary
virtue and piety, and very regular in his devotions ;
yet was not generally believed by the bishops to
have an affection keen enough for the Government
of the Church ; because he was willing and desirous
VOL. II. K

194 THE LIFE OF
that something more might have been done to
gratify the Presbyterians than they thought just.''*
To her father's liberal way of thinking on these
subjects, she probably owed the pure strain of truly
Christian charity as well as piety which runs through
her letters, and on all occasions animated her con
duct. Her maternal uncle, the Marquis de Ruvigny,
was long at the head of the Protestant interest in
France, as Deputy-General ofthe reformed Churches;
which, before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
who was no other than a minister plenipotentiary
from the Protestant subjects of France, at the Court
of their Roman Catholic Sovereign. He is described
as having been a very accomplished person, pos
sessing considerable abiUty, courage and conduct ;
and was so much in the favour of Louis XIV and
Cardinal Mazarin, that he often obtained from them
a hearing for those of his persuasion, which they
refused to other applicants.
At the Synod, which, after the death of Cromwell,
in 1659, Louis XIV allowed to assemble, he named
Ruvigny Depute-General, subject to the approbation
of the meeting, while Cardinal Mazarin gave them
at the same time to understand, that no other choice
would be acceptable to or accepted by the King.f
• Continuation of the Life of Clarendon, p. 415, folio edition.
t Ruvigny afterwards, for form sake, laid his commission on
the table of the Synod, that their choice might be supposed
free ; when, with that neglect of truth so common in the con
duct of all pubhc affairs in France, " on remercia le Roi du
choix qu'il avoit fait, et de ce qu'il n'avoit pas voulu imposer la
nicessiti de le suivre." — Benoit's Histoire de I'Edit de Nantes,
vol. Ill, p. 312.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 195
Ruvigny at the same time received permission to be
present at the deliberations of the Synod, and to de
liver his opinion there, a liberty refused to former
Deputies-general, because nothing political was al
lowed or supposed to be touched on in these assem
blies. Ruvigny had early obtained the favour, and en
titled himself to the support of Cardinal Mazarin.
During the occasional banishments from the Court
to which the Frondeurs had compelled that artful
minister, Ruvigny had been one of the persons of
the Reformed ReUgion on whose attachment to his
interests, and on whose activity for his return, he had
the most counted. On the Cardinal's establishment
in permanent power, he considered the above ap
pointments as a reward for Ruvigny's services. Ru
vigny, however, had other pretensions, but was
given to understand, that any military employ
ment, or any further advancement, must be purchased
by a change of his reUgion. To his religion he was
sincerely and steadily attached, although it would
seem, that in his character of Deputy-General of the
Reformed Church, he was sometimes suspected (by
its zealous adherents in the distant provinces) of
sacrificing its interests to compliances with the views
of the Court; while, in fact, his favour with the
King and the Cardinal often obtained for his Church
both a knowledge of the designs of their enemies,
and a patient hearing of their grievances.*

• " Les ministres d'etat etoient inaccessibles pour tout autre
que pour lui (Ruvigny), ou, s'ils faisoient a quelqu'autre la
grace de I'ecouter, iis lui faisoient toujours des reponses d^so-
bligeantes." Benoit, Hist, de I'Edit de Nantes, vol. iv, p, 330.
K 2

196 THE LIFE OF
That he was afterwards -employed diplomatically
in England by Louis XIV, was indeed an instance
of very extraordinary favour to one of his persuasion.
His connexions in England, from his sister's alliance
there, contributed probably to bis first appointment.
He was sent with some message of compliment to
Charles soon after his Restoration, and during the
embassy of the Count de Soissons. We afterwards
find him accredited in England, and much in the
confidence of both Courts in the year 1668. He re
turned to Paris in July of that year, and was again
in London in 1669, while M. de Comminges was still
Ambassador to the Court at Whitehall. The services
or the manners of Ruvigny seem, however, to have
been much more agreeable to Charles than those of
Comminges ; for, in a letter to the Duchess of Or
leans, his sister, at the beginning of his disgraceful
money transactions with France in June, 1669, he
desires to avoid telling Comminges (of whose abilities
he expresses no good opinion) anything about the
intended treaty, while in a former letter to the same
person, he mentions having " said to Ruvigny every
thing that was upon his harte ;" and after Colbert
had succeeded Comminges as Ambassador, regrets,
in another letter of the 2nd September, 1669, "that
France had not been as forward in their intentions
towards us when Ruvigny was here." On the recaU
of Colbert in 1674, he was himself made Minister
Plenipotentiary, and remained so till the appointment
of Courtin in 1676. Within ten years afterwards,
Ruvigny was indebted to the same especial favour
with Louis XIV for permission to emigrate to Eng
land with his famUy from his attachment to his re
ligion, on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes ; a

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 197
permission at that time granted to no other Pro
testant noble.*
In the intermediate time he had exerted himself
actively but ineffectually to save the life of Lord
Russell, the husband of his niece. It is even said by
Dalrymple, on the authority of a letter of Barillon's,
of the 19th of July, 1683, in the Dep6t des Affaires
Etrangeres, at Paris, which he does not give, that
the younger Ruvigriy had prevailed on Louis to write
to Charles in favour of Lord Russell, and was himself
to be the bearer of the letter ; that his journey was
only prevented by Charles having anticipated the
event of every application, civilly telling Barillon,
" Je ne veux pas erapecher que M. de Ruvigny ne
vienne ici, mais Milord Russell aura le col coupe
avant qu'il arrive.f
The fact, however, of this letter having been ever
promised, is more than doubtful, from the following
note of the elder Ruvigny to Lady Russell, after
Lord RusseU's arrest. It makes no mention of any
such interference, which he would surely have an
nounced with eagerness to his unhappy niece.

* He had previously secured to himself and sons letters of
naturalization. In a letter of his to Lady Russell, of January,
1680, which accompanied some family papers relative to pecu
niary concerns, he says, " Je vous envoie aussi nos lettres de
naturaUte, qui seront mieux entre vos mains qu'entre les
miennes. Je vous prie, et Madame votre soeur aussi, {Lady
Elizabeth Noel,") de les conserver. Elles peuvent servir, puisque
il n'y est rien de plus incertain que les Evenemens." Devon
shire MSS.
t In the octavo edition of Sir John Dalrymple, he suppresses
the extract from the letter of Barillon, but still leaves the anec
dote on his authority.

198 THE LIFE OF
A Pari.s, le 14 Juillet, 1683,
" J'ay une grande impatience, ma chere niece,
d'etre pres de vous. II y a trois jours que le Roi est
arrive : il a eu la bonte de consentir a mon voyage.
Si je pourrois courir la poste, je serois bientot a Lon
dres. J'achette des chevaux et je ferai toute la dili
gence que mon age me permet. Dieu vous console
et vous fortifie. " Ruvigny."*
Of Ruvigny's two sons, the elder (as is known)
was killed at the battle of the Boyne, and the second,
in defiance of the confiscation of his paternal estate,t
entered into the service of King William, was by
him created Earl of Galway, and died unmarried' in
1729. How or when Lord Southampton became ac
quainted and formed his connexion with the Ruvigny
family is not known. Such was the total neglect
which was began to be shown to the Protestants in
France at this period, and so much did their religion
exclude them from every public record, that the
author of these pages, after much inquiry at Paris
some months ago, in the King's and other libraries,
assisted by those most capable of such researches,
was not able to discover to what district of France
the family of Ruvigny belonged. The only record
made of it, and of its armorial bearing in any of the
genealogical works of France was thus colaterally

* Bedford MSS.
t " Le Roi donna il y a quelques jours, a I'Abb^ de Polignac
la confiscation des biens de M. de Ruvigny, qui s'appeUe en
Angleterre MUord Galway. 10 Mai, 1711." Nouveau Me
moire de Dangeau par M. de Monterey, p. 2)3.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 199
noticed in the "Dictionnaire Heraldique, Genealo-
gique et Historique, par M.D.L. C.D.B. M. de la
Chesnaye des Bois. Massue Seigneur de Rayneval en
Picardie, dont le Marquis de Ruvigni et Milord
Galloway. D'azur au Cor enguiche d'or."*
It had been surmised they were of the Province
of Brittanjr, from the circumstance of the Marquis
de Ruvigny having been the counsellor and confident
of Marguerite de Rohan, the daughter and heiress of
the last Protestant Due de Rohan, on the subject of
a supposed brother, whose birth, her mother, the
Duchesse de Rohan, declared she had concealed
only to avoid the violence and the artifices of the
Roman Catholics to get possession of the heir to
his father's power and influence with the Protestants
of France. But as the birth and existence of this
son had been concealed even from her husband
himself, many doubts were entertained of his legiti
macy, which people seemed to have believed, or
disbelieved, according to their religious persuasion.
His early death in one of the sorties from Paris, in
the wars of the Fronde, put an end to the process,
which, had it not been for the prudent counsels of
Ruvigny, would already have taken place between
the brother and sister. There are some curious
details on this subject worthy the " Causes Celebres,"
in Benoit's History of the Edict of Nantes.f
Since the above was published, the author has
found in a note to the curious old French Memoirs
first published at Paris, in the year 1 834, under the
title of Historiettes de Tallemant de Reaux, the
foUowing notice of Ruvigny's sister, the Countess of
Southampton. The text says that Ruvigny, " s'en
* Vol. III. p. 487. t Idem, p. 54.

200 THE LIFE OF
alia en Angleterre voir le Comte de Southampton
qui avoit epouse Madame de Maisonfort sa sceur."
The note adds the following particulars relative to
her : " La sceur de Ruvigny etoit une fort belle
personne. Elle fut mariee en premieres noces avec
un gentilhomme du Perche nomme la Maisonfort.
Cet homme s'enivra de son tonneau, et de telle
sorte, que quand on lui dit qu'il y prit garde, il
repondit qu'il falloit mourir d'une belle epee. 11 en
mourut en effet ; la voila veuve : — c'etoit une
coquette-prude. St. Pradil, de la Maison de Jussue
en Angoumois a ete le plus declare de tous ses
o-alans. 11 lui donnoit fort souvent des divertisse-
mens qu'on appelait des Sainies Pradillades ; c'etoit
des promenades oil il y avoit les vingt quatre violons
et collation. Un jour qu'ils revenoient de St. Cloud
un peu tard, iis verserent sur le pave, le long du
cours. II y avoit sept femmes dans la carrosse ; U
crioit, Madame de Maisonfort, oii etes-vous? Chacune
contre faisait sa voix, et disait, ' Me voici.' Puis,
quand il I'avoit tire, et qu'il voyoit que ce n'etoit pas
elle, il les laissoit la brusquement, et avoit envie de
les Jeter dans I'eau. II ne la trouva que toute la
derniere. Elle avoit de plaisans exces de devotion.
Au milieu d'une conversation enjouee, elle s'alloit
enfermer dans son cabinet et y faisoit une priere,
puis elle revenoit. Un grand seigneur anglois devint
amoureux d'elle a Paris, et I'epousa. Elle est morte
il y a pres de quinze ans, et a laisse deux fiUes qui
ont ete mariees en Angleterre." * Elizabeth married
to Viscount Campden afterwards Earl of Gainsbo
rough and Rachael married to Lord Russell.
• For many details of the early life of Ruvigny and his
connexion with the House of Rohan, see " Historiettes de Tal
lemant de Rfeux," vol. III. Article Mesdames de Rohan.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 201
Lord Southampton died in 1667. His thoughtless
and unfeeling master had, for some time, been desi
rous to snatch from his dying hand the treasurer's
staff which he stiU held, that he might place it with
those, to whom he could with less shame and less
fear of remonstrance confide the opprobrious secret
of his poUtical dishonour. The disgrace of Clarendon,
which happened within a few months after the death
of his friend, seems to have formed a melancholy
era in the avowed venality and profligacy of the
Court of Charles. Lord Southampton's second
wife dying, he married for the third time, a daughter
of Francis Duke of Somerset, widow of Viscount
Molyneux. By this third marriage he left no
children. Of his second marriage, one only out of four
daughters survived him, who, inheriting her mother's
fortune,* left entire possession of Lord Southamp
ton's estates to the two surviving children of his
first marriage, Elizabeth and Rachael, who thus
became considerable heiresses. The Lady Elizabeth
married Edward Noel, son of Viscount Campden,
created afterwards Earl of Gainsborough. The
subsequent marriage of the Lady Rachael with
Francis Lord Vaughan, eldest son of the Earl of
Carberry, about the year 1653, was settled, according
to the fashion of that day, by the intervention of
parents, and at so early a period of life, that, to use
the words in which on a subsequent occasion Lady
Russell herself expresses an opinion of early mar
riages, (founded, perhaps, on her own experience,)
* Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Leigh,
afterwards created Earl of Chichester.
K 3

202 THE LIFE OF
in such unions, "it is acceptance rather than choos
ing on either side.''
But, however little her choice might have been
consulted in this connexion, her conduct, so long
as it lasted, was not only blameless, but such as
entitled her to the love of all around her, and to
the lasting attachment of her husband's famUy.
We have a letter written so early as the year 1655,
when she was living with Lord Vaughan, at his
father's house in Wales,* in which she is thus
addressed :
" Dear Madam,
" There is not in the world so great a charm as
goodness ; and your Ladyship is the greatest argu
ment to prove it. All that know you are thereby
forced to honour you, neither are you to thank them,
because they cannot do otherwise. Madam, I am
among that number, gladly and heartily I declare it,
and I shaU die in that number, because my obser
vance of your virtue is inseparably annexed to it,
I beseech you. Madam, to pardon this scribbling,
and present your noble husband with my most
affectionate service ; and I shall in my prayers pre
sent you both to God, begging of him daily to
increase your piety to Him, and your love to each
other." Of Lord Vaughan's character, habits, or particular
* Golden Grove in Carmarthenshire.— At a fire which hap
pened there in 1729, many family papers were destroyed,
among which we have probably to regret the means of be
coming acquainted with many details of Lady RusseU's early
life.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 203
disposition, nothing is to be traced in the materials
to which the author of these pages has had access,
except we may infer, from a message sent to him in
a subsequent letter to his wife from the same corres
pondent already quoted, that he disUked writing,
and was dilatory in all sorts of business, as Lady
Vaughan is besought (evidently in raillery) " not
hereafter to hinder my Lord Vaughan from writing
to me ; I am confident, whatsoever excuse you make
for him, he had a most eager desire to write this
week. I know his Lordship so well, that he cannot
delay to make returns of civility. If it had been
his custom to defer and put off to the last hour, I
might believe your Ladyship : but in this particular,
I must beg your Ladyship's pardon. I was at Abs-
court the last week, and found Mr. Estcourt courting
your aunt.* She received his addresses with great
satisfaction and content. I think. Madam, under
favour, you were not so kind to my Lord Vaughan."
In the year 1665, she became a mother, but her
child lived only to be baptized, and she had no
other children by Lord Vaughan. In the autumn
of the same year, while the plague was raging in
London, we find her again with Lord Carberry's
family in Wales. A letter from her half-sister Lady
Percy,t after expressing her great desire to have
Lady Vaughan with her at Petworth, and how
* Elizabeth, sister to the Lord Treasurer Southampton,
married Mr,, afterwards Sir Thomas Estcourt, Knt. a Master
in Chancery,
+ The only surviving chUd of Lord Southampton by his
second marriage. She was the wife of Jocehn Percy, the
last Earl of Nothumberland, whose father, at the date of this
letter, was stiU alive.

204 THE LIFE OF
much her company was desired by all the famUy,
says, " I am glad for nobody's sake but Lady
Frances's,* that you are there," {at Ludlow), " for I
am sure she is sensible of her happiness in enjoying
you." In the year 1667) we find Lady Vaughan a widow,
living with her beloved sister. Lady Elizabeth Noel,
at Tichfield, in Hampshire, the seat of their father
Lord Southampton, which Lady Elizabeth Noel,
as the eldest of the two daughters by his first
marriage, had recently inherited: his property at
Stratton at the same time falling to the lot of Lady
Vaughan. Of the commencement of her acquaintance with
Mr. RusseU we are ignorant. That it existed more
than two years before it terminated in their union,
we know from a letter of Lady Percy's to Lady
Vaughan, in the summer of 1667, where she
mentions Mr. Russell in a manner to leave nb
doubt of his. having manifested his sentiments for
her sister. ''For his (Mr. Russell's) concern, I
can say nothing more than that he professes a
great desire, which I do not at all doubt, he, and
every body else has, to gain one who is so desirable
in all respects."
Mr. Russell was then only a younger brother,
and Lady Vaughan a very considerable heiress,
without children by her first marriage. The ad
vantages of such a connexion must have been
considered, in the eye of the world, as entirely
on his side, and the diffidence inspired by this
idea, as well as the feeUngs of doubt which always
* Lady Frances Vaughan, eldest daughter of Lord Carberry.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 205
accompany strong attachment, seem to have made
him very backward in interpreting Lady Vaughan's
sentiments in his favour.
As the inequality between them existed only in
matters of interest, their mutual feelings could not
long be mistaken by each other. Lady Vaughan
was entirely her own mistress, and they were
married about the end of the year 1669, she re
taining the name of Vaughan, till Mr. Russell,
having by the death of his elder brother Francis
Lord RusseU* succeeded to his title, she assumed
that of Lady Russell.
The first letters in the following series are ad
dressed by Lady Vaughan to her husband, Mr.
Russell, in the spring of the year 1672. They
are continued, at distant intervals, to within a
twelvemonth, of his death. They are few, for
during the fourteen happy years of their union,
they were little apart. Their only moments of se
paration seem to have been some visits of duty to
his father, when living entirely at Woburn, or
during his elections for two successive Parliaments ;
some short absences in London, on private or
political business, and his attendance at Oxford
during the only session of the Parliament so sud
denly dismissed by Charles.
These letters are written with such a neglect of
style, and often of grammar, as may disgust the
admirers of well-turned periods, and they contain
such frequent repetitions of homely tenderness, as
may shock the sentimental readers of the present
day. But they evince the enjoyment of a happi-
In 1678.

206 THE LIFE OF
ness, built on such rational foundations, and so
truly appreciated by its possessors, as too seldom
occurs in the history of the human heart. They are
impressed too with the marks of a cheerful mind,
a social spirit, and every indication of a character
prepared, as well to enjoy the sunshine, as to meet
the storms of life.
Thus gifted, and thus situated, her tender and
prophetic exhortations both to her Lord and herself,
to merit the continuance of such happiness, and to
secure its perfect enjoyment by being prepared for
its loss, are not less striking than his entire and ab
solute confidence in her character, and attachment to
her society. It was thus, surely, that intellectual
beings of different sexes were intended by their great
Creator to go through the world together;— thus
united, not only in hand and heart, but in principles,
in intellect, in views, and in dispositions ; — each pur
suing one common and noble end, their own im
provement, and the happiness of those around them,
by the different means appropriate to their sex and
situation ; — mutually correcting, sustaining, and
strengthening each other ; undegraded by all prac
tices of tyranny on the one part, and of deceit on the
other;— each finding a Candid but severe judge in
the understanding, and a warm and partial advocate
in the heart of their companion :— secure of a refuge
from the vexations, the follies, the misunderstand
ings and the evUs of the worid, in the arms of each
other, and in the inestimable enjoyments of un
limited confidence, and unrestrained intimacy.
In the death of her beloved sister. Lady Elizabeth
Noel, in 167.9, Lady Russell experienced a severe
affliction. Although happy, and consciously happy

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 207
in an husband and children, who called forth every
feeling that either could inspire to the warmest
heart, hers was not one in which such feelings were
exclusive. There seems, indeed, to be as great a variety in
the powers of human hearts, as of human intel
lects. Some are found hardly equal to the mo
dified selfishness which produces attachment to
their most immediate connexions ; some have natu
rally strong feelings concentrated on a few objects,
but which diffuse no warmth out of their own narrow
focus ; while others appear endowed with an almost
boundless capacity for every virtuous affection, which
contracts undiminished to all the minute duties of
social life, and expands unexhausted to all the great
interests of humanity.
Such was the heart of Lady Russell, in which her
friends, her country, her religion, all found a place.*
She recurs to the character of her sister, under the
name of a "delicious Friend," and uniting a fond
remembrance of her feelings for her, in all those of
her happiness with an adored husband, gratefully
exclaims, " sure, nobody has ever enjoyed more
pleasure in the conversations and tender kindness
of a husband and a sister, than myselff
Repeated acknowledgments and returns of this

* In a letter to Dr. FitzwiUiam, in the eventful year 1688,
when her first and great interest in all public affairs no longer
existed, she says, " my thoughts are too much crowded to get
a passage to express what I feel. My religion and my coun
try are dear to me, and my own hard fate vidll ever be a green
wound." t See Letter to Dr. FitzwiUiam, of July 17th, 1686, p. 62.
PubUshed Letters.

208 THE LIFE OF
"tender kindness" form the striking feature of all
the letters addressed to her husband ; but they bear
marks at the same time of a lively interest in his
pursuits, and of a mind open to all great public
objects. Her account of the debate in the House
of Commons, on the King's message in April, 1677,
is remarkably clear and well given, and we meet
with several passages which intimate her acquaint
ance with political affairs, as well as her anxiety about
Lord RusseU's participation in them. Whether the
note she sent to him in the House of Commons
succeeded in persuading him to the postponement
of some intended measure, which it so strongly
urged, we cannot now ascertain; but his having
preserved and indorsed this note as being received
while the House of Commons was sitting, shows
the impression which, from its relation to the sub
ject of debate, it must have made on him.
The birth of her eldest daughter, in 1674, was
followed by that of another daughter, in 1676, and
her domestic happiness seemed to be completed by
the birth of a son, in November 1680.
The frequent mention made of these chUdren in
the following letters— of their health, their progress,
and their amusements, prove how much every thing
that concerned them occupied as weU as igterested
their parents. Such detaUs would be tedious, were
it not consoUng to trace the minute features of
tenderness in characters, capable at the same time
of the sternest exertions of human fortitude.
Although Lady Russell felt aU the soul-sufficing
enjoyments of perfect affection in the society of her
husband, she allowed no exclusive sentiment to
withdraw either him or herself from the world in which

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL, 209
they were born to live, nor from the society which
made that of each other more dear to them. Their
summers at Stratton, to which she always adverts
with pleasure, were diversified by their winters spent
at Southampton House,* from whence, if business,
or country sports, called her companion, she sought
society, and coUected for him in her letters, all the
little anecdotes, public or private, that could serve
to amuse his absence ; proving how compatible she
deemed cheerfulness to be with devotion, and the
reasonable enjoj^ment of trifles in this world, with
an attentive regard to the great interests of the
next. From devotion, and devoted resignation to the
will of Heaven, who ever required or obtained more
than Lady Russell ? Whose implicit faith in the
inscrutable ways of the Almighty, was ever exposed
to severer trials ? And where, and when, were the
consoling doctrines of Christianity ever applied to
more poignant distress, or productive of more admi
rable effects, than on her life, her conduct, and her
character? Yet her devotion separated her in no
degree either from the affections, the interests, or
the amusements of the world. She appeared at a
Court, in the profligacy of which she did not par
ticipate ; and amused herself in a society, whose
frivolity she avoided.
The tenor of her faith degraded not the social
affections of the heart, by placing them in contra-
* It was situated on the north side of Bloomsbury Square.
On Lady Russell's death, in 1723, Southampton House des
cended to her grandson, Wriothesley, Duke of Bedford, and
received the name of Bedford House, It was pulled down by
Francis, Duke of Bedford, in J800,

210 THE LIFE OF
distinction to the duties she owed to a superior
Being. She drew not up in terrible array the
Divine will against her enjoyments, but endeavoured
gratefully to partake of all the innocent pleasures
offered both to our animal and intellectual existence
by its benevolent Creator. She lowered not the
spirituality of her nature, by clogging it with the
language of worldly passion, nor the performance
of minute observances. But, with a mind, at once
exalted and purified by her faith, she looked up
from the depths of human suffering, with trembling
hope, to the immense mercies, and with unshaken
confidence to the consoling promises of an Al
mighty Being, "Who must delight in virtue;
And that, which he delights in, must be happy,"
Such was Lady RusseU's intimate acquaintance
with the sentiments and character of her husband,
and such her confidence in the purity of his inten
tions and conduct, that when she found herself in
the dreadful predicament of separation, by means
which even the anxiety of affection could never have
deemed possible, the " amazement" on which she
dwells so often, and with such pecuUar anguish in
her subsequent letters, doubled a blow for which
nothing could have ever prepared her.
But her mind, instead of being overwhelmed, rises
equal to a situation in which she could never have
conceived herself liable to be placed. Her quiet
domestic spirit immediately assumes an activity,
which probably afterwards as much surprised her
self, as it called forth the admiration of those who
witnessed it.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 2 1 1
AVe have no record from herself of these cruel
moments. She was otherwise employed than in
giving an account of her feelings ; they must have
been such as were hardly defined to herself. And
when we recollect her previous habits of life, and
those of most of her sex and country at that time,
we shall appreciate her character and conduct in a
very different manner from that of any lively French
woman of the same period, already in the habits of
political intrigue, who might, in Lady Russell's
circumstances, have found almost as much to gratify
her vanity, as to alarm her feelings.
From the manner in which Lord RusseU was
taken up, there is little doubt that the Court, with
the dastardly policy which their crooked measures
made necessary, would willingly have connived at
his escape. It would have saved them from the
odium of his death, and would have allowed them,
by vilifying his character, more easily to get rid of
others, whose greater activity as well as fewer
scruples, made them, in fact, much more dangerous
enemies. Burnet tells us, that the day before Lord Russell
was arrested, a messenger was observed waiting for
many hours, at, or near, his door — "A measure that
was taken in so open and careless a manner, (the
back door of his house not being watched) as led to
the suspicion that it was intended to frighten him
away." This insidious measure was not unobserved
by those whom it was meant to entrap. Lady Rus
seU was sent to consult with their friends, whether
or not Lord Russell should withdraw himself.
With what an anxious mind such consultations
must have been made, we may easily conceive, but

212 THE LIFE OF
no unworthy weakness, no exaggerated fears for his
safety, suggested a wish on her part, contrary to the
conduct which his friends, as well as himself, thought
consonant with his innocence and his honour.
From this moment, till after ber husband's death,
we know Uttle of Lady RusseU, but what is recorded
in the history of her country, where her name will
be embalmed with her Lord's, while passive courage,
devoted tenderness, and unblemished purity, are
honoured in the one sex, or pubUc patriotism, pri
vate virtues, and unshaken principles, revered in the
other. Lord Russell was so well aware of the virulence
of his enemies, and of the character of his real of
fences towards them, that his innocence of those
alleged, was ineffectual in producing in his mind any
hope of escape, when once within their power. From
the first instant of his arrest, he gave himself up as
lost. Such feelings (however little expressed) could
not have been concealed from the anxious mind of
the being who shared his every thought. But as in
him they produced no despondency, so in her they
caused no relaxation from every honourable endea
vour to rescue him from such mortal danger. During
the fortnight that elapsed between his commitment
to the Tower, and his trial,* she was continually em
ployed in procuring information as to what was
likely to be urged against him, and in adopting every
measure of precaution. Such was her known intel
ligence on this occasion, that we find in the report
» Lord RusseU was committed to the Tower on the 26th
June; tried en the 13th July; and executed in Lincoln's-Inn-
Fields on the 21st July, 1683.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL, 213
of the trial, the Chief Justice and Attorney-General*
seem to think themselves vindicated from every sus
picion of neglect, in not previously communicating
the pannel of the jury to Lord RusseU, by endea
vouring to prove that a list of names had been given
to his wife.f Her appearance in court, at his trial,
has been said to have caused a thrill of anguish
through the numerous audience.J The Attorney-
General, to avoid allowing Lord Russell the aid of a
legal adviser, anticipated the answer of the Chief
Justice to his request to have a person to take notes
for him, by saying he would be allowed to employ a
servant, to which the Chief Justice immediately
added : — " Any of your servants shall assist you in
writing any thing you please.''
When Lady RusseU rose from her husband's side,
on his replying, " My wife is here to do it," the in
teresting situation in which she stood, must have
recalled with peculiar force to the minds of the spec
tators, all her father's services, her husband's un
suspected patriotism, the excellence of his private
life, and their known domestic happiness. It would
seem, indeed, to have made some impression even
on the minds of his prosecutors, as a milder tone is
immediately assumed by the Chief Justice acquiescing
in the employment of Lady Russell, "if my Lady
will give herself that trouble ;" and the Attorney-
General follows, by offering him "two persons to
write for him," if he please.
* Sir Francis Pemberten was Chief Justice, and Sir Robert
Sawyer, Attorney-General.
t See Howell's State Trials, vel, ix. p, 583,
X The crowd was so great, that the Counsel complained of
not having room to stand. See Howell's State Trials, vol. ix.
p, 594.

214 THE LIFE OF
Whatever effort such services might require on
the part of Lady Russell, let it not be supposed that
these were the greatest exertions of her reason, nor
the greatest triumph of her admirable character over
the severest calamities, to which a nature like hers
could be exposed. She was here supported by hope,
however feeble, by active and urgent occupation, by
the presence of the object of her cares. It must be
regretted, that we know not how she supported her
self through that fatal day, nor how she received the
unlooked-for intelligence of the death of Lord Essex,
her relation and friend, whose suicide in the Tower
was supposed materially to have influenced the issue
ofthe trial in the midst of which it was announced.*
We only know that she had sufficient power over
her feelings, neither to disturb the court, nor distract
the attention of her husband.
From the moment of his condemnation, she was
unceasingly occupied in various attempts to obtain
a mitigation of the sentence. All were unavailing
against the fears and the malice of the unforgiving
James. The King, in spite of the general facUity
of his temper, resisted the daughter of his oldest and
most faithful servant, kneeling before him for the
life of her husband ; and the Duchess of Ports
mouth, in spite of her venality, resisted an offer of a
hundred thousand pounds to procure his pardon .t
* In a letter to Dr. FitzwiUiam, of the llth July, 1686,
she says, — " If the Duchess of Portsmouth told me true, that
they said the Jury could not have condemned ray Lord, if
my Lord Essex had not died as he did," See PubUshed Let
ters, p, 100,
t "This offer is mentioned in the notes to Lord RusseU's
trial, vol, ix. p. 684, of HoweU's State Trials, as having been
said to be made by the Earl of Bedford to the Duchess of
Portsmouth, without giving the authority on which it rests.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 215
The same cause stifled even an attempt at delivering
the letter to which Ruvigny is said to have obtained
from Lewis in favour of his relation. Every means
had been previously attempted, every resource tried,
except that of a desertion of those principles, which
formed his sole crime in the eyes of his relent
less enemy.*
While indefatigably pursuing the slightest hope of
mercy, while offering to accompany him into perpe
tual exile, never did his heroic M-ife, for a moment,
propose to him the purchase of his Ufe by any
base compliance, or by the abjuration of the noble
truths for which he was persecuted. When pressed
by Tillotson and Burnet to leave such an abjuration
behind him, she shared his steady adherence to
his principles, as she shared in his sufferings for
them.f On a subsequent occasion (of much honour to
Tillotson) she had the unsought and quiet triumph
of recommending to him the practice of that sub
mission which he had " so powerfully tried himself,
and instructed others to."J
* All particulars of Lord RusseU's trial and behaviour are
here purposely avoided, as they have been so lately detailed to
the public, with every additional interest that can be given to
such a narrative, by an author, who is heir to all the patriotism,
as weU as aU the talents of his ancestor.
f "TiUotson was so apprehensive of Lady Russell's dis
pleasure at his pressing his Lordship, although with the
best intentions, upon that subject, that when he was first
admitted to her after her Lord's death, he is said to have
addressed her in this manner, that he thanked God, and
then her Ladyship, fer that opportunity of justifying him
self; and they soon returned to the terms of a cordial
and unreserved friendship." Birch's Life of TUlotson, p. 124,
X See PubUshed Letters, p. 259, Tillotson consults her, if he

216 THE LIFE OF
Lord RusseU's gratitude for the exalted tenderness
of his wife's conduct, his sense of her magnanimity,
and his opinion of her character, prove him to
have been worthy of a blessing he appreciated so
justly. His whole mention of her, in his last inter
views with Burnet, is perhaps the noblest eulogy ever
pronounced on the difficult virtues of a woman. It
can be given in no words so impressive as those of
the person to whom it was addressed.
Burnet, it is known, not only saw Lord Russell
every day in prison, but accompanied him to the
scaffold, and wrote a detaUed account of everything
that passed between them, and of all that occurred
during the last hours of his Ufe. He tells us, that,
three days before his execution, on Lady Russell's
retiring, "he (Lord Russell) expressed great joy
in that magnanimity of spirit he saw in her, and said
the parting with her was the hardest thing he had to
do ; for he was afraid she would be hardly able
to bear it : the concern about preserving him filled
her mind so now, that it, in some measure, sup
ported her ; but when that would be over, he feared
the quickness of her spirits would work all within
her." The morning before he suffered, he teUs Burnet,
" he wished his wife would give over beating every
bush, and running so about for his preservation;
but, when he considered that it would be some
mitigation of her sorrow, afterwards, that she had
left nothing undone, that could have given any pro
bable hope, he acquiesced, and indeed I never saw
must absolutely accept of the Archbishopric of Canterbury, re
peatedly offered him by King William.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 217
his heart so near failing, as when he spake of her.
Sometimes 1 saw a tear in his eye, and he would
turn about and presently change the discourse.
"' At eleven o'clock (on Friday evening) my Lady
left him ; he kissed her four or five times, and she
kept her sorrow so within herself, that she gave him
no disturbance at their parting. After she was gone,
he said, now the bitterness of death was passed, and
ran out into a long discourse concerning her, how
great a blessing she had been to him, and said, what
a misery it would have been, if she had not had that
magnanimity of spirit joined to her tenderness, as
never to have desired him to do a base thing for the
saving of his life. Whereas otherwise what a week
I should have passed, if she had been still crying on
me to turn informer, and be a Lord Howard ; though
he then repeated what he had often before said, that
he knew of nothing by which the peace of the nation
was in danger.
" But he left that discourse, and returned to speak
of my Lady. He said there was a signal providence
of God in giving him such a vrife, where there
was birth, fortune, great understanding, great reli
gion, and a great kindness to him. But her carriage
in this extremity went beyond all. He said he was
glad that she and her children were to lose nothing
by his death ; and it was a great comfort to him,
that he left his children in such a mother's hands,
and that she had promised to him to take care
of herself for their sakes, which I heard her do."*

* Extracted from Burnet's MSS : " Relation of what passed
during Lord Russell's confinement." Transcribed in the
handwriting of Lady Russell. Dev. MSS.
VOL. II. L

218 THE LIFE OF
After having made a last ineffectual attempt to
obtain a respite from Saturday to Monday ; on
Friday, the morning previous to his execution. Lady
Russell conducted her children to the presence of
their dying father. Burnet, the only witness on this
occasion, says, " I saw him receive them with his
ordinary serenity." He retired before their father
had bestowed on them his last benediction and
embrace. Lady Russell returned alone in the evening. She
found her husband in a composure of mind, which
had already excited the admiration of those who had
witnessed it, and which had now endured seeing for
the last time everything that made life most desirable
to him. But she too well knew that his severest trial
yet remained ; and by a noble sacrifice of self-indul
gence — a suppression of every selfish feeling, which
nothing but the purest tenderness could dictate to
the most exalted mind, she parted from his last
embrace, without aUowing a single sob of passion
to awaken corresponding feelings in him, which
must have banished his heavenly composure.
She retired in silent anguish to that melancholy
home, to which she was never again to welcome
him ; — she retired to count the wretched minutes of
those hours which were to elapse before the fatal
stroke was given, which left no restraint on her
unbounded grief.
In this dreadful predicament, we look anxiously
round for some sympathetic mind, capable of rally
ing her fainting spirit, and of soothing her sorrows,
by entering into their poignancy. Public pity, and
pubUc praise, could as yet be but " the whistUng
of a name," which must rather have excited, than

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 219
quieted her feelings. Her children were almost
infants ; her beloved and favourite sister was no
more ; Lady Northumberland was not in England ;
and although they had always lived on terms of
sisterly affection and amity, hers was a mind too
inferior to that of Lady Russell, to have afforded
her much support.
Lady Shaftesbury, her cousin, was merely a good
and pious soul, sensible of her inability to offer more
than her pity and her prayers. She was left then
in these cruel moments to the powers of her own
mind, — to her solemn engagement to live for her
children, — to her strong, pure, unsophisticated piety,
and to the magnanimous sense she entertained ofthe
cause in which she was suffering, which dictated
many years afterwards an avowal, that " there was
something so glorious in the object of my greatest
sorrow, I believe that in some degree kept me from
being: then overwhelmed."*
She was roused, during the first days of her des
pondency, by an attempt to attack the memory
of her Lord in denying the authenticity of the paper
he had delivered to the sheriffs on the scaffold.
This paper, already printed, was immediately in the
hands of the public, and produced that effect on the
sober understandings of Englishmen, which might
have been anticipated from it.
Such an effect was anticipated by the Court.
Burnet and TiUotson were, the day after Lord
Russell's execution, summoned before the King and
the Duke of York in council, and taxed with being
the advisers and authors of that paper. The inno-
* Lady Russell to the Bishop of Salisbury (Burnet) 16th
Oct. 1690. See PubUshed Letters, p. 274.
L 2

220 THE LIFE OF
cence of Tillotson was proved by his last attempt to
enforce very contrary doctrines on Lord Russell in a
letter to him, which it is but justice to Tillotson's
subsequent conduct to believe he heartily regretted.
The heavier suspicion fell on Burnet.
Lady Russell's letter to the King on this occa
sion,* is that of a person roused by a sense of duty
and of innocence to repel injuries, of which they are
almost reckless of the consequences. She neglected
not, however, to do justice to Burnet's conduct and
sentiments, which was the means of allowing him
time and opportunity to withdraw himself from the
power of a Government, to which he had then
the honour of being obnoxious.
It is said that the Duke of York had proposed
that the execution of Lord Russell should have taken
place in Bloomsbury Square, before the windows of
his own house. Christian charity forbids our be
lieving this story merely on report, even of James
Il.f But it is certain that the effect produced on
the pubUc mind by the death of Lord Russell had
much exasperated the Court; and as those who
injure are the last to forgive, they were angry at
every attempt to honour his memory, and opposed
the least mark of respect to his remains. Permission
to put an escutcheon over his door had, how-

* See PubUshed Letters, p, 7.
t Lord Russell was executed in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. Bur
net, who was in the carriage with him, mentions in the account
already quoted of his conduct, during his last moments, that,
" As we came to turn Little Queen Street, he said, I have
often turned to the other hand with great comfort, but now I
turn to this with greater, and looked towards his own house ;
and then, as the Dean (Tillotson) that sat over-against him
told me, he saw a tear or two fall from him."

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 221
ever, been obtained by Lord Halifax. This,
and an intimation from the King, that he did
not mean to profit by the forfeiture of Lord
RusseU's personal estate, are thus acknowledged
in a letter from Lady RusseU to Lord Halifax.
"'Tis so much my interest, my Lord, (relying as I
do upon your Lordship's judgment and favour
to me,) to be careful in humbly acknowledging those
I do receive, that unless you will be strictly just
to me, you will imagine this is sent to your Lord
ship from other ends than upon my word it is, since
I could never in expectance of a future advantage by
it, constrain myself to do uneasy things, (as doing
this is, to so discomposed a mind as mine;) but
to be kindly used, and not any way appear I have a
sense of it, would if it be possible, add to that
intolerable pressure my sad heart mourns under. All
other considerations would permit me to excuse my
self from, or at least to defer an exercise I am
rendered so utterly unfit for; especially unless I
might complain in such sad words as my raging
griefs fiU my amazed mind with, and indeed offers
me no other without putting a force upon myself,
which being unfit to do at this time, I ask your
Lordship's pardon for what I have said, and in
real compassion as to one very miserable, you must
give it to, my Lord, « Yours, &c. &c."
" I think fit to acquaint your Lordship that I
have written to my uncle RusseU,* to present my
* The Honourable John Russell, then Colonel of the 1st
Regiment of Foot Guards. The letter is in these words :
" Apology, dear Uncle, is not necessary to you for any thing

222 THE LIFE OF
thanks to the King, but have intimated in another
paper that he may, if he sees fit, read it to the
King, having written it with that design : if this be
enough, I like it better than doing more ; but if your
Lordship is of another mind, tell but my Lord
Vaughan so, and I shall know it before the letter be
given. If it be seasonable to move in the other,
I presume your Lordship will not forget me.
" I hear the sergeant has been troublesome to
your Lordship ; it would be impertinent to trouble
you with all that has passed, but I think I have not
been to blame, for he demanded it only upon the
account that I was to have the personal estate, and
I promised hirn satisfaction when I had the grant."

I do, nor is my discomposed mind fit to make any ; but I want
your assistance, so I ask it freely. You may remember. Sir,
that a very few days after ray great and terrible calamity, the
King sent me word, he meant to take no advantage of any
thing forfeited to him ; but terras of law raust be observed, so
now the grant for the personal estate is done, and in my hands,
1 esteem it fit to make some compliment of acknowledgment to
his Majesty. To do this for me, is the favour I beg of you;
but I have written the enclosed paper in such a manner, that
if you judge it fit, you may, as you see cause, show it to the
King, to let him see what thanks I desire should be made him ;
but this is left to you to de as you approve. Truly, Uncle, ^tis
not without reluctancy I write to you myself, since nothing
that is not very sad can come from me, and I do not love to
trouble such as I am sure wish me none. I ask after your
health, and when I hear you are weU, 'tis part of the only sa
tisfaction I can have in this wretched world, where the love and
company of the friends and dearest relations of that dear and
blessed person must give me all I can find in it now. 'Tis
a great change, from as much happiness as I beUeve this world
can eive, to know no more, as never must,
^ " Yours, &c."'
• Dev. MSS,

RACHAEL L.VDY RUSSELL. 223
Lord Halifax's answer is as foUows : —
" Madam,
" It is enough that my zeal to serve you is favour
ably received; but it doth not deserve so much
notice as your Ladyship is pleased to take of it. I am
ready to give myself a better title than yet I have to
such obliging acknowledgments, whenever you will
give me the opportunity, by laying your commands
on me. In the mean time, I will not offer any thing
to your Ladyship's thoughts, to soften or allay the
violence of your affliction, since your own excellent
temper, and the great measure of reason you are
blessed with, will best furnish you with the means
of doing it, I have not seen Colonel Russell, to
speak with him, concerning the letter your Lady
ship mentioned; but, according to my present
thoughts, if he delivereth a compliment from you
to His Majesty, by your order, it may be less liable
to inconvenience, or exception, than any thing that
is put on paper. I must tell your Ladyship, there
has been such a stir kept about setting up the
scutcheon, and so much weight laid upon it by some,
who might have been more sparing for your sake,
though they would not be it for mine, that I am
clearly of opinion, it is advisable to stay yet, for a
considerable time, before any thing is moved in the
other business. There are some other particulars
which confirm me in this opinion, that I shall give
you an account of, when I have the honour to wait
on you : for I would by no means have your Lady
ship exposed to the danger of a refusal; which is
best prevented by taking a seasonable time, and
letting the wrong impressions wear out that may
have been given for the present.

224 THE LIFE OP
In pursuance of the liberty I had from your
Ladyship, I left it to my Lord Keeper to set down
what was to be given to the sergeant ;* and he hath
ordered £20 which I have desired your servant to
pay, that you may receive no further trouble in it.
I am. Madam,
Your Ladyship's most humble, and most
obedient Servant, " Halifax."!
London, October l6th, 1683.
The earliest account we have of the state of Lady
Russell's mind, at this juncture, is in a letter from
herself to Doctor FitzwiUiam, ofthe 30th September,
two months after the fatal catastrophe. It is written
from Woburn, whither she had retired, with her
children, from her desolate home in London, early
in the month of August.
Doctor FitzwiUiam was a clergyman, whom she
had known, from her infancy, as chaplain to her
father. Lord Southampton, and who seems to have
retained a devoted attachment to his children. J He
had written to endeavour to assist her in lifting up
her mind to Heaven, when all other consolation
must have been useless. She replies, " I need not
tell you, good Doctor, how little capable I have
* Probably the Sergeant at Arms, who had the charge of
Lord RusseU in the Tower.
t Dev. MSS.
X Doctor FitzwiUiam, after the death of Lord Southamptdn,
had been for some time Chaplain to the Duke of York. He
was new Rector of Cotenham, in Cambridgeshire, and a Canon
of Windsor, both which preferments he lost at the Revolution,
on refusal of the oaths to WiUiam and Mary.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 225
been of such an exercise as this. You will soon
find how unfit I am stUl for it; since my yet dis
ordered thoughts can offer me no other than such
words as express the deepest sorrow, and confused
as my yet amazed mind is. But such men as you,
and particularly one so much my friend, will, I
know, bear with my weakness, and compassionate
my distress, as you have already done, by your
good letter, and excellent prayer.
" You, that knew us both, and how we lived,
must allow 1 have just cause to bewail my loss. I
know it is common to others to lose a friend ; but to
have lived with such a one, it may be questioned
how few can glory in the like happiness ; so, conse
quently, lament the like loss. Who can but shrink
from such a blow !
"Lord, let me understand the reason of these
dark and wounding providences, that I sink not
under the discouragement of my own thoughts ! I
know I have deserved my punishment, and wiU be
silent under it; but yet secretly my heart mourns,
too sadly, I fear, and cannot be comforted, because
I have not the dear companion and sharer of all my
joys and sorrows. I want him to talk with, to walk
with, to eat, and sleep with. All these things are
irksome to me. The day unwelcome, and the night
so too ; all company and means I would avoid, if it
might be : yet all this is, that I enjoy not the world
my own way; and this sure hinders my comfort.
When I see my children before me, I remember the
pleasure he took in them ; this makes my heart
shrink. Can I regret his quitting a lesser good for
a greater ? Oh ! if I did but steadfastly believe, I
could not be dejected ; for I wiU not injure myself
L 3

226 THE LIFE OF
to say, I offer my mind any inferior consolation to
supply this loss. No ; I most willingly forsake this
world, this vexatious, troublesome world, in which
I have no other business, but to rid my soul of sin,
secure by faith and a good conscience my eternal
interests, with patience and courage bear my emi
nent misfortune, and ever hereafter be above the
smiles and frowns of fortune."
This affecting picture of the struggles of a vir
tuous mind, under one of the severest trials imposed
on our imperfect nature, is rendered doubly interest
ing by the noble exertions made by Lady Russell,
even at this time, to neglect no immediate duty,
either to the memory of her Lord, or to her chil
dren, or to those of her beloved sister.
In letters of this date, addressed to her by Mr.
Hoskins, we find her availing herself of his advice
and assistance, in the necessary arrangement of her
affairs, and of the trust for her sister Lady Eliza
beth Noel's children, which, by Lord Russell's con
demnation for treason, had devolved on the King.
Mr. Hoskins, whose acquaintance Lady Russell
mentions having first made at Lord Shaftesbury's,*
seems, by his letters, to have been a person of such
exceUent good sense, as well as good feeling, that
he deserved all the confidence Lady Russell placed
in his advice, and all the gratitude she expresses for
* In a letter of June 1684, speaking of going to her house
at Stratton, she says, " I depend on the conveniency of a
gentleman who has most kindly and helpfuUy assisted me, by
following my business for me, and whom I have engaged, as
finding it almost necessary te my affairs, one Mr, Hoskins ;
I grew first acquainted with him at Lord Shaftesbury's, who
used to caU him cousin." Published Letters, p. 40,

Rachael lavy russell. 227
his services, in matters to which her own mind
must have been then peculiarly indisposed. Of the
state of that mind his letters are a melancholy
record. In the beginning of August of this year,
he writes to her on having been obUged, by the sud
den iUness of a relation, to leave London.
" I was very sorry to leave your Ladyship when
you thought my stay could be any way useful to
you, and when I saw your grief rather increase than
abate. I can use no arguments to you, to mitigate
your sorrows, that your Ladyship is not weU
acquainted with already. All I can do is, to beg
you to employ them, and give them aU advantages
in working their proper effects on you.
" Great persons are liable to great trials, and have
better opportunities than common people to fit their
minds to encounter them. Now, Madam, summon
up aU your strength, and acquit yourself as becomes
you in this utmost assault; and I pray God assist
you, for I must confess your loss is very great, of a
very good man, for whom of aU men I have known,
one would have been the most willing to have died.''
In December of the same year, after giving her
detaUs about the measures necessary to be taken for
the re-settlement of her sister's trust, he says : — " I
cannot but very much approve the great care you
have of my Lady Elizabeth Noel's children, answer
able to your near relation and great friendship.'' As
Mr. Hoskins had been bred to the law, and had
practised at the Chancery bar, his advice on this sub
ject, and on many other points of business, was par
ticularly useful to Lady Russell, whose landed pos
sessions required such legal intelligence. Mr. Hos
kins' anxiety at this time to save her all unnecessary

228 the LIFE OF
trouble, and yet to lead her by degrees to inform her
self, and take some interest in her affairs as a duty,
as well as a means of drawing off her mind from the
perpetual contemplation of her sorrows, proves the
just estimate they had both formed of each other's
character. In the beginning of the following year. Lady
Russell had intimated to him, her intention of part
ing with a house-steward, who had been long in her
service, but of whose conduct, in some matters rela
tive to her Lord, she seems to have had doubts.
Mr. Hoskins' advice to her on this subject, is so
rational, that it is best given in his own words : —
" I shall not discourse to any, the resolution your
Ladyship is taking concerning Mr. Watkins ; but I
heard before that he was apprehensive of it. I under
stood formerly from your Ladyship that it would be
an uneasy thing to you, to part Avith any of your ser
vants ; but intending frugality, it will be necessary to
lessen your family, especially your officers, and those
that are most chargeable.
" I don't know all your Ladyship's servants, nor
the qualifications of any of them ; but if Mr. Watkins'
business be only the expense of your household,
surely it is not so difficult, and frequent reckonings
wiU make it easier and secure your Ladyship. It re
quires a man of much honesty, rather than parts.
My meaning hereby is, not to advise your Ladyship
to live beneath your quality; but methinks it is
beneath nobody to keep no more than they have
business for. 'Tis the way to save trouble as well
as charge, and to have business better done. I am
of your Ladyship's opinion, that he never dared say
that to his Lord you have been told, how vainly

rachael lady RUSSELL. 229
soever he might pretend it. I have heard indeed,
that he kept such company as no man in common
discretion in his place would have done, whatever his
inclinations^were ; but 1 know not how truly 1 was
informed. Your Ladyship need not mention all the
reasons that move you to part with him, especiaUy
those that will bring on you the trouble of fending
and proving, and make an angry parting ; but since
your Ladyship does so charitably fore-cast for him
the opportunity of getting into Lord Gainsborough's
service, you can, for that end, but for a little while
delay giving him warning.''
In the close of the same letter, he says, " I am
much pleased to hear your Ladyship so resolved to
follow your business. Your Ladyship will require
less help than most others, and are so much valued,
that there is nobody^ of worth but will be glad to serve
you. Nothing but your sorrows can hinder your
doing all that is to be done; and give me leave.
Madam, as often as it comes in my way, to mind
your Ladyship, that the hopes your dear Lord had,
that you would bear his loss with magnanimity, and
nothing would ba^wanting to his children, loosened
all the hold this world had of him.
" I am, with sincerity,
" Your Ladyship's, &c. &c.''
Having been some time at Woburn with her, in
March 1684, he says, (after treating of business),
" I wish I could find your Ladyship had a little
more overcome your mighty grief; to see how it had
wasted your body, how heavy it lay upon your mind,
and how hardly you struggled with it, made me
melancholy all the time I was at Woburn."

230 the life of
" At all times and places, I shall sadly reflect on
your Ladyship, and pray that God would comfort
you, and lift up your drooping spirit."
In the April following, after some detaUs and
arrangements about a new legal manager of her
affairs, as steward of her Bloomsbury property, whom
Mr, Hoskins had sought out for her, he continues :
" I do indeed wish well to your Ladyship's affairs ;
but what most concerns me is, to see you so over
whelmed with grief. I should not doubt their good
success were you not so much oppressed with that :
it pities me to see how hard you struggle with it, and
how doubtful it is which will overcome. Continue,
good Madam, to do your utmost; the more you
strive, the more God will help. All the little ser
vices that I have done, or can do, your Ladyship,
are not worth half the notice you take of them. I
am troubled when I consider how little I could do
for you in that great occasion, and any confidence
you have in me, or opportunity you give me of
serving you, lays the obligation on my side. There
cannot be a greater pleasure in the world than to
serve a person I so much value, both on your own
account, and upon his of whom you were so de
plorably bereft."*
These and other letters, inform us that from the
time she left London in August 16S3, she remained
at Woburn tiU the foUowing spring, struggUng in the
midst of a sorrowing family, with her own deeper and
* Mr. Hoskins died several years before Lady Russell. He
left one 'only chUd, a daughter and heiress, who married,
in 1718, WiUiam, Marquis of Hartington, Lady RusseU's
grandson.

rachael lady RUSSELL. 231
more peculiar affliction. Her children, at the time
of their father's death, were hardly of an age to feel
their loss, still less to appreciate the blessing remain
ing to them in their mother. Her son was an infant
not three years old, and her daughters, at the age of
nine, and of seven, rather made her "heart shrink,"
(as she herself owns), from the recollection of the
pleasure their father took in their society, than that
it could afford much relief to herself. But in her
chUdren her duties to her husband were now concen
trated, and from her children she looked for the only
motives which could at present reconcile her to live,
or in future interest her in life.
During this winter we find she had determined
to occupy herself much with their early education.
In a letter addressed to her from Burnet, in February
1 684, he says, " I am very glad you mean to employ
so much of your time in the education of your chil
dren that they shall need no other governess ; for, as
it is the gi-eatest part of your duty, so it wiU be a
noble entertainment to you, and the best diversion
and cure of your wounded and wasted spirit."
This counsel she seems to have pursued; for there
is no indication of her daughters having ever been
separated from her, or ever having had any other
instructress. To Dr. FitzwiUiam she particularly
indulges herself at this time, in dweUing on the
oppressed state of her mind ; because, vrithout re
proving her grief, he was always guarding her against
the offence to Heaven of over-indulgence in it. She
teUs him : " If, in the multitude of those sorrows
that possess my soul, I find any refreshments,
though, alas ! such are but momentary, it is by cast
ing off some of my crowded thoughts to compas-

232 the life of
sionate friends, such as deny not to weep with those
that weep." And she afterwards says : " The liberty
I take when I write to you, gratifies much more my
weary mind than the matter one fills up paper with
to others." At the same time she invites, and
encourages him to continue the same habit of ex
hortation and reproof to her. " I am glad I have so
expressed myself to you, as to fix you in resolving to
continue the course you have begun with me, which
is, to set before me plainly, my duty on all hands."
And adds : "I wUl say for myself, I am very confi
dent I shall ever so take either reproof, caution, or
advice of a friend, in such a manner as I shall never
lose a friend for acting the part of one to me.''
She thus valiantly combats her ever-recurring
sorrow by every rational means in her power, and
appears indeed to have had a jealousy that it should
be reUeved by any of the ordinary applications to
ordinary ills, or that she should owe the cure of such
distinguished affliction, to any lesser means than
those of reason and religion.
" It is possible I grasp at too much of this kind
for a spirit so broke by affliction; for I am so jealous
that time, or necessity, the ordinary abaters of all
violent passions, (nay, even employment or company
of such friends as I have left,) should do that, my
religion or reason ought to do, as makes me covet
the best advices, and use all methods to obtain such
a relief as I can ever hope for : a silent submission
to this severe and terrible Providence, without any
ineffective unwillingness to bear what I must suffer ;
and such a victory over myself, that when once
allayed, immoderate passions may not be apt to
break out again upon fresh occasions and accidents.

rachael lady RUSSELL. 233
offering to my memory that dear object of my
desires which must happen every day, I may say
every hour, of the longest life. 1 can live, that so,
when I must return into the world, so far as to act
that part is incumbent upon me in faithfulness to
him I owe as much as can be due to man, it may be
with greater strength of spirits, and grace to live a
stricter life of holiness to my God."
In spite of her excellent resolutions, her duties,
and her occupations, her wound was of a nature to
mock all consolations but those applied by the
lenient hand of time, assisted by the quieting assu
rances of her own conscience. Even these we find
in this first period of her sufferings, were sometimes
unavailing in defending her from dreadful and dis
turbing doubts as to the past. She says to Dr.
FitzwiUiam, in April 1684 : "Then I find reflections
troubling me as omissions of one sort or other, that
if either greater persuasions had been used, he had
gone away ; or some errors at the trial amended, or
other applications made, he might have been acquit
ted, and so yet have been in the land of the living ;
(though I discharge not these things as faults upon
myself, yet as aggravations to my sorrows ;) so that
not being certain of our time being appointed, be
yond which we cannot pass, my heart shrinks to
think his time possibly was shortened by unwise
management. I beUeve I do ill to torment myself
with such unprofitable thoughts."*
* The author considers it unnecessary to apologise for these
frequent citations from the PubUshed Letters, as ne account of
the feelings of another's mind can be se interesting as that
given by themselves. And most readers, it is beUeved, will
agree with what Burnet, in his own uncouth style, says of

234 THE LIFE OF
" Such unprofitable thoughts," however, she never
aUowed to distract her mind from the performance
of any obvious or immediate duty.
In the spring of 1 684, she had proposed going to
Stratton for the purpose of examining some papers,
and finally settling the trust already mentioned for
her sister Lady Elizabeth Noel's children.
Her feelings on the prospect of revisiting this
scene of her lost happiness are best expressed by
herself. " I am entertaining some thoughts of going
to that now desolate place, Stratton, for a few days,
where I must expect new amazing reflections at first,
it being a place where I have lived in sweet and full
content, considered the condition of others, and
thought none deserved my envy. But I must pass
no more such days on earth ; however, places are in
deed nothing. Where can I dwell that his figure is
not present to me ? Nor would I have it otherwise ;
so I resolve that shall be no bar, if it proves requi
site for the better acquitting any obligation on me."
This " obligation " was delayed for the present by
the sickness and death of the Countess of Bedford,*
which took place on the 10th of May, at Woburn,
and by the subsequent iUness of her own infant son.
The dreadful anxiety she suffered on this last occasion
was of use to her mind, by proving to her that she
that of Lady RusseU, " You have so strange a way of express
ing yourself, that I sincerely acknowledge my pen is apt to
drop from my hand when I begin writing to you, for I am
very sensible I cannot rise up to your strain." PubUshed
Letters, p. 17.
* Anne Carr, daughter of Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset,
by Frances, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, the divorced wife
of the Earl of Essex.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 235
had yet something to lose. With ber usual reason,
as weU as piety, she thanks Heaven for having " re
moved a threatened blow, which must have quickened
my sorrows, if not added to them, the loss of my
poor boy. He has been ill, and God has let me see
the folly of my imaginations, which made me apt to
conclude I had nothing left, the deprivation of which
could be matter of much anguish, or its possession
of any considerable refreshment. I have felt the
falseness of the first notion, for I know not how to
part with tolerable ease from the little creature ; I
desire to do so of the second, and that my thank
fulness for the real blessing of these children may
refresh my labouring, weary mind with some joy and
satisfaction, at least in my endeavours to do that part
towards them, their most dear and tender father
would not have omitted."
In this same letter to Dr. FitzwiUiam, we learn,
that she had indulged herself at this time in visiting
the vault which contained the remains of her Lord.*
The manner in which she mentions this circumstance,
and apologises for it, makes it as impossible for us
to blame her, as it was for her pious correspondent.
She teUs him : " I had considered, I went not to
seek the Uving among the dead. I knew I should
not see him any more, wherever I went, and had
made a covenant with myself, not to break out in
unreasonable fruitless passion, but quicken my con
templation, whither the nobler part was fled, to a
country afar off, where no earthly power bears any
sway, nor can put an end to a happy society ."f
Instead of her intended journey to Stratton, which
* At Chenies in Buckinghamshire.
f Published Letters, p. 39.

236 THE LIFE OF
she meant to have made alone, she removed from
Woburn in the end of June, to Totteridge in Hert
fordshire, for change of air for her boy, and for the
nearer neighbourhood of a London physician. She
carries with her her eldest giri, leaving the younger
at Woburn with her grandfather. A letter of his to
Lady RusseU at this period, from its lively and pious
expression of anxiety and affection both for the
chUd and herself, must have been gratifying to her
warmly affectionate heart. " Woburn, this 7th July, 1684.
" Dearest Daughter,
" There is nothing in this world can come so
welcome to me, as to hear of increase of hopes, that
God Almighty will be so infinitely good and gracious
unto me, as to give unto my fervent prayers that
dear chUd, which if it be his good and pleasure to
grant to so unworthy a creature as I am, I shall look
upon it all the days of my Ufe as the greatest tem
poral blessing can be bestowed upon me, and that
will supply and make up in a great measure the
other great afflictions and crosses he has been pleased
to lay upon me. Dear daughter, I look upon it as a
good sign the holding up of his head, that the hu
mour is gone, which I believe was the cause of the
hanging down of his head. I pray Christ Jesus to
give such a blessing unto the means, that I may
have every day more and more hopes of seeing that
day of rejoicing, in enjoying your company and his
here again, which is the constant and fervent prayer
of my soul unto my gracious God.
" So, hoping to hear of some comfortable tidings
by the bearer of that dear little one, being fuU of

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 237
prayers and fears for him and you, I rest with all
the kindness in the world, wliich 1 am sure I shall
do to my last breath,
" Your most affectionate Father and Friend
" to command,
" Bedford."
" My dear love and blessing to my dear boy and
Mrs. Rachael. I am much cheered with Mrs. Kar-
terine's company ; she is often with me, and looks
very well."*
Their prayers were granted, and during the course
of the summer the boy was restored to health. A
project of going from Totteridge to Stratton, in
September, is again put off by the proposed removal
of the Court to Winchester, where Charles occa
sionally resided in autumn for the convenience of
field sports. The near neighbourhood of Stratton
would probably at this time have made the presence
of its melancholy inhabitant as offensive to the
Court, as an intercourse with the Court could have
been to Lady RusseU herself She therefore re
turned from Totteridge to Woburn, in September,
and soon after announces to Dr. FitzwiUiam her
resolve " to try that desolate habitation of mine in
London this winter. The doctors agree it is the
best place for my boy, and 1 have no argument to
balance that, nor could take the resolution to see
London till that was urged ; but by God's permis
sion I will try how I can endure that place; in
thought a place of terror to me: but I know, if
* Devonshire MSS.

238 THE LIFE OF
sorrow had not another root, that wUl vanish in a
few days." Of her feelings on the nearer approach
of her intended return to London, stie must be
again her own interpreter. She writes to Dr. Fitz
wiUiam, in November, from Woburn — " I have,
you find. Sir, lingered out my time, and I think
none will wonder at it, that will reflect the place
I am going to remove to, was the scene of so much
lasting sorrow to me, and where I acted so unsuc
cessful a part for the preservation of a life 1 could sure
have laid down mine to have continued. 'Twas,
Doctor, an inestimable treasure I did lose, and with
whom I had lived in the highest pitch of this world's
felicity. But having so many months mourned the
substance, I think (by God's assistance) the shadows
will not sink me."
She removed to London soon after the date of
this letter. The death of Charles II, and the ac
cession of James, in the February following, were
events by no means indifferent to Lady Russell.
Almost every previous and subsequent measure of
Government was in some manner connected with
her own misfortune, or had served to recall it. In
the bitterness of her heart, during the second anni
versary of her Lord's suffering, she says, "Sure
never any poor creature, for two whole years to
gether, has had more awakers to quicken and revive
the anguish of its soul than I have had."
The death of Algernon Sydney ; the trial of Mr.
Hampden ; the enormous fine consequent upon it,
and the lesser fines levied upon those who had at
tempted to justify Lord Russell's memory ; all these
circumstances, in addition to the recent failure and

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL, 239
execution of Monmouth, powerfully conspired to
destroy ber resolution of not "breaking off that
bandage, which," as she expresses herself, " time
would lay over my wound."
The reflections suggested to her by Monmouth's
attempt are so rational, and probably give so true a
picture of the character of her Lord, as well as that
of the circumstances in which he was involved, that
they are as well entitled to form a part of the history
of her country, as of that of her mind. "I take this
late wild attempt to be a new project, not depend
ing on, or being linked in the least to, any former
design ; if there was then any real one, which I am
satisfied was not, no more than (my own Lord con
fessed) talk, and it is possible that talk going so far
as to consider if a remedy to supposed evils might
be sought, how it could be found. But as I was
saying, if all this late attempt was entirely new,
yet the suspicion my Lord must have lain under
would have been great ; and some circumstances,
I do confess, must have made his part a hard one.
So that from the deceitfulness of the heart, or want
of true sight in the directive faculty, what would
have followed, God only knows. From the frailty of
the will I should have feared but little evil ; for he had
so just a soul, so firm, so good, he could not warp
from such principles that were so, unless misguided
by his understanding, and that his own, not ano
ther's ; for I dare say, as he could discern, he never
went into any thing considerable upon the mere
submission to any one's particular judgment. Now
his own, I know, he could never have framed to
have thought well of the late actings ; and there
fore most probably must have sat loose from them.

240 THE LIFE OF
But I am afraid his excellent heart, had he lived,
would have been often pierced, from the time his
life was taken away to this."*
After the suppression of this " wild attempt" of
Monmouth's, the rapid strides of James towards
the subversion of the religion and Government of
his country, were not unmarked by Lady RusseU.
We find her reading all the principal political works
of the day, convinced of the mischief and confusion
likely to ensue ; and referring every thing, with a
melancholy constancy of feelings to their master-
key, reproaching herself with still mourning the
absence of one, whose virtues would have led to
nothing but suffering in such depraved and melan
choly times.
" The new scenes of each day make me often
conclude myself very void of temper and reason,
that I still shed tears of sorrow, and not of joy,
that so good a man is safe landed on the happy
shore of a blessed eternity. Doubtless he is at rest ;
though I find none without him, so true a partner
he was in all my joys and griefs. I trust the Al
mighty will pass by this my infirmity. I speak it
in respect to the world, from whose enticing deUghts
I can now be better weaned. I was too rich in
possessions whilst I possessed him. AU relish now
is gone. " In the mean time, I endeavour to suppress all
wild imaginations a melancholy fancy is apt to let
in and say, with the man in the Gospel, ' I beUeve,
help thou my unbelief.' "
She was this year detained unwiUingly in London
• PubUshed Letters, p. 65,

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 241
till the beginning of August, by the expected arrival
of her uncle, M. de Ruvigny, his wife, and a niece.
Mademoiselle de Cire, who accompanied them from
France. This young lady was unfortunately seized
by the small-pox in London, and died in Lady Rus
sell's house.
After removing her own children first to their
grandfather's in London,* and then carrying them
down to Woburn, she returned to comfort her
afflicted uncle, and to take, what she conceived
would be, a last leave of " as kind a relation, and
as zealous, tender a friend as ever anybody had."t
M. de Ruvigny must be said to have well deserved
these epithets on the part of Lady Russell, as his
principal and only business in England seems to
have been, the solicitation of James II for the
removal of the attainder of Lord Russell from his
children. Among the MSS. at Woburn are preserved co
pies, in Lady RusseU's hand-writing, of two letters
of Ruvigny to the King, and notes of several con
versations with his ministers, Hyde and Godolphin,
on the subject of this favour, which seems to have
always been promised in a very illusory manner.
Among these papers is one endorsed by Lady Rus
sell — " Some discourse upon a visit from the Lord
Treasurer {Hyde) to me."
She tells him how much M. de Ruvigny had
praised the Lord Treasurer's kind assistance to
him : that after her misfortunes and what she has
felt, she shall certainly complain of no other dis-
* Bedford House, in tbe Strand.
f Published Letters,- p. 69.
VOL. II. M

242 THE LIFE OF
appointment : that however she seconded her uncle's
endeavours, except he had moved in this matter,
she had certainly let it rest.
The Lord Treasurer tells her that Ruvigny " had
seemed to have set the effecting it much on his
heart, and with the greatest kindness to me ima
ginable. I told my Lord I beUeved it, and indeed
the friendship was so surprising, his Lordship knew
very well the world imputed his coming to England
to some other cause, or at least, thought he had
been earnestly invited to it, for the last I positively
affirmed he had not been ; but as to the first, it was
too deep for me to judge of.
" At the same time, I am sure nothing can be done
for me now, that can diminish, or to me, that can
augment what I feel.
" I do assure your Lordship I have much more
care to make my chUdren worthy to be great, than
to see them so. I will do what I can that they may
deserve to be so, and then quietly wait what will
follow. That I am very solicitous, I confess, to do
my duty in such a manner to the children of one
I owe as much as can be due to man, that if my son
lives, he may not justly say hereafter, that if he had
had a mother less ignorant, or less negligent, he had
not then been to seek for what, perhaps, he may
then have a mind to have."*
On M. de Ruvigny's return to France, she re
joined her chUdren at Woburn, where she continued
tiU the Christmas following, professing to remain
with Lord Bedford as long as he shall desire their
company. " So whether I will come before hira, or
* Bedford MSS.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 243
make one company, I know not : he shall please
himself; for I have no will in these matters, nor can
like one thing or way better than another, if the use
and conveniences be alike to the young creatures ;
whose service is all the business I have in this
worid." The trial and acquittal of Lord Delamere, in
January 1 686, is a new cause of recurrence to her
own harder fate : with the feelings suggested by it,
she in vain reproaches herself:
" When I should rejoice with them that do re
joice, I seek a corner to weep in. I find I am ca
pable of no more gladness ; but every new circum
stance, — the very comparing my night of sorrow after
such a da)', with theirs of joy, does, from a reflection
of one kind or other, rack my uneasy mind. Though
I am far from wishing the close of theirs like mine,
yet I cannot refrain giving some time to lament that
mine was not like theirs."
The revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis
XIV, the number of Protestants, fugitives for con
science-sake, who arrived in England, the cruelties
exercised against those who were not lucky enough
to get away, and the severe regulations made to
prevent their escape, produced this year, the liveliest
sensation in England. The effects which these events
had on the general feeling of the country haye not,
jierhaps, been aUowed their due weight among the
causes which led directly to the Revolution : a Re
volution which, profiting by the experience of the
Rebellion, correcting the negUgence and omissions
of the Restoration, preserving all that was good in
our previous government, and discarding much of
the evil, finally established a system of institutions
M 2

244 THE LIFE OF
the least dependent on the individual characters of
men that had been witnessed, and consequently a
scheme of polity, which more than a century's expe
rience in trying and difficult times, has proved to be
the best ever yet imagined for the government of
men in an advanced period of civilisation.
Nothing could be more unlucky for the views of
James, nor more unfavourable to his zealous ardour
for the propagation of his religion, than this striking
example, brought so near home, of what might be
its persecuting spirit under a despotic Prince, nursed
in its exclusive principles. James had been obliged,
however unwillingly, to consent that a brief should
be read in all the Protestant congregations of Eng
land in behalf of their suffering brethren from
France.* To this brief his ChanceUor, Jeffries,
true, as keeper of the King's conscience, to what he
knew were its real feelings, twice delayed to put the
seal, and afterwards made the qualifications neces
sary to partake of the charity so many, and their
observance so strict, that few could avail themselves
of it.
The effect of these transactions on the truly
Christian mind of Lady Russell may be easily
guessed, and are confirmed to us by the manner in
which she had previously expressed herself to Dr.
FitzwiUiam, as to the qualities she required in a
domestic chaplain. " I approve with you the Church
of England, — the best Church and best offices and

* It was on this occasion that TiUotson, then Dean of Can
terbury said to Dr. Beveridge, who refused to read the brief
in the cathedral, as contrary to the Rubric, " Doctor, Doctor,
charity is above Rubrics,"

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 245
service in it upon the face of the earth that we know
of. But, Sir, I shall covet one so moderate, as not
to be impatient and passionate against all such as
cannot think so too ; but of such a temper as to be
able to converse peaceably with such as may have
freedom in my family, though not of it, without
giving offence ; and I take it to be the best way of
gaining good people to our opinions."*
Her letters, at this period are full of horror at the
accounts which every post brought from France, of
the persevering folly of Louis XIV, in attempting to
dragoon his subjects into his own faith. The con
temptuous pity with which she speaks of his conduct
and sentiments,t forms a singular contrast to the
language of excessive and inflated panegyric, with
which he was addressed on this infatuated measure,
not only by his dependent courtiers, but even by
those whose genius and talents illustrated his reign,
and by some, on whose pure mind and sound judg
ment, the prejudices of the times and of their reli
gion, seem alone to have cast a cloud. J
Lady Russell now saw the uncle, from whom she
had so lately parted as for the last time, once again
in England. The great age of M. de Ruvigny did
not prevent him from availing himself of the es
pecial permission he had obtained from the favour of

* Published Letters, p. 21.
t Idem, p, 78.
X The rational and profound La Bruyere, speaking of all
that had been done by Cardinal Richelieu, says, " II y a eu du
tems de reste pour entamer un ouvrage, continue ensuite, et
achev^ par I'tin de nos plus grands et meilleurs Princes,
I' Extinction de I'Hirisie." — CaractSres de La Bruyere, vol. ii.
p. 54.

246 THE LIFE OF
Louis XIV, to remove himself and family to Eng
land. Early in this year, Lady Russell talks of
going to see him at Greenwich, where he had es
tablished himself, and where his residence probably
attracted that of many poorer fugitives, Mr, Evelyn,
in his Diary, mentions, that he assisted at a French
sermon, in Greenwich Church, " to a congregation of
above a hundred French refugees, of which M,
de Ruvigny was the chief," and for whom he had
obtained the use of the Parish Church, after the
English service was over.
Among these refugees, Lady Russell, with her
usual good sense, is disposed to look for some one
to place about her son, now between five and six
vears old, to secure to him an early knowledge ofthe
French language. His grandfather, it seems, thought
the boy too young " to be put to learn in earnest,"
which would be the case with a tutor; but Lady
Russell, although professing her intention " ever to
take Lord Bedford along in all concerns of the
chUd," yet says, " I think perhaps to overcome
my Lord in that, and assure him he shall not be
pressed. But I am much advised, and indeed in
cUned, if I could be fitted to my mind, to take
a Frenchman ; so I shall do a charity, and profit the
child also, who should learn French. Here are
many scholars come over, as are of all kinds, God
knows."* With this anxious and rational attention
to his education, his character, and his conduct, we
shall find her foUowing her son through life, regard
less of her own fears, anxieties, or indulgence.
The confidence as well as respect inspired by the
• PubUshed Letters, p. 90.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 247
character of Lady Russell was such, that all who had
any claim on her, either of friendship or connexion,
were anxious to avail themselves of her advice,
support, and intervention.
On occasion of a marriage, which she is requested
at this time to propose to Lord Gainsborough
for one of his daughters, she expresses the very
natural reluctance she feels at being drawn again,
for the first time, into the affairs of the world. " I
have just dated my letter to my Lady Digby, of
Coleshill, written in answer to hers, by which she
desires me, in pursuance of a dying brother's advice,
and her son's* inclination, to propose to Lord
Gainsborough a marriage between the present Lord
and Lady Jane. I have done it, though I wished she
had made choice of any other person than myself,
who, desiring to know the world no more, am
utterly unfit for the management of any thing in it;
but must as I can, engage in such necessary offices
to my children, as I cannot be dispensed from,
nor desire to be, since it is an eternal obligation
upon me, to the memory of a husband, to whom and
to his, I have dedicated the few and sad remainder
of my days."t
Among the letters in this collection, will be found
one addressed to her by Mr. Howe,J stating to her
• Afterwards distinguished by the honourable appellation of
the Good Lord Digby.
t PubUshed Letters, p. 90.
X The Rev. John Howe was a dissenting minister. He had
been Chaplain to CromweU, and was afterward a great friend
of Tillotson's. He was a good orientaUst, understood several
modern languages, and was one of the most learned writers
among the Dissenters. See Granger's Biographical History,
vol. Ill, p. 219.

248 THE LIFE OF
the probability of an advantageous marriage for the
Earl of Bedford's (then) eldest son, Mr. Edward
Russell. By the manner in which Mr. Howe ex
presses himself, we learn the great weight Lady
Russell's opinion was likely to have with the lady,
although personally a stranger to her, and the entire
confidence reposed in her judgment by all the friends
of the Bedford family. Her answer proves how
much she deserved it. The marriage in question
took place soon afterwards with much happiness to
both parties.
Lady Russell's active friendship as well as patient
courage were within two years after this date re
warded by a proposal of marriage for her own
daughter, which must have been singularly gratifying
to every feeling of her heart, which she herself calls
a "glimmering of light I did not look for in my dark
day." Lord Cavendish, the generous and active friend of
Lord Russell, who had shared his private friendship
as well as political sentiments, who had gallantly
proposed taking his place in the Tower, and favour
ing his escape by a change of clothes, — Lord Caven
dish, now become Earl of Devonshire,* faithful to the
* This is the same person who, not long before, had been
fined by the Court of King's Bench in the sum of thirty
thousand pounds, for having given a blow to Colonel Cul-
peper, in the King's presence-chamber at WhitehaU. Although
a peer, the time-serving judges of James's Court of King's
Bench had committed him to prison, untU the payment of this
enormous fine. He contrived to escape from a confinement,
which we may suppose was not very strictly guarded, and
retired to Chatsworth, from whence he addressed the foUowing
spirited letter, explanatory of his conduct, to Lord Middleton,
then Secretary of State. [" My

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 249
memorj', and attached to the remains of his friend,
proposed to unite their children by the marriage of
his son with Lord Russ'ell's eldest dauahter.
The extreme youth of the parties* made it an
affair to be first treated between their parents, which
indeed was generally the case in the marriages of the
young nobiUty at the times of which we are speak
ing. In the present instance, when much property
was to be settled on both sides, and where the parties
were too young to live together, the delays in the
" My Lord,
" About three weeks since, I was obliged te make a journey
into the country, as well for my health, as to look after my own
private affairs, stiU retaining and paying for a lodging in the
prison, which I hope may free me from the imputation of an
escape. Since that, the Lord Chancellor (Jeffries') (who I con
ceive has, regularly, nothing to do in this matter, it being
foreign to his jurisdiction) has not only revUed the Marshal of
the King's Bench with the most opprobrious language, and
threatened to hang him, but Ukewise procured a warrant to be
sent after me, signed by a puny (puisni) Judge, which your
Lordship very well knows is not of force aU over England.
But had it been signed by my Lord Chief Justice himself, I
cannot but insist upon that, which I take to be the right of all
the peers of England, not to be imprisoned fer debt. I think
I have pretty well ishowed my readiness to submit to His
Majest/s pleasure in aU things that concern myself alone ; but
hope His Majesty in his justice will allow the great sums which
my father lent, and was bound in fer the King, his father, (not
to mention the loss of his estate for many years), to be, at least,
as just a debt as any that may arise from the late scandalous
judgment given against me by the Court of King's Bench.
I am yet to learn in what I have given his Majesty any just
cause of offence, and must net forget that I was very raoderate,
at a time when a certain bawling lawyer, I could name, was
very violent. My Lord, I beg the favour of your Lordship to
acquaint his Majesty with the contents of this letter, and to
excuse this trouble from, &c." — Dev. MSS.
* She was fourteen, and he not sixteen years old.
M 3

250 THE LIFE OF
final arrangement of their union were only trouble
some to their parents. Lady RusseU mentions,
more than once, her perpetual occupation with
lawyers, and the slowness with which the treaty of
marriage creeps on. " I have," she says, " a well-
bred Lord to deal with, yet inflexible, if the point is
not to his advantage." And excuses her delays in
answering letters, by saying : " But in earnest, I am
in a great and constant hurry to do my duty to my
child, and to my friend, sister Margaret Russell ;
which, by God's grace, I design to do as cordially as
to my children. I meet with many difficulties in
both, yet in my girl's there is no stop, but such as the
former settlements cause, which (from any thing we
can learn of yet) will hinder a conclusion till he is
sixteen."* While Lady Russell was experiencing all the
delays of the law in the settlement of the affairs of
her family, James II seemed determined to abridge
their tedious operations in the conduct of the affairs
of the public, by substituting the more expeditious
process of prerogative. It is unnecessary to dwell
here on the political measures of this eventful and
never-to-be-forgotten period. Lady Russell, we see
by her letters,t marked, with an anxious and sorrow
ing eye, the progress of those principles from which
she had herself so cruelly .suffered.
* The marriage here alluded to, was between Lady Margaret
RusseU and Lord Strafford. It did not take place, from some
insurmountable difficulties about the settlement of his affairs.
But in a letter from him to Lord Halifax on the subject, he ex
presses himself " particularly obliged to Lady Russell on the
matter we have written of,"
t Published Letters, passim.

R.VCHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 251
When Dykevelt arrived in England, at the begin
ning of this year, as Minister Plenipotentiary from
the States of Holland, he was particularly charged to
wait on Lady Russell. She has herself preserved
notes of an interview which must have been so grate
ful to her feeUngs.
He told her he came by express order of the
Prince and Princess of Orange to condole with her
on her loss, and assure her of the lively interest they
took in it, both as having a great and just regard for
the two families to which she belonged, and as con
sidering her Lord's death as a great blow to the in
terests of the Protestant religion ; assuring her, at
the same time, there was nothing in their power they
were not ready to do, either for herself or her son.
Mr. Dykevelt declared that he did not deliver this
message in his private capacity, but that he was
charged with it as a pubUc minister. He afterwards
added much of the high value and esteem the Prince
and Princess had ever had of the privat'e character of
Lord Russell; and as a mark of what everybody
must have thought of his suffering, told her that
when it was mentioned at the table of King James's
minister at the Hague, Skelton himself had said :
" The King indeed has taken the life of one man,
but has lost that of thousands by it." It is to be
regretted that Lady Russell's letter of thanks to the
Princess of Orange for this distinguished attention,
is not to be found, as it produced from the Princess
an answer in warmer expressions of friendship and
attachment than she was accustomed to use.*

* See Published Letters, p. 1 32.

252 THE LIFE OF
In June of this year Lady Russell makes her
long-intended visit to Stratton. Her anticipation
of the feelings she was likely to experience on re
turning, for the first time, to that place, seem to
have lessened none of their poignancy. She des
cribes herself as " indeed brimfull with the memory
of that unfortunate and miserable change in my own
condition, since I lived regularly here before. The
poor children are well pleased to be a little while in
a new place, ignorant how much better it has been
both to me and them; yet I thought I found
Rachael not insensible : and I could not but be con
tent with it in my own mind. Those whose age
can afford them any remembrance, should, methinks,
have some solemn thoughts for so irreparable a loss
to themselves and family ; though after that, I would
cherish a cheerful temper in them, with all the in
dustry I can ; for sure we please our Maker best,
when we take all his providences with a cheerful
spirit.* '
We have here again a striking instance of the
admirable temper of Lady RusseU's mind, anxious
to prevent her own unhappy fate from influencing
the character and happiness of those who were far
ther removed from its effects; and justly conceiving
that the sorrows of human life are intended to purify
and elevate the mind, not to depress and weaken
it. These principles she not only professed but
practised. In a letter from Stratton, written at this time, and
the day before the anniversary of her Lord's arrest,
she saySj "To-morrow, being Sunday, I purpose to
• PubUshed Letters, p. 129.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 253
sanctify it, if my griefs unhaUow it not by unpro
fitable passion." And how does she purpose to
sanctify it? Not by Pharisaical observances — not by
excessive indulgence in sorrow ; but by a new exer
tion over her own feelings, by resolving, "After
having given some hours to privacy in the morning,
to live in my house as on other days, doing my best
to be tolerably composed. It is my first trial ; for
all these sad years, I have dispensed with seeing any
body, or till late at night. Sometimes I could not
avoid that, without a singularity I do not affect.
There are three days I like to give up to reflection ;
the day in which my Lord was parted from his
family, that of his trial, and the day he was released
from all the evUs of this perishing world."
Lady Russell remained at Stratton with her chil
dren till the end of this year. On her removal to
town, she expresses herself in the same strain, of
the occupation now given her by her daughter's pro
posed marriage, of her business with lawyers, and
many other worldly engagements. " I would fain
be delivered from them, conclude my affairs, and so
put some period to that inroad methinks I make in
my intended manner of living the rest of my days
on earth. But I hope my duty will always prevail
over the strongest inclination I have. I believe to
assist my yet helpless children is my business, which
makes me take many dinners abroad, and do of that
nature many things, the performance of which is
hard enough to a heavy and weary mind, but yet I
bless God for it."
After all the impediments of the law were re
moved, the marriage was stiU farther delayed by the
illness ofthe intended bride, who caught the measles

254 THE LIFE OF
in the spring of this year. At last the celebration
took place, on the 21st of June ; a season, of all
others, that which Lady Russell would least have
chosen for such a purpose ; but she teUs us, " My
Lord Devon hurried it off, being in great haste to
go to Bath ;" and her own feelings immediately
yielded to the convenience of those of others.
The chastened joy with which she saw the com
pletion of her wishes on this subject, and the feeUngs
it excited, are expressed by herself in an affecting
manner : " This very solemnity has afforded me,
alas ! many a thought I was forced to check with
all my force, they making me too tender, though in
retirement they are pleasant; and that way I can
indulge myself in at present. Sure if departed souls
know what we do, he approves of what I have done;
and it isa reward upon his children for his patience,
and so entire submission during his sufferings."
It is remarkable, that the principle circumstances
in the life of Lady Russell are most of them con
nected, or contemporary, with great events in the
history of her country.
Within a week after the marriage of her daughter,
the memorable trial took place of seven prelates of
the Church of England, who proved at once the
strength of their faith, as well as the purity of their
doctrine, by manfuUy resisting, in spiritual matters,
not only the entreaties but the commands of a
Prince, to whom, and to whose family, their un
shaken fidelity afterwards willingly sacrificed every
temporal advantage. In this instance, as in many
others, it was the privilege and the reward of a truly
great and laudable action, to occasion a much more
extensive good than that at which it aimed.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 255
The quiet and respectful, but steady resistance
made by the bishops, drew out and exposed the
obstinate bigotry of the King to his plans and opi
nions. It set an example of resistance, unaccompa
nied by violence, and anticipated the sentiments
and gratitude of the nation for similar exertions in
the state, by the lively interest and enthusiastic joy
manifested on the success of these champions of the
Church. Such exertions were already made ; an association*
was already formed of names which are inscribed in
the fastes of their grateful country. Measures were
already taking, which, however they may have been
subsequently reputed too weak by faction, and too
strong by prerogative, have established for ever a
standard to which to recur; a rule by which to
estimate our rights, our expectations, and our de
mands. To say it was imperfect, that it was supported by
some unworthy characters, and furthered by some
exceptionable means, is only saying that it was the
work of man. When we look to the civil and reli
gious liberty it has secured to a great people for
above a century, we shall believe that work of man
approved and protected by Heaven.
Lord and Lady Cavendish remained for about
three weeks after their marriage with Lady RusseU,
at Southampton House, and then removed with her
and the Earl of Bedford to Woburn. The reUef
* The Association, whose members invited over the Prince
of Orange, was dated the 30th June, 1688, and was signed
by the Earl of Shrewsbury, the Earl of Devonshire, Lord
Lumley, the Bishop of London, Admiral RusseU, and Mr.
Henry Sydney, afterwards Lord Romney.

256 THE LIFE OF
she expresses at finding herself once again in the
quiet of the country, after the hurry and business of
London, in the circumstances in which she had
lately been placed, it is as impossible not to enter
into, as it is not to admire the manner in which she
united to the sentiment of her unremoveable sorrow,
an exact, scrupulous, and cheerful discharge of her
duties, and a strict watch over the effects which her
feelings were likely to produce on her conduct.
" The pensive quiet I hope for here, I think will be
very grateful to my wearied body and mind; yet
when I contemplate the fruits and labour of these
last six months, it brings some comfort to my mind,
as an evidence that I do not live only to lament my
misfortunes, and be humbled by those heavy chas
tisements I have felt, and must for ever in this
life press me sorely. That I have not sunk under
the pressure, has been, I hope, in mercy, that I
might be better fitted for my eternal state, and form
the children of a loved husband, before I go hence.
With these thoughts I can be hugely content to live,
and the rather as the clouds seem to gather, and
threaten storms, though God only knows how I may
acquit myself, and what help I may be, or what
example I shall give to my young creatures: I
mean well towards them, if I know my heart."
These last paragraphs evidently relate to the
critical state of the country. It was such as might
well excite the anxiety of less thoughtful minds than
that of Lady Russell, as to the future fate of all
that was most dear to them.
In the month of August, Lord Cavendish was
sent to finish his education by travelling on the
Continent. His father was probably not sorry that

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 257
he should be out of the way of the difficult scenes
that were likely to ensue, while he was yet too
young to take an active part in them. He was first
sent to Brussels, and from thence into France and
Italy; and remained above two years abroad, re
turning to England at the end of the year 1690.
In the mean time, the happy issue of the mea
sures that had been taken, placed the Prince and
Princess of Orange on the throne of England. The
active and honourable part borne by the heads of
both the Russell and Cavendish families in these
events, was alone sufficient to have deeply interested
Lady Russell, independently of her own individual
feelings, which we find strongly marked in all her
letters.* She passed the remainder of this memorable year
at Woburn, except a visit of two days to London
in the beginning of October, where she mentions
having "left all in amaze, and all talking of the
same matter." — " I think I fear not for myself, but
I am afraid what risk my children may run ; and if
that were not, our weak faith would furnish us with
some other reason to justify our too great careful-
ness.f Immediately after the landing of the Prince of
Orange, she says to Dr. FitzwiUiam : " I have
rambled the more {in her letter) because one is in
prudence confined not to speak of matters one is
strangely bent to be talking of." When we remem
ber that two entire months elapsed between the land
ing of the Prince of Orange in this country, and the

* See PubUshed Letters, passim.
t PubUshed Letters, p, 174.

258 THE LIFE OF
final departure of James, we shall feel that during
the whole of that anxious period, it is difficult to
conceive a position more interesting, or circum
stances more embarrassing, than those in which the
persons actively concerned in this great scene were
placed, between the bad effects of an appearance
of indifference, and too great, or premature eager
ness, which might have ruined their game before
their opponent had thrown up his.* At last,
* The foUowing letter, written from London on the 29th
November, 1688, addressed to Lady Margaret Russell at
Woburn, although containing merely the reports and gossip
of the moment, may not be unentertaining to the reader : —
"November 22, 1688.
" I have taken a large size of paper, that I may have more
room to quarrel with Lady Margett for saying so unkind a
thing as that she obliges me with a short letter, it being a
civiUty I never was guilty of to your Ladyship ; but since you
have given me the example, will endeavour to practise it. I
hoped you had been so just as to believe that, next your com
pany, you could not more oblige me than with a letter ; and
the longer they were, the greater favour they were esteemed
by your humble servant. 1 have not had the happiness of
seeing your aunt Bristell, or hearing anything of her a great
while : the last I did was when she was in tears for her nephew
Frank's revolt, and that se many of her famUy should be rebels
to the Crown. I heard the great Lady » (said) she could not
go to bed last winter till she had heard one said lately that she
hated all the RusseUs. I fear all this together wiU break my
good friend's heart. I confess I never longed more to see her
than I do now, but I think she stirs Uttle abroad. Mr, Francis
RusseU's coach and six, and all his baggage, were taken going
to him. Soon after the Prince landed, the packet-boat was
taken going to Holland, but nothing of any great consequence,
as I heard of. Letters of his to the States and other Princes,
and one of Dr. Burnet's to his dear, and WUliam Harbord's
to his wife, with my dear and my duck, &c. &c,, and Mr.
* James IPs Queen, Mary of Modena.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 259
in the beginning of December, whUe the Prince of
Orange was yet at Salisbury, and Dr. Burnet in his
suite. Lady Russell, who had always maintained a
correspondence with the latter, sends him a special

Foster's to his lady to send him some beds, lodgings being
very Ul. They serve to make jests en, but little else, I think.
Mrs. Boyle has a daughter, I hear, but how true 1 cannot
teU you, that the match is going on again with Miss Arlington
and Lord Fanshaw. The Duke of Albemarle is dead. Lord
Dover is gone to Portsmouth, being Governor of that place in
the Duke of Berwick's room. Lord MUford and Duke of
Northumberland are made of the bed-chamber, in Lord
Churchill's and Duke of Grafton's places. They say Lord
Feversham was upon his knees two hours, and cried and
begged the King but to secure Lord Churchill ; but he would
believe nothing iU of him, Mr. Griifin is made a lord, and to
be called Lord GriflSn for his fidelity. They say the Queen is
told Lady Cornbury lines » aU her gowns with orange colour,
and wears nothing but orange ribbons. They say our young
Prince is to be brought back again next week from Ports
mouth, and put into the Bishop of Canterbury's hands to be
brought up : you may beUeve it, if you please. The great
guns came by us yesterday, into town again ; but the ammu
nition, I think, is lost. The King goes to Windsor to-morrow,
and there, it is said, will encamp all his army that is left ; but
the good Queen stays to govern us here. The lords and
bishops that were sumtnoned on Tuesday, pressed very hard
for a free Parliament : the King took till next morning to con
sider of it, and then agreed to it ; and Lord Chancellor gave
order for the writs to be ready to-day, that no time may be
lost ; so it is to be called with aU speed, and commissioners,
they say, are te be sent to the Prince, to know what he de
mands. The town names Lord Halifax, Lord Nottingham,
Lord Carberry, for the commissioners ; the two first were sent
fer yesterday, and were a great while with the King alone.
' The Lady Catherine Obrian, daughter of the Earl of
Thomond, married te Edward Lord Cornbury, son of the
second Earl of Clarendon. Lord Cornbury joined the Prince
of Orange with his regiment at Salisbury,

260 THE LIFE OF
messenger from Woburn. She had written to him
on some previous occasions, and now teUs him, " I
have, I may say, created this, since the bearer of
it has no other errand than to carry this paper, and
Lord Lumley, they say, has secured Newcastle, and some other
Lords, HuU ; Lord Bath has taken Lord Huntington prisoner
at Plymouth : his lady desired he might be exchanged for
Lord Lovelace, who the Papists say is released. Lord Devon
shire, they say, when the Prince's declaration was read, and
that part of being invited in by the Lords temporal and spiritual,
declared he was one, and Lord Delamere did the same, and it
is said they declared for the King, the Protestant religion, and
a free ParUament, Skelton is made Governor of the Tower,
which it is said the city is less satisfied with than with Hales.
We have no news of the Princess, but hope she is safe. It is
said there was an order out that morning to hape secured her.
The Prince (George of Denmark) made his escape with the
Duke of Ormond, much after the same manner : supped with
the King on Saturday night, and went to bed, but soon rose
again, and it is said made it his business at supper to condemn
those that were gone, and how little such people were to be
trusted ; and sure the Prince could put no confidence in such,
&c. Lady Littleton talks of coming after Christmas, if things
are settled here.
" I have not kept my promise at the beginning, se hard it is
for me to break an old custom ; but to punish you a little, at
present, is no grief to me being not at this time Lady Marga
ret's humble servant. Lord Dumbarton seized Colonel Kirke
at the head of 3,000 or 4,000 men, going, as was suspected, to
the Prince of Orange ; and he is brought to London, and to be
tried, as it is said, by a council of war. Lord Halifax, they
say, made the most tender and obliging speech at council that
was ever heard, but they do not give that character of Lord
Clarendon's, but the contrary. Duke of Berwick has Lord
ChurchUl's troop of guards, or the Duke of Grafton's, I know
not which ; and Lord Arran has his regiment of horse, and his
brother his regiment. Colonel Kirke has been before the coun
cil this day, and the King has taken his word, and he is only
confined to his chamber. Lord ChurchUl and Prince George
have written the most submissive letters to the King that can

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 261
return charged, I hope, with such good reports as
every good soul wishes for. Curiosity may be too
eager, and therefore not to be justified; but sure it
is unavoidable. I do not ask you should satisfy any
part of it, farther than you can in six lines. But I
would see something of your hand-writing upon
English ground, and not read in print only the
labour of your brains.*
Burnet, it is known, wrote the declaration pub
lished at Exeter, explanatory of the intentions of
the association which had invited over the Prince of
Orange. His answer to Lady RusseU's letter was,
probably out of prudence, immediately destroyed,
as no trace remains of any of his letters to her at
this immediate juncture.
She tells Dr. FitzwiUiam, on the 8th of December,
while still remaining in the country, " I confess one
would be very glad to spend some hours in free
discourse with a friend there is no need to disguise
any thought before. When it is denied, one must
be content as one can. I think havina: staid so Ions:
in the country, in the hurly-burly, we shall try it a
little longer."t
She, however, removed to town with the Earl of

be, and it is said there is one from the Prince of Orange too,
but that it is not known what is iii it. Sir George Hewet is
gone ten days ago, and Mr, Heningame.
"Thursday night.
" For the Right Honourable the Lady Margarett Russell,
at Wooburn Abhy, Bedfordshire.
Wooborne Bagg." Dev. MSS.
* Published Letters, p. 188.
t Idem, p, 187.

262 THE LIFE OF
Bedford, in time to witness the departure of the
King, and the peaceable settlement by Parliament
of the new Government ; which she speaks of with
the amazement it must necessarily have occasioned
in all contemporaries : — " Those who have lived
longest, and therefore seen the most change, can
scarce believe it is more than a dream ; yet it is
real, and so amazing a reality of mercy, , as ought to
melt our hearts into subjection and resignation to
Him, who is the dispenser of all Providences."*
The young Lady Cavendish was present with
her mother-in-law, the Countess of Devonshire, at
the proclamation of William and Mary, and accom
panied her to their first drawing-room in the evening
of the same day.f The following account which
she gives of it, in a letter to some young friend
in the country,! is interesting from the memorable
event and persons of which she speaks, as an eye
witness. "Februar}', 1689.
" It is a great affliction to me to be so far from
my dear beloved SiliAa, and to hear from her so
seldom. How happy shall I be when I see you
next ; how many things I have to tell you : for I
dare not trust affairs of so great concern in a letter.
But when wUl that time come ? I do not hear you
speak of removing yet, to my grief. Pray leave
your ugly prison as soon as you can, and come to
your Dorinda.^ But now to my news ; the House
» Published Letters, p, 191,
f The 13th of February, 1689, the day after the Princess
arrived in London from Holland.
X Probably her cousin, Mrs. (Miss) Jane AUington.
II These names, given to herself and to her correspondent,

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 263
of Lords did vote that the Prince and Princess
should be made King and Queen, and it was carried
by a good many voices, for Lord Nottingham and
many more came off. Lord Nottingham had a great
mind to come off before, but could not tell which
way ; then the Commons agreed also that the Prince
and Princess should be King and Queen, but the
Prince should have the sole administration of affairs
in his hands ; that the Princess should be no subject
neither, as Queen Katherine and Queen Mary were,
but a sovereign Queen, and her name put in every
thing ; but still he the management of affairs. This
they agreed upon, and so did the Lords ; then they
went to the grievances, (that is) the too great power
of the Crown. After they had agreed upon what
power to give the King, and what to take away
from him, (the particulars of which I cannot tell
you,) my Lord Halifax, who is chairman, went to
the Banquetting House, where the Princess and
Prince were, and made them a short speech, desiring
them in the name of all the Lords to accept of the
Crown. The Prince answered him in a few words,
and the Princess made curtsies. They say, when
they named her father's faults, she looked down as
if she was troubled ; then Mr. Powle, the Speaker
of the House of Commons, showed the Prince what
they had agreed of, but made no speech. After this
ceremony was ended, they proclaimed them Kino-
and afterwards to the King and Queen, were taken from some
of the fashionable romances of the day, perhaps Clelia ; as in a
letter addressed to Lady Cavendish, just before her marriage,
the writer says : — " There wiU be uo talking te your sister,
when she has read Clelia ; fer the wise folks say, it is the most
improving book can be read." Dev. MSS.

264 THE LIFE OF
and Queen of England. Many of the Churchmen
would not have had it done that da)', because it was
Ash- Wednesday. I was at the sight, and, yflu may
imagine, very much pleased to see Ormanzor and
Phenixana proclaimed King and Queen of England,
in the room of King James, my father's murderer.
There was wonderful acclamations of joy, which,
though they were pleasing to me, yet they frightened
me too ; for I could not but think what a dreadful
thing it is to fall into the hands of the rabble — they
are such a strange sort of people. At night I went
to Court with my Lady Devonshire, and kissed the
Queen's hand, and the King's also. There was a
world of bonfires and candles in almost every house,
which looked extremely pretty. The King applies
himself mightily to business, and is wonderfuUy
admired for his great wisdom and prudence in
ordering all things. He is a man of no presence,
but looks very homely at first sight; but if one
looks long on him, he has something in his face
both wise and good. But as for the Queen, she is
really altogether very handsome; her face is very
ao-reeable, and her shape and motions extremely
graceful and fine. She is tall, but not so tall as the
last Queen. Her room was mighty full of company,
as you may guess."*
One of the first acts of the Government of William
and Mary, after its peaceable establishment, was
the reversal of Lord Russell's attainder.
His execution was already denominated a "mur
der" by a vote of the House of Commons ; and a
» MSS.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 265
committee was appointed to inquire who were " its
advisers and promoters," as well as of that of all the
other persons who had suffered for the Rye-House
Plot. The publicity and length of their proceedings,
and the examination of a multitude of witnesses,
raked up every circumstance, and freshened every
recollection which Lady Russell was in vain struggling
to subdue. Thus while her feeUngs must have been
highly gratified by the result of this inquiry, they
were severely shaken by the measures which neces
sarily preceded it. Her sister. Lady Montagu, tells
her, she is very sorry to find that her " thoughts
have been so disturbed with what I thought ought
to have some contrary effect.''*
Had Lady RusseU's mind been of an ordinary
stamp, she would certainly at this time have found
more to elate, than to depress it. Honours were
showered on the two famUies to which she was the
most nearly allied, and in whose prosperity she was
the most warmly interested ;t and the respect and
consideration acquired by her own individual con
duct was such as no worldly distinctions could
confer. To her enlightened mind, to her candid
estimation of motives, and allowances for different
modes of faith, her friend Dr. FitzwiUiam, refers his
conscientious resignation of preferment under the
new Government; and Tillotson applies for her

* Published Letters, p. 251,
t The Earl of Bedford was made one of the Privy Council
and Lord Lieutenant of the counties of Bedford, Cambridge,
and Middlesex, The Earl of Devonshire was made a Knight
of the Garter, Lord Steward of the King's household, and acted
as High Steward of England at the ensuing coronation of
WiUiam and Mary.
VOL. II. N

266 THE LIFE OF
sanction to his acceptance of the dignity offered him
by King William. Such indeed was the deference
paid to her opinion, and the importance attached to
her good will, that even the confident mind of the
Duchess of Marlborough thought it necessary to
assure herself of Lady Russell's approbation, in the
critical juncture of advising the Princess Anne to
acquiesce in the settlement of the Crown on the
Prince of Orange.* From Lady Russell we find no
intimation of this flattering reference; but the Du
chess of Marlborough herself records, that she could
not satisfy her own mind till she " had consulted
with several persons of undisputed wisdom and
integrity, and particularly with the Lady Russell
of Southampton House, and with Dr. TUlotson,
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury."! Both
before and after Tillotson's exaltation to this dig
nity, we find him giving a detailed account to
Lady Russell of the intended preferments in the
Church, and assuring her of the respect which the
King was disposed to pay both to her wishes and
to those of Lord Bedford in his nominations to pre
ferment in London.
To her friend Dr. FitzwiUiam she writes : " I am
very sorry the case stands with you as it does,
in reference to the oath; and stiU wonder, unless
I dould find Kings of divine right, why it does!
* It was this circumstance that suggested to the Uvely and
enthusiastic mind of Madame de Stael, the behef that Lady
RusseU was afterwards consulted by the ministers of King
WiUiam, and by Queen Anne herself, on poUtical measures.
See Considerations sur la Revolution Frangoise, vol. III. p. 290.
t See account ofthe conduct of the Duchess of Marlborough,
il. 23.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 267
And all this in the acceptation of a word which
I never heard two declare the meaning of, but
they differed in the sense of it." After thus stating
her rational opinion of the oaths he could not re
solve to take, she most kindly assures him of her
assistance and the continuance of her friendship
wherever his conscientious sense of duty may lead
him ; and finally tells him : — " Whilst, in the mean
time, I see those whose sincerity and ability I have
equal value for, point blank contrary one to another ;
yet both will be, I doubt not, accepted at the great
day of trial. I will take leave. Sir, to wish you con
verted."* With such sentiments, we shall not wonder that,
having now in her hands, in more than one instance,
the dangerous power of retaliation, and of reproach
to those whom she felt had neglected, or been deaf
to her supplications in the day of her distress, her
manner of exerting this power proves how well she
had profited by "the uses of adversity."
Lady Sunderland, the wife of him whose time
serving politics ended necessarily in his own dis
grace, — of him who had been a principal minister
and adviser of Charles II, at the time of Lord
Russell's execution, now applied to his yet sorrow
ing widow for her intercession and good offices with
the reigning powers.f

* PubUshed Letters, p. 259. Dr. FitzwiUiam died, unmar
ried, seen after the date of this letter, which was in June
1696. t Ann Digby, wife of Robert Earl of Sunderland, was the
daughter of George, the last Earl of Bristol of that family.
The character of this lady is thus given by the Princess Anne
of Denmark to her sister the Princess of Orange, a few months
N 2

268 THE LIFE OF
Lady Sunderiand's letters to Lady RusseU (which
it would seem were frequent) are not extant ; but
the foUowing expressions in her answer to one of
them ought to have forcibly struck Lady Sunderland
from the pen of Lady Russell : — " So unhappy a
solicitor as I was once for my poor self and family,
my heart misgives me when I aim at any thing of
that kind any more." The rest of the letter proves,
in the least offensive manner, that she was perfectiy
aware of the flattering and insincere character of the
correspondent.* The following letter from Lord Halifax, in answer
before the Revolution. " His Lady, too, (i. e. Lady Sunder
land) is as extraordinary in her kind ; for she is a flattering,
dissembling, false woman ; but she has se fawning and en
dearing a way, that she will deceive any body at first, and
it is not possible to find out all her ways in a little time.
Then she has had her gallants, though may be not so many
as seme ladies here, and with all these good qualities, she is
a constant church-woman ; so that to outward appearance,
one would take her for a saint, and to hear her talk, you
would think she was a very good Protestant; but she is as
much one as the other : fer it is certain that her Lord does
nothing without her." — March 13, 1688.
" She goes to St. Martin's morning and afternoon, (because
there are not people enough to see her in WhitehaU chapel),
and is half an hour before other people come, and half an hour
after every body is gene, at her private devotions. She runs
from church to church after the most famous preachers, and
keeps such a clatter with her devotions, that it really turns
one's stomach. Sure never was a couple so well matched as
she and her good husband ; for as she is throughout in all her
actions the greatest jade that ever was, so he is the subtiUest,
werkingnest viUain that is on the face of the earth." March
20, 1688. — See Dalrymple's Memoirs, voL ii. p. 298, et
passim, — See likewise frequent and more honourable mention
made of this lady in Evelyn's Diary, vol, I,
* Published Letters, p. 252.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 269
to one of condolence which Lady Russell had ad
dressed to him on his losing two sons within the
short space of a twelvemonth, expresses an entire
confidence in her heart and understanding, as well
as much devotion to her interests. It is written
while under those feelings of dissatisfaction, to which
his unpopularity with the triumphant Whigs had
given rise, and which ended, soon after, in his resig
nation of the Privy Seal.
" Madam,
" I must own that my reason is not strong enough
to bear with indifference the losses that have lately
happened in my family ; but, at the same time, I
must acknowledge I am not a little supported by the
continuance of your Ladyship's favour to me, in the
obliging remembrance I have received from you, and
in your condoling the affliction of the man in the
world that is most devoted to you. I am impatient
till I have the honour of an hour's conversation with
your Ladyship, to ease my mind of the just com
plaints I have, that such returns are made to the
zeal I have endeavoured to express, in my small
capacity, for the good of England. I cannot but
think it the fantastical influence of my ill stars, very
peculiar to myself, all circumstances considered; but
whilst I am under the protection of your Ladyship's
better opinion, the malice or mistakes of others
can never have the force so much as to discompose,
Madam,
Your Ladyship's most obedient servant,
« Halifax."
London, July 23, 1689,* * Dev. MSS.

270 THE LIFE OF
Lady Russell's answer to this letter ia among
those already published. It is r'emarkable for its
good sense, its earnest recommendation of the con
solations of reUgion, (to which Lord Halifax was
supposed too much a stranger,) and for the manner
in which it touches on her own misfortunes, and the
ineffeptual exertions of Lord Halifax to assist her
on that occasion.* The high opinion which the new
sovereigns were known to entertain of Lady Russell,
* The letter is as foUows, PubUshed Letters, p. 224.
" My Lord,
" For my part, I think the man a very indifferent reasoner,
that, to do well, he must take with indifference whatever
happens to him. It is very fine to say, ' Why should we com
plain that is taken back, which was but lent us, and lent us
but for a time, we know;' and so on. They are the receipts of
philosophers I have no reverence for, as I have not for anything
unnatural. It is insincere, and I dare say they did dissemble,
and felt what they would not own. I know I cannot dispute
with Almighty Power ; but yet, if my deUght is gone, I must
needs be sorry it is taken away, according to the measure it
made me glad. The Christian religion alone, believe me, my
Lord, has a power to make the spirit easy under great calamity.
Nothing less than the hope of being again made happy, can
satisfy the mind. 1 am sure I owe it more, than I could have
done to the world, if all the glories of it had been offered me,
or to be disposed of by me. And I do sincerely desire your
Lordship may experience the truth of my opinion. You know
better than most, from the share you have had of the one, what
they do afford, and I hope you will prove what expressions of
esteem for me, and willingness, as I hope, io have had me less
miserable than I am; if you had found your power equal to your
will engages me to make it, and that alone would have bound
me, though my own unworthiness and ill-fortune had let you
have forgot me for ever after my sad lot. But since you
would not de so, it must deserve a particular acknowledgement
for ever, from " Your Lordship's, &c,"
"July, 1689.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 27 I
and the favour she was supposed to possess, pro
duced many applications for her patronage and in
terest. Of this interest she seems to have made
the temperate and rational use which might have
been expected from a delicate mind, united to a
friendly disposition. Addressing Queen Mary, in
favour of Lord Carberry's family, she says : — " It
is a sensible trouble to me when I do importune
your Majesty, yet I do sometimes submit, because
I would not be quite useless to such as hope for
some benefit by my means, and I desire to do what
good I can."
The favours she asked were few; but for the
friends whose interests she espoused, she exerted
herself with all the earnestness and perseverance
she could have practised for herself. In the letters
already published, we find that the Lord ChanceUor
Cooper owed his having been first appointed a
King's counsel at the early age of twenty-four, to
her immediate application to King William in his
behalf; and that the difficulties this appointment
afterwards experienced from the Attorney-General,
and the Commissioners of the Great Seal, were
successfully removed by Lady RusseU's repeated
statements to Lord Halifax, and the Attorney- Gene
ral PoUexfen, on the subject; to the latter of whom
she says, with the conscious feeling of one seldom
a supplicant, and to whom all motives of self-in
terest were unknown: — "I undertake few things,
and therefore do very little good to people; but I
do not like to be baulked when I thought my end
compassed." The high character and future success
of Mr. Cooper in his profession, prove that she
did not lightly adopt the interests of those whom
she determined not to abandon.

272 THE LIFE OF
Lady Russell's health she acknowledges with
gratitude, had not sunk under her mental sufferino's,
but that, on the contrary, she had enjoyed a free
dom from bodily pain, " to a degree I almost never
knew ; not so much as a strong fit of headache have
I felt since that miserable time, who used to be
tormented with it very frequently."* But she now
began to perceive the approaches of infirmity, and
to feel it particularly, in the alarming form of a
rapidly increasing weakness of sight. She com
plains of the badness of her eyes in the year 1689;
but seems not to have been aware of any local
disease in them, till about two years afterwards,
when her increased bUndness obliges her to take
advice, to abstain from writing by candlelight, and
shortly after from reading.
It has been said that Lady RusseU wept herself
blind; this is not a true statement, of her case;
for although she tells us herself, " My eyes are ever
ready to pour out the marks of a sorrowftil heart,
which I must even carry to my grave," the com
plaint in her sight proved to be a cataract on her
left eye, a disease which is known to have no con
nexion with the lachrymal ducts.
In the year 1690, she had a new cause for tears,
in the death of her last remaining sister. Lady Mon
tagu, and of her nephew, Lord Gainsborough,
within a few weeks of each other. Of the one she
says : " After forty years' acquaintance with so
amiable a creature, one must needs, in reflecting,
bring to remembrance so many engaging endear
ments as are yet, at present, embittering and pain
ful." Of the other, that "he was the only son
* PubUshed Letters, p. 63.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 273
of a sister and friend I loved with too much pas
sion." And she owns to Dr. FitzwUliam that he
conjectures truly as to the state of her mind :
" Every new stroke to a weary and battered car
case, makes me struggle the harder ; and though I
lost, with my best friend, all the delights of living,
yet I find I did not a quick sense of new grief.*"
The return of Lord Cavendish from abroad, in
the autumn of this year, separated her from her
eldest daughter. During his absence. Lady Caven
dish had continued living with her mother and
sisters ; she was now established with her husband
in the house of his father.
Lady RusseU's attention to every minute parti
cular relative to her children, is marked by a letter
which she addresses at this time to Lady Derby,
the Mistress of the Robes to Queen Mary, recom
mending to her protection, and to her advice, the
young Lady Cavendish, now frequenting Court by
the particular desire (as it would seem) of the
Queen, and separated, for the first time, from " too
fond a mother."t
In the foUowing year (1692) we find Lady Rus
seU's younger daughter, Katherine, expressing her
self with great anxiety to her sister. Lady Caven
dish, about their mother's increasing blindness :
" Indeed it is very sad to think how much she has
lost her eye-sight in as little a time as three weeks
or a month. She uses nothing to them, which
makes me more impatient to hear from the doctor ;
though I do extremely fear he can do her no good,
• Published Letters, p, 205.
t Idem, p. 295.
N 3

274 THE LIFE OF
as she does think herself."* Soon after, she herself
tells Dr. FitzwiUiam that she is " resolved to be
strict in observing the directions I am under for my
bad eyes, which I am not sensible I hurt by what I
can do, which is writing. As for reading I am past
that contentment, especially print. Your hand is
plain, and so well known to me, I make a shift to
see it."
Her bodUy iUs, and the cruel prospect of bUnd
ness, she seems to have supported with the same
patient magnanimity, and to have allowed them to
interfere almost as little with her duties as she had
done the sufferings of her mind. " WhUe I can see
at all, I must do a Uttie more than I can when God
sees it best that outward darkness shall fall upon
me, which will deprive me of all society at a dis-
tance,t which I esteem exceedingly profitable and
pleasant." She was now occupied in settling the marriage
of her younger daughter with Lord Roos, the eldest
son of the Earl of Rutland. This, although she
herself caUs it, " the best match in England," from
her ignorance of the young man's character, and
from some peculiar circumstances relative to his
birth and rights of inheritance, she had paused in
•iccepting. John, Lord Roos, his father, afterwards
Earl and Duke of Rutland, had been divorced by
act of parliament, in 1670, from his first wife ;J
and two sons by that marriage were disabled by
the same act of parliament from succeeding to his
» Dev, MSS,
t She means corresponding ^vith absent friends,
X The Lady Anne Pierpont, daughter of Henry, Marquis of
toorchester.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 275
honours and estates, himself having permission to
marry again.
This Divorce Bill had caused great debates in Par
liament, and had become, at the time, almost a party
question. It had been forwarded by all the Protes
tant interest, and the opposers of the Duke of York,
as an encouragement and example for the King to
attempt a divorce from Catherine of Portugal.*
Under these circumstances, Lady Russell tells Dr.
FitzwiUiam : — " I do own, when it was first pro
posed, I was, as it were, surprised ; but when I came
to consider seriously, and discourse with friends, and
also with such others as I could then get to talk
with, and found reason to conclude that a reverse of
Parliament was all the scruple I need have, I was
content to hear more of it, and not refuse the best
match in England for an imaginary religious scruple.
" But if a divorce is lawful, as agreeing with the
word of God, I take a marriage after it certainly to
be so. And as for the estate, as we enjoy that by
man's law, and that man can alter, and so may alter

* " When there was a project in 1669 for getting a divorce
for the King, to facilitate it there was brought into the House
of Lords a bUl for dissolving the marriage of Lord Resse
(Roos), on account of adultery, and to give him leave to marry
again. This bill, after great debates, passed by the plurality of
only two votes, and that by the great industry of the Lord's
friends, as weU as the Duke's enemies, who carried it on chiefly
in hopes it might be a precedent and inducement fer the King
to enter the more easily into their late proposals ; nor were
they a little encouraged therein, when they saw the King coun
tenance and drive on the biU in Lord Rosse's favour. Of
eighteen bishops that were in the House, only two voted for
the bUl, of which one voted through age, and one was reputed
a Socinian." — See Evelyn's Diary, vol. il. p, 361.

276 THE LIFE OF
again, which is a risk I am willing to run, if there
should be enough left."*
Having been confirmed in these sentiments, and
having allowed time for both herself and her daugh
ter to become acquainted with their future son-in-
law and husband, the marriage took place in the
summer of the following year. We have, in the
volume of Letters already published, an entertaining
account of all the honours which accompanied the
journey of Lord and Lady Roos, and the ceremonies
of their arrival at Belvoir ; ceremonies, perhaps,
" more honoured in the breach than in the obser
vance," which then took place at weddings, even in
the highest life.f
Lady Russell had excused herself going to Belvoir
with all the rest of the wedding company, but fol
lowed them thither, before, as she says, she had
acquitted herself of all her formal congratulations ;
" for if I do more than a very little at a time, I find
my eyes ache, and that I am sure is naught ; and a
very little sight is too precious a good to be neg'
lected." From Belvoir she writes: — "Heretofore, what
ever engagements I had a-days, the nights were free
to me ; but my ill eyes can now not serve me at all
when once a candle is lighted, so that since Lord
Rutland came hither I have been mistress of no
time ; if I had, I should not have Uved in a con
tinual noise and hurry as I have done."t

* Published Letters, p. 305.
t See a letter of Sir James Forbes to Lady RusseU. Pub
lished Letters, p, 312,
X Published Letters, p, 316.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 277
Still, however, with her usual pious gratitude to
Heaven, she rejoices in the goodness of God, who,
when she feared the utter loss of sight, had let her
" thus long see the light, and given her time to
prepare for the bodily darkness that must overtake
her." Happily the operation of couching for a cataract
was already known, and practised in England. It
was successfully performed on Lady Russell's eye in
the following June. Her handwriting after this
period testifies how much her sight and power of
employing it were improved. It was a considerable
time, however, before she ventured to write much
with her own hand. In a letter of the 13th August,
1695, in the first part of which she had made use of
an amanuensis, she says, " I venture to write thus
much with my first eye ; my new one does not
yet alter much, though I think I do feel better
than at first ; but there is something still before it."*
The same year in which Lady RusseU obtained this
relief from the dreadful infirmity with which she was
menaced, the Houses of Russell and Cavendish re
ceived an accession of honours which few famUies
have acquired by more essential services to their
country. The Earls of Bedford and Devonshire
were, in April, advanced to the dignity of Dukes.
The reasons assigned, in the preambles of their
patents, for conferring these titles, honour at once
the sovereign and the subjects.f
In that of the Duke of Bedford, particular mention
* Bedford MSS.
f The preamble to the Duke of Devonshire's patent wag
penned by Lord Somers,

278 THE LIFE OF
is made of his son Lord Russell. The King, in be
stowing the highest dignity in his gift, declares, "We
think it not sufficient that his {Lcrrd Russell's) con
duct and virtues should be transmitted to aU future
generations upon the credit of public annals, but will
have them inserted in these our royal letters patent,
as a monument consecrated to the most accomplished
and consummate virtue in the said family, &c. &c.
Now, then, to comfort one of the best of fathers for
so unspeakable a loss, to solemnise the memory of
that most exceUent son, and to excite the emulation
of a worthy grandchild, born to so great hopes ; that
he may with more vigour tread in the steps of his
truly great father, we do give our command for these
marks of honour," &c. &c.
Although Lady Russell had professed, on a pre
vious occasion of distinction to the Russell family,
" I would have assisted to my power for the pro
curing thereof, but for any sensible joy at these out
ward things I feel none :" stUl this honourable me
morial of aU she had lost in a husband, and aU she
hoped for in a son, could not be viewed by her with
indifference. The lenient influence of eleven years had now
soothed the acuteness of her sorrows. She had seen
the Government which had oppressed her, pro
scribed—the power which she had found implacable,
fallen in the dust:— the Religion whose political
predominance she dreaded, in circumstances to re
quire that toleration which it was believed unwiUing
to aUow : — the man whose vindictive spirit had in
flicted the great misfortune of her life, himself an
exile, after having ineffectually implored assistance

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 279
from the father of him whom he had persecuted,*
She had seen the triumph of those principles for
which her beloved Lord bad suffered, the immense
effects produced by a steady adherence to them, and
his name now for ever coupled with the honour and
the freedom of his country.
The sober age of Lady Russell forbad her feeUng
these circumstances as she would have done in earlier
life, when the partner of all her joys and sorrows
might have shared them with her.
We must have supposed her, too, often recurring,
even now, with anguish to the idea of his life having
been sacrificed so near tbe overthrow of that power
which he had so honourably combated, and often
indulging in (what she herself called) " unprofitable
thoughts," as to the distinguished part that be might
have acted in the great Revolution which so soon
followed his death, and in which he might have been
a leader, instead of a martyr, to the liberty he loved.
In private life, too, she had had repeated oc
casions to experience the interest her conduct and
character had inspired in all who approached her.
Neither the humility of her truly Christian mind,
nor the unfading sense she still entertained of her
irreparable loss, could prevent her receiving rational
consolation from the consciousness of having de
served, as well as obtained, such sentiments. Her
heart was neither enfeebled by age nor deadened

* The application said to have been made by James to the
Earl of Bedford, after the landing of the Prince of Orange,
for his assistance and interest in the country, and the affecting
reply of the old Earl, recaUing the loss of his son, are well
Icnown.

280 THE LIFE OF
by suffering. At a much more advanced perio(
of life, we see in a letter to her cousin Lore
Galway, how much alive she even then was, al
the age of seventy-six, to the opinions, the feelings
the affection of her friends, to honest praise, anc
to the luxury of loving and being beloved.*
She had now the satisfaction of having married
both her daughters into the most distinguished
families of their country; and she found her alli
ance so eageriy sought, that before her son was
thirteen years old, she received (according to the
custom of those days) a proposal from Sir Josiah
ChUd, for marrying him to Sir Josiah 's grand
daughter, the Lady Henrietta Somerset, daughter
of Charies, Marquis of Worcester.! The proposal
was made in a letter to Mr. Howe, (the dissenting
clergyman already mentioned), to be communicated
to Lady Russell. By a second letter to the -same
person, we see that Lady Russell had by no means
received the proposal as Sir Josiah thought it me
rited. He teUs Mr. Howe,— " I received your
favour of the 22nd inst., and your letter of the

* See PubUshed Letters, p. 383.
t The Marquess of Worcester had married Rebecca ChUd,
daughter and heiress of Sir Josiah — of whom Burnet gives
the foUowing character :—" This summer Sir Josiah ChUd
died ; he was a man of great notions as to merchandise, which
was his education, and in which he succeeded beyond any man
of his time. He appUed himself chiefly to the East-India
trade, which by his management was raised so high, that it
drew much envy and jealousy both upon himself and upon
the country : he had a compass of knowledge and apprehen
sion beyond any merchant I ever knew : he was vain and
covetous, and thought too cunning, though to me he seemed
always sincere." — Burnet's Hist. vol. iv, p. 328.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 281
28th : and the answer intimated in your first was
so cold, that I concluded the noble Lady either
understood not the considerableness of the pro
posal, or had predetermined the disposal of her
son some other way, and did expect to hear no
more of it : the rather I thought so, from that
expression in your letter, that the young Lord was
in the course of his education, which I never knew
to be a bar to parents discoursing of the matching
of their children, which are born to extraordinary
great fortunes; and that being the case of the
noble young Lord, as well as of my grand
daughter, made me the forwarder without her mo-
therms privacy to write that letter to you, that so
great a fortune as God's providence has cast upon
her, might fall into the best and most pious noble
family I know, for such I esteem my Lord Bed
ford's to be.'*
Either this great fortune did not tempt Lady
RusseU, or she thought her son as yet too young
to enter into such distant engagements for him ;
or she had already in view the marriage which two
years afterwards he contracted with Miss Howland,
the only daughter and heiress of John Howland,
Esq., of Streatham in Surrey, by another daughter
of Sir Josiah Child.f
As soon as she had fixed on the future com
panion of her son, she entered with all the good

• Dev. MSS.
-|- The ceremony of marriage took place in May, 1 695 ; and
in compliment to the large succession to which Miss Howland
was entitled. Lord Tavistock was immediately afterwards
created Baron Howland of Streatham.

282 THE LIFE OF
sense and attention that belonged to her character
into the details of the young lady's education, and
maintained an intimate and frequent correspondence
with her mother, Mrs. Howland.
In the following letter, written about a twelve
month after the marriage. Lady Russell appears
as rationally anxious for the health, improvement,
and accomplishments of her daughter-in-law, as
she could have been for that of her own children.
She tells Mrs. Howland, — "I am too much con
cerned at Lady Tavistock's complaints, (though
ever so small), to pass in sUence the first oppor
tunity after your report, to know how she is;
though M'hat I said yesterday was confused from
haste, the waggon having gone by ; yet I believe I
cannot alter the substance of it.
" It is possible the air and some change in the
method of living may contribute to this little dis
order; but if it has, it is not to be repented; for it is
what must happen at one time or other, and the
younger the better it is to be accustomed to a
variety of living, that in all likelihood must happen,
and I hope agree with her. However, I guess you
are eager to try Streatham air, and regular way
there, which makes you set your time to remove
so soon. If my house has been to your satisfaction,*
I am sure it is to mine that you have used it
to yours and your daughter's, who, Lady Margaret
tells me, has most apparently profited by Mr. Huck,
which I really rejoice much at; though I confess
• Lady RusseU writes from Stratton : Mrs. Howland and
her daughter had occupied Southampton House during their
residence in London.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 283
fashion, and those other accomplishments that are
perhaps over-rated by the world, and that 1 esteem
but as dross, and as a shadow in comparison of
religion and virtue, yet the perfections of nature are
ornaments to the body, as grace is to the mind,
and I wish, and do more than that, for I pray con
stantly, she may be a perfect creature both in mind
and body ; that is, in the manner we can reach
perfection in this world.'"*
The marriage had not taken place many months,
and the young Lord Tavistock was still under the
tuition of a private tutor, preparing to be sent to
Oxford, when Lady Russell received a proposal of
another nature for him, which it must have required
her sound judgment, and the just estimation which
she seems on all occasions to have made of worldly
distinctions, to have rejected.
At the general election which took place in
October, 1695, it was proposed to her in the most
flattering manner, by order of the Duke of Shrews
bury, then Lord Steward, and the Lord Keeper
Somers, to bring her son into ParUament, as mem
ber for the county of Middlesex. This arrangement
was first communicated to her in the following letter
from Sir James Forbes.f

• Bedford MSS.
t In the volume of Published Letters, Sir James Forbes is
called, in a note to his letter addressed to Lady Russell, " The
gentleman by whom Lord Cavendish sent his offers of assist
ance to Lord Russell after his condemnation." He was one
of the persons afterwards examined in 1689, before the com
mittee of the House of Commons, for " the Inspection," &c. of
the trials of those who had suffered for the Rye-House Plit.
His examination proves, how much he was at that time in the

284 THE LIFE OF
" London, October 3d.
" I can safely retract. Madam, what I said in my
last letter, that our courtiers did not trouble them
selves with much business ; but now I find we are
all of a sudden grown extraordinary busy in making
interest every where to bring in good men to our
new Parliament, and this reason alone has moved
our Lords Justices* (I mean the two principal, my
Lord Keeper,tand the Duke of Shrewsbury) to send
for me, and to order me to write immediately to
your Ladyship, that you would be pleased to let
my Lord Tavistock stand for knight of th^ shire for
Middlesex ; and although I made all the objections
against it, that I think the Duke of Bedford or your
Ladyship can make, yet they were still of one
opinion, that it is your interest, and for the honour
ofthe family, that he should stand at present; and,
being joined with Sir John Worsename,J a very
honest man, who is recommended by my Lord
Keeper, they doubt not but they will carry it
with a high hand, and thereby keep out two noto
rious Tories, which can never be done otherwise.
When I told their Lordships that my Lord Tavis
tock was soon going to Cambridge, and afterwards
to travel for two or three years, the Duke of Shrews
bury answered, that they would not hinder anything
of that design ; for he needed not to appear but

intimacy of the Duke of Monmouth, and those with whom he
associated.— See HoweU's State Trials, vol. ix. p. 961.
* King William was now in Holland.
f Lord Somers.
X Sir John Wolstonholme, who was returned with Lord
Edward RusseU,

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL, 285
once at the election, when he would be attended
by several thousands of gentlemen, and other per
sons on horseback out of town, and the charges
would be but Uttie or nothing; and the Duke of
Shrewsbury bid me tell your Ladyship, that if
you did consent he should stand, which he doubted
not but you would, since it was on so good an
account, that then they must have leave to set
him up for that day only, by the name of Lord
RusseU, which would bring ten thousand more
on his side, if there be so many freeholders in
the county.
" I have now. Madam, delivered my message
from those two great Lords ; which they had a
great concern for, and seemed very earnest to have it
compUed with : therefore I think it would be
very impertinent in me to use any arguments of
my own, but must leave it to the consideration
of the Duke of Bedford, and your Lady's wise
judgment to determine. However, I beg your Lady
ship wiU be pleased to make as speedy an answer as
it is possible, because we expect the King here
by Sunday, or Monday next ; and immediately the
ParUament will be dissolved, and all hands will be
set on work for a new one, as I hear the expres,sion
in the King's letters to the Lords is.
" I suppose this post brings a great deal of joy to
Lady Margaret ; for the Spanish letters that are
come to-day, make mention that the Admiral* is
upon his way home, and Mr. Priestman tells me
that he will be here within these ten days ; and
* Admiral RusseU, afterwards created Earl of Oxford, to
whom Lady Margaret, his cousin, was married.

286 THE LIFE OF
Sir George Rook has orders from the King by this
last post from Flanders, to set sail for the Straits
immediately. I shall add no more but the assurance
of my being, " Madam,
"•Your Ladyship's most faithful
" and obedient Servant,
" j. Forbes."*
In this letter every circumstance is brought for
ward, that could tempt Lady Russell to concur
in the opinion of persons she so much respected, ex
pressed in so flattering a manner. The permission
requested to dispense for a day with the newly
acquired title of Marquis of Tavistock, and in pro
posing her son to represent his county, to call him
by the honoured name of Lord Russell, was probably
intended as much to secure his mother's consent, as
the young man's election. But Lady Russell's
sound sense and steady judgment immediately saw
in the premature entry of her son, yet a boy, into
public ' Ufe, the probable ruin both of his future
character and happiness. With a diffidence of her
own opinion, which is not one of the least admirable
features of her character, before she decidedly re
plied to Sir James Forbes's proposal, she addressed
the following letter from Woburn, where she then
was, to Lord Edward Russell, her brother-in-law, in
London : —
" Friday's post brought me the enclosed paper.
• Dev. MSS.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 287
Pray, my Lord, wiU you take the pains to read it ;
and then, if you do not know it will be impertinent
I entreat you to wait on the Duke of Shrewsbury,
to whose judgment I have so great a deference, that
if I could imagine he was as much in earnest, and is
so still, on the subject-matter of Sir James's letter,
as my good friend takes him to be, it would make me
doubtful of the weight of my own reason against it,
and I believe would have the same effect upon your
father, who at present knows nothing of Sir James's
letter, nor what I am now doing ; and if you remem
ber how averse he expressed himself, but a few days
ago, upon the reading of a letter I had received with
the same advice, you will guess that nothing less
than the authority of his Grace's constant opinion
can change Lord Bedford's, which is grounded on
the apprehensions that such an interruption as being
elected a parliament-man would make in his educa
tion, might undo him for the time to come, to all
intents and purposes; and really I am so much of
that mind as to fear the mischief would be past re
trieving. However, as I am very jealous to do every
thing I think best for my son, so I am too in my
submission to persons so much wiser than myself,
who wish well to us. I beg of you not to forget to
give me a line or two by the next post ; for, till then,
good Sir James is kept in suspense by
" Your affectionate and humble servant."
Before the receipt of this letter. Lord Edward had
already written to Lady Russell, confirming Sir
James Forbes's statement. He tells her, " I am
informed by persons ofthe best credit. Madam, that
if my Lord Tavistock wUl but appear on Wednesday

288 THE LIFE OF
at the sessions, all the gentlemen are so inclined to
choose him for the county, that there wiU be no sort
of danger or difficulty in it ; and it is believed that
nobody will pretend to stand against him."
The Duke of Bedford had also received a letter
from Mr. Charles Montagu,* strongly recommending
tbe same measure, as being highly honourable to the
Russell family, and useful to the Whig interest. To
all this importunity Lady Russell replies in the fol
lowing steady but considerate manner, throwing her
final refusal on the letter she was to receive from
Lord Edward, after he had spoken to the Duke of
Shrewsbury. " The errand of this paper is no more than to tell
my brother Ned I have received his letter, and that
Lord Bedford had also one from Mr. Montagu to
make the same motion that the Knight did ; but all
answers are deferred till we receive another from
vou. In the mean time I must express myself thus
far, that upon the whole matter, it is clear to me that
my Lord Shrewsbury had no original thought in this
business ; nor, I verUy believe, any further appro
bation than through compliment to his friends. I
beUeve it, because I do not see that there is reason
for more; therefore, it is my opinion now, and I
fancy wiU be so after your next letter, that my Lord
Duke [and myselff] should be positive, not to ven
ture being baffled in a business that, if he carries,
may be destruction to his grandson ; and sure, if
there were no other objection, it is very late for two
» Created, in 1700, Eari of Halifax. He was now a Lord
of the Treasury.
t A line is drawn through these two words in the MSS,

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 289
persons of uncertain interests to set up against two
that know theirs, and no doubt have been effectually
labouring in it."*
It is to be remarked that in those early days of
our renovated constitution, the objection of Lord
Tavistock's age was considered merely in relation to
himself, and as no obstacle to the success of his
election. Mr. Montagu, in his letter to the Duke of
Bedford, to obviate any scruple in the Duke's mind,
mentions that Lord Godolphin's son was to be
chosen in CornwaU, and Lord Leicester's in Kent,
who were neither of them older than Lord Tavistock ;
and Mr. Owen, in a letter to Lady Russell, tells her
the Duke of Albemarle's son had been allowed to sit
in Parliament under age.
In these more scrupulous times, when we are no
less attached to the letter than the spirit of our con
stitution, no one would venture to nominate a youth
of fifteen (whatever his birth or pretensions) for a
seat in Parliament ; and in a severely-contested elec
tion, no one would desire a better objection to his
opponent, than the power of proving him under age.
Having thus got rid of a proposal, upon which
Lady Russell so wisely decided. Lord Tavistock was
sent, in the January of the ensuing year, to the uni
versity of Oxford, where Lady Russell thought " our
nobiUty should pass some of their time. It has been
for many years neglected. I use that term, because
I think it a proper one."t
During his residence in coUege several letters are
still extant from the Bishop of Oxford to Lady Rus-
* Dev. MSS.
t PubUshed Letters, p. 309.
VOL. II.

290 THE LIFE OF
sell, giving her such an account of Lord Tavistock's
good behaviour, parts, and success, as prove more
certainly the good Bishop's disposition to flattery,*
than the young Lord's to learning ; and so it would
seem thought his right-headed mother : for in a letter
addressed to her by Mr. Hicks, her son's private
tutor, during the vacation of September, 1696, we
find how closely she had inquired, and how anxious
she was not to be deceived, as to the real progress
and disposition of her son ; warning his tutor of his
want of steadiness and application, Mr. Hicks teUs
her, — " I charged my dear Lord this morning with
great promises and small performances, and might
have quoted your Ladyship's longer knowledge of
him for undoubted authority; but his Lordship
stands to it that he will do great matters, and study
very hard at Woburn; and that otherwise he shall
not know how to spend his time there. But, upon
your Ladyship's suggestion, I shall be moderate in
my expectations, and look for nothing but a full
blush, and some soft words in excuse for non-per
formance of promise. Hitherto, Madam, I have had
no reason to complain of want of application ; but
when I shall have, (which I trust God wiU prevent),
your Ladyship wiU find that I can open my mouth as
wide, and as loud, as any body ; but I cannot accuse
falsely, or magnify molehiUs into mountains."t
During Lord Tavistock's stay at Oxford, his
mother had occasionaUy taken up her residence
there ; thus maintaining the footing of confidential
* As it was from " Hough's unsullied mitre" that these
accounts came, we must suppose he beUeved what he advanced.
t Dev. MSS.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 291
friendship and entire intimacy, on which she ever
continued with her son.
After remaining nearly a year at the university,
Lord Tavistock was, at the age of seventeen, sent
abroad to travel. His grandfather, now advanced in
years, felt much reluctance at the idea of parting
with him for so long a time as Lady RusseU was
wilUng to submit to herself, convinced, as she was,
that " to live well in the world, it is, for certain,
necessary to know the world well.''*
The following letter from the Duke of Bedford
shows that she had not only her own anxieties, but
his wishes, to combat, in keeping her son for two
years on the continent. Thus allowing him the
opportunity of seeing such a variety of manners, of
modes of society, and of government, — of national
peculiarities, virtues, and prejudices, as is especially
necessary to form the character of an accomplished
English gentleman. A character which superadds
to such a previous education, as, in other countries,
is rarely given even to those intended for learned
professions ; manners which belong to the really
well-bred of all countries, and an enlightened love
for his own, founded on a knowledge, not an igno
rance, of the rest of the world.
The letter from the Duke of Bedford is as
foUows : — "Woburn Abbey, October I6th, I697.
" Dear Daughter,
'* These are to let you know, that their bearer, Mr.

PubUshed Letters, p. 178. o 2

292 THE LIFE OF
Hicks, came on Wednesday hither, in expectation of
meeting master {Lord Tavistock) here ; and how well
pleased I was with his company and conversation:
looking upon him to be as deserving a person as you
could have made choice of, to go abroad with my
dear grand-child. In confidence not only of his
great kindness to him, but also of his utmost care and
diligence for his best improvement, I have laid strict
injunctions upon him, to follow his advice in all
things that concern his soul and body. My Lord
Rosse {Roos) and he came hither on Friday night,
after long expectation ; and I am glad to see him look
so very well of it. They intend to be with you on
Monday night, God willing.
" I must confess it is a very great trial for me to
part with one so dear to me as he is. But I hope
God Almighty will hear your hearty prayers and
mine, and those of his other friends, by watching
over him abroad, and with his good hand of Provi
dence, that you and all of his relations may have the
comfort of seeing him again. If God give me life
till his return it wiU add much to the joy of it,
though I dare not promise myself that mercy,
considering my declining age and infirmities.
" I do reckon you will send him to the Hague this
winter, for his improvement in his exercises ; and if
things be quiet in France, that he may go thither for
some time, to his farther improvement and satisfac
tion : after which, to return home to the comfort
of you and his friends. As for his travelling into
Italy, I am much against it, for several reasons.
I hope you wUl not let him stay very long abroad.
" So, with my constant and fervent prayers to
God Almighty for him and yourself, with your other

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 293
dear relations, I rest, (not without some sadness
at parting,)
" Your most affectionate Father and Friend, to my
last moment,
" Bedford."
Lord Tavistock left England soon after the date of
this letter, accompanied by Mr. Hicks. To him was
associated a* Mr. Fazio, whom, for some reason
not connected with any complaint of his pupil's.
Lady Russell recalled from Hamburgh, whither they
had gone after leaving the Hague. At the Hague,
Lord Tavistock had seen and was presented to
King William, who was then about to return to
England, after signing the peace of Ryswick.
At Hamburgh, Lord Tavistock was joined by Mr.
Sherard, a gentleman who had before accompanied
Lord Townsend on his travels. Mr. Hicks was (as
much as circumstances would permit) to pursue
with Lord Tavistock his classical studies, and to
watch over his religious sentiments and duties. The
number of defaulters from the purity of our Pro
testant faith produced by the time-serving politics of
the two last reigns, had appeared to arm the Roman
Catholic religion with seductions, which we have
some difficulty in comprehending in these altered
times. Mr. Sherard's business was with his pupil's
temporal affairs, and his conduct in the world, where
his mother was anxious he should appear with every
advantage that could arise to a young traveUer, both
from his own distinguished birth, and her foreign
connexions. He was provided, by the younger
Ruvigny (Lord Galway), with letters to all the

294 THE LIFE OF
principal diplomatic and miUtary characters in the
different Courts of Europe, and was every where
received with particular attentions.
His numerous letters to his mother, during an
absence of two years, give a very favourable opinion
of the young man's predilection for good company;
of his desire to inform himself, and to profit by
foreign society; and, above all, of his affection,
deference, and unlimited confidence in his mother.
It was not to be expected that so young a traveller
should preserve the letters addressed to himself, when
moving about from place to place ; which leaves us
to regret the loss of those of Lady Russell. If they
were as appropriate to the circumstances, and as
much to the purpose as the letter addressed to hira
at a later period on a religious life, and preserved in
the following collection, the loss is considerable.
It would seem that she had some suspicion,
before Lord Tavistock left England, that he had an
incUnation to play; for, in a letter of his from
the Hague, he teUs her : — " I beg your Ladyship
that you wiU not trouble yourself about my loving
play ; for I do assure your Ladyship* I think losing
much at play is so foolish a thing as makes one
be laughed at so much, that I am certain I shall
never be guilty of it." We shall see that his youth-
* No inference is to be drawn from the frequently repeated
title of Ladyship or Lordship, of the intimacy subsisting be
tween the persons who so used thera. By the fashion of the
time, they were not dispensed with in the intercourse of the
dearest and mo.st intimate relations of Ufe. The Editor has
seen letters of a later ^ate, between betrothed lovers, beginning
•' My dear Angel j" which angel is addressed by the title of
Your Ladyship, half a dozen times in the same letter.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 295
ful confidence on this subject was not justified
by his subsequent conduct while abroad.
After visiting Berlin, and some of the smaUer
German Courts, in the spring of 1698, he and his
two companions arrived at Rome in the following
summer. To Rome he had carried letters to Car
dinal Ottoboni (the nephew of the preceding Pope,
Alexander VIII), and to several other persons of
distinction, at the Papal Court of Innocent XII
(Pignatelli), who, from his enmity to Louis XIV was
supposed not to have been averse to the conduct of
those who had favoured the English Revolution.
The young man writes from Rome, to his cousin.
Admiral Russell, (then Earl of Orford,) that " Car
dinal Ottoboni is a mighty lover of the English
nation, and particularly an admirer of the King
(William.) A great reason why I am received so at
this place is, by having the honour of being related
to your Lordship, who is as well known here by the
name of Admiral Russell as in England."*
Admitted into the best foreign society at Rome,
Lord Tavistock talks, with much enjoyment, of the
amusements of which he partakes there, during the
summer of 1698 : — " The great pleasure now is, to
be in one of the open caleches, going about the town
in the moon-shiny nights. There are always some
fine serenades, and all the best company in town
taking the air, till an hour or two after midnight. I
seldom fail of this diversion ; and, indeed, it is
mighty pleasant, after the heat of the day, to be
abroad so, most part of the night, and to hear music.

Devonshire MSS.

296 THE LIFE OF
and to go talk to any body that one is acquainted
with, with all the freedom in the world."*
He continued so much pleased with this residence,
and his way of life, that, after a short visit to Naples
in the autumn, he returned to pass the whole winter
and carnival at Rome.
He now gave, as well as received, entertainments
from all the foreign Ministers and principal Roman
nobility^ The expense entailed by this mode of
living, even in those days, was such as might have
startled a less liberal mother than Lady Russell. In
a letter from Mr. Sherard to her, he hopes their ex-,
penses at Rome wiU not exceed three thousand
pounds a year, — a large travelling allowance, even
now, to a youth of seventeen. Some costly articles
of dress, indeed, would not enter into a modern ac
count ; such as, " two point cravattes," " a very rich
laced suit," and " a long perriwig, sent from Leg
horn, none being to be found here."
He goes on to say, " His Lordship wiU also have
a barouche, and a pair of horses to drive himself
about the country ; and he must have a couple of
running footmen with it, which must be clothed.
The latter end of next month we shaU go to Fres-
cati, twelve mUes from hence, where, and at the
places adjacent, wiU be all the best company of Rome.
After a month's stay there, and at Albano, with Car
dinal Ottoboni, his Lordship designs for Naples,
where he wiU not stay above a week, and so return
hither, where I hope he will spend the carnival.
" I find he does not care being denied any thing
that he has a fancy to ; but what he lays out, beside
• Devonshire MSS.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 297
necessary expenses, will be of some use or diversion
at least to him in England, as music, prints, designs,
books, essences, &c., which are usually bought
here."* It would have been well if his pupil had been con
tented with these purchases ; but finding Mr. Sherard
averse to others more costly, and not always wiUing
to comply with his demands for money, he was
tempted to make some expensive presents, the price
and payment for which he concealed from Mr. She
rard. He chose rather to trust to the indulgence of his
mother than to that of his governor, and drew a bill
directly on Lady Russell for £200 sterling, beseech
ing her not to disgrace him by protesting it, nor to
expose him to Mr. Sherard.
He writes on this occasion a letter of deep contri
tion to Lady RusseU, which proves all the confidence
as weU as the profound respect and attachment with
which she had inspired her children. He assures her
he will never again make a present, or take a farthing
of money, but from Mr. Sherard. " I desire, for
God's sake, that you will pardon me. If your Lady
ship did but know a little part of the grief I suffer, I
am sure you would forgive me; and if I did not
think you would, I could not bear it."
After owning that they were living at a great ex
pense, he tells her, with the reasoning of a very young
man, — " But then it is certain that the honours I
bave received here are so very extraordinary, that
the expense could not be less. It is undoubtedly
much for the honour of my family : as for myself, I
* Devonshire MSS,
o 3

298 THE LIFE OF
think I deserve nothing, since I am capable of afflict
ing your Ladyship.
" If you did but know my thoughts and half the
trouble that I am in, I am certain your Ladyship
would grant what I desire, and hope well for the
future. I will yet come home to be a comfort to your
Ladyship, and make you easy ; and so foUow in
some things, I hope at least, the steps of my good
father." After having been relieved from this embarrass
ment, we find him again confessing, "with the
greatest sorrow imaginable, that I have done iU. I
had the unhappiness some time ago to play for
something more than I used to do and lose."*
But of the extent of his losses at play, and the
little reliance that could be placed upon his resolu
tions against it. Lady Russell was not aware till his
return to England, towards the end ofthe year 1699 ;
when she found the amount so considerable as to
oblige her to address herself to his grandfather to
assist her as a security in raising money. The con
siderate manner in which she there addresses the
old man, and in which she speaks of the errors
of the young, is a sufficient reason for the affection
ate confidence placed in her by both.
Within a year after Lord Tavistock's return to
England, he succeeded to the titie and estates of
his grandfather. An application made by Lady
RusseU herself, in a letter to King WiUiam, to
obtain the garter for her son, was successful. He
was appointed, as soon as he was of age, to the
• Devonshire MSS.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 299
lieutenancies of the three counties of Bedford,
Middlesex, and Cambridge, which had been held by
his grandfather. At the coronation of Queen
Anne, he acted as Lord High Constable of England,
and was named a Privy Councillor.
Lady Russell now saw her son established in all
the honours of his race, with a wife, who seems to
have justified the choice she had made for him, and
by whom he was the happy father of several chil
dren. It might have been hoped that the sorrows
of Lady Russell were now over; that the severe
afflictions of her former life might, according to the
common allotments of good and evil, have exempted
her from the grief of other premature losses before
the end of her career ; the rather as her children,
being those of a second marriage, made the difference
of age between them and herself considerable ; but
she was doomed yet to suffer in those affections to
which she was peculiarly alive. Her son, whose
health as a child, whose education as a youth, and
whose success as a man, she had watched over
with such unwearied and rational attention; on
whom she had concentrated all that she felt for the
last representative of her own family, as well as for
that of her still-lamented Lord; in the midst of
health, and the vigour of life, was seized with the
small-pox. The small-pox was at this time, and during
the beginning of the eighteenth century, a plague,
which deserved that appellation almost as much
as the disease to which it has been appropriated.*
* In some of the eastern counties, and particularly Essex,
they had, tiU very lately, pest-houses, at a small distance from
the villages for the reception of smaU-pox patients.

300 THE LIFE OF

Beauty and youth saddened at its sound. Parent-!
fled with their children from its approach, and
often were obUged to fly from their children for
tear of themselves faUing a sacrifice, and abandoning
those that might survive. It separated the nearest
and dearest relatives in circumstances when they
are peculiariy necessary to each other. It was a
danger for ever present, for ever suggesting vexa
tious precautions, in the vain hope to avoid; and
when encountered, creating a despair which helped
on the disease. The upper orders of society were
as much exposed to its ravages as the lower. In
deed the mistaken manner in which it was treated
by the physicians, left those persons the best chance
who were least the objects of their care.*
This evil has now been so long removed from
us, as not to allow sufficient justice to be done,
or sufficient gratitude felt, for the two great dis
coveries, the first of which subdued, and the second
has almost annihilated, this scourge of human nature
in social life.
Neither inoculation, nor the vaccine, had been
heard of in the times of which we are speaking.
The Duke of Bedford caught the smaU-pox na
turally, and fell a sacrifice to it before the age of
thirty-one. As soon as the disorder had declared itself, his
wifef and children were obliged to fly from him.

• Of the members of the Royal Family who returned to
England at the Restoration, three died ofthe smaU-pox within
the first year ; and it is well known that Queen Mary and
Queen Anne's son, both died of the same disease.
t She died ofthe same disease in 1724.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 301
At his death-bed we find only his mother, receiving
his last words, soothing his last moments, and
pointing his last thoughts to that Heaven, which
she was again to prove gives means of support
in present, and of consolation in future, for all mis
fortunes, however severe or repeated, to which we
have not ourselves contributed.
How deeply she felt the death of her son, a
letter to Lord Galway, mentioning the particulars
of his last moments, gives us an affecting pic
ture :* — " Alas ; my dear Lord Galway, my thoughts
are yet all disorder, confusion, and amazement ;
and I think I am incapable of saying or doing any
thing I should. I did not know the greatness of
my love to his person tUl I could see it no more."
From this loss she could hardly have recovered
the composure which her unfeigned piety, and
submission to the will of Heaven, could alone
produce, when, in the November foUowing, her
younger daughter, the Duchess of Rutland, after
having been the mother of nine children, died in
childbed. Of her death Lady RusseU has left us no par
ticulars. We only know, that as her eldest daugh
ter, the Duchess of Devonshire, was at the time
laying-in, Lady Russell had the resolution to con
ceal from her, her sister's death at the moment
when it happened ; and to prevent her from hearing
it suddenly, avoided the too particular inquiries of
the Duchess of Devonshire by saying that she
had that day " seen her sister out of bed," when in
fact she had seen her in her coffin 1

• Published Letters, p. 330.

302 THE LIFE OF
Yet this daughter she tenderly loved, and shfe
had possessed her entire confidence and friendship.
A letter from ber to her mother during Lord
Tavistock's absence in Italy, shows, that while
Lady Russell's chUdren were much attached to each
other, they aU equally placed their confidence in
her. Lady Roos had fancied, by a letter from
her brother at Rome, that he was likely to get
into some difficulty or quarrel, about a lady of the
society in which he was living there. She imme
diately communicates her fears to her mother;
although, as she says, her brother " used to laugh
at my foreseeing dangers where there were none,
and I hope this is the case now, which your Lady
ship will be the best able to judge of; so that
though he charged me to tell nobody what he writ,
and I am sure I should most heartily fear angering
him, yet I cannot forbear naming it to your Lady
ship, and hope for that, he would not blame me if
he knew it."*
Whether Lady Russell thought it necessary to
take any notice of this warning we know not ; but
the fears of his anxious sister either prevented the
evU, or were superfluous, for nothing ensued from
the circumstances to which she alluded.
Within a very few months after the death of
Lady Russell's daughter, the Duke of Rutiand
determined on marrying again. The respect and
affection with which Lady Russell inspired every
one connected with her, made her son-in-law, the
Duke of Rutland, feel considerable uneasiness in

* Devonshire MSS.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 303
communicating to her this intention, lest, as she
says, she should "take offence at some circum
stances, the censorious part of the town will be sure
to do, and refine upon for the sake of talk." But
finding that he had "first taken care to be truly
informed what powers he had to do for his children,
and then by the strictest rules of justice and impar
tial kindness, settled every younger chUd's portion
by adding to it * * * and that
he was under all the anxieties a man could feel, how
to break it to me ; though it was then but a thought
of his own, yet so much he would not conceal from
me. Mr. Charlton undertook to tell me, and I did
as soon resolve to let it pass as easy between him
and me as I could, by bidding Mr. Charlton let him
know I would begin to him. I did so, which put us
both in some disorder, but I believe he took, as I
meant it, kindly."*
To be thus indulgent to the wishes, the feelings,
the passions of others, while so strict in the govern
ment of her own, is a part of Lady Russell's charac
ter, which may serve as a model to thousands of her
sex, not placed in circumstances to copy her in
other excellences.
She was now arrived at a very advanced age, and
had no longer any immediate duties to call forth the
energies, or to animate the feelings of her mind.
Yet we find her still maintaining a commerce of
active friendship with her old friends, and an
interest in the affairs of the world, by her constant
and affectionate intercourse with her daughter, her
grand-children, and her nieces. With their success.

PubUshed Letters, p. 333.

304 THE LIFE OF
their sorrows and their happiness, she was stiU
occupied; she was stUl applied to in moments of
difficulty by all who might pretend, to her inter
ference, and her services still gratefully acknow
ledged by those who had recourse to them.
On a separation, for incompatibility of temper,
about to take place between her niece Lady Eliza
beth Noel and Mr. Norton, to whom she was
married, Lady RusseU was addressed by the husband
to settle the terms on which they were to part. This
she does in a letter remarkable for the considerate
and feeling manner in which she treats, the subject,
such as to call forth Mr. Norton's warmest acknow
ledgments. He desires to conclude his letter of
thanks for her interference " with the pleasing repe
tition of the obligations I shall publicly own while
I have breath."
Thus deservedly enjoying the respect and honour
due to the experience and the wisdom of length of
days, she kept her mind free from its prejudices,
pecuUarities, and selfishness, by still maintaining
over her feelings the same rigorous self-examination
to which she had ever accustomed herself.
In an unfinished paper, the writing of which de
notes the trembUng hand of extreme old age, and
the contents of which seem notes intended, to have
been thrown more directly into the form of prayer ;
she takes a sort of review of her life in a supplication
to Heaven for pardon on the transgressions she
recapitulates.* They are such as prove her inquisi-
* Dev. MSS. The manuscript is a fragment,— a mere rough
draft, with so many erasures, and so many words repeated,
and omitted, as to have made the transcription difficult, and
the meaning sometimes obscure.

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL, 305
tion to have been ever directed, not to the forms,
but to the feelings of Christian piety ; not to out
ward appearances, but to the inward heart and
disposition. " Christianity," she thought, " not dis
tinguished by outward fashions, or by the professing
a body of notions differing from others in the world,
but by the renewing of our minds by peaceableness,
charity, and heavenly love.*
The balance between the world's opinion and her
character, she knew had been long struck, and was
greatly in her favour; but that between her own
conscience and Heaven, she here enters into with a
scrupulous exactness which may assure us, that she
had not weightier matters to bring forward in the
account. " Vanity cleaves to me, I fear, O Lord ! in aU I
say, in all I do. In all I suffer, proud, not enduring
to sUghts or neglects, subject to envy the good parts
of others, even as to worldly gifts. Failing in my
duty to my superiors : apt to be soon angry with,
and without cause too often ; and by it may have
grieved those that desired to please me, or provoked
others to sin by my rash anger. Not ready to own
any advantage I may have received by good advice
or example. Not well satisfied if I have not all the
respect I expected, even from my superiors. Such
has been the pride of my naughty heart, I fear, and
also neglect in my performances due to my supe
riors, children, friends, or servants — I heartily
lament my sin. But, alas 1 in my most dear hus
band's trouble, seeking help from man, but finding

* Devonshire MSS.

306 THE LIFE OF
none. His life was taken away, and so sorely was
my spirit wounded, even without prospect of future
comfort or consolation — the more faulty in me
having three dear children to perform my duty to,
with thankfulness for such a blessing left me, under
so heavy a dispensation as I felt the loss of him to
be. But, alas ! how feeble did I find myself both
then, and also poorly prepared to bear the loss of my
dear child and only son, in 17II.
" If I carry my sorrow to the grave, O Lord,
in much mercy let it not be imputed as sin in me 1
His death was a piercing sorrow to me, yet thou hast
supported me, Lord ! even in a very old age, and
freer from bodily pains and sickness than most feel —
I desire thankfully to recollect.
" Alas 1 from my childood I can recollect a back
wardness to pray, and coldness when I did, and
ready to take or seek cause to be absent at the public
ones. Even after a sharp sickness and danger at
Chelsea, spending my time childishly, if not idly ;
and if I had read a few lines in a pious book,
contented I had done well. Yet, at the same time,
ready to give ear to reports, and possibly malicious
ones, and teUing my mother-in-law, to please her.
At seventeen years of age was married ; continued
too often being absent at the public prayers, taking
very slight causes to be so, liking too weU the es
teemed diversions of the town, as the Park, visit
ing, plays, &c., trifling away my precious time. At
our return to London, I can recoUect that I
would choose upon a Sunday to go to church at
Lord B's, where the sermon would be short, a
great dinner, and after, worldly talk ; when at my
father's, the sermon longer, and discourse more

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL. 307
edifying. And too much after the same way, I
much fear, at my several returns to Wales and
England. In the year 1665, was brought to bed
of my first child ; with him too indulging I fear
to get strength soon, and spend my time as be
fore, much with my loved sisters; I doubt not
heedful, or not enough so, my servants went to
church, if I did, or did not go myself.
" Some time after in London, and then with
my father's wife at Tunbridge; and after with her
at Bath, gave too much of my time to carelessly
indulging in idleness. At Bath too well contented
to follow the common way of passing the time
in diversion, and thinking but little what was
serious : considering more health of body than that
of my soul. Forgive my heaviness and sloth in
spirituals, for Christ Jesus' sake.
" After this, I must still accuse myself that some
times in Wales, and other times in England, my care
in good has not suited to my duty, not with the
active and devout heart and mind I should in
the evening have praised thee, my God, for the
mercies of the past day, and recollected my evil
doings or omissions of doing good in my power.
Not in the morning carefuUy fixing my will and pur
pose to pass the day pleasing in thy sight, and
giving good example to man, particularly such
as under my care ; more especially after my second
marriage, forgetting by whose blessing I was so
happy, consuming too much time with him."
The end wanting.
Lady Russell had attained the age of eighty-six
before she was summoned to pay the debt of nature.

308 THE LIFE OF
Of her last iUness we know little. Her only re
maining child, the Duchess of Devonshire, received at
Chatsworth an account of her mother's seizure, and
immediately returned to her in London, A letter
from the Duchess of Devonshire's daughter. Lady
Rachael Morgan,* to her brother. Lord James
Cavendish, from Chatsworth, tells us — " The bad
account we bave received of grandmamma Russell,
has put us into great disorder and hurry. Mamma
has left us, and gone to London.
" I believe she has stopt the letters on the road,
for none have come here to-day, so that we are
still in suspense. The last post brought us so bad
an account, that we have reason to fear the
worst. I should be very glad that mamma should get
to town time enough to see her, because it might
be some satisfaction to both, and I hear grand
mamma asked for her."t
This letter is dated the 26th September, and
Lady Russell expired on the 29th.J Her death,
therefore, was not according to the Euthanasia of
the Poet, — " instant, and without a groan ;" but it
was certainly not preceded by long sufferings : and if
ever any mortal, in dying, might hope to
" Wake to rapture in a Ufe to come,"
it was the pure spirit, warm heart, and tried virtues
of Lady Russell.
May the writer of the foregoing pages be allowed

* Lady Rachael Cavendish, married to Sir William Morgan,
of Tredgar, in Monmouthshire.
t Dev. MSS.
X In The Weekly Journal, or Saturday's Post, September

RACHAEL LADY RUSSELL, 309
to hope, while fast sinking to the grave that must
shortly close on an insignificant existence — may
she be allowed to hope, that existence rescued from
the imputation of perfect inutility, by having thus
endeavoured to develope and hold up to the admi
ration of her countrywomen, so bright an ex
ample of female excellence as the character of Lady
Russell ? A character whose celebrity was purchased
by the sacrifice of no feminine virtue, and whose
principles, conduct, and sentiments, equally well
adapted to every condition of her sex, will in all
be found the surest guides to peace, honour, and
happiness.

28th, 1723, a newspaper ofthe day, it is mentioned, that, "The
Lady Russell, widow of the Lord WiUiam Russell that was
beheaded, continues dangerously ill." In another Weekly
Journal, or British Gazetteer, October 5th, 1723, her death
is thus recorded : " The Right Honourable the Lady Russell,
reUct of Lord WUliam Russell, died on Sunday morning last,
at five o'clock, at Southarapton House, aged eighty-six, and
her corpse is to be carried to Chenies, in Buckinghamshire, to
be interred with that of her Lord." The London Journal of
the foUowing week, Saturday October 12th, 1723, mentions,
that " On Tuesday morning last the corpse of the Lady Russell
was carried from her house in Bloomsbury-square, to its inter
ment at Chenies, in Buckinghamshire." This is aU the
notice taken of Lady RusseU's death, by the newspapers ofthe
day. In these more inquisitive times, every particular of the
Ulness, death, interment, and testamentary dispositions of so
distinguished a person, would have been detailed in a dozen
daily papers, and repeated and arapUfied in as many magazines
and monthly publications. In the present instance it is to be
regretted that their scanty information is not supplied by
any letters or famUy remembrances.

LADY RUSSELL

MADAME DE SEVIGNE

CONSIDERED AS CONTEMPORARIES.

In the fancied niches of the Temple of Fame,'
which it is delightful to assign to past merit. Lady
Russell and Madame de Sevigne may surely be placed
at the head of female excellence in their respective
countries ; and the entirely separate character of
their minds, their modes of thinking, their opinions,
and their habits of life, may perhaps be found, not
unfairly, to represent the appropriate and distin
guishing excellencies of the two nations to which
they belong.*
* It is hardly necessary te observe, that neither comparison
nor contrast is here intended between the accomplishments of
the two persons in question, still less between their epistolary
talents. The mutual excellence of their moral characters and
conduct, in very dissimilar circumstances, alone suggested
this attempt to recall these iUustrious contemporaries in each
other's company, to the particular attention of the present
generation.

LAUY RUSSELL AND MME. DE sfiviGN^. 311
Both nobly born, and nearly contemporaries,*
Lady RusseU, at a time when the serious discussion
ofthe subjects of religion and government in Eng
land became so general as to interest and occupy all
orders of people, received her first impressions of
both from a father, whose virtues and whose conduct
mu.st have deeply engraven those impressions on her
intelligent mind.
Madame de Sevign^, born while France, under
the strong arm of Richelieu, was settUng into the
quiet of arbitrary power, and making rapid advances
in all the refinements, pleasures, and expenses which
its policy encourages, received an education, rare for
the time of day as to the cultivation of her talents,
but so strongly tinctured with the peculiarities of the
soil on matters of religion and government, that her
naturally good abUities could never totally eradicate
them, and her diffidence in her own opinion often
made her strive to perpetuate.
Lady Russell, united in the meridian of life to the
husband of her choice, whose character, whose vir
tues, and whose attachment to her, excited and per
fected every faculty both of her heart and of her
understanding, with whom she thought as with a
friend, and felt as with a lover, was called forth from
that domestic life, which, during twelve happy years,
had fostered her virtues, strengthened her affections,
and matured her abilities, to the high destiny of
aiding and supporting the man she loved in a mortal
danger, of submitting to the glorious sacrifice of his

f Madame de Sevigne was born in 1626, and died at the age
of seventy, in 1696, Lady RusseU was born in 1636, and died
at the age of eighty-six, in 1723.

312 LADY RUSSELL AND MME. DE S^VIGNfi
life to his honour and his principles, of bringing
peace and composure to his dying moments; and,
last and severest of trials, to the melancholy duty of
surviving him, to embalm his memory, to weep his
loss, and to protect his children.
Madame de Sdvigne, early married, and early de
prived of a husband, the choice of her family, and of
a character not likely to have called forth the inex
haustible capacity of her heart for every virtuous
affection, sought and found, in her youthful widow
hood, consolation and happiness in the rational en
joyment ofthe best society, in the cultivation of her
mind, the affection of her friends, and above all, in
her devoted attachment to her daughter. Thus
becoming the ornament of the distinguished circle in
which she lived, no less admired for the incomparable
charm of her conversation, and of her correspond
ence, than loved for the warm affections of her heart,
and respected for the blameless integrity of her life.
In the contemplation of Lady Russell's character,
the lighter graces of society, however much they
might have become her virtues and adorned her ten
derly affectionate disposition, are lost in the great
and imposing scenes in which we behold her; in the
respect with which we find her considered and con
sulted in the most important affairs ; in the confi
dential reverence with which she is looked up to by
her children and her friends.
The result of these circumstances, of the severe
virtues she had been called upon to exercise, and the
severe trials to which those virtues had been exposed,
was a mind deeply impressed with the truths of that
religion which had taught her to "rejoice with trem
bling" during her felicity, and which she had found

CONSIDERED AS CONTEMPORARIES. 313
'•a tower of strength" to her in her adversity: that
religion, which held out the only consolation she
sought, in the assurance of rejoining the Being she
never ceased to weep, and regaining the happiness
she had too justly appreciated, and too truly enjoyed,
to seek otherwise to replace. Neglecting no duty
from her sorrows, assuming no merit from her suffer
ings, nor any importance from the high considera
tion in which she was held.
Madame de S^vign^, brought up in the strictest
doctrines of the religion of her country, and be
longing to a family which had been distinguished
for its austere piety, we find, in the innocent
openness of her heart, reluctantly admitting some
doctrines which she had in vain endeavoured to
impose on her excellent understanding ; and while
in the exercise of every Christian virtue, and the
practice of every moral precept, reproaching herself
with not being able to attain a state of mind, which,
however desirable, she cannot always persuade her
self to persist in as necessary : satisfied with that
implicit beUef and trust in the mercy of an Almighty
Being, worthy of her pure, tender, and confiding
character. To Lady Russell, religion was the support of her
sorrows : to Madame de Sevigne, the confirmation
of her enjoyments. Both equaUy under its benign
influence, uniting to superior intellect, the greatest
tenderness of heart, and the most unsullied purity of
conduct. In Madame de Sevign^, adorned by every charm
of wit, taste, social accomplishment, and all the
fascinating graces of her sex, which may be said
peculiarly to distinguish her countrywomen.
VOL. II. P

314 LADY RUSSELL AND MME. DE S:^VIGNfi.
In Lady RusseU, accompanied by the character of
a heroine, united to the conduct of a saint.
The existence of such characters allows the weaker
sex to assume a rank in the scale of intellectual
being, which may satisfy the most ambitious mind,
excite to the most virtuous exertions, and compen
sate for the most painful sufferings.

THE
FASHIONABLE FRIENDS,
A COMEDY.
En JFibt acts.
AS PERFORMED AT THE THEATRE EOYAL DRURY-LANE,
IN MAY 1802.

PREFACE.
This Comedy was acted for three nights in May 1802,
and then withdrawn . In addition to its inherent defects of
wanting the bustle and intricacies of a popular plot, and all
the exaggerations of character which such plots often make
necessary, it was beUeved at the time, to be the production
of some one of a certain Pic-nic Club then existing, much
addicted to theatrical amusements, to which the pit-filling
pubUc (ignorant of its harmless dulness) had endowed with
a supposed power of propagating loose principles, and profli
gate wit. This piece, therefore, emanating, as they be
lieved, from such a focus of evil, they indignantly deter
mined to stifle in its birth, and came to the first night
determined to damn, vidthout hearing it.
The real author, Uving in the midst of the world described
in the Comedy, was particularly anxious to avoid aU sus
picion of authorship ; so that the piece, being entirely unpro
tected by its natural friends, and attacked by prejudiced
enemies, must have possessed much greater merit than it
can boast, to have secured such a fair hearing, as might
h3.Ye fairly condemned it.
The abuse which the Newspapers of the day lavished upon
it, made the advertisement which is here prefixed to it,
necessary at its first pubUcation,

ADVERTISEMENT.
This Comedy, found among the papers of the late Earl
OF Orford, and remaining unclaimed in the hands of his
Executors for five years, was brought forward at the request
of Mr. Kbmble, on the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, After
the extraordinary abuse that has been lavished upon it, the
Executors considered it as a duty to the unknown Author
to publish it.

Sramatt^ i^rtsonap.

Sir Valentine I'apour
Sir Dudley Dorimant
Mr. Lavell
Doctor Syrop
Music Master
Shopman
LapierreJohn Servants

Mr, King.
Mr. C. Kemble.
, Mr, Bakrymore.
Mr. SuETT.
. ]Mr, Maddocks,
. Mr. Evans.
Mr. Wewitzer,
. Mr. Chippendale.
r Messrs, Gibbons, Fisher and
'\ Webb.

Lady Selina J'apour
Mrs, Lovell
Mrs, Racket
Miss Racket
Trimming .
Lappet

Miss De Camp.
Mrs, Young.
Miss Pope,
Mrs, Jordan.
Mrs. Harlowe.
Miss Tidswell.

PROLOGUE,
WRITTEN BY WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER, ESQ.
SPOKEN BY MR. C; KEMBLE.

Hard is the chase poor authors now pursue
In this old world, to hunt out something •new !
Where can the modern poet turn to find
One undiscover'd treasure of the mind,
One drop untasted yet in Learning's spring.
Or one unwearied plume in Fancy's wing?
Our grandsire bards, with prodigal expense,
Squander'd the funds of genius, wit, and sense;
Annuitants of fame, they took no care
How ill their beggar'd successors might fare:
Each thought exhausted, all invention drain'd,
A selfish immortality they gain'd.
And left no spot in all ApolIo*s garden.
No farm in all Parnassus worth a farthing !
Some keen observers, on dame Nature's face,
The crow- foot marks of time and sickness trace;
No wonder, then, if our poetic sires
Felt for her youthful bloom more genuine fires;
Nature to them her virgin smiles display'd.
They woo'd a spotless, we a ruin'd maid !
For she was won, if chronicles speak truth.
By many a Grecian, many a Roman youth ;
But still the lovely libertine retain'd
Charms yet unview'd, and favours yet ungain*d.
For one immortal boy ! to Mtti alone.
Her beauties and her failings all were shewn.
Heedless of time, or place, or mode, or fashion^
Disorderly/ she own'd her glorious passion.
What time all rules of critic prudery brav'd,
In Avon's hallow'd stream her angel form she lav'd?
Her fading graces now less transport move.
We feel for Nature artificial love.
Though, for her age, the dame looks passing well.
Six thousand years hard living still must tell !
E'en for the satirist few themes remain.
Folly herself has long been in the wane.
Folly, though here immortal still she dwells.
In Stralbrug palsy shakes her rusted bells !
Is Folly then so old ? — Why, let me see.
About what time of life may Folly be
Oh, she was born, by nicest calculation,
One moment after woman's first creation!
This night our unknown author will produce
Old subjects moderniz'd for present use ;
If you're displeas'd, be cautious how you shew it.
Perhaps your nearest neighbour is the poet;
But if you're pleas'd and anxious to befriend us,
Like Fashionable Friends, in crowds attend us.

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
A C T I.
SCENE I.
A Drawing-room in Mr. Lovell's House.
John and Lappet.
John, in the powdering jacket of a valet-de-chambre, arranging
the room; Lappet traverses ihe stage quichly,
John. — Mrs. Lappet, Mrs. Lappet, where the devil are you
running so fast ? — There's no such thing as getting a word
with you.
Lap. — To order the coach. Here's my Lady Selina Vapour's
Swiss, Mr. Lapierre, currier, as they call him, just arrived;
he says his mistress will be at the hotel in Pall Mall by this
time. My lady is going there directly to meet her ; and you
know it is as much as my place is worth to make any delay.
I have often waked my lady with notes from her at four
o'clock in the morning, even when she lived in the next street.
John. — Ay, and when I was my Lady's footman, I have (iften
been waked at four o'clock to carry the answers ; but my
master's service is another guess sort of a thing. He, thank
God, has no bosom friends to whom he writes every two
hours ; and my place is now, upon the whole, as much that of
a single gentleman's as in any family in London.
Lap. — More shame for ye both : if you had any idear of
sentimental happiness and refined enjoyments, as my Lady calls
them, you would not lead the lives you do. Always running
down to Newmarket — generally in town when we are in the
country, and in the country when we are in town.
John. — As to that, we take no more liberty than we giye
p 3

322 THE FASHIONABLE FHIENDS.
you : you amuse yourselves as you please, go where you
please, when you please — we are neither jealous nor inquisitive.
Lap. — I don't know how my lady contrives to put up with
such indiflFerence. I am sure it so hurts my tender feelings,
that, if I was she, I would be revenged one way or other,
that's what I would.
John. — Oh ! you would, would ye i You are upon your
high horse, now that you have got back that lace-coated jack
anapes Lapierre. I thought we were fairly rid of him, a
month ago.
Lap. — Speak with more respect of your betters, Mr, John.
John. — Betters, indeed !
Lap. — Mounseer Lapierre is a very pretty sort of a man ;
has traveUed, understands the fine arts, and has a thou
sand delicate attentions for the fair sect, of which some people
have no idear.
John. — Fine arts ! yes, he had the fine art of making you
believe he was in love with you ; and the delicate attention of
coming every day about dinner-time to the steward's room,
pretending to teach you parlez-vous ; and I fancy, thought
himself well paid with a slice of good Enghsh roast beef.
Lap. — He is far above such mean, sensual considerations :
society is what he seeks. He tells me he only travels for two
or three years to see the world, and acquire taste, and then
means to retire to his family estate.
John. — Which I suppose is a powder-puff and a pair of
curling-irons. Lap. — We all know why you speak so slightingly of him,
Mr. .lohn ! But, I tell you, he travels under a feigned name,
for his father is a Marqui, and has a castle in his own country.
John. — A castle ! ay, a castle in the air. The sign of the
Castle, I suppose, where his father, the Marqui, may be tapster,
or boots. Enter Mrs. Lovell, with a Note in her hand.
Mrs. Lov. — Have you ordered the carriage ? Give this note
to Lapierre, and say I shall be at the hotel in a few minutes.
[^Exeunt John and Lappet.] What can have brought her thus
suddenly to town, when but just settled in the country — sud
denly too going abroad again? She talks of the duties of
friendship tearing her away from her family, and again agi
tating her too susceptible heart. I cannot rest tiU I see her.

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 323
Enter Sir Dudley Dorimant.
Sir V. — So soon breakfasted. Ma'am ? I thought minds
like Mrs. Lovell's, unagitated by passion, and awake only to
the soothing sentiments of friendship and duty, were apt to
enjoy all that repose of which they so often rob others.
Mrs. Lov. — .If I rob others, like all ill-gotten possessions, it
profits me nothing, for nobody enjoys so little of it as myself.
But I have something to talk of more interesting than my
repose. Do you know our dear Selina is coming to town again ?
Sir D, — Coming to town again !
Mrs, Lov. — That her servant is arrived, that she herself will
be here in a quarter of an hour, and that I am flying to the
hotel to meet her ? Does no sympathy tell you that she is
near, and don't you anticipate the charm of seeing her thus
unexpectedly ?
Sir D. — Judge of my feelings by your own ; for be assured
nothing can so much interest you, without affecting me very
nearly. Mrs. Lov. — I used to be more satisfied with your sentiments ;
I used to suppose you capable of the warmest attachment,
and worthy of all the refined and delicate sentiments of our
friend. Sir D. — Be assured I am more capable than ever of the
warmest attachment, more open to all the refinements of senti
ment, more — Enter Mr. Lovell.
Mr. Lov. — I beg pardon. Ma'am, for entering thus abruptly
and thus early into your apartment ; but I was going out to
call upon the Knight here, when I found his curricle at the
door, and was told he was with you.
Mrs. Lov. — And I should have thought. Sir, that when you
knew I was receiving other visitors, an apology from you was
hardly necessary.
Mr. Lov. — It is then generally that the visits of a husband
require the most apology,
Mrs. Lov. — Yours are so rare, that they are sure at least of
the recommendation of novelty ; but to shew you that my dis
cretion is not less than yours, as your business is with Sir
Dudley, I leave you. I might be an interruption. lExif.
Manent Sir Dudley and Mr. Lovell.
Sir D. — A more polite couple, it must be confessed, does
not exist in the parish of St. George's.

324 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
Mr. Lov. — Yes, I think we are now upon a perfectly good
footing; we live each in our own apartment, el lafran^uise;
and when she comes to my dinners, or I go to her assemblies,
we are asked with almost as much form as any of the other
guests. Sir. D. — This is the true plan to keep up a good understand
ing between man and wife, and neither to be cloyed with the
sweets, nor tired with the enjoyment of a matrimonial life.
Mr. Lov, — I cannot say I have experienced that good effect
from it ; for, by Heaven, I am as tired of the life I lead as if
we had been passing the last twelve months like Sir Charles
and Lady Constant, airing out every morning in the same
carriage, and sitting in the same box at the opera every night.
Sir D,—'F\ie world, however, gives you credit for a gayer
hfe. Your attentions to Lady Selina Vapour, before she left
town, began to be remarked, and to do you credit — for a man
might almost as well live bourgeoisement with his own wife, as
not be known to have a fashionable arrangement with some
other woman,
Mr, Lov, — Certainly : but with these women of fashion to
a.fficher a passion one has not, is almost as difficult as to conceal
a passion one has.
Sir D. — Not at all : the world is very indulgent, and soon
satisfied upon this score. If a man contrives to return with a
fashionable woman from her ride in a morning, lounges into
her box at the opera, talks to her in the door-way of any assem
bly where they may happen to meet, he must be in devilish ill
luck indeed if in a month's time they are not always invited to
the same places, and, before the end of the winter, their names
coupled together in a newspaper, by the help of some kind
friend to one of the parties ; and, believe me, some of the most
fashionable intrigues of this town are carried on without a
greater expense either of time or passion.
Mr, Lov, — I fancy all Lady Sehna's admirers must content
themselves with this economical arrangement of both ; for she
is so hemmed in on every side with sentiment, delicacy, refine
ment, and all the farrago of female defence, that one might as
well attempt any thing more serious with one's grandmother.
Sir D, — Will you never know more of women, than if you
had only seen them gliding round Ranelagh ? Still talking of
impossible attempts. Has not even marriage cured you of re
spect for the sex ? — Incorrigible Lovell !
Mr. Lov, — Marriage has cured me of nothing but respect for

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 325
my own wife ; and I should be confoundedly sorry to buy off
that of any other individual of the sex, at the same price.
Sir D. — Luckily, you may have it at a much cheaper rate :
only give any of them an opportunity to shew you how little
they respect themselves, and the devil's in it, if you continue
to respect them.
Mr. Lov. — Ay, but these women of sentiment, of superior
feelings —
Sir. D, — Only tell you, in as plain terms as decency will
permit, that their desires are more troublesome, and their pas
sions less under their control, than the rest of their sex. If
you won't profit by the information, tant pis pour vous — they
won't thank you for your self-denial,
Mr. Lov. — These opinions will at least preserve you from
the ennui of matrimony yourself.
Sir D. — So far from it, that I trust I am at this instant in a
fair way of becoming a husband ; and so impatient am I for
the title, and all the privileges and immunities thereunto an
nexed, that if I find any further obstacles thrown in the way of
my happiness, I think I shall prevail on my belle to treat the
town with an elopement,
Mr. Lov. — And who, for Heaven's sake, is the transcendant
nymph whose beauty has wrought such a miracle on thy liber
tine heart ?
Si')-, D. — Beauty ! even to my prejudiced eyes she has not
the least pretensions to beauty.
Mr. Lov. — 'V\'Tiat then, do you suppose that you have found
the Phoenix, the individual she, that unites in herself all the
virtues that you deny to other women ?
Sir D. — If I think her beauty less than that of other women,
I assure you I don't think her virtue greater. No, not even
my prepossession can deceive me there.
Mr. Lov. — Heyday ! are you going then to sacrifice yourself
to some love-sick damsel, who finds nothing but marriage will
satisfy her longing ; and swears she cannot live without you ?
Sir D. — I am persuaded she is already as perfectly indiffe
rent to me as if we had been married a twelvemonth,
Mr. Lov. — Then, why the devil can't you both imagine
that you had ? It would cure you of all further desire, I as
sure you.
Sir D. — Marriage by no means presents itself to our eyes
under the dismal form it seems to have assumed to yours :
to me it appears the means of prosecuting my pleasures at
greater expense ; to her, a more brilliant existence in society.

326 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS:
an establishment, and all the liberties belonging to it. You
drew the knot so tight, that it soon galled you : ours will be
from the first a running noose, which we shall neither of us
ever feel.
Mr. Lov. — I am all impatience for the name of the fortunate
damsel destined to such rare happiness.
Sir D. — That fortunate damsel is no other than the ac
complished Miss Racket, who, with a happy natural disposi
tion, the help of her mother, a French governess, and a variety
of the first masters, is as ignorant and as affected, vrith the
seeds of as much mischief in her, as any accomplished young
lady in London.
Mr. Lov. — And what can have determined you upon acquir
ing the exclusive property of accomplishments, which you seem
to appreciate so justly?
Sir D. — Being determined upon acquiring the exclusive
property of three thousand a year, and a considerable sum
of ready money, both of which I appreciate no less justly than
their possessor — but, alas ! the very pains I took to win these
longed for charms, turn against myself, and are a dangerous
obstacle in my way.
Mr. Lov, — What, is the girl a coquette already?
Sir D. — No, but the mother is so still. The attention that
I paid her last summer at Weymouth, where we met, by way
of securing the daughter, she placed all to her own account,
and is now so confoundedly jealous, that she would rather give
her daughter to the devU, than not punish me for my supposed
passion for such a baby face, and neglect of her maturer
charms, Mr. Lov, — So that you have fairly overshot your mark ?
Sir D, — Not so either, I hope ; for the daughter, who is
a fine forward girl, by the assistance of my hints begins to
understand my situation with her mother ; so that if she
talks of interfering with any authority to prevent the girl
making an imprudent marriage (which is the footing on which
she chooses to ground her opposition), I think I shall have no
difficulty in persuading the young lady, by one bold step, to
free herself from all authority —
Mr. Lov, — But your own.
Sir D, — Yes ; but I am by no means desirous of coming
to these extremities. Her guardian happens to be Sir Valentine
Vapour, your uncle, whom, I think, with a little good manage
ment, I shall make as anxious to give me his ward as I can be
to have her.

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 327
Mr. Lov. — But, pray, how do you feel so certain of bringing
Sir Valentine into your wishes ? I thought that, in your
short acquaintance with him at my house last year, the little
interest that you took in all the various schemes, projects, and
systems, that eternally occupy his head, had by no mean's
advanced you in his good graces.
SiV D. — .\y, but here you must help me, Lovell : you must
describe me as an altered man, gi^nng up all my time to plans
of improvement, to canals, or mills, or drains, or any other
scheme that you may happen to discover reigns uppermost in
his head,
Mr. Lov. — And some one it is certain always does, and com
pletely occupies it as ever woman did yours or mine. I have
kno^vn him thus, by turns, have the four elements for mis
tresses : for a long time he was totally engrossed by the won
derful properties of air ; it was the pabulum vitce, the universal
ahment : we none of us knew its powers and virtues ; he would
not have come near a great city for the world, it was poisoned
for ten miles round ; he actually proposed to Government a
plan for purifying and ameliorating the atmosphere of London,
to be done by a parish rate.
Sir D. — Like the paidng and lighting ?
Mr. Lov. — Ay ; and he assured me he had composed a pure,
rectified, and double distilled spirit of air, which nobody but
himself and two mice had ever had the luxury of breathing,
and of which he thought he should make a fortune, by selling
it at half a guinea a quart, to weak lungs, crazy consitutions,
and fanciful women.
Sir D. — Many a less efficacious nostrum has, I beheve,
enriched the proprietor.
Mr. Lov. — Last year everything was to be done by fire, and
he spent the Lord knows what in steam engines, which were
to make ships sail, and carriages move, without either danger
or trouble.* This violent passion for fire was suddenly quenched
by a decided preference to water, as a general means of abridg
ing all labour; and he had almost turned the lawn round
his house into a morass, by the water he had collected for
experiments. Sir D, — Well, remember to make me an adorer either of
fire, water, or air, whichever happens to be the reigning
divinity. * WitUn thirty years after this was written both these objects were accom
plished.

328 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
Mr. Lav. — You may depend upon my good word ; I shall
see him this morning, and will do what I can for you ; thought
upon my soul, I shall regret being instrumental in shackling
such an agreeable fellow as you with matrimony, and seeing
you change and melt down into a good sort of family man.
Sir D. — Brand me with that title, when you know one
woman I have a mind to, that resists me, or one believing
husband that escapes the fate he deserves, \_Exit.
Mr. Lov. (solus). — There's a fellow! to whom I seem to
have been tacked all my life, merely to serve as his foil. At
Eton I often made the exercise which got him the reputation
of the better scholar ; and in every dashing scrape, he so got
in, and so got out, that he had always the honour and I the
thrashing. Abroad, I never introduced him to a mistress with
whom he did not contrive to be much better amused than ever
I was myself; and now he is going to marry a girl he don't
care a curse for, of whom he will never be half so tired as
I am of a woman I thought I loved — and this very woman,
whose company, I know not why, has ceased to charm me,
he finds so very agreeable, that if I was disposed to be jealous
— but, hang it, she don't rouse me to that. What the devil
is it that thus sets one man over the head of another ? — I have
a better estate than he, and a better constitution. I have spent
more money, done more foolish things, kept more horses, and
more women — if all this won't distinguish a man, give him
some iclnt, I don't know what will ; and yet he shines a star
of the first magnitude, while I am hardly noticed in the
hemisphere of fashion, lEscii.

ACT II.
SCENE I.
An apartment in the Hotel in Pall Mall,
Enter Lady Selina Vapour, and Mrs. Lovell, arm-in-arm
Mrs. Lovell— The charm of seeing you thus unexpectedly—
Lady S.— Can only be guessed by those who, formed to
pass their Uves together, have suffered separation for a long
month 1 Enter Servant.
Ser.— When would you please to have your carriage.
Ma'am ?
Mrs. Loi. — I cannot separate myself from you : tell me,

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 329
when you will be ready to return home with me ? — You
must positively take up your abode with me, or I shall live
at the hotel,
Laihi S. (Aside), — Neither would exactly suit me. I must
not stir to-day ; ray nerves are in such a .state as to require
the most perfect quiet. Laudanum and a sofa (you know)
have long been the' only props of my frail existence, and
they hold a most unequal struggle with the extreme delicacy
of my feelings.
Mrs Lov. — Shall I say twelve o'clock ?
Lady S. — I cannot bear to hear you name an hour for
quitting me, — Make your carriage wait.
Mrs. Lnv. — Ay, desire the coachman to wait,
Ser. (Aside). — To wait in the rain from this time to mid
night, lExit.
Mrs. Lov. — Now the first surprise of seeing you is over,
I am all impatience to know what has brought you so unex
pectedly to town, and what duties your letter mentions which
must tear you away immediately from your friends, your
children, and your country.
Lady S. — The duties of friendship, my dear Louisa ; no
other power, you may be sure, could draw me from that
retirement for which my too susceptible heart is only fit.
Mrs. lyov. — You talked of it, indeed, in such raptures, that
you know I intended to have joined you as soon as possible, —
Where are the moonlight walks, and the strolls in mossy
woods, that we were to have had together ?
Lady S. — All over for the present, I last post received a
letter from Naples, teUing me that my friend the Duchess
of Castelaria had a dreadful infreddatura, a violent cold, that
her confessor. Padre Cacciascrupoli assures her, she is in a very
dangerous way, and that she is extremely desirous to see me.
I did not hesitate a moment, took a hasty leave of my family,
left my children to the care of their governess, and flew up
here in my way to Naples.
Mrs. Lov, — But, my dear creature, an't you afraid that your
friend may be no more before you can possibly arrive ?
Lady S.— These are the cold dictates of reason, of which a
friendship like mine knows nothing. So my father-in-law Sir
Valentine said ; and I was obhged to prevail upon him to let
me set off by bringing him to town with me, upon some of his
wild projects, I suppose.
Mrs, LoK,— Would to Heaven I were thus at liberty to

330 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
follow every dictate of my heart !— But the being to whom
fate has united me, seems to have lost all idea of the attentions,
of the duties of minds of a superior order. Would you beUeve
it, he was out of all patience at my sending an express after
you, with my picture, the night you left me ?
Lady S. — Abominable ! when he knew that I had sent to
the painter's for it every two hours of the day before I left
town, and was in despair at going without it !
Mrs, Lov, — But, in short, we are become such totaUy diffe
rent beings — no sympathy in our ideas — no similarity in our
tastes — no attraction in our souls —
Lady S, — And yet he loves you, surely ? (Aside.) I fear too
well. Mrs. Lov. — He did, in his own gross way : he admired my
person, liked my society, and wished to be always with me :
this I soon convinced him must not be, and would make us
both ridiculous among the people we lived with ; but I could
never get him to enter into my ideas on other subjects — and
he is now grown so careless to me, that if it were not for
opposing me in trifles, I should almost forget what we once
were to one another, and might certainly enjoy a degree of
freedom that I should hardly know what to do with.
Lady S. — How many of our sex would envy such a situa
tion !
Mrs. Lov. — And yet, Uke most envied situations, the person
placed in it would wOlingly exchange it. Heigh ho ! — that we
should seldom meet in public, and never go out together, this
is all as I could wish ; but his neglect is now so marked, so
known, so provoking : — even his friend. Sir Dudley Dorimant,
is every day observing fresh instances of it.
Lady S. (Aside.) — Obliging creature !
Mrs. Lov. — Though indeed he always endeavours to make
the best of Lovell's conduct ; and vows he would never
mention it to me, but for the interest he takes in our happi
ness. Sir Dudley is sUrely a man of exquisite feeling ; he is
so open to the charm of friendship — enters so much into our
ideas upon the subject ; but this morning he was with me, and
seemed quite affected at the idea of your return.
Lady S. (Aside.) — That I dare say. His sentiments indeed,
are more refined than those of most of his sex ; but they have
none of them any idea of the delicacy, the disinterestedness of
female friendship ; and to friendship I have resolved to dedicate
my future life.

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 331
Enter Servant announcing Sir Dudley Dorimant.
Mrs Lov. — You come, Sir, just in time to plead the cause
of your sex. Lady Selina here involves you all in one general
charge of indifference, selfishness, and want of delicacy, which
if your sentiments and conduct don't refute, I fear it is a lost
cause, for I am more than half of her opinion.
Sir D. — However little faith Lady Selina may herself have
in the virtues of our sex, I hope she don't succeed in making
proselytes. Freedom of opinion is allowed on all subjects in
this land of Uberty ; but if she makes a profession of faith, she
must be publicly refuted, and the danger of her doctrines
exposed. Lady S, — How like a pedant he talks ! — You have certainly
got into bad company since I left town, and been living with
the Blue Stockings,
Sir D. — No, faith, there is no danger of that tiU I see them
worn by younger and handsomer legs,
Mrs, Lov, — For shame. Sir Dudley ! Is not your friend
Mrs. Atall one of them ? Don't I see you for ever at her
parties ?
Sir D. — I am sorry. Madam, you have never discovered the
only reason that ever leads me within her doors.
Lady S, — What, is that the woman who argues all her
acquaintance out of their senses because Lord Spintext tells
her she has a logical head ?
Sir D. — Yes ; and who, while she is ruining her husband's
fortune, proves to him by syUogisms, that she is the most
economical wife in London.
Enter Servant ; gives a Note to Mrs. Lovell.
Ser. — Ma'am, a note from Lady Wear'em ; she begs to see
you instantly in Upper Harley Street. Her servant has been
twice at your house, and was ordered not to return till he had
found you.
Mrs. Lov. — Lord, how provoking ! when I had intended
spending the whole day \vith my dear Selina, this tiresome
woman sending for me to the world's end !
Sir D. — Can't you send an excuse?
Mrs. Lov, — Impossible : she would declare me without
common humanity, quarrel with me directly, and abuse me to
all my particular friends as the most hard-hearted of human
beings.

332 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
Lady S.— But what can be this business that admits not of
a moment's delay ?
Mrs. Lov. — Oh, Lord ! only tedious complaints of the ill-
usage of her servants, the neglect of some friend, or the peevish
ness of her Lord — I dare swear.
Sir D. — And how can you throw away your time, your
affections, your pity, upon such a being, when all the real
sufferings^ of which yourself are cause, you see with indiffe
rence, and will not bestow a moment to relieve ?
Mrs. Lov. — I shall bestow as few moments as possible upon
her ; and it is ten to one, before I get to Harley Street, some
body else may have called, on whom she has already disem
bogued her griefs, and then she will no more wish to keep me,
than I to stay. (Going.)
Lady S. — Adieu ! I shall languish for your return. (Embracing her.)
Mrs. Lov. — I know not how to tear myself away ! — Adieu,
adieu! [_Eint Mrs. Lovell,
Manent Lady Selina, and Sir Dudley,
(They remain for some moments without speaking.)
Lady S. — I see how much your cold, calculating heart is
discomposed at my return.
Sir D, — Fye, fye ! — you know the power you still have over
me, and the steadiness of my sentiments.
Lady S. — I know you steady to nothing but your own
indulgence and interest ; — their claims, indeed, are often deter
mined by such caprice, and such trifles, that more rationally
selfish people have sometimes thought you disinterested.
Sir D. — You know the power you still have over me, how
ever ill treated: — the soft remembrance of former joys still
attaches me to you. I am no shepherd, no Colin ; but you
know me to be a man of honour, and —
Lady S. — I know you to be what passes for one in the
world, because you have contrived never to quarrel with the
friend you have betrayed, nor the woman you have dis
honoured. Sir D. — And, faith, let me tell you, as the world goes, a very
useful sort of honour, — h I'usage des seux sexes.
Lady S. — And it is this useful sort of honour, I fancy, that
teaches you to dread my return ; to dread that the importunity
of neglected passion, or the quick eyes of unwearied attach
ment, should disturb your system of honourable tranquillity.

THE FASHIONABLE FRIEND.s. 333
or derange some new connexion. But you have neither, be
assured, to dread from me. I knew too well the lover, not to
avoid the husband ; and your own inconstancy has long invited
that indifference it has at last produced.
Sir D, — For Heaven's sake ! do more justice to your own
charms, if not to my character. But I never knew you so
sententious before. Do you think you are speaking to your
sentimental friend Mrs, Lovell ? By the bye, a very pretty
woman, that same friend of yours.
Lady S, — So, Sir, I have long perceived, you think 
Sir D. — You know my adoration of beauty ; I should con
sider myself as unworthy to have felt the power of your resist
less charms, if I could behold, mthout emotion, a hardly less
potent, perhaps less cruel divinity.
Lady S. — That you wiU not find her : with aU her sentiment,
her husband's indifference to her, and the many temptations
of this town, she is at present such a novice to every thing like
passion that she wiU start from it the instant it discovers
itself. Sir D. — But while her desires are raised under the con
venient name of sentiment, by a kind friend, and baulked by
an indifferent husband, do you suppose it to be so very difficult
to substitute passion for sentiment, and the character of a
lover under the title of a friend ?
Lady S. — Such things, to be sure, have happened ; but my
fidendship for her, my knowledge of aU the sufferings to
which she would be exposed, should make me the first person
to warn her of her danger — to put her upon her guard. Her
husband too, whose neglect and indifference she laments, seems
to me a being that only wants forming to render him infinitely
interesting. Sir D.— So, Madam, I have long perceived, you think 
Lady S. — You know what a charm such natural characters
have to me ; they excite a regard, a pity, an affection, a sort of
sentiment —
Sir D. (Aside.) How many different names for what she
won't call by its own !
Lady S. — Necessary to occupy a heart like mine.
Sir D. — And necessary to occupy a heart like his, while he
continues to think neglect of his wife as much a concomitant to
the character of a man of the world, as I have taught him to
think a fashionable arrangement with some other person ; but
should his wife persist in substituting nobody in his place, she

334 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
may some day or other (in spite of the ceremony that has
passed between them) become his mistress, which would cer
tainly make them a much less interesting couple to you and
to me.
Lady S. — Oh, Lord ! to be sure: — a couple completely happy
in each other are much too independent of the world to interest
any body.
Sir D. — Remember then, that, if his wife is your friend, I
am his ; and that my regard is as sincere, my friendship as
disinterested, and my heart as much occupied as yours.
(Sir Dudley remains on the stage.)
Enter Servant, announcing Doctor Syrop.
Lady S. — Doctor, I have been in town these four hours,
and dying to see you. I am arrived, with my nerves in such a
state, that I positively cannot stir till you have wound me up.
Dr. Sy. — No, to be sure, I hope not. Half the fine women
in London, after they have run themselves down, send to me
to set them a-going again. Well, let me see, what key must I
use ? Laudanum ?
Lady S. — Lord ! you know I take it every day.
Dr. Sy.—Mther.
Lady S. — Ah, filthy ! one never gets rid of the smell.
Dr. Sy.— Cordials >
Lady S. — Shocking! would you betray me into dram-
drinking, like Lady Reeler ?
Dr. Sy, — I protest. Madam, that your Ladyship's nerves are
of so singularly fine a texture, that I have almost exhausted
the whole materia medica upon them in vain.
Lady S, — So all the physicians I have ever consulted have
always said. My case baffles their art. I never could explain
my feelings : always obliged to prescribe for myself. Heavens I
what a misfortune to be constituted so perfectly unlike the rest
of the world ! Poor Rousseau ! he perfectly understood my
feelings. Dr. Sy. — Pray, Madam, was that Rousseau a physician, or
an apothecary ? He must have had prodigious practice in ner
vous cases, for I find almost aU my patients have, one time or
other, had dealings with him.
Lady S. — He was the physician of the soul ! the Esculapius
of all feeling minds !
Dr. Sy. — Ay, there again ! Esculapius ! — I dare say a mere
quack in his time ; knew nothing of nerves ; and as for Doctor

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 34.5
Rousseau, he seems to me, always to have left his patients
much worse than he found them.
(S'lT OvDhEY comes forward : Syvlop bows very formally to him.)
Dr. Sy,— Sir, your most obedient humble servant.
Sir. D. — Oh ! we are among friends, Syrop, I admire your
prudence, but you may acknowledge me here.
Dr. Sy. —Absolutely necessary in my Une of business. Sir
Dudley, not to be the first to claim acquaintance — one never
knows how matters may stand.
S(V, D, — A most estimable caution, which justifies all the
confidence placed in you. We aU know how highly you are in
favour with the ladies.
Dr. Sy. — Oh, Lord ! Sir Dudley, you banter me : they are,
indeed, vastly good to me ; but it is only in the way of my
profession that my poor abiUties can be of any use to them —
only in the way of my profession.
Sir. D. — I know no way in which you can serve them more
effectuaUy. Dr. Sy. — I do flatter myself, that I have been of great use
in some extraordinary cases that have come under my care.
Sir D, — I don't in the least doubt your abilities, beUeve me.
Doctor, Dr. Sy. — Then I run great risks at times, great risks, to
preserve family peace. Were it not for me. Lord and Lady
Dovecott would never have been quoted as models of conjugal
fideUty. Sir D. — Indeed I
Dr. Sy, — And a certain young heir as much owes his title to
me, as ever his ancestors did to the King.
Sir D. — You see how deservedly he merits his great reputa
tion (to Lady Selina). But I must not forget to imitate his
discretion, by not intruding myself longer. lExit Sir Dudley.
Manent Lady Selina and Doctor Syrop.
(Lady Selina coughs.)
Dr. Sy. — Does that cough mean that your lungs are afflicted ?
Lady S. — Oh ! this cUmate is enough to affect any lungs —
don't you think I should change it. Doctor ?
Dr. Sy. — Oh Lord ! no, by no means. Ma'am — must not
lose so good a patient, if I can help it. (Aside.) We shall do
very weU without that. Let me see (feels her pulse) ; suppose

336 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
we were to stay a few weeks longer^ in town, just during the
spring, and then take the waters at Tunbridge, or bathe in the
sea at Brighton, or go to Cheltenham, or —
Lady S, — Nothing of this sort will do. In short, I feel that
nothing can save me but returning to Naples ; and I depend
upon your declaring to my father-in-law, the absolute necessity
of it.
Dr, Sy. — These sort of prescriptions are of a very pecuUar
nature. Ma'am ; and —
Lady S. — You need not doubt my putting a just value upon
them. Dr. Sy. — Well, well, well, we must reconsider the case, and
then I shall certainly make no scruple of giving a very decided
opinion in favour of — . What is the situation you would
choose ?
Lady S. — Naples. You must assure him my life depends
upon it.
Dr. Sy, — Upon going immediately, or some time hence ?
Lady S. — Um ! — not immediately.
Dr. Sy — No, no, no, as soon as the weak state of your
nerves will permit your moving with safety. What road do
you mean to take ?
Lady S.- — Must that be specified ?
Dr. Sy. — Certainly best — prevents all suspicion. When I
sent Lady Duper away from her Lord, last year, to Spa, I
specified almost every post; insisted upon her absolutely avoid
ing all inns facing the north-east, and mentioned the very
street and house in which I wished her to lodge.
Lady S. — And did it succeed ?
Dr. Sy. — In every respect; for she returned in perfect health,
and produced a son and heir within the year. But I must be
gone ; am expected at three o'clock to a consultation upon the
nerves of a Drysalter's lady in the Borough ; shall soon dis
patch her with a trip to Margate, and some tincture of valerian.
Lady S. — Don't let the hurry of your business prevent your
seeing Sir Valentine,
Dr. Sy. — See him certainly to-day — settle the matter as you
would have it — am so used to these cases ! In the mean time,
send you some composing draughts, something to quiet your
nerves, support your spirits, and keep your mind quite easy.
lExit Syrop.
Lady S. (sola.) — This necessity of going abroad once esta
blished, keeps me at least as long as I please in London, and

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 337
near Lovell at home. With any body more formed and more
Uke other people than Lovell, my absence and return, and his
regret, and pleasure, and importunity, and all that foUows,
would be understood. But, upon my Ufe, with these delicately
diffident people, one is obliged to speak most indelicately plain !
for Lovell is really unlike any body one meets with now — a
laudable desire to be talked of, and fashionable, and yet a
thousand old prejudices hanging about him : too spirited not
to be tired of his wife, and too siUy not to ha\'e still a sort of
prepossessiofi : — a remains of attachment for her, which, I fear,
i shall continue to find in my way. Now to contrive to see
him before she returns from her visit, or else I am pinned down
to her society for the whole evening ; and really, I feel my
nerves quite unequal to sentiment to-day. \_Exit.
A room in Mrs. Racket's house.
Miss Racket icitli her Music Master ; a music desk and a harp
before her; she plays a few bars upon the harp ill, as if the end
of a jiiece of music.
Miss Rac, — I^sh this harp had never come in fashion, for
I hate the plague of it. Twing, twang, twing, from morning
till night, and never in tune — nasty thing ! if it was not so be
coming, 1 would never touch it.
Music M. — It is, indeed, as you say, ver nasty ting, and ver
becoming; but you have no patience. You have no learnt
above five years yet.
Miss Rac— And don't know five tunes yet, though you told
mamma you would make me play in six months as well as
Madame Krumplehorn, you know you did ; — but come, you
shall sing now, and I will accompany you.
Music M, — Wid aU my heart, ver improving.
Miss Rac, — No, I wUl sing without any accompaniment at
aU, Music M. — By all means — vat you please — noting so good
for de voice.
Miss Rac, — (Sings, witliout any accompaniment, part of a
plaintive air,) — Lord! I hate these melancholy ditties: let us
have something gay — Toi de roi de roL* (She sings a lively air.)
Enter Trimming,
Trim, — Sir Dudley Dorimant, Miss. Shall I let your mamma
know ? Or shew him in here ?
Miss Rac. — No, no; in here, to be sure. lean send hi.n,
* This character was to have been acted by Mrs. Jordan,
VOL. II. a

338 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
(pointing io ihe Music Master) away as usual. (Puis her
hand to her head, as if taken suddenly ill,) — Lord ! I have got
such a sudden pain in my head, I could not play another note
to-da}', for the worid.
Music M. (Taking up Ms hat and stick.) — Oh ! no, to be
sure, it would be ver bad for you. Poor young lady ! you are
so subject to dese pains in your head ! I come again to
morrow ?
Trim. — Ay, ay, you may come, if you please ; we can always
send you away again, as we do to-day.
Music M, — Tant mieux, tant mieux, so much de better.
[_Exeunt Music Master and Trimming.
Miss Racket sola.
Now, to receive this lover of mine. Lover, indeed ! if it
was not that mamma is angry at it, and jealous, it is no more
Uke love — no distress, no fears, no quarrels, no letters ! — Cap
tain Sash, now, to my fancy, is fifty times a better lover ; but
then, for a husband, I think Sir Dudley would do very well,
and so — every one in their way ; but I won't "be dawdled with
much longer, I can tell him, like a beauty without a shilling.
Egad, I'D be as indifferent as he, as try what that will do.
Enter Sir Dudley Dorimant.
Miss Rac, (Hums a tune.) — So, I suppose, if it had not
happened that mamma was denied, because she was busy with
my guardian, you would have gone first to her, as usual.
Sir D. — You know my only reasons for ever going to her at
aU. Miss Rac. — Oh ! but I can tell you I don't like this way of
being made love to by proxy.
Sir D, — Faith, I think now, that so many mothers make
love to men for their daughters, it is but civil that we should
sometimes return them the compliment.
Miss Rac, — Ay, but when they make love for themselves, as
they dispense with one ceremony, I think- you might with the
other. I would not give a pin for a lover I have not the credit
of. Sir D, — Now-a-days every body begins first with having
the credit of a husband.
Miss Rac, — Then I will have a husband as soon as I can,
that I may lose no time in getting a lover. I want somebody
that will sit by one at an opera, and dance with one at a ball,
and call for one's carriage, and hand oi!e out, and —

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 339
S/r D, — Lord, child ! how much you expect of a lover !
where could you get such antiquated ideas ? I trust you are
less exiycante upon the subject of husbands, or, upon my soul!
violent as my passion is, I should be almost afraid to venture
upon matrimony with you.
Miss R.ic. — I shaU desire nothing more of my husband than
other women of fashion have from theirs.
Si)- D. — That is being very moderate in your desires, I must
confess. Miss Rac. — Oh ! I intend to be completely fashionable in
everything, SirD. (Aside.) — The devil you do? Nobody is certainly
better qualified.
Miss Rac. — Yes, if mamma would let one show one's-self,
and not keep one always in the back-ground.
Sir D. — I am afraid her reasons for so doing wiU increase
ever)' day with your charms.
Miss Rac. — So Captain Sash told me last night f but now I
am of age, I won't bear being snubbed much longer, I can tell
her J and kept StiU drudging with nonsensical masters, teach
ing me this, and that, and t'other, and a parcel of stuff.
Sir D. — Barbarous ! as if you were capable of improvement.
Miss Rac. — Did not Dr. Botherem tell her six months ago
that I knew more than any of the Miss Pacers, who are reck
oned wonders '. and have not I got a medal for the second-
best drawing from the what-do-ye-call-it society ? and can't I
go over aU the capitals in Europe, and the rivers on which they
stand ? — Lisbon on the Tagus, Madrid on the Manzanares,
Rome on the —
Sir D. — Can you suppose I want any thing to convince me
of the superiority of your acquirements, and of your mamma's
ill-usage ?
Miss Rac. — I am sure nobody would have borne it patiently
as long as myself; and so every body tells me. Miss Forward,
who had not above half my fortune, ran away long before she
was of my age ; and Captain Sash say^ nobody could blame
me if I did the same.
Sir D,— Certainly such conduct dissolves aU natural ties ;
you must, therefore, resolve to free yourself at once from every
restraint by making me happy.
Miss Rac. — But how am I to be sure that making you happy
will make me so ?
Sir D.—l{ my Ufe and fortune at your disposal— a 2

340 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS,
Miss Rac— As to your life, that will do me no good ; and as
to your fortune, perhaps I have a better of my own.
Sir D. — Nay, you have the best security in the world — mu
tual interest will insure mutual happiness. You are deter
mined upon being a fashionable wife — I as certainly mean to
be a fashionable husband ;— our pursuits %viU be so much the
same, that we shall go on like parallel lines in the same course,
without ever coming in each other's way.
Miss Rac. — I don't know what you call paraUel Unes, and
the same way ; but when I am married, I intend to be in every
body's way.
Sir D. — And so you shall, in the handsomest carriages in
London, Miss Rac. — Shall I indeed ? and then I must have a chair
with tassels, to go swagging up and down St, James's Street ;
and two monstrous tall, handsome footmen to walk before it.
Sir D. — Oh ! by all means, a chair —
Miss Rac. — And the handsome footmen ?
Sir D. — Um ! You are very particular in your demands.
Miss Rac. — Lady Cormorant has three ; every one six feet,
without his shoes.
Sir D.—The devil !
Miss Rac. — And then I must have horses to ride in the
Park, and a villa to give breakfasts in the spring ; and —
Sir D. — Oh ! certainly, a villa and breakfasts. — (Aside.)
Egad, I must not let her go on thus making terms, or she will
spend her whole fortune in idea, before I am sure of touching
a farthing of it in reality.
Miss Rac. — Then Captain Sash talked of my driving a
phaeton and four. I should like that vastly, in the cold foggy
mornings, wrapped up in a coat with sixteen capes, like Lady
Dasher, splashing down Bond Street, and along Piccadilly,
and in again at Grosvenor Gate — ch ? — ch, ch, ch ! upe !
(Making the noise of cheering horses). Oh! I must have a
phaeton and four.
Sir D. (Aside.) — Captain Sash. I find, has been beforehand
with me ; and, if I don't strike a bargain directly, may outbid
me. — Do not thus particularise your wishes, but consent to be
mine, and dispose of me as you please.
Miss Rac. — Well ! I think I must consent, I own I should
like to be married before next birth- day, for I have the idea of
a white and silver petticoat, which MademoiseUe PateUne, the
milliner, says wiU be divine. But then —

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 341
Sir D,— Then what? Wherefore this hesitation? What
are you thinkina; about ?
Miss Rac. — I am thinking hoio I am to be married ; it must
be in the most fashionable manner,
S//- D. — How you are to be married ! Faith, I fancy much
as aU your grandmothers have been since the days of Eve.
Miss Rac. — Oh ! but I should like vastly to be married in
some new way; for I won't be packed off directly into the
country, poking alone tiU every body but one's self forgets one
is married at all —
Sir D. — And only just to recover their memories on the sub
ject when we begin to lose ours,
2Jiss Rac, — Going down, now, to Richmond, or Shooter's
Hill, or the Toy, with four horses, and silver favours, and
white gloves, I should Uke very weU, — but then it's so vulgar !
and, besides, my cousin Kitty, from Cateaton Street, was mar
ried so ; and I would not, for the world be married like her.
Enter Trimming.
Trim. — Miss, the mantua-maker's waiting to try on your
dress for Lady Crowdej-'s masquerade to-night, [_Exit Trimming.
SirD, (Aside,) — This masquerade suggests an idea — Egad,
the young lady knows so much more of her own mind than I
thought, that if I don't clinch the matter while she's in the
humour, somebody else wiU. Suppose now, instead of retir
ing into the country, or Richmond Hill, or any of the common,
every day ways of being married, we were to elope from the
masquerade to-night ; — the method is not quite new, to be
sure, but —
Miss Rac, — WeU, I swear now, that's a very good thought,
—Ay ; but then we shall lose the masquerade — thank you for
nothing — one may be married every day in the year ; but there
an't above three or four masquerades in a whole season.
Sir D, — Oh, Lord ! we will lose nothing : — we can slip out,
under favour of our masks ; have done \vith the parson in a
moment, return to the ball, and take aU the rest at Our leisure.
Miss Rac— Via ! I think this will be spoiUng two good
things. Sir D. (Aside),— Bsimni it, I shall never get her settled,—
Recollect your mother's opposition, and how it wiU vex her to
find us married without her consent, and- how angry at her own
disappointment !

342 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
Miss Rac, — Well, I vow, that will be charming ; and I dare
say, mamma counted upon flirting with you at the masquerade
herself. Sir D. — Let us lose no time then in concerting our measures :
— I had better see your dress for fear of a mistake, and then I
can avoid all suspicion by not going with you.
Miss Rac. — Oh, Lord ! ay, so you must, and the mantua-
maker is luckily waiting with it : step in here, and we can
settle the whole scheme. \_Exeunt.

ACT III.
Mrs. Racket's dressing-room. — Mrs. Racket and Sir Valen
tine Vapour rise from a table, and come forward.
Sir Valentine. — Well, Madam, I protest it is admirable, that
in the midst of the life you lead, you should find so much time
to bestow on your daughter's education.
Mrs. Rac, — Dear Sir Valentine ! I should be quite ashamed
if I did not ; — every body now bestows time on education —it
is quite the fashion.
Sir V. — I am sorry for that ; for then, like other fashions, it
won't last ; however, the rising generation will be the better for
it. — Miss Racket, I hope. Madam, answers aU your expecta
tions ?
Mrs. Rac. — All her masters declare it is impossible to make
a greater progress ; — for my part, I don't pretend to understand
these things ; but several of her drawings have been already
engraved, and two sets of sonatas dedicated to her.
Sir V. — Indeed !
Mrs. Rac. — Then she has the Roman History at her fingers'
end ; — tells you about Decembers and Trumvers, and all those
sort of things, and has aU Gray's Memoria Technica by heart.
Sir V. — I should be almost afraid that this great superiority
of knowledge might draw upon her the jealousy of her less
acomplished companions.
Mrs. Rac. — Oh, dear ! no. Sir ; every body is accompUshed
now : — every body paints, and sings, and plays, and is inge
nious. Sir V. — I wish their ingenuity may calculate them for mak
ing better wives, and, their accomplishments keep them more
innocently employed. However, Madam, I think you wiU

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 34 'i
agree with me, that the sooner a young woman, with the large
property of my ward is settled in Ufe to the satisfaction of her
friends, the better.
Mrs. Rac. — Certainly, Sir Valentine, and I am sure I have
taken every pains that the anxious mind of a parent could sug
gest. She has been at all the watering-places in the summer ;
— in town, hardly ever miSses a baU in the winter.
Sir V. — Egad, now, in my days that would have been the
way never to have got a husband at aU : — we did not look for
wives to dance with.
Mrs. Rac. — I took her to Tunbridge as soon as ever I heard
that Lord Lounger, the Marquis of Dawdle's only son, was
there ; but as I found my Lady Mac Catchem and her daugh
ter had got before me, I knew nothing was to be done there,
and so went away directly to Weymouth, were Lord Gorget's
militia was encamped.
Sir V. — Ay, ye aU like a red coat.
Mrs. Rac. — And here I had great hopes of bringing about a
match ; but the foolish girl, forsooth, fancied herself attached
to another person, and so took no pains to second my plan.
Sir V. — Young people, you know, Mrs. Racket, mU have
their attachments — we have aU had ours. What, I suppose
she saw all human perfections united in the person of some
rakeheUy younger brother, with more eUs of musUn round his
throat than shiUings in his pocket,
Mrs. Rac. — No, Sir ; the person on whom she fixed her eyes
was a man both of fortune and fashion, in the very first com
pany, and universaUy admired.
Sir r,— Indeed !
Mrs. Rac. — A man for whom any body might own an attach
ment. Sir r.— WeU, Madam, but  •
Mrs. Rac. — A man who took a lively interest in my daughter.
Sir V. — WeU, Madam, but where then was the mighty ob
jection? Why might not he have done as weU as Lord
Gorget ?
Mrs. Rac. — Because I tell you, though he took a lively in
terest in my daughter, I have good reason to beUeve he was
seriously attacheti elsewhere.
Sir. V. — Indeed ! Poor thing ! Well, I hope she has got
the better of this silly, hopeless passion.
Mrs Rac— I am afraid not. Sir Valentine ; on the contrary,
to teU you the truth, I beUeve she stiU does every thing in

344 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
her power to engage his affections, and I sometimes fear not
without success ; for Sir Dudley seems to me now to pay her
a degree of attention, which gives me great uneasiness.
Sir V. — Sir Dudley! — I don't wonder at your uneasiness,
indeed, Ma'am — Sir Dudley Dorimant ! What, is he the
person ? As mere an idle, gambling, driving, careless cox
comb as ever lived, I met him at my nephew Lovell's last
year, thinking of nobody but himself; perfectly indifferent to
every thing that is going on about him.
Mrs. Rac, — Your opinion of Sir Dudley is very different
from that of the rest of the world.
Sir V, — Because I know him, Ma'am. He would be a
pretty person truly, to t^ke care of my ward's estate ; knows
no more of his own owi> ; boasted that he never had been
there but once, when he Came of age ; owned that he was much
out at elbows ; has I know not how many acres of moor land,
and would not take the trouble of trying my scheme of elec
trifying barren ground to make it fertile, though I offered to
direct the whole operation myself.
Mrs. Rac. — His time is too much taken up in the first
circles of the capital, to think of any such schemes of rustic
improvement. Sir V. — More fool he ; in a little time he will have nothing
left to improve, but himself ; and for that he will probably have
leisure in the King's Bench. But he shan't carry my ward
there, if I can help it ; nor her estate, with his own, to the
hammer. Mrs. Rac. — Indeed, Sir Valentine, the very idea of such a
marriage gives me all the uneasiness it can you.
Sir V. — No, no, we must endeavour to find another husband
for her as soon as possible — some clever, active man, who un
derstands what he is about, and knows how to make the most
of things. The estate lies so conveniently on the coast — such
a fine opportunity for making experiments upon 
Mrs. Rac. — Experiments ! experiments ! Lord, Sir Valen
tine, you shock me to death ; one would suppose you were
going to marry her to something outlandsh, or monstrous : to
the Irish giant, or the Polish dwarf, or —
Sir V. — No, no ; never fear. Madam, neither to dwarf, nor
giant. But, godzooks ! I must be gone : (looking at Ms watch :)
it is now past two, and I appointed a person upon business to
be with me before three. I am always busy ; can't bear your
people that idle away their time.

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 345
Mrs. Rac. — Nor I, Sir ^'alentine,
Sir r.— I hate to waste any tiling ; and, to teU you the
truth, this person I am going to meet is no other than the
proprietor of the violet soap, by whose means I hope to turn to
good account the quantity of violets that it has hitherto always
vexed me to see wasted under all the hedges in my neigh
bourhood. Mrs. Rac— Few people make more use of their time than I
do; all my acquaintance wonder how I contrive to do so much
business ; but then, to be sure, I am never at home an hour in
the course of the day, except when dressing.
Sir V, — Egad, then I should never contrive to do any busi
ness at aU. But I am waited for. Farewell, Madam,
Mrs. Rac. — The accounts. Sir Valentine, that my steward
brought you —
Sir V. — I will look over them at my first leisure moment ;
though, I confess, I have not your tjdent for business. But
be upon the watch about Sir Dudley, Madam, and don't let
him run away with the principal, while I am taking care of the
interest, Mrs, Rac, — That I shall, I promise you, (Exit Sir Valentine,)
for more reasons than you suppose, you old-fashioned quiz.
Since her guardian too thinks it would be such an improper
marriage for my daughter, the best, the most proper, cautious
thing I can possibly do, is to put it out of her power, by mar
rying him immediately myself ; and then, let what will happen,
I shaU always have the consolation of thinking I sacrificed my
self for the good of my child. But, surely, I see him in the
drawing-room (looking towards the coulisse) in close conference
too with my maid ; perhaps he is at this instant sounding her
upon my subject. 'They seem very earnest — coming this way
too, I won't interrupt the conversation, it may be a very
critical moment. Suppose I was to step aside here, within
hearing ; and if it should be as I suspect, it will be a fine
opening for me to come to a right understanding with him.
[Exit at a door at the back of the Stage, which she keeps ajar.
Sir Dudley and Trimming come on talking, as if from the nex
room.
Sir D. — And you are certain she wiU go to the mas
querade ?
Trim. — Oh, certain. Sir ; my Lady has never missed one,
for these many years. a 3

346 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
SiV D, — And you think you are sure of her dress — exactly
the same as her daughter's ?
Trim, — Lord, Sir. after hearing of nothing else for this fort
night, I think I must know it at last. First they were to have
been two fair Circassians : then two Indian Princesses, to shew
their diamonds ; then the Queen and Princess Royal of Ota-
heite ; then Lady Loveit told my mistress that it looked as if
one had nothing to do at a masquerade, to go so finely dressed;
and then she resolved upon these hoods.
Sir D, — WeU, remember to pin on the distinguishing mark :
— the blue bow on the left side.
Trim,— Do you suppose I was never employed in a masque
rade frolic before ? Besides, I consider this as quite a good
work ; making amends for any other schemes in which I may
ever have been consarned. What signifies shiUy-shallying at
her age ? Sure she is old enough to judge for herself in the
choice of a husband,
Mrs. Rac. (Within the door.)-^lt is plain who they are
talking of.
Sir D. — And this will prevent aU debating, and opposition,
and awkwardness on the subject ; and when it is over, every
one will be pleased with it.
Trim. — Ay, to be sure. Sir ; for we women, at bottom, all
like a bold stroke for a wife.
Mrs, Rac. (As before.) — A bold stroke ! Heavens ! What
does he mean to perpetrate ?
Sir D, — Every thing will be prepared where I mean to carry
her ; and you will take care and be in the outer room, near the
door, and follow us out as a witness.
Mrs. Rac. (As before.) — A witness ! Oh, I shall never sup
port a witness.
Trim. — Never fear me. Sir; when one can't be principal upon
these occasions, I like nothing better, for my part, than being a
witness, Mrs. Rac. (As before.) — Oh ! the audacious hussey,
l_Bell rings hard in the next room.
Trim. — Well, well, I'm coming, I'm coming, — I vow I be
lieve she's jealous, even of me.
Sir D, — All the preliminaries of our treaty are now, I think,
settled: nothing remains but securing the subsidies, and in
terchanging presents ; for the first, you must trust to my
honour : for the second, we will sign and seal on the spot, if
you please. (Gives her a present, and kisses her. Bell rings

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 347
ayatn,)— And now away with you, and be sure to keep your
mistress in her present good dispositions.
TiHm. — I am sure. Sir, if her dispositions are any thing Uke
mine, they can't be better. — (Bell rings again violently.) Coming,
coming, I teU you. Lord, you don't give one time either to do
your business, or my own. [_Exit.
Sir D. Solus. — Who the devil would suppose that I should
ever be caught cajoUng a cUambermaid, and planning an elope
ment ? — I, who have no more belief in the necessity of adven
tures in modern gallantry than in those of Amadis de Gaul, or
the Knights of the Round Table, I, who have always found
the wUUng fair laugh romance out of countenance, and abridge
aU novels, from the first pages to the catastrophe. 'Tis true,
my pursuit is now a wife, not a mistress, and in all situations
their treatment should be very different ; for, as I think, 1
should have been heartily sorry to have made any of my mis
tresses my wife ; so I have now prudently determined on a wife,
who wiU certainly never be my mistress.
(Sir Dudley turns a little, and sees Mrs. Racket at tlie
bottom of ihe Stage.)
Sir D. — Watched by Jupiter ! — I must put a grave face upon
the matter. (Walks about pensively, as if he had not seen her ;
she advances slowly.)
Mrs. Rac — Sir Dudley, you seem in so deep a reverie —
Sir D. — That nobody, but yourself, could have agreeably in
terrupted it.
Mrs. -Roc- Indeed !
Sir D. — Yes, for your society procures me in reality what I
was only enjoying in imagination. I have been waiting this
hour for you, whUe you, I find, have been closeted with Sir
Valentine Vapour. You must have a great deal of business
with Sir Valentine Vapour,
Mrs. Rac. (Aside.) — Jealous, I vow and protest.
Sir D, — /, perhaps, had business too.
Mrs, Rac, — I am sure. Sir Dudley, any business of yours ;
if I had any guess —
Sir, D, — I was going to propose — I was going to ask
you— Mrs. Rac. (Aside,)— He is certainly going to propose him
self. Sir D, — If you don't mean to go to the masquerade to
night? Mrs, Rac, — Certainly, Sir Dudley, I did mean it — that is to
say, I do — that is to say, if —

348 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
SiV D.— If? if what?— for Heaven's sake, let no j/ destroy
my hopes.
Mrs. -Rac— Your hopes ? of what. Sir Dudley ?
Sir D. — Of meeting you there, Ma'am.
Mrs. Rac— Oh Lord, I shaU be so muffled up— so con
cealed. Sir D, — No concealment • can secure you from my pene
tration. Mrs, Rac, — W^e shaU see that.
Sir D.—l hope so, [Going.
Mrs, i?ac,— Beware of a mistake ; there wiU be many like
me. Sir D. — None to my eyes : be only there, and leave the rest
to me, [Exit.
Mrs. Rac. (Sola.)— Leave the rest to him ! — as clear as day
light what he means. Lord ! if he had not put one into such
a flutter and such a hurry, I should have convinced him that
this elopement business was quite unnecessary. Well, but
perhaps, as he said, it may prevent all opposition and awkward
ness on the subject. And now let me see, shaU I sound Trim
ming ? She must know the whole plot — but what if she won't
confess ? — And what if she wall ? — Then I should be obliged to
take some odious measures against it, and expose myself to
scandal. No, I think, upon the whole, I had better take
no notice of what I have heard ; but patiently wait the event,
and be prepared for the worst. But then, to leave my daughter
without a chaperon at the masquerade, would be shocking. I
vow I never thought of that, I'll go out immediately, and get
somebody to go with us : there can be no fear of a mistake. I
shaU not forget the blue bow. [Exit.
Scene changes to Lady Selina's apartment in the Hotel.
On one side of the Stage a table covered with letters, papers, and
books ; OH the other, a toilet table.
Lady Selina, and Mr. Lovell.
Mr. Lov. — Going abroad again ? Heavens ! you don't say
so ?
Lady S,— Nothing so true. This cold, foggy, country is as
ill suited to the tenderness of my feelings as to the delicacy of
my constitution. What should I do here ?
Mr. Lov. — Stay, and be adored.
Lady S. — Adored, by whom ? — The men never speak to a

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 349
woman tUl they are what they call in love ^vith her ; and then
they weary her to death with such a clumsy, downright, sur
feiting passion !
Mr. Lov. — If its violence offends you, impute it to your own
charms. Lady S. — Incapable of that tender, sentimental, sympathetic
affection, those delicate attentions so necessary to my feelings.
Mr. Lov. — Where you shaU have smiled favourably, can you
fail inspiring every sentiment you wish ?
Lady S, (looking tenderly at Lovell), — Could I suppose this
indeed, I should be in less haste to fly my country, and avoid
those whom I feel at once the most dangerous and most mortify
ing society to me.
Mr. Lov. — You cannot doubt it ; and if you do, let me be
destined to the happiness of undeceiving you ; from me you
shaU experience every thing that the most ardent passion, the
most sympathetic affection, the most tender feelings can dic
tate, (Aside) The devil's in it if this won't do.
Lady S, — Oh, heavens ! am I then born to destroy the hap
piness of every thing that I hold most dear : — always doomed to
inspire these fatal, unfortunate passions — to feel for and parti
cipate in torments which — I cannot relieve ?
Mr, Lov, (Aside) , — What the devil is she at now ? — Not
reUeve? Pshaw ! don't let us lose moments in talking, that we
can employ so much better.
Lady S, — Impossible ! — I lament, I pity, I enter into your
passion — I wish you to become my friend.
Mr, Lov, — So I wiU as soon as you have proved that you
put a proper degree of confidence in me ; and the sooner this
necessary preliminary to our friendship is settled, the better.
Lady S. — But what security have I for the duration of your
sentiments ? — Are you not already happy in the possession of a
female friend, for whom I supposed your attachment such as
to make all others indifferent to you ?
Mr, Lov. — What, the girl I have at Paddington ? — Did not
care a pin for her the week after I took her : — only just keep a
house for her, and give her a drive in my curricle now and
then, out of common decency.
Lady S. — Hah ! and are these the sentiments to which you
would have me trust ? — When you own your infidelity to your
wife, to my amiable friend — for whom I thought your attach
ment likely to supersede all others ? ,
Mr. Lov. — My attachment to my wife ! ha ! ha ! ha ! — I

350 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
don't know who the devil it is that gives you such a bad
opinion of me.
Lady S.—l thought you one of those happy mortals not
subject to the eccentricities of impassioned souls, but reason
ably, calmly attached to her.
Mr. Lov, — It is a dead calm then, in which aU pleasure
foundered long ago. The only good turn she ever did me was
introducing me to you ; and as she is your friend, you know,
it would be very iU bred not to aUow me to profit by the ac
quaintance. Lady S. — What is it you require of me ? — I feel there is
nothing of which my soul is not capable for my friend's hus
band, Mr. Lov. (Aside). — Now confound her for giving me that
title just now ; it has deranged aU I had ready to say. Require
of you ? Enter Lapierre.
La. — Ma'am, Mrs. Racket has called tree times dis morning
to inquire after you.
Lady S. — Did not you say I was out ?
La. — I tought your Ladyship had given orders to be iU.
Lady S. — Well, did not you say I was confined ?
La. — Yes, my Lady, to your bed ; but she says she will call
again in five minutes, and begs to come up and sit by you.
Lady S. — Lord, one must be dead to get rid of this woman !
How tiresome ! — Well, I believe, as she knows I am at home,
I must see her for a moment. [Exit Lapierre,
Mr. Lov. — How can you bear that vulgar talking woman ?
Lady S. — I don't know, she is such a good-natured creature !
Mr. Lov. — The arrantest gossip in London,
Lady S. — Her conversation is, to be sure, sometimes over
powering to nerves like mine ; but then, she is such a good-
natured creature, knows every body.
Mr. Lov. — Does as much mischief with her tongue as Lady
Catherine Caustic. %
Lady S. — She does, to be sure, sometimes come out with
things unluckily; but she don't mean it. She is such a good-
natured creature ; always ready to do any thing one wants her.
Mr. Lov. — An arrant Mrs. Commode to half her acquaint
ance. Lady S. — Never has a wiU of her own !
Mr. Lov. — ¦'The veriest Toady.

THE FASUIONABLE FRIENDS. 351
Lady S. — So pleased with one's notice !
Mr. Lov. — So would the grocer's wife at the corner, and ba
just as good company. Confounded interruption !
Lady S. — TeU me when I shaU see you again. I am so im
patient for your confidence — I feel that it will be mutual. My
soul longs to open itself to you ; for I see there is that invin
cible sympathy between us — that attraction of character — to
morrow morning perhaps,
Mr. Lov. — To-morrow morning ! — This evening — as soon as
she is gone. To-morrow morning ! an age !
Lady S. — This evening. — (Aside.) The tete-a-tete will still be
in the famUy. AVeU, I have so much to say to you, for I feel
that my confidence will be unbounded.
Mr. Lov. — This evening then, my adorable. — (Aside.) Egad,
I believe if this damned woman would keep away for half an
hour, I might be saved the trouble of returning in the evening.
Lady S. — My situation is so cruel I— nobody enters into my
character.  Enter Servant, announcing Mrs. Racket.
(To Lovell aside, as he bows and goes out.) Tliis evening, then.
Lady Selina, and Mrs. Racket,
Mrs. Rac. — My dear Lady Selina, the moment I heard you
were in town, and Ul, I put off all my morning engagements to
come and sit with you ; refused going to Kensington Gardens
with Lady Sarah Saunter, and have been twice already at
your door.
Lady S. — You are too good to your friends.
Mrs. Rac. — Oh, it is amazing how much of my time I dedi
cate to friendship. During the influenza, I sat with sixteen
particular friends every day, besides being electrified three
times a week with Lady Wishfort, and going through a course
of Aiumal Magnetism with Mrs, Slyly.
Lady S. — How have you time for aU you do ? — You must
have the constitution of a horse.
Mrs. Rac. — Oh, Lord ! no : I am often terribly nervous, and
obliged to drive about the whole day to get the better of it.
Just now I am in such a perturbation of spirits, that I would
not be a moment alone for the whole world. But I rejoice to
see you so much better than I expected. You wUl go to the
masquerade to-night ?
Lady S. — Heavens ! not for the world, in the state you see
me ! (Coughs.) Where is it?

352 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
Mrs. Rac. — At Lady Crowder's ; every body is to be there ;
they say she has given away three hundred tickets more than
her house will hold. It will be the charmingest thing in the
world. You must positively go.
Lady S, — Oh, impossible ! I am ordered perfect quiet ; — be
sides, I have no dress.
Mrs. Rac. — Oh, Lord ! we can get one in a moment : — my
carriage is at the door, and I was just going to Tavistock
Street, to bespeak a dress for Mrs. Dupely, who, you know,
poor woman ! ever since the affair with young Guetres, can
never get to a masquerade without making it a secret from her
husband. Lady S. — Poor woman !
Mrs. Rac. — So she sent to beg I would meet Colonel Con-
quart at the warehouse, and choose a dress. I think we shall take
a nun's, and send it home as flannel for the children's petticoats.
I shall be hurried to death; but, you know, one could not
refuse doing any thing for a person in her cruel situation : — so
do let us be going.
Lady S. — Impossible ! Besides, I have a person coming to
me in the evening upon business.
Mrs, Rac. — Lord ! you would not let business interfere ; — be
sides, I am sure business will do you more harm than the
masquerade. Business always makes me quite ill.
Lady S. (Aside). — Perhaps my business may be better
settled at the masquerade than elsewhere,
Mrs. Rac. — Come, you must positively go ; — Colonel Con
quest will have been waiting for me in Tavistock Street this
half hour.
Lady S. — WeU, I feel so unwell, that I should not be able to
do any thing at home ; so, perhaps I may as well go for an
hour. But I must write to my people of business.
Mrs. Rac. — Certainly ; there's paper ; do write as fast as you
can. Lady S. (goes io a table on one side ofthe Stage, and writes.)
— You are making me do the strangest thing ! — (Aside.) I
must write both to the husband and the wife ; and first for the
husband. Mrs. Rac. (Aside). — This is charming: her being of the
party will give such eclat to the elopement. Nobody is so much
the fashion, so much abused, and liked, and talked of, as she
is, M'hUe you are writing I will just put a dust of powder
into my hair at your glass here, for I see I shan't have a mo-

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 353
ment's time for dressing the whole day ; and I shall be such a
figure before night ! (Mrs. Racket sellles her dress and prac
tises airs before the gluss\
Lady S. (reads in u low voire what she has written). — " We
were cruelly interrupted this morning. To get rid of the im
pertinence of that queer creature Racket, after you left me, I
was obUged to promise to go for a moment to Lady Crowder's
masquerade this evening; — perhaps we maybe less liable to
interruption in the crowd there, than in my noisy lodgings.
As I conclude you will go in domino, come and take your tea
with me ; you can afterwards slip on your dress at the hotel,
and we may go together." — If LoveU don't understand this, he
is incorrigible,
Mrs. Rac, (Still looking in the glass, and settUng her dress.) —
Come, do make haste — / have fifty things to settle to-day, for I
shall be so particularly occupied for some time to come —
(Lady S. Aside,) — And now for the wife — I must lay it all
upon my health, that prevents my being able to see her ; and
Lord knows ! one of her long, quiet evenings, as she calls them,
would make me Ul at any time. (Writes,)
Mrs, Rac. (Aside, and coming forward upon ihe Stage.) It will
make the charmingest paragraph, with stars and dashes, in the
papers to-morrow morning, I shall be quite the fashion for
the whole ¦winter, 1 won't speak to one of my city acquaint
ances, (Walks about making stiff and distant curtsies.) Lord!
you wiU never have done writing, — (Aside.) Let me see, how
must I receive him when he first discovers his intentions ? — I
must be shocked, and frightened, and agitated — Oh yes, agi
tated to such a degree, that I don't know what I do, nor what
he does, nor — Oh ! I must be violently agitated.
Lady S, (Reading.) — " I am in despair at not being able to
see you this evening — um — um — um — nerves so shaken — ef
fects of our meeting — um — um — um — a book — triste reverie on
my soUtary couch — successful rival — only one you can ever
dread in the heart of— um — um — um — ." Now I have done —
Lapierre — (Rising from the table, and calling the servant.)
Mrs. Rac — WeU, come, let's be gone — you vriU meet your
servant on the stairs.
Lady S. (Folding up the letters in a great /iiirry.)— Heavens !
how you hurry one's nerves ! You are positively more agitating
than green tea at midnight. Lapierre— (caZ/i/i(/)— I shaU be an
hour now in getting my orders drummed into his Swiss head—
Lapierre — (calling.)

354 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS^
Enter Lapierre.
La. — Oui, Madame.
Lady S. — You must carry these two notes.
La. — Oui, Madame.
Lady S.—To Mrs. LoveU's,
La. — Oui, Madame, a I'ordinaire — as usual.
Lady S. — No, not as usual.
La. — Non, Madame.
Lady S, — You must ask for her maid.
La, — Mademoiselle Lappet — it is always de first ting I do.
Lady S. — Ay, but you must remember now to ask first for
Mr. LoveU's man.
La. — Monsieur Jean — ah ! c'est autre chose.
Lady S. — And give him this note. (Directs one of ihe notes,
both of which she had before folded up.) This to be delivered
immediately. La. — Delivered a Madame.
Lady S. — No, a Monsieur.
La. — Oh I c'est autre chose.
Lady S. — And then give this (directs the othernote) to Lappet.
La. — Pour Monsieur aussi.
Lady S. — No, pour Madame.
La. — Ah ! c'est autre chose.
Mr.<i. Rac. — WeU, but do let us be gone, for I shall have no
time for any thing.
Lady S. (Going, speaks to Lapierre,) — Go directly with the
notes ; and make no mistake be sure. — (To Mrs. Racket.) II
est si bete ! he is so stupid !
[Exeunt Lady Selina and Mrs,. Racket.
La. (Solus.) — Not so stupid, not so stupid — for allowing his
masters and mistresses to tink themselves so much cleverer dan
himself. [Exit.

ACT IV.
SCENE I.
Sir Valentine Vapour's Lodgings.
Enter Sir Valentine, with a number of Bills and papers in his
hand. Sir Valentine. — Why, what the devU ! here's the income of
many a moderate fortune gone in the education of one girl.

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 355
(Looking over the accounts.) To Mr. Parallel, the drawing-
master, five guineas entrance; to three sets of prints, pic-
teresque views on the Brentford Road — picturesque views on
the Brentford road ! nine guineas : papers, colours, brushes,
preparing drawings, mounting drawings, finishing drawings, —
why this man seems to have been paid for doing himself what
he was employed to teach her. To Signor Celestini, ten
guineas entrance : to six sets of sonatas, dedicated to Miss
Racket : subscription to his concert ; box at his benefit. — Egad !
their biUs have as many items as a coachmalcer's, — To Mon
sieur Soubresaut, the dancing-master, attendance during seven
winters ; — here's one who is above coming to particulars, he
deals wholesale by the season. To Mr, Mac Caper, for Scotch
steps. Zounds ! if this is what they call education, half the
private famiUes in England could give their children no educa
tion at aU. To the teacher and restorer of the art of filigrain :
— what the de^•il of an art is that ? I don't recollect a word of
it in Chamber's Dictionary. To philosophical lectures : paint
ing upon velvet : instructions on the Eidouranion. To —
Enter Doctor Syrop.
Dr. Sy. — Sir, your most humble servant. Sir Valentine
Vapour, I presume —
Sir. V. — At your service. Sir.
Dr. Sy.—l come. Sir Valentine, to wait upon you about a
business that —
Sir F.—Oh, Lord ! ay. Sir, you are the very person I was
waiting for. — (Aside.) This must be the proprietor of the
violet soap. You received my note, then ?
Dr. Sy.— No, Sir ; Lady SeUna desired me to caU upon you—
Sir r,— Lady SeUna, my daughter-in-law ? What, I suppose
then, she makes use of —
Dr. Sy.— Of nothing but what I recommend to her ; and, I
flatter myself, with much success.
Sir r.— She finds it answer then ? and puffs you, I hope, to
every body ?
Dr. Sy,— Thank Heaven ! Sir Valentine, my character is so
weU established in the first circles, that I have no need'of puff
ing from any body.
Sir F.— Come, come, you must not despise puffing, however;
—puffing is of use in everything : many an ordinary woman has
been puffed into a beauty, and many a dull feUow into a wit.
Besides, you must not confine yourself to the highest circles :
money is only to be got from the community at large : you
must endeavour to acquire a general reputation.

356 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
Dr. Sy.— Oh dear ! Sir Valentine, that may do very weU for
country practitioners — people who have nothing but mere com-
mon business to depend upon ; but when one has the honour,
to be received into the confidence of the great, and to have got
upon the footing I have, one is very careless about a general
reputation, believe me. Sir.
Sir v.- — What ! is your business become already so lucrative
as to make you independent ? WeU, Sir, however, as I think I
shall be able to furnish you with the means of considerably en
larging it, I should be glad to know beforehand, about how
much you may now make in a season ?
Dr. Sy. — ReaUy, Sir, that is a very home question ; and my
line of business depends so much upon contingencies, that
really, Sir —
Sir V. — What ! you are afraid, that, having owned yourself
able to pay, I should make harder terms with you ?
Dr. Sy. — Terms with me. Sir, for enlarging my business ?
Oh ! Sir, if that is what you mean, though I might just at my
first setting out touch one or two people to recommend me to
Lady Fanciful, and a few nervous people of quality, I am quite
above aU that sort of thing, now — quite above it.
S'lr V. (Aside). — A curious fellow this for a dealer in soap. —
WeU, well, I am not going to exact any thing for good wUl.
Dr. Sy. — Good will ! Sir, I beg leave to inform you, that I
have not only the good will of all that employ me, but that I
consider many of them as much obliged to me as I to them.
Sir V. — And who the devil then do you think will employ
you ? Egad, I am very glad I had a little talk with you be
fore we proceeded to bu-siness. I find I can have no dealings
with you.
Dr. Sy. — Dealings with me. Sir Valentine !
Sir V. — You will end like many flashy fellows that I have
known about London, with a nostrum in their pockets, who,
upon the strength of their own impudence, and the folly of
others, get on for a little with a degree of success, which luckily,
by turning their heads, unmasks them, and undeceives the
world. Dr. Sy. — A nostrum in their pockets ! — Dam'me, Sir, do you
take me for an apothecary ?
Sir V. — No, but for a dealer in as great, though perhaps
more harmless, trash.
Dr. Sy. — Trash ! Sir Valentine ?
Sir V. — Yes, trash. But, however, as I find I can have

THE FASUIONABLE FRIENDS. 35 7
nothing to do with you, and )-ou see me busy here with papers,
I must beg' you will not iutrade upon my time any longer—
Dr. Sy. — Intrude upon your time ! — I believe ray time is as
precious as most people's. A guinea for every half hour I can
spare to Lady Dawdle, and thank me too ! — I must be at
Brompton, now, by six, with Mrs. Hectic, and back by a
quarter after, to see Lad)- Softly's child put to sleep. So, Sir,
as soon as ever I have executed my coraraission —
Sir v. — Commission, Sir ! I teU you I have no commission
for you.
Dr. Sy, — But, Sir, I come from Lady Selina, to —
S'lr V. — Lady Selina knows nothing about business — would
be taken in by any impostor.
Dr. Sy. — But, Sir, she is actually in a situation —
Sir J'. — What the devU has her situation to do wdth your
business ?
Dr. Sy.^X situation that immediately requires —
Sir T. — Not violet soap. Sir; so begone, and let rae never
see you more. Enter Mr. Lovell.
Mr. Lov. — Heyday, uncle ! wherefore in such a passion with
poor Syrop ? He has generaUy the art of mollifying those he
has to do with.
Sir V. — His soap may ; but as for himself —
Mr. Lov. — Soap ! 'NATiat, have you been giving him soap
piUs ? Treating him as if he had the jaundice ? (To Syrop,)
Sir V. — Egad, he has been treating me as if I had not com
mon sense.
Dr. Sy. — And he me as if I had been an apothecary, — (Aside,
to Lovell). But by his persisting in not hearing me, and
some odd phrases he dropped, I should really fear a material
derangement. If I can be of any use, Mr, Lovell ; have a
charming house near the Gravel Pits, quite a paradise for people
afflicted that way ; would do any thing, you know, for your fa
mUy. — Adieu, my dear Sir. Sir Valentine, your humble ser
vant. [Exit Syrop.
Manent Sir Valentine, and Mr. Lovell.
Sir V. — How came you to know that fellow, nephew ?
Mr. Lov, — Know him ! he is my wife's physician, attends
your daughter-in-law, and is in high favour with all the fine
ladies, for giving names to disorders that have none ; and some
times, I believe, by giving none to those that have.

358 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
Sir V, — Egad, I'm very glad he is not the man I took him
for ; then I have some chance of not losing my violets. But
who the devil would suppose that prig of a fellow, with a
cropped head, a physician ? In my day, we should no more
have thought of taking a physician without a wig, than a phial
without a label,
Mr. Lov. — But what procures us a sight of you in town,
uncle ? I thought you disliked London in spring more than a
sportsman does in September.
Sir V. — Business, nephew, business of various sorts. You
know I am always at work for the good of mankind, and I
have now a scheme, which, once put into execution, will rank
rae among the first benefactors, both to the world and my
countrymen. Instead of digging into the bowels of the earth
for a clumsy aliment for fire, I propose to coUect its essence,
in all its original purity, from the air, by bringing electricity
from the cabinets of the curious to be applied to the common
purposes of life,
Mr. Lov. — The devil you do ? But I am much afraid, uncle,
this electrical scheme will shock the understandings of aU less
phUosophical heads than your own.
Sir V. — Ay, perhaps just at first, till my scheme is thoroughly
known ; — all great men meet with opposition. But every body
wUl soon, instead of laying in coals for the winter, make a
regular provision of charged phials of electricity —
Mr. Lov, — What ! every body have a fire-house as well as
an ice-house belonging to them ?
Sir f ,— To be sure ; and be as anxious to fiU the one in a
thunder-storm as provident people are to fill the other during a
frost. Mr. Lov. — But how is this to be applied in detail?
Sir V. — How to be applied in detail? Oh! to the most
minute purposes ; the housemaid, for instance, in all regular
families, should be charged in the morning, and light all the
fires in the house with sparks from her knuckles and elbows,
instead of sticks and tallow candles.
Mr. Lov. (Aside). — I must not forget my promise to Dori
mant. Now if he knows any thing of electricity, his fortune
is made. Have you ever heard of my friend Sir Dudley Dori-
mant's experiments upon this subject ?
Sir V, — His experiments, a jacknapes ! he refused to try
mine upon his lean acres, when I had time to make them ; but
now I shall act upon a much larger scale.

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 359
Mr. Lov, — His ideas upon conductors, I am told, are quite
new, S/r r.— Indeed ! Well, I wiU have some talk with him.
Mr. Lov, — It is just what he wishes.
Si> V, — Something to be got from every fool. Make a me
morandum to speak to him. (Takes oui his pocket-book, and
writes,) Entei- Serv.vnt: gives Mr. Lovell o note and exit.
Mr. Lov, — WiU you permit me ?— A letter upon business. —
(Reads,) " I am in despair at not being able to see you this
evening, (starts,) after aU the happiness I had proposed to my
self in passing it tete-a-tSte with you ; but when you left me,
my physician found my nerves so shaken, and my pulse so
much higher, the effect of our meeting," — The devil ! her pulse
is soon affected, — " that he insisted upon perfect solitude for
me this evening. A book wUl be my only companion ; a triste
reverie upon my soUtary couch your successful rival — the only
one you can ever dread in the heart of your devoted Selina." —
DevU! Sir V, — No bad news, I hope ? Nothing gone wrong ?
Mr, Lov. — Yes, faith, a scheme of mine seems to be going
quite wrong.
Sir V. — A scheme — pray of what nature ?
Mr, Lov, — Oh ! my dear uncle, you are too much a man of
business not to know there are many of a nature not to be
spoken of.
Sir K.— Ay, but I have a confounded bad opinion of aU
schemes prefaced with " the utmost secrecy may be depended
on," Mr, Lov. — In this case, however, it was necessary.
Sir F.— Is the affau: actionable ? Can you recover matters
in a court of justice ?
Mr. Lov.— No, faith ! Nor in a court of conscience neither.
Sir F.— Come, come, tell me what's the matter ; I am used
to these things— nobody has been so often cheated as I have.
Mr. Lov. (dside.)—What the devil shaU I say to him ?—
Why, it was a bargain, as I thought, concluded, by which, for
certain services, I was to be put in possession of most desirable
premises, which I have long coveted.
Sir F.— Not freehold, then ?
Mr. Lov.— 'No ; I was to be the only tenant at wiU.
Sir r.— Pshaw ! not worth thinking about ; fifty as pretty

360 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
things of the same sort to be met with about town, I dare
say. Mr. Lov. — None that happen to suit my fancy as much.
You'll excuse me for running away; business, you know, must
be attended to. [Exit,
Sir V. (solus.) — Business, indeed !— Would not one swear
he was going to make a large addition to his estate at ten
years' purchase ? — This lad's business, forsooth, is an eager
pursuit of some whim, which will cease to please him the in
stant he possesses it. — Mrs. Racket calls business driving about
the streets all day, and never being a moment at home. My
friend the Doctor's business seems, by his own account, to be
much the same thing ; only he is paid, and she, I fancy, pays
for every half hour they get rid of. Nobody but me, I find,
rationaUy emjiloyed ; nobody, whose business is of real import
ance, and embraces in endless perspective the future interests
of the human race. Talk of enlightening mankind ! it never
can be done but by my electrical system: — so I will lose no
time in forwarding the general illumination. [Exit.
Scene changes io ihe Hotel.
Mr. Lovell, Lapierre.
Mr. Lov. — Not ill, do you say ?
La. — Non, Monsieur,
Mr. Ln: — Not confined ?
La, — Non, Monsieur ; au contraire, she is gone out wid
Madame Racket,
Mr, Lov, — Gone out !
La, — Oui, Monsieur ; 9a vous tranquillise, n'est-ce pas ?
That make you easy ?
Mr, Lov. — Gone out !
La. — Oui, Monsieur ; gone out to prepare for the evening,
Mr, Lov, — To prepare for the evening ?
La,- — Monsieur, sArement doit savoir qa ; — you ought to
know dat. Sir,
Mr. Lov. — Yes, indeed, I think I ought ; and therefore the
sooner you tell me the better.
La. (Aside.) — Quel drol d'homme ! — but I begin to fear I
have got into the wrong box here !
Mr. Lov. — And for what is she preparing?
La. (Aside.) — Ah ! je commence a comprendre : he know
noting at all, — I don't know. Sir.
Mr. Lov. — You don't know ?
La. — Non, Monsieur. I was going to ask you. Sir.

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 361
Mr. Z-o!),- Hark'ee, rascal ; teU me, this instant, all you
know about your Lady, or by Heaven — (holding up his cane) —
But, hold! this is the surer way. (Giving him money.)
La. — Oui, s4rement. Monsieur, (Bowing.)
Mr. Lov. — Now, for what is she preparing ?
La. — I believe for de masquerade.
Mr, Lov, — For the masquerade ! — And with whom does she
go? La, — Wid you. Sir, I fancy.
Mr. Lov. — With me ? pshaw ! and with whom else ? An
swer, rascal ! without prevarication ; — teU me every thing you
know, or beUeve, or guess at, or fancy.
La. i Aside.) — Diable ! by his eagerness to make me speak,
I beUeve I should have got more by holding my tongue. Mais,
Monsieur, wid Mrs. Racket, — and —
Mr. Lov. — And who else ? — Speak this instant — or (threat
ening him.)
La. — Mais, Monsieur ; I suppose, avec Madame Lovell, and
par consequent — consequently avec Monsieur le ChevaUer
Dorimant, dey are alwas togeder.
Mr. Lov. — (Aside.) And consequently, I am baulked of my
mistress, dishonoured by my wife, and supplanted with both,
by this feUow I have called my friend. I shall be with them,
however. Two at a time is rather too much ; — I shaU contrive
to take one off his hands, if I cannot save t'other. Save her !
does she deserve it ? Tormenting question ! — But this is no
time for reflection. Now, for the means of finding them out ; —
I must not discover myself to this feUow.
La. — If Monsieur has no furder commands ?
Mr. Lovell. — WeU, I am so much satisfied with your infor
mation, that if you reply as truly about their dresses, here's
another guinea for you.
La. — Mais, Monsieur, en verite.
Mr. Lov. — No mais. Sir ! out with it this instant.
La. — D'honneur, Monsieur,
Mr. Lov. — This moment, (threatening him.)
La. — Ma parole. Monsieur.
Enter Shopman with a Parcel.
Shop. — Is this Lady Selina Vapour's apartment ?
La. — Yes ; what you want ?
Shop. — A parcel that she has sent from the masquerade
warehouse in Tavistock Street. (Puis ii down.)

362 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
Mr. Lov. — Dresses for to-night ? — have you any good ones ?
Shop. — (Undoing the parcel, and shaking out the dresses.)
These, Sir, are black dominos ; but we have capuchins, friars of
all sorts, Turks, cardinals, and the only real savage in aU Tavis
tock Street. Shall I wait upon you. Sir ?
Mr. Lov. — I will caU at your house. [Exeunt Lovell and Shopman.
La. — (solus.) Pardi, if dis man had not happened to come
wid his cardinals, and capuchins, and savages, I should have
been obliged to teU a lie only to escape a thrashing for speaking
truth. [Exit, taking the dresses along with him.
Scene changes to the Street near the Hotel.
Enter Lovell, meeting Sir Dudley.
Sir D. — WeU, have you succeeded with the old Knight ?
With what demon of improvement does he believe me smitten ?-^
Am I to take water-mills or wind-miUs, or what, to him ?
Mr. Lov. — Nothing of this sort wiU do.
Sir D. — Did you not tell him I was ready to try any scheme
Mr. Lov. — None has a chance at present of rivalling elec
tricity in his imagination ; so I have told him you are deep on
that subject, and have made some wonderful experiments on
conductors. Sir D. — Oh, damn it ! I know no more of electricity and
conductors than of the north-west passage. But, no matter : —
I bid him defiance at Lady Crowder's baU this evening. I have
already so settled matters as to be able to do without him.
Mr. Lov. — Indeed ! — Is the girl then so much in your
power ?
Sir D. — Egad, all I fear, is my being so much in her power
for this evening, as to prevent more agreeable occupation ; for
marriage is one of those lasting pleasures to which a man should
only recur in times of necessity : — but I have a great head for
arrangement, and you shaU see in what a masterly manner I
shall to-night settle two or three different affairs in two or three
different stages of the business.
Mr. Lov. (Aside.) — Now would I give my ears to know
what stage he was at of my business.
Sir D. — But, Lovell, I suppose you know where Lady SeUna
goes to-night, and wiU not miss " the glorious, golden oppor
tunity." If a man can make nothing of a masquerade, I give
him up.

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 363
Mr. Lov. — Oh, Sir ! when you are of the party, / have so
Uttle chance — (Aside.) I must not let him guess at my sus
picions. SiV D. — Sure, you don't suspect me of poaching, do you ? —
But to convince you of the purity of my intentions, I wiU con
trive to assist you, to separate her from her party, and throw
her into your arms.
Mr. Lov. — You must be happily confident of the success of
your own affairs, to be thus kindly attentive to mine.
Sir D. — Why, faith, I have so often succeeded where I have
not taken pains, that I don't see why I should doubt of success
where I have,
Mr, Lov. — (Aside.) So, she has cost him some pains at
least. And do you never suppose it possible, that some angry
guardian, some sulky husband, or buUying brother, may dis
turb your success !
Sir D. — Pshaw, pshaw ! brothers have enough to do now-a
days to take care of their own honour ; and as for husbands,
guardians, and duennas, they were in all ages made to be de
ceived, to be angry, and to forgive. [Exit.
Mr, Lov. — (solus.) The devil they were I — but I believe you
wiU find you have been reckoning here without your host.
Deceived I may be — have been — angry I certainly shall be ; —
but damn me if I forgive. It is plain that his views are not
upon Lady Selina to-night ; and whatever his plan may be on
Miss Racket, he thinks himself too sure of success there, to let
her stand in the way of any other pursuit ; — and what that
other pursuit is, he has hardly the civUity to allow me to doubt.
By Heaven, I wiU foUow them like their shadow ; and, if it is as
I suspect, have the pleasure of detecting her, and cutting his
throat. — (Going.) But hold, is my wife worth all this ? — God !
I never thought her worth so much as at this instant, when
perhaps, she is worth nothing. [Going,
Enter Sir Valentine.
Sir V. — WeU, nephew, have you got your business near
settled ?
Mr. Lnv. — Yes, faith, I believe both your business and mine
is nearer settled than we imagine. Sir Dudley, I fancy —
Sir V. — Sir Dudley ! what, he is jealous, I suppose ; and cries
down my plans because it differs from his own ?
Mr. Lov. — Yes, I fancy you will find his plans differ very
essentiaUy from yours. K 2

364 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
Sir V, — I was sure of it ; knew his conductors would lead to
nothing. Mr, Lov.— I don't know what his conductors may lead
to ; but I believe he is conducting himself to lead away your
ward. Miss Racket, from the ball at Lady Crowder's to-night.
He owned as much to me just now.
Sir V. — How ! what the devil do you mean ? Lead away my
ward ? — Egad, if he does, it shall lead him to the gallows.
Mr. Lov. — And what good will that do, after the mischief is
done ? She is of age now, is not she ?
Sir V. — Very true, faith ; she is just of age, so may play the
fool as soon as she pleases ; but it shaU not be with him, with
his conductors and nonsense ! A puppy ! meddling with every
thing. Egad, I'll send for constables, and have him taken up
this instant.
Mr, Lov. — Taken up ! for what ? For intending to go to a ball
to-night ?
Sir V, — AU her mother said is very true, I find. What the
devil shall I do ? I'll go and swear the peace against him — I'll
knock him down — I'll —
Mr, Lov, — Instead of either swearing the peace against him,
or breaking it yourself, I should advise you only to determine
upon going to the masquerade, and watching them.
Sir V, — I, to a masquerade ! I, with a fool's coat upon my
back? Mr, Lov. — It is the only precaution you can take with safety
to yourself; for I know nothing positive of his plan, and only
picked up my idea from his hints.
Sir V. — Oh, it is certainly so : have not the least doubt of
it. This is the first fruits of her fine education — this it is to be
accomplished and ingenious, and to have all the Roman history
at her fingers' end.
Mr. Lov. — Well, are you for the masquerade ?
Sir V. — Egad, I have not been at a masquerade since
the King of Denmark's. I shall never find her out : any body
can deceive me. Mummers at Christmas, or boys with cork-ed
eyebrows, or whiskers, or a false nose, or an — any thing
Mr. Lov. — Ay, but I will go with you, and assist in finding
them out ; you can then dodge her, and see if my suspicions
are just — or, I'll tell you what would be better stUl, suppose
you were to personate him, under favour of your mask, and so
run away yourself ?
Sir V. — Run away with her myself! Gad zounds, and how
the devil am I ever to get rid of her ?

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 365
Mr. Lov. — Why there is no necessity to carry on the farce
to the last act, and really marry her yourself; but if she agree,
beUeving you Sir Dudley, to go off with you, she throws herself
into your power, and at the same time confesses such inten
tions, as wUl authorize any measures of authority on the part
of her mother and guardian.
S'lr V. — Very true, very true. WeU, if you can provide me
ivith a dress, and if once I can lodge her safe again in her mo
ther's hands, and clear mine of her fortune, I will see aU the
accomplished young ladies in London at the devU, before I
wiU take as much trouble for any one of them.
Mr. Lov. — Come, come, we have no time for invective ; it is
late, and you have to prepare for our scheme. [Exeunt.
Scene clianges io Mrs. Lovell's dressing room.
Sir Dcdlby Dorimant ushered in by a servant, who goes
out at the opposite side of the Stage, and leaves Sir Dudley
solus. Sir D. — Now that I am about to swaUow this bitter, but ne
cessary pUl of matrimony, let me contrive at least to have
something ready to put the taste out of my mouth, and think a
little of bringing my affairs here with this sentimental belle to
a crisis. She has long fluttered round the dangerous flame,
disguised to herself under various specious names, and yet
seems hitherto to have escaped unscorched. But this cannot,
must not last. My marriage, as I shaU manage it, wiU only
make her place more implicit confidence in me as a friend, and
establish between us a subject of complaint common to both —
an admirable engine in the hands of a man who knows how
to use it. In the meantime, I must pique her more strongly on
the subject of her husband, and magnify his indifference, tiU I
force her to draw a paraUel between it and my assiduity. I
dare not yet put her upon the scent of Lady Selina : her can
dour, and high opinion of her friend, would spoil all, by lead
ing too soon to an explanation — which is the devil, when one
wants to keep up a useful misunderstanding between friends.
But if I contrive weU, I think I may lay a train of suspicion,
even from this masquerade to-night, which I may afterwards
fire into jealousy, or smother into indifference, which ever best
suits my purpose. But here she comes.
Enter Mrs. Lovell with Lady Selina's note in her hand.
Mrs, Lov. — This note is from my dear SeUna. I am de-

366 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
lighted to find that her spirits are so much better, as to allow
her to think of going to Lady Crowder's masquerade to-night.
She tells me, since I left her, she has been persuaded to go,
and begs me to come to her early, and slip on a dress at the
hotel, that I may accompany her.
Sir. D. — Indeed ! And you comply ?
Mrs. Lov. — Certainly ! I should rather, to be sure, have pre
ferred passing the evening quietly in the apartment of my
friend ; but in her society any place has charms.
Sir D. — Amiable creature ! how few people go to a masque
rade from such motives ! And how are they requited ! how iU
matched !
Mrs. Lov. — Such motives, beUeve me, if they have any
merit, requite themselves.
Sir D, (looking tenderly ai her), — That any body happy in
the possession of such a gem, should ever for a moment be
dazzled with the false lustre of inferior charms !
Mrs. Lov. — I know not to what you allude : some new fancy
of Lovell's, I suppose.
Sir D. — That he should carelessly expose a real treasure, in
pursuit of a phantom of imaginary value !
Mrs. Lov. — The value of this treasure, you see, like that of
most others, depends entirely upon opinion : — there is no stand-
and in these cases but true affection ; and by that, I fear, I am
never to be tried.
Sir D. — How can you so wrong my tender, faithful friend
ship, which weighs with unremitting and painful attention aU
your charms, against all your wrongs ; and laments every hour
that your want of sufficient confidence in me, prevents your
doing more justice to the one, and revenging the other. But
friendship, friendship, I feel, too surely, can never heal the
wounds of love.
Mrs. Lov. Revenge, I fear, would but double their pain.
Sir D. — Not if such, as even injustice must confess merited,
and self-reproach oblige him to forgive. But whUe thus every
new whim is followed with impunity, even in your very so
ciety, with immediate opportunity of comparing all he aban
dons with aU he gains. Oh, I am ashamed of him.
Mrs. Lov. — You speak in enigmas ; and as I have long known
the only subject your friendship thus veils to me, it disturbs
me to find you more mysterious than usual.
Sir D. — Do not press me further on the subject ; you know
1 can refuse you nothing, I have already said too much.

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS, 367
Mrs. Lov, — Come, come, I dare say you consider this too
severely : your friendship for me magnifies my wrongs. Since
you wUl not speak, I will, and I dare say divine the whole of
what your over-delicacy conceals from me. Lovell, I conclude,
has some new pursuit, to which this very masquerade is to be
subservient ; is it not so ?
Sir D, — Why will your too great penetration always outrun
my precautions to preserve your peace, and save, if I could,
the honour of my friend ?
Mrs. Lov. — You find yourself awkwardly situated — the con
fident both of husband and wife. The one goes to the masque
rade to accompany her friend, the other 
Sir D. — To meet a mistress,
Mrs, Lov, — Hah (starts, bui recovers herself immediately) , —
But, alas 1 since I have found no sympathy existing between
us — since his mind is ever estranged from me — what can it
signify who captivates his fancy ?
Sir D: (Aside), — The devil's in this woman; while she con
tinues thus jealous only of mind, it wiU be equaUy difficult
either to possess or get rid of her.
Enter a Servant, announcing Miss and Mrs, Racket.
Mrs, Rac — It is an age since I have had the pleasure of
seeing you, Mrs. LoveU. Sir Dudley, your servant — but really,
I find it so difficult at this time of the year to balance all my
visiting accounts 
Mrs, Lov, — And nobody, I am sure, has so much reason t
be a forgiving creditor as myself.
Mrs, Rac. — Seven hundred upon my book, I assure you,
besides dancing-men and country families in lodgings. Then I
expected certainly to have met you at Mrs. Drummajor's
assemblies; aU the town was there; or at my Lady Frail's
baUs ; but, perhaps, you don't visit her. Many people have
scruples — nobody so nice as myself ; but I protest I never saw
any thing amiss in her : that shocking affair with the coach
man, you know, was never proved ; and as for reports 
Sir D. (looking ai Mrs. Racket), — Nothing can be so ma
licious as giving any credit to them, when to a person's disad
vantage, Mrs. Rac. (looking ai Sir Dudley), — So I begin to think.
Sir Dudley ; one cannot be too slow in believing any appear
ances against a person to whom one is naturaUy inclined to be
partial, R 3

368 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
Sir D. — Surely one may be led into such mistakes. People
appear so different from what they are. Such unexpected turns
may be given to conduct.
Mrs. Rac (Aside). — How delicately he assures me of his
passion !
Miss Rac (Aside). — How nicely he bamboozles mamma !
Mrs. Lov. — To retrieve my credit with you, Mrs. Racket,
and convince you I have not quite abandoned the world, I
mean to be at Lady Crowder's, who sees masks to-night. Sir
Dudley, I have a notion, intends tormenting us all there, for
he has never said whether he means to go.
Sir D. (Aside.) — But he would have been confoundedly
disappointed if you had not inquired. I should certainly
go, if I thought my presence could in the slightest degree
interest one individual that is to be there. — (Looking at Mrs.
LoveU,) Mrs. Lov. (Aside). — His earnestness affects me.
Miss. Rac. (Aside). — This making love to me before mamma's
face would be pure sport, if she did but understand what he is
saying as well as I do.
Sir D. — But a masquerade to a person without some pur
suit, some object to which he looks forward with eager soli
citude as the end and aim of all his wishes — (Looking at Mrs,
Lovell,) Mrs. Rac. — We aU, to be sure, feel the truth of what you
say. Sir Dudley, — (Aside.) His passion is quite moving.
Sir. D, —Is the dullest of all meetings where every one
depends upon his neighbour for entertainment, and thinks he
has a right to complain at finding him as stupid as himself.
Mrs, Lov, — I am glad to see the dissipation and late hours of
London seem to agree so weU with Miss Racket, She is grown
quite fat.
Miss Rac, — Oh, the dissipation and late hours would agree
very well with me, if mamma did not make rae get up so early
every morning to pace in the square with all the sick chUdren
and mangy lap-dogs in the parish,
Mrs. Rac. — Air and exercise, you know, Mrs, LoveU, one
cannot exist without. To be sure, it was otherwise in my
day ; — air spoilt the complexion, and exercise the shape, and
we did perfectly well without either the one or the other. —
But these things are all fashion ; so I make my daughter walk
every morning an hour and an half before breakfast, even
though she should not have been two hours in bed ; — then.

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 369
at twelve, she goes to the riding-school, and at three takes
a turn or two with me in the Park or Kensington Gardens ;
and this, what with walking in and out of three or four
assemblies every night, 1 think must give her one of the
strongest constitutions in the world.
Mrs. Lov. — Indeed, I think the efficacy of the regimen
is proved by the possibihty of supporting such severe dis
cipline. Miss Rac. — Ay, but then I drink porter, and eat meat
three times a-day, and do every thing I can think of to be
fat; for you know we aU feed for a shape now, instead of
starving, Mrs. Lov. — What enviable spirits !
Miss -Rac— Dear ! you know one must be in spirits ; nobody
is grave, and prim, and melancholy, but country quizzes and
county-town beUes.
Mrs. Lov. — Of aU fashions, good spirits is that one would
most wish to follow.
Mrs. Rac. — Deai' Miss Racket, you wUl reaUy give Mrs.
LoveU and Sir Dudley a strange opinion both of yourself, and
the people with whom I have aUowed you to live.
Miss Rac. (Aside io Sir Dudley). — You see she never will
aUow me to speak, a word before you. (They whisper apart).
Mrs. Rac. — Come, come, child, we must be gone, or I
shaU be too late for the French china in Bond Street.
Come, Sir Dudley, you must come with us ; we can't do
without you.
Sir D. — Without me. Ma'am !
Mrs. Rac. — Yes, yes, I insist. — Adieu, Mrs. Lovell ! we
shall all meet at the masquerade, L^'"^* ^^r ^''"'' '" ^ir
Dudley, who exits with Mrs, and Miss Rackett, on one side
ihe Stage, and Mrs. Lovell on the other.

370 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
ACT V.
SCENE I.
Lady Selina's Apartment at the Hotel.
jLady Selina, and Mrs, Lovell, discovered sifting, with a little
Table before them, at Work.
Mrs, Lovell. — How charming, if the world, and all its
tedious forms, allowed one to pass more evenings like this, in
the calm enjoyments of friendship !
Lady S, — You know how peculiarly suited they are to my
pensive turn of mind. — (Yawns.) — Thus agreeably situated, I
could positively forget aU time. I have no idea how long we
have already been together — (Yawns.) — Pray, my dear, what
o'clock is it ?
Mrs, Lov, — I dread looking, for fear it should be near the
hour that we must exchange this charming quiet, for aU the
noise and confusion ofthe masquerade.
Lady S. — (Aside, and looking towards the door.) I expect
Lovell every instant : how shall I ever get her away ?
Mrs. Lov. — (Looking at her watch.) It is but just ten o'clock.
Lady S, — Ten o'clock ! is it possible ? — (Aside.) This evening
mil, to be sure, be lost for ever, LoveU's want of impatience,
though not very flattering, is lucky as things have happened.
(They rise and come forward.)
Mrs. Lov. — You know not how many reasons I have for
thinking of this masquerade with a sort of reluctance.
Lady S. — Do not, then, I beseech you, go on my account. —
(Aside.) Would to Heaven she would take my advice !
Mrs. Lov. — No, I have resolved to get the better of my
repugnance, so do not rob me of my only agreeable induce
ment ; but I reaUy believe, had I known, not even your note,
your manner of proposing it, and the temptation of passing the
whole evening together, could have prevailed upon me.
Lady S. — (Aside.) My manner of proposing it, and the
temptation of passing the whole evening together ! Provoking !
There must have been some mistake about the notes, which I
dare not inquire into. But why this particular reluctance to
night to the masquerade ? You used to like a masquerade.
Mrs. Lov. — So I do stiU, but — Lovell goes to this.
Lady S. — And if he does, are you become so fashionable a

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 371
wife, that the very presence of a husband in a public place, and
under a mask too, should absolutely preclude all possibUity of
amusing yourself ?
Mrs. Lov. — Pshaw ! pshaw 1 you know how foreign all this
is in reality to my heart. It is not his presence at the masque
rade ; but his absence from me there, that in spite of myself
disturbs me.
Lady S. — Lord, my dear ! you would not have him for ever
tied to your apron-string, Uke Lord and Lady Sober, who are
never asunder because they are afraid of being alone ; and no
other creatures, male or female, can be found to support their
dulness. Mrs. Lov. — You know I would not ; but yet 
Lady S. — But what ?
Mrs. Lov. — Accustomed as I am to his neglect, and aware
of his infideUty, this fresh instance — this feeling myself in the
same society, breathing the same air, partaking of the same
amusement, with a being who reigns absolutely over that
heart, where I have lost aU hold —
Lady S, — What can you mean ? You alarm me more than I
can express.
Mrs, Lov. — In short, LoveU, I know, has an assignation at
this very masquerade, with some new favourite.
Lady S, — Indeed ! You know not how much what you say
concerns me. But how are you sure of this ?
Mrs. Lov, — Oh ! too sure : I forced the secret from Sir
Dudley, who was as unwiUing to teU, as I pretended to be to
hear it.
Lady S. — Hah ! Su: Dudley ! And what did he teU you ?
Mrs, Lov. — ^That LoveU is totally occupied, interested, and
engrossed by a new object, whom he this evening meets by ap
pointment at Lady Crowder's, who sees masks.
Lady S.— Indeed \— (Aside.) Ungrateful LoveU! A new
object ! This is the reason of my neglected invitation.
Mrs Lov. — I know how much your tender heart wdU partake
my feeUngs, and understand my distress.
Lady S. — It is impossible that you yourself should be more
shocked and hurt at his conduct than 1 am.
Mrs. Lov. — Cruel, careless, provoking, LoveU !
Lady S. — False, perfidious, deceitful LoveU !
Mrs. Lov. — Does he suppose my patience inexhaustible ? and
is it thus that unwearied constancy is rewarded ?
Lady S. — Is it thus that favours are rejected ? — Let us go

372 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
immediately to the masquerade, and endeavour to find him out:
— some opportunity of detection may occur.
Mrs. Lov. If it did, I don't know that I should feel courage
enough to make use of it.
Lady S. — But I should, and reproach him bitterly for his con
duct, I assure you.
Mrs. Lov. — Your friendship, for me, my dear creature, makes
you feel all this as warmly as if it were your own cause ; but
take care your zeal for me don't lead you too far.
Lady S. — There are no lengths I would not go to wean him
from this improper connexion. Come, let us slip on our dresses,
and be gone ; in the rooms we will separate, and each try to
meet him. [Exeunt.
SCENE II.
The Masquerade. A crowd of Masks passing and repassing — Sir
Valentine and Mr. Lovell come forward — Sir Valentine in
a coloured dress, Mr. LoveU in a black domino . both unmasked.
Sir V. Is this what you call a private masquerade ? Zounds!
here are people enow to fiU St. Paul's Cathedral.
Mr. Lov — Yes, for a private masquerade is just an excuse
for making your house more public than you could in any other
way ; and receiving those, whom on other occasions you would
not choose to acknowledge as acquaintance. But quick, on
with your mask. I think I perceive our game.
Sir F.— Which ? Where ?
Mr. Lov. — There, in hoods, just come in at the side door.
But pray be gentle, for remember you must make love, and per
suade her to go off with you.
Sir V. — Gad ! I have made love to nothing since fat Bridget,
my gouvernante in the country ; and a silk gown and a bottle
of ratafia did her business at once. — Must I be very eager and
loving ?
Mr. Lov. — Very confident and impudent wUl be more Ukely
to deceive, I beUeve. This way, and we shaU not lose sight of
them. [Exeunt.
(A group of Ballad-singers come forward — A Ballad sung — Among
ihe audience are Mrs. and Miss Racket, in coloured hoods, and
Lady SeUna, and Sir Dudley, and Mrs. LoveU, in black dominos.)
Enter Sir Valentine, and Mr. Lvell.
(Lovell points out Mrs. and Miss Racket to Sir Valentine,
and himself goes a little round ihe group to where the rest of

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 373
the party are standing. Sir Valentine observes particularly
Mrs. Racket (taking her for her daughter), dodges and
follows her ; of which she takes notice, and coquettes with him
in dumb show. As soon as the singing is over, they come for
ward, and the rest of tlie parly disperse.)
Mrs. Rac. (In a masquerade voice.) — Do you know me ?
Sir V. — Yes, that I do, better than you imagine.
Mrs. Rac, — To convince me of that, teU me what brought
you here ?
Sir V. — To meet a charming creature, whose impertinent,
insolent, undutiful friends take the Uberty of opposing my
passion. — (Aside,') She wUl never suspect me now,
Mrs, Rac. (Aside.) — Sir Dudley, deUcate and tender as I
expected. And what right have any friends to interfere in
such nice points as the passions of the heart ?
Sir V. (Aside.) — Pretty circulating library morality ! but
I must humour it. Perhaps I flattered myself too much, when
I thought it was only excessive reserve, bashful coyness, and
extreme modesty, that prevented my success.
Mrs. Rac. — Cruel man ! how could you suspect me of such
unnatural ideas ?
Sir V, — Come along, then, my angel; we part no more
to-night ; and to-morrow, the parson shall set all right, and
bid defiance to your friends. Come along. (Taking hold of
her arm,)
Mrs. Rac. — I see you count upon my easy, yielding disposi
tion, — To-night, Heavens !
Sil- F. — To-night or never, egad !
Mrs. Rac. — WeU, don't frighten me ; don't be too violent.
I trust to your honour — I think I must — Lord ! where are you
hurrying me to ? (Exeunt, arm in arm, hurrying along.
Sir Dudley and Miss Racket come forward from the crowd.
Sir D. — Now is the moment for us to escape, whUe your
mother is engaged with that mask. Come, let us lose no time,
that we may be back whUe the baU is briUiant. [Exeunt.
Mrs. Lovell comes forward, followed by Mr. Lovell, both
masked.
Mrs. Lov. — The heat is intolerable within ; let us be going.
Mr. Lov. — This way, through the saloon, to the staircase. I
have a carriage waiting at the corner of the street.
Mrs. Lov. — I came in a chair, and mean to return in it.
R 3

374 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
Mr. Lov. — No, no ! after my experience of this morning, I
separate myself no more from you. Your "nerves might be so
affected" in the way, that by the time I arrived, your door
might be shut against me. You might "find an absolute
necessity for repose." — "A book might be again my successful
rival." Mrs. Lov, — It is so late, and I am so overcome with fatigue,
that I mean to go immediately to bed.
Mr. Lov. — By all means ; but you must take me along with
you. Mrs. Lov. — What can you mean by this new and unaccount
able manner of addressing me ?
Mr, Lov. — Mean ! I mean that you are captivating, and
I so captivated, as not to let you sUp through my fingers
a second time. Come, come, own you would be damned angry
if I did.
Mrs. Lov, — I wdsh to suppose aU this the effect of your sup
per here ; but as it has probably made you unable to take care
of yourself, you will excuse me desiring to return to my party.
Mr. Lov. — Is that the turn you give to my impatience ? Is
that the manner in.which you again propose to escape from my
importunity to that of a more favoured rival ? But, by Heaven,
by your fair self, I swear, no party upon earth separates us to
night. (Seizing her hand.)
Mrs. Lov. (Pulling off her mask). — Sir Dudley, as you regard
yourself, beware of obliging me to expose you to your friend.
Mr. Lov. (Aside). — My wife, by all that's whimsical. Now
for my own satisfaction, I must be Sir Dudley still. Pardon,
lovely creature, the excess of a passion which, excited by your
charms, and irritated by this resistance, breaks through the
thin disguise which has long ill concealed it ; for surely it was
not my pretended friendship for LoveU which could conceal my
adoration here.
Mrs. Lov. — That pretended friendship for LoveU justifies at
least my heart, though not my head, for the mistaken ideas it
has hitherto entertained of you.
Mr, Lov. — CaU them not mistaken ideas : his conduct more
than justifies your favours to a more attentive admirer. Besides,
after the confidence you have placed in me, after all that has
passed between us —
Mrs, Lov. — What has ever passed between us ? or what con
fidence have I ever placed in you which did not prove the sin
cerity of my present sentiments ? I thought, fool that I was !

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 375
to LoveU's friend, to him who was always noticing his indiffe
rence, and lamenting his conduct to me, I might indulge myself
in owning how much I felt it, without exposing to indifferent
eyes a character, which, though I had ceased to interest, I could
never cease to love.
Mr. Lov. — Talk not of loving a careless , indifferent husband.
But hear me, hear your passionate adorer swear —
Mrs. Lov. — Nor now, nor never wHX I hear you more. Had
you sooner used this open, this affronting language of corrup
tion, instead of the fine-spun doctrines of exalted sentiment and
disinterested attachment, which I have been accustomed to hear
from you, I should have been saved the regret of ever having
suffered the suggestions of vice to have approached me under
the garb of sentiment, and have earlier fled from its insidious
attacks to the more rationaUy affectionate bosom of a husband,
which I may now, too late, find shut against me for ever.
Mr. Lov. (Throwing away his mask). — Behold it open to re
ceive you with a warmth, a confidence of affection, which I have
never known tUl now.
Mrs. Lov. — My husband !
Mr. Lov, — Yes, Louisa, that husband who feels himself
ashamed of the trial he has put you to, and unworthy of the
sentiments it has discovered to him.
Mrs Lov. — Say not so, my Lovell ; we have been both to
blame : happily, I trust, both less than we imagined.
Mr. Lov. — That husband : who, whUe courting an interest in
the affected feeUngs of a sentimental coquette, left the warm
and delicate affections of your heart to be played upon by the
insidious addresses of a profligate coxcomb, and the exag
gerated sentiments of a false friend.
Mrs. Lov. — Enough, enough, dear Charles ; this day has
been a lesson to us both. My confidential friendship will hence
forth be confined to one dear bosom. I have seen enough to
convince me, that an affectionate husband must be the first of
friends —
Mr. Lov. — And an amiable wife the most interesting of
mistresses. (Embracing.) But see, somebody is surprising
us.Enter Sir Valentine with Mrs. Racket hanging upon
his arm.
Sir V. — Zounds ! I shaU never find my way out here. —
Oh ! nephew, I am glad I have found you :— teU me where I

376 THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.
can stow my prize in safety. I have got her, you see ; and
egad I am as tired of lugging her about as if I had had her m
tow this twelvemonth.
Mrs. Bac— Nephew ! (Seeing Mr. Lovell.) Sir Valentine,
as I live !
Sir V. (stopping her.) — Nay, sure you would not desert me
so soon after such an ardent declaration of passion not half an
hour ago. Egad, I never thought myself such an irresistible
feUow before. I shall be attacking aU the young girls at our
next assizes.
Mrs. Rac. (still endeavouring to go.) — Barbarous man ! — Is it
thus I am trepanned ?
Sir V. — Trepanned! — No, egad ! I have prevented your
being trepanned by other people, and shaU not let you out of
my sight now tUl I have once more lodged you safely, where
you may think better of your mad plans, and cool the ardour
of your passion.
Mrs. Rac. And pray what right have you to control my in
clinations and thwart my plans ?
Sir V. — A right which I promise you I shaU never exercise
again either for you or any body else. No, no, after having
saved you this once, if you can't take better care of yourself,
you must e'en go to the devil your own way.
Mrs. Rac — I shaU never go your way, you old scheming
madman ; so let me pass, and never see your face again. (Still
endeavouring to get away.)
Sir V. — Gently, gently; you must be content to see my
face till you see your mother's. What wiU she say to
this, after all the pains she has taken with your education ?
Enter Sir DaoLEYOMd Miss 'Ra.ck^tt, without masks, married.
Sir V. — Heyday ! what's all this ? — who have we got here ?
Sir D. — My wife. Sir Valentine, returned like a dutiful ward
to beg your approbation and her mother's blessing on our
marriage. Sir V. — And who the devU then is this, upon whom I have
laid violent hands ? — for Heaven's sake unmask. Madam, and
clear up this mystery.
Miss Rac, (Going up to her mother), — Pray, mamma, forgive
me ; indeed I will do so no more.
Sir V. — Mamma ; — so, so — both crows of the same nest,
I find ; and I was securing the old bird while the nestUng
escaped me,

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS, 377
Mrs. Rac (unmasked.) — Audacious girl ! — how can you sup
pose that I wUl ever countenance the indelicacy of your pro
ceedings ? — Run away from a masquerade 1 You, who were
always cited as a pattern of propriety 1
Miss Rac, — Ay, that was just the case ; I always hated
patterns, and could not bear to think of being one.
Sir D, (io Mrs. Racket) — May I not hope at least, your
daughter's choice is not particularly disagreeable to you ?
Mrs. Rac, — I wonder. Sir, how you have the impudence to
address me after all that has passed.
Sir V. — Ay, Sir, how have you the impudence to address
yourself to a lady who is just disappointed of being run away
with herself ?
Sir D, — I must then address myself to you. Sir Valentine, to
make up this difference.
Sir V, — Faith, Sir, the only difference seems to arise from
the ladies having thought too much alike.
S'lr D, — My wash to have sorae claira in right of my wife to
your direction in my plans, and to profit by your present pur
suits, has been a principal motive for my seeking a connexion
with this family ; I should hope, therefore — (They retire, talking
together at the back of the Stage, as do Mrs, and Miss Racket,)
Mr. and Mrs. Lovell come forward.
Mrs. Lov. — What you tell me is confirmed by a thousand
little circumstances. My only distress will now be, how to get
rid of an intimacy which I should henceforth feel in every
respect more burdensome to me than ever I have fancied it
agreeable. Mr. Lov, — It is ever thus with all intimacies assuming the
name of friendship, without its only solid foundation, mutual
worth, and real sympathy of character .But let not this dis
tress you : depend upon it, when she finds us no longer sepa
rated in our pursuits, ideas, and society, her attentions wUl
soon be diverted to others less aware of the futility of her pro
fessions, the affectation of her sentiments, and the profligacy of
her mind.
Mrs. Lov, — I think I see her coming towards us. I would
avoid, if possible, any open or sudden breach with a person
for whom my former imprudent partiality might justly give the
world a plausible handle against myself.

378- THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS.

Enter Lady Selina.
Lady S. (Starts at seeing Mr. and Mrs. Lovell together, and
says, aside,) Ha! LoveU with her! — I am overwhelmed with
the most fruitless fatigue; but I rejoice to see my friend's
search has not been so unsuccessful as my own.
Mrs. Lov, — I have, indeed, been more successful in every
respect than I could possibly have hoped or expected.
Lady S. — How is this ? — I don't understand.
Mrs. JjOv,— My suspicions are all removed : and I am sure
it wiU be my own fault, if from this hour I do not date my
happiness, my perfect relief from all those regrets of which
you have often heard me complain, as clouding my domestic
life. Lady S. — ^This assurance of your happiness overcomes me
more than I can express ; it is too much for my feelings, I
must retire to indulge them. You know, I only live in the
happiness of my friend. I shaU now hurry away to Naples,
where my whole soul calls me. [Exit.
Mrs. Lov. — How ridiculous does this exaggerated expres
sion of false feelings now appear to me, accompanied by a
dereliction of all real duties !
Sir Dudley and Sir Valentine, and Mrs. and Miss
Racket, come forward.
Mrs. Rac. — Sir Valentine, I conclude you don't mean to
sanction these proceedings. I can never be brought to ap
prove of them.
Sir V. — Come, come. Madam, consider, " what right have
any friends to interfere on such nice points as the passions of
the heart ?" — In short. Madam, what's done can't be undone ;
and I fancy both you and I have too much business on our
hands to lose time in useless opposition.
Mrs. Rac. — Yes, indeed, I have so many engagements for
next week, that I am sure it would be vastly inconvenient for
me to be in distress.
Sir V. — Well, then, let's forgive, to get rid of them ; and,
that I may clear my hands of all my ward's affairs, and have
nothing further to disturb me in the promulgation of my great
electrical plan, in which Sir Dudley here promises me his
assistance —

THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. 379
Miss Rac. — La ! what should he trouble his head about such
nonsense for now? As for me, {coming foi^ard io the au*
dience). — Now, that I*m come of age, and married too,
I'll not be snubbed, whate*er I choose to do :
I'll laugh at mother's, master's husband's lectures.
Let me but hope in you to find protectors.

EPILOGUE,
WRITTEN BY THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM LAMB.
SPOKEN BY MISS DB CAMP.

Sure, had our Author, whom in vain we seek,
Composed the play, you just have seen, last week.
He would not now have sent me to attend.
In Italy, the death-bed of my friend}
To throw away this gay auspicious year.
And lose the prospect which is opening here.
Is this a time for me abroad to roam ?
Now Peace will send so many lovers home ;
Sailors victorious still on every sea,
0*er every foe, who yet must strike to me ;
And captains, cover'd with hard-earn*d renown.
From Eastern climates beautifully brown;
Peace, which in every face throughout the isle
Has spread an heart-felt, universal smile —
Peace, which in all most .variously excites
New views, new thoughts, new fancies, new delights;
Some think on pleasure, some alone on gain,
On price of stocks, or plenty of Champaign —
Exports and imports trading men engage.
Cloth for new marts, new dancers for the stage-
Forward the epicure with transport looks
To a fresh troop of revolution cooks.
And o'er the pie exults, whose precious store
Has been denied him ten sad years before;
While the gay nymph, who lures a crowd of slaves
Prepares her charms, resolv'd to cross the waves ;
Kesolv'd the beaux of Paris to invade.
And flirt with whisker'd generals of brigade.
Amidst these different tastes, may I advance
The grounds on which I vote for peace with France ?
Then — though through all this time of woe aud fear.
We have not suflFer'd much in England here
Yet now, I own, new hopes within me rise,
Of times more great, more happy, and more wise —
Now London shall appear itself again,
Adorn'd with fresh supplies of handsome men ;
No thought of business now shall e'er invade
The, nightly ball, and frequent masquerade;
Now luxury again on wealth shall thrive.
And pleasure rule, and usury revive;
Exulting fashion hails the happy league;
Hence love of cards, and leisure for intrigue ;
Credit, and curricles, and dice increase,
Racing, and all the useful arts of peace.
The Morning Post may now display uufurlM,
Four columns ofthe Fashionable World,
And not confin'd to tell of war's renown.
Spread all the news around of all the town ;
While gay Gazettes the polish'd Treasury writes.
Of splendid fashions, not of vulgar fights ;
Proud to record tfie taylor*s deeds and name.
And give the milliner to deathless fame.
Who first shall force proud Gallia to confess
Herself inferior in the arts of^^ress.
Oh ! join to pray my hopes may not be vain :
Commence, gay Peace, a long and joyous reign-
May Europe's nations, by my counsels wise,
Learn e*en thy faults to cherish and to prize,
And shunning glory's bright, but fatal star,
Prefer thy follies, to the woes of war I
THE END.

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