Chapter VI: Part 6

Few events of importance occurred during the five following years, excepting that through this period the friends of Mrs. Robinson observed with concern the gradual ravages which indisposition and mental anxiety were daily making upon her frame. An ingenuous, affectionate, susceptible heart is seldom favourable to the happiness of the possessor. It was the fate of Mrs. Robinson to be deceived where she most confided, to experience treachery and ingratitude where she had a title to kindness and a claim to support. Frank and unsuspicious, she suffered her conduct to be guided by the impulse of her feelings; and, by a too credulous reliance on the apparent attachment of those whom she loved, and in whom she delighted to trust, she laid herself open to the impositions of the selfish, and the stratagems of the crafty.

In 1799 her increasing involvements and declining health pressed heavily upon her mind. She had voluntarily relinquished those comforts and elegancies to which she had been accustomed; she had retrenched even her necessary expenses, and nearly secluded herself from society. Her physician had declared that by exercise only could her existence be prolonged; yet the narrowness of her circumstances obliged her to forego the only means by which it could be obtained. Thus, a prisoner in her own house, she was deprived of every solace but that which could be obtained by the activity of her mind, which at length sank under excessive exertion and inquietude.

Indisposition had for nearly five weeks confined her to her bed, when, after a night of extreme suffering and peril, through which her physician hourly expected her dissolution, she had sunk into a gentle and balmy sleep. At this instant her chamber door was forcibly pushed open, with a noise that shook her enfeebled frame nearly to annihilation, by two strange and ruffian-looking men, who entered with barbarous abruptness. On her faintly inquiring the occasion of this outrage, she was informed that one of her unwelcome visitors was an attorney, and the other his client, who had thus, with as little decency as humanity, forced themselves into the chamber of an almost expiring woman. The motive of this intrusion was to demand her appearance, as a witness, in a suit pending against her brother, in which these men were parties concerned. No entreaties could prevail on them to quit the chamber, where they both remained, questioning, in a manner the most unfeeling and insulting, the unfortunate victim of their audacity and persecution. One of them, the client, with a barbarous and unmanly sneer, turning to his confederate, asked, "Who, to see the lady they were now speaking to, could believe that she had once been called the beautiful Mrs. Robinson?" To this he added other observations not less savage and brutal; and, after throwing on the bed a subpoena, quitted the apartment. The wretch who could thus, by insulting the sick, and violating every law of humanity and common decency, disgrace the figure of a man, was a professor and a priest of that religion which enjoins us "not to break the bruised reed," "and to bind up the broken in heart!" His name shall be suppressed, through respect to the order of which he is an unworthy member. The consequences of this brutality upon the poor invalid were violent convulsions, which had nearly extinguished the struggling spark of life.

By slow degrees her malady yielded to the cares and skill of her medical attendants, and she was once more restored to temporary convalescence; but from that time her strength gradually decayed. Though her frame was shaken to its centre, her circumstances compelled her still to exert the faculties of her mind.

The sportive exercises of fancy were now converted into toilsome labours of the brain,--nights of sleepless anxiety were succeeded by days of vexation and dread.

About this period she was induced to undertake the poetical department for the editor of a morning paper,[52] and actually commenced a series of satirical odes, on local and temporary subjects, to which was affixed the signature of "Tabitha Bramble." Among these lighter compositions, considered by the author as unworthy of a place with her collected poems, a more matured production of her genius was occasionally introduced, of which the following "Ode to Spring," written April 30, 1780, is a beautiful and affecting example:

"ODE TO SPRING

"Life-glowing season! odour-breathing Spring!
Deck'd in cerulean splendours!--vivid,--warm,
Shedding soft lustre on the rosy hours,
And calling forth their beauties! balmy Spring!
To thee the vegetating world begins
To pay fresh homage. Ev'ry southern gale
Whispers thy coming;--every tepid show'r
Revivifies thy charms. The mountain breeze
Wafts the ethereal essence to the vale,
While the low vale returns its fragrant hoard
With tenfold sweetness. When the dawn unfolds
Its purple splendours 'mid the dappled clouds,
Thy influence cheers the soul. When noon uplifts
Its burning canopy, spreading the plain
Of heaven's own radiance with one vast of light,
Thou smil'st triumphant! Ev'ry little flow'r
Seems to exult in thee, delicious Spring,
Luxuriant nurse of nature! By the stream,
That winds its swift course down the mountain's side,
Thy progeny are seen;--young primroses,
And all the varying buds of wildest birth,
Dotting the green slope gaily. On the thorn,
Which arms the hedgerow, the young birds invite
With merry minstrelsy, shrilly and maz'd
With winding cadences: now quick, now sunk
In the low twitter'd song. The evening sky
Reddens the distant main; catching the sail,
Which slowly lessens, and with crimson hue
Varying the sea-green wave; while the young moon,
Scarce visible amid the warmer tints
Of western splendours, slowly lifts her brow
Modest and icy-lustred! O'er the plain
The light dews rise, sprinkling the thistle's head,
And hanging its clear drops on the wild waste
Of broomy fragrance. Season of delight!
Thou soul-expanding pow'r, whose wondrous glow
Can bid all nature smile! Ah! why to me
Come unregarded, undelighting still
This ever-mourning bosom? So I've seen
The sweetest flow'rets bind the icy urn;
The brightest sunbeams glitter on the grave;
And the soft zephyr kiss the troubled main,
With whispered murmurs. Yes, to me, O Spring!
Thou com'st unwelcom'd by a smile of joy;
To me! slow with'ring to that silent grave
Where all is blank and dreary! Yet once more
The Spring eternal of the soul shall dawn,
Unvisited by clouds, by storms, by change,
Radiant and unexhausted! Then, ye buds,
Ye plumy minstrels, and ye balmy gales,
Adorn your little hour, and give your joys
To bless the fond world-loving traveller,
Who, smiling, measures the long flow'ry path
That leads to death! For to such wanderers
Life is a busy, pleasing, cheerful dream,
And the last hour unwelcome. Not to me,
Oh! not to me, stern Death, art thou a foe;
Thou art the welcome messenger, which brings
A passport to a blest and long repose."

A just value was at that time set upon the exertions of Mrs. Robinson, by the conductors of the paper, who "considered them as one of the principal embellishments and supports of their journal."

In the spring of 1800 she was compelled by the daily encroachments of her malady wholly to relinquish her literary employments.

Her disorder was pronounced by the physicians to be a rapid decline. Dr. Henry Vaughan, who to medical skill unites the most exalted philanthropy, prescribed, as a last resource, a journey to Bristol Wells. A desire once again to behold her native scenes induced Mrs. Robinson eagerly to accede to this proposal. She wept with melancholy pleasure at the idea of closing her eyes for ever upon a world of vanity and disappointment in the place in which she had first drawn breath, and terminating her sorrows on the spot which gave her birth; but even this sad solace was denied to her, from a want of the pecuniary means for its execution. In vain she applied to those on whom honour, humanity, and justice, gave her undoubted claims. She even condescended to entreat, as a donation, the return of those sums granted as a loan in her prosperity.

The following is a copy of a letter addressed on this occasion to a noble debtor, and found among the papers of Mrs. Robinson after her decease:

'To----

"April 23, 1800.

"MY LORD:--Pronounced by my physicians to be in a rapid decline, I trust that your lordship will have the goodness to assist me with a part of the sum for which you are indebted to me. Without your aid I cannot make trial of the Bristol waters, the only remedy that presents to me any hope of preserving my existence. I should be sorry to die at enmity with any person; and you may be assured, my dear lord, that I bear none toward you. It would be useless to ask you to call on me; but if you would do me that honour, I should be happy, very happy, to see you, being,

"My dear lord,

"Yours truly,

"MARY ROBINSON."

To this letter no answer was returned! Further comments are unnecessary.

The last literary performance of Mrs. Robinson was a volume of Lyrical Tales. She repaired a short time after to a small cottage _ornee_, belonging to her daughter, near Windsor. Rural occupation and amusement, quiet and pure air, appeared for a time to cheer her spirits and renovate her shattered frame. Once more her active mind returned to its accustomed and favourite pursuits; but the toil of supplying the constant variety required by a daily print, added to other engagements, which she almost despaired of being capacitated to fulfil pressed heavily upon her spirits, and weighed down her enfeebled frame. Yet, in the month of August, she began and concluded, in the course of ten days, a translation of Doctor Hagar's "Picture of Palermo,"--an exertion by which she was greatly debilitated. She was compelled, though with reluctance, to relinquish the translation of "The Messiah" of Klopstock, which she had proposed giving to the English reader in blank verse,--a task particularly suited to her genius and the turn of her mind.

But, amidst the pressure of complicated distress, the mind of this unfortunate woman was superior to improper concessions, and treated with just indignation those offers of service which required the sacrifice of her integrity.

She yet continued, though with difficulty and many intervals, her literary avocations. When necessitated by pain and languor to limit her exertions, her unfeeling employers accused her of negligence. This inconsideration, though she seldom complained, affected her spirits and preyed upon her heart. As she hourly declined toward that asylum where "the weary rest," her mind seemed to acquire strength in proportion to the weakness of her frame. When no longer able to support the fatigue of being removed from her chamber, she retained a perfect composure of spirits, and, in the intervals of extreme bodily suffering, would listen while her daughter read to her, with apparent interest and collectedness of thought, frequently making observations on what would probably take place when she had passed that "bourn whence no traveller returns." The flattering nature of her disorder at times inspired her friends with the most sanguine hopes of her restoration to health; she would even herself, at intervals, cherish the idea. But these gleams of hope, like flashes of lightning athwart the storm, were succeeded by a deeper gloom, and the consciousness of her approaching fate returned upon the mind of the sufferer with increased conviction.

Within a few days of her decease, she collected and arranged her poetical works, which she bound her daughter, by a solemn adjuration, to publish for her subscribers, and also the present memoir. Requesting earnestly that the papers prepared for the latter purpose might be brought to her, she gave them into the hands of Miss Robinson, with an injunction that the narrative should be made public, adding, "I should have continued it up to the present time--but perhaps it is as well that I have been prevented. Promise me that you will print it!" The request of a dying parent, so made, and at such a moment, could not be refused. She is obeyed. Upon the solemn assurances of her daughter, that her Last desire, so strongly urged, should be complied with, the mind of Mrs. Robinson became composed and tranquil; her intellects yet remained unimpaired, though her corporeal strength hourly decayed.

A short time previous to her death, during an interval of her daughter's absence from her chamber, she called an attending friend, whose benevolent heart and unremitting kindness will, it is hoped, meet hereafter with their reward, and entreated her to observe her last requests, adding, with melancholy tenderness, "I cannot talk to my poor girl on these sad subjects." Then, with an unruffled manner and minute precision, she gave orders respecting her interment, which she desired might be performed with all possible simplicity. "Let me," said she, with an impressive though almost inarticulate voice, "be buried in Old Windsor churchyard." For the selection of that spot she gave a particular reason. She also mentioned an undertaker, whose name she recollected having seen on his door, and whom she appointed from his vicinity to the probable place of her decease. A few trifling memorials, as tributes of her affection, were all the property she had to bequeath. She also earnestly desired that a part of her hair might be sent to two particular persons.

One evening, her anxious nurses, with a view to divert her mind, talked of some little plans to take place on her restoration to health. She shook her head with an affecting and significant motion. "Don't deceive yourselves," said she; "remember, I tell you, I am but a very little time longer for this world." Then pressing to her heart her daughter, who knelt by her bedside, she held her head for some minutes clasped against her bosom, which throbbed, as with some internal and agonising conflict. "Poor heart," murmured she, in a deep and stifled tone, "what will become of thee!" She paused some moments, and at length, struggling to assume more composure, desired in a calmer voice that some one would read to her. Throughout the remainder of the evening she continued placidly and even cheerfully attentive to the person who read, observing that, should she recover, she designed to commence a long work, upon which she would bestow great pains and time. "Most of her writings," she added, "had been composed in too much haste."

Her disorder rapidly drawing toward a period, the accumulation of the water upon her chest every moment threatened suffocation. For nearly fifteen nights and days she was obliged to be supported upon pillows, or in the arms of her young and affectionate nurses.[53] Her decease, through this period, was hourly expected. On the 24th of December she inquired how near was Christmas Day! Being answered, "Within a few days," "Yet," said she, "I shall never see it." The remainder of this melancholy day passed in undescribable tortures. Toward midnight, the sufferer exclaimed, "O God, O just and merciful God, help me to support this agony!" The whole of the ensuing day she continued to endure great anguish. In the evening a kind of lethargic stupor came on. Miss Robinson, approaching the pillow of her expiring mother, earnestly conjured her to speak, if in her power. "My darling Mary!" she faintly articulated, and spoke no more. In another hour she became insensible to the grief of those by whom she was surrounded, and breathed her last at a quarter past twelve on the following noon.

The body was opened, at the express wish of Doctors Pope and Chandler. The immediate cause of her death appeared to have been a dropsy on the chest; but the sufferings which she endured previously to her decease were probably occasioned by six large gall-stones found in the gall-bladder.

All her requests were strictly observed. Her remains were deposited, according to her direction, in the churchyard of Old Windsor; the spot was marked out by a friend to whom she had signified her wishes. The funeral was attended only by two literary friends.

Respecting the circumstances of the preceding narrative, every reader must be left to form his own reflections. To the humane mind, the errors of the unfortunate subject of this memoir will appear to have been more than expiated by her sufferings. Nor will the peculiar disadvantages, by which her introduction into life was attended, be forgotten by the candid,--disadvantages that, by converting into a snare the bounties lavished on her by nature, proved not less fatal to her happiness than to her conduct. On her unhappy marriage, and its still more unhappy consequences, it is unnecessary to comment. Thus circumstanced, her genius, her sensibility, and her beauty combined to her destruction, while, by her exposed situation, her inexperience of life, her tender youth, with the magnitude of the temptations which beset her, she could scarcely fail of being betrayed.

"Say, ye severest ...
... what would you have done?"

The malady which seized her in the bloom of youth, and pursued her with unmitigable severity through every stage of life, till, in the prune of her powers, it laid her in a premature grave, exhibits, in the history of its progress, a series of sufferings that might disarm the sternest, soften the most rigid, and awaken pity in the hardest heart. Her mental exertions through this depressing disease, the elasticity of her mind, and the perseverance of her efforts amidst numberless sources of vexation and distress, cannot fail, while they awaken sympathy, to extort admiration. Had this lovely plant, now withered and low in the dust, been in its early growth transplanted into a happier soil--sheltered from the keen blasts of adversity, and the mildew of detraction, it might have extended its roots, unfolded its blossoms, diffused its sweetness, shed its perfumes, and still flourished, beauteous to the eye, and grateful to the sense.

To represent the character of the individual in the circumstances of life, his conduct under those circumstances and the consequences which they ultimately produce, is the peculiar province of biography. Little therefore remains to be added. The benevolent temper, the filial piety and the maternal tenderness of Mrs. Robinson are exemplified in the preceding pages, as her genius, her talents, the fertility of her imagination, and the powers of her mind are displayed in her productions, the popularity of which at least affords a presumption of their merit. Her manners were polished and conciliating, her powers of conversation rich and varied. The brilliancy of her wit and the sallies of her fancy were ever tempered by kindness and chastened by delicacy. Though accustomed to the society of the great, and paying to rank the tribute which civil institutions have rendered its due, she reserved her esteem and deference for these only whose talents or whose merits claimed the homage of the mind.

With the unfortunate votaries of letters she sincerely sympathised, and not unfrequently has been known to divide the profits of her genius with the less successful or less favoured disciples of the muse.

The productions of Mrs. Robinson, both in prose and verse, are numerous, and of various degrees of merit; but to poetry the native impulse of her genius appears to have been more peculiarly directed. Of the glitter and false taste exhibited in the Della Crusca correspondence[54] she became early sensible; several of her poems breathe a spirit of just sentiment and simple elegance.

JANE, DUCHESS OF GORDON

A PASTORAL ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF MRS. ROBINSON

BY PETER PINDAR

Farewell to the nymph of my heart!
Farewell to the cottage and vine!
From these, with a tear, I depart,
Where pleasure so often was mine.

Remembrance shall dwell on her smile,
And dwell on her lute and her song;
That sweetly my hours to beguile,
Oft echoed the valleys along.

Once more the fair scene let me view,
The grotto, the brook, and the grove.
Dear valleys, for ever adieu!
Adieu to the daughter of Love!

JANE, DUTCHESS OF GORDON

"Few women," says Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, "have performed a more conspicuous part, or occupied a higher place on the public theatre of fashion, politics, and dissipation, than the Duchess of Gordon."

Jane, afterward Duchess of Gordon, the rival in beauty and talent to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was born in Wigtonshire, in Scotland. Her father, Sir William Maxwell of Monreith (anciently Mureith), represented one of the numerous families who branched off from the original stock--Herbert of Caerlaverock, first Lord Maxwell, the ancestor of the famous Earl of Nithsdale, whose countess, Winifred, played so noble a part when her husband was in prison during the Jacobite insurrection. From this honourable house descended, in our time, the gallant Sir Murray Maxwell, whose daughter, Mrs. Carew, became the wife of the too well-known Colonel Waugh; the events which followed are still fresh in the public mind. Until that blemish, loyalty, honour, and prosperity marked out the Maxwells of Monreith for "their own." In 1681, William Maxwell was created a baronet of Nova Scotia. Various marriages and intermarriages with old and noble families kept the blood pure, a circumstance as much prized by the Scotch as by the Germans. Sir William, the father of the Duchess of Gordon, married Magdalene, the daughter of William Blair, of Blair, and had by her six children,--three sons and three daughters,--of whom the youngest but one was Jane, the subject of this memoir.

This celebrated woman was a true Scotchwoman--staunch to her principles, proud of her birth, energetic, and determined. Her energy might have died away like a flash in the pan had it not been for her determination. She carried through everything that she attempted; and great personal charms accelerated her influence in that state of society in which, as in the French capital, women had, at that period, an astonishing though transient degree of ascendency.

The attractions of Jane Maxwell appeared to have been developed early, for before she entered on the gay world, a song, "Jenny of Monreith," was composed in her honour, which her son, the Duke of Gordon, used to sing, long after the charms, which were thus celebrated, had vanished. Her features were regular; the contour of her face was truly noble; her hair was dark, as well as her eyes and eyebrows; her face long and beautifully oval; the chin somewhat too long; the upper lip was short, and the mouth, notwithstanding a certain expression of determination, sweet and well defined. Nothing can be more becoming to features of this stamp, that require softening, than the mode of dressing the hair then general. Sir Joshua Reynolds has painted the Duchess of Gordon with her dark hair drawn back, in front, over a cushion, or some support that gave it waviness; round and round the head, between each rich mass, were two rows of large pearls, until, at the top, they were lost in the folds of a ribbon; a double row of pearls round the fair neck; a ruff, opening low in front, a tight bodice, and sleeves full to an extreme at the top, tighter toward the wrists, seem to indicate that the dress of the period of Charles I had even been selected for this most lovely portrait. The head is turned aside--with great judgment--probably to mitigate the decided expression of the face when in a front view.

As she grew up, however, the young lady was found to be deficient in one especial grace--she was not feminine; her person, her mind, her manners, all, in this respect, corresponded. "She might," says one who knew her, "have aptly represented Homer's Juno." Always animated, with features that were constantly in play, one great charm was wanting--that of sensibility. Sometimes her beautiful face was overclouded with anger; more frequently was it irradiated with smiles. Her conversation, too, annihilated much of the impression made by her commanding beauty. She despised the usages of the world, and, believing herself exempted from them by her rank, after she became a duchess, she dispensed with them, and sacrificed to her venal ambition some of the most lovable qualities of her sex. One of her speeches, when honours became, as she thought, too common at court, betrays her pride and her coarseness. "Upon my word," she used to say, "one cannot look out of one's coach window without spitting on a knight." Whatever were her defects, her beauty captivated the fancy of Alexander, the fourth Duke of Gordon, a young man of twenty-four years of age, whom she married on the 28th of October, 1767. The family she entered, as well as the family whence she sprang, were devoted adherents of the exiled Stuarts, and carried, to a great extent, the hereditary Toryism of their exalted lineage. The great-grandmother of the duke was that singular Duchess of Gordon who sent a medal to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, with the head of James Stuart the Chevalier on one side, and on the other the British Isles, with the word "Reddite" inscribed underneath. The Faculty were highly gratified by this present. After a debate, they accepted the medal, and sent two of their body to thank the duchess, and to say that they hoped she would soon be enabled to favour the society with a second medal on the Restoration. Duke Alexander, the husband of Jane Maxwell, showed in his calm and inert character no evidence of being descended from this courageous partisan. He was a man of no energy, except in his love of country pursuits, and left the advancement of the family interests wholly to his spirited and ambitious wife. They were married only six years after George III had succeeded to the throne. Never was a court more destitute of amusements than that of the then youthful sovereign of England. Until his latter days, George II. had enjoyed revelries, though of a slow, formal, German character; but his grandson confined himself, from the age of twenty-two, to his public and private duties. He neither frequented masquerades nor joined in play. The splendours of a court were reserved for birthdays, and for those alone; neither did the king usually sit down to table with the nobility or with his courtiers. Never was he known to be guilty of the slightest excess at table, and his repasts were simple, if not frugal. At a levee, or on the terrace at Windsor, or in the circle of Hyde Park, this model of a worthy English gentleman might be seen, either with his plain-featured queen on his arm, or driven in his well-known coach with his old and famous cream-coloured horses. Junius derided the court, "where," he said, "prayers are morality and kneeling is religion." But although wanting in animation, it was far less reprehensible than that which preceded or that which followed it. The Duchess of Gordon, irreproachable in conduct, with her high Tory principles, was well suited to a court over which Lord Bute exercised a strong influence. She had naturally a calculating turn of mind. Fame, admiration, fashion, were agreeable trifles, but wealth and rank were the solid aims to which every effort was directed. Unlike her future rival, the Duchess of Devonshire, who impoverished herself in her boundless charities, the Duchess of Gordon kept in view the main chance, and resolved from her early youth to aggrandise the family into which she had entered.

Her empire as a wit was undisputed, for the Duchess of Devonshire was then a mere girl, at her mother's knee; but that for beauty was disputed by Mary, Duchess of Rutland, so well remembered in our own time, as she survived till 1831.

This exquisite specimen of English loveliness, compared by some to Musidora, as described by Thomson, was the most beautiful woman of rank in the kingdom. Every turn of her features, every form of her limbs, was perfect, and grace accompanied every movement. She was tall, of the just height; slender, but not thin; her features were delicate and noble; and her ancestors, the Plantagenets, were in her represented by a faultless sample of personal attributes. She was the daughter of a race which has given to the world many heroes, one philosopher, and several celebrated beauties--that of Somerset; and, as the descendant of the defenders of Raglan Castle, might be expected to combine various noble qualities with personal gifts. But she was cold, although a coquette. In the Duchess of Devonshire it was the _besoin d'aimer_, the cordial nature recoiled into itself from being linked to an expletive, that betrayed her into an encouragement of what offered her the semblance of affection--into the temptation of being beloved. To the Duchess of Gordon her conquests were enhanced by the remembrance of what they might bring; but the Duchess of Rutland viewed her admirers in the light of offering tributes to a goddess. She was destitute of the smiles, the intelligence, and sweetness of the Duchess of Devonshire; and conscious of charms, received adoration as her due. "In truth," Sir Nathanial Wraxall, who knew her well, writes, "I never contemplated her except as an enchanting statue, formed to excite admiration rather than to awaken love, this superb production of nature not being lighted up by corresponding mental attractions."

This lady was united to one of the most attractive and popular of men, but one of the most imprudent and convivial. The son of that celebrated Marquis of Granby whom Junius attacked, the young Duke of Rutland was a firm partisan of Pitt, whom he first brought into the House of Commons, and at whose wish he accepted the government of Ireland in 1784. Never was there such splendour at the vice-regal court as in his time. Vessels laden with the expensive luxuries from England were seen in the Bay of Dublin at short intervals; the banquets given were most costly; the evenings at the castle were divided between play and drinking; and yet the mornings found the young duke breakfasting on six or seven turkey's eggs. He then, when on his progress, rode forty or fifty miles, returned to dinner at seven, and sat up to a late hour, supping before he retired to rest.

The duchess had little place in his heart, and the siren, Mrs. Billington, held it in temporary thraldom; but constancy was to a man of such a calibre impossible. Nevertheless, when the duke saw his wife surrounded by admirers, whom her levity of manner encouraged, he became jealous, and they parted, for the last time as it proved, on bad terms. One evening, seeing him engaged in play, the duchess approached the window of the room in which he sat, and tapped at it. He was highly incensed by this interference with his amusements. She returned to England, an invalid, in order to consult Doctor Warren, the father of the late physician of that name. Whilst residing with her mother in Berkeley Square, she heard that the duke was attacked with fever. She sent off Doctor Warren to see him, and was preparing to follow him when the physician returned. At Holyhead he had heard that the duke was no more. He died at the early age of thirty-three, his blood having been inflamed by his intemperance, which, however, never affected his reason, and was, therefore, the more destructive to his health. His widow, in spite of their alienation, mourned long and deeply. Never did she appear more beautiful than when, in 1788, she reappeared after her seclusion. Like Diana of Poictiers, she retained her wonderful loveliness to an advanced age. Latterly, she covered her wrinkles with enamel, and when she appeared in public always quitted a room in which the windows, which might admit the dampness, were opened. She never married again, notwithstanding the various suitors who desired to obtain her hand.

For a long time the Duchess of Gordon continued to reign over the Tory party almost without a rival. When, at last, the Duchess of Devonshire came forward as the female champion of the Foxites, Pitt and Dundas, afterward Lord Melville, opposed to her the Duchess of Gordon. At that time she lived in the splendid mansion of the then Marquis of Buckingham in Pall Mall. Every evening, numerous assemblies of persons attached to the administration gathered in those stately saloons, built upon or near the terrace whereon Nell Gwyn used to chat with Charles II on the grass below, as he was going to feed his birds in his gardens. Presuming on her rank, her influence, her beauty, the Duchess of Gordon used to act in the most determined manner as a government whipper-in. When a member on whom she counted was wanting, she did not scruple to send for him, to remonstrate, to persuade, to fix him by a thousand arts. Strange must have been the scene--more strange than attractive. Everything was forgotten but the one grand object of the evening, the theme of all talk,--the next debate and its supporters. In the year 1780 events took place which for some time appeared likely to shake the prosperity of the Gordon family almost to its fall.

The duke had two brothers, the elder of whom, Lord William, was the Ranger of Windsor Park, and survived to a great age. The younger, Lord George, holds a very conspicuous but not a very creditable place in the annals of his country. No event in our history bears any analogy with that styled the "Gordon Riots," excepting the fire of London in the reign of Charles II; and even that calamity did not exhibit the mournful spectacle which attended the conflagrations of 1780. In the former instance, the miserable sufferers had to contend only with a devouring element; in the latter, they had to seek protection, and to seek it in vain, from a populace of the lowest description, and the vilest purposes, who carried with them destruction wherever they went. Even during the French Revolution, revolting and degrading as it was, the firebrand was not employed in the work of destruction; the public and private buildings of Paris were spared.

The author of all these calamities, Lord George Gordon, was a young man of gentle, agreeable manners, and delicate, high-bred appearance. His features were regular and pleasing; he was thin and pale, but with a cunning, sinister expression in his face that indicated wrong-headedness. He was dependent on his elder brother, the duke, for his maintenance, six hundred pounds a year being allowed him by his Grace. Such was the exterior, such the circumstances of an incendiary who has been classed with Wat Tyler and Jack Cade, or with Kett, the delinquent in the time of Edward VI.

It was during the administration of Lord North that the Cordon Riots took place, excited by the harangues and speeches of Lord George. On the 2d of June he harangued the people; on the 7th these memorable disturbances broke out; Bloomsbury Square was the first point of attack. In Pope's time this now neglected square was fashionable:

"In Palace Yard, at nine, you'll find me there;
At ten, for certain, sir, in Bloomsbury Square."

Baxter, the Nonconformist, and Sir Hans Sloane once inhabited what was, in their time, called Southampton Square, from Southampton House, which occupied one whole side of Bloomsbury Square, and was long the abode of Lady Rachel Russell, after the execution of her lord. Like every other part of what may be called "Old London," it is almost sanctified by the memories of the lettered and the unfortunate. But the glory of Bloomsbury Square was, in those days, the house of Lord Mansfield, at the north end of the east side; in which that judge had collected many valuables, among which his library was the dearest to his heart; it was the finest legal library of his time. As soon as the long summer's day had closed, and darkness permitted the acts of violence to be fully recognised, Hart Street and Great Russell Street were illuminated by large fires, composed of the furniture taken from the houses of certain magistrates. Walking into Bloomsbury, the astounded observer of that night's horrors saw, with consternation, the hall door of Lord Mansfield's house broken open; and instantly all the contents of the various apartments were thrown into the square, and set on fire. In vain did a small body of foot-soldiers attempt to intimidate the rioters. The whole of the house was consumed, and vengeance would have fallen on Lord Mansfield and his lady had they not escaped by a back door a few minutes before the hall was broken into; such was that memorable act of destruction--so prompt, so complete. Let us follow the mob, in fancy, and leaving the burning pile in Bloomsbury Square, track the steps of the crowd into Holborn. We remember, as we are hurried along, with a bitter feeling, that Holborn was the appointed road for criminals from Newgate to Tyburn. It is now one blaze of light; in the hollow near Fleet Market, the house and warehouses of Mr. Langdale, a Catholic--a Christian like ourselves, though not one of our own blessed and reformed church--is blazing; a pinnacle of flame, like a volcano, is sent up into the air. St. Andrew's Church is almost scorched with the heat; whilst the figures of the clock--that annalist which numbers, as it stands, the hours of guilt--are plain as at noonday. The gutters beneath, catching here and there gleams of the fiery heavens, run with spirituous liquors from the plundered distilleries; the night is calm, as if no deeds of persecution sullied its beauty; at times it is obscured by volumes of smoke, but they pass away, and the appalled spectators of the street below are plainly visible. Here stands a mother with an infant in her arms looking on; there, a father, leading his boy to the safest point of observation. We wonder at their boldness; but it is the direst sign of affright--in their homes they are insecure--everywhere, anywhere, the ruthless unseen hand may cast the brand, and all may perish. At this early hour there seemed to be no ringleader--no pillage; it appeared difficult to conceive who could be the wretch who instigated, who directed this awful riot; but, at the windows, men were seen calmly tearing away pictures from the walls; furniture, books, plate, from their places, and throwing them into the flames. As midnight drew near, the ferocious passions of the multitude were heightened by ardent spirits; not a soldier, either horse or foot, is visible. "Whilst we stood," says an eye-witness, "by the wall of St. Andrew's churchyard, a watchman, with his lanthorn in his hand, passed on, calling the hour as if in a time of profound security."

Meantime, the King's Bench Prison was enveloped in flames; the Mansion House and the Bank were attacked. But the troops were killing and dispersing the rioters on Blackfriars Bridge; a desperate conflict between the horse and the mob was going on near the Bank. What a night! The whole city seemed to be abandoned to pillage--to destruction. Shouts, yells, the shrieks of women, the crackling of the burning houses, the firing of platoons toward St. George's Fields, combined to show that no horrors, no foes are equal to those of domestic treachery, domestic persecution, domestic fury, and infatuation.

It was not alone the Roman Catholics who were threatened. Sir George Savile's house in Leicester Square--once the peaceful locality in which Dorothy Sydney, Waller's "Sacharissa," bloomed--was plundered and burned. Then the Duchess of Devonshire took fright, and did not venture to stay at Devonshire House for many nights after dusk, but took refuge at Lord Clermont's in Berkeley Square, sleeping on a sofa in the drawing-room. In Downing Street, Lord North was dining with a party his brother, Colonel North, Mr. Eden, afterward Lord Auckland, the Honourable John St. John, General Fraser, and Count Malzen, the Prussian minister. The little square then surrounding Downing Street was filled with the mob. "Who commands the upper story?" said Lord North. "I do," answered Colonel North; "and I have twenty or thirty grenadiers well armed, who are ready to fire on the first notice."

"If your grenadiers fire," said Mr. Eden, calmly, "they will probably fire into my house just opposite."

The mob was now threatening; every moment the peril was increasing. Mr. St. John held a pistol in his hand; and Lord North, who never could forbear cutting a joke, said, "I am not half so much afraid of the mob as of Jack St. John's pistol." By degrees, however, the crowd, seeing that the house was well guarded, dispersed, and the gentlemen quietly sat down again to their wine until late in the evening, when they all ascended to the top of the house, and beheld the capital blazing. It was here that the first suggestion of a coalition between Lord North and Fox, to save the country and themselves, was started, and afterward perfected behind the scenes of the Opera House in the Haymarket. During this memorable night George III, behaved with the courage which, whatever their failings, has ever highly distinguished the Hanoverian family. By the vigorous measures, late indeed, but not too late, which he acceded to at the Council, London was saved. But the popular fury had extended to other towns. Bath was in tumult; a new Roman Catholic chapel there was burned. Mrs. Thrale, hearing that her house at Streatham had been threatened, caused it to be emptied of its furniture. Three times was Mrs. Thrale's town house attacked; her valuables and furniture were removed thence also; and she deemed it prudent to leave Bath, into which coaches, chalked over with "No Popery," were hourly driving. The composure with which the rioters did their work seemed to render the scene more fearful, as they performed these acts of violence as if they were carrying out a religious duty rather than deeds of execrable hatred.

It was not until two or three days after tranquillity had been restored that Lord George Gordon was apprehended. Ministers were justly reproached for not having sent him to the Tower on the 2d of June, when he had assembled and excited the mob to extort compliance with their wishes from the House of Commons. Such a step, when the House was surrounded by multitudes, and when, every moment, it was expected that the door would be broken open, would have been hazardous; had that occurred, Lord George would have suffered instant death. General Murray, afterward Duke of Atholl, held his sword ready to pass it through Lord George's body the instant the mob rushed in. The Earl of Carnarvon, the grandfather of the present earl, followed him closely with the same intent.

The indignation of the insulted Commons was extreme, and the distress and displeasure of Lord George's own family doubtless excessive. The House of Commons had never been thus insulted before. It is difficult to determine what could be Lord George's motives for the conduct which led to these awful results, during the whole of which he preserved a composure that bordered on insensibility; he was a perfect master of himself whilst the city was in flames. Much may be laid to fanaticism, and the mental derangement which it either produced or evinced. When too late he tried in vain to abate the fury he had excited, and offered to take his stand by Lord Rodney's[55] side when the Bank was attacked, to aid that officer, who commanded the Guards, in its defence.

Lord George then lived in Weibeck Street, Cavendish Square, and tradition assigns as his house that now occupied by Mr. Newby, the publisher, No. 30, and for many years the house of Count Woronzoff, the Russian ambassador, who died there. Lord George there prepared for his defence, which was entrusted to the great Erskine, then in his prime, or, as he was called in caricatures, with which the shops were full, from his extreme vanity, _Counsellor Ego_. In February, 1781, the trial took place, and Lord George was acquitted. He retired to Birmingham, became a Jew, and lived in that faith, or under the delusion that he did so. The hundreds who perished from his folly or insanity were avenged in his subsequent imprisonment in Newgate for a libel on Marie Antoinette, of which he was convicted. He died a very few years after the riots of 1780, in Newgate, generally condemned, and but little compassionated.

It appears from the letters addressed by Doctor Beanie to the Duchess of Gordon, that she was not in London during the riots of June, 1780. The poet had been introduced to her by Sir William Forbes, and frequently visited Gordon Castle. We find him, whilst London was blazing, sending thither a parcel of _Mirrors_, the fashionable journal, "Count Fathom," "The Tale of a Tub," and the fanciful, forgotten romance by Bishop Berkeley, "Gaudentio di Lucca," to amuse her solitude. "'Gaudentio,'" he writes, "will amuse you, though there are tedious passages in it. The whole description of passing the deserts of Africa is particularly excellent." It is singular that this dream of Bishop Berkeley's of a country fertile and delicious in the centre of Africa should have been almost realised in our own time by the discoveries of Doctor Livingstone.

To his present of books, Doctor Beattie added a flask of whisky, which he sealed with his usual seal, "The three graces, whom I take to be your Grace's near relations, as they have the honour, not only to bear one of your titles, but also to resemble you exceedingly in form, feature, and manner. If you had lived three thousand years ago, which I am very glad you did not, there would have been four of them, and you the first. May all happiness attend your Grace!"

This graceful piece of adulation was followed by a tender concern for "her Grace's" health. A sportive benediction was offered whilst the duchess was at Glenfiddick, a hunting seat in the heart of the Grampian Hills--a wild, sequestered spot, of which Doctor Beattie was particularly fond.

"I rejoice in the good weather, in the belief that it extends to Glenfiddick, where I pray that your Grace may enjoy all the health and happiness that good air, goats' whey, romantic solitude, and the society of the loveliest children in the world can bestow. May your days be clear sunshine; and may a gentle rain give balm to your nights, that the flowers and birch-trees may salute you in the morning with all their fragrance! May the kids frisk and play tricks before you with unusual sprightliness; and may the song of birds, the hum of bees, and the distant waterfall, with now and then the shepherd's horn resounding from the mountains, entertain you with a full chorus of Highland music! My imagination had parcelled out the lovely little glen into a thousand little paradises; in the hope of being there, and seeing everyday in that solitude, what is

'Fairer than famed of old, or fabled since,
Of fairy damsels, met in forests wide
By errant knights.'

But the information you received at Cluny gave a check to my fancy, and was indeed a great disappointment to Mrs. Beattie and me; not on account of the goats' whey, but because it keeps us so long at such a distance from your Grace."

When at Gordon Castle, the duchess occupied herself with pursuits that elevated whilst they refreshed her mind. She promised Doctor Beattie to send him the history of a day. Her day seems to have been partly engaged in the instruction of her five daughters, and in an active correspondence and reading. It is difficult to imagine this busy, flattered woman reading Blair's sermons--which had then been recently published--to her family on Sundays; or the duke, whom Doctor Beattie describes as "more astronomical than ever," engrossed from morning to night in making calculations with Mr. Copland, Professor of Astronomy in Marischal College, Aberdeen. Beattie's letters to the duchess, although too adulatory, were those of a man who respects the understanding of the woman to whom he writes. The following anecdotes, the one relating to Hume, the other to Handel, are in his letters to the Duchess of Gordon, and they cannot be read without interest.

"Mr. Hume was boasting to the doctor (Gregory) that among his disciples he had the honour to reckon many of the fair sex. 'Now tell me,' said the doctor, 'whether, if you had a wife or a daughter, you would wish them to be your disciples? Think well before you answer me; for I assure you that whatever your answer is, I will not conceal it.' Mr. Hume, with a smile and some hesitation, made this reply: 'No; I believe skepticism may be too sturdy a virtue for a woman.' Miss Gregory will certainly remember she has heard her father tell this story."

Again, about Handel:

"I lately heard two anecdotes, which deserve to be put in writing, and which you will be glad to hear. When Handel's 'Messiah' was first performed, the audience were exceedingly struck and affected by the music in general; but when the chorus struck up, 'For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth,' they were so transported that they all, together with the king (who happened to be present), started up, and remained standing till the chorus ended; and hence it became the fashion in England for the audience to stand while that part of the music is performing. Some days after the first exhibition of the same divine oratorio, Mr. Handel came to pay his respects to Lord Kinnoul, with whom he was particularly acquainted. His lordship, as was natural, paid him some compliments on the noble entertainment which he had lately given the town. 'My lord,' said Handel, 'I should be sorry if I only entertained them--I wish to make them better.'"

Beattie's happiest hours are said to have been passed at Gordon Castle, with those whose tastes, in some respects differing from his own, he contributed to form; whilst he was charmed with the beauty, the wit, the cultivated intellect of the duchess, and he justly appreciated her talents and virtues. Throughout a friendship of years her kindness was unvaried;

"Ne'er ruffled by those cataracts and breaks
Which humour interposed too often makes."

The duchess felt sincerely for poor Beattie's domestic sorrows; for the peculiarities of his wife, whom he designated as "nervous;" for the early death of his son, in whom all the poet's affections were bound up, and to whose welfare every thought of his was directed.

One would gladly take one's impressions of the Duchess of Gordon's character from Beattie, rather than from the pen of political writers, who knew her but as a partisan. The duchess, according to Beattie, was feelingly alive to every fine impulse; demonstrative herself, detesting coldness in others; the life of every party; the consoling friend of every scene of sorrow; a compound of sensibility and vivacity, of strength and softness. This is not the view that the world took of her character. Beattie always quitted Gordon Castle "with sighs and tears." It is much to have added to the transient gleams of happiness enjoyed by so good and so afflicted a man. "I cannot think," he wrote, when under the pressure of dreaded calamity--that of seeing his wife insane; "I am too much agitated and _distrait_ (as Lord Chesterfield would say) to read anything that is not very desultory; I cannot play at cards; I could never learn to smoke; and my musical days are over. My first excursion, if ever I make any, must be to Gordon Castle."

There he found what is indispensable to such a man--congeniality. Amusement was not what he required; it was soothing. It was in the duchess's presence that he wrote the following "Lines to a Pen:" "Go, and be guided by the brightest eyes, And to the softest hand thine aid impart; To trace the fair ideas as they arise, Warm from the purest, gentlest, noblest heart;" lines in which the praise is worth more than the poetry. The duchess sent him a copy by Smith of her portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, a picture to which reference has been already made.

In 1782 the duchess grieved for the death of Lord Kaimes, for whom she had a sincere friendship, although the religious opinions of that celebrated man differed greatly from those of Beattie. Lord Kaimes was fifty-six years an author, in company with the eccentric Lord Monboddo, the author of the theory that men have had tails. Lord Kaimes passed some days at Gordon Castle shortly before his death. Monboddo and he detested each other, and squabbled incessantly. Lord Kaimes understood no Greek; and Monboddo, who was as mad and as tiresome about Greek and Aristotle, and as absurd and peculiar on that score as Don Quixote was about chivalry, told him that without understanding Greek he could not write a page of good English. Their arguments must have been highly diverting. Lord Kaimes, on his death-bed, left a remembrance to the Duchess of Gordon, who had justly appreciated him, and defended him from the charge of skepticism. Lord Monboddo compared the duchess to Helen of Troy, whom he asserted to have been seven feet high; but whether in stature, in beauty, or in the circumstances of her life, does not appear.