CHAPTER IV.
The unpublished letters take up the glorious theme previous to the last incident named in the published correspondence. The earliest is from Mrs. Montagu’s sister, Mrs. Scott, to the wife of their brother, the Rev. W. Robinson, at Naples. The two sisters, Elizabeth and Sarah, loved each other with intense affection. The younger went long by the nickname of Pea, from her extraordinary likeness to her elder sister, who used, before Sarah’s unhappy marriage, to rally her on the obesity of her lovers and her cruelty in reducing them to consumptiveness and asses’ milk.
March 28, 1761.Mrs. Scott to Mrs. Robinson, Naples.—“The Tories are in high spirits. The king has declared that, as they are possessed of the greatest part of the property of the kingdom, they ought to have a great share in the government, and accordingly many are taken into place. The king was asked what orders he would have given to the dockmen against the approaching election. His Majesty answered, ‘No orders at all.’ He would have them left to themselves. Lord Granville said, ‘That was leaving them to be directed by the First Lord of the Admiralty’ (Lord Anson). The king replied, ‘That was true; he had not considered that; they must, therefore, be told to vote for the Tories, to be sure.’ The late Speaker and the Parliamenttook a most tender farewell of each other. They thanked and he thanked, and then they re-thanked, and in short, never were people so thankful on both sides; and then they recommended him to the king, to do more than thank him; but he refused any reward. Only, his son, it is said, will have a pension of £2,000 per annum—a good, agreeable compliment, and yet what no one will disapprove.”
Walpole describes Onslow’s retirement, after holding the office of Speaker during thirty years, in five successive Parliaments, in these words: “The Speaker has taken leave and received the highest compliments, and substantial ones, too. He did not overact, and it was really a handsome scene. Onslow accepted a pension of £3,000 a year for his own life and that of his son—afterward Lord Onslow.”
After noticing the changes in the ministry, and conferring of honours on, and the granting of pensions to persons of no great public importance, Mrs. Scott turns to the death of the great master of the ceremonies at Bath, Beau Nash, and to the conduct of the great statesman, Mr. Pitt. “Mr. Nash, I believe, died since I wrote to you, and all his effects are to be sold for the benefit of his creditors, but will not prove sufficient to pay his debts. Collett now officiates as his successor, though others are talked of for that noble post; but as neither the corporation nor the keeper of the rooms seem disposed to annex any salary to it, I imagine Collett will continue in possession; for I think no one else will do it without other reward than the honour and profit arising therefrom.”
Collett, after brief possession of the post so long held by Nash, was succeeded by Derrick, an adventurerin whom Bath was as much interested as England was in Pitt, of whom Mrs. Scott thus writes: “Mr. Pitt still continues in his post. Without connections of any sort, without the power of conferring honours or places, he commands imperiously, and forces obedience from mere superiority of parts and integrity. As a statesman he is self-existent, and depends on none, nor has any dependent on him. He does not see his oldest friends but when they have business to impart, obliges none by private benefits, nor engages any by social intercourse. His mind seems too great for any object less than a whole nation. There is something very new and extremely surprising in his conduct. He is an Almanzor in politicks. He is himself alone. How long he can stand thus, only time can show. As there was scarcely ever an instance of the like, we have no precedents by which to form conjectures. National prejudices about Scotchmen are lulled asleep. Lord Bute is high in favour; the city is pleased with him; the Tories much attached to him. The king is still generally applauded. Our sex went in such numbers to the House of Lords at the closing of the session, to see his Majesty on the throne, that good part of the company fainted away, and not above three lords had room to sit down....
“My brother Matt is at present prosecuting the minister of Lyminge for non-residence, in revenge for some offence he has given him about the tithes; and my father bids fair for being engaged in prosecuting a clergyman at Canterbury, for saying he was in the Rebellion in the year ’16.... Report says that the Duchess of Richmond and some other ladies, whose husbands are going or gone to Germany, are goingthere likewise, and are to be at Brunswick. I much question whether their husbands will rejoice in their company, but certainly Prince Ferdinand will not be fond of such auxiliaries. It is the oddest party of pleasure I ever heard of. Thomas Diaforus, who invites his mistress to the lively amusement of making one at a dissection, would be an agreeable lover to these ladies.... Perhaps they think Germany may afford them more of their husbands’ company than they can obtain in England; for some among them would think that a valuable acquisition, and possibly they may not be mistaken, for a drum that leads to battle may not be so powerful a rival to a wife as one that leads its followers only to coquetry.”
Mrs. Scott’s reference to Pitt, secretary of state and soul of the ministry, of which the old imbecile Duke of Newcastle was the nominal head, seems to have been made with Almanzor’s lines in her memory.
“Know, that I alone am king of me!I am as free as Nature first made man,Ere the base laws of servitude began,When wild in woods the noble savage ran.I saw th’ oppress’d, and thought it did belongTo a king’s office to redress the wrong,” etc.
“Know, that I alone am king of me!I am as free as Nature first made man,Ere the base laws of servitude began,When wild in woods the noble savage ran.I saw th’ oppress’d, and thought it did belongTo a king’s office to redress the wrong,” etc.
“Know, that I alone am king of me!I am as free as Nature first made man,Ere the base laws of servitude began,When wild in woods the noble savage ran.I saw th’ oppress’d, and thought it did belongTo a king’s office to redress the wrong,” etc.
“Know, that I alone am king of me!
I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
I saw th’ oppress’d, and thought it did belong
To a king’s office to redress the wrong,” etc.
The public mind, however, was not so much occupied with men of mark as with a ceremony which had not been witnessed in England for very many years. In a letter from Batheaston, September 14, 1761, written by Mrs. Scott to her sister-in-law, at Naples, she describes the time as one of general madness, and continues as follows:
“One would imagine that no king had ever marriedor any state ever had a queen before. The nation has for some time been and will still longer be absolutely frantic. The expected princess was to be all perfection, both in person and mind, and I believe few ever took so much pleasure in the possession of their own wives as they have in his Majesty’s having obtained so rare a blessing. I don’t think so great a compliment has been paid to matrimony for many years past. Miss Arnold, who is gone up to my brother Morris, in order to be ready for the coronation, has had a sight of her Majesty; and from her, as well as others, I understand she is very far from handsome. Her mouth fills a great part of her face. When Miss Arnold saw her, which was only in passing, she was talking and laughing, which would shew it in its full dimensions, and she says she could see no other feature; but we are assured she is extremely good-natured, very lively, and has an extraordinary understanding. The first part, her youth renders probable; for the last article, we may rather suppose it affords a reasonable ground for expectation than that it has come to any perfection. She has been learning French since she knew she was to leave Mecklenburgh; and I suppose must have endeavoured to obtain some English, as the more necessary thing. It is said that Lord Hardwicke wrote over an account to his wife of her personal defects, which her ladyship read in a large company. This was repeated to his Majesty, who is greatly offended. Certainly, it was highly imprudent in the one, and not less foolish in the other; and I wonder his lordship, after having been married near thirty years, should not know his wife better than to put it in her power to commitsuch a folly, as he might have known how likely she was to use it to his disadvantage. I suppose the poor man went over in full expectation of seeing a Venus, and was so amazed that he could not contain his disappointment.
“As many persons as Greenwich would hold waited there for many days to see her Majesty arrive, and at last, after having been exposed to those storms, she landed in Suffolk, and, consequently, did not make her appearance on the Thames. The rooms at Greenwich let for half a guinea a day, and the poorest little casement brought in the owner a daily crown. I hope it has enriched many poor people. Of all the taxes ever levied in this kingdom, that which will be raised this year on folly will be by far the highest. I hear there is scaffolding enough erected against the coronation to hold two millions of people. Almost all the kingdom will be in London; and many, I suppose, will be reduced to scanty meals for a whole year to come, by the expenses on this occasion; and if the day should prove rainy, which the season of the year renders very probable, those who are not in Westminster Hall or the Abbey will see nothing; for there is an awning prepared, to be carried over the heads of those who walk in the procession, in case of rain. The finery of every one who intends to appear at court is beyond imagination. This kingdom, or perhaps any other, scarcely ever saw the like.
“The queen’s clothes are so heavy that, by all accounts, if she be not very robust, she will not be able to move under the burden; but I hope her constitution is not very delicate, for she did not arrive in London till three o’clock; and, besides the fatigueof her journey, with the consequences of the flutter she could not avoid being in, she was to dress for her wedding, be married, have a Drawing-room, and undergo the ceremony of receiving company, after she and the king were in bed, and all the night after her journey and so long a voyage. Nothing but a German constitution could have undergone it.” ...
Poor Queen Charlotte’s plainness was—as Northcote subsequently described it, in speaking of her portrait by Reynolds, namely—an elegant, and not a vulgar plainness. She had a beautifully shaped arm, and was fond of exhibiting it. “She had a fan in her hand,” said Northcote; “Lord! how she held that fan!” Of literary news this letter contains the following item:
“... Doctor Young has written a poem on ‘Resignation,’ and dedicated it to Mrs. Boscawen. I have not seen it, but have heard it much praised, and am told he wrote it at the desire of my sister Montagu and Miss Carter, who requested it in a visit they made him on their road to Tunbridge, where my sister spent the summer.”
Municipal authorities, more gallant than Mrs. Scott and the female critics, spoke of the queen, in their addresses, as “amiably eminent for the beauties of her mind and person.” Many parties who drove into town to witness the coronation, were made to “stand and deliver” their valuables by highwaymen, who infested all the roads leading into London. Those who escaped and got as far as Charing Cross, could go no further, unless the gentlemen fought way for their ladies and themselves, which some bold spirits ventured to do. While the great show was in progress,press-gangs picked up youths likely, however unwilling, to serve the king; and the city at night was in the hands of a mob, which did with London, Londoners, and their possessions very much as they pleased. Many lives were sacrificed, and very little was thought of them.
The night after the wedding, there was a ball at court, so grand that nothing like it, so it was said, had ever been seen in England. The king and queen retired at the early hour of eleven. One great feature of the night was that the Duke of Ancaster, whose wife was mistress of the robes to the queen, appeared in the dress which the king had worn the whole day before at the coronation, and which his Majesty had condescendingly given to his Grace! A pleasanter feature was to be seen in the group of bridesmaids, who “danced in the white-boddiced coats they had worn at the wedding.” Liquor and illuminations prevailed outside. “Ah!” said an observant Smithfield dealer; “what with plays, fairs, pillories, and executions, London has more holidays than there are red days in the almanack!” In truth, London was drunk and rampant. It could be both at small outlay; for mutton was selling at one shilling a stone (in the carcase), and cognac could be had for nine shillings a gallon!
Lord Hardwicke, named in the above letter, was the son of an attorney, and rose to the dignity of lord chancellor by his merits. When he was plain Philip Yorke, he made an offer of marriage to an heiress, a young widow, with a jointure, whose father asked him for his rent-roll! The handsome barrister replied that he had “a perch of ground in WestminsterHall.” The young fellow’s suit prevailed; and the happy couple began life in a small house near Lincoln’s Inn, the ground floor of which served for the husband’s offices. The lady was connected with the family of Gibbon the historian; and she was a wife so good, prudent, and so wise, that Mrs. Scott’s sneer at her seems quite gratuitous. The poor lady died three days before the coronation; and her husband in 1764.
Doctor Young’s “Resignation” was the dying song of a man above fourscore. Its object was to console Mrs. Boscawen for the loss of her heroic husband, the admiral. In the last century, English heroes were singularly respected. The Suffolk ladies, of whatever rank, voluntarily yielded precedence to Mrs. Vernon, “great Admiral Vernon’s” wife.
Mr. Pitt resigned the foreign secretaryship on October 5, 1761. He and his friends were for declaring war against Spain. Lord Bute and a majority opposed it, the king agreeing with them. Pitt’s fall was made tolerable by the pension of £3,000 a year for the lives of himself, son, and wife. The latter was created Baroness of Chatham; and in three months war was declared with Spain!
Mrs. Scott to her brother at Naples.November 28, 1761.—“... Lord Bath and Lord Lyttelton were both at Tunbridge, and Miss Carter was with my sister; so, you may imagine, the place was agreeable, and wit flowed more copiously than the spring. The room she has so long been fitting-up is not yet finished, but the design of it is so much improved that I really believe it will be the most beautiful thing ever seen, and proportionably expensive. Taste, you know, isnot the cheapest thing to purchase. Use and convenience may be provided for at a moderate charge, but great geniuses are above being contented with such matters.
“I suppose you have heard much of the general lamentations for Mr. Pitt’s resignation. It is by many thought that his resuming his post is unavoidable, and, indeed, I suppose it must be so, if affairs take the turn which appearances give reason to expect. He is more popular than ever in the city. The procession of the royal family on the Lord Mayor’s Day was broke in a manner that puzzled people much, as they could not account for it; but it has since been said it was occasioned by a multitude of sailors, who forced their way through the crowd in search of Mr. Pitt’s chariot, from which they intended to have taken the horses, and to have drawn it themselves to the Mansion House. The post of honour is not often a place of safety, but I think it was seldom more dangerous than it would have proved in this case, had they effected their design; but they could not find him, so he got there with whole bones, and was received with greater acclamations than were bestowed on any other person. He endeavoured to get away privately, but the mob were so very kind that they very near overturned Lord Temple’s chariot, in which he was, by crowding about it, and hanging on the doors; and a very long time he was in getting home. I will not say it was tedious, for the sweetest music is deserved praise. He did not attend the House of Commons till some days after its first meeting; but when he did, spoke, by all accounts, beyond what he or any other manever did, with perfect calmness and modesty, and, with few words, silenced every one who endeavoured to oppose him. G. Grenville attempted to answer him, but a general buz obliged him to sit down. However, the press is loaded with his abuse. These events are happy for hireling scribblers. They get a dinner, and can do him no essential harm. So it’s very well. It would be cruel to grudge them their morsel. I hope it will fatten many a starving author.
“But to mention those who do not write for bread, and those who contrive to get both bread and fame together, Lord Lyttelton’s second volume quarto of ‘Henry the Second,’ is in the press.... Mallett has published a poem called ‘Truth in Rhyme,’ dedicated to Lord Bute.... I am glad he can tell truth in either rhyme or prose.... I have heard abon motof Lady Townshend’s, of which no one will deny the truth. Somebody expressed their surprise that Lady Northumberland should be made lady of the bedchamber. ‘Surely,’ said she, ‘nothing could be more proper. The queen does not understand English, and can anything be more necessary than that she should learn the vulgar tongue?’”
It was at this period that Mrs. Scott became an authoress, in whole or in part, of a successful, but now utterly forgotten, novel, called “Millennium Hall.” This book, a single volume, went through four editions. In the first edition, 1762, the first word of the title is spelt throughout with onen, and in all the editions it is said to be by a gentleman on his travels. Common report assigned the authorship to Mrs. Scott, shared, as far as some small help went,by her friend and companion for years, Lady Barbara Montagu. A copy of the second edition (1764), which once belonged to Horace Walpole, is now in the British Museum. On the back of the title-page, Walpole corrects the above sharing of literary labour in the following words, written in his well-known hand: “This book was written by Lady Bab Montagu (the sister of George Montagu Dunk, Earl of Hallifax) and Mrs. Scott, daughter of Matthew Robinson, Esq., and wife of George Scott, Esq.” It was continued to be published as the work of a gentleman, in the two succeeding editions; but Mrs. Scott is still accredited with the greatest share in the labour. “Millennium Hall” is generally described as a novel. It is a series of stories of the romantic lives of four or five ladies who, having been bitterly disappointed in love, and handsomely solaced by riches, retire from the world and establish themselves in the hall which gives its name to the novel. It is a name which would lead one to suppose that there is a sort of millennium peace and happiness achieved there, such as will be found on earth generally only in the millennium period. The wealthy and love-lorn ladies of the hall, however, have only founded a female school and society in advance of contemporary ideas, but having nothing wonderful, though now and then something eccentric, if weighed by our present standards. The real interest of the volume lies in the romantic biographies, and these are narrated with ladylike grace, elegance, tenderness, and, occasionally, tedious prolixity.
The story represented, with some exaggeration, the lives led by Lady Bab and Mrs. Scott in their“conventual house” at Batheaston. Both boys and girls were well trained by those ladies at that place. Mrs. Montagu, in reference to Mrs. Scott’s good works, so loved her sister as to render her uncharitable to other people. “Methodist ladies,” she said, “did out of enthusiasm what Mrs. Scott did out of a calm sense of duty, and gratitude that the employment was a solace to one who had been cruelly tried by affliction.” No credit was given to poor Lady Bab, but her happy temperament could well afford to do without it. Strange as the stories were which illustrate “Millennium Hall,” they were not nearly so strange as one which, in March, 1762, Mrs. Scott related to her brother at Rome, in a letter from Bath: “Those who deal in the small wares of scandal will not want subjects. Miss Hunter, daughter to Orby Hunter, has lately furnished a copious topic.... She and Lord Pembroke, in spite of winds, waves, and war, left this kingdom for one where they imagined they may love with less molestation,—where they cannot see a wife weep nor hear a father rage. They set off in a storm better suited to travelling witches than flying lovers, but were so impeded by the weather, that a captain sent out a boat and took the lady prisoner; but after he had set her on shore, he found that, as she was of age, it was difficult to assume any lawful authority over her; and, after having spent a night in tears and lamentation, she was restored to Lord Pembroke.... His lordship resigned his commission and his place of lord of the bedchamber, and wrote a letter to Lady Pembroke, acknowledging her charms and virtues and his own baseness (an unnecessary thing, since the latter shemust long have known, and was probably not absolutely ignorant of the former), but assuring her Miss Hunter was irresistible; that he never intended to return into England, and had taken care that £5,000 should be paid her yearly. As Lady Pembroke is so handsome and amiable, perhaps his conduct will be seen by the world in a true light, without any fashionable palliations. A report was spread, that they were taken by a privateer, but I can hear of none but of a very different capture—the clay cold corpses of Lord and Lady Kingstone, which were on their way to England for interment.”
The elopement of Miss Hunter (a maid of honour, too!) from Bath with the Earl of Pembroke formed one of the most delicious bits of scandal ever discussed in the Rooms, on the Parade, or in the Meadows. The excitement attendant thereon was shared by the whole country; for Kitty Hunter was a well-known, and not at all suspected, beauty of the day. Her father, Orby Hunter, was, at the time of the elopement, one of the lords of the admiralty. The vessel that brought back the fugitives was a privateer, commanded by a friend of Mr. Hunter’s. Kitty’s father declined to receive her, and she accompanied Lord Pembroke abroad. The earl was a married man. His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of the Duke of Marlborough. Her exemplary husband wrote to her from Italy a letter, in which he politely informed her, that though he had lived with her so many years, he regretted to say he had never been able to love her so well as she deserved, so thought it best to leave her. Subsequently, he had the assurance to invite Lady Pembroke to accompany them on the Continent.“And she,” says Walpole, “who is all gentleness and tenderness, was with difficulty withheld from acting as mad a part from goodness as he had acted from guilt and folly.” He had tried to make his wife hate him, but in vain. It is one of the illustrations of social feeling in the last century, that neither the rascal earl nor the light-o’-love maid of honour was thought much the worse of for their shameless conduct. A “Peerage,” of ten years subsequent to the elopement, edited by a clergyman, too! the Rev. Frederick Barlow, vicar of Burton, thus speaks of my lord, who was then living: “His lordship distinguished himself in the annals of gallantry with Miss H—— about ten years ago, and since that time,” it, goes on to speak plainly of the earl’s gallantry, “with several ladies of less note;” adding, “his lordship is universally esteemed as an accomplished nobleman and a brave officer.” Mrs. Scott happily goes on to treat of a plainer but much honester woman than Kitty Hunter: “The queen gives daily less satisfaction, and the people who at first found her out to be pleasing, seem now to be insensible to the discovery they then made. Her husband, however, seems fond of her.... Report says the Prince of Mecklenburg, a very pretty sort of man, with an agreeable person, is fallen desperately in love with Miss Bowes—a prudent passion; and the girl has no ambition if she does not choose to be a princess. I fancy, should she become such, he would be richer than the duke, his elder brother.... Lady Raymond is going to be married to Lord Robert Bertie,—an union wherein no acid will enter; for they are both famed for good temper. Mr. Whitehead’s playhas been acted and published, and a poor performance it is. The dialogue flat and ungenteel, and the plot poor enough.”
Whitehead’s play was a comedy, “The School for Lovers,” in which Garrick played Sir John Dorilant. The main attraction was the ever youthful Mrs. Cibber, who, at nearly fifty years old, acted Cælia, a girl of seventeen; yet Victor says: “She was admitted by the nicest observers to become the character. This was entirely owing to that uncommon symmetry and exact proportion in her form, that happily remained with her to her death.” But there were more extraordinary comedies being enacted in real life than on the stage.
In a letter from Mrs. Scott to her brother, at Naples, dated April 10, 1762, there are profuse congratulations on the birth of his son, and a wonderful amount of speculation on mothers, nurses, and on babies generally, possible and impossible, expected and not expected, overtardy or too hasty, and all in as plain language as the subject could admit. The writer then refers to the report of the queen affording promise of an heir; “but as she is no great favourite with the nation, it does not seem to afford any great joy.” This leads to a subject that made a stir among last century ladies who were privileged to go to court. “A court dress (sic) is going to take place at St. James’s, the same as in France, which greatly distresses the old ladies, who are quite clamourous on the occasion, and at a loss how to cover so much neck as the stiffened-bodied gowns are made to show, and which they are sensible is not veryappétissanteafter a certain age; as likewise how to supply thedeficiency which churlish time has made in their once flowing tresses. Some younger ladies, to whom nature has been rather a stepdame than a kind mother, join in their lamentations, and London is in an uproar. The exultation of those who, conscious of their charms, rejoice in laying aside as much covering as possible, being as little silent at the distress of the others. They look on this allowed display as a sort of jail delivery to their long-imprisoned attractions; and as beauty is nature’s boast, insist that it should be showed at courts, and feasts and high solemnities, where most may wonder at the workmanship; and that fashion has been hitherto unjust in concealing part of the superiority nature has bestowed upon them. The consumption of pearl-powder will certainly be much increased; for where there is such a resource, even fourscore will exhibit a snowy breast, and the corpulent dowagers will unite the lilies of the spring with all the copious abundance of a later season.
“... Lord Pembroke, after he got to Holland, wrote to his lady, to desire her to come to them, assuring her Miss Hunter would be assiduous in her endeavours to oblige her, and that they should form a very happy society, if she would bring over her guitar, two servants who play on the French horn, and his dog Rover! This polite invitation she, Emma like, was exceeding ready to comply with, but the Duke of Marlborough had rather too much sense to permit it. His lordship has since written her word, he shall never be happy till he lives with her again. Absurd as all this is, it is certainly fact, and some add, that he has advised Miss Hunter to turnnun! To be sure he best knows how fit she is to take a vow of chastity! That he may by this time wish she would take any vow that might separate her from him, is, I think, very probable.”
The general scramble for honours which usually marks a new reign had not yet ceased. Mrs. Scott thus refers to the part which some of her own family took in it.
Mrs. Scott to the Reverend W. Robinson.May 26, 1762.—“I cannot forbear wishing you could have an Irish bishopric, but your profession are too watchful to suffer such things to be vacant. I hear our cousin Robinson does not much like his promotion to Kildare. I suppose he does not entirely relish rising step by step. All travelling is expensive, and I believe none more so than the passing through the various stages of bishoprics; but I think he may be contented to riseà petits pas. His rising at all seems to proceed only from a want of anything to stop him, according to the philosophical axiom, that put a thing in motion and it will move for ever, if it meets with nothing to obstruct its course. Nature went but a slow pace when she made him, and did not jump into one perfection. Sir Septimus is tolerably contented with his fate in a world so regardless of real merit, and therefore little likely to reward his superlative merits. I hear that a week before he had this black rod given him (a proper reward for a preceptor), he declared that whoever would eat goose at court must swallow the feathers; but now they have been so well stroked down, he finds them go down easily enough.”
In a subsequent letter to her sister-in-law at Naples,Mrs. Scott lightly sketches a celebrated character at Bath.
“This place is by no means full, but it contains much wealth. Colonel Clive, the Nabob maker (is not that almost as great a title as the famous Earl of Warwick’s?), lives at Westgate House, with all the Clives about him. He has sold his possessions in India to the East India Company for £30,000 per annum, a trifling sum, which he dedicates to the buying of land. In a time when property is so fluctuating, I think he may see himself possessor of the whole kingdom, should his distempers allow him a long life; but his health is bad, and he purposes, when peace is made, at latest, to show at Rome the richest man in Europe. He lives in little pomp; moderate in his table, and still more so in equipage and retinue.”
Mrs. Scott now disappears for awhile, to make way for her more celebrated sister.