y.;
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY 01' CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 MR. JOSEPH JEKYLL 
 
 WITH HIS SISTER-IN-LAW, 
 
 LADY GERTRUDE SLOANE STANLEY, 
 18181838.
 
 (' (' '
 
 CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 MR. JOSEPH JEKYLL 
 
 WITH HIS SISTER-IN-LAW, 
 
 LADY GERTRUDE SLOANE STANLEY, 
 
 18181838. 
 
 PRECEDED BY SOME LETTERS WRITTEN TO HfS 
 FATHER FROM FRANCE, 1775. 
 
 EDITED, WITH A BRIEF MEMOIR, BY 
 
 THE HON. ALGERNON BOURKE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1894.
 
 Printed by H.izeJ], Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. 
 
 En route for France. Brighton in 1775. Dieppe. Rouen 
 to Paris. French Fare. Paris. French Costume. Sight- 
 seeing in Paris. Orleans. Life in France. An Execution. 
 British Sportsman in France. Orleans and its Neighbour- 
 hood. Temperance of the French. High Mass. Mr. 
 Martin. Lord Galway and " Museum " Cox. French 
 Cookery. The Source of the Loire. The Comtesse de 
 Bethune. Arrival at Blois. St. Gervais. Taking the Veil. 
 A Wedding. A Boar Hunt .... pp. 1-26 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER (continued}. 
 
 A Wedding Feast. Blois. Its History. Poverty and Ignorance 
 of the Peasantry Amboise. Madame du Barry. The Due 
 de Choiseul. Chante-loup. Touraine. Fetes at Blois. 
 French Curiosity as to " M. Vilkes " Chenonceau and 
 Chartreux. Celles. Soin and Chambord. The Cost of Food 
 and Lodging. M. la Valliere. French Horses. Feminine 
 Fashions. The French Stage. The Vintage. The Office of 
 Hangman. Defects of a French Education. Madame de 
 Pompadour. The French Nobility. En route for London. 
 PP- 27-65 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY GERTRUDE SLOANE STANLEY. 
 
 The Methusalems. Ugo Foscolo. Bishop Pelham's Lady. 
 Lord Erskine. Sir R. Croft. " Hat Vaughan." Milman's 
 
 2068593
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 Fazio. The Duchess of Devonshire. Lord Ellenborough. 
 Tales of my Landlord. Mrs. Opie. Sir Claude Hunter. 
 Guests at Country Houses. Lady Morgan. Sir S. Romilly. 
 The Dowager Empress of Russia and her Son at the Dance. 
 Lord Byron's new Poem. Rogers and John W. Ward. 
 Lord Dudley. Crabbe's Simplicity. "Chic" Chester and 
 Nagle. Chantrey and the Princess Borghese's Foot. The 
 Opposition in 1819. Mrs. Coutts. The Regent's Ball to 
 Children. " Mazeppa." Lord Chancellor Erskine's Domes- 
 tic Affairs. The Travellers' Club. Sir J. Mackintosh. The 
 Persian Ambassador at Westminster School. The Duke of 
 Richmond's Death." The Political House that Jack Built." 
 Don Juan. Mrs. Coutts' Dinner. John Julius Anger- 
 stein. James Bland Burgess. John Bull. An Estimate 
 of the Character of George III. and his Reign. Rumours 
 of the Evidence against Queen Caroline. Lord Alvanley 
 and the Duke of York. Ivanhoe. Queen Caroline and 
 Hunt the Radical. The Methusalems. The Cato Street 
 Conspirators. The Merits of Beer and Whisky. The 
 Duchess of York. Lord and Lady Blessington. The Queen's 
 Trial. Bergami's Cross. Story of Queen Caroline. The 
 Solicitor-General Copley and Signer Ratti. Signs of Weak- 
 ness in the Queen's Defence. Hatsell. Forecast of the 
 Result of the Trial of the Queen. Denman's Attack on the 
 Duke of Clarence. Lord Alvanley. The Queen at St. 
 Paul's. Sir C. Bunbury. Marlborough House. Howard 
 and Gibbs and old Servants. Harvey Aston. Captain O. 
 Byrne's Account of the Duel. George Harding and the 
 Bookseller. Verses on Dr. Howley . . pp. 66-113 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY GERTRUDE SLOANE STANLEY (continued). 
 
 The Coronation. Queen Caroline at Brandenburg House. Ladies 
 Hertford, Conyngham, and Jersey. Lady Conyngham's Views 
 on the Government. The King and his Love. George IV. 
 on the Radical Movement. Mrs. Hey wood's Remark to 
 the Duke of Gloucester. The Strolling Player and the Thin 
 Audience. George Isted's Proposal. The Sloanes become 
 Sloane Stanleys." The Pirate." Opera. Miss Tree and Mr.
 
 CONTENTS. vii 
 
 Coutts. The Ghost in Hamlet with a Cold in the Head. 
 Death of Mr. Coutts the Banker. His Will. Sir F. Burdett. 
 Lord and Lady Erskine's Matrimonial Differences. 
 Ministerial Changes. Attack on Mrs. Coutts in John Bull. 
 " Werner." Poet Sotheby and the Benchers of the Temple. 
 Canny Coutts and the Legacy Duty. An Unpublished 
 Caricature by Bunbury. Fanny Kemble. " Murder Maker 
 to the Newspapers." Scandal. Newton the Painter. Clara 
 Fisher. Wellington, Canning, and Lord Strangford. Mr. 
 Jekyll's Views on Public Schools. Bowood. Lord and Lady 
 Lansdowne. The Miseries of the Country. Lord Dudley. 
 Literary Productions. Lady Liverpool. The Hertford 
 Murder. The Theatres in 1823. Lord Grey and the Ghost 
 Hospitality at Brighton. Madame de Lieven pp. 114-141 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY GERTRUDE SLOANE STANLEY (continued). 
 
 Life at Bowood. Thomas Moore. A Foreign Tour projected. 
 Poodle Byng and the King and Queen of the Sandwich 
 Islands. Lelyveld the Dutch Ambassador. Lady Holland 
 and Captain Medwin's "Conversations with Lord Byron at 
 Pisa." Der Freischiitz. The Public Taste for Hell and the 
 Devil. The Duchess of Rutland as a Rearer of Cattle. 
 French Reception of German and Italian Opera. Scandal. 
 Change of Place a Disease of the Healthy. The Italian's 
 Epitaph. The Confessor and Francis I. Moore's "Life of 
 Sheridan." George Cholmondeley's Marriage. Resurrec- 
 tion Men in France. Hobgoblins. Lady Holland at Paris. 
 Mrs. Coutts and the Duke of St. Albans. Epigram on 
 Greenwood. Intrigues at Windsor. Stewart Rose and Poet 
 Rogers. Criticisms on Moore's "Sheridan " by the European 
 Magazine. Ruin of Walter Scott. Sir E. Antrobus' Death 
 and Will. The Ladies of Llangollen and Madame de 
 Genlis. John Bull and Rogers the Poet. Dr. L'Afan at 
 Cowes. The Duke of York's Health. Shields' Attack on 
 the Duke in the Morning Chronicle. Lord Lansdowne's 
 Epitaph on Himself. Latin Epigram by a Lady. 
 pp. 142-166
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY GERTRUDE SLOANE STANLEY (continued). 
 
 Death of the Duke of York. Cobbett and the Clubs. Lord Mor- 
 peth's Debut. Lord Liverpool and his Administration. 
 Lord and Lady Wellesley. The Lord-Lieutenant's Toilette. 
 The Zoological Gardens. Mrs. Siddons. Lord Guilford's 
 Will. George IV. and the Guards' Uniform. Mistake of a 
 French Author. Don Miguel. Political Changes. Leigh 
 Hunt and Lord Byron. Lady Holland out of Office. 
 George IV. and Lord Ellenborough. Allen's Consolation to 
 Lady Holland. Murder of de Louie, by Miguel. The Duke of 
 Cumberland's Essay. Society at Norman Court. De Tilly's 
 Memoirs. The King's Illness. The Duke of Wellington's 
 Reticence. Mr. Jekyll's Despair of Politics and Politicians. 
 Stories by Moore against Samuel Rogers. Moore's Moral 
 from Don Giovanni. The Grand Duke Constantine. Lady 
 Holland at Brighton. Scandal. The Duchess of St. Albans' 
 Menu. Lady Goderich. The Irishman's Account of his 
 Birth. Curious Story' of two Eastern Travellers. Ministerial 
 Dissensions pp. 167-191 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY GERTRUDE SLOANE STANLEY {continued), 
 
 Pedro, Emperor of Brazil. Some of the Advantages of Burking. 
 Sir G. Murray's Speech. Captain Garth and his Affidavit 
 The Stanleys and the Cockfighter at Valparaiso. Mr. 
 Palmer's Conversion on the Catholic Question. Palmer- 
 ston's Speech. Prospects of the Catholic Bill. The Duke 
 of Wellington's Duel with Lord Winchilsea. Anecdote of 
 the Duke of Cambridge as a Boy. Kew Gardens. Cabinet 
 Making. Fanny Kemble's Success as Juliet. New Uniform 
 for the Guards. L' Abbe Morellet's Scheme for the Arrange- 
 ment of a Library. The Irishwoman's Defence. Molly 
 Dacre, the Beauty of Carlisle. Lord Stowell and Captain 
 Morris, two of her Lovers. The Circumstances of her 
 Birth. Lady Lyndhurst at Brighton. Colman's "Random 
 Records." Society at Brighton. Lord Glengall's Comedy. 
 Lord Petersham on Life in London. Miss Tree in Black-
 
 CONTENTS. IX 
 
 eyed Susan. Mrs. Coutts. Rogers on Fanny Kemble. 
 Sir Sydney Smith's Account of his Escape from a French 
 Prison. His remarkable Story of Napoleon at the Siege 
 of Acre. " What's in a Name ? " . . pp. 192-216 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY GERTRUDE SLOANE STANLEY (continued). 
 
 Political Rumours. Robert Alexander. Lady Lyndhurst and 
 the Duke of Cumberland. Lord Albert Conyngham's Duel. 
 Sir Thomas Lawrence. Scandal in London. Foote andhis 
 Bass Viol Player. Mrs. Parnther. Moore's "Byron." The 
 Country Manager and the Snowstorm. Politics. Guardsmen 
 in Tiger Skin Waistcoats. Byron and Lady Surrey. Pro- 
 posedNew Cemeteries. The Earl of Chatham. Unpopularity 
 of the Duke of Cumberland. Stapylton's Life of Canning. 
 Lord Ellenborough's Letter to Sir John Malcolm. Woronzow 
 the Russian Ambassador. The King's Health. Lady 
 Jersey's Preparation for the Worst Lady Conyngham and 
 the King. Madame du Barry's Memoirs. Lord Wellesley 
 and the Duke of Wellington. Sellis, the Duke of Cumber- 
 land's valet. Lord Wellesley's jeux d' esprit. The King 
 drooping. His Death. Attacks on his Character in the 
 Press. St. John Long, the Empiric. The King's Will. The 
 Gens d'ar me and the Passport. Archdeacon Nares' Epitaph 
 on Himself. William IV. at the Funeral of George IV. 
 Theodore Hook. Electioneering in 1830. The French Mob 
 under Fire. Verses by Canning. Politics. Threatened 
 Disturbance in the City. The Duke of Cambridge and the 
 King of Hanover as Boys. Lord Burghersh's Opera. 
 O'Connell and Brooks's. Buckingham Palace. The Agri- 
 cultural Troubles of 1830. The Prince of Conde and French 
 Opinion on his Death. Curious Evidence of the organised 
 Character of the Agricultural Disturbances. Hook's " Max- 
 well." The Soldier and the Innkeeper . pp. 217-262 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY GERTRUDE SLOANE STANLEY (continued). 
 
 Kindness of Lord Brougham and Lord Erskine. O'Connell and 
 Lord Anglesey. The Rev. Robert Cholmondeley at Det- 
 tingen. " Le Souverain va visiter le Roi." Dr. Baillie and
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 his Lady Patient The Queen and the Ladies' Dresses. 
 Lord Anglesey in Dublin. Paradise's Translation. An 
 English Lady's French Conversation. Lady Blessington 
 and Comte D'Orsay. The Duchess of St. Albans' Break- 
 fasts. Theodore Hook's Improvisation. Lady Sophia 
 Sidney. A Dinner at Lady Blessington's. The House of 
 Commons. Leopold, King of the Belgians. John Calcraft. 
 The Coronation. Lady Dudley Stuart. Mr. William 
 Manning. Epigram by James Smith. Mr. Jekyll and the 
 Countess of Cork. The New French Peers. Madame de 
 Feucheres and the Prince de Conde. Miss Sophia Dawes. 
 Sir Robert Wilson. Lord Dover as Author." Eugene 
 Aram." Madame de Feucheres. Cobbett. Kean Drunk. 
 The Town.]ac\a Fuller. The Duke of Devonshire. Mrs. 
 Pitt and the Duchess of Gordon. Charles Greenwood. The 
 Duchess of St. Albans' Ball. Lady Blessington's " Memoirs 
 of Byron." Triumph of Reform. Miss E. Law. Conversa- 
 tion of the King and Queen. Politics. Homoeopathy. 
 Story of Diderot told by Mirabeau. John Taylor. Epigram 
 by James Smith. Lord Alvanley's Plan for making a London 
 House interesting. The Housemaid's Love Letter. Edward 
 Jerningham. Lady Jersey and King George IV. Lady 
 Blessington and the Pamphleteer. William the Fourth's 
 Dinner Parties. G. S. Newton the Painter. Politics. 
 PP- 263-308 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY GERTRUDE SLOANE STANLEY (continued). 
 
 Byron's Verses on Rogers in Fraser. The Due de Brissac at 
 Versailles. Lady Milbanke's Explanation of Lord Byron's 
 Marriage. Smith's Epigram on Gully the Boxer. Alderman 
 Hunter's French. Parody of Pope by Smith. Mr. Jekyll's 
 Opinion of " Notre Dame." Burglary at Lady Blessington's. 
 The Duchess of St. Albans and her First Husband. A 
 Caricature by D'Orsay. Politics. The Blessington Memoirs 
 of Byron. Captain Ross. The learned Pig. A Drawing by 
 Harry Bunbury. Lady Holland in Office. Lines by Lady 
 Blessington. Morning Visitors. G. S. Newton, R.A. 
 Death of Lord Dudley. Politics. Lady Ellenborough. The 
 Irishman at the Custom House Fire. Samuel Prout and
 
 CONTENTS. xi 
 
 Clarkson Stanfield. Effect of Sydney Smith's Charity Sermon 
 on the Countess of Cork. Squibs by James Smith. The 
 Mayor of Oxford's Excuse for not saluting Charles II. 
 Lady Ellenborough in Bavaria. Extinction of the Stowell 
 Peerage. Corporal Trim and the unfortunate King of 
 Bohemia. -How Lady Ellenborough gained the Entree of 
 the Hungarian Court. The French Actor and the Public. 
 Epigram on Mr. Jekyll and Hatchett. Mr. Norton's Action 
 against Lord Melbourne. Contemporary Literature. 
 M. de Tartines and the Vagabond. Lord Salisbury at the 
 Opera. Squibs by James Smith. The Duke of Brunswick's 
 Journey by Balloon pp. 309-34Q
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 r I "HE family of Jekyll first became notable in the 
 -*- person of Sir Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls 
 in the reign of George II. A successful lawyer, and 
 a man of staunch political convictions, he was one of 
 the many contemporaries of Pope whose names are 
 preserved in the poet's verses, 
 
 " Jekyll, or some odd old Whig, 
 
 Who never changed his principles or wig." 
 
 A brother of Sir Joseph, among other children left a 
 son Edward, who entered the Royal Navy, rose as high 
 as captain, and was the father of Joseph Jekyll, the 
 author of these letters. 
 
 Joseph Jekyll was born in the year 1754. Of his 
 childhood we know little or nothing, but that he had a 
 sister, and was educated at Westminster. He matricu- 
 lated at Christ Church at the age of eighteen in 1771, 
 and took his degree of B.A. three years later. 
 
 A small collection of letters written by Joseph Jekyll 
 to his father in 1775, and now in the possession of his 
 daughter-in-law, Mrs. Edward Jekyll, of Godalming, has 
 been very kindly placed at the disposal of the editor 
 by that lady, and forms the first part of the present
 
 x iv MEMOIR. 
 
 volume. These letters were written by young Jekyll 
 during a year's residence in France after taking his 
 degree, and they tell us all that is known of his early 
 life. 
 
 We find that young Jekyll went abroad to acquire 
 the French language, and that by the wish of his father 
 he finally settled at Blois. His letters seem to show 
 a youth of high spirit and much shrewd humour, and 
 the impressions made on this young Englishman by 
 the France of Louis XVI. are of interest. At first he 
 saw little to admire in the French ladies. " As yet," 
 says he, " I think I may safely say we have not seen 
 half-a-dozen beauties " ; but before his visit was over 
 he considerably modified his opinions on this subject. 
 He saw the unburied body of James II. in the chapel 
 of the English Penitents, and at Orleans a burglar was 
 broken on the wheel below his balcony window. He 
 met an agreeable old chevalier who had been taken 
 " by Mr. Keppel in the late war " ; and we read that 
 " Mr. Martin, a relation of the banker," was astonishing 
 the country near Blois by his " chace of the fox, wolf, 
 and boar." 
 
 One phase of French society of the period is admir- 
 ably presented in an expression which young Jekyll 
 quotes. Any young stranger who was unable or 
 unwilling to join in the high play then prevalent was 
 described in the phrase le garqon est inutile. He met 
 the Duchesse du Barry, and was present at her toilette. 
 A little mill with which that lady was accustomed to 
 make her own butter at breakfast, says he, " pleased
 
 MEMOIR. XV 
 
 him mightily"; and by a curious chance he next day 
 made the acquaintance of the Due and Duchesse de 
 Choiseul. 
 
 He presented himself with a companion at the Palace 
 of Menars, built by Madame de Pompadour, and at that 
 time occupied by her brother, the Marquis de Marigny, 
 but was refused entrance by the Swiss Guards, some 
 recent impertinencies by visitors having closed the rooms 
 to the public. Jekyll, nothing daunted, on learning 
 that the Marquis was within, announced himself and 
 friend as " two English gentlemen of Blois who begged 
 leave to kiss M. de Marigny's hand," and they were 
 rewarded by an interview with a chatty old gentleman, 
 whom they found " in the gout and a nightgown, the 
 latter blazing with the Order of the Holy Ghost." 
 Jekyll noticed that the portrait of George III. was alone 
 wanted to complete a collection of European sovereigns 
 in the Marquess' cabinet, and expressed a hope that 
 M. de Marigny would pass a winter in England, when " he 
 would not fail of filling the vacancy." " Ah, Monsieur," 
 replied the Marquess, " I do not despair of seeing 
 London. I was once so near paying you a visit, that 
 my house was hired there, and the wine even laid 
 into my cellars, when my sister, the late Marchioness 
 of Pompadour, sent for me abruptly to Versailles. 
 ' Monsieur, my brother,' said she, ' sell your house in 
 London and all your affairs there, for in less than 
 three months we shall have their Hawke and Boscawen 
 thundering on our coast.' " 
 
 With very little recommendation but his own good
 
 xvi MEMOIR. 
 
 breeding, young Jekyll seems to have quickly gained 
 a footing in the best society of the district in which 
 he was living. There are references in his letters to 
 invitations and visits to the Comte de Philepeaux, to 
 the Marquis de Saumery, and the Due de Choiseul ; 
 and the young man seems to have formed a very fair 
 opinion of that gay world which was then piping and 
 dancing to its doom. His father, apparently, grew 
 uneasy at the complacent tone of his letters on these 
 matters, and bade him think of his home, and not try 
 to make himself a complete Frenchman. Money 
 matters probably had their weight in the advice which 
 the Captain sent to his son, for we find the latter 
 rejoining, " 1 have been fortunate enough to fall into 
 what is called the first company at the expense of 
 what economical young men would call very little 
 gaming, very little dress, and very little gallantry, for 
 such are the prices of la belle societe in France." 
 
 This is one of his last letters, written when he was 
 already making preparations for the return journey. 
 He seems to have quitted France with regret, and to 
 have left many friends behind him. " I cannot tell how 
 it is," said Mdlle. Victoire, a young lady related to the 
 Bishop of Blois, who had been told off with others to 
 try and convert Jekyll to the true faith, " but I always 
 feel sorry to think that our little Englishman is to be 
 damned." 
 
 Jekyll returned to England in February 1776, and 
 was not long in deciding to follow the profession in 
 which his namesake, Sir Joseph, had won eminence.
 
 MEMOIR. xvii 
 
 He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1778, but 
 he soon migrated from the Chancery Inn, and became 
 a member of the Inner Temple. He was here a fellow- 
 student and near neighbour of George Colman the 
 younger, who speaks well of Jekyll's wit and good 
 nature in his " Random Records." He read and gave 
 his advice upon the plays which Colman wrote instead 
 of reading law, and expressed his sympathy for a pet 
 squirrel in his revolving cage as " a poor devil upon the 
 Home Circuit." Jekyll himself eventually went on the 
 Western Circuit. 
 
 The social qualities which had made young Jekyll's 
 path easy in France stood him in good stead in the 
 opening of his career in England. Never was the 
 proverb " Manners makyth Man " better exemplified 
 than in his case. He soon became known as a wit 
 and diner-out ; and although, as we shall see later, 
 he attained eminence of a sort, both in his Inn and 
 in his profession, there is no doubt that he owed 
 little of his success to his legal attainments, which 
 were small, and a great deal of it to his mother wit, 
 which was ready and copious. 
 
 Jekyll early turned to the newspapers as a means of 
 increasing his income, and his contributions may still be 
 read in the Morning Chronicle and the Evening States- 
 man of the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Both 
 these papers were devoted to the Whig party, of which 
 Jekyll himself remained a consistent member throughout 
 his career. So far as his anonymous writings can be 
 identified, they seem to have been satirical effusions
 
 xviii MEMOIR. 
 
 against the Court party led by Pitt This was only 
 natural in the circumstances. The Whigs, during a stay 
 in opposition of twenty years, had ample opportunity 
 of perfecting themselves in the art of political invective, 
 and the long ascendency of Pitt left them little other 
 consolation. It is a melancholy fact that jokes do nor 
 preserve their flavour through the centuries ; and it must 
 be confessed that much of Jekyll's wit which is supposed 
 to have convulsed the town a hundred years ago, to-day 
 leaves us unmoved. At a time when puns were reckoned 
 funny Jekyll was, no doubt, much admired, both as a 
 sayer of good things and as a writer of smart squibs to 
 the newspapers. But the pun is, to-day, as dead as 
 Queen Anne ; and jokes which have little else to recom- 
 mend them remain unread. Most of the specimens of 
 Jekyll's wit which have survived are of this character, 
 and as such not suitable for quotation. But he appar- 
 ently enjoyed a great reputation in his day. The bar, we 
 are told, was continually convulsed with his sallies, and 
 men like Abbot have quoted his jokes in their diaries. 
 
 Some verses occasioned by Pitt's tax on salt and 
 vinegar, entitled " The Tears of the Cruets," have often 
 been printed as a good specimen of his muse ; but we 
 think there is much more humour in the following 
 account of a supposed meeting of the Prime Minister 
 and his colleagues : 
 
 " At a meeting at Downing Street yesterday, Mr. Pitt 
 declared to several of his friends that he found himself 
 destitute of any ideas to meet Parliament with for the 
 purpose of finance, peace, or war. It was held advisable
 
 MEMOIR. xix 
 
 to send to the Duke of Portland's office to enquire if any 
 were to be had there. The clerks returned for answer 
 that they were totally unprovided ; the last two ideas 
 that were left in the Treasury had been sent by Mr. Cox 
 to the Emperor on Saturday, which, it was confessed, 
 should not have been done without the consent of Parlia- 
 ment, but that it was thought the safety of Germany 
 depended on it. 
 
 " Mr. Pitt then enquired if the Right Hon. Sylvester 
 Douglas had brought any ideas with him when he so 
 lately took his seat on the Board, and was informed that 
 the few he had were, by accident, packed up, and had 
 sailed with Lord Macartney. 
 
 " Lord Mornington declared that he had put his 
 whole stock into a pamphlet some years ago ; and 
 Lord Hawkesbury and Mr. Canning said they had lost 
 all theirs with their light baggage on the forced march 
 to Paris. 
 
 " Mr. Rose suggested a plan for putting ideas in 
 requisition which he had found very successful at the 
 Verderers' meetings on the 'New Forest Bill, and pro- 
 posed as the most intelligible mode, the New Cavalry 
 Act. Gentlemen who were supporters of the Ministry 
 and the war might be classed according to the number 
 of ideas they possessed, or were supposed to possess 
 respectively ; ten in a class, for instance, where each 
 gentleman had only one idea apiece, and so on in pro- 
 portion, if any gentlemen happened to possess more. 
 The gentlemen on whom the ballot fell should be bound 
 to furnish one idea for the use of the state, the fitness of
 
 XX MEMOIR. 
 
 which should be judged of by the Deputy Lieutenants 
 of the respective counties. When the whole return 
 was complete Mr. Dundas might be directed to put the 
 ideas in a large decanter, and he and Mr. Pitt might 
 pour them out as existing circumstances might require. 
 
 " Sir W. Young observed that such a ballot would fall 
 very inconveniently on many gentlemen, who might 
 thereby be delivered of the only idea they had in the 
 world. 
 
 "Sir Gregory Page Turner said he did not pretend 
 to deny having an idea, but he declared to God if it 
 were rejected by the Deputy Lieutenant he should not 
 know where to turn for a substitute. 
 
 " Mr. Boyd offered the minister ideas dated Hamburg, 
 and on very moderate discount. They might be drawn 
 on London and accepted by the Treasury. 
 
 " Mr. Pitt said it always gave him pain to distress the 
 country gentlemen, as he felt this requisition would do, 
 but he had the satisfaction of adding that very few ideas 
 would be wanting, and those reducible at short date. 
 Seven or eight of any sort would enable him to make 
 six speeches of three hours' duration each, and as the 
 Secretary for War kindly consented not to expend any, 
 he was in no difficulty about the Admiralty. 
 
 " Mr. Pybus assured the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 that the Board had done so well without ideas of late, 
 that he need not give himself any concern on their 
 account. 
 
 " Mr. Pitt thanked Mr. Pybus very politely, and 
 observed that in that case, without any violation of the
 
 MEMOIR. XXI 
 
 Appropriation Act, the Admiralty ideas might be put 
 into the Poor Bill. Mr. Pitt then returned the gentlemen 
 present many thanks for their very obliging advice, and 
 directed Mr. Rose to make a minute of the transaction." 
 
 Jekyll's success as a writer of light political articles 
 may have attracted the attention of Lord Shelburne ; 
 and his introduction to that statesman was an event of 
 vast importance to the young lawyer, which soon led 
 to his entrance into the world of politics. In 1787 Jekyll 
 was nominated for the borough of Calne by his patron, 
 and of course returned, although we are naively told 
 by a contemporary that " the right of election is vested 
 in the antient burgesses about twenty-four in number." 
 Calne had previously had the distinction of sending 
 Charles Townshend to Parliament ; later it kept up its 
 Whig traditions by introducing to political life Thomas 
 Babington Macaulay. 
 
 By this time Joseph Jekyll was a rising man, and 
 he found no lack of candid friends to point out that his 
 talents brought him quite as much as they were worth. 
 He was thought of sufficient importance to be made the 
 subject of a " Political Eclogue " which was attributed 
 to Richardson, and afterwards included in one of the 
 editions of " The Rolliad." How some of these Whigs 
 loved one another may be gathered from the opening 
 lines of " The Jekyll," as the effusion is styled 
 
 "Jekyll the wag of law, the scribbler's pride, 
 Calne to the senate sent when Townshend died ; 
 So Lansdowne willed, the hoarse old rook at rest, 
 A jackdaw phoenix chatters from his nest."
 
 xxii MEMOIR. 
 
 Lord Lansdowne's choice of Jekyll and some others, 
 and his omission to include Jeremy Bentham among 
 his representatives in the House, was the occasion for 
 a very extraordinary letter from that philosopher to 
 the peer. It is the letter of an angry man, and is not 
 worth anything as evidence of Jekyll's relations with 
 Lord Lansdowne or of his rank as lawyer and politician ; 
 but it is interesting reading if only as a reminder of the 
 ease with which a disappointed philosopher can forget 
 his philosophy. 
 
 " Not a single person," he writes to Lord Lansdowne 
 in a letter seventy pages long, " have I seen who has 
 not obtruded upon me his wonder at your choice. 
 There was but one voice as to those who are in. How 
 came Jervis to be pitched upon of all people in the 
 world ? A very good man on board of ship, but what 
 is he to do, or what did he ever do in parliament ? 
 What ! of all men in the world could he find nobody 
 but Jekyll ? How could he think of such a man as that 
 for parliament ? Put Jekyll into parliament ! It is 
 quite a burlesque upon parliament the very idea of it. 
 With others the last choice was matter of particular 
 surprise, for I found he was understood to be a dull 
 man, and that even by dull men, who speak as they can 
 only speak, from his general character in the profession. 
 They speak your sentiments ! You will scarce venture 
 to speak your own sentiments when these men are by. 
 When the beginnings of the French Revolution were on 
 the carpet at Bowood, you scarce durst own your good 
 wishes in its behalf, while Jekyll, who has in general
 
 MEMOIR. xxiii 
 
 so many good jokes, was exhausting himself in bad 
 ones to endeavour to make it look ridiculous. Jekyll's 
 post in your household is that of talebearer, and in that 
 situation he has been pronounced absolutely necessary ; 
 and if the talebearer is to be preferred to me for 
 parliament, the same household does not hold me and 
 the talebearer." 
 
 This is only one page out of the seventy, but a 
 dignified letter from Lord Lansdowne healed the sore- 
 ness, and Bentham replied in another beginning, " My 
 dear, dear lord," as remarkable for its effusiveness as 
 was the first for its virulence. What Bentham chose 
 to call talebearing seems to have been a very natural 
 and innocent occupation in all the circumstances. Lord 
 Lansdowne, who as Lord Shelburne had been an active 
 politician since George III. came to the throne, and had 
 recently been Prime Minister, was now in retirement 
 at Bowood. What more proper than that the man 
 whom he had provided with a seat in the House of 
 Commons should keep him informed of passing events in 
 which he might still be presumed to have some interest ? 
 From Lord E. Fitzmaurice's life of his ancestor we 
 learn the names of his political friends and the nature 
 of their services. " Morellet kept him informed of all 
 that was passing in France, Arthur Lee on the state 
 of affairs in America, and Orde of events in Ireland, 
 while Baring and Jekyll supplied the latest commercial 
 and political news in London." 
 
 Neither were Bentham's prophecies of political in- 
 subordination fulfilled, at any rate, in the sense that he
 
 xxiv MEMOIR. 
 
 meant. Jekyll was a consistent Whig of the advanced 
 party, and the reaction caused by the French Revolu- 
 tion, a reaction strong enough to turn Burke into a 
 rabid Tory, only drove Jekyll into closer relations 
 with the forward school led by Fox. There is an 
 amusing account preserved in the Croker papers of 
 Jckyll's version of Burke's preposterous dagger scene. 
 Mr. Croker dined at Sir G. Warrender's, where he 
 met Mr. Jekyll, and several other well-known men of 
 the period. Jekyll, he says, was very agreeable, and 
 he and Lord Lauderdale gave them many anecdotes 
 about Fox, Burke, Hare, and Fitzpatrick. It seems 
 that Jekyll went down to the House late on the night 
 of the debate on the Aliens Bill and found it very full. 
 He took a vacant seat by the side of Burke, who, since 
 his quarrel with Sheridan, had sat below the gangway. 
 When Fox spoke Jekyll cheered vehemently, and 
 Burke, much upset, begged of him not to cheer so 
 loudly, as he was nervous and it agitated him. Jekyll 
 desisted, and Burke, regaining his good humour, apolo- 
 gised fci the inconvenience which his papers and a 
 mysterious parcel of brown paper caused his neighbour. 
 This parcel contained the dagger. When Burke pro- 
 duced it and threw it rattling on the floor of the House, 
 there were cries of derision, inquiries as to where the 
 fork was, and great laughter from all parts of 
 the House. " It quite failed," said Jekyll, though Croker 
 adds, " Lord Sidmouth told me quite the contrary." 
 
 Of Mr. Jekyll's later political life one finds here and 
 there a stray record. He voted for Grey's motion for
 
 MEMOIR. XXV 
 
 parliamentary reform at the end of last century, and 
 was lucky enough to live to see the principle embodied 
 in the Reform Bill of 1832. He spoke on the motion 
 for incriminating Lord Melville, and strenuously opposed 
 the claim of that statesman to nominate members of the 
 committee which was to report on his conduct. Later 
 he was associated with Fox on the motion as to National 
 Defence, but he was not a politician of much influence. 
 Lord Colchester, in the notes in his Diary headed 
 " Speakers in Parliament," thus describes Jekyll : " First 
 rate for convivial wit and pleasantry, and admired by all. 
 A frequent speaker in parliament, but absolutely without 
 weight even in his own party. Rancorous in language, 
 feeble in argument, and empty of ideas, few people 
 applaud his rising, and everybody is glad when he sits 
 down." He continued, however, to represent Calne 
 until 1816, when he resigned. 
 
 In the meantime Mr. Jekyll had made progress in 
 his profession. He was elected a Bencher of the Inner 
 Temple in 1795, and later became Reader, Treasurer, 
 and a King's Counsel. In 1805 ne was appointed 
 Solicitor-General to the Prince of Wales, and this royal 
 patronage was of the utmost service to Jekyll. It led 
 to his appointment in 1815 to a Mastership in Chancery, 
 a post which was well paid, the duties of which were 
 not onerous, and which secured to him a comfortable 
 pension. 
 
 The appointment was generally condemned, and it 
 was said that it was forced on Lord Eldon by the action 
 of the Prince. His Royal Highness, it was rumoured,
 
 XXvi MEMOIR. 
 
 called at Bedford Square, and closeted the Chancellor 
 in his own room. " How I pity Lady Eldon," said the 
 Prince ; " she will never see you again, for here I 
 remain until you promise to make Jekyll a Master 
 in Chancery." This may have been a humorous way of 
 presenting the fact ; but that the Prince's influence 
 was a reality is plain, from the following entry in Sir 
 Samuel Romilly's Diary : 
 
 " Among other obstructions to the prosecution of suits 
 has been the Chancellor's delay in the appointment of a 
 Master in the place of Mr. Morris. That gentleman died 
 on the 1 3th of April last, and it was only yesterday that 
 Mr. Jekyll was appointed to succeed him. The Prince's 
 favour has procured him that appointment, and as soon 
 as the vacancy happened it was found that Jekyll was 
 to be appointed. The Chancellor, however, has delayed 
 all this time filling up the office, at very great incon- 
 venience to the suitors, only, as it should seem, to show 
 his sense of the impropriety of the appointment. A more 
 improper one could hardly be made, for with a thousand 
 good qualities as a private man, Jekyll is deficient in 
 almost every qualification necessary to discharge properly 
 the duties of a Master in Chancery. If the Chancellor 
 had meant to show with what deliberation he could make 
 a bad appointment to a very important political office, 
 and with how strong a sense of the impropriety of it he 
 could surrender up to the Prince that patronage which 
 it is a duty he owes to the public to exercise himself, he 
 could not have contrived matters better than he has done." 
 
 Of Joseph Jekyll the lawyer and politician there is
 
 MEMOIR. XXV'ii 
 
 little else to record ; his latter letters, now printed, 
 best convey the character of the man himself. They 
 begin, roughly speaking, when his official life ended, and 
 continue up to the year of his death. Mr. Jekyll, who 
 married Miss Sloane, daughter of Mr. Hans Sloane of 
 Paultons, in 1801, was early left a widower, with two 
 sons. These letters are all addressed to his sister-in-law, 
 Lady Gertrude Sloane Stanley, the wife of Mr. William 
 Sloane Stanley, his wife's brother. She was the daughter 
 of Frederick Howard, fifth Earl of Carlisle, the friend of 
 Fox and Selwyn, and the cousin of Lord Byron, whose 
 misunderstanding with Lord Carlisle and his atonement 
 for it are well known. 
 
 The letters, we think, show the closing years of a 
 happy and successful life. Well endowed with this 
 world's goods, Jekyll, at sixty, found himself in posses- 
 sion of good health (for periodical attacks of gout which 
 enabled him to live to the age of eighty-four must have 
 been nothing less than a blessing) and perennial good 
 spirits. More than usually fortunate in his sons, he 
 seems to have passed through life without trouble which 
 left any enduring pain, except the premature loss of his 
 wife. This indeed is a large reservation, to which he 
 more than once makes touching reference in his letters. 
 He was in a position to choose his friends from the 
 highest ranks of society, and he had enough appreciation 
 of art and letters to make his company desirable to most 
 of the literary and artistic notabilities of his time. His 
 name appears in many of the diaries of the beginning 
 of this century. Rogers always expected him with his
 
 xxviii MEMOIR. 
 
 boys at his annual Twelfth Night entertainment, and was 
 seldom disappointed ; and he was a frequent partaker of 
 the famous breakfasts in St. James's Palace. Sir Walter 
 Scott records meeting him in 1828 ; and it may have 
 been Jekyll's jokes, which on that occasion, the great 
 novelist tells us, " were fired like minute guns, and with 
 an effect not much less melancholy." He was intimate 
 with the brilliant set who surrounded the Countess of 
 Blessington, and was often of the famous parties which 
 met at Holland House. 
 
 Of this period of his life there is a full account in 
 the letters. Mr. Jekyll found a sympathetic friend and 
 correspondent in Lady Gertrude, and the lighter topics 
 of the time are done full justice to. There is something 
 attractive in the youthfulness of spirit which could 
 make a man of seventy complain of being claimed 
 by the dowagers as one of their own set ; and Jekyll's 
 assumed horror of the visitor at country houses and 
 the morning caller is not less amusing. Very plea- 
 sant, too, is the picture presented of the old politician 
 noting the establishment, one by one, of the prin- 
 ciples for which he and his party had striven for half 
 a century, and, the objects of his life accomplished, 
 thankfully singing his Nunc Dimittis, and calmly 
 awaiting the end, which came at last gently, and 
 without suffering.
 
 LETTERS OF JOSEPH JEKYLL. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. 
 BRIGHTHELMSTONE, Monday Evening, March 1775. 
 
 HONOURED SIR, 
 
 WE arrived here safely about seven o'clock this 
 evening. The roads in admirable order, the face of the 
 country in general very uninteresting. 
 
 The London postboy made us pay ninepence a mile 
 to Croydon, though we understood the agreement was 
 for eightpence. Except from Lewes hither (eight miles) 
 we did not pay a shilling a mile the whole journey. 
 
 On our arrival we were agreeably surprised to hear 
 the packet might not sail this fortnight ; but the Captain 
 has just informed us she will take her departure to- 
 morrow evening, the Princess Caroline, a schooner of 
 seventy tons. 
 
 I took this opportunity to write, as to-morrow is no 
 post day at this sequestered spot, and I find you are 
 not to receive even this till Wednesday. 
 
 Osgood begs his compliments. I send my duty to 
 
 i
 
 2 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. t CH - l - 
 
 my mother and yourself, and love to my sister, and am, 
 my dear sir, your very affectionate son. 
 
 P.S. Pray tell my sister we had a runaway mare in 
 the shafts from Croydon to Godstone. I hope my next 
 will be from the Grand Monarque's dominions. 
 
 BRIGHTHELMSTONE, Wednesday, March zgth, 1775. 
 
 I HAVE directed that this may be put in the post 
 this evening soon after our departure for Dieppe, which 
 we expect will take place about seven or eight o'clock. 
 
 You may suppose the boisterous weather of yesterday 
 prevented the schooner's going out of the harbour. 
 
 I have had time this morning to view the town of 
 Brighthelmstone, which nothing but fashion could give 
 repute to. The Steine, or public walk, is an open green 
 with an orchestra. The neighbouring downs are fine, 
 partly arable, partly sheepwalk, and not a tree to be 
 seen. The streets are not paved ; the houses chiefly 
 built of the round sea-pebbles pitched in mortar. 
 
 There is a contemptible fort of twelve guns en 
 barbette, and the encroachments of the sea are every- 
 where visible. There is a pretty theatre here, but 
 neither of the two public rooms are equal to those at 
 Southampton. We have Gallicised in some measure 
 already, for the master of the packet (Killick) has 
 changed our guineas into Louis d'ors and double Louis 
 d'ors. 
 
 You will readily conceive a dearth of subject must 
 shorten this letter. I will write by the earliest means
 
 APR. 3, 1775.] DIEPPE. 3 
 
 from Dieppe, and hope my mother will allow for the 
 uncertainty of a mail by sea. 
 
 Osgood has such a hydrophobia upon him that I 
 ought to conclude this letter like a bill of lading. He 
 begs his respects with my duty to my father and mother, 
 and love to my sister, and believe me to be, dear sir, your 
 obedient and affectionate son. 
 
 DIEPPE, Thursday Morning, 10 o'clock, April yd, 1775. 
 
 THE texture of this paper might stand for a date. 
 We arrived here about half an hour ago after a very brisk 
 passage of about twelve hours, in which we both were 
 confoundedly sick, as we met with a great sea in the 
 mid channel. 
 
 We are now drinking coffee in a balcony that com- 
 mands a view of the harbour, and the caricature of 
 dress and the noise of wooden shoes conspire to afford 
 a scene of some novelty to me. This town is old and 
 ill-built. The two piers are stupendous works, and the 
 piazza surrounding the harbour has a good effect. 
 
 We had only three French women as fellow-passengers. 
 We are sent for to the Custom House, and then set out 
 for Rouen immediately. I am blundering French with 
 the landlord, and have only time to bid a general 
 adieu. 
 
 PARIS, Wednesday, April jth, 1775. 
 
 WE left Dieppe about an hour after I wrote to you on 
 Thursday last in a voitnre, or two-wheeled post-chaise, 
 and three horses abreast. We travelled at about four
 
 4 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. i. 
 
 miles an hour, and our postillion took snuff from the foot 
 of every hill to the summit. 
 
 At Tostes we fasted on stinking cod-fish, hard eggs 
 sliced, and swimming in rank butter. This, washed 
 down with sour cider, was our first repast ; but we fared 
 better for supper at Rouen, where we arrived by nine 
 o'clock, and took up our abode at the Hotel de bons 
 Enfans. The two Messieurs Garvey treated us most 
 politely, showed us the curiosities of the place, and more 
 particularly the Council of Commerce during its session, 
 with the nature of process in their actions of bankruptcy, 
 Parliament, and Tournelle, or Criminal Chamber. Mr. 
 Garvey's son was dangerously ill of a fever. Mrs. Garvey 
 is near her lying in, or we should have domesticated 
 there altogether. Rouen is a very fine city, the 
 Cathedral ; the Abbey of St. Ouen, and its rich Convent 
 (where we met with much civility from Father Wilson, 
 an English Benedictine) ; the old Gothic Church of 
 St. Maclou among whose reliques we saw the entire 
 body of St. Verecundus the bridge of boats ; the public 
 fountains, and Joan of Arc's statue, are worth viewing, 
 and we saw everything in the course of Friday and 
 Saturday. The country between Dieppe and Rouen is 
 a continued cornfield planted thick with apple trees, 
 totally unenclosed, the vales very fertile, the hills very 
 barren ; the houses built of mud, latticed and thatched. 
 Upon the whole, though, Normandy is a fine province. 
 The people, particularly at Rouen, murmur at the price 
 of bread, and the Regiment de Penthievres is now 
 quartered there in terrorein.
 
 APR. 5, 1775.] ROUEN TO PARIS. 5 
 
 We left Rouen on Sunday at five o'clock in the Berlin 
 and four, dined at Gaillon, and saw the Archbishop of 
 Rouen's magnificent palace there, built by the Amboise 
 family, passed the limits of Normandy at Vernon, a little 
 village full of Jacobite English, and slept at Bonnieres. 
 
 On Monday got into the Berlin at four, and, as the 
 rate of three miles an hour will admit of a passenger's 
 caprice for walking, lounged through the forest of 
 St. Germains to that royal chateau, an old building 
 of brick somewhat like Hampton Court, and only 
 famous for the view from its terrace of the Seine, 
 Versailles, Marli, Paris, and the adjacent country, which 
 from Vernon to the Capital is one continued vineyard. 
 We got into Paris by dusk, and took up our residence 
 at the Hotel du Pare Royal, Rue du Colombier, in the 
 Faubourg St. Germains. The journey from Rouen has 
 been delightful, and we have not kept a inaigre day 
 since we were at Tostes. 
 
 They give us partridges and hares by wholesale ; and, 
 indeed, they will hardly get out of the horses' way in the 
 highroad. They give us eels, and smelts, and frogs, beef, 
 veal, pullets, pigeons, salads, sometimes fresh butter, the 
 best bread in the world ; salt that we cannot distinguish 
 from pepper, cider for small beer, the wines of Orleans 
 and Burgundy ; desserts of cheese, pears, and apples, 
 clean napkins, though coarse ones, and no knives. The 
 beds (as a French sailor told us) are as high as Belle 
 Isle, but soft enough, the floors above and below paved 
 with red tiles, and the joists and rafters unceiled. In 
 each room is a commode, whose drawers receive the
 
 6 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. i. 
 
 fragments of the feast. The roads are incredibly fine, 
 generally causeways as lofty as the Roman ones, nicely 
 paved in the centre, of a vast breadth, straight as an 
 arrow for leagues together, and usually planted with trees 
 on each side. 
 
 Now, of Paris. We climbed Notre Dame yesterday 
 in spite of Osgood's vis inertia; ; and I am convinced 
 that the city is not much more than half as large as 
 London. Their bridges are all pitiful, the Pont-neuf 
 in particular, notwithstanding the gasconnade of the 
 " Nouveau Voyage de France." 
 
 The streets are infamously dark, narrow, and ill- 
 paved, and the boasted Seine is scarce a third of the 
 width of the Thames at Westminster. On the other 
 hand, we have seen the noble squares of Louis XV., 
 infinitely larger than any we have ; the Place de 
 Vendome, not large, but an octagon, with correspondent 
 sides ; the Place de Victoire, a regular circle, all three 
 centred with statues. We saw the Palais Royal this 
 morning, and the Duke of Orleans' capital collection 
 of pictures. The gardens of this Palais are frequented 
 by the beau monde at noon. We saw the Luxembourg 
 Palace, and the Hospital of Invalides, with its church 
 and dome, by much the first building I have seen 
 in point of magnificent finishing. In the evening we 
 walked in the Tuileries, and afterwards went to the 
 fair of St. Germains, which, luckily for us, is held in Lent, 
 where we have partaken of the comedy, and a species 
 of entertainment called here Waux-hall. something 
 
 * D 
 
 like a very inferior Ranelagh, where chance in a lottery
 
 APR. 5, 1775.] PARIS IN 1775. 7 
 
 for trinkets is included in the price of admittance. As 
 the odds were ninety-six to four, you may suppose we 
 were more unsuccessful than you will doubtless be in 
 Cox's. I forgot to mention that we were at the comedy 
 at Rouen. The representation consisted of three petites 
 pieces. In the last a shepherdess was accompanied in 
 her song by the bleatings of a lamb that she led in a 
 riband. The drama of to-night was violated by a 
 very libidinous harlequin, and a very licentious dancing 
 bear. 
 
 We have also seen the Louvre, and part of the Boule- 
 vards. We have called on Mr. Joullain, the printseller, 
 who will send Mr. Willet the earliest notice of the 
 sale, and the catalogue as soon as it is published. He 
 thought I was inquiring for Woollet, the engraver, at 
 first, and asked me if he had finished the plate. We 
 have called on Dr. Vamier. who is still at Caen ; and 
 I think you will allow we have done and seen a great 
 deal, by the help of our books, our maps, and Monsieur 
 Villeneuve, our valet de place. We pay the rest of 
 our visits to-morrow, and hope to get recommendations 
 to a provincial settlement very soon, as we feel no 
 inclination to continue the expenses of Paris at this 
 dull season. 
 
 The whole world is full dressed here by breakfast, 
 and I have almost forgot the use of my hat already. 
 The female ostriches in London are mere geese in com- 
 parison of the French women, who, by the help of a 
 circular spot of rouge under each eye, and a cap of 
 wire, large flowers, feathers, and riband as broad as
 
 8 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. i. 
 
 a child's waistband, add new caricature to their natural 
 ugliness ; for, as yet, we have not seen (I may safely 
 say) half-a-dozen beauties. 
 
 I have desired the Prince of Conde to give me the 
 refusal of his Palais de Bourbon, if he should ever 
 let lodgings, as it is built of one storey only, and 
 would suit my mother's gout and your asthma so well, 
 though I heartily hope to hear soon that you are both 
 better than when I left home. 
 
 ORLEANS, Wednesday, April \ith, 1775. 
 
 YOU will see by the dimensions of this sheet that I 
 mean to journalise, though I could plead as an excuse 
 that it is almost the only paper I can get. 
 
 However, a young traveller sees so many novelties that 
 I trust I shall have more matter to scribble than can be 
 worth any one's perusal. I wrote from Paris on this 
 day s'ennight ; on Thursday, the 6th, we visited Sir J. 
 Lambert, who was not at home, called on his mother in 
 the Rue de Gramont, a mighty well-bred old lady, who 
 treated us with every possible civility, advised us to 
 think of Tours for our residence, and promised us a letter 
 of recommendation to the Intendant. We next went to 
 pay our compliments to M. St Paul, who very politely 
 invited us to dinner the next day, and showed us that 
 kind of attention that I beg my very particular thanks 
 to Captain Barrington for. 
 
 We lounged to the Church of the Carmelites to see 
 some famous pictures by Guido, Champagne, etc., and
 
 APR. 12, 1775.] PARIS IN 1775. 9 
 
 that wonderful portrait of Madame de la Valliere in the 
 character of a Magdalen, by Le Brun. This beautiful 
 woman left the arms of Louis XIV. for the rigour of 
 these cloisters, and died after a penitence of thirty-six 
 years. In the chapel of the English penitents we saw the 
 yet unburied body of James II., 1 together with that of his 
 daughter Louisa, and the effigies of his dead queen in 
 wax. Round the chapel were the tombs of several 
 English who followed his fortunes. In the evening we 
 saw the Ecole Militaire, a most beautiful structure for the 
 education of cadets, and worthy of royal munificence. 
 
 On Friday morning we saw the wonderful manufacture 
 of the Gobelins, the Bastille, the Place Royal, which is 
 a square piazz'd all round, with an equestrian statue ; 
 the Place de Greve, " that fatal retreat of th' unfortu- 
 nate brave," on one side of which stands the Maison de 
 Ville, and another side is open to the Seine ; in short, we 
 made, by the help of our map, the whole eastern tour of 
 Paris. We dined at Colonel St. Paul's in company with 
 his lady, a Miss Salwin, a Mr. Wilbraham, returning to 
 England from his travels, and an Oxonian, Mr. James, 
 who is St. Paul's Secretary. In the evening we walked 
 in the Tuileries. 
 
 On Saturday we saw but little, from a satiety, I 
 believe, of having seen so much, but received a card of 
 invitation to dinner from Sir J. Lambert. 
 
 On Palm Sunday the rage of curiosity returned, and 
 we heard high mass in the beautiful Church of St. 
 
 1 The coffin was broken up for the sake of its lead during the 
 Revolution, and the body thrown into the fosse commune.
 
 10 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. i. 
 
 Sulpice, took leave of Lady Lambert, and dined with 
 Sir John. His sister dined with us, who is more French 
 than English, but a most pleasing woman. Young 
 Glyn dined there, too, who set out for London on 
 Sunday, and told us Angers, Blois, and Tours were most 
 infamous towns, very dear, and full of English. In the 
 evening we went to the concert spirituel, performed in 
 the Palace of the Tuileries to a very brilliant audience. 
 Mrs. Arthur Blake arrived with her husband at our hotel 
 in the evening on their way to Bordeaux, and I had an 
 opportunity of paying my compliments to them. 
 
 On Monday morning, by ten o'clock, we had pacified 
 the exorbitant harpies about us, got an order from the 
 postmasters, and embarked in a most wretched voiture 
 for Orleans, which, as it is thirty leagues, and travelling 
 in France is most uniformly inexpeditious, we did not 
 reach till midnight, the great bell of a convent tolling 
 twelve as we entered the gates, and the last two stages 
 were through a dreary forest. The city of Orleans is 
 of the form of a bow described by the Boulevards 
 or Ramparts, which are most beautifully shaded for 
 walking. 
 
 The river Loire forms the string of that bow, and is 
 full as broad as the Thames at Putney ; a most elegant 
 bridge of nine arches (much beyond any bridge at Paris) 
 is an arrow to this bow. 
 
 The Rue Royale here is infinitely finer for its length 
 than any street I saw in Paris ; and in one part of it 
 stands a monument to the memory of the famous Joan 
 of Arc, where the pucelle and Charles VII., both
 
 APR. 12, 1775.] ESTABLISHED AT ORLEANS. I I 
 
 habited en cavalier, are kneeling to a virgin with a dead 
 Christ. Struck as we were by the beauty and neatness 
 of this town, and considering, too, that we had no 
 recommendations to Blois, a dirty, dear town, still farther 
 off, very slight ones to Tours, where the only house we 
 could board at was to cost us eleven Louis d'ors each 
 per month, at the Abbe Rouers, whom we now know to 
 be a great rascal, we determined to settle here if possible. 
 We dressed, walked out, citizens of the world, like the 
 first pair from paradise (though the comparison does not 
 hold with respect to our Auberge). " Orleans was all 
 before us where to choose." 
 
 I soon thought of Mr. Gerard Plisson, Henries' agent 
 here, who, with all the good-natured officiousness of a 
 Frenchman, formed an establishment for us in a trice, 
 as we think very agreeably, and I believe you will think 
 so too. We have very good apartments on a first floor 
 in the house of M. Risse, a Genoese by birth, but an 
 inhabitant of France since his childhood. We board 
 with him, and sit down to a very good dinner and supper 
 with desserts and as much Burgundy as we choose. Our 
 party consists of a Mr. Ellison, tutor to a Mr. Hamilton 
 and a Mr. Booth, all Irish, the last a rtforme Captain 
 of infantry and a chevalier of St. Louis. The rest, to 
 the tune of five or six more, are all French, and nothing 
 but French is talked at table. The price of my board 
 and lodging is four Louis d'ors per month, not more 
 extravagant than Picardy, though more so than I ex- 
 pected ; but the difference at Blois, Amboise, Tours, etc., 
 considered, Orleans is really reasonable. The most
 
 12 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. i. 
 
 exorbitant charge here is my language-master, who is to 
 have tenpence English per lesson ; but he is a poet, and 
 candidate for the chair of a professor in this university. 
 We dine at a quarter-past one o'clock, and sup at nine ; 
 we are in bed by half-past ten, so rise early in our 
 own defence. 
 
 At Paris we dined at half-past two, the men hand 
 the women from the drawing to the dining-room, and 
 sit down promiscuously, so that everybody carves, and 
 there is no top or bottom to the table. No healths are 
 drunk ; and if you don't take care of yourself you may 
 rise without a glass of wine. The dessert follows as a 
 third course, after which all rise, turn to the rightabout, 
 and wash their hands and mouths, then return to the 
 drawing-room with the women, drink coffee immediately, 
 and talk small talk till about five, when everybody 
 takes French leave. 
 
 The police of this country is much commended, and 
 deservedly ; yet in Paris I was assured murders were so 
 frequent that it is customary to see five or six bodies to 
 be owned in the morning at a place called the Morgue, 
 and there are nets on the Pont-neuf let down every 
 night to receive persons thrown over by banditti. The 
 morning we saw the Greve there was a gibbet erected. 
 We inquired if there would be much crowd, and 
 were told " No," for there was generally an execution 
 every day. 
 
 The road from Paris hither is full of crosses, with 
 inscriptions to perpetuate the infamy of some robber 
 or murderer. We lodge in a beautiful place or square,
 
 APR. 12, 1775.] BREAKING ON THE WHEEL. 13 
 
 and saw from our balcony yesterday evening a criminal 
 broke on the wheel. He arrived at five o'clock in the 
 evening, in a cart guarded by the viarechaussee (who 
 constantly patrol the roads). He was attended by a 
 cordelier, and held in his hands two laths nailed together 
 in the form of a cross. He had received the tonsure 
 and unction, and, while he was undressing, the crowd 
 around the scaffold (which was far from being great) 
 sang a voluntary requiem. The executioner, a very 
 spruce fellow in a bag and bien poudre, extended the 
 criminal's bare arms and legs on a St. Andrew's cross, 
 which had two deep notches under the long bones of 
 each limb ; then with an iron crow, bent like the blade 
 of a scythe, struck him nine violent blows, the last across 
 the reins. Thus with two fractures in every limb, at 
 each of which he cried out Mon Dieu ! the agonising 
 wretch was untied and thrown on the forewheel of a 
 waggon elevated about four feet above the scaffold. The 
 holy father drew a chair near him, and muttered some- 
 thing during his last gasps. At night the body was 
 exposed in the neighbouring forest. Horrible and 
 frequent as these executions are (for there are twelve 
 more now in the chatelet here under the like condemna- 
 tion), their effects are as insufficient as ours in England. 
 The crime of the unfortunate creature we saw yesterday 
 was burglary, as we learnt from his sentence, which is 
 posted up at every corner in the streets. 
 
 Mr. Martin, the banker's eldest son, has a chateau 
 very near Orleans, where he resides in all the pomp 
 of a British Nimrod, with his pack of dogs and his stable
 
 14 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. i. 
 
 of hunters for foxes, and we have plenty of boars and 
 wolves in the forest. 
 
 We have a coffee-house here, but no English papers, 
 so that all sorts of news will be very acceptable, parti- 
 cularly the proceedings relative to the Perreaus, and 
 Mrs. Rudd. 1 Robert Perreau came to Paris some time 
 ago, in company with some acquaintance of Colonel 
 St. Paul. We have a theatre here, but the comedians do 
 not play during this holy season. I am told the Opera 
 House at Paris is very superb. That, the other theatres, 
 and Versailles, are almost the only sights we did not 
 see. The Cathedral of Orleans is rebuilding in a very 
 beautiful Gothic style. We are just returned from a walk 
 round it, and are of opinion that this is one of the 
 cleanest, neatest, and finest towns of its size we have 
 ever seen. The view from our windows of the Place du 
 Martroy is that of a scene always busy, and we have 
 nothing to lament but a south aspect. The prospect 
 from the Boulevards of the adjacent country covered 
 with vines and fruit trees is beautiful ; and if any fault 
 can be found, it is that we want hills to diversify. The 
 Loire is navigable hither from Nantes for large flat- 
 bottomed vessels, runs over a fine sand, which shifts a 
 good deal, and forms innumerable shoals. Every part 
 of France we have yet seen is wonderfully populous, 
 and generally fertile in corn or wine ; yet, possibly as 
 a consequence of the former, bread is at the rate 
 of three-halfpence English per pound, and it is the 
 
 1 Robert and Daniel Perreau, hung for forgery in January 
 1776. The woman Rudd was acquitted.
 
 APR. 12, 1775.] FRENCH FARE. 1 5 
 
 only food many of the poor taste for weeks together. 
 As to keeping Lent, M. Risse is too much the bon- 
 vivant old bachelor to suffer us to do it ; and we are 
 totally reconciled to, if not pleased with, the French 
 cookery. 
 
 The chateaux of the gentlemen are in a vile, stiff 
 taste, with regular vistas of trees leading to them. We 
 saw no enclosures till near Orleans, and very little, if 
 any, grazing grounds at all. The most beautiful part 
 of France I recollect is the country about Pont de 
 L'Arche in Normandy. My old acquaintance, David 
 Kerr, is not here, but at Tours. I have written to 
 him for recommendations, though we don't want 
 society at dinner and supper ; and walking and the 
 intermediate hours will be employed by my French, and 
 Osgood's Italian. None of our party are under thirty- 
 five years of age, a circumstance in our favour ; for 
 the young Frenchmen are not the most eligible com- 
 pany. We have plenty of fresh fish here, and always 
 four or five heretic dishes, so that we have no reason to 
 complain. I have never yet seen a drunken French- 
 man, and, indeed, I believe it is hardly possible their 
 wines can make them so. Besides, all ranks of people 
 drink it merely as a beverage ; and the idea of putting 
 the bottle about seems totally uncommon, if not un- 
 known among them. I shall receive a letter from 
 home with the greatest pleasure on every account, 
 though I have not the face to ask for elephant paper 
 in return.
 
 16 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. i. 
 
 ORLEANS, Sunday, April 2>ot/i, 1775. 
 
 IN my last of the I4th I made a promise to write in 
 a fortnight or three weeks at farthest, and as with 
 respect to home I had rather overdo than be deficient 
 in my performances, you are likely to receive another 
 long sheet of impertinences. On Easter Sunday we 
 heard high mass in the Cathedral, a most magnificent 
 structure, to which they are adding a new faqade in the 
 Gothic style, at the expense of a fund established on 
 the profits of something like our firstfruits in England. 
 The solemnity was accompanied with a variety of 
 instruments, among which the Serpent supplies a good 
 bass. The next day A. Blake and his wife passed 
 through on their way to Angers, and by a whimsical 
 chance we were in the same inn with them here as at 
 Paris, for my friend Kerr invited us to sup with him 
 on his route to Rheims. A very agreeable old chevalier 
 was in his party, who told us he was taken twice in the 
 course of the late war, and once by Mr. Keppel. He 
 travelled with some excellent Hermitage. 
 
 It is the etiquette of France for strangers to visit first, 
 so we paid our compliments to Mr. Martin, who rents 
 a small chateau within two miles of Orleans. Mrs. 
 Martin, whom he married at Lisle, is of Irish extraction, 
 educated in a convent in Flanders, is very young and 
 pretty, and now expecting her first child. Mr. Martin 
 astonishes the whole country with his chases of the fox, 
 wild boar, and chevreuil, a kind of roe buck, which is 
 eaten here as venison. He has hunted wolf too ; but 
 one or two of those animals are still domestic enough
 
 APR. 30, 1 775-] LORD GALWAY AND "MUSEUM" COX. 17 
 
 to visit his kennels by night for the carcase of a dead 
 mule. Through the means of this acquaintance we read 
 the English newspapers, and in the last met with the 
 petition of the ostriches. 
 
 We have dined with Martin once or twice, and always 
 have the best French company in the country, without 
 gaming high, which is so universally the vice of France, 
 that old Lady Lambert told us the term for a young 
 Englishman who would not play was Le gargon est 
 inutile. Within a day or two after a dinner it is the 
 custom to pay a visit of compliment ; and as another 
 etiquette (perhaps of feudal origin), Colonel St. Paul 
 has told Martin he ought to send the Duke of Orleans 
 every season two chevreuil, as a tribute for his per- 
 mission to hunt in the province. 
 
 My Lord Galway, with his Swiss Governor, arrived 
 here, and visited us on their way home from the South. 
 Lord Galway produced a copy of a certain hunting song, 
 which was given him by Lord A. Percy at Marseilles, 
 and which was sung there by the Duchess of Leinster 
 and Miss Dalton. He told us an instance of the 
 disinterestedness of the museum Cox that ought to be 
 recorded. The late Lord had some diamonds to sell, 
 which Cox purchased at 200. A few days after, Cox 
 waited on his Lordship, and owned that upon inspection 
 the jewels were worth "100 more, which he immediately 
 tendered. The nobleman, struck with his behaviour, 
 insisted upon splitting the difference. The 50 was 
 accordingly paid, and in less than a week a very superb 
 harpsichord,Mirected to the youngest daughter, arrived 
 
 2
 
 1 8 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. i. 
 
 at my Lord's country house. Lord Galway left us on 
 Friday last He is a pleasing young man, and was a 
 pupil of Mr. Apthorpe's at Croydon. 
 
 Lent has ended for some time, so that we seldom eat 
 fish now but on Fridays. We have very good salmon, 
 salt cod freshened, carp, and the alose or shad, which, 
 with the help of rich sauces, is not despicable. In the 
 desserts we have sweetmeats for which this country is 
 famous, particularly the cotignac, or quince marmalade 
 of Orleans, and an excellent thickened cream called the 
 Cream of Blois ; so that with near a dozen of these 
 matters at dinner and almost as many at supper, one 
 may make a shift to exist pretty well. As I am on the 
 subject of epicurism at present, I must tell you we were 
 lamenting at not having brought good tea with us from 
 home, when Providence, in the shape of a reverend Irish 
 tutor (Mr. Ellison), wrote to Bordeaux for a couple 
 of pounds of the best and cheapest I ever tasted. Upon 
 the whole, though (as I am to experience from a 
 thousand instances), France is not so cheap as we were 
 taught to expect The Chevalier Booth assisted me in 
 the choice of my linen, which will stand me in about 
 half-a-guinea English per shirt. They are made at the 
 Convent du Bon Pasteur, an institution like our Mag- 
 dalen, at twentypence English apiece. I mention these 
 trivial circumstances in order to learn the difference. 
 
 You will inquire after my studies. I have a master 
 every morning for the pronunciation ; I read the " Spirit 
 of Laws," the other works of Montesquieu, and the 
 " Synonimes Francois," a work, you remember, was
 
 APR. 30, 1775.] FRENCH FASHIONS. 19 
 
 recommended at Lord Despencer's. I fence every day. 
 I have taken a ride on a bidet that kicked at every 
 touch of the spur, with a huge demi-pique saddle and 
 holsters. We visited a beautiful chateau about two 
 leagues off, belonging to M. Boutain, a rich financier. 
 It is called La Source, from the little river Loire's rising 
 most romantically among its groves, and was the retreat 
 of our Lord Bolingbroke during his exile. The weather 
 is already too hot for midday excursions, and everybody 
 walks with a parasol. Monsieur Loup, old Risse's 
 favourite dog, was cropt this morning, for the French 
 carry their observance of dress for the seasons down 
 to their curs. This is a piece of news for Finette, 
 who, I suppose, is to wear her spring velvet somewhat 
 longer. 
 
 Next to the dogs, the most ridiculous objects are the 
 children, with their bags, hoops, muffs, swords, fly-caps, 
 and parasols at seven years of age. At about five the 
 boys have a most becoming dress, which, except Mrs. 
 Martin's lace cushion, is almost the only ingenious 
 contrivance I have seen in France. As an alteration 
 in dress, I might mention a stone doublet, which fathers 
 have a legal right to clap upon their sons for extrava- 
 gance, and of which there are continual instances. 
 What the girls wear by compulsion at that age I know 
 not. I have only heard their voices behind the grate at 
 the Convent of the Lamb of God. You will forgive the 
 desultory manner in which I write ; but it is Sunday 
 evening, and I am called away to some Spanish rope 
 dancers at the Comedy and a firework.
 
 20 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. i. 
 
 Monday Morning, May \st. 
 
 I was very agreeably surprised with your kind 
 letter of April 23rd, and thank you for the news it 
 contained. I am sure you have my good at heart so 
 much, that I shall attend to your prepossession in 
 favour of Blois, and therefore my friend Osgood and 
 I are to part very soon. I cannot but allow we have 
 too much English society here, and therefore as soon 
 as my month is up, which will be about to-morrow 
 s'ennight, I mean to go down the river to Blois. 
 Osgood is nearly assimilated to French living, and it 
 has never disagreed with me the least. Your account 
 of the navy promotions has made me long more than 
 ever for a Court Kalendar to see how high you stand 
 upon the list now. I am happy to hear my mother 
 recovers of her rash, which perhaps was a critical 
 symptom in her ticklish constitution. I hope I need 
 not say how glad an account of yours and my sister's 
 health always makes me. The French milliners are 
 plaguing me to buy caps at twenty sous apiece for 
 " mademoiselle my fair sister? 
 
 When I came from home I believe I forgot to desire 
 that the buttons of my new coat and the waistcoat 
 entirely might be covered with silver paper to prevent 
 tarnishing. 
 
 Bunbury's etchings and Sterne's journey are almost 
 as good viaticums in France as the postbook. Two 
 French couriers joined us on the way hither, by which 
 means we met with no delays on the road, and a French
 
 MAY 30. 1775.] A LADY PLEADER. 21 
 
 courier with his boots, couteau de c/iasse, and nightcap, 
 is no trite figure. 
 
 The advocates, proctors, etc., wear black, and their 
 hair loose down their backs, an idea which I wonder 
 did not suggest itself to our young sprigs of the law 
 when they undertook the reformation of wigs. We 
 were a little too late at Paris to hear the Countess of 
 Bethune argue her own cause in the robe of a pleader, 
 and attended by three of her children. 
 
 The case is a matter of equity. As the elder sister 
 of three, she received a smaller portion than the rest 
 in marriage, on condition of inheriting solely the estate 
 of her uncle. 
 
 The uncle dies without executing an instrument, and 
 the sisters claim under a coparcenary division. Her 
 process has been once lost. Her advocate now lies 
 under an interdict, and she therefore makes her appeal 
 in person. 
 
 BLOIS, Tuesday, May y*th, 1775. 
 
 I AM unable to describe the advantages of my situa- 
 tion here in every point of view, and the triumph I feel 
 in having retreated from Orleans, where my only object 
 in this kingdom was totally defeated. I have but just 
 recovered the regret of having misspent my first month 
 so egregiously, and have acquired a great deal of very 
 creditable abuse from my countrymen on the sacrifice (as 
 is it called) of quitting them, and venturing, unknowing 
 and unknown, to Blois. 
 
 As to the language, I am so far in the practice of it,
 
 22 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. i. 
 
 that, except my first conference with Burvill who makes 
 almost a religious conscience of speaking French I 
 declare, upon my honour, I have not articulated twenty 
 words of my mother tongue since I left Orleans, where 
 I talked almost nothing else ; and as to the theory, I 
 give twenty-four sous per lesson to a canon of the 
 cathedral for correcting my translations, etc., and 
 Lutaine lends me a variety of French authors which he 
 has himself commented upon in point of style and com- 
 position with a good deal of taste. The masters for the 
 exercises are good and perfectly reasonable at Blois. 
 
 I thank you for your American news, as it is the 
 perpetual question here ; and we are told that several 
 experienced officers in the Prussian service have gone 
 over to marshal the insurgents and form them to 
 military discipline. 
 
 St. Paul announced the Queen of Denmark's death 
 officially at Versailles, and I heard last night that the 
 Prince de Conti had lost a niece or a daughter. 
 
 I am happy to think you are to be so eligibly settled 
 at Epsom this summer, as well on the score of health as 
 spirits ; and as to Bradenham, I can conceive that miss 
 would have felt the absence of her fellow-trudge in 
 clambering stiles and scrambling through hedges, and 
 will perhaps prefer the more elegant ddsJiabille of the 
 wells to the leather shoes, short petticoats, oaken stick, 
 and old black bonnet of Bradenham. I am silent on 
 the subject of riding. 
 
 From exercise to appetite is no unnatural transition ; 
 and as epicurism has hitherto always had a sort of
 
 MAY 30, 1775.] ST. GERVAIS. 23 
 
 precedence in my correspondence, I must thank you for 
 the recipe to make gooseberry fool, and in return for the 
 fool would send my song of the source, but shall reserve 
 it for some future scarcity of prose, and in the meantime 
 inform you that our celebrated Creme de Blots is a very 
 mysterious process. The hag who brings us every 
 morning half-a-dozen little pots of it, covered with 
 grape leaves, tells me that the cream is permitted to 
 form itself in certain caves of a peculiar coolness, and 
 that after it is skimmed from the milk they churn it to 
 the consistence we eat it in. I can only say that it 
 excels the preparation in the West of England, and 
 resembles all that part of a whip syllabub above the 
 wine. 
 
 St. Gervais, a neighbouring village, most romantically 
 situated on a rock of vines, is famous for its manufac- 
 ture, and we make parties continually to drink at the 
 fountain head. In short, I am so reconciled to soupe and 
 boulli, such a convert to frogs, and so naturalised to the 
 wine (which is excellent here, and never disagreed with 
 me), that I reflect upon tea, porter, and cold boiled beef 
 without a sigh. Mr. Burvill whose father, I believe, 
 was formerly a captain in your service has behaved to 
 me with uncommon politeness. He has been here two 
 years, is universally respected, and well received, and has 
 introduced me so effectually already, that I visit all the 
 families of fashion in Blois the only means of acquiring 
 the best language, and a piece of good fortune I had no 
 reason to expect so immediately on my arrival here, 
 without the least recommendation.
 
 24 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. i. 
 
 I will name the houses, as you have met with an 
 Englishman that has been at Blois ; and first, then, the 
 Bishop, M. le Comte de Monperraud, M. St. Michel 
 (President of the late Conseil Superieur), M. de Saumerez, 
 M. le Vaste, M. Artabuis, M. la Fosse, M. la Valliere, 
 M. Papin, M. Baudre, M. Rambord, M. Bourdon, and M. 
 Tessie. We have several Canadian families here, who 
 are particularly fond of the English. I am in company 
 every evening, and the demoiselles are perpetually 
 asking the most ridiculous questions about poor old 
 England, and laughing at me for my blunders. We 
 dine at one o'clock, we join the monde, as it is phrased, 
 somewhere between four and five, and at six they stuff 
 bread and cakes and wine, play at whist, and walk from 
 seven or eight to supper time. This, with my morning 
 studies and exercises, is generally the journal of my 
 time. 
 
 On Tuesday se'nnight I was present at the Ceremony 
 of the Veil at a neighbouring convent of Carmelites. 
 It commenced with a preparatory sermon addressed 
 entirely to the novitiate, who appeared at the grate 
 richly dressed " in the pomps and vanities of this wicked 
 world." The Father Guardian of the Capuchins opened 
 the grate, and delivered to her a consecrated taper and 
 the habits of the order on a silver salver decorated with 
 natural and artificial flowers. She distributed these, 
 and I, as a stranger, got a most superb bouquet, 
 took leave of her relations, and withdrew with the sister- 
 hood, who were a good half-hour cutting her hair 
 off. On her return in the religious habit the Father
 
 MAY 30, 1775.] A WEDDING. 2^ 
 
 Guardian gave his benediction, and the grate was 
 closed. 
 
 I have meditated since on a loss of liberty by no 
 means on the same pious motives. Three hundred 
 wretches, chained by the neck like dogs, passed through 
 Blois on Wednesday on their way to the galleys at 
 Brest, where they were not to arrive till the I4th of June. 
 Some of them had undergone the torture, and could 
 scarce support themselves on crutches. They were fed 
 on the ground in the market-place. 
 
 These are not pleasing speculations to an English- 
 man, but to-day afforded a more joyous scene. Made- 
 moiselle Tessie, a very pretty girl of our acquaintance, 
 was married to a young president of Angers. For 
 two days before the wedding the monde visit the bride 
 and bridegroom at the house of the lady's father. The 
 bride is distinguished by an enormous nosegay, and 
 the chamber is almost hung with flowers. We attended 
 the ceremony and mass this morning, and to-morrow 
 the fetes commence for three days of music, dancing, 
 and guzzling, to which I have a perpetual invitation. 
 I see my sister laugh, but the character of a garqon 
 is always well received in France. 
 
 On Thursday last I saw a wild boar hunted in the 
 forest of Chambord. The furious animal, after killing 
 two dogs, received a wound from the fusil of one of 
 the Gardes de Chasse, was finally despatched by their 
 conteaus, and the monstrous head carried off trium- 
 phantly on a lance. I saw the catastrophe, like Sancho, 
 from a tree, discharged my fusil most manfully at a
 
 26 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. r. 
 
 very innocent wolf on our return, with all the guilt 
 of premeditation, and, as usual, without the completion 
 of murder. As my curiosity is satisfied I believe it is 
 the last chase I shall partake of, unless I am invited 
 to Fontainebleau.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER (Continued}. 
 
 BLOIS, Wednesday, May ^ist, 1775. 
 
 You would have received this scrawl perhaps three 
 days earlier had the impatience of our bride permitted 
 her to postpone the commencement of the fetes to 
 this day. But I was suddenly summoned to the dance 
 yesterday evening, and obliged to break off at my boar. 
 We sat down forty to supper, and afterwards danced 
 a la ronde with a sort of nuptial song. In the course 
 of the dance a lady or gentleman is successively forced 
 into the centre, and they have the privilege of kissing 
 whom they please. You may suppose the Messieurs 
 Anglais kissed the bride, and were in their turn kissed 
 most outrageously. 
 
 The seditions here are partly suppressed, and His 
 Majesty will put on at Rheims on the loth June a 
 diadem valued at eight millions of livres. 
 
 An English adventurer, Mr. Soames, who says he 
 came down the Loire with Captain Kempenfelt, 1 has 
 pestered us here with a project to supply his wise 
 countrymen with the manufactures of Lyons, on the 
 
 1 Rear Admiral Richard Kempenfelt, lost in the Royal George 
 
 1782. 
 
 27
 
 28 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. i 
 
 advance of the annual subscription by way of com- 
 mission. But as the chaff was ineffectual he commenced 
 absolute beggar, and we scouted him to Orleans with 
 some difficulty. 
 
 I am ashamed of the dull detail of churches, proces- 
 sions, chateaus, prospects, and pictures, and yet it is 
 all I can send, for you don't expect politics ; and as 
 to the manners, I am at present but a mere super- 
 ficialist. Next to the language, the million etiquettes 
 are the most difficult for a stranger to acquire. They 
 are precise to a degree. For example, I will allow that 
 the single circumstance of taking French leave (which 
 gains ground even among us at present) is easy and 
 natural. But, on the contrary, I will maintain that 
 there is more formality of compliment in entering one 
 assembly here than in taking the round of routs for 
 a whole winter at London. 
 
 It is a ludicrous reflection, too, that a journey of so 
 few hours should influence the petty manners ; but I 
 have frequently laughed of late at my own caricature, 
 a hat and feather, white shoes, a shirt like Falstaffs 
 present to the bakers' wives, a bag, sword, and parasol 
 at eight o'clock in the morning. But this is moderate 
 in comparison of the figure en cavalier. 
 
 June gth, 1775. 
 
 I AM much obliged to you for the news in your letter 
 of June 6th which arrived this evening, and I wish I 
 could send you in return an account of the coronation 
 of our King, which was performed yesterday at Rheims.
 
 JUNE 9, 1775.] BLOIS. 29 
 
 Today he touches for the evil, and to-morrow goes to 
 Compeigne for the Fete de Dieu. 
 
 I believe I once gave you a sketch of Blois, but I am now 
 able to finish it with the accuracy of a Flemish painter. 
 To begin, then, after the manner of Plutarch, by com- 
 parison, Blois is about the size of Windsor, and has a 
 wonderful similitude to it in every point but vicinity to 
 the capital. It is situated on the side of a hill, the foot 
 of which is washed by the Loire, over which is thrown a 
 most beautiful bridge of eleven arches, ornamented at the 
 centre by a magnificent obelisk and cross. Louis XV. 
 struck a medal on the occasion, which I saw at Paris. 
 
 The chateau, where several kings have resided, is very 
 considerable, and much embellished with paintings of 
 the time of Henry II. The new voyage of France 
 recommended by the sea officer whose tour you gave 
 me describes this palace as the fragment in Toland 
 describes Nonsuch in your neighbourhood. (By-the- 
 bye, that voyage-writer has either translated the work 
 he speaks of, or borrowed upon hearsay, for I am 
 convinced from his descriptions he never saw Orleans, 
 Blois, or the Loire, within these fifty years.) The 
 modern part of the chateau, which never was finished, 
 is the work of Gaston, brother to Louis XIII., who 
 also built the Jesuits' Church here the facade and 
 high altar of which are models of taste as well as an 
 Ionic corridor in the front of the old palace. I have 
 remarked everywhere dispersed through the ornament 
 the relief of a porcupine, and am told it was the device 
 of Louis XII., whose grandfather, the Duke of Orleans,
 
 30 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 had established a knighthood of that order, with the 
 motto "Cominus et Eminus." Henry III. held his 
 estates here, and the ordonnances of Blois about the 
 year 1579 are well known in history. From history, 
 too, I have collected that Blois has been as well the 
 retirement of misfortune as the seat of royalty, particu- 
 larly to the family of Medicis. Catherine of Medicis 
 died here in the midst of those distressful times about 
 the year 1588, and Mary of Medicis (wife of Henry IV., 
 and mother of Louis XIII., Gaston, Duke of Orleans, 
 and the Queen of our Charles I.) was confined here, and 
 effected her escape to Angouleme in 1619. Monsieur 
 le Due d'Orleans fled hither after the Rebellion in 1652, 
 and the Capuchins showed me a wretched chamber in 
 their convent where the unfortunate King of Poland 
 passed several years of chagrin. 
 
 The Cathedral of Blois, dedicated to St. Souleine, is 
 situated on the highest part of the town, which abounds 
 in inequalities. 
 
 The garden of the Bishop is one of the most 
 enchanting spots I ever saw, and commands a delightful 
 prospect of the adjacent country diversified with corn, 
 vines, and villages, skirted by the forests of Russie and 
 Chambord, with the chateau of the latter and that 
 of Menars in view ; commands, too, the course of the 
 Loire, with groups of sails, fishermen's huts, and float- 
 ing watermills of a very peculiar construction. This 
 garden is free of access to all who know the Bishop. 
 I was reading there one evening, and was much pleased 
 with the effect of a storm of thunder at a distance,
 
 JUNE 9,1775-] BLOIS. 31 
 
 which is usually very violent in these parts of 
 France. 
 
 Blois was formerly in the Diocese of Chartres, but 
 Pope Innocent XII. erected it into a See in the year 
 1697, and united here the Abbeys of St. Laumer, 
 Pontlevois, and Bourgmoyen. The Prieurs of the 
 former furnished the Chapter with Canons, and the 
 Dean is a regular Canon of Genevieve. Blois has a 
 Chamber of Accounts, as being of the Dukedom of 
 Orleans, and a Presidial of Special Judicature. The 
 Superior Council, too, is but lately abolished. 
 
 I was twice at church on the Fete de Pentecote to see the 
 bon Dieu carried in procession with a canopy and torches. 
 The most singular circumstance to a stranger was the 
 collection for the poor. The plate is always carried 
 about by some young lady of fashion, full dressed, with 
 a most immense nosegay, and preceded by the suisse or 
 beadle of the church bearing a halbert. The young 
 lady was accidentally of our acquaintance, and I was 
 much surprised to see her sitting at a distance from her 
 family in a place appropriated with all the splendour 
 of a churchwarden. The congregation sit on chairs. 
 
 Burvill and I made an excursion on Friday last to 
 Corbrand, an estate lately purchased by Mr. O'Donnell, 
 an Irishman, who formerly served in the brigades. He 
 married the daughter of Sir Astley, a sister of the 
 Ladies Tankerville and Vincent. We met there Mr. 
 Webb (son of P. Carteret-Webb), who is in France 
 during his law-suit with his stepmother, Mrs. Bever, 
 and for the education of his son.
 
 32 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 The country about Corbrand abounds in lakes of 
 a great extent. Mr. O'Donnell stocks them with carp 
 at a louis per thousand, and sells them again at a louis 
 per hundred. Soin, a neighbouring village, as well as 
 Romorantin and Blois, were Roman stations. I saw 
 several Urns of the Seventh Legion at the former, and 
 Mr. O'Donnell means to open some barrows in Dr. 
 Stukeley's manner. We have two famous Roman 
 bridges or causeways at Blois, and I am hunting Caesar's 
 Commentaries to account for them. On our return we 
 saw the Chateau of Cheverny, belonging to M. Dufour, 
 which is very magnificent. He has a theatre there, 
 and enjoys life in every respect perfectly. 
 
 The peasants of this part of France are miser- 
 ably poor. The girls who herd the cows are always 
 at work with their distaffs, and the cap is always clean 
 and perhaps laced, while the feet are without shoes and 
 stockings. Ignorance, too, approaches so near to bar- 
 barity, that I declare when we inquired our way the 
 children kept aloof, for fear, as they said, that the 
 strangers would hurt them. 
 
 The earth is covered with aromatic herbs, which pro- 
 duce most excellent mutton ; the trees abound in wild 
 productions, particularly a sort of flowering ash that 
 bears a fruit like the Catherine pear. 
 
 I am just returned from dining with my good friends 
 the Benedictines, who showed me in their sacristy two 
 arms and a head in gilt silver, containing the skull and 
 limbs of St. Bonaventure and St. Colomban. One of 
 them told me that my friend, David Carnegie, will have
 
 JULY i, 1775.] EXCURSION TO AMBOISE. 33 
 
 the honour of showing England to the son of the great 
 Buffon. 
 
 My duty attends my father and mother, and my love 
 to my sister. 
 
 July ist, 1775. 
 
 " THIS comes hoping you are well, as I am at this 
 present writing," an exordium I must confess somewhat 
 fallen into contempt, but nevertheless totally Roman, 
 and full of the very pith of correspondence. I hope you 
 received my last letter directed to Epsom, and dated 
 June 1 3th, in answer to one of yours which arrived here 
 the night before ; and as " to rusk into the midst of things " 
 may be as good a rule for an epistle as for an epic 
 poem, I shall recommence my journal without farther 
 prelude. On Tuesday, June I3th, at sunrise, Burvill 
 and myself embarked in a cabane for Amboise. The 
 party consisted of an old French flirt and her daughter 
 (who, in spite of our remonstrances, was destined for 
 the veil, because she was handsomer than her mother), 
 and a young Capuchin, who stunk like a polecat. 
 
 We arrived at Amboise by noon, an ancient town of 
 the Touraine, on the banks of the Loire. I presented 
 Newnham's letter to the family of Hennesy. Burvill 
 was at home at Mr. Ryan's ; and we met with such 
 universal hospitality that we neither ate nor drank at 
 our own expense during our stay there. In the evening 
 we viewed the town, and the castle built by Charles VIII., 
 who afterwards repaid himself by running his head 
 against the door of a tennis court they showed us, the 
 
 3
 
 34 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. 11. 
 
 immediate consequence of which was an apoplexy. 
 They carry on a small manufacture of silks, buttons, and 
 casques for the soldiery. In the principal church we 
 saw the arm of St. Denis. It is set in silver, and richly 
 ornamented with jewels. They told us a robber 
 attempted to steal it, but the great bell began to toll 
 of itself during the attempt at midnight, and he fled 
 with precipitation. It was carried in procession on the 
 Fete de Dien. 
 
 On Wednesday, the Hth, we rode to Verrat, the seat 
 of the Due d'Aiguillon, a magnificent chateau newly 
 built on the banks of the Cher. The house is orna- 
 mented in the rural taste, and the neighbouring country 
 is wonderfully beautiful, the prospect a vast sheet of 
 cornfields and vineyards, interspersed with walnut trees, 
 finely watered, and terminated by the town of Tours. 
 I was fortunate enough to encounter the Duke and 
 Madame du Barry on the road in their way to Aiguillon, 
 where he intends to pass a good deal of his time. The 
 Duchess makes her own butter every morning at break- 
 fast with a little mill I saw on her toilette, which pleased 
 me mightily. 
 
 Thursday was the Corpus Ckristi, or Fete de Dieu ; 
 and after the processions we walked to Chante-loup, the 
 superb palace of the Due de Choiseul, 1 situate about a 
 mile from Amboise. The centre is very long, and joined 
 
 1 The minister who owed his power to Madame de Pompadour, 
 the mistress of Louis XV. The Due d'Aiguillon was the 
 nominee of the new mistress Madame du Barry, de Choiseul 
 having refused dealings with her.
 
 JULY i, 1775.] THE DUCHESSE DE CHOISEUL. 35 
 
 to the wings by a Doric colonnade, and on the back front 
 is a cascade of a quarter of a mile in length, supplied by 
 an immense basin. Orders had been given that the 
 house should not be seen, but Englishmen were excepted 
 in the proscription. The ornaments, the gildings, the 
 glasses, the library, the theatre, and the concert-room 
 are exquisite, but the little cabinet of madame is a work 
 of witchcraft. It is about ten feet long, totally inlaid 
 with ivory, ebony, and every elegance in miniature. 
 The Duchess herself is the prettiest fairy imaginable, and 
 the chairs and tables in the cabinet are so adapted to 
 four foot five, that I had some doubts whether I was in 
 France or in Lilliput. The stables contain one hundred 
 horses, and many English ones ; and the dairy, the cow- 
 house, and even the dog-kennel, are elegant to a proverb. 
 On Friday, June i6th, at four o'clock in the morning, 
 we rode to Tours. I inquired for my Lord Castleconnel 
 at M. 1'Abbe Solas'. I was told M. 1'Abbe was in 
 his bath, but might be spoken with. I entered a bed- 
 chamber, in the corner of which was a tub covered with 
 blankets, and terminated by a meagre yellow French 
 face in a nightcap. In the course of this literal tete-a- 
 tcte the Jiead told me " My lord was in the country, but 
 that there were two Englishmen in pension (with it, 
 the aforesaid ostensible head), who would be happy to 
 meet their countrymen at dinner." I acquiesced almost 
 from curiosity, to see whether the head had a tail, and 
 was agreeably surprised to stumble upon Welldon, an 
 old college acquaintance, in the person of one of his 
 boarders.
 
 36 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 We viewed the new bridge of fifteen arches, not 
 yet finished, and designed on the same noble sim- 
 plicity of style with those of Blois and Orleans. The 
 walk on the Boulevards, or Mall, is a mile in length. 
 The Church of St. Martin is one of the most ancient 
 in Christendom, situate deeply in the rock. While \ve 
 were viewing it a priest offered to say a mass for us 
 as travellers. The Palace of the Bishop is a fine structure, 
 and the head of St. Benoit is to be seen at the Benedic- 
 tines' convent. I reconnoitred Newnham's old lodgings 
 in the Place de Baune, and lounged away an hour or 
 two in the magazines, where they wind the silk from the 
 cocoons. On the mountain facing the town is an 
 immense convent of Capuchins, and another of Benedic- 
 tines, called the Marmoutiers, and said to be one of the 
 richest of France. Among other reliques and treasures 
 we saw there a little of the holy oil of the Sainte 
 Ampoule of Rheims, used for the anointing of kings, 
 and brought to St. Remy by an angel at the Coronation 
 of Clovis I., A.D. 484. 
 
 The prospects on the banks of the Loire from 
 Amboise to Tours are highly picturesque. Immense 
 rocks on each side, excavated into dwelling-houses of 
 three, four, nay, five stories, tapestried with vines, and 
 here and there an old feudal castle in ruins, hangs over 
 the summit. We enjoyed this scene heightened with 
 the sublimity of a dark thunderstorm. It was a subject 
 for the pencil of Salvator Rosa ; but it wetted the 
 connoisseurs to the skin. 
 
 On Saturday we returned to Blois, having seen in
 
 JULY I, 1775.] FETES AT BLOIS. 37 
 
 our way the chateau of the family of Chaumont, situated 
 most romantically. The ancestor of this family (Chau- 
 mont d'Amboise) put Francis I. in possession of Franche 
 Comte, after the Emperor Maximilian had broken the 
 truce, A.D. 1479. 
 
 Mrs. Hennesy is one of the most agreeable women in 
 the world, and speaks the best French and English I 
 have heard. Her daughter, a pretty, pale, melancholy 
 girl of seventeen, told me in bad English, though good 
 Irish, " how happy she should be to see her own country, 
 for that she was born at St. Germains." Hennesy was 
 in the Brigades, and I met an old Colonel Morris there 
 who had been a prisoner at Hull in the year '45. 
 
 We have had processions by dozens of late. On the 
 Fete de Dieu, the houses were hung with tapestry, and 
 at every corner altars or reposoirs were erected, with 
 a variety of flowers, pictures, etc., etc., shaded with a 
 sail-cloth extended across the street. 
 
 On Monday last *the children who had received their 
 first communion preceded the bon Dieu, habited, 
 according to the French idea of angels, with wings and 
 coronets. 
 
 On Tuesday the Train Bands of Blois were under 
 arms. Two new pairs of colours were solemnly carried to 
 the cathedral, and received the benediction of the Bishop. 
 
 On Wednesday we had a fair of beasts ; and I was 
 much pleased with the gaiety of the peasants, who 
 dance cotillons with more natural ease than even Mr. 
 Villeneuve's scholars. 
 
 Osgood wrote me word he was to quit Orleans on
 
 38 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 Tuesday with Ellison and Hamilton. He is by this 
 time at Paris, and where to go next, to use his own 
 melancholy words, " the Lord only knows." To say 
 the truth, he appears to be heartily chagrined at his 
 tour, the natural consequence of an inactive residence 
 at that stupid town of Orleans, where an Englishman 
 never got into French society. 
 
 But I must not forget the chapter of cookery. We 
 have made punch of the brandy of Cognac, a town in 
 our neighbourhood, and more famous than Nantes. We 
 have had excellent syllabubs, and beg the receipt of 
 your gingerbread nuts. 
 
 To-morrow we are to have a fete, a procession, and 
 a firework in honour of the Coronation, and the evening 
 is to conclude with a masked ball. 
 
 There are two young Englishmen arrived here ; but 
 as we observe the French etiquette in expecting their 
 visit, and they, perhaps, preserve the English one in 
 expecting ours, it is possible we may not be acquainted. 
 I hope I have given an instance that it is the sort 
 of society I do not seek in France. 
 
 I have just received a letter from Burland with a very 
 vague direction. I have just answered one of Isted's 
 in most execrable French ; and I must put a period 
 to this. 
 
 With duties and loves respectively to my mother, 
 father, and sister. 
 
 July 29^, 1775- 
 
 I DID not receive yours of the :6th instant till 
 yesterday, in consequence of a little tour I had made
 
 JULY 29, 1775.] MISS JEKYLL. 39 
 
 for a week, and which I shall journalise after I have 
 thanked you for the entertainment your two last letters 
 afforded me. English politics and English gingerbread 
 are highly relished in France, and when you have 
 leisure to descend to a more confined circle I shall 
 be happy to hear what society you have at Epsom. 
 
 I am pleased to hear my sister admits Cardinal de 
 Retz and Bishop Latimer to her toilette, and hope 
 she recurs sometimes to the little sketch we made last 
 summer among the solitudes of Bradenham, since 
 history, without chronology, is the merest chaos imagin- 
 able, when she has a mind to discard cardinals and 
 bishops for fossils and minerals. I am sure the trans- 
 lation of the " Spectacle de la Nature " will afford her 
 more useful entertainment than all the npaoicw of 
 Monsieur Catcott. Philosophy ought to be dressed in a 
 slight French desJiabillc to please the ladies, and not 
 stuck up in the formality of system and hypothesis. 
 
 But now (as Robinson Crusoe says) to my Journal. 
 June 2nd was observed throughout this kingdom as a 
 fete in honour of the Coronation, and in consequence 
 Blois had a bonfire, a firework, and a procession. We 
 had a masqued ball at night, where your humble 
 servant appeared as an English jockey, and the streets 
 were filled with serenades till sunrise. 
 
 On Thursday, the 2Oth, I accepted an invitation to 
 assist at a fete at Pont-le-voy, a neighbouring convent 
 of Benedictines, who superintend the education of 
 near three hundred boys in all the languages and 
 exercises. This community has succeeded to the
 
 4O JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 charge formerly held by the Jesuits throughout France, 
 and does a great deal of honour to its establishment. 
 The boys wear a uniform, and are lodged, boarded, and 
 instructed in classic learning, drawing, fencing, riding, 
 dancing, and music for about thirty guineas per annum. 
 I found there a little boy of the name of Bagly, who 
 said he was a nephew of my Lord Sandwich. I found 
 there, too, a wild Irishman, who, under the title of 
 L'Abbe M'Carthy, taught a jargon he called English. 
 The fete was given in honour of the prior on the Feast 
 of St. Victor, his patron. 
 
 The good old man is much beloved by the children, 
 who run for his benediction whenever he appears among 
 them. After we had heard mass and dined most 
 elegantly, two comedies written on the occasion were 
 presented in a theatre constructed with a great deal 
 of taste. After supper a monk conducted each stranger 
 to an apartment, and mine was so inquisitive about 
 Monsieur Vilkes^ that I got no sleep till one o'clock. 
 
 We were waked by three volleys of musquetry by 
 the scholars under arms, with drums beating, and colours 
 flying. From ten to twelve they appeared in the manege. 
 At one o'clock we dined with the prior, and the ladies 
 of the neighbouring country from five to eight were 
 again entertained in the theatre, and the evening con- 
 cluded with a firework. The young French ladies 
 laboured hard for a dance ; but as it could not be 
 permitted in the convent, we seceded to the green 
 
 1 John Wilkes.
 
 JULY 29, 1775.] CHENONCEAU AND CHARTREUX. 4! 
 
 before the village, and played at blind man's buff (for 
 it was little better) till daybreak. 
 
 On Saturday Lutaine and myself left Pont-le-voy, and 
 crossed the river Cher at Montrichard, a pretty village 
 brow-beaten by an old feudal castle, and arrived at 
 Aigues-vives, a convent of the Chanoines Reguliers 
 situated in a deep valley and screened by woods. 
 
 There was an air of religious melancholy without, but 
 within there were merrymaking, good wine, and great 
 hospitality. In the evening we rode to Chenonceau, 
 a chateau singularly constructed across the river Cher. 
 It is absolutely a bridge of seven arches, and was built 
 by that restorer of the fine arts, Francis I., and given 
 to his favourite mistress, Diana of Poitiers, afterwards 
 Duchess of Valentinois. The scenes around it are 
 the most picturesque imaginable, and her name has 
 afforded a thousand devices in the palace and gardens. 
 On our return to Aigues-vives we contrived to lose 
 our way, and if I had not recognised a broken crucifix 
 by the roadside we might have wandered all night. 
 
 On Sunday we paid our respects to a monastery of 
 Chartreux. Every monk has a separate cottage and 
 garden, lies on straw, and wears no linen. They never 
 eat flesh, and observe a perpetual silence. Our con- 
 ductor talked, but his brethren covered their faces with 
 hoods on our approach. He gave us a good dinner 
 of fish and roots, a supper of milk and fruit, and lodged 
 us in a handsome apartment. 
 
 I withdrew myself the next morning from the gloom 
 of a cloister to the racket of a squad room, having
 
 42 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 received an invitation to Celles from a young cornet in 
 the late Dauphin's regiment of cavalry. 
 
 The Chateau of Celles is superb, and was built by 
 Maximilian de Bethune de Rosni, in 1641. He was 
 Prime Minister to Henry IV., and ancestor of the 
 Countess, who is now pleading her famous process at 
 Paris. I found in the great gallery a profusion of Greek, 
 Roman, Etruscan, Egyptian, and Indian antiquities, most 
 whimsically confused Lachrymatories crowned with 
 sphynxes, and Dianas grouped with pagods. Europa, 
 too, had mistaken the bull Apis for Jupiter, and had 
 almost got astride his Egyptian godship. But the 
 enormities in the chapel were still more amusing. 
 Cicero's head (by the sympathy of eloquence, no doubt) 
 had got upon St. Paul's shoulders, and a Messalina, 
 without the process of penitence, had been converted 
 into a Magdalene. 
 
 On leaving Celles I repassed the Cher in a ferry boat 
 at a village called Thesee, and visited an immense 
 Roman work at the distance of half a league, supposed 
 to have been built by Labienus, as a station for his 
 cavalry. 
 
 The Curate of Soin, who is a perfect Vicar of Wake- 
 field, received us with the greatest hospitality, and we 
 spent the next day in reconnoitring the Roman camps, 
 etc., in his parish. We fished in the evening on the 
 great lake, and were forced into shelter by one of the 
 most terrible storms of thunder, rain, and lightning I 
 had ever seen. On these occasions the peasants fly 
 to the church and ring the bells a principle so totally
 
 JULY 29, 1775.] CHAMBORD. 43 
 
 unphilosophic, that I expected we should have had the 
 steeple about our ears in an instant. At midnight the 
 old curate went out, in spite of the inclemency of 
 the weather, and recited the Passion of our Saviour 
 before the image of St. Fiacre, amid his trembling 
 parishioners, the result of which was, as you will believe, 
 an immediate calm. 
 
 We left Soin yesterday, passed Brasseux, and arrived 
 at Chambord, a vast palace belonging to the King, in 
 the midst of an extensive forest. Mareschal Saxe retired 
 hither after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and died here 
 about twenty years ago, from whence his body was 
 transported to Strasbourg. His two regiments of horse 
 and infantry were always stationed here, and disciplined 
 in camp under his eye. He was allowed a bodyguard, 
 and, in short, maintained the pomp of a king in this 
 princely retreat. The chateau is very old but regular, 
 and totally unfurnished, which is always the case where 
 His Majesty does not actually reside. The grand stair- 
 case is a double screw, by which means two persons 
 may ascend and descend without meeting each other. 
 There is an idea of this kind in miniature at my Lord 
 Bessborough's at Roehampton, but the construction is 
 totally different. 
 
 The Province of Berry is beautifully fertilised, well 
 watered throughout, and ornamented with a profusion 
 of poplar, walnut, and acacia. The Sologne is sandy, 
 but very populous, and the good old curate assured me 
 he had frequently married peasants when they had 
 begged the twenty-four sous for the surplice fees.
 
 44 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 i 
 
 The heats have been excessive, and I am burnt to a 
 good French complexion. The wheat harvest is over, 
 and we have had a plentiful one of hay, which is brought 
 from the fields on mules, which are so entirely covered 
 as to appear like walking haycocks. I often think of 
 Birnam Wood, when I see a field stalking very deliber- 
 ately up the High Street. 
 
 I had the curiosity to ask the price of poultry at 
 Brasseux, and found a fat goose was fifteenpence English, 
 and a fat fowl fourpence ; yet in spite of fat geese and 
 fat fowls the poor live upon bread and water from 
 Monday to Sunday. 
 
 If you encounter the family of Talbot I beg you will 
 present my compliments, as well as to all other inquirers. 
 
 BLOIS, August igt/i, 1775. 
 
 THE posts of France are very capricious ; for your last 
 letter, though on paper of the usual size, was charged 
 double, as I suppose the words " single sheet " lost their 
 efficacy at Calais. But the contents were too precious 
 to be overrated, as I had no authority for the American 
 news but the Republican fury of an Amsterdam Gazette. 
 
 With respect to Mr. Ratcliffe, Lutaine has no apart- 
 ment for a second pensioner, and I know of no other 
 establishment in Blois either decent or agreeable. I do 
 not say this because I am interested in preventing the 
 arrival of an Englishman, as the only circumstance to 
 retard and perhaps totally defeat the progress I begin 
 to make in the language, but you will remember that 
 I quitted even Osgood on those reasons. I avoid Burvill
 
 AUG. 19, 1775.] THE COST OF LIVING. 45 
 
 in company, for it is not the French of an Englishman 
 that improves the style, though it supports the practice. 
 I have avoided, too (by perhaps too nice an etiquette), 
 the acquaintance of Sir Harry Gough and a Mr. King, 
 who pass the summer here ; but I find my account in 
 not having articulated my mother tongue for nearly 
 three months. I trust you will give a delicate colouring 
 to these ideas, in order to divert Mr. Ratcliffe from Blois. 
 
 Amboise has very little French society. Angers is 
 full of young English, and is perhaps the most dissi- 
 pated provincial town in France. Bourges, the capital 
 of Berry, has a thousand agremens for an Englishman. 
 I may mention Auxerre in Bourgogne, where Osgood 
 is agreeably settled at present with a Mr. Pallet, an 
 Italian. I believe he will leave it in the vintage to 
 continue his tour towards Provence and Languedoc, and 
 he is the only Englishman at Auxerre. They speak 
 French in as much purity in Burgundy as here, and 
 indeed Dijon has a prevailing character. 
 
 The pensions in France run from ten to three Louis 
 d'ors per month. Those on the banks of the Loire are 
 perhaps the dearest, as most usually filled by the 
 English. Perhaps you will feel the truth of this obser- 
 vation when I desire you will enclose me one of Mr. 
 Herries' bills in your next, as by the loth of September 
 my stock will be reduced to about one hundred and 
 thirty livres. 
 
 I do not forget the preliminaries we had settled with 
 respect to entering upon the little legacy of my aunt for 
 the extra expenses of my tour ; for while I am conscious
 
 46 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 of no misapplication, I cannot be chagrined at such an 
 arrangement. 
 
 I passed four or five very agreeable days last week at 
 the chateau of M. la Valliere. Tis in these domesticated 
 visits one Frenchifies most. The house was full of 
 company ; and as Mademoiselle Chartier, a very pretty 
 girl of seventeen, was to sleep in the room we supped 
 in, and as Messieurs liked their Burgundy too well to 
 leave it very early, she very fairly retired to the other 
 end of the apartment, undressed, went to bed, and after 
 having sung us two or three songs in her nightcap, fell 
 asleep with all the politeness possible. I believe all this 
 may be right ; but such is the affinity between exquisite 
 refinement and exquisite barbarism, that Paris and 
 Otaheite are nearly on a level. 
 
 We have as yet had no rejoicings for the birth of the 
 Comte d'Angouleme, and are perhaps to have none, as 
 the royal bed has not yet been blessed with a Dauphin. 
 However, at all events, Blois is going to be very gay, 
 for the fair will commence in a fortnight, and the 
 managers of the comcdie and other spectacles are 
 already making their preparations. We expect to see 
 even the more distant neighbourhood, though the town, 
 as on the great highroad to Spain, is in a continual 
 fluctuation of new faces. Among others, I had the 
 satisfaction of seeing that of the famous Miss Cardiere, 
 whose process made so much noise in Europe many 
 years ago. She was on her way to her house at Tours, 
 and has the remains of a beauty. 
 
 The Due de Chartres, who is now making the tour of
 
 SEPT. s, 1775.] FEMININE FASHIONS. 47 
 
 the ports on a kind of naval review, purposes to institute, 
 on his return to Paris, a race of French horses, on the 
 plan of our hunters' plates. I have as yet seen no breed 
 fit for the turf. The cavalry are decently mounted, and 
 Normandy supplies a tolerable sort for draught, but the 
 ordinary labours of agriculture, etc., are performed with 
 oxen, asses, and mules, the latter frequently fifteen 
 hands high. The French ladies, who have no ideas of 
 an English huntress, don't scruple to mount an ass in 
 the country. They often ride astride, and with cotton 
 in their ears, for the amiable animal brays during the 
 whole afternoon. You will coincide in the transition 
 from asses to petits maitres, of whom we have just re- 
 ceived a fresh importation from Paris. 
 
 The ladies are never behindhand. Their head dresses 
 are more extravagant than ever. The cap is a frame of 
 wire erected on the back of the head, and covered with 
 flowers in the form of an espalier. The hair is cut short 
 on the forehead and temples for two inches before the 
 toupee commences, and a curl, called the sentiment en has, 
 descends to the collar bone. Add to this rouge and 
 patches, and the tout ensemble is not human. But such 
 is the force of custom that I begin to regard it even 
 without horror. 
 
 I am ashamed to have said so much and so little, but, 
 to use your own expression, " there is no honey in the 
 hive." 
 
 BLOIS, Tuesday, September $tk, 1775. 
 
 YOUR last kind letter which I received (undated) 
 last night was an " Iliad " in a nutshell. Your own
 
 48 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. 11. 
 
 descriptions, the florid manner of my Cousin Charity, 
 and the less luxuriant, though not less emphatic, style 
 of Sir Robert Herries and Co., have an equal claim to 
 my acknowledgments. 
 
 I am obliged to you for every finesse that may 
 prevent an Englishman's joining me at present ; and 
 in answer to your kind intentions of sending me a Court 
 Kalendar, I hope to receive one by Mr. Burvill's nephew. 
 
 Sir Harry Gough and Mr. Keen (son of the Bishop) 
 lent me the two last magazines, a detail of the killed 
 and wounded in America (among the former of whom 
 I see the name of young Gardiner, whom I knew in the 
 Marines at Portsmouth), and the defence of Perreau. 
 
 They have spared me some English tea, though I am 
 naturalised at present to a French breakfast. They have 
 a packet of James's powder ; but as they have lost the 
 directions, we are ignorant how to administer it in case 
 of necessity. 
 
 Mrs. Whatman's death shocked me greatly. I saw her 
 husband's name lately mentioned in the Paris Gazette 
 as the manufacturer of those immense sheets for 
 Edwards' print of the interview between Francis I. 
 and our Henry VIII. near Calais. 
 
 In return for the gaieties of Leatherhead and Epsom, 
 I shall chronicle those of Blois, which began on the 
 Vigil of St. Louis, August 29th. 
 
 St. Louis is the patron of the Cathedral ; and the 
 fete was really magnificent. The church was richly 
 tapestried, the most costly relics exposed, and a concert 
 of instrumental music accompanied the whole service.
 
 SEPT. 5,1775.] THE FAIR AT BLOIS. 49 
 
 In the evening we danced quadrilles at M. Girot's, and 
 paid our compliments to Mademoiselle Louise on the 
 anniversary of her patron. They present nosegays on 
 these occasions, and my Muse made a very awkward 
 attempt for the first time in French verse. 
 
 The fair commenced the day after, and is, at present, 
 in its meridian. The grand square and principal street 
 are covered with booths and bedizened with tapestries 
 of a thousand colours. The shops are baited with every 
 kind of trinkets ; but as a fairing extends no farther 
 than a box of bonbons, one may keep female company 
 with impunity. At five the spectacles commence ; and 
 first the comedy, which is very respectable. They have 
 already played nearly all the best pieces of Voltaire, 
 Moliere, Diderot, Piron, and Belloy ; and it is with 
 shame I feel how universally we have plagiarised in our 
 modern productions. 
 
 The French tragedy is reformed almost to coldness ; 
 but the conduct is pure and regular. Their after-pieces 
 are the merest farces imaginable, and nothing is too 
 trivial for their intrigue. The subject of that of last 
 night was a man who walks in his sleep. The situations 
 produced by the sleep-walker were highly ridiculous, 
 but too pantomimical for the caprice of the British 
 theatre, who sometimes cite Mr. Foote to the tribunal 
 of Aristotle ; while honest Shakespeare is even adored 
 for his breach of the unities. 
 
 The comedy closes by supper time. At half-past ten 
 you whip on a domino, and run your nose into the first 
 house where you hear a fiddle, or amuse yourself in the 
 
 4
 
 50 JOSEPH JEKVLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 fair (which is covered with an awning and illuminated) 
 till midnight. The marechausste patrol the streets till 
 sunrise, to the no small molestation of sundry amorous 
 scrapers who serenade their mistresses. 
 
 My friend, Lord Lewisham, and Mr. Legge, his 
 brother, passed through Blois about ten days ago in 
 their route to Tours, the former on his way to Italy, 
 etc. 
 
 I find, for the first time, a want of subject ; and I 
 am proud of the symptom, since it is a hint that I am 
 naturalised a little. 
 
 I could, indeed, send you instead of news the King's 
 economical regulation of the posts ; instead of anecdotes 
 the wicked life and conversation of a French punch, 
 who is no ways inferior to that reprobate our country- 
 man ; and for descriptions, I could paint the banks 
 of the Loire clothed, as they now are, with grapes. 
 
 In short, and you will believe it readily, I could 
 write you a great deal of nonsense, but I am persuaded 
 you had rather I should go to the comedy, which is 
 always a lesson in the language. 
 
 I would take French leave if it did not deprive me 
 of an opportunity of expressing my duty to my mother 
 and father, and my love to mademoiselle, and of 
 assuring my dear sir that I am his very affectionate 
 son. 
 
 COLLIVEAU, NEAR BLOIS, Tuesday, September 25/7*, 1775. 
 
 I SNATCH half an hour from the singular dissipations 
 of the vintage to thank you for the packet I received 
 by Mr. Rockliff, who arrived here this day week. He
 
 SEPT. 25, I775-] THE VINTAGE. 51 
 
 is totally fresh, and promises to be decently tiresome. 
 He is at present in my room at Lutaine's, in spite of 
 a thousand resolutions to fix elsewhere in the town. 
 However, I shall return to Blois in two or three days, 
 and make a point of finding a pension for him ; for 
 speaking even French with an Englishman is but 
 miserable work. You will disguise all these sentiments 
 to his family and Mr. Kentish under the profession 
 of a real readiness to serve him in many essential points. 
 
 Jean Jacques Rosseau has said that to see mankind 
 one must prefer countries to cities. I have done still 
 more than this. I have been dancing with the peasants 
 for these five days. " Monsieur Anglais," as a novice, was 
 an object of amusement. He was stript naked to tread 
 the grapes in the wine-press. He was forced to bleed 
 the reservoir. He was crammed with the galette or 
 cake of the vintage. The men crowned him with vines, 
 and the girls smeared his face with the lees. He was 
 obliged to dance in wooden shoes, and was as gay and 
 as dirty as possible. 
 
 Our fair closed, after my last letter, which, as I think, 
 1 wrote in its meridian. The town of Blois was 
 instantly deserted for the autumn, and at present wears 
 the face of contagion. I took the occasion of flying 
 hither for a few days to the house of M. Pecqureau, 
 a friend of Lutaine's, where I see the process of the 
 season, and amuse myself in a very agreeable society, 
 chiefly of females, the only pleasing, and perhaps the 
 most edifying, mode of acquiring the language in any 
 degree of delicacy.
 
 52 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 In England it is possible to have even the whole 
 morning to yourself when upon a visit in the country. 
 In France it is so indispensable to be always together, 
 that I write in continual apprehension of interruption 
 from these same sprightly misses, who are dressed by 
 six in the morning, and never quiet but when asleep. 
 As for Rockliff, who is still less a Frenchman than I 
 am, they call him Huron, Iroquois, Algonquin, and 
 Albigeois. 
 
 BLOIS, October io///, 1775. 
 
 I AM ashamed to pester you with another stupid scrawl 
 so immediately upon the back of my last, and which 
 promises to be equally barren of incident ; but the 
 receipt of yours of the iQth of September calls for my 
 acknowledgments. The gloss of novelty is gone off; 
 yet as you have agreed that these same scrawls, shabby 
 and threadbare as they are, shall amount to a proof of 
 health and good spirits, I scribble on with that pro- 
 vidential maxim laid down by Mr. Shandy. " I begin," 
 says he, " with inditing one line, and trusting to heaven 
 for another." I reflect with contrition upon sundry 
 enormous sheets I retailed to the broad sanctuary on 
 my first arrival in these distant and hitherto unknown 
 parts. The guilt was more flagrant, inasmuch as I 
 came abroad with Horace's " Nil Admirari " in my 
 head, and as you had warned me of (to use a word 
 of Mr. Shenstone's) the Flocci-nauci-Nihilipification of 
 your own sea journals. Beau Clincher's "June 1st, saw 
 a whale," was but a type of the gorgons, hydras, and
 
 OCT. 10, 1775.] FRENCH AND ENGLISH CUISINE. 53 
 
 chimeras I met with between Blois and Brighthelmstone ; 
 but I may congratulate you on the tone of my corre- 
 spondence at present, for the bitterness of description 
 is surely past. 
 
 A young Englishman for his first four or five months 
 here is upon the broad stare. Staring is over with 
 me, and I begin to grin ; so that between grinning and 
 staring I make a plausible figure. Your opposition 
 of turtle and grenouille is somewhat tyrannical. In 
 point of epicurism Old England excels this country. 
 I speak as to rarities ; for it must be confessed the 
 French are profound mannerists. The luxury of the 
 table among us consists in its expense, whereas here 
 the whole merit of the kitchen is a disguise. 
 
 I have seen but two pine-apples since I have been 
 in France ; and as for the turtle kind, they have not an 
 idea beyond the lining of their snuffboxes. 
 
 I may say I was pleased to see the name of Edward 
 Jekyll so advanced by the late promotion. Apropos 
 of Mr. Rockliff, I have settled him in a separate 
 pension, and had happily finesse enough to displease 
 neither him nor Lutaine. He is as English as he can 
 be, and of course I see very little of him. I should 
 pay Osgood a very bad compliment to unite myself 
 with an Englishman at Blois. He writes me word 
 from Auxerre that he is very agreeably settled, and 
 washes his feet in Burgundy. 
 
 The hangman is passing under my window ; and as 
 a modern biographer has thought it worth while to 
 chronicle that character as it exists in Corsica, it
 
 54 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 may amuse you to define it in France, and then to 
 draw the comparison (after the manner of Plutarch) 
 with the Ketch of Great Britain. The post is sacred 
 here, and approaches the noblesse in the right of using 
 a sword, and the priesthood in being proscribed entry 
 at all spectacles but that of the profession. If blood 
 unsullied by improper alliances can ennoble, then I 
 know of none so pure and uncontaminated, for a French 
 hangman can marry none but a French hangman's 
 daughter. Add to all this a bag, ruffles, embroidery, 
 and (at Paris) a coach, and the Cham of Kamschatka is 
 not so refined a personage. Thus much of hangmen. 
 
 The Bishop baptises to-morrow in all the pomp of 
 Christianism six bells, newly cast for the cathedral. 
 The Te Deum was chanted while the metal was in 
 fusion ; and as the Marquis and Marquise de Saumery 
 stand godfather and godmother, I shall assist at the 
 ceremony, and dine with the good Catholics. I have 
 received the most singular civilities from that family, 
 and have an invitation to pass a week at their chateau. 
 Monsieur is governor of Chambord, and upon a firm 
 footing at Versailles. Madame is the best-bred woman 
 in France, and Mademoiselle has learned of somebody 
 to say " God damn ye ! " in English. 
 
 Barnard has no right to complain of me at present. 
 I shall give good cause to Burland, Sneyd, Onslow, 
 and Isted. I cannot give a stronger symptom of sterility 
 than that I am about to write, the only interesting 
 part of my letter that of presenting my duty to my 
 father and mother, and love to my sister.
 
 OCT. 24, 1 775-] JAMES'S POWDER. 55 
 
 BLOIS, October 24^/1, 1775. 
 
 YOUR letter of the 8th instant reached me in the 
 country, where I had seen the close of the vintage in 
 this part of France. My sister may ridicule our orgies, 
 but I will answer for il, she would not be better amused 
 as a belle at the wells than as a Bacchante in the Blaisois. 
 I am extremely sorry for the loss of Captain Bentinck, 
 which is really a national one. I communicated your 
 observations on James's powder to Sir H. Gough, and 
 his servants have already profited by them. Those 
 ingenious gentlemen had substituted Cognac brandy for 
 the "d d French wines," as they were pleased to term 
 them, and the consequence was a fever, heightened by 
 the dog-days. Their masters are now at Paris, on their 
 way to England, with almost as little French as if they 
 had passed their summer at Brighthelmstone. 
 
 Mr. Rockliff and myself are nearly in sole and 
 peaceable possession of Blois, and I wish I could say 
 he is as content with his situation as I am. We are 
 upon the best terms in the world, and I do not see much 
 of him. When the town is fuller of amusements I hope 
 to see even less, as he speaks French so much worse 
 than I do, that it is equivalent to talking English 
 together. 
 
 I am glad to hear Barnard acquits me of neglect, 
 and I wish I could persuade many of my other friends 
 to be as reasonable as he is. They should remember 
 that I am not in France to write memoirs ; and yet 
 whenever Burland has a rainy morning in Somerset-
 
 56 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. ir. 
 
 shire, whenever Isted has seen a new flame, or scraped 
 acquaintance with a new title at Kettering Assembly, 
 whenever Onslow has a brilliant thought for a new 
 phaeton, the consequences fall upon my shoulders. 
 Jekyll must write to all these miscreants. He must 
 indite Hudibrastics to Onslow, he must mangle the 
 French tongue to Sambo, and he must be comical to 
 make the sergeant show his teeth. 
 
 I have returned my compliments by letter as politely 
 as possible to Messrs. Rockliff and Kentish, and have 
 seen transcribed by the former to his son (for he writes 
 volumes) copies of those which passed between General 
 Gage and Generalissimo Washington. I exhausted in 
 my last epistle my animadversions on being exhausted. 
 I have as ingeniously filled this letter with a recapitula- 
 tion of letters. I am conscious of having said much and 
 of having said nothing. But I am going to say what 1 
 hope will be always acceptable at home my duty to 
 my father and mother, and my love to my sister. 
 
 BLOIS, November jth, 1775. 
 
 OUR letters have of late crossed each other on the 
 road, but the consequence is not very material where 
 the style abounds more in the relation than the dialogue. 
 You mention a touch of my mother's gout. I should 
 hope this will find the family in better plight. As for 
 Mademoiselle, she can hardly have time to be ill amid 
 the brilliances of the toilette, the course, and the ball. 
 I agree with you on the risk our fair countrywomen incur 
 in adopting the modes of this volatile kingdom. There
 
 NOV. 7, 1775.] DEFECTS OF A FRENCH EDUCATION. $? 
 
 is that sort of heroism in dress about a Frenchwoman 
 that dares at singularity, while, on the contrary, the 
 amiable tameness of a female spirit among us shudders 
 at the attempt, and hardly enjoys the success. I seem 
 to be writing to my sister at present, and right sorry am 
 I that I have nothing new for her in the convent or 
 matrimonial way. The latter is an universal topic at 
 Blois ; and the former, with the imagery of " sweet 
 young virgins all in white, wax candles, and chastity," 
 never fails to amuse the damsels of our little heretic 
 island. I can only tell her that all the world here is 
 running mad after a new undress, called " a Circassian," 
 which is too pretty and too ridiculous for me to 
 describe, if I was able. 
 
 I turn to more essential objects in addressing myself 
 to you, sir ; and I am sorry to say, that as you wish to 
 see me complete in my exercises (the only point where 
 the regularity of an English education is defective, and 
 that a material one in public life), we have no academy, 
 and consequently no manege at Blois. With respect to 
 all other exercises, I have made such application that 
 I hope you will have no reason to complain of my 
 performances. I own it would please me much to 
 ride with grace and dexterity ; and, indeed, the want of 
 instruction in that line, joined to that of the theatre, are 
 the two only ones young Englishmen feel at Blois. But 
 something must be always sacrificed ; and perhaps the 
 circumstance of being even intimate in a numerous and 
 polite French society, which does not always happen, 
 may be regarded in some degree as an equivalent. I
 
 58 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 agree, then, so far with Mr. Price, who tells Barnard he 
 is sorry I am not in the true way, but we differ in 
 definition, a material point in Polemics. 
 
 The Palace of Menars, built by the late Marchioness 
 of Pompadour on the banks of the Loire, at the distance 
 of t\vo leagues from here, and now in the possession of 
 her brother-in-law, is one of the first in point of splendour 
 in this kingdom, as you may conceive from its foundress, 
 who, as the favourite of a great king, had the means, and 
 joined to an exterior the most exquisite, that constitu- 
 tional love of beauty which produces taste and order. 
 
 There had been a prohibition of seeing the apartments 
 in consequence of some impertinences similar to those 
 committed in the Queen's Palace at London. Mr. 
 Rockliff and myself were informed of this by the 
 suisses at the gate. Sap was impossible, and I changed 
 the manoeuvre to an assault. I inquired for the Marquis, 
 and announced some English gentlemen of Blois who 
 begged to kiss his hand. We found him in the gout 
 and a nightgown, the latter sparkling with the Cross of 
 the Holy Ghost. I blundered out, " How fortunate we 
 were in having an occasion of paying our court to M. 
 le Marquis de Marigny, on begging permission to see 
 the most elegant chateau in France, which was the 
 universal topic of travellers in London" The reply to 
 this was in an excess of politeness ; and had I not urged 
 the gout he would have stumped about the house with 
 us. " This, gentlemen," said he, " is my library. Here 
 is an edition of Terence, printed and given me by 
 Walpole of Strawberry Hill. These chairs are English.
 
 NOV. 7, 1775.] MADAME DK POMPADOUR. 59 
 
 How beautiful is your manufacture of horsehair for the 
 bottoms ! This is the Hall of Kings. There are the por- 
 traits of Louis XV., Christian of Denmark, and Gustave 
 of Sweden, given me by their own hands." I observed 
 that "there was a panel vacant for George III., and 
 that if Monsieur would honour London with a winter's 
 residence he would not fail of rilling it." " I do not 
 despair of seeing London," replied Monsieur. " I was 
 once so near paying you a visit that my house was hired 
 there, and the wine even laid into my cellars, when my 
 sister, the late Marchioness of Pompadour, sent for me 
 abruptly to Versailles. ' Monsieur, my brother,' said 
 she, ' sell your house at London, and all your affairs there. 
 In less than three months we shall have their Hawke 
 and Boscawen thundering on our coasts.' Amongst 
 the infinity of fine objects you will see at Menars, don't 
 overlook the hydraulique machine I have lately con- 
 structed on an improved plan of your affair at Chelsea. 
 The first agent in mine is water, and it is a masterpiece 
 of mechanics that would do honour even to an English 
 artist." 
 
 We took leave of the Marquis in the Hall of the 
 Bourbons, hung with the portraits of that illustrious 
 family from Henry IV. down to Louis XVI., and retired 
 to the gardens till dinner-time, when the Marchioness 
 usually rose, and when we might enter her apartments, 
 for we were too undressed to assist at her toilette. 
 Amidst a multitude of the most exquisite ancient and 
 modern statues, I was peculiarly taken with the produc- 
 tion of a young Langucdocian, the figure of Phaethusc
 
 60 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 turned into a poplar or aspen. The statue is colossal, 
 and of the finest marble. The feet are rooted, the 
 left side already enclosed by the bark, and the whole 
 frame agonising. I was more touched at it than by the 
 famous Daphne of antiquity. We entered the bed- 
 chamber of Madame a few moments after she had left 
 it. The bed was still in an interesting disorder ; and 
 while I was lost in the comparison of beauty which 
 arose between the portraits of the Marchionesses de 
 Pompadour and de Marigny, and the contemplation of 
 a group of the most amiable pugs imaginable which 
 belonged to the latter, the ideas of my friend had been 
 swift enough to discover various articles of toilette. As 
 there would be then no end of recapitulating all the 
 striking objects we saw at Menars, I cannot break off 
 too abruptly. 
 
 BLOIS, November 2isf, 1775. 
 
 I HAVE seized a half-hour before the departure 
 of the post to give you some particulars of one of the 
 most agreeable weeks I have yet passed in this kingdom. 
 M. le Marquis de Saumery had invited me to pass 
 a few days at his chateau. I believe I have already 
 boasted of this acquaintance. He is Field Marshal, 
 Governor of Chambord (the Windsor of the Blaisois), 
 and reckons a descent from the ancient counts of Cham- 
 pagne, if not from Clovis himself. As it is not the good 
 fortune of every young Englishman to fall into the best 
 company in France, where only he is likely to get the 
 best French, I embraced the occasion most readily.
 
 NOV. 21, 1775.] YOUNG JEKVLL AND FRENCH NOBILITY. 6l 
 
 I will not enter into the detail of etiquette observed 
 in a French family of rank in this ceremonious country. 
 Suffice it to say that Monsieur had a suite of five 
 apartments allotted him, and was always preceded to 
 table by an officer of the household. 
 
 The house was full of company. The morning is 
 usually passed separately in the respective apartments. 
 At one o'clock the young men assist at the toilette 
 of Madame la Marquise ; at two dinner is served ; at 
 five cards commence ; at nine we supped ; and after 
 supper we had usually the Comcdie Bourgeoise, or 
 Allemande, till midnight. 
 
 The Due de Choiseuil honoured Saumery with his 
 company two days during my stay there. He appears 
 to be the most agreeable of Frenchmen, and that is to 
 say. a good deal. 
 
 You may suppose I left this circle of gaiety and 
 politeness with regret, and fortunately not without an 
 invitation to pass my Christmas holidays in the same 
 agreeable manner. 
 
 My last and this letter seem to have caught the 
 contagion of the pride of French nobility ; but I shall 
 go on to tell you that in consequence of the credit which 
 my footing at Saumery has given me in this country, 
 I have been invited to pass a week with M. le Comte de 
 Philcpeaux at Herbault. Perhaps I need not tell you 
 that this family has given fourteen ministers to the State. 
 The Comte is nephew to the Due de la Vrilliere (the 
 late Mr. St. Florentin), and brother to the Archbishop 
 of Bourges.
 
 62 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 I am almost led to recapitulate the advantages 
 which result from good company in France when I 
 reflect on the life my young countrymen lead here. 
 All the morning on horseback, and all the evening 
 gaming with low Frenchmen or lounging with strolling 
 players. As to their exercises, it is a fact that we had an 
 Englishman at Tours who took a lesson of whip-cracking 
 every day from a postillion. 
 
 After so many dukes, counts, and marquises, you will 
 not be surprised to hear the name of Sir Robert Herries 
 mentioned. 
 
 At least, I will hint that December loth is not far 
 off, and that the keeping good company never made 
 me lose sight of economy. 
 
 BLOIS, December I2t/i, 1775. 
 
 I WITHHELD my pen till I might be able to acknow- 
 ledge the safe receipt of Sir R. Herries' bill for 
 thirty pounds sterling, and am much hurt at the other 
 contents of your letter. It found me in a round of 
 gaiety, as you will naturally suppose, in this the gayest 
 of countries, and you will as naturally conclude that 
 it threw a damp upon my pleasures. 
 
 I did not want so unpleasing a motive to bid me think 
 of home, especially as I am convinced that to become 
 absolutely a Frenchman is the work of a much longer 
 period than my future views can afford. I have been 
 flattered nay, perhaps, I had begun to flatter myself 
 that I should speak the language more fluently than the 
 generality of my countrymen. I have not neglected
 
 DEC. 12, 1775.] A REPRIMAND FROM HOME. 63 
 
 my exercises. I have made myself acquainted with the 
 history, customs, and government of the kingdom. 
 
 As to the present favourite point of travel, I can say 
 that I have been fortunate enough to fall into what 
 is called the first company, at the expense of what less 
 economical young men would term very little gaming, 
 very little dress, and very little gallantry, for such are 
 the prices of la belle societe in France. In the mean- 
 time, I must own that a stranger has but few occasions 
 to be frugal. He is imposed upon by all the world, and 
 without a certain expense can keep no company. 
 
 You seem to think with me that my visits to Saumery 
 and Herbault ought not to be neglected. When they 
 shall be paid, with all my debts, up to the middle of 
 January, I do not believe I shall have a sol left for my 
 journey to Paris. You seem to apprehend as much. 
 I need not add that one does not see sights for nothing. 
 I dare not make the transition from money matters 
 to America. The two subjects are too dismal, and I 
 would willingly divert you if I could. I do not know 
 whether you received my account of Menars written 
 in a livelier style than this can be, for I had not then 
 heard of your illness. 
 
 The Bishop has shown me the most particular 
 attentions of late. I translated that long letter of 
 Burgoyne's to Lee for him, which pleased the old man 
 so much, that I have dined twice a week at the palace 
 ever since. The society is generally ecclesiastic. The 
 Father Guardian of the Capuchins labours hard to 
 convert me all dinner-time, and the Mesdames de L'Orge,
 
 64 JOSEPH JEKYLL TO HIS FATHER. [CH. n. 
 
 who are let out of the Convent on Holy Days to dine 
 with their uncle, attack me during the dessert. We 
 contrive to steal a dance sometimes in a salon in the 
 garden. " I don't know how it is," said Mademoiselle 
 Victoire the night before last, " but I always feel sorry 
 to think that our little Englishman is to be damned." 
 
 BLOIS, February 6t/i, 1776. 
 
 You will have learned from three importunate letters 
 how much your silence had concerned me. I am to 
 thank you for the bills and letter dated January 22nd, 
 though the ill news of your health are still worse 
 than my late suspense. I know the prejudice in favour 
 of old practitioners, but I should be very happy if 
 Dr. Parsons could be made acquainted with your 
 case. 
 
 I hope you will not suppose I can amuse myself at 
 Paris ; and as to mere sight-seeing I am very expedi- 
 tious. I stayed five weeks with the Marquis de St. 
 Herem. We hunted the boar and the wolf very 
 successfully till the snows came on. They have been 
 prodigious. The thermometer of the Observatory of 
 Paris marked three degrees of cold more intense than 
 the winter of '49. Four couriers have been expected 
 these three weeks from the North, and all travelling 
 towards Germany and England has been obstructed. 
 
 An epidemic cold seems to have spread itself from 
 London to Barcelona. In passing through this kingdom 
 it has obtained the name of " grippe " a term significant 
 enough from the nature of its attack on the throat. I
 
 FEB. 14, 1776.] EN ROUTE FOR LONDON. 65 
 
 saw nothing but extreme unction at the Marquis' for 
 the last four or five days. 
 
 I am very well at present, and hope to find you all 
 so soon at London. I have letters to the Marquis de 
 Montmorin at Versailles, Cordon Bleu. La Marquise is 
 dame d'Jionneur to Madame d'Artois, so that I hope to 
 see the court in its splendour, as the Carnival is not yet 
 over. And I will carry home, if I can, some of its 
 native vivacity to put you into good spirits. 
 
 My duty and love attend respectively my dear father, 
 mother, and sister, and I rest theirs most affectionately. 
 
 HOTEL DE LA DAUPHINE, RUE COCQUERON, 
 PARIS, February 141/1, 1776. 
 
 NOTHING less than the delay of my passport per- 
 mitted me to stay long enough to see Versailles and the 
 raree shows of this volatile capital. My Lord Stormont 
 sent it me express last night at eleven from the 
 minister, and I shall set off in four hours for Lisle. 
 
 You will not be surprised that I take that route to 
 Calais, when I tell you that I shall perform it in as little 
 time, and shall have the company of M. de Rancoigne, 
 a young mousquetaire I knew in the Provinces. I left 
 Blois a very few minutes after the reception of your last 
 letter, and nothing but bad weather shall retard me at 
 Calais. 
 
 I hope to embrace you all very soon, and to see my 
 dear father's health re-established.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY GERTRUDE SLOANE 
 STANLEY. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, January i$th, 1818. 
 
 WITH the Methusalems x I shall be in disgrace, 
 for I have excused myself from three dinners at Lord 
 Malmesbury's, Hatsell's, 2 and Grenville's. My lungs 
 were not equal to the first, nor my punctuality to the 
 second, nor the drums of my ears to Lord Glastonbury 
 at the last. Mrs. D'Oyly 3 has given them a dinner 
 also, to which I was not invited, I suppose on the score 
 of my youth. The poor old soul seems in her last dotage, 
 though Mr. Sloane does not perceive it. " Sans eyes, 
 sans voice, sans sense, sans everything." I do not 
 understand one word she says, and I believe she is in 
 the same state as to what she says. 
 
 1 An expression often used by Mr. Jekyll in writing of his older 
 acquaintances. The chief of the Methusalems were the first Earl 
 of Malmesbury, who died in 1820 ; the first Lord Grenville, died 
 1834 ; the first Lord Glastonbury, died 1826 ; the sixth Earl of 
 Stair, died 1821 ; and the Dowager Countess of Essex, died 
 1821. Some of these were only Mr. Jekyll's contemporaries, but 
 they apparently did not preserve the same youthfulness of spirit. 
 
 3 John Hatsell, Clerk of the House of Commons, author of 
 " Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons, 1794-6." 
 
 3 The daughter of Mr. Hans Stanley of Paultons. Her mother 
 was daughter of Sir Hans Sloane. 
 
 66
 
 JAN. 13, 1818.] THE BISHOP'S LADY. 67 
 
 You had no loss in Foscolo, 1 with all his learning and 
 talents ; he is what Dr. Johnson called a " tremendous 
 companion," uttering with the clamour of a speaking 
 trumpet a jargon composed of every language under 
 heaven, and never combined before since the Tower of 
 Babel. At Holland House they grew dead sick of 
 him. 
 
 There is a gentleness and almost infantine innocence 
 in the look of your poor little sister-in-law. You and 
 I know ladies who take the ton of the tigress and hyaena ; 
 she takes the Lamb-taw. 2 
 
 As I am, you know, a bad Picton, I borrowed 
 Blomberg's cabriolet at the Pavilion, and an equerry 
 drove me out daily, and one morning I visited my old 
 school-fellow Lord Chichester, four miles off. We had 
 Bishop Pelham and his wife at the Pavilion dinners 
 every day. It seems in his Palace at Exeter she never 
 rises from her seat to receive his visitors. The fat wife 
 of a prebendary came to dinner one day about dusk, 
 and as Mrs. Pelham was in white, and sitting motionless 
 on a white dimity sofa, the reverend Fatima sate down 
 upon her. 
 
 If it were not for the eleemosynary toast and butter 
 of Paultons I daresay old Phil had rather be at the 
 twopenny gossip, the threepenny Loo, and the sixpenny 
 
 1 Nicolo Ugo Foscolo, author of " Ricciarda," and a commen- 
 tator on Dante. 
 
 - The wife of Lady Gertrude's brother Frederick, who fell at 
 Waterloo, the "Gallant Howard" of " Childe Harold." She 
 was a Miss Lambton, and made a second marriage with the 
 Hon. H. C. Cavendish.
 
 68 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. in. 
 
 balls of Southampton. My excellent old Birdy delights 
 in it also, and these old creatures are as fond of dressing 
 themselves out as if their shrouds were not likely to 
 be their next garments. 
 
 God bless you and the dear children ; remember 
 me to William sincerely. 
 
 P.S. Lord Erskine 1 almost quacked himself to 
 death at Oatlands last week with hemlock pills, 
 fainted at dinner, was bled profusely, and would have 
 been bled more profusely if Yarmouth, who turned 
 doctor, had been listened to. I believe they recovered 
 him with difficulty ; and to survive hemlock and such 
 a physician's advice was no mean struggle of nature. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, February igt/i, 1818. 
 
 .BY the time the celebrated residence is to be taken 
 for you in town I hope we shall have something better 
 to amuse you here than daily murders and suicides. 
 Yesterday died the unfortunate Mrs. Thackeray, whom 
 Sir R. Croft 2 attended, and at whose house he shot 
 himself. That catastrophe has never been known to 
 her. 
 
 " Hat Vaughan " 3 has been nearly murdered in the 
 street, and his illustrious hat stolen. The thieves have 
 been tried and acquitted. It is supposed the jury 
 
 1 Thomas, first Lord, the eminent lawyer. He lived till 1823. 
 
 8 The accoucheur who attended the Princess Charlotte at the 
 confinement which ended in her death. There was an angry 
 outburst ol public feeling against Croft, which drove him to suicide 
 on February i3th of the same year. 
 
 3 John Taylor Vaughan.
 
 FEB. 19, 1818.] " FAZIO." 69 
 
 thought they took it only " as a matter of curiosity." 
 Tom Stepney will now live in alarm if the dilettanti are 
 collecting specimens. 
 
 On Saturday last Lord Morpeth and I dined at 
 Mr. Sloane's, with sundry Methusalems. The hand of 
 Cowland was manifested in the cookery, and the fingers 
 of Joseph 1 in the glasses. Smith gave Mr. Hailes a 
 knock on the pate with " the Infernal Machine " he 
 burns one dish with while the rest are freezing ; and 
 as he took it back he nearly singed off the only nine 
 hairs General de Bude boasts of on the side of his 
 left ear. 
 
 Lord Holland 2 will not benefit much by Lord 
 Ossory's Ampthill estates, from what he tells me. It 
 will maintain the residence there ; but as Miladi will 
 probably proceed to decoration and furniture, her 
 inauguration may be costly. 
 
 Pinney's father, who was the image of Sinbad's Old 
 Man of the Sea, is no more, and " the fortunate youth," 
 now at Rome, inherits from him I know not how many 
 millions. They speak seriously of .25,000 a year ; he 
 may buy the Coliseo. 
 
 There is no enthusiasm in the public about Fazio ; 3 
 and the author complains they have cut out his best 
 
 1 Two of Mr. Sloane's servants. Mr. Jekyll found much to 
 criticise in his father-in-law's menage. 
 
 2 Henry, third Baron, the nephew and pupil of C. J. Fox. 
 
 3 By Milman. The play was acted without his permission, and 
 he disclaimed the alterations made in the acting version. He 
 had no reason to complain, however, as the representation re- 
 sulted in the sale of three editions of his play.
 
 7O MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. HI. 
 
 poetry to give time for starts and attitudes and 
 screams and hysterics. Lord Byron, too, in the " Bride 
 of Abydos " has been sacrificed to processions and 
 elephants of pasteboard. So I have nothing good 
 to report in the higher walks of the drama but a 
 French puppet show in Spring Gardens the boys 
 dragged me to t'other evening. And so ends my prose. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Saturday, October 31 st, 1818. 
 
 THE Duchess of Devonshire 1 is returned to Italy. 
 The Bessboroughs asked me to meet her at dinner, and 
 I saw her one day at Lord Guilford's. She is grown 
 quite a hag. I believe I told Mr. Sloane there is a good 
 story of Lord Melbourne's marrying Lady E. Monck. 
 
 Nothing can be more critical than the state of Lord 
 Ellenborough. 2 It is supposed that while in his carriage 
 on Wednesday last he was visited by palsy, as on 
 quitting it his leg seemed nearly useless. Lady E. has 
 been told by the medical men that she must prepare to 
 expect the worst, and speedily, if these symptoms pro- 
 ceed. I have chiefly lamented my confinement, as it has 
 disabled me from rendering her some consolation and 
 support, for I have lived intimately with them many 
 years. Their eldest son, however, is come from his poor 
 sick wife in Ireland. 
 
 I have been disappointed at the " New Tales of my 
 Landlord," 3 but pleased with some of Mrs. Opie's 4 last 
 
 1 The second wife of the fifth Duke, nee Lady Elizabeth Hervey 
 * Edward, Lord Chief Justice. He died two months later. 
 
 3 The second series containing " The Heart of Midlothian." 
 
 4 "New Tales."
 
 DEC. 7, 1818.] GUESTS IN THE COUNTRY. 71 
 
 published series. You ma}- suppose I have devoured 
 much trash during my imprisonment. A single volume 
 of the entire " History of France " for young persons is 
 advertised. 
 
 We know of no successor 1 to the Chief Justiceship. 
 I suppose Sir Claude Hunter 2 will ask for it, as he was 
 disappointed about the Governorship of Cowes Castle. 
 
 Horace Walpole says " Miss Chudleigh cried." George 
 Selwyn said, " Oysters ? " Dr. Johnson has the same 
 joke, I find. 
 
 " If- the man who 'Turnips' cries 
 Cries not when his father dies ; 
 It is plain that he had rather 
 Have a turnip than his father." 
 
 And so, my dear Lady Gertrude, I will put a period 
 to this piebald epistle, which looks like a. harlequin's 
 jacket. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, December yth, 1818. 
 
 THE system of poisoning the guests who infest 
 country houses I do not disapprove of; as, generally 
 speaking, these animals invade any hole or corner where 
 they see an opening, and by their talent at boring know 
 how to make one. All I object to is killing them like 
 Polonius " behind the arras," because then, as Hamlet 
 says, " you may nose them in the lobby." Some of 
 
 1 Mr. Justice Abbot was appointed the following November. 
 
 - Alderman Sir Stephen Claude Hunter, Bart., son of Henry 
 Hunter of Reading, a connection of the Sloane family through his 
 mother, who was a great-niece of Sir Hans. He was a very 
 prominent solicitor, and Lord Mayor 1811-12, when his show was 
 exceptionally elaborate. Died 1851.
 
 72 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. HI. 
 
 them who must have been Lord Mendip's 1 contem- 
 poraries, I take it for granted were found full dressed. 
 
 They speak of an entertaining book not long published, 
 " A Tour to La Trappe and through La Vendee." 
 Those fools 3 are grown more austere since they starved 
 at Lulworth. Is Baring converted that he builds hermit- 
 ages ? He must emaciate considerably before he can 
 personate an anchorite himself. 
 
 Lady Morgan's 4 " Florence McCarthy " I have not yet 
 read, but languish for the portraits of the Irish Chief 
 Justice Norbury and Mr. Croker. 
 
 Les ouis dire in politics for the last week have been 
 plentiful and extraordinary ; but as through life I have 
 uniformly disbelieved, in the first instance, whatever is 
 told me as curious, singular, and remarkable, and have 
 as generally found such incredulity, five times out of ten, 
 well founded, these reports have gained little credit with 
 me. It is not the pure love of lying that generates these 
 wonderful anecdotes, nor always the natural propensity 
 
 1 Welbore Ellis, first Lord Mendip, the well-known politician of 
 the school of Henry Fox. He married, in 1765, Anne, eldest 
 daughter of Mr. Hans Stanley of Paultons. 
 
 2 " A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe," by W. W. Fellowes. 
 
 3 The members of the Order of La Trappe. A number of these 
 monks, who fled from France at the time of the Revolution, were 
 received by Mr. Weld of Lulworth Castle, who gave them land, 
 and provided habitations. They remained at Lulworth till 1815. 
 
 4 An Irish lady whose maiden name was Owenson. She married 
 Sir Charles Morgan, and was often spoken of by the title of one 
 ofhernovels, " The Wild Irish Girl." Two of her works, "France" 
 and "Italy," made some stir at the time of their publication. 
 Their sale was forbidden in Sardinia, Rome, and Austria, and 
 the authoress prohibited from visiting the latter kingdom.
 
 DEC. 7, 1818.] "ARCADES AMBO." 73 
 
 to exaggeration ; but a newsmonger thinks he increases 
 his self-importance in communicating what another has 
 not yet heard. As for political changes, like changing 
 partners, it will probably only be among themselves, 
 unless they can bait the hook for Lord Wellesley with 
 his brother, the Duke ; l and as for worthy gentlemen 
 who may retire, I should think there will be some 
 mouthing against pensions by our economists. 
 
 The Thane of Cawdor 2 and a full meeting in Pem- 
 brokeshire have, I see, published two discoveries of some 
 novelty that my countrymen are too prone to litigation, 
 and that some attorneys are great rogues. Now " we did 
 not want a ghost to tell us this." I hardly believe the 
 Reformers of all things at Aix-la-Chapelle could prevent 
 Welshmen from quarrelling, or make all attorneys honest ; 
 but the Lord have mercy upon the squires of the meeting 
 if they should hereafter be forced into any Welsh law 
 suits themselves. 
 
 The times have been gloomy to me Lord Ellenboro's 
 state ; Romilly's 3 door I passed yesterday with a ring 
 at seeing the two achievements side by side. Poor 
 Disbrowe, too ! The boys and I were under promise 
 to visit him at Windsor next Christmas. A better 
 husband and father never lived. 
 
 1 The Duke of Wellington joined Lord Liverpool's Government 
 in 1819. 
 
 2 John, first Baron Cawdor. He married Lady Gertrude's eldest 
 sister, Lady Caroline Howard. 
 
 3 Sir Samuel Romilly, the eminent lawyer. He committed 
 suicide on November 2nd, 1818, from grief at the loss of his wife 
 a month earlier.
 
 74 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. HI. 
 
 In spite of their losses, I find Opposition in high spirits 
 as to their operations next campaign. Tierney was here 
 yesterday. Brougham has just left me ; and to show you 
 I am not the only man of letters who writes an infamous 
 hand, I made him frank this cover. 
 
 Kean surpasses himself in the new Brutus. Farren, 1 
 a comic actor, is highly spoken of. The lady debutantes 
 are numerous, but not of great promise. 
 
 It is said Romilly left i 50,000 to be divided into eight 
 parts among his seven children, the eldest taking two parts. 
 
 Lord Ellenborough can no longer articulate nor keep 
 anything on the stomach, so the crisis is nearly at hand. 
 Lord Kilmorey followed his wife with a broken heart 
 in four days, like Romilly. Want of conjugal affection 
 does not seem the reproach of our days. 
 
 At a ball at Brussels given to the Sovereigns I read 
 that the Dowager Empress of Russia danced with her 
 son the Emperor, that at the end of the dance they fell 
 into each other's arms, embraced tenderly, and wept. 
 " Every one," says the Moniteur, " sympathised in this 
 interesting scene." Woronzow 1 and his daughter must 
 do the same at Almack's. As by the Holy Alliance the 
 practice must come here, I can imagine many picturesque 
 couples Lady Liverpool, Lady Salisbury, Mrs. Bankes 
 waltzing and weeping with their respective offspring, 
 Viscountess Dudley and Ward in a reel with John 
 William, and shedding maudlin tears. 
 
 1 William Farren made his debut at Covent Garden this season, 
 as Sir Peter Teazle. 
 
 2 The Russian Ambassador, Count Woronzow.
 
 DEC. 28, 1818.] BYRON, ROGERS, CRABBE. 75 
 
 Some few years hence your ladyship may suppose 
 you have only to chaperon your daughters to balls. " Lay 
 not such flattering unction to your soul." You must 
 dance with Willy, and weep. Then you must dance 
 with George, and at the close of " Molly, put .the kettle 
 on," you must clasp him to you, and pour into his bosom 
 the residue of the tears unexpended upon Willy. 
 
 Monday, December 2%th, 1818. 
 
 LORD LAUDERDALE has brought over a spick-and- 
 span new poem l of Lord Byron's from Venice, sealed 
 up, so the Scottish bearer, no great critic in works of 
 genius, knows nothing of its merits. But Murray the 
 bookseller has volunteered a great price for it. He 
 says the poet is grown fat and cheerful, and comes to 
 England next spring. 
 
 The great Rogers has also a poem of length ready for 
 publication, entitled " Human Life," which his perpetual 
 enemy Ward" will say can only have been composed 
 impartially by a dead corpse. 
 
 Crabbe has also a poem coming out, 3 for which 
 Murray, the Maecenas of booksellers,, has given him 
 
 1 The first Canto of " Don Juan." 
 
 2 J. W. Ward, Lord Dudley. He wrote an unfavourable review 
 of " Columbus" in the Quarterly for March 1813. This caused 
 a coolness which was never removed, although Ward apologised. 
 Rogers took his revenge in the epigram 
 
 " Ward has no heart they say, but I deny it. 
 He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it." 
 
 3 " Tales of the Hall."
 
 76 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. m. 
 
 A lawyer of eminence went to Milan last summer 
 on a particular cause. This has been magnified into 
 an investigation of the Princess of Wales' misconduct 
 at the Lago del Como. The whole is a fable. 
 
 Lord Holland says Lord Morpeth never admired 
 Crabbe, nor do I, so morbidly as Brougham and others 
 do. I think also in private the man overacts simplicity 
 of character ; still I think he has vast talents at minute 
 and characteristic scenes. If Rogers had not made him 
 put his first payment from Murray of a third of the 
 money into a banker's hands, he was going to carry it 
 with him in a stage coach to show the banknotes to 
 his son, and would probably have been robbed of the 
 whole of it. 
 
 If in your accidental communications with South- 
 ampton you can inform poor Birdy, 1 without the expense 
 of postage, that the boys and I are in perfect health, 
 I shall thank your Ladyship, inasmuch as I cannot give 
 her a line till I return from the Regent at Brighton 
 a week hence. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, January ijth, 1819. 
 
 As you have so amply atoned by a long and 
 charming letter just received for all former sins of 
 omission, I am determined to issue from my fireside 
 an immediate absolution, especially as it will not cost 
 tenpence, and the Pope sells one for half the money. 
 Though I was nearly converted to the Romish Church 
 
 1 A lady who had acted as governess to Mr. Jekyll's wife, Miss 
 Maria Sloane
 
 JAN. 17, 1819.] THE METHUSALEMS. 77 
 
 by seeing Harry Howard carry the Duke of Norfolk's 
 Baton de Maresckal, which so clearly manifests the 
 truth of transubstantiation. 
 
 W. Howard will tell you of a Methusalem feast he 
 
 had yesterday, of which I have tasted plentifully 
 
 within this month. Like Macbeth, " I have supped 
 
 full of horrors." I upbraided Lady Stafford with 
 
 adding to her climb-ax of antediluvians by inviting the 
 
 Earl of Stair and the Countess of Essex. The latter 
 
 I comforted with a glass of champagne, and Lord 
 
 Stafford made her mouth water by producing the 
 
 original warrant for beheading an Earl of Essex signed 
 
 by Queen Elizabeth. However, Lady Stafford en 
 
 dedonunagement gives me a dinner again to-day with 
 
 Ellis and Ward, and people born within the last century. 
 
 It is not only from Harley Street and General 
 
 Grenville, but I have been dragged to these " Old 
 
 Mortalities" at Fagel's, Carleton's, Henley's, Antro- 
 
 bus's ; however, I am determined to emancipate myself 
 
 from the catacombs and be pre-engaged for six months. 
 
 On Sunday I dined with Lord Hertford, where we had 
 
 only the Regent attended by Nagle. The Regent 
 
 whispered me that the luminous equerry, who had been 
 
 forced by " Chic " Chester to drink five glasses of brandy 
 
 last summer at Cadlands, mistook the said Chic for me 
 
 the whole time. To support this delusion I continued 
 
 all Sunday to personate Chic, to remind Nagle of 
 
 the brandy we tippled so freely ; and finally persuaded 
 
 him that nothing but a violent cold prohibited my 
 
 renewal of the libation.
 
 78 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. m. 
 
 The robbery and ransom by banditti of Chantrey 
 is all a fable. He told me that at the instance of Lady 
 Davy and poet Moore on their knees, the Princess 
 Borghese put her foot out of bed for his admiration 
 as a statuary. 
 
 Walter Scott is to be a baronet ; his " Ivanhoe " is 
 said to deserve it. 
 
 I am interrupted, so this shall not pass for a letter. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, June 22nd, 1819. 
 
 THE most solemn ceremonies are held to be incom- 
 plete and unsanctified unless I assist at them. An 
 infant named Louis Frederic Xavier Spiridion de Luzy 
 could not be christened but by my attendance at its 
 grandmother's dinner, the Marchioness Dowager of 
 Lansdowne. 
 
 Parliament, it is thought, may end by the 1 5th of July, 
 and in fact the political campaign is closed, and people 
 are quitting town early. If there be not ratting, alas ! 
 there is rotting among my Opposition friends, Lord 
 Holland, still unwell with a lingering gouty debility, 
 Tierney 1 obliged to abstain from debates, Brougham 
 too much of an invalid for great exertion, and Mackin- 
 tosh not the stoutest of men, though confessedly one of 
 the most able and eloquent. 
 
 We had a profusion of boxes from Mrs. Coutts 2 at 
 
 1 The Opposition led by Tierney had been recently defeated by 
 a majority of 179 votes, in a trial of strength with Lord Liver- 
 pool's Government on the motion to inquire into the disturbed 
 state of the nation. 
 
 2 The wife of Mr. Thomas Coutts the banker. She was an
 
 JUNE 22, 1819.] THE REGENT'S JUVENILE BALL. 79 
 
 the close of the theatres. Mr. Sloane came to us in 
 high glee several times. One night between the acts he 
 made me a vigorous proposition : " If one could get a 
 good packet," says he, " I should not dislike a trip to 
 Bordeaux." It was in vain to ask why or wherefore, so 
 I contented myself with the silent admiration of fidgets 
 eighty years old. Robinson gave us a catacomb dinner 
 on Saturday last ; among other mummies Malmesbury 
 and his sister, who are leaving town for Hants, Lady 
 Malmesbury squalling that she has no country house of 
 her own, and is therefore driven to Tunbridge. The 
 Granthams are going to Spa. 
 
 Last night the Regent gave a ball to children, and the 
 boys and I did not leave Carlton House till near three 
 o'clock. An immense party of Lilliputians sate down 
 to supper, so I suppose the apothecaries are by this 
 time sending in all the old rhubarb and magnesia they 
 are possessed of. Elderly fools began waltzing when 
 the babes were exhausted. The Staffords, Morpeths, 
 and Lady Carlisle were there. My boys and a dozen of 
 their schoolfellows, the Russells, Pagets, Pelhams, and 
 Amhersts, seemed to abandon the small misses, and 
 bestow their tender attentions on chickens of a more 
 eatable character. 
 
 Lord Yarmouth again takes the Duke and Duchess 
 of York and a large party of us in the Admiralty barge 
 
 actress, Miss Mellon, and succeeded to his vast fortune on his 
 death in 1822. In 1827 she married William, ninth Duke of St. 
 Albans. She died in 1837, and bore the reputation of great charity. 
 There is a most interesting account of a visit she paid to Walter 
 Scott, at Abbotsford, in 1825, in Lockhart's "Life."'
 
 8O MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. in. 
 
 next week to stuff whitebait at the " Artichoke" 1 beyond 
 Greenwich. 
 
 P.S. Poor Dr. Latham. 2 It makes one quite miser- 
 able to think of his misfortunes. But I will say nothing 
 more of calamities, for this letter is already blotted like 
 an elegy. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, July 7th, 1819. 
 
 MRS. D'OYLY is still alive, and the fidgets of our young 
 heir-apparent in Harley Street are indescribable. To 
 the utter dismay of her servants, and with more caution 
 than taste, he goes to Twickenham every other day 
 armed with an attorney in his carriage ; but it would be 
 no miracle if she still lives another century, for Sir 
 Henry Halford 3 told me on Sunday at a dinner the 
 Duchess of York gave us, that she had recovered her 
 intellect, and that all disease was subdued. 
 
 On Monday last Yarmouth 4 gave us his aquatics. 
 The Duke and Duchess of York and a considerable crew 
 of us embarked at the Tower in two Admiralty barges 
 
 1 An inn at Blackwall noted for its fish dinners. 
 
 2 John Latham, M.D. Physician Extraordinary to George IV. 
 Mr. Jekyll probably alludes to his health, which was bad. He 
 was a voluminous writer in medical subjects, and died in 1843, 
 aged eighty. 
 
 3 A very successful Court physician. He was accused by his 
 professional brethren of servility to his superiors and of rudeness 
 to his inferiors, and was known as the " eel-backed" physician. 
 When the coffin of Charles I. was opened he possessed himself 
 of the cervical vertebra which had been severed by the axe, and 
 was accustomed to exhibit it at his dinner table. 
 
 4 Francis, afterwards third Marquess of Hertford.
 
 JULY 7, 1819.] " MAZEPPA." 8 1 
 
 and two Royal Standards flying, for the " Artichoke " 
 at Blackwall. As the digestion of whitebait exhausts 
 the whole day, Lauderdale and I had ordered post- 
 horses in the evening, so left the squadron to proceed up 
 the river in the dark and contemplate the comet. 1 
 
 From what one sees on Mondays and Saturdays at 
 Lady Jersey's and Lady Castlereagh's, London does not 
 yet feel its various departures. The Prince Regent 
 gives us a Fancy Ball on the I5th in honour of St. 
 Swithin. I heard two women last night, nearly of 
 Philly's age, debating whether they should go in Spanish 
 or Circassian dresses. 
 
 On Saturday the boys and I go for a couple of days 
 to Holland House, as they visit Bowood the ensuing 
 week. The Lansdownes meditate a month's stay at 
 Paris in the autumn, and leave the partridges to amuse 
 my former constituents at Calne. Lord Holland is quite 
 well again. 
 
 It is believed Parliament will be prorogued on Monday 
 next, I should think certainly not later than Tuesday, 
 as Vansittart invites some of us to dine with him that 
 day. 
 
 The brother poets Rogers and Moore were here to- 
 day, and did not seem to think " Mazeppa " had added 
 much to Byron's bays. I am charmed with it, and as 
 much with the verses on Venice, which he strangely 
 entitles "An Ode." At the tail of the book is an 
 unintelligible piece of prose he calls " A Fragment." 
 
 1 Encke's Comet.
 
 82 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. in. 
 
 In "Mazeppa" I think I discovered an anachronism. 
 His hero alludes to " the electric wire " in a speech to 
 Charles XII. of Sweden. Now I believe the Leyden 
 Vial and its wire were not discovered till the year 1745. 
 Crabbe's new tales I have not read. 1 A critic tells me 
 the new series of " Tales of my Landlord " 2 surpasses 
 the former. 
 
 A week ago, when we were dining with the Duke and 
 Duchess of York, Erskine sent a sudden excuse. We 
 learned afterwards he had run away with his illegiti- 
 mates from their mother, who next day had the impu- 
 dence to come to York House and inquire where her 
 babes were secreted. 
 
 A splendid house is taken in Waterloo Place for a 
 new club yclept "The Travellers." A candidate must 
 have travelled five hundred miles from London and by 
 land, or convicts from Botany Bay might have been 
 qualified. To prevent any desertion from the club, I 
 proposed they should elect Sturges 3 as president " A 
 bourne, from which no traveller returns." 
 
 I saw the last of Lady Stafford on Saturday at Lady 
 Castlereagh's. She very kindly asked me to travel to 
 Trentham this summer. I told her I should always 
 
 1 "Tales of the Hall." 
 
 2 The third series, comprising the " Bride of Lammermoor " 
 and the " Legend of Montrose." 
 
 3 William Sturges, who assumed the name of Bourne in suc- 
 ceeding to the property of an uncle in 1803. He was a political 
 follower of Canning, and was Home Secretary in that statesman's 
 administration in 1827. Although a bad speaker his advice was 
 much valued in the House of Commons. He died in 1845.
 
 OCT. 15, 1819.] THE PERSIAN AMBASSADOR. 83 
 
 travel to you ; and when I have done that you know 
 I never lengthen my tour beyond the great elm. Harry 
 Wrottesley is named as one of the candidates for the 
 vacant Welsh judgeship. As Leach, Sergeant Copley, 
 and Warren have been successively appointed to the 
 Chief Justiceship of Chester, they have christened 
 Chester " The Rat Trap," and Cheshire Cheese enhances 
 the value of the joke. 
 
 Among other miseries of Opposition, poor Perry of 
 the Morning CJironicle appears to be quite broken up 
 in health, and cannot last. Mackintosh * advanced daily 
 in popular estimation, as much for sagacity and 
 moderation as eloquence. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, October \$th, 1819. 
 
 His excellency the Persian Ambassador, with that 
 laudable curiosity which ornaments the functions of 
 diplomacy, suddenly popped his black beard and 
 turban, on Wednesday last, within the door of West- 
 minster School. The boys ceased to gabble their Greek,, 
 and on the irruption of this formidable spectre burst 
 into a fit of that immortal laughter which their Homer 
 gives credit to the gods for. The master was indignant 
 at this seeming insult to the Court of Persia, as it might 
 tend to a breach of that peace and amity which for- 
 tunately subsists between the two empires, and the boys 
 escaped whipping by miracle. 
 
 Mr. Sloane is in the height of his favourite element : 
 
 1 Sir James Mackintosh. He had recently carried a motion for 
 mitigating the law as to capital punishment.
 
 84 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. in. 
 
 a scrambling life, Mary's cookery and hackney coaches, 
 and a tete-d-tete for picquet at night. I dined with 
 them on Wednesday last, and cleaned my own wine- 
 glass, upon which John had left his initials of finger and 
 thumb. On Sunday I expect to meet these Methusalem 
 Gemini at the Scandinavian Feast of old Woronzow, 
 whom I met yesterday at Lord Guilford's, where we 
 sate down twenty-five . at dinner, with the noble Earl 
 at the top of the table, whose new Ionian star and tri- 
 coloured riband " streamed like a meteor to the troubled 
 air." 
 
 It will require stronger evidence than I have yet 
 received to convince me that the poor Duke of Rich- 
 mond's 1 hydrophobia arose from the bite of any rabid 
 animal. I admit that such a disorder exists in man, 
 but not from such a cause. I did mean to rusticate 
 with the boys as far as Holland House to-morrow and 
 stay there till Monday, which, in honour of St. Luke 
 and in defiance of Mr. Carlyle, is religiously kept as a 
 holiday at Westminster ; but Holland House is in much 
 anxiety and distress. The youngest girl is in a very 
 dangerous state of illness. 
 
 My poor Lady Ellenborough has reached Geneva 
 on her course to Florence. A courier arrived at five 
 in the morning, while she was in the inn at Frankfort, 
 to say the Prince and Princess of Hesse Homburg 
 would come and breakfast with her. It was kindly 
 
 1 Charles, fourth Duke, Governor-General of Canada. He died 
 there on August 28th, 1819, and, as is generally believed, from 
 hydrophobia, resulting from the bite of a pet dog.
 
 NOV. 17, 1819.] DEATH OF THUNDERBOLT. 85 
 
 done, but an invalid could have dispensed with such 
 a visit. 
 
 The Whigs are rubbing their hands and whetting 
 their teeth for the 23rd of November, and it is believed 
 that an illustrious lady l will arrive by that time to 
 throw some of her magical ingredients into the cauldron, 
 and give petits soupers at Kensington to Mr. Hunt. 2 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, November \-jth, 1819. 
 
 MUCH as I always delight in seeing you, it would 
 be most unreasonable to expect that when you were 
 making so momentary a transit through the metropolis 
 you should be running after a fellow who is difficult to 
 be met with at home in a morning. So I absolve you 
 cordially on the principle of taking the will for the deed. 
 
 I have a cold, and as it was a miserable night 
 sent an excuse to the Duke and Duchess of York 
 yesterday, though they are in town only for three days, 
 and I really wished to see them. Mr. Sloane would 
 have been carried to dinner in blankets, but the Court 
 of Chancery is as conspicuous for its prudence as its 
 wisdom. 
 
 Think of me as a source of Newmarket news to 
 William. Your own Lothario, Sir Thomas Charles 
 Bunbury, 3 has lost his famous horse Thunderbolt, 
 
 1 Queen Caroline. 
 
 - Henry Hunt, the Radical agitator. He was chairman of the 
 meeting at Manchester in 1819, the dispersal of which resulted 
 in what is known as the Peterloo massacre. 
 
 3 The sixth Baronet, the famous sportsman, the divorced 
 husband of the beautiful Lady Sarah Lennox. He died in 1821, 
 aged over eighty.
 
 86 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. in. 
 
 brother to Smolensko, valued at one thousand five 
 hundred guineas. The poor animal broke his leg in 
 the stable, and was consequently shot. As I do not 
 take in the " Racing Calendar " you will guess Birdy 
 furnishes me with this intelligence. She is with me 
 for a few days, and will recommence her Southampton 
 routs and waltzes next week. I gently broke to her 
 that in her absence there had been a blow of marigolds 
 in the front of Mrs. Hamlyn, which had dazzled all 
 who danced at her celebrated fetes and seguidillas. 
 
 Extraordinary felony! The boys tell me a thief lately 
 broke into Westminster Abbey and meant to pass the 
 night there in depredation. Being disturbed in his 
 purpose he fled, leaving behind him his hat full of 
 cold beef and biscuits, but contrived to carry off the 
 waxen effigy and royal robes of good Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 Surely you will come to town if there is a revolution, 
 as such sights do not occur every day. Sidmouth 
 has ordered all the cannon 1 which serve as posts in 
 London to be sent to the Tower, lest they fall into 
 Radical hands ; and they have taken root so long that 
 they are suspected to be Radicals themselves. The 
 funds are to be annihilated at Christmas, and landed 
 estates to be divided by Mr. Hunt in the spring. 
 Your ladyship can set up a seminary for young 
 demoiselles. I mean to have a theatre and write 
 comedies and farces. Joseph and Edward 2 may tumble 
 between the acts ; and if they have already no engage- 
 ment I am willing to take Gertrude and Freddy to 
 An allusion to the Arms Bill. 2 Mr. Jekyll's sons.
 
 DEC. 7, 1819.] THE THREATENED REVOLUTION. 87 
 
 dance in my ballets. As I probably shall want Cupids 
 to swing on ropes in the air, you may depend upon 
 my taking also your smaller fry. The' Game Laws 
 will of course be abolished, and William's " occupation 
 will be gone," like Othello's. He has therefore no 
 gamekeeper's place. However, I think I can stick 
 him in my orchestra ; and if he has any gratitude he 
 will give me continual obligates on his violoncello. 
 I am sorry for your friends among the clergy, but 
 they may still get comfortable livings by writing and 
 selling blasphemy, which seems the most profitable 
 trade going. 
 
 P.S. We had a jollification on Mrs. Coutt's 
 birthday last Friday, near Highgate, graced by the 
 Dowager Lansdowne. She had been to Paris to meet 
 her daughter and Count Luzi. They have lost the 
 little child at whose baptism, with a name longer than 
 its life, the Duke of York, Lord and Lady Anglesea, 
 myself, and other pious persons assisted in the summer. 
 The Regent eats only fish and vegetables, abandons 
 wine, and drinks punch. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, December -jth, 1819 
 THE boys bring home from Westminster a shilling 
 libel entitled " The Political House that Jack Built." J 
 It has gone through twenty editions, and keeps four 
 presses constantly at work. I am sorry to say it is 
 formidable in point of seditious humour, and its cari- 
 
 1 By W. Hone, illustrated by G. Cruikshank. It went through 
 nearly forty editions. It is an incisive, if scurrilous, parody of the 
 nursery rhyme.
 
 88 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ni. 
 
 catures on wooden plates are but too well executed, 
 among them a severe one of the Regent. Heartily 
 indeed, when I read ineffectual arguments, overwhelm- 
 ing majorities, and late hours of division, 1 do I rejoice 
 that I am no longer a sharer in the purity of the House 
 of Commons, where, as Mr. Pitt said when he was 
 a Radical, " without reform no man of honesty could 
 be a minister." It seems admitted by Government that 
 there is no remedy for the distress of the lower classes 
 as things are, so we must control them as they do at 
 Algiers as long as the power lasts to do so. Lord 
 Grenville, you see, takes a long date for disaffection of 
 nearly thirty years back a high compliment to his 
 own and Mr. Pitt's conduct of public affairs, under which 
 it took root and flourished into the fruit of to-day. 
 What a senseless coalition was that of the Whigs and 
 Grenvilles ! 
 
 But I will cease to bore about politics, which is every 
 way a frightful and disgusting topic. Thank God I 
 have taken leave of them in public, and must now only 
 suffer their evil consequences as a private man and a 
 father. 
 
 Je "Jois des deux cotes la fourbe et lafureur. 
 
 VOLTAIRE. 
 We have Indian scandal. Don Moira 2 has forbid 
 
 1 On the Arms Bill, the Training Bill, Libel Bill, etc. There 
 was much anxiety at this time, as to the disturbed and discon- 
 tented state of the country. 
 
 2 The first Marquess of Hastings, at this time Governor-General 
 of India.
 
 DEC. 7, 1819.] INDIAN SCANDAL. 89 
 
 Lady East, the Chief Justice's wife, to approach his 
 court, for having connived at an intrigue of her 
 daughter, who had made reprisals on her husband 
 Mr. Croft's infamous seduction of a young lady during 
 the voyage to Calcutta, and for which a jury gave 
 enormous damages against him. To avoid the pay- 
 ment, it is added, the Chief Justice contrived to facilitate 
 his worthless son-in-law's escape to Europe, and thereby 
 so deeply incurred the censure of his learned brothers 
 on the bench, that they refuse all private communi- 
 cation with him. I hope all this is not true ; for I always 
 respected the Chief Justice, but believe he was under 
 the dominion of an unworthy wife. Probably you saw 
 the trial in the papers ; more ingenious villainy and 
 hypocrisy never appeared. 
 
 Dowager Cork l writes to me for advice on a quarrel 
 with her coachmaker, and steals an opinion because she 
 is too far off to steal anything else. She has been 
 quartering herself upon that lively person the Earl of 
 Winchilsea, who has passed her to some parish in 
 Yorkshire, and whose parson I hope will exhort her to 
 say her prayers and pay Gunter, instead of chalking 
 her floors and liveries for fetes to all the fools in town. 
 In the language of the Windsor doctors, the old crea- 
 ture's " bodily health is little impaired by age, but her 
 disorder is unabated." 2 
 
 May Heaven long preserve your intellect, my dear 
 
 1 The eccentric Lady Cork, second wife of the seventh Earl. 
 
 2 The bulletin of George III., issued during many years with 
 little variation.
 
 90 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. in. 
 
 Lady Gertrude, though you live so much in the country. 
 Several able anatomists assure me that on dissecting 
 the brains of squires and rusticated beauties they have 
 been found covered with moss and ivy, and which a few 
 periodical alteratives of opera and Almacks would have 
 extirpated. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, January $th, 1820. 
 
 THE on dits of the streets are amusing that Lady 
 Conyngham has superseded Lady Hertford, 1 that the 
 Lord Chancellor will resign if a certain divorce be 
 attempted, and that Lord Manners is to succeed him. 
 In short, every sort of nonsense is talked and believed. 
 
 The poor Hollands have been again miserable about 
 the illness of their only surviving daughter. However, 
 she is out of danger. 
 
 The Mother-Bankes has manoeuvred well for her 
 parson, 2 and the Chancellor 3 gives him ^30,000 with 
 his daughter, and hereafter a prebend or deanery 
 probably. Mr. Sloane met the old Bankes at the 
 Staffords last week, Mrs. Bankes in all the vociferation 
 of delight on the nuptials. 
 
 I have read " Don Juan." It is unequal, but abound- 
 ing with most brilliant flights. They have printed 
 Byron's entire works at Paris, comprising his suppressed 
 poems. 
 
 I have also read amusing travels of poor Kotzebue's 
 son in Persia. 
 
 1 In the good graces of George IV. 
 
 2 The Rev. E. Bankes, Prebendary of Gloucester and Bristol. 
 
 3 Lord Eldon.
 
 JAX. 7, 1820. MRS. COUTTS. 91 
 
 January "]th, 1820. 
 
 1 DINED in company with Brougham 1 and wife. 
 She has a good person, manners, eyes, and teeth, but 
 is not handsome like her sister, Lady Graham Moore. 
 
 Peel has taken Lulworth Castle, and is advanced to 
 .700 per annum rent. The Queen is treating with 
 Prince Leopold for Marlborough House. Old D'Oyly 
 well and merry. She showed the boys t'other day some 
 drawings by her mother, a woman of extraordinary 
 accomplishments, signed " S. Sloane, A.D. 1715." 
 
 Mrs. Coutts gave a Christmas dinner, as she called 
 it, to the Duke of Sussex, Hat Vaughan, and other 
 potentates. In the first course, a baron of beef, a baron 
 of Glastonbury, and for side dishes two turkeys, two 
 boars' heads, and a mince pie of the size of His Royal 
 Highness, or J. T. Batt, Esq. 
 
 Belzoni's book 2 dull, but the plates interesting. 
 Cleopatra's Needle is not to come from Egypt to 
 Waterloo Place, as the portage would cost .10,000. 
 That caitiff Chantrey has not yet washed your face, and 
 Lady Pembroke is clean in comparison. 
 
 An invitation from old Coutts to celebrate the seventh 
 anniversary of his marriage, and meet the Dukes of 
 York, Clarence, and Sussex, the first and last well 
 assorted. 
 
 The King well, but advantageously less bulky. Got 
 into the Pavilion, and inviting people. God avert from 
 
 1 Henry, afterwards Lord Brougham and Vaux. He married 
 a widow, Mrs. Spalding, whose maiden name was Eden. 
 "Operations and Recent Discoveries in Egypt and Nubia."
 
 92 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. in. 
 
 me a journey through snow to Brighton ! for I am now 
 shivering near a good fireside, and think every man 
 whom cruelty asks out to dinner deserves part of the 
 10,000 given to Parry and his company for visiting 
 the Polar circle. 
 
 I enclose some pretty verses of Anacreon Moore. 
 The gallant Blessington writes this morning to request 
 my name in a committee of Tories to erect an enormous 
 monument at the Hyde Park turnpike to the fame and 
 glory of George III., whose colossal figure is to be 
 placed in a chariot drawn by four bronze horses on a 
 pedestal supported by a vast rock of granite, surrounded 
 with figures of fame, and Victory trampling on Discord ; 
 and emblems of his late Majesty's protection of educa- 
 tion, agriculture, commerce, and the fine arts. Patrons : 
 all the princes and princesses, above thirty ministerial 
 and about five Radical peers, and concluding with 
 John Julius Angerstein, 1 Sir J. Bland Burges, 2 Alderman 
 Curtis, and Tegart the Apothecary. Though it may 
 impeach my loyalty, I declined the proposed honour. 
 
 The Hollands have Lord Cornwallis' house in 
 Burlington Street. I dined there yesterday, and Miladi 
 
 1 The eminent merchant and patron of fine art. His exertions 
 resulted in the establishment of Lloyd's on its present basis ; and 
 his collection of pictures formed the nucleus of the National 
 Gallery. 
 
 2 The politician, and colleague of Pitt, whose advice in matters 
 of finance was of great service to the minister. A youthful 
 attachment of Burges for Lady Margaret Lindsay inspired the 
 poem of "Auld Robin Grey," written by her sister Lady Anne. 
 Burges eventually married Lady Margaret as a third wife. He 
 died 1824.
 
 FEB. 10, 1820.] THE METHUSALEMS. 93 
 
 illuminated us with her presence almost till coffee 
 appeared. A Tory Sunday paper called John Bull 
 much circulated, said to be edited by Theodore Hook, 
 full of broad anecdotes against the Queen and the 
 Opposition, and, I think, displaying no great talent. 
 By Canning's secession they have now not one debater 
 left except Castlereagh on the Treasury Bench, for Peel 
 seems to be disinclined to take office. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, February loth, 1820. 
 
 IT rejoiced me that the severe weather terminated 
 before the dear little George braved the elements at 
 school, as I feared cold and rheumatism for him on such 
 a change. 
 
 Mr. Sloane is in his full cry of dinners, and the 
 customary scramble of a lame horse and hackney 
 coaches home on damp raw nights. He even dined 
 with that pauper Lilyveld 1 on what was dignified with 
 the title of a Dutch collation, consisting, as I learn, 
 of raw herrings and stock fish as old as the Republic. 
 The Methusalems had caught me so often that they 
 began to consider me as property ; but of late I have 
 taught them by pretended engagements that I had 
 rather dine with the waxwork than with automata 
 who go so ill. Old Gilpin, the landscapist of Boldre, 
 thought as fastidiously as I do. " I am," says he, " one 
 of those odd fellows who prefer my own society to the 
 generality of that I meet with." 
 
 There is much cant about the late King, but your 
 
 1 The Dutch Ambassador.
 
 94 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. in. 
 
 French verses are aptly quoted. He had no abilities. 
 It was well observed t'other day he would have made 
 a very good and worthy gentleman farmer, though a 
 little obstinate in parish affairs. What a disastrous 
 reign ! The loss of America, a public debt increased 
 to a million of millions, and a people in beggary. To 
 read his "history in a nation's eyes" (Gray). Two 
 Sundays running lately I dined with his present 
 Majesty at Lord Hertford's. Each time no other 
 guest. On the last Sunday he told me of an incipient 
 inflammation on his lungs, and the next day he was 
 confined. Dr. Tierney 1 made the dash of much 
 copious bleeding, and arrested the complaint. 
 
 I can tell you that I have seen the voluminous 
 evidence of the conduct of a certain lady. 2 If the 
 most fertile and depraved mind were to invent a tale 
 of private and even public profligacy it could not 
 equal the horrors now reduced to proof. For the 
 honour of the nation and the security of the succession 
 some mode must be, and will be, devised to repudiate 
 the disgrace and the criminal. It should have been 
 anticipated years ago on the then accusation and 
 testimony. 
 
 The poor Duke of York's 3 .10,000 per annum ! A 
 story circulates too impudent to be true. Alvanley 
 
 1 Sir Matthew Tierney. He gained great reputation by a 
 successful operation on the King made against the advice of his 
 colleagues. 
 
 2 Queen Caroline. 
 
 3 His allowance as custos of the person of his afflicted father, 
 George III. He of course lost this on the King's death.
 
 FEB. 10, 1820.] LORD ALVANLEY'S JOKE. 95 
 
 on coming into White's said, " How are you merry 
 beggars ? " Lord Foley replied, " Speak for yourself." 
 There was a laugh. The anecdote got down to 
 Oatlands before Alvanley arrived there, and the Duke 
 quizzed him upon it at dinner. The Duchess inquired 
 what the story was. " Oh, nothing, Madam," said 
 Alvanley. " They talked of forming a new club, and 
 wanted a name for it. I proposed calling it the 
 ' Merry Beggars/ and we hope His Royal Highness 
 will be our President." 
 
 We agree about " Ivanhoe." I think Athelstan's 
 revival by the Humane Society useless and ill explained. 
 The Jester fails in humour, and Ivanhoe and the King 
 are too soon discoverable. But the tournament, the 
 conflagration by Ulrica, Rebecca's character and the 
 scene of her intended execution, are beyond all praise. 
 My taste is not yet reconciled to this modern union 
 of history and fiction. Each is injured by it. 
 
 To-morrow I dine with a rival queen, Lady Conyng- 
 ham, who will not triumph. 'Tis r esprit faible contre 
 I* esprit fort of Lady H[ertford]. By the way, Lady 
 C.'s daughter is a beauty. 
 
 We expect dissolution about April. Poor Dickinson ! 
 Lord Stewart starts a candidate at Durham to drain 
 the scanty purse of the great Michael Angelo T. 1 By 
 Ponsonby's Bill to continue office without fresh patents, 
 the Chancellor loses almost all the ^"30,000 formerly 
 gained on the demise of a king ; and, to do him 
 
 1 Michael Angelo Taylor, well known as a politician and man 
 about town.
 
 96 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. in. 
 
 justice, he gave no opposition to the measure when 
 proposed. 
 
 We venerable masters have tickets for the Corona- 
 tion. On offering one to Joseph he said he would 
 not give twopence to see it. I advised him to sell 
 it to his grandfather for 50, as I am sure he will be 
 in the Abbey by daybreak with Philly at his side, 
 and her pockets laden with six months' provisions. 
 
 I have toiled through all the late Nubian, Abyssinian, 
 and Albanian travellers, and am tired of sheiks, 
 and camels, and stinking water. It seems that all 
 these explorations of barbarous people have no sort 
 of utility, and not much amusement. 
 
 Hatsell's nephew, now a lunatic, was rejected by 
 Miss Yonge, and H. immediately gave her 5,000. 
 This was before Sidmouth's son was dreamed of. 
 What an odd old fellow ! The miss is the very fool 
 of Bedlam, had a mad lover, and then marries half 
 an idiot. My poor friend, Sir V. Gibbs, 1 was finished 
 by dropsy, the usual catastrophe of extreme debility, 
 for the last few days delirious, perhaps partly the 
 effect of the foxglove. They say the Queen styles 
 Tommy Austin, Prince of Wales, 2 though in her old 
 defence she took such pains to prove him the 
 
 1 Sir Vicary Gibbs, Chief Baron of the Exchequer. He was 
 known at the Bar as Vinegar Gibbs, his style of pleading being 
 remarkable for its asperity. 
 
 2 The boy whom the Queen claimed as her son in one of her 
 rambling statements to Lady Douglas. The " delicate investiga- 
 tion" of 1806, conducted by Lords Grenville, Erskine, Spencer, 
 and Ellenborough, entirely disproved the statement.
 
 MARCH 18, 1820.] THE METHUSALEMS. 97 
 
 Deptford glazier's son. They say, too, she once had 
 an interview with Hunt, and that he boasts of a 
 paper she gave him, the suppression of which will 
 ensure his pardon should he be found guilty on his 
 approaching prosecution. Such are the on dits 
 which circulate. 
 
 There is some figure dressed up to play butler in 
 Harley Street, at the banquets, like the Dukes of 
 Aquitaine and Normandy who walk in our coronations, 
 so I suppose poor old Smith l is totally Jwrs de combat. 
 Mr. Sloane has probably read that odd book, " Fuller's 
 Worthies," who, speaking of the dismissal of ancient 
 domestics, quaintly observes, " It is not meet you should 
 throw away their bones when you have sucked the 
 marrow out of them." 
 
 The Mother Bankes affects not to have manoeuvred 
 her son's match with the Chancellor's daughter. 
 
 Heavens ! what a volume I have written ! God bless 
 you great and small ! 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Satiirday, March i8t/i, 1820. 
 YOUR epistles, my dear Lady Gertrude, are always 
 delightful, but the last afforded me that immortal 
 laughter, which Homer says belongs only to the gods, 
 at the result of my manoeuvres upon the Methusalems. 
 The dear old souls have the octogenarian vanity to 
 conclude that he who is desirous of escaping from their 
 prosings is a melancholy, morbid hermit lost to all the 
 
 1 Mr. Sloane's butler.
 
 98 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. in. 
 
 delights of society. Considering to whom my excuses 
 were made, I anticipated such a conclusion, knew how 
 it would be exaggerated, and how trumpeted to " all 
 people that on earth do dwell," with the usual preface, 
 " I'll tell you a very remarkable thing ; Jekyll has abjured 
 the world." 
 
 But, old as I am, I am not old enough yet for such 
 a circle, and I began to discover that they began to 
 consider I must constantly fill a niche in their cata- 
 comb once or twice a week, and undergo the screech of 
 Glastonbury and the torpidity of Grenville. Antrobus, 
 Sir A. Clarke, the Dutch ambassador Lilyveld, now and 
 then play the part of Don Juan at Lord Malmesbury's 
 by feasting with a statue. 
 
 The evidence against the supposed traitors 1 is as yet 
 secret, so we cannot judge how far it will support the 
 charge of high treason for which eight or more are 
 committed. If the project was to assassinate the whole 
 Cabinet it was well imagined, as time for forms of new 
 appointments would have created a delay which would 
 have left the Empire without any Government to con- 
 trol the anarchy of the crisis. It is said that had the 
 plan succeeded, the heads were to have been paraded, 
 and, with the support of all who are destitute and ready 
 for any change, London to be fired in various quarters. 
 We are told, too, our menial servants are all secretly 
 radical, and that such an explosion has been intimated 
 to the Ministry for several months. As the organs of 
 authority must have been paralysed by such an event 
 1 The Cato Street conspirators.
 
 MARCH 18, 1820.] BEER VERSUS WHISKY. 99 
 
 as is supposed, military law must have governed solely, 
 if the military, as in France, were not disaffected. I know 
 nothing but from talk. Sturgeon Brawn knows more, 
 as he examined the prisoners. No wonder he wags his 
 chin gravely, as he would have been pickled with his 
 namesakes. 
 
 A party of four dined with the Duke of York at old 
 Coutts', two days ago. He said the dear little Duchess 
 was so debilitated by illness and bloodletting that she 
 could not walk five paces. Erskine made his pilgrimage 
 to Scotland in a Leith smack, I thought from economy ; 
 but it seems his doctors advised lying in bed for a week, 
 so he chose a vessel and a cheap voyage to comply with 
 the prescription. 
 
 The Queen of Great Britain is going to Rome, which 
 puts all the English ladies there in a pucker how to deal 
 with her. 
 
 An English and Irish cobbler sate on the parapet 
 of a quay on the Liffey at Dublin, each nearly drunk, 
 and boasting the comparative excellence of beer and 
 whisky. " Porter," said the former, " is meat drink and 
 clothing to a man ? " and at the same moment 
 accidentally tipped over into the river. "Yes," said 
 Pat, " and now you may say washing and lodging 
 too." 
 
 Somebody asked old Barrington how long he had 
 been in town. He said fifteen years next August. 
 I shall have left London only six months during five 
 years. I stayed here from March till the August of 1816, 
 a period of seventeen months, and in each ensuing year
 
 IOO MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. in. 
 
 was absent only six weeks. This, on reflection, is an 
 odd state of things. 
 
 Stafford in the dumps, and the Morning Chronicle 
 exulting on the defeat of rats and Highland oppressors, 
 but with many civilities to Lord Gower for character 
 and amiability. Think of Mr. Sloane paying them a 
 visit of condolence tastefully imagined. Thieves, say 
 the papers, have robbed Sir A. Macdonald's house of 
 plate and valuables, the latter probably including one 
 thousand and one long stories. 
 
 An old usher has left Westminster after forty-nine 
 years' slavery. Joseph, with about forty of his other 
 pupils still left at school, have subscribed for, and 
 inscribed a piece of plate to him a pleasing trait of 
 feeling and gratitude in boys. I once had a friend 
 who was decidedly of opinion all men should be knocked 
 on the head at sixty. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, April 2ot/i, 1820. 
 
 THE dangerous state of Dickinson's 1 nice boy 
 really distresses me. The conduct at Harrow in de- 
 taining him so long under such alarming symptoms 
 was unpardonable. Mr. Sloane is apt to pass the 
 sentence of death, but he says Baillie has slender 
 hopes. 
 
 I am very uncomfortable also on account of the dear 
 little Duchess of York. Incessant bloodletting and that 
 
 1 William Dickinson, author of " History of Southwell," and 
 " History and Antiquities of Newark." He was a police magis- 
 trate, and died in 1822.
 
 APR. 20. 1820.] THE KING'S HEALTH. IOI 
 
 terrible foxglove have so debilitated her puny frame 
 that she cannot walk five paces. Yet the Duke does 
 not appear to think there is immediate danger ; for 
 my part, I fear the worst. 
 
 The Queen's intended invasion of us keeps all the 
 gossips at work. They invented a mission of Lauder- 
 dale to her at Brussels by the King's command. 
 
 You will be in full time for the Metropolis on the 
 roth May, as the elections have extinguished all 
 festivity for the last two months, and parliaments and 
 coronations will keep people in town to a very late 
 period. It is not settled whether the characters of the 
 Dukes of Aquitaine and Normandy are to be sustained 
 in the procession by Sir John Coxe Hippisley, 1 Michael 
 Angelo Taylor, or Sir Stephen Claudius Hunter. 
 
 The King is well and looks well, but the Duke of 
 Gloucester told me yesterday he cannot eat plain meat, 
 and lives on Mulligatawny soup and combustibles, 
 which, independent of the good sense of my informant, 
 I have reason to disbelieve. 
 
 Poor old Coutts' two broken ribs are most success- 
 fully spliced ; so his " third rib " informed me by a note 
 yesterday. It seems to me that none but young people 
 die. Yet Lilyveld has a sore foot, and Mr. Sloane 
 describes Hatsell's legs to be wonderfully thinner than 
 they ought to be ; which is generally the case with a 
 man's last legs. 
 
 1 The able lawyer, diplomatist, and politician. He was a 
 strong supporter of Catholic Emancipation in Parliament, and 
 died in 1825.
 
 IO2 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH.III. 
 
 Into the " Monastery " I could not get twenty pages. 
 I think the fairy machinery of it is injudicious ; and 
 I grow tired of abbots, cowls, shrines, and chivalry. 
 
 The gallant Blessington 1 has bought Heathcote's 
 house. He gave us a banquet last week composed of 
 beaux esprits. Miladi is a beauty ; leaves her card at 
 my door in a morning ; keeps an album, and desires 
 all her literary friends to write in it to perpetuate their 
 autographs. I am, of course, invited to immortalise 
 myself in the record. There is no end of folly in this 
 world, and for fear you should say there is no end of 
 foolish letters I will conclude this ; but not in the 
 manner Sir A. Macdonald concludes a long story, by 
 giving you another in five minutes afterwards. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Sunday, October %tk, 1820. 
 
 SUCH is the unfortunate unpopularity of Carlton 
 House, the ennui of the Lords, and the clamour of 
 Radicalism, that, as few things ever surprise me, I should 
 not be astonished if the whole job ' 2 was abandoned ; and 
 as the evil either way must be encountered, it hardly 
 signifies which way it terminates. As a lawyer, I cannot 
 feel that Brougham's speech or his evidence as yet has 
 overset the case against him ; but the present crisis 
 of disaffection, and something probably of pusillanimity 
 in both Houses of Parliament, are much in his favour. 
 
 1 Charles Gardiner, first Earl. His wife, the celebrated Lady 
 Blessington, was a widow, Mrs. Farmer, whose maiden name 
 was Power. 
 
 2 The proceedings against Q ueen Caroline.
 
 OCT. 17, 1820.] THE QUEEN'S TRIAL. 103 
 
 Lady C. Lindsay seems as prolific in " Non mi 
 recordos " as Majocchi. 1 
 
 William called on me the day after he came to town, 
 and we paid a morning visit to Lady Grantham. She 
 complained of His Majesty's prosing the whole evening 
 on deck to the ladies the day they dined on board the 
 yacht, and that they shivered with cold. 
 
 ON DUTY AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS, 
 October \*]th, 1820. 
 
 ON Sunday last I dined and slept at Holland House 
 Miladi from repletion en petite sante as usual. We 
 had Brougham and Denman, and, of course, their Royal 
 and persecuted client was the eternal topic. Lord 
 Holland breakfasted with them in his first sleep on 
 Monday, and off they bundled to the House of Lords 
 together. 
 
 Brougham showed me two gold crosses worn by 
 Bergami 2 and the other knights of the Holy Sepulchre 
 and St. Caroline, of which I send you exact and 
 beautiful representations. They are of the size drawn. 
 That of St. Caroline has round the centre piece in a 
 circle the motto Honi soit qui mal y pense. The 
 centre and the four pieces forming the cross are made 
 of red cornelian. You see they are good and cheap. 
 
 1 An Italian witness at the trial of Queen Caroline. " Non mi 
 ricordo " was so frequent an answer of Majocchi and his country- 
 men, that it passed into a cant phrase of the day. Lady C. 
 Lindsay was a witness for the defence. 
 
 - The Queen's Italian courier, who was named as co-respondent 
 in the Divorce Clause of the Bill.
 
 104 MR - JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH.III. 
 
 It is whimsical to be behind the scenes of rival 
 theatres. On Friday I dined with a circle of the 
 Queen's foes. 
 
 To corroborate your idea of her insanity, one man 
 said that he met her at some German Court, where 
 a ball was given. I think it was Baden. On her 
 appearing depressed and declining to dance, the Arch- 
 duchess inquired if it was an amusement she disliked. 
 She said no ; but that she preferred dancing alone. 
 She was accordingly accommodated with a private 
 room and two fiddlers, where she danced for two hours, 
 and then sank down, exhausted with fatigue and per- 
 spiration. To cool herself, she scooped out the moiety 
 of a melon, and persisted in wearing it as a cap the 
 rest of the evening. This latter species of toilette is 
 also recorded in a trumpery book called " The Memoirs 
 of Bergami." 
 
 Copley, the Solicitor-General, who had been much 
 attacked for quitting his old political friends, in a cross- 
 examination on Saturday, unfortunately brought out 
 from the witness the name of a Milanese banker, Signor 
 Ratti. You may imagine this has been a fertile source 
 of epigrams. 
 
 The boys and I had Coutts' box last night. At 
 all the revolutionary passages in the play of Virginius 
 continual plaudits, particularly at one which glanced 
 at subornation of perjury. The manager is democratic 
 enough to announce a revival of Cymbeline to-morrow, 
 where an Italian witness forges false evidence against 
 a King of England's daughter. These are evil signs of
 
 OCT. 24, 31, 1820.] THE QUEEN'S TRIAL. 105 
 
 the times we have to encounter, and remind me of the 
 instrumentality of the French theatre in their Revolution. 
 God bless you, my dear Lady Gertrude ! You live 
 in peaceful shades, and read only the halcyon prospects 
 of the Courier, and it is cruel in me to disturb your 
 serenity. 
 
 Tuesday, October 242%, 1820. 
 
 TOPICS are so scarce that I write by snatches, and 
 this will -rather be a journal than a letter. 
 
 Yesterday I dined with the Duke of York, with Lords 
 Lauderdale, Bathurst, and Huntly. W. Howard would 
 have learned a very different story from the conversation 
 there as to the result of this proceeding. By the way, 
 it strikes me as a very awkward defect in the Queen's 
 defence, that having in London at least five or six 
 witnesses who were in the polacca, Brougham has not 
 ventured to call them. I mean Oldi, Austin, etc., for 
 Howman and Flyn did him mischief. 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi's " Retrospection," 2 vols., 4to, is a plea- 
 sant book for young people. It embraces the history 
 of eighteen centuries in a lively style, though somewhat 
 affected. 
 
 Hatsell is buried to-day with his brother benchers 
 in the Temple Church. I hear nothing of his will. He 
 died of water in the chest ; they send me a mourning ring. 
 
 I have not a syllable more for you. So adieu. 
 
 Friday, October $ist, 1820. 
 
 POOR old Hatsell had not completed his eighty- 
 seventh year, so died with less punctuality than he
 
 106 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. m. 
 
 lived. He left 30,000 and all his goods and chattels 
 to La Signora Bartona, and 5,000 additionally to the 
 bride, Addingtona ; so that with 40,000 settled on his 
 nephew, the lunatic, and the gifts to his nieces, he must 
 have been possessed of more than 100,000. 
 
 Yesterday I dined with the gallant Yarmouth, 
 fourteen at table, and so mixed of Queenites and Anti- 
 Queenites, that for the first time in my experience the 
 name of that immaculate Princess was not even alluded 
 to the whole day. It outdid Lord Holland's wish to 
 live in Covent Garden, where the witnesses swore they 
 never talked of her. It whimsically happened that 
 the guests grouped themselves like partisans. On 
 Yarmouth's left sate the Duke of York, Lauderdale, 
 myself, Armstrong, Seymour, and Sir H. Turner, the 
 King's equerry. On his right Duke of Argyll, Lords 
 Foley, Alvanley, Erskine, Gwydir, and some others 
 I forget, but of the same description ; so we should have 
 been beat on a division. On my way to dinner I met 
 the Queen's processions, returning with banners and 
 torches, to the no small alarm of my Tory nags, who 
 I thought endangered my neck. They huzzaed at 
 Carlton House, which the Radicals christen " Nero's 
 Hotel." 
 
 The Boehms cannot liken my poor late Royal Master 
 to a cruel Emperor. Since their misfortunes he has 
 redoubled his kindness to them. They have visited the 
 Windsor Cottage, and received such protection that 
 they have taken a house at Brighton for the winter 
 months.
 
 NOV. i, 1820.] PARTY FEELING. IO? 
 
 The Solicitor-General yesterday commented on 
 Denman's " Sin no more " exactly in the way that your 
 observation anticipated. Party runs so high that I keep 
 my opinion to myself ; but, as a lawyer and a man, am 
 satisfied that the evidence has proved the case. But 
 such is the clamour out of doors by those " who " (as 
 the Attorney-General said) " have the Queen in their 
 mouths and revolution in their hearts," and such the 
 attack within doors by those who only want to be 
 ministers, that unless Government has stronger nerves 
 than I suspect, some middle temporising course will be 
 adopted. 
 
 Next week my labours re-commence, and I shall 
 cease to be an idle gentleman tormenting you with the 
 fruits of my leisure. As Dogberry says, " For mine own 
 part, if I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in 
 my heart to bestow it all on your ladyship." 
 
 Wednesday, November \st, 1820. 
 
 LORD ORFORD 1 and Mr. Sloane dined with me 
 yesterday. Mr. Sloane leaves town on Friday next, 
 visits Mrs. D'Oyly again, and reaches Paultons on 
 Sunday next. He said he had called on Mrs. Leigh. 
 I told him that Colonel Leigh had given the little folks 
 at Paultons, for their amusement, a monkey of the 
 Duchess of York's. Mr. Sloane's countenance imme- 
 diately fell with as much dismay as if I had told him 
 
 1 The first Earl of the third creation. His father, Lord Walpole 
 of Wolterton, was first cousin to Horace Walpole, whom he 
 succeeded in the barony of Walpole in 1797. He was created 
 Earl of Orford in 1806.
 
 108 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. in. 
 
 Paultons was burnt. An hour after he suddenly ex- 
 claimed, " I cannot help thinking about this monkey." 
 An hour after that he again said, " I cannot help 
 thinking of this cursed monkey." As he departed, I 
 asked him whether he had anything to say to you, as 
 I should write to-day. He replied, " Nothing but this ; 
 that it is my express direction that Lady G. should 
 prevent the arrival of this monkey." 
 
 My old friend Harry Howard, the Duke of N.'s 
 brother, I hear has been struck with apoplexy and 
 palsy. Denman, 1 you see, castigated that sage person- 
 age of Clarence, who, with his accustomed wisdom, had 
 detailed fifty anecdotes of the Queen's profligacy in the 
 common mess-room of the officers on guard last week, 
 when he graciously partook of their dinner. 
 
 Alvanley has all sorts of illness, and looks like what 
 
 1 In his speech closing the defence of Queen Caroline, 
 speaking of the Duke of Clarence's conversations respecting 
 the Queen, Denman said : "I would fain say, my lords, that it 
 is utterly impossible that this can be true, but I cannot say it, 
 because the fact stares me in the face. I read it in the public 
 papers ; and had I not known of its existence in the dignity of 
 human nature, I should have held it impossible that any one with 
 the heart of a man, or with the honour of a peer, should so debase 
 his heart and degrade his honour. I would charge him as a 
 judge, I would impeach him as a judge ; and if it were possible 
 for one of the blood royal to descend to a course so disgraceful, 
 I should fearlessly assert that it was far more just that such 
 conduct should deprive him of the right of his succession, than 
 that all the facts alleged against Her Majesty, even if true to the 
 letter of the charge, should warrant your lordships in passing 
 this bill of degradation and divorce." The reporter adds, "Mr. 
 Denman, during this part of his address, looked steadfastly at the 
 part of the gallery in which the Duke of Clarence was seated."
 
 DEC. 5, 1820.] LORD ALVANLEY'S CHAMPAGNE. 109 
 
 is elegantly styled " a Devil new hunted." But it does 
 not force him to a regimen, and he has a singular mode 
 of cooking his champagne by shaking the bottle 
 vehemently with both hands till it seems to be a body 
 of froth. As it appears to be his only medicine, I 
 inquired if this process was by the direction of his 
 apothecary, having read such advice on the label of a 
 decoction, and which George Colman has immortalised 
 in his poetical vagaries 
 
 "This bottle, first shaken, 
 The draught to be taken." 
 
 God bless you and yours is our triple wish. 
 
 P.S. It is believed that the Attorney-General sent a 
 serious letter to Denman on an expression he used. 
 Denman made a very gentlemanlike explanation, and 
 the matter ended without the hostility of a meeting. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, December $th, 1820. 
 
 LONDON is again a blank, and I only scribble now 
 to show you I am alive, though perhaps the scrawl may 
 end without exhibiting one symptom of animation. 
 
 "The mob-led Queen," as Hamlet's player calls 
 Hecuba, made but a sorry thing of St. Paul's, 1 as the 
 congregation consisted of constables only, and Bergami 
 was not seated in the Whispering Gallery. Sir Robert 
 Wilson (like Prince Prettyman in the rehearsal) com- 
 manded "an army in disguise at Knightsbridge," but 
 
 1 Queen Caroline went to the Cathedral to return thanks for her 
 escape from " the conspiracy against her life and honour."
 
 IIO MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. in. 
 
 Falstaff's regiment eclipsed it. Upon the whole, the 
 day ended without effect or advantage to any but the 
 pickpockets ; and I should think even an alderman may 
 have taste enough not to repeat the mummery. 
 
 The Duke of York, it is said, has given the elephant 
 of the poor Duchess' menagerie to Exeter 'change. 
 I wish I had asked it for Freddy, as its known sagacity 
 deserves a philosophical title. The officers on guard 
 showed Edward not the beasts, but the armoury of 
 the Tower on his last holiday ; and he reports the 
 incredible total, as they told him, of eight hundred 
 thousand muskets stored now in an additional building. 
 
 No wonder Sturgeon Brawn's jaw wags mysteriously. 
 Gossip says the Queen has old billets doux of Canning's 
 quizzing her husband. 
 
 The old King in his fits used to say he could bring 
 any dead people to converse with him except those who 
 had died under Baillie's 1 care, for that the doctor always 
 dissected them into so many morsels that they had not 
 a leg to walk to Windsor with. 
 
 [1820.] 
 
 THE feudal towers of Belvoir ought to possess so 
 many bards and minstrels of their own, that you are 
 very unconscionable in expecting verses out of the 
 Court of Chancery. If every master in it had a muse 
 for his mistress I would employ mine in an elegy on 
 your poor old inamorato, Sir C. Bunbury. Though with 
 
 1 Dr. Matthew Baillie, the famous morbid anatomist, and 
 George III.'s Physician-Extraordinary. He was brother to 
 Joanna Baillie, the poetess.
 
 i820.] BANKRUPTCY OF HOWARD AND GIBBS. Ill 
 
 no disease that threatens life, he is reduced to a state of 
 total apathy and stupor, from debility never leaves his 
 bed, and the other day they found loose in his pocket 
 draughts on bankers, dated last June, to a considerable 
 amount, one among them of the Duke of Rutland's in 
 payment for a horse. 
 
 The Duke of Marlborough's affairs are in my office, 
 and on Monday last I sanctioned an agreement of the 
 creditors with the Queen for the purchase of the 
 remaining term in Marlborough House. She is to 
 pay .28,000. Prince Leopold has four years to come 
 in it, and would have bought the remainder at 25,000, 
 but she outbid him. If he does not surrender his lease 
 to her I do not see how it answers her Pall Mall inten- 
 tions. It is said that three days before it came under 
 my consideration she bought the lease of the Duke 
 of Cambridge's house. Query, whence now comes the 
 money ? 
 
 The butler, I hear, tumbled down in a fit at Cashio- 
 bury on its being said by somebody at table that 
 Howard and Gibbs, the moneylenders, were become 
 bankrupts. These worthy gentlemen used to fleece 
 rich old servants by dazzling them with 50 per cent, 
 and now Alvanley has carried the long-hoarded board 
 wages to Paris. 
 
 I dined with Peel last week, and saw his beautiful 
 wife. Henry Baring tells him he may kill four thousand 
 pheasants per annum at Lulworth Castle. I congratu- 
 lated him upon having no neighbours but those he has 
 a right to shoot.
 
 112 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. m. 
 
 Finding that accomplished artist Master Edward with 
 his flute over a music book price sixpence, I ventured 
 to inquire who composed such cheap jigs for him, and 
 was answered with much importance and indignation, 
 " Mozart." 
 
 It is said Harvey Aston stole two volumes of the 
 " Harleian Miscellany." His father fought twice at the 
 Cape of Good Hope, and was finally shot through the 
 head. Captain O' Byrne, an Irishman we then had 
 in London, said he never could make out whether his 
 poor friend Harvey Aston was killed in the first or the 
 second duel. 
 
 The late Mr. George Hardinge, a man of talents, was 
 in Parliament, but grievously embarrassed by debts. 
 Triphook, a bookseller, sent his bill enclosed in a letter 
 directed "To the Honourable G. Hardinge, or, if he 
 should be dead, to his executors." 
 
 The letter ran thus : 
 
 " Having repeatedly sent the enclosed bill to Mr. 
 Hardinge, of which no notice has been taken, I fear 
 Mr. Hardiuge may be dead. If that melancholy cir- 
 cumstance should be true, I beg you, gentlemen, as 
 his executors will discharge it." 
 
 George wrote the following answer : 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Triphook, what is feared by you, 
 The melancholy circumstance is true. 
 True I am dead, and, more afflicting still, 
 My legal ashes cannot pay your bill. 
 For oh ! to name it I am broken-hearted, 
 This transient life, insolvent I departed.
 
 "WHAT'S A BISHOP, MAMMA?" 113 
 
 And so for you there's not a single farthing. 
 For my Executors and self, 
 
 " GEORGE HARDINGE. 
 
 " P.S. You'll pay the postage which these lines will cost, 
 The dead their franking privilege have lost." 
 
 N.B. Triphook was so amused by George's answer 
 that he never dunned him again. 
 
 After the Bishop of London's declaration in the 
 Queen's trial that " a King can neither think nor do 
 wrong," this answer was given to a child who asked, 
 " What's a Bishop, Mamma ? " 
 
 " A Bishop's a thing 
 
 That belongs to a King, 
 And that thinks the best way of succeeding 
 
 Is to rail till he's hoarse 
 
 At a Clause for Divorce, 
 And then vote for that clause on third reading. 
 
 " A Bishop's a thing 
 
 So attached to a King, 
 Who ' by Law ' we know cannot act wrongly, 
 
 That by one Bishop's rule 
 
 A King can't be a fool, 
 Which is thinking a little too strongly. 
 
 " When good Doctor Hooley ' 
 
 Reflects on this coolly 
 Such nonsense he'll never more dish up ; 
 
 For by stating a rule 
 
 'That no King is a fool,' 
 He decrees the reverse of a Bishop." 
 
 1 William Howley, Bishop of London, afterwards Archbishop 
 of Canterbury. He was generally opposed to the popular side of 
 the great questions with which he had to deal. He led the 
 opposition to the Catholic Relief Bill in the House of Lords, and 
 strenuously opposed the Reform Bill of 1832, the Jewish Civil 
 Disabilities Relief, and Lord J. Russell's Education scheme. He 
 died, aged 84, in 1848. 
 
 8
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY 
 (Continued}. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Tuesday, July 2$th, 1821. 
 
 IN the midst of our insanities I snatch the first 
 lucid interval to scribble to you. The town has been 
 mad these ten days, and we are to wear our strait 
 waistcoats at levees, dinners, balls, and drawing-rooms 
 for a week to come. 
 
 It has been said " that everything went off properly 
 at the Coronation, the Queen not excepted." 
 
 The day before it Yarmouth gave us an aquatic /?& 
 at Richmond in " old Q.'s " uninhabited villa ; I enclose 
 his lithographic bulletin. Mr. Sloane will tell you how 
 the Queen scoffed at our Royal Duke and Royal 
 Standard with her arms akimbo in defiance as we passed 
 Brandenburg House, 1 so early in the day had noyeau 
 inspired her with heroism. 
 
 Yesterday I went down with the aforesaid gallant 
 Yarmouth to a Fete Chainpetre at Lady Londonderry's 
 in Kent, where we had the usual British fate of a 
 rainy day, and waltzes went off swimmingly. I saw 
 the Morpeths, pere, mere, and fils. 
 
 1 At Hammersmith ; it stood on the right-hand side of the 
 Fulham Road, and had gardens running down to the river. 
 
 114
 
 JULY24, 1821.] GOSSIP. 115 
 
 Old Hertford has resigned. 1 I will bet the Marquis of 
 Wellesley as his successor. I think Cholmondcley will 
 soon be off, and then who knows but we may have the 
 Lord of Conynghanit Sturgeon Brawn's head in his 
 Privy Counsellor's ruff reminded me of the dish Herod's 
 daughter got by her dancing. 
 
 Ci devant Sir W. Scott 2 in the costume of the Barony 
 of Stowell was a fac- or rather a fat-simile of Falstaff. 
 
 Has Mr. Sloane given you the slander on Trentham ? 
 They say the Queen has taken a house at Pesaro. The 
 King persists in his voyage from Brighton to Dublin, 
 and Hanover is not given up. He looked like one 
 expiring when he returned from the Abbey to the Hall, 
 but has rallied. 
 
 Lady Morgan's " Italy " a contemptible specimen of 
 book-making. 
 
 Alas ! alas ! we shall not see Paultons for ages. By 
 Easter falling so late the Chancellor will sit a terrible 
 time. I shall have the good fortune to escape from him 
 as early as the 2oth August. Last year I left him on the 
 9th. I deplore poor Edward, who will expend so much 
 of his holidays in town, and even / shall begin to envy 
 you the shade of green trees. 
 
 P.S. Among other incroyables yesterday I saw at 
 Lady Londonderry's three kangaroos, a tiger, a Peruvian 
 llama, an Arctic dog, and five ostriches, which had been 
 stripped of their tails by the Coronation. 
 
 1 The Lord Chamberlain. He was succeeded by the Duke of 
 Montrose. * Brother of Lord Chancellor Eldon.
 
 Il6 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. iv. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, August jth, 1821. 
 
 Under the necessary limitations of space and number 
 Elliston has achieved a theatrical miracle in the Corona- 
 tion at Drury Lane. The spectator almost sees the real 
 spectacle, and Elliston contrives to personate the King 
 like a portrait. 
 
 At the Drawing-Room Mrs. Lee and I shook hands 
 for a moment. It was interesting to see His Majesty 
 successively and tenderly salute the left cheeks of Ladies 
 Hertford, Conyngham, and Jersey. The latter has 
 made the amende honorable, and is everywhere gallanted 
 by that withered inamorato the Duke of Wellington. 
 We dined at Lord Gwydir's t'other day with the Duke 
 of York, and the plateau was garnished with the superb 
 perquisites of the Coronation in gilt plate, of very 
 classical execution and form. 
 
 Your bulletin of Castle Howard is excellent. What 
 you say of poor Lady Cawdor is affecting ; her whole 
 life has been an example, and God Almighty wrote a 
 legible hand when He made her like an angel. 
 
 Howard's " Paestum " * is printed in the Gentleman s 
 Magazine of this month. Parry's " North Pole " is a 
 dull sea journal. Hughes' " Voyage through Greece 
 and Albania," 2 vols., 2 4to, very interesting too full 
 perhaps of Greek criticism for general readers ; but his 
 long residence at Janina has enabled him to give a 
 
 1 The Newdigate Prize Poem, by the Hon. G. W. F. Howard. 
 
 3 "Travels in Sicily, Greece, and Albania," by the Rev. T. S. 
 Hughes, the author of the continuation of Hume and Smollett's 
 " History of England."
 
 AUG. 7, 1821.] LADY CONYNGHAM AND THE KING. 1 1/ 
 
 more minute history of the extraordinary AH Pacha 
 than even Dr. Holland's. 
 
 An Opposition member has just now exultingly told 
 me Lady Conyngham means to rout out the whole 
 Ministry and bring his friends in. He added that she 
 went with the King from the Windsor Cottage to visit 
 Lady Harcourt, who was not at home. The King said 
 to the porter, " Tell Lady Harcourt that I called, and 
 give my love to her." 
 
 The porter, being a person of accuracy, entered in his 
 visiting-book 
 
 " The King and his love." 
 
 A Bologna sausage has the discredit of the Queen's 
 indigestion, but the bulletin of to-day prognosticates the 
 defeat of this Italian assassin, who I suppose was insti- 
 gated by the Milan Commission. 1 
 
 P.S. Lady Jersey loud and furious on behalf of the 
 Duke and the Tory Ministers. 
 
 I hear S. Bourne is confined at Testwood by the 
 gout, and that he wants to sell his London house. 
 Mrs. Burn, an excellent old lady whom I used to meet 
 at the late Archbishop of York's, and who lived next 
 door but one to me, died this morning of injury from 
 her fireside yesterday. Female drapery gives frequent 
 employ to the coroner, and her very name was 
 inauspicious. They apply flour to the wounds in these 
 cases. 
 
 1 A secret commission sent to Italy to collect evidence against 
 Queen Caroline.
 
 Il8 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. iv. 
 
 This reminds me of the conflagration of Sal Petre. 
 I called yesterday on the Lady mother in vain, as they 
 seemed to be repairing her house. However inattentive 
 I was before Christmas, this is the third card I have 
 left. So I sigh (like the dying Lovelace), " Let this 
 expiate." Ellis says the King said lately to the Duke 
 of Devonshire at Windsor, " Well, I suppose there are 
 to be no more Kings, Dukes, or Knights of the Garter ; 
 I hope at least they will permit me to be Prince of 
 Wales." 
 
 Mrs. Sheridan has written a tragical novel, " Car- 
 well." 
 
 Palmerston makes good speeches, but the people 
 want bread, and don't care about Portugal. Huskis- 
 son got damaged, and Althorp deserted the debate, 
 though now named as the leader of a large Opposition 
 party. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, November 22 nd, 1821. 
 
 IT is said the gallant Sir Coxley Hips of Quarantotte 
 Cottage, Cowes, lost a large sum by the lead mine, the 
 ruin of which led Moore the counsel to abscond, after 
 involving Lord Grosvenor. 
 
 The last John Bull quizzes Alderman Claud [Hunter]. 
 It seems the fool in a speech at some Bible Meeting 
 said he never had read that valuable book attentively 
 till he was Lord Mayor. Old Mrs. Heywood told the 
 Duke of Gloucester lately at Southampton she hoped 
 His Royal Highness would marry, and then asked how 
 the good old King did ?
 
 NOV. 22, 1 82 1.] POLITICAL RUMOURS. 119 
 
 Old Rose Fuller, a relation of Mr. Sloane, is dead 
 leaving 100,000, which he has divided between his two 
 illegitimate children. 
 
 The King will probably make a long stay at Brighton 
 as usual, much to the annoyance of his Ministers, who 
 always grumble at it. 
 
 At Brighton resides Mustapha the Turk, who bathes 
 gouty gentlemen in the Mahometan, and shampoos 
 them in the Indian style. A propos of Oriental matters, 
 why is one's father in a sack like a town in Arabia? 
 Because he is a Bag-dad. This is Westminster wit, 
 and perhaps not of the newest. 
 
 Lady Grantham re-established. London still dreary 
 enough ; but I have dinners with judges and lawyers 
 nay, yesterday with the divine bit of blue, Lady 
 Blessington and her comical Earl. I made love, and 
 Mathews 1 was invited to make faces. 
 
 A new ballet among Ministers is always talked of 
 at this time of year, and if you re-pass early through 
 London it is not yet impossible but you may be 
 appointed Master of the Horse. Canning is said not 
 to display King Richard's "wonted alacrity of spirit," 
 and desired, I hear, to dine last week at Holland House. 
 But it is not of much importance who compose a 
 Cabinet, for an Essex squire has just told me the 
 farmers there are throwing up their leases and ready 
 for revolution. 
 
 1 Charles Mathews the elder. He was at this time giving 
 entertainments founded on his experiences in France, Italy, and 
 the United States.
 
 120 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. iv. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, December 2$t/t, 1821. 
 
 I MADE Mr. Sloane buy Lady Hervey's * Letters just 
 published, as she speaks much of Mr. Hans Stanley, 
 Paultons, and the vivacity and accomplishments of the 
 two young Miss Stanleys, whom she meets at Lord 
 Cadogan's, before they espoused Mr. Welbore Ellis and 
 Mr. D'Oyly. " Rome in the Nineteenth Century," 
 3 vols. of letters said to be by a lady, is a pretty book, 
 lively and full of information, just come out, and the 
 Journal as recent as 1818. I do not hear any praise 
 of Byron's new work. 2 
 
 London is never without the society of lawyers, and 
 at this season learned hospitality abounds. I do not 
 think of quitting it for Bowood, though under promise ; 
 and we shall hardly be more excursive than to Lord 
 Clifden's at Roehampton, who, as some birds sing, 
 may soon be your Ladyship's relation by his son's 
 manoeuvres 
 
 George Colman tells me an Irish strolling actor, 
 about to play Othello in a barn, peeped through a slit 
 in the curtain, and could count only eight persons 
 composing the audience, to whom he exclaimed : " I 
 will be hanged if I black my face for eight people. I 
 will play white to-night." 
 
 Dickinson wrote to me from Cheltenham that the 
 Antinous, George Isted offered his person in marriage 
 
 1 Mary Lepel, the wife of John, Lord Hervey, author of the 
 famous " Memoirs of the Reign of George II." 
 
 3 Marino Faliero, Sardanapalus, The Two Foscari, and "Don 
 Juan" Cantos III., IV., and V., were all published in 1821.
 
 JAN. 14, 1822.] GEORGE ISTED'S PROPOSAL. 121 
 
 two years ago to one of Lord Arden's sisters. She 
 broke her own corsets and her lover's heart with peals 
 of laughter. It was unfeeling in him never to think 
 of proposing through Mr. Sloane to Philly, as Poet 
 Sotheby might have shone in an " Epithalamium," 
 and you would have been kind enough to choose her 
 lace veil and milk-white robes for her sacrifice. 
 
 My sleep has been broken for many nights with 
 doubts whether Philly will hoard Mrs. D'Oyly's legacy 
 for the gentleman's children, whom Mr. Sloane styles 
 " Lannoy," or whether to regale Birdy. She will 
 abandon conger eel, and substitute some more relishing 
 and costly fish. 
 
 P.S. Dent, the banker, tells me the Jerseys will in 
 time be richer than ever. Jersey is accursedly bored 
 with his Paris exile. What a season ! Roses blowing 
 in my room ! 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Monday, January i^th, 1822. 
 
 BY the death of old Rose Fuller, William and Mr. 
 Bond became the surviving trustees of my marriage 
 settlement, and accordingly the bank stopped the pay- 
 ment of my dividends at Christmas till fresh powers 
 were executed by them. I have waited till the King's 
 licence appeared in the Gazette for Mr. Sloane and his 
 heirs to take the name of Stanley, that William might 
 be properly named in the new instruments. 
 
 Lord Clifden is going to Lord Spencer's at Althorpe, 
 and fears, from something George said, the Morpeths
 
 122 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. iv. 
 
 might come to town in his absence, though it will be 
 short. 
 
 The Staffords, I hear, are coming, perhaps to see after 
 Buckingham and Chandos, or whether there be any 
 other stray dukedom to be picked up. 
 
 I don't admire the " Pirate." I think it too long, full 
 of improbability, and of plagiarism from former cha- 
 racters in the other novels of the author. 
 
 Never did the Opera present such a bill of fare of 
 singers and dancers, though all have not yet arrived. 
 There is a machine at Covent Garden of Cleopatra's 
 Galley most wonderfully constructed. The undulation 
 of the artificial water incredible. To correspond with 
 the vicious taste of the public, the managers now get up 
 one of Shakespeare's worst dramas, and stick it full of 
 songs and spectacles. Miss Tree's l leg is so beautiful, 
 that were I as rich as old Coutts I also would send 
 her 50. 
 
 By the way, he gave us a dinner to the Duke of York 
 on Thursday last, and it was doubly attentive to His 
 Royal Highness, for he appeared to have been dead for 
 some time. There was every other symptom of it but 
 putrefaction. 
 
 " Memoires du Due de Lauzun," a new French book 
 of lies. Stories of Sir C. and Lady Sarah Bunbury 
 and Lord Carlisle at Paris. I wish you joy of the Duke 
 of Rutland's intended publication. Murray gave Lord 
 Byron two thousand guineas for his Life - when written. 
 
 1 Miss Ellen Tree. She married Charles John Kean in 1842. 
 * The famous "Memoirs of Lord Byron," the MS. of which
 
 FEB. 12, 1822.] BYRON'S MEMOIRS. 123 
 
 Byron gave it to little Moore the poet. Lord Lans- 
 dovvne also gave him 1,000, which he repaid in a 
 month. 
 
 I wish some peer of the realm would give his hand 
 and name to Miss Tree, as it makes her leg sound like 
 a wooden one. 
 
 Now did I begin this letter seriously on a piece of 
 business, and lo ! it ends in a piece of nonsense. 
 
 P.S. London is by no means yet a desert. Lately 
 we had a grand dinner at Lord Blessington's, who has 
 transmogrified Sir T. Heathcote's ground floor into one 
 vast apartment, and bedizened it with black and gold 
 like an enormous coffin. We had the Speaker, Lord 
 Thanet, Rogers, Sir T. Lawrence, and the Duke of 
 Hamilton grumbling at a summons from Paris to attend 
 His Majesty at Edinburgh, as hereditary keeper of 
 Holyrood House. 
 
 Monday, February \2th, 1822. 
 
 IF it were possible to detail in a lady's ear the 
 proceedings of Lord and Lady Erskine in Doctors 
 
 he gave to Moore in Venice. On his return to London Moore 
 offered them to Longmans for two thousand guineas, but they 
 declined the offer. Murray then accepted a similar proposal, 
 subject to the condition, however, that the work should not be 
 published in Lord Byron's lifetime, and that during that period 
 Moore should have a right of re-purchase at the same price. 
 Byron's death in 1824 made the MS. Murray's absolute property; 
 and though he then declined to re-sell it to Moore, on hearing 
 that Lord Byron's representatives desired the Memoirs to be 
 destroyed, he, in the presence of certain selected witnesses, 
 burnt them in his drawing-room fire at 50, Albemarle Street.
 
 124 MR - JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. iv. 
 
 Commons, I know not whether the ridicule or disgust 
 they would excite must be the strongest sensation. 
 Suffice it to say, that both the charge and defence 
 present scenes of the most crapulous character, and that 
 insanity as a motive is the only charitable construction. 
 
 The King, with his usual kindness, has given my poor 
 friend, the widow of General Gwyn, a pension of 400 
 per annum. You know she was a sister of the late 
 Mrs. Bunbury, and equally a favourite of the Duchess 
 of York. 
 
 The sister Muses of painting and music grace my 
 family. I laughed a full hour last night on being told 
 by Joseph that Edward had learned from a schoolfellow 
 to perform on the German flute ! And he produced 
 two books of two hundred popular airs most accurately 
 noted by the aforesaid artist. The instrument had 
 never been introduced at home for fear of horrifying 
 me with the discords of "Rule Britannia." You see 
 Providence does not bestow thick lips in vain, and 
 nothing is more ludicrous than the gravity of Master 
 Edward's features when accomplishing his melodies, 
 of which I insisted on an immediate rehearsal. 
 
 At last Chantrey has applied his cosmetics to your 
 ghost, and you look as white as if you had invited a 
 vampire to supper. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, February 2%th, 1822. 
 You must put up with the gossip of my levee, as 
 they now permit me to hold one (of intimates only) on 
 my return from a daily dowagering in the Parks.
 
 FEB. 28, 1822.] MR. COUTTS' WILL. 125 
 
 Lord Clifden was a few days at Chiswick last week, 
 and delighted with the Morpeths ; no very singular 
 taste. Ellis, I believe, has taken the late Lord Stair's 
 house in Spring Gardens. I remember it in old Lord 
 Malmesbury's time, and it was a terrible tumble-down 
 concern then. My neighbour Ellice, M.P., is within 
 five doors of it, so there will be as much confusion as 
 with your brace of birds at Southampton. 
 
 When Kean played Hamlet last the ghost was seized 
 with such a fit of sneezing that he could not get on 
 with his speech. The audience, who had never before 
 had a specimen of a cold caught in the other world, 
 encored it. 
 
 Old Coutts left all to the widow, not a single legacy 
 to daughter or grandchildren who surrounded his death- 
 bed. They talk of six hundred thousand pounds and 
 half the property of the bank also, which amounts to 
 as much more. So she may have an annual income 
 of sixty thousand. 
 
 Lord Holland tells me Burdett (who was no favourite) 
 desired to see him, and was received. Coutts could 
 no longer articulate, but he took Burdett's hand and 
 kissed it. 
 
 Canning has made an excellent joke on Coke's 
 marriage. I wish it was tellable to a lady. 
 
 Yesterday we had a solemn meeting of Mrs. D'Oyly's 
 executors at my house. Entre nous, the share of each 
 of us will turn out nearly a third more than was 
 expected. 
 
 My recovery has proceeded without interruption, and
 
 126 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. iv. 
 
 as a proof of the horrible life we lead in this good town, 
 I find my general health, from regimen and no wine, 
 better than it has been for years. So that I can say 
 of myself what has been so often said of your Lady- 
 ship for a month together, " I am as well as can be 
 expected." 
 Adieu ! 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, November igt/t, 1822. 
 
 THE Ministry, they say, is changing partners, and that 
 Canning is to be placed somewhere in the new dance. 
 Perhaps, like country bumpkin, alone, in the middle and 
 with his hat on. It is ungrateful if he does not make 
 Sturgeon Brawn Lord Mayor and get him knighted, as 
 the title would be so savoury among the aldermen at 
 Christmas. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Friday, November 2gt/i, 1822. 
 
 WE shall mutually meet our male brats about the 
 same period, and I rejoice to think that at the expiration 
 of the holidays you think London may be no bad 
 remedy for the ennui of Paultons. 
 
 An enemy of Mrs. Coutt's, ci-devant Melon, advertises 
 a libel in John Bull, entitled " Memoirs of Harriet 
 Pumpkin before she married Croesus? and adds a 
 caustic motto from Shakespeare about a will. 
 
 Lord Byron sends me Werner, his new tragedy. 
 He is grown a good boy, and there is none of Cain's 
 wickedness in it. The story, he owns, is taken from 
 one of Miss Lee's " Canterbury Tales." Of course it 
 abounds with many brilliant passages, but the dialogue
 
 DEC. 13, 1822.] POET SOTHEBY. 127 
 
 is frequently so prosaic, that if it were not printed in 
 the form of verse it would scarcely resemble it. 
 
 My brother benchers expect a satire from Poet 
 Sotheby. He has a house of ill fame at the Temple 
 Gate, which he lets to a fellow who harbours a nest of 
 gamblers. He refused to sell it to us at a fair price, 
 and we are taking the whimsical revenge of blocking 
 up all his back windows, which will leave his tenant in 
 utter darkness. The remonstrance he wrote to us was, 
 without exception, the most ludicrous attempt at the 
 pathetic I ever read. Quotations from Milton, etc., 
 and altogether such a Galimatias of poetry and prose 
 that manifestly Byron did not christen him " Botherby " 
 without good reason. 
 
 Thursday, December i$th, 1822. 
 
 COMING on business at an early hour before dinner 
 last week at Harley Street, I was present at a 
 consultation of Sir D. Dundas, ci-devant apothecary, 
 Tegart, and the patient. 1 In vain did the doctor advise 
 abstinence and two glasses of claret. Good feeding 
 and Oporto were persisted in. Going away John 
 ejaculated, " Alas, sir ! by long fasting my master eats 
 too much at dinner ; " and E. N. Lee told me when 
 dining tete-a-tete with him, he did not only devour an 
 immense dinner, but drank above half a bottle of strong 
 port wine. As all this tends to a determination of 
 blood to the head, one cannot but be uneasy about 
 vertigo. 
 
 1 Mr. Hans Sloane Stanley, Lady Gertrude's father-in-law.
 
 128 MR. JEKVLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. iv. 
 
 So much for tragedy. Now I shall proceed to split 
 the new sides of the Lady G. Stanley with comedy. 
 
 It is a literal fact, that two months before the whitlow 
 burst, George Isted at the age of sixty-eight, after being 
 a cripple for ten years, desired a noble friend of mine 
 to propose marriage for him to a lady neither young 
 nor handsome, said he would willingly accept ^"3,000, 
 and settle 1,000 a year. He was then a beggar in 
 debt. My noble friend, to amuse himself, carried the 
 embassy, and the woman fainted with laughter. 
 
 Lord Spencer seized his miserable furniture for rent 
 the moment he died. He inhabited a hovel of the noble 
 Earl's in St. James's Place. 
 
 The Hollands are come early to town. I dined there 
 on Sunday. My lady more Madagascar! than ever. 
 
 Poet Rogers playing Petrarca in Italy. I understood 
 Philly played Laura at Paultons to the Melesina 
 Trench. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, December i~,//i, 1822. 
 
 I AM very well, and drive out daily, yet prudently 
 refrain from the fogs, which form the dessert of dining 
 out, and let Joseph perform as my proxy. He says 
 Fanny Kemble's Belvidera surpasses her Juliet. 
 
 Your little niece of Cadlands seems a delicate struc- 
 ture, and frequent confinements have not fortified it. 
 
 The town is so barren of topics that lies multiply upon 
 us hourly. A boy was brought before the magistrates 
 yesterday as a vagrant, and questioned how his father 
 maintained him. He replied, " An't please your wor- 
 ships, my father is murder maker to the newspapers."
 
 LAST DAY OF OLD 1 822.] GOSSIP. 
 
 William l met at my house in full vigour Mr. Tucker, 
 the Surveyor-General of Cornwall, a great and lucrative 
 office of which an effort was making to deprive him. 
 Yesterday he died of palsy, produced, I have no doubt, 
 by anxiety and nervous agitation. The fat Viscount 
 Sidney has rallied. Lord Essex has bought a pretty 
 picture of Joseph's friend Newton. " The Abbot " is 
 one of Scott's novels. 
 
 How happy are you in rural innocence and ditch- 
 water entrenched by the moral society of Bethell and 
 Beddome, and Jones and Parson Penton to preach to 
 you. But beware of the Chief Commissioner of Woods 
 and Forests, who is as false as he is fair, and very 
 pretty. Scandal, like Brougham's schoolmaster, is 
 abroad, and mummies, like Andrew and Lady Mary, 
 are hardly safe in these slanderous times. 
 
 Sidmouth and Clifden press me to villas, forgetting 
 that my own bed, my own fireside, and twenty French 
 books are better things in December. 
 
 P.S. Ne vaut // pas mieux ecrire des riens, que ne rien 
 ecrire ? 
 
 BOWOOD, The last day of old 1822. 
 
 A copy, not very correct, of my " Advertisement 
 Extraordinary," I saw last week in two London papers, 
 The Sun and the Morning Post. My name was 
 not published, but the squib was ascribed to a " Gentle- 
 man well known in legal and literary circles." 
 
 Mr. Stanley had seen Lord Morpeth on a morning 
 
 1 Mr. W. Sloane Stanley, Lady Gertrude's husband. 
 
 Q
 
 I3O MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. iv. 
 
 visit made rapidly after his arrival, but knew nothing of 
 poor Lady Carlisle's illness. It must console you much 
 to feel that Lady Cawdor is with her, and I wish you 
 could be with her also. Alluding thus to domestic 
 subjects, and feeling, as I ever shall, a deep interest in all 
 that concerns your dear children, I will preach a little on 
 the text of education. 
 
 In my opinion all the public schools are equal as to 
 the means of instruction, and the proficiency in learning 
 must always depend upon the disposition and industry 
 of the individual boy. With the exception of Win- 
 chester, I think the habits and manners of the world may 
 also be equally attained at all of them. There is a 
 vulgar rusticity about the Sieves of Winchester which 
 continues to be their characteristic at the University> 
 and the mass is chiefly composed of boys in the middling 
 classes of society. It never happened to me to weigh 
 the respective merits of schools. My predilection for 
 Westminster naturally arose from the recollection of my 
 own successful education there, and the same predilec- 
 tion from the same recollection extended itself to Christ 
 Church. I had trodden the path myself, and knew all 
 its turnings and windings. I was of course anxious 
 that my boys should make a similar pilgrimage, and I 
 hoped with similar benefits. 
 
 In William's letter he hinted at Eton for George. 
 I have already stated my opinion as to the equality of 
 instruction at all public schools, and I confess that the 
 separation of brothers appears to me very impolitic. It 
 weakens by estrangement that union of attachment
 
 LAST DAY OF OLD 1 822.] BO WOOD. 131 
 
 which through life should subsist between them. It 
 checks a species of emulation, and it often throws an 
 unpopularity about the boy when the masters discover 
 that a different school is preferred by the parents for his 
 brother. 
 
 These principles I carry still further. It would have 
 vexed me to send Edward to Cambridge, which I once 
 apprehended from necessity. 
 
 This subject is so important that I do not apologise 
 for the length of my preachment, founded, as it is, on 
 much thought and experience, and the production of a 
 snowy morning. 
 
 This place * has been much improved during my long 
 truancy. Lord Lansdowne has Fonthilttzed* (a new verb) 
 the interior with a due proportion of pictures, antiques, 
 library, etc., and Smirke has tastefully decorated the 
 exterior with architectural terraces and fountains, so as 
 to give it the air of the Italian palaces one sees in 
 drawings. 
 
 The owners are a most exemplary pair of young 
 people, the establishment has a proper proportion of 
 magnificence, and they bring round them a society 
 of talent and conversation. We have a succession of 
 guests, and hear no nonsense ; so that I am content to 
 endure a country house till the end of the fortnight. 
 
 Yesterday Lord Lansdowne gave the corporation of 
 
 1 Bowood. 
 
 2 Fonthill Abbey, near Bath, was the seat of Alderman Beck- 
 ford, a vast building by Wyatt, in the Gothic style. It was sold 
 with the furniture in 1822 for a large sum, by his son William 
 Beckford, the author of " Vathek."
 
 132 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. iv. 
 
 Calne a civic feast, at which I assisted, with my present 
 members, in the character of Alderman Sir Claud 
 Hunter's " feu Lord Maire," and returned thanks to my 
 health being drunk in " a most appropriate and eloquent 
 speech." 
 
 We have Miss Fox and Miss Vernon, and \ve have 
 poets too, Bowles, the little Anacreon Moore, and 
 politicians in plenty. 
 
 The Lansdownes desire to return your kind remem- 
 brance of them. Mr. Stanley finds the Glastonbury 
 revived, but the poor General in a sad state of suffering. 
 
 London I left in no state of desertion. The Hollands 
 were domiciled in Burlington Street, and we dined at 
 Rogers' the day before my departure with William 
 Ward, Luttrell, and Armstrong. 
 
 The Dives Hertford 1 swears he will never live at 
 Ragley, will keep Sudborne for his shooting friends, and 
 laments that from a dread of the imputation of parsi- 
 mony he must quit his residence in Seymour Place. 
 
 We were calculating the other day what the Wellesley 
 family now draws from the expenditure of Great 
 Britain. With pensions to ladies and all it amounts to 
 one hundred and eleven thousand pounds. 
 
 I have just read the famous new French tragedy 
 Sylla, which I do not admire, though it may be well 
 calculated to display Talma's powers of declamation. 
 Nor do I like de Souza's new novel, " La Comtesse de 
 Fargy." 
 
 1 Francis, third Marquess. He married Maria Fagniani, the 
 adopted daughter and heiress of George Selwyn.
 
 MARCH 14, 1823.] EXECUTORSHIPS. 133 
 
 The men skate, and invent a skating boat for the 
 little Kerry, so I expect they will drown the heir-appa- 
 rent. It is whimsical enough, but, counting the little 
 boy, we are seven Westminsters now at Bowood. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, March \\tJi, 1823. 
 
 LORD CLIFDEN inquires of me whether from the 
 accession of income, the mansion of Harley Street 
 is likely to be any cleaner? I told him not till 
 Normanby moved to abolish the old mad house- 
 maid, who held a sinecure more notorious than the 
 Postmasters-General, or the two Junior Lords of the 
 Admiralty. 
 
 It is believed that Mrs. Coutts is to do munificent 
 things by the daughter's dependants, and that her late 
 sposo, who was not called Canny Coutts for nothing, 
 made her the depositoiy of his intentions to chouse 
 Vansittart of the Legacy Tax, thinking, perhaps, that 
 the Probate Duty on more than a million was a sufficient 
 sop for the said Van's appetite. 
 
 A propos of executorships, I believe our respective 
 shares of Mrs. D'Oyly's residue will be nearer fifteen 
 than ten thousand apiece. To me, who want nothing, 
 it is immaterial, but to the boys no bad thing. Joseph 
 visits me at the end of the month for a short vacation 
 of a fortnight. 
 
 Mr. Stanley calls frequently in his round of morning 
 visits, complains of his head, but dines out and gives 
 repasts d fordinaire. Memory much impaired. He read 
 me for the third time yesterday a tattered letter from
 
 134 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. iv. 
 
 the Dowager of Malmesbury, with the history of old 
 Louis XVIII.'s new love affair. 
 
 I proceed prosperously. My general health much 
 improved by regular hours and quiet living, which I am 
 not only reconciled to, but delighted with. My regimen 
 does not extend to the circulating library, so I devour 
 new publications voraciously. But Horace Walpole's 
 huge memoirs stand like cold meat on the side table, 
 and will only be resorted to in case of bad dinner. 
 
 Sir H. Bunbury gives me an oil painting of a Welsh 
 landscape after Nature, and a drawing, never engraved 
 nor published, by his celebrated father. 1 The drawing 
 is a caricature group of the turf men of Newmarket 
 thirty or forty years ago. I make out easily those I 
 remember, the Duke of Grafton, Lords Orford, Clermont, 
 Spencer Hamilton, Colonel O'Kelly, the proprietor of 
 Eclipse, old Vernon, Dowager Lady Warwick's father. 
 There is also an outline of the late Sir Charles. I wish 
 it were a miniature, as I know our tendresse would like 
 to wear it, unless Tom Smith has obliterated all your 
 former attachments. What a volatile thing is woman ! 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, November t,th, 1823. 
 
 " THE Miseries of Life " in the country have never 
 been fairly classed by themselves as, blowing weather ; 
 no fish at the market ; newspaper not arriving ; window 
 broke in bed-chamber, glazier five miles off; leg broke, 
 surgeon eight miles off or gone a-hunting ; family circle ; 
 opera eighty miles off ; bores on a fortnight's visit, with 
 1 Henry William Bunbury, the caricaturist, died 1811.
 
 NOV. ii, 1823.] GOSSIP. 135 
 
 a desire to be shown the lions in your neighbourhood ; 
 a rainy day, and the last volume of your favourite new 
 novel in the paws of an old lady checkmated by words 
 of five syllables. 
 
 On the vicissitudes of weather I felicitate your Lady- 
 ship, as a new topic occurs now daily in a country house, 
 and it is inexhaustible. A French writer says when 
 two Englishmen meet in the rain they always inform 
 one another that it is wet weather. 
 
 Monday, November nth, 1823. 
 
 ON Saturday last I dined with neighbour Ellis and 
 wife, a very pleasant partie quarr/e, for we had only 
 neighbour John William Ward, in high and humorous 
 eccentricity, which with him is only journalier. He 
 abused the vulgarity of his family name, said that half 
 the thieves carried to Bow Street were Wards, and that 
 his name was larcenous, felonious, and burglarious. 
 
 To-morrow the Ellises depart for Castle Howard, and 
 Lord Clifden the day after. Read " Letters from Spain," 
 by Don Leucadio Doblado, a new publication by 
 Colburn, 1 very entertaining, the author, in fact, an 
 Englishman, but long resident there. 
 
 I lately read the life of Brown, the American novelist, 
 which led me to peruse his novels published about ten 
 years ago, " Wieland," " Ormond," and " Arthur Mervyn." 
 They repaid me well, as they are most singular, and 
 
 1 Henry Colburn, the publisher. Among his successful ventures 
 were Evelyn's Diary, Pepy? Diary and the Neiv Monthly 
 Magazine.
 
 136 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. iv. 
 
 quite out of the ordinary sphere of that species of 
 composition. Think of weaving a most tragical story 
 out of Ventriloquism ! 
 
 The Ellises did not like their steamboat voyage from 
 London to Calais ; a smoking hot dinner as they got out 
 of the Thames into a rough sea, which was not likely to 
 obviate the qualms of the stomach, though it economised 
 the viands which the proprietors were bound to supply. 
 
 The new Lady Liverpool 1 as ugly and smoke-dried 
 as the mermaid in St. James's Street The secession of 
 my young companions having rendered me solitary, 
 I dine continually with my brother benchers in the 
 Temple Hall, an early dinner in a collegiate style, a 
 small party, and some of the cleverest men in our pro- 
 fession, no bad resource at this season, and especially 
 to a gentleman of regimen. It suits me, for I never felt 
 myself in better health. 
 
 The life of Ali Pacha, just printed, will amuse you. 
 Among the on dits of the day they have conjured up a 
 party among the Ministerialists against Canning, and the 
 Duke of York at its head. To this they also ascribe the 
 new Lord Hertford's rage for buying seats in Parliament. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, December izth, 1823. 
 
 THE postponement of the Hertford Trial 2 was not 
 necessary, but perhaps it was politic to sacrifice a little 
 month to popular clamour. 
 
 1 Miss Bagot Chester. 
 
 3 The trial of Thurtell and others for the murder of Mr. Weare 
 near Elstree. This murder, from the horrible circumstances 
 created a great sensation.
 
 DEC. 12, 1823.] THE THEATRES. 137 
 
 Bankes makes progress, but I should think parlia- 
 ment would now be a dangerous attendance. On the 
 paralytic seizure Mrs. Bankes was found by her servant 
 out of bed, and lying on the floor. She was a good 
 mother, and her children are much afflicted. 
 
 Playhouses in their zenith. Kean, Young, and 
 Macready 1 in nightly rivalry. Braham, Sinclair, and 
 Miss Stephens encored three times three, and ten pair of 
 piebald horses clattering on the boards. Widow Coutts 
 still absent, so I have not graced the boxes nor put the 
 managers to the trouble of carrying candles before me. 
 
 George Colman called here to-day, and when I com- 
 plained that the paviours had obstructed my coal-house 
 door, he said, " Blockheads love blockading ; and as you 
 are a poet they persecute your mews" 
 
 They talk of a statue to Erskine, but it seems to 
 languish under la crapule of his latter life. His son 
 David is a good fellow, but will be a pauper peer. 
 The miserable Sussex domains do not produce $oo 
 a year. He has a diplomatic pension of .1,500, but 
 there are a wife and twelve children, and 'tis said the 
 pension is mortgaged. 
 
 There was a story lately in the papers of a northern 
 peer who has been haunted by a spectre. Sitting in 
 his study, a female in white appeared sitting in an 
 opposite chair. He addressed her frequently, but in 
 vain ; and after regarding him half an hour with a 
 melancholy aspect she vanished. He pondered this 
 
 1 Kean as Othello, Shylock, etc. ; Young as Brutus, Cato, and 
 Leare ; Macready as Caius Gracchus, etc.
 
 138 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. iv. 
 
 singular appearance, and next day mentioned it at 
 breakfast to his family. His second daughter trembled, 
 grew pale, and declared that a similar spectre had 
 appeared at her bedside the last night, and had remained 
 about the same period of time, that she rung for her 
 maid, and the spectre vanished. Query, was it the ghost 
 of Opposition? for Lord Shaftesbury said at dinner 
 yesterday that this story is told of Lord Grey and his 
 daughter. 
 
 Now as a ghost story is the very climax of all gossips 
 I shall conclude, only wondering that after the cataract of 
 nonsense I have lately sent you my stock at all holds out. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, December 2,yd, 1823. 
 
 THE boys I ask pardon, the Oxford men as they 
 style themselves are in high feather, and amuse one with 
 their theatrical accounts of Kean and Young and the 
 extraordinary acting of a little girl named Fisher. 1 But 
 the new Juliet is over puffed, I find. Edward was much 
 gratified by Gertrude's music, and he has possessed 
 himself of a most elaborate flute, with a thousand new 
 keys to do it justice. 
 
 Mr. Wetherell, the King's Counsel, having made a 
 most bitter and personal attack on the Vice-Chancellor 
 in his Court, it has been said Wetherell was to be 
 chosen President of the Society for the Suppression of 
 Vice. The said little old coxcomical Vice, it is reported 
 or invented, made an offer of marriage to Lady Glengall, 
 which she scornfully repelled. 
 
 1 Clara Fisher, as "Little Pickle" in the Spoilt Child at 
 Drury Lane.
 
 DEC. 23, 1823.] POLITICAL SCANDAL. 139 
 
 Our Opposition friends are busy in slanders of Can- 
 ning already, and the Edinburgh Review leads the 
 attack rather coarsely. They add that the Duke of 
 Wellington insisted on Canning's writing a letter of 
 censure to Lord Strangford for his diplomatic errors at 
 Constantinople, which Canning did, but accompanied it 
 with a private note to say the letter was to go for nothing, 
 but in compliance with the Duke's absurdity he was 
 forced to send it. But duplicity is not the only ground 
 of attack. They swear that out of hatred to London- 
 derry's memory he meditates the subversion of many of 
 the dead Secretary's late measures, among the rest that 
 he means to extinguish the Embassy to Switzerland, for 
 which Londonderry fought so strenuously as to declare 
 he would resign if it was not carried. 
 
 But a truce to politics and its odious tracasseries. 
 Mr. Stanley says you think of Harrow for William. I 
 placed my ward and nephew there (Lockwood), because 
 at Westminster I thought he would be always running 
 to three uncles in London. His health was then slight, 
 and I was alarmed at learning that Harrow, though 
 elevated on a hill, was very damp from a soil of clay, 
 and the dame desired he might have the thickest shoes 
 and the warmest stockings. However, he remained 
 there till he went into the Guards and in perfect health. 
 Dickinson's poor boy was of a consumptive habit, and 
 fell a victim to neglect ; but he should not have been 
 placed in so high and cold a position. 
 
 The men and I send our best loves to all.
 
 I4O MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. iv. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, December 241/1, 1823. 
 
 WE had the Duncannons, Lord Ellenborough, and 
 Luttrell at Lord Clifden's, from whence we returned 
 yesterday. Lady Jersey has been very ill, but is 
 recovered. 
 
 Your niece I like more and more sensible, chatty, 
 good humoured, and I think very pretty. We shall 
 meet them all again on Saturday next at Lord Ellen- 
 borough's, where we are going to pass two or three 
 days. They talked, I think, of a visit to Althorpe, 
 but I believe she wrote to you on Monday last. 
 
 Lady Aberdeen visits Lady Holland at Brighton, 
 and Lady King starves her for the Kings are so stingy 
 that Lady Holland complains she rose fasting from 
 their dinners. Her daughter, the little Fox, 1 has had a 
 serious and strange complaint. One evening after a 
 dance her knee was so weak and swelled that she could 
 not stand. Leeches were applied, but the part is still 
 extremely debilitated, though recovering, and they are 
 coming to town. 
 
 Lawrence has made a drawing of Madame de Lieven, 2 
 which has been beautifully engraved. Strange to say, 
 and in spite of teeth, I admire her. I have never known 
 her intimately enough to object to the effects said to be 
 produced from her economy of clean linen. 
 
 1 Miss Mary Fox, afterwards Lady Lilford. 
 
 2 The wife of Prince de Lieven, the Russian Ambassador. She 
 was a great figure in London Society, and a patroness of Almack's. 
 Her famous salon in London was the rendezvous of the dis- 
 tinguished politicians of both parties. She died in 1857,
 
 DEC. 24, 1823.] GOSSIP. 141 
 
 From his pensoroso visage and manner they call 
 Lord Auckland " George Barmvell." Luttrell told us of 
 a strolling player acting Lear who called his daughter 
 Cordelia " Butchess of Burgundy." 
 
 Joseph you made such an adept of at ecarte, that 
 I saw him sweep a pool of four guineas into his pocket 
 on Monday evening at Roehampton. 
 
 Lord Holland has dined at the Pavilion. They speak 
 well of "The Spae-wife," and I have just got it. It 
 is written by the author l of " The Annals of the Parish," 
 and that secondary class of Scottish novels which really 
 tread hard upon the heels of Walter Scott. 
 
 It is well that the Hippopotamus decamped to 
 foreign parts. It seems he had sworn falsely in the 
 Court of Chancery, and might have been prosecuted, 
 if any pillory could have been found to fit the head 
 and shoulders of that amphibious animal. 
 
 The new Lord Dudley 2 returns from Italy in May, 
 and has ordered for his debut the finest service of plate 
 ever heard of. Giving his wife to Dr. Jones at Paultons 
 was the heaviest fee ever bestowed upon a medical 
 man for his attendance. You know she is a poetess, 
 but I cannot think where the Doctor can buy blue 
 stockings big enough for her. 
 
 1 John Gait. 
 
 John William, the first Earl of the first creation. He died 
 unmarried in 1833.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY 
 (Continued). 
 BOWOOD, Tuesday, January loth, 1824. 
 
 To-MORROW we conclude our fortnight's visit to 
 Bowood, and return to London. The time has passed 
 very pleasantly and much to my taste, and the boys have 
 had fine weather for exercise. They return to college 
 on Saturday, the 1 8th, so will have another week in town. 
 
 We have had a continual supply of agreeable people 
 in the house, and it is impossible to live more sensibly 
 and creditably than our host and hostess. As you say, 
 "They are of the right sort." On New Year's Day 
 Lady Lansdowne had a long table set out in the 
 conservatory, and gave a dinner to seventy-two poor 
 children whom she clothes and educates. It was 
 difficult to decide whether she or the little creatures 
 seemed happiest. 
 
 Little Moore the poet has amused us inexhaustibly 
 with humour all the day, and his tasteful singing of an 
 evening. He has a cottage in the neighbourhood for 
 his little wife and his two little children, and is a great 
 resource of amusement to Bowood. It is a good little 
 fellow, with as much sense as talent, and a most 
 
 142
 
 JULY 17, 1824.] A PROJECTED TOUR. 143 
 
 independent spirit. His new poem, "The Loves of 
 the Angels," I have read here. It is in the rich flowery 
 style of his " Lalla Rookh," and, though glittering with 
 beautiful passages, does not delight me. It is like 
 dining on sweetmeats. 
 
 You know my habits in a chateau, and I have 
 devoured all the new French and English brochures 
 on the tables. " The Entail " 1 is not a bad imitation 
 of Walter Scott's Scotch novels, but I think we have 
 had Scotch enough. 
 
 We have a Mr. Stanley here (Lord Derby's grandson), 
 who reports well of Lancashire as to the manufactures. 
 The rents there have been reduced, but are now well 
 paid. 
 
 Wiltshire in a bad state. Lord Lansdowne has 
 lowered his rental forty per cent. I really believe our 
 papa-in-law 2 has suffered less than anybody. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, /#/ ijth, 1824. 
 
 JOSEPH and I are going to play a prank of some 
 novelty. 
 
 In about a week or ten days we mean to scramble 
 away to Switzerland. Geneva will be our first place 
 of residence, from whence we shall make some further 
 deviations. Whither I know not. But that will be 
 determined when there. Perhaps run over the Alps 
 for a short peep into Italy ; but that is by no means 
 decided, and must be determined by events, for on a 
 pilgrimage I do not like a positive plan. 
 
 1 By J. Gait. 2 Mr. Sloane Stanley.
 
 144 M R- JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. v. 
 
 Our return will be through Paris, where of course 
 we must make some short stay. But we expect to be 
 in the land of beef and pudding again by the end of 
 October. 
 
 Edward seems to expect that about the time of our 
 return he will have leave from his regiment for an 
 absence of three or four months, so will join us in 
 London. 
 
 Now, I am so bad a felicity hunter, that having 
 formed all this Quixotism I feel a regret that I am 
 not to sit under an orange tree with you at Paultons. 
 Tom Onslow confessed to me he was never at the Play 
 without wishing to be at the Opera, and vice versa. 
 Such is the restlessness of knights errant. 
 
 We dined at A. Ellis's last week with the Poodle 
 who has buried his measled Majesties. 1 Thank God 
 Freddy was not a queen ! 
 
 The Ellises are on the wing for Ireland, and then for 
 Rome. I wish you joy of your divine's union with his 
 divinity, which is perfectly en regie. They talk of four- 
 and-twenty marriages all in a row, but I do not know 
 who compose the six matrimonial quadrilles. Don't 
 be surprised if I espouse and bring home a Swiss 
 giantess. Grievances are useless topics, but I feel a 
 sad loss of poor dear Mr. Stanley. 
 
 1 The King and Queen of the Sandwich Isles, on a visit to 
 England, died of measles within a few days of each other, at a 
 hotel in the Adelphi. Mr. Byng, nicknamed Poodle, a well- 
 known man of fashion, had been deputed to show them about 
 London.
 
 JULY 27, 1824.] LILYVELD. 145 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, July 2jth, 1824. 
 
 To-DAY brought a merry letter from the Ensign 
 who is up to his ears in Irish festivities, going a cruise 
 in a yacht to the Giant's Causeway, his regiment soon 
 marching to Belfast, and finally to Dublin. He has 
 been engaged in quelling an Orange riot at Newry by 
 opposing bayonets to brickbats, and seems as happy 
 as fighting and fluting can make a man. Next October 
 he expects some leave of absence, and on our return at 
 the end of that month I have some hopes of seeing him. 
 During his stay in England I wish we may be able to 
 contrive a visit to Paultons. But we lead such a gipsy 
 life for some time to come that nothing can be decided. 
 
 I called on poor Lilyveld t'other day in Cadogan 
 Place. You cannot think what a pretty quiet house he 
 has, and a right of promenade in a large and beautiful 
 Botanical Garden. The din of London kept his noddle 
 in the state of a watermill. 
 
 Almack's is dead. Lady Jersey's last rout expired ; 
 but Joseph says Semiramide was crowded on Saturday. 
 There is a certain class of vauriens that never seem 
 to quit London. Lady Ellenborough gave us a dinner 
 yesterday, and the misses looked as misses do after 
 another campaign without matrimony. Yet if one may 
 calculate from favours in coachmen's hats celibacy is 
 not universal. 
 
 I saw Lord Morpeth yesterday, looking well, and on 
 horseback ; last week, at Miss Berry's 1 blue stocking, 
 
 1 Mary Berry, the elder of the two sisters so well known as the 
 
 IO
 
 146 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. v. 
 
 I met Lady Stafford. As Sir C. Bunbury's executor, 
 I signed a deed last week, by which Miss Fox settles 
 something on Charles Fox's marriage, and Miss Vernon 
 gives him 1,000. 
 
 LORD CLIFDEN'S, ROEHAMPTON LODGE, 
 Thursday, November ^(h, 1824. 
 
 AFTER fasting three months, you may guess with 
 what voracity I devoured your letter this morning. 
 The handwriting was positively a refreshment to me. 
 
 The Hollands have been in town a few days on their 
 way to Brighton. Joseph went two or three times to 
 the play with them. Lady Holland seems in sad 
 health, and looks wretchedly. I marvel she escaped 
 Captain Medwin's book, 1 as all Byron's world has been 
 scratched in it. 
 
 The Bedfords are also going to Brighton, and as the 
 Windsor Cottage streams with water and the Castle is 
 torn to pieces, I think His Majesty will also be driven 
 to the Pavilion. 
 
 Lord Ellenborough and his bride 2 are absent from 
 this place, so I have not seen her attractions, though 
 I hear she is very pretty. If you want a palace the 
 
 friends and correspondents of Horace Walpole in his old age. 
 When he succeeded to the Earldom of Orford in 1791, it is 
 believed that he was prepared to go through the ceremony of 
 marriage with either, in order to give her the rank of Countess. 
 Miss Berry died in 1852, in her ninetieth year. 
 
 1 "Journal of the Conversations with Lord Byron at Pisa, in 
 1821-2," by Thomas Medwin. 
 
 - Miss Elizabeth Digby, second wife of the Earl. They were 
 divorced in 1830.
 
 DEC. 1 6, 1824.] " DER FREISCHUTZ." 147 
 
 dowager Ellenborough is desirous of letting Cambridge 
 House. 
 
 The public appetite for hell and the devil has been 
 much gratified by the new German Opera 1 at Covent 
 Garden. Don Giovanni's infernal regions are nothing 
 to it. To " sup full of horrors " is a taste not confined 
 to our countrymen, for at Paris we were regaled on the 
 stage with the perdition and torments of Danaus' fifty 
 daughters for the slight impropriety of murdering their 
 fifty husbands. I think, with due gratitude to the 
 revolution, they have a livelier conception of what fiends 
 really appear to be than ourselves, and their fire and 
 brimstone are infinitely more brilliant. 
 
 We see many people here daily, but London and its 
 villas are equally barren of gossip ; and unless I tran- 
 scribe from the newspapers anecdotes of Mr. Fauntleroy, 
 it is utterly impossible to make out a decent epistle 
 to a lady so much nearer the North Pole than we are. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, December i6th, 1824. 
 I DON'T envy you the amusement of selling a house, 
 or repairing a house, or rummaging papers. I too am 
 bored with removing plate, and books, and pictures 
 from Wargrave Hill, and preparing the place for the 
 purpose of letting it, as you know my detestation of the 
 country, and my opinion that every day spent there is 
 a day given to the grave before one's decease. When 
 
 1 Der Freischutz. At the first representation, when there 
 were calls for the composer, Weber failed to recognise his name 
 in the English accent of the pit and gallery, until it was explained 
 to him what "Weeber" meant.
 
 148 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. v. 
 
 you dismantle Harley Street give me my wife's portrait, 
 which Mr. Stanley often promised he would leave me by 
 his will. 
 
 I saw the Hollands yesterday. They have got old 
 Bouverie's house in Burlington Street. Miladi is by 
 no means recovered from her state of illness, though 
 the air of Brighton was adopted. The fricandeaus tell. 
 The Duke of Bedford 1 was there, and I thought looked 
 well. 
 
 Among other refinements of rural life I see the 
 Duchess of Rutland gets 2 prizes at Smithfield for the 
 delicate and feminine accomplishments of improving 
 rams and bulls a branch of natural philosophy that 
 has hitherto, from the prejudice of education, been left 
 to the other sex. It has made a good laugh in London, 
 and produced some epigrams that you would not read 
 unless you were a candidate at a cattle show. 
 
 The Parisians have hissed Der Freischiitz, and three 
 months ago they scouted Rossini's best opera. Well 
 did Rousseau say they had no taste for the best music, 
 and no music of their own. As to our own opera, it 
 seems likely to be performed only in the Court of 
 Chancery. 
 
 I dined and slept lately at Roehampton, to be pre- 
 sented by Lord Ellenborough to his bride. Very 
 pretty, but quite a girl, twenty years younger than 
 himself. We had two Dowagers Londonderry, the 
 
 1 John, sixth Duke. Died 1839. 
 
 2 The Dowager Duchess. Lady Gertrude's sister was at this 
 time Duchess of Rutland.
 
 MARCH 25, 1825.] SCANDAL. 149 
 
 ci-devant Castlereagh, and my old friend of Boldre- 
 wood. 
 
 I rejoice to hear all Stewart Rose's riches were not 
 swept into the sea, though a poet seldom abounds in 
 that commodity. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, March 2$th, 1825. 
 
 We had Rogers all the time at Lord Clifden's, and 
 one day the Bessboroughs and Duncannons. If you 
 love gossip read the new quarto of Lord Orford's letters, 
 and if you love admirable nonsense read a " Six Weeks' 
 Tour in Switzerland," by two romantic daughters of 
 Mrs. Wollstonecraft. 1 
 
 Scandal ! Scandal ! Scandal ! W. Spencer's daughter, 
 in spite of the moral example of her parents, has pro- 
 duced a baby, and has not yet selected its father. I pity 
 the poor girl's puzzle. Botherby 2 has left a card with 
 me, which he has not done these seven years. It has no 
 black edges, so it is probably to show he has not hanged 
 himself. 
 
 Lord Holland has printed, though not published, a 
 pretty morceau enough, entitled " A Dream." He sup- 
 poses the King introduces him to talk with some great 
 men of former ages Lord Burleigh, Milton, Cowley, 
 Addison, etc. 
 
 Drury Lane, they say, is so near total ruin that 
 
 1 Married to William Godwin. The two daughters were Fanny, 
 daughter of Mrs. Wollstonecraft by Finlay, an American, and 
 Mary by Godwin, afterwards married to Shelley the poet. 
 
 * William Sotheby, the poet.
 
 I5O MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. v. 
 
 Vansittart 1 means to buy it for a parish church, and 
 Kean is to preach. 
 
 I rejoice to hear you found your nursery in confirmed 
 health. Disease was formerly only calamitous, but since 
 Canning's epigrams on palsy, dropsy, apoplexy, and 
 consumption, it is now understood to be ridiculous also. 
 It is very condescending in you to correspond with any 
 being so ludicrous and contemptible as a gouty man. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, October 6th, 1825. 
 
 I CAN predict nothing at present of encountering the 
 Zephyrs of Paultons in November. But if I emigrate 
 anywhere it will certainly be to you. Change of air is 
 the jargon of physicians when they can do nothing. 
 Change of place is the disease of the healthy, and never 
 was so epidemic as in these our days. You remember 
 the Italian's epitaph, " I was well, I tried to be better, 
 and I lie here." The confessor of Francis I. was scolded 
 by a Cardinal for preaching that the King went directly 
 to heaven, as it seemed to deny the doctrine of pur- 
 gatory. The poor priest defended himself by saying His 
 Majesty never stayed in a place. 
 
 I dowager daily in the carriage, read all a circulating 
 library pours out, and never fail of the delights of some 
 morning visitor ; for this Metropolis, as Cobbett 2 calls it^ 
 is never totally deserted. 
 
 1 Nicholas Vansittart, Lord Bexley. He was Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer in the Liverpool Administration until 1823, when he was 
 elevated to the peerage. He died 1851. 
 
 3 William Cobbett, whose famous "Rural Rides" were at this 
 time appearing in his newspaper, the Political Register,
 
 OCT. 31, 1825.] POPE ON READING. 151 
 
 Tom Moore's " Life of Sheridan " is out, and what I 
 have seen of so difficult a job I like. My friend Mrs. 
 Opie (and the title is appropriate, as she has relapsed 
 into Quakerism) has published " Illustrations of Lying," 
 of which the morality is so austere that I dare not tell a 
 servant to say I am not at home, nor subscribe a letter 
 with " Your obedient humble servant." 
 
 You know what a bookworm I have always been, but 
 I did not know till yesterday that my feelings had the 
 honour of resembling those of Mr. Pope on the subject. 
 
 He writes thus to Spence ; " At this day, as much 
 company as I have kept, and as much as I love it, I 
 love reading better. I would rather be employed in 
 reading than in the most agreeable conversation." 
 
 Joseph is " a chip of the old block," and pores upon 
 books incessantly. When he does condescend to dis- 
 sipation he reports to me five theatres brimful, but 
 chemistry is his rage for the moment. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, October ^isf, 1825. 
 
 Pour egayer votre veuvage it delights me to hear of 
 your trips to Wilton and Broadlands, and that the echoes 
 of Hants have been enlivened by dowager screech-owls. 
 I think I was once a favourite of that tuneful bird, but 
 lost her affection by neglecting her invitation to a 
 morning visit during her bivouac at Lord Palmerston's ; 
 for on dining with her at Lord Pembroke's last spring 
 she seemed cold and coy. However, I bore it like a 
 man long experienced in the caprices of your sex and 
 never once thought of suicide.
 
 152 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. v. 
 
 News I have none of the London manufacture. From 
 Staffordshire I got yesterday some scandal, that the 
 second son of a gallant military Marquis had eloped 
 with the married daughter of a Piccadilly Earl. There 
 is no degeneracy in the proceeding, as the noble families 
 on each side are celebrated for morality. 
 
 George Cholmondeley married in the style of Petruchio, 
 and painted up his old chariot for the nuptials. There 
 was nothing new in the whole set out, except the bride's 
 consent to make a part of it. 
 
 Paris is London at present Lansdownes, Hollands, 
 Ellenboroughs, Rogers, Poets, etc. The Bedfords are 
 going through it for Nice. The Abercrombys just 
 returned to frank this epistle for me. The Granvilles 
 got into their Ambassadorial Hotel, and have public 
 soirees once a week. 
 
 For lack of more intelligence I must now tell you a 
 story which at least is ben trovato. 
 
 Some years ago an Englishman long resident at Paris 
 was in the habit of visiting several evenings every week 
 
 La Marquise de at her villa two miles out of town, 
 
 where the best society met. She put this question to 
 him, " Why do you come here with one livery servant 
 behind your carriage and return with two ? " He 
 denied the fact, and added that he had but one laquais 
 in this world. Next day he ordered his servant to 
 explain this mystery, and menaced him with the police. 
 The fellow confessed as follows, " that he had long been 
 employed by some surgeons to procure dead bodies for 
 dissection, and that he was frequently supplied by some
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY, 1825.] HOBGOBLINS. 153 
 
 resurrection men from a cemetery close to the villa of 
 La Marquise, and that to elude all questions at the 
 barriere on re-entering Paris at midnight he always 
 dressed the corpse in one of his old liveries, and upheld 
 it behind the carriage." 
 
 ROEHAMPTON LODGE, Christmas Day [1825]. 
 
 THE Knight Templar and I came here on Saturday 
 last, and your kind letter, which breathed the true spirit 
 of a merry Christmas, was the first thing that greeted 
 me. 
 
 Lady Georgiana's present state becomes her. I never 
 saw her looking better. Her boy is really a nice fellow. 
 
 Your query on hobgoblins places me like the boy in 
 Shakespeare's Henry V. y who tells Pistol he does not 
 know what is French for " Fer, and Ferrett and Firk." 
 I don't believe they possess in France our true species 
 of British hobgoblin. Ours is neither mauvais fee y nor 
 loup garou, nor, as old Boyer stupidly has it, esprit 
 spectre fantome. Our true hobgoblin is ugly, tragic, 
 mischievous ; but I should not know how to dress the 
 character for a fancy ball at a county member's. It 
 would be Dalmation difficult. 
 
 Country neighbours are a species of hobgoblin. 
 What a comfort it would be to possess the French 
 secret of bottling them, and then I would throw away 
 the corkscrew. 
 
 It will be the same thing to John Bull whether the 
 Guards shoot woodcocks or guerillas. A long bill is 
 the result either way.
 
 I 54 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. v. 
 
 Nobody breaks the King of Spain's bones, and you 
 see the poor King of Prussia breaks his own. How 
 unjustly are fractures distributed in this world. 
 
 We have here Lord Duncannon, William Lamb, 
 Luttrell, and the Poodle Byng. 
 
 The poor Duke of York's case grows so gloomy 
 that I hate to revert to it. Daily attendance of Sir 
 Astley Cooper on the legs, and we have nothing left but 
 to hope for improbabilities. 
 
 We return to town on Wednesday, when Joseph 
 takes wing again to Mr. Grenfell's, near Windsor. He 
 has been so long domiciled with me that his residence 
 elsewhere as yet seems strange to me. However, he 
 dines with me as often as he can. 
 
 Lady Caroline 1 is kept alone at Brocket Hall (Lord 
 Melbourne's), and well watched. 
 
 Yesterday we had pretty Lady Gower, who sends 
 her love, with Lady Georgiana's, to you. I hear the 
 King has given Mrs. Boehm a pension, and promise of 
 apartments at Hampton Court. 
 
 The writing machinery here is so out of order, that my 
 epistle looks as black as an elegy. 
 
 With a complication of loves and compliments. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, December 2<)th, 1825. 
 PEOPLE from Paris amuse me much with Lady 
 Holland's manoeuvres there. In one of the five 
 carriages which formed her ladyship's cortege was ex- 
 ported a certain poor Mrs. Somebody skilled in the 
 1 Lady Caroline Lamb.
 
 DEC. 29, 1825.] GOSSIP. 155 
 
 art of shampooing. This operation is daily performed 
 at her levee on her ladyship's feet, divested of shoes 
 and stockings, and which are so whitened and beauti- 
 fully formed as to extasier every French or English 
 dandy present. Mirabeau once said to me Le monde est 
 un charge de tJiedtre. Things are done every day which 
 would be hissed as outre" in a farce. It is said Henry 
 Fox * is in la belle passion with my pretty friend Lady 
 Blessington at Naples. Perhaps Lady Holland will 
 extend her tour to extricate her Telemachus from this 
 Calypso, recollecting, too, that Italy is the region of 
 love, and that at Florence she first fascinated his father. 
 
 You may suppose I have devoured an entire cir- 
 culating library, but I have nothing to recommend. 
 People admire " Granby," "" a new novel, and another 
 called "The English in Italy." I can only say they 
 are certainly above mediocrity. But I languish for 
 the Margravine's Memoirs of her life, and hope I am 
 not in her dramatis persona. If she will tell all and 
 fairly they will be amusing ; but perhaps, like Madame 
 de Genlis, she will endeavour to prove herself a very 
 good sort of a woman, and then the work will be as 
 dull as incredible. 
 
 The Dickinsons in passing through London to Mr. 
 Smith's in Hertfordshire called here yesterday to learn 
 the state of our legs and arms. Joseph has been 
 perfectly re-established for a long time. They came 
 
 1 The fourth and last Lord Holland. He married Lady 
 Augusta Coventry in 1833, and died in 1859 at Naples. 
 
 2 By T. H. Lister.
 
 I 56 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. v. 
 
 to town thus early on an alarm that their Westminster 
 boy had a serious cough, but he has perfectly recovered, 
 I believe. Batt at his advanced age has been suc- 
 cessfully operated upon for a cataract 
 
 Mrs. Coutts is still an enigma. Warrender told me 
 that at his table she called his grace 1 " My dear," but 
 this is far from decisive. No more is Lauderdale's 
 reply when asked in Scotland whether he was to give 
 her away. He answered, " I shall neither give nor throw 
 her away." 
 
 Greenwood tells me one half of the people who 
 overwhelmed his fete were unknown to him, and with 
 the nonchalance of modern times sent to desire invi- 
 tations. He painted his house lately, and I sent him 
 this : 
 
 On a green door in South Audley Square 
 
 " To tell a man's door by inscribing his name 
 
 Was a practice established of yore, 
 
 But my friend has contrived, with his green and his wood, 
 How to tell a man's name by his door." 
 
 Lord Clifden is now here, but I am determined you 
 shall pay for so much prose and poetry ; and if you are 
 not too angry at the postage to send me an answer, 
 pray tell me that your delightful sister Lady Cawdor 
 is well. I believe the sun is gone into Wales to visit 
 her, for he has left town this morning, and I am writing 
 at two o'clock by candle light. I admire his good taste, 
 but I wish he would leave us his younger sun Phaethon 
 as a deputy during his absence. 
 
 1 The Duke of St. Albans.
 
 JAN. 5, 1826.] ROSE AND ROGERS. 157 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, January 5^, 1826, 
 
 IT was evident from the dandling of the Strathaven l 
 at Windsor that some cunning game was to be played. 
 It has been observed that in all the newspaper bulletins 
 of royal airings to Virginia Water Le vieux papa is 
 never named but as the Lord Steward, and John Bull 
 does not know who he is, or why he is so constantly 
 L'ami de la maison. 
 
 Lord Clifden and Rogers gone to Cashiobury, I 
 believe, to meet the Ellises. I am not bold enough for 
 the exploit. 
 
 It is delightful to hear a long married wife still 
 describe her spouse as the God of Love, and give him 
 the characteristic attribute of a pair of wings. If he 
 had found the Romsey bankers possessed of an equal 
 ability of flying I think he would have hardly 
 guaranteed their stability. 
 
 Poets are nominal friends, but they do not spare 
 each other. When Stewart Rose heard that there had 
 been no run upon Rogers, poet and banker, he observed, 
 " A run I should have deplored, but a little trot would 
 not have been objectionable." 
 
 Joseph dined yesterday with Sir C. Flint, the Irish 
 Secretary, who has been paying a long royal visit to 
 the Due de Bourbon, and describes Chantilly as having 
 
 1 Afterwards tenth Marquess of Huntly. The allusion is diffi- 
 cult to explain, but Lady Conyngham's influence with George IV. 
 is well known. Her daughter, Mary Elizabeth, married Lord 
 Strathaven two months later, and the Lord Steward was the 
 Marquess of Anglesey, Lady Conyngham's father.
 
 158 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. v. 
 
 recovered its ancient magnificence. Such an establish- 
 ment of horses and servants as is indescribable. 
 
 Dickinson is with his papa-in-law for the holidays, 
 where, I take it, a merry Christmas is always out of 
 the question. I have seen lively blacksmiths, gay 
 whitesmiths, and comical locksmiths, but a pair of more 
 solemn Smiths I never encountered. 
 
 Tom Moore has had a dreadful diatribe poured out 
 upon him by the European Magazine for the " Life 
 of Sheridan," which was a perilous task, and sure to 
 incense Whigs and Tories. 
 
 I met Canning yesterday. He looks shockingly, and 
 twenty years older than last year. The campaign of 
 fatigue and anxiety, too, will soon open upon him. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, February nth, 1826. 
 
 TOWN has been comparatively filled by Parliament, 
 and politics are in high bustle. As I have long bid 
 adieu to them, corn trade, Catholics, currency, and 
 country banks molest me very little ; but every hour 
 brings a new anecdote of quarrels among Ministers, 
 that one half of the Cabinet wants to throw t'other 
 overboard. In short, the day is not long enough for 
 the botheration it teems with. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott is ruined by the bankruptcy of the 
 Scotch booksellers 1 who published his works, and with 
 whom he had embarked all his money. The day after 
 
 1 Constable & Co. of Edinburgh.
 
 FEB. ii, 1826.] THE LADIES OF LLANGOLLEN. 159 
 
 this blow up an anonymous friend offered to lend 
 him 30,000. 
 
 Old Antrobus 1 has left 40,000 to one nephew and 
 200,000 to another, besides large estates. Doing the 
 honours of Mother Coutts' dinners wore him out, 
 though he had shaken off the palsy, and died of in- 
 flammation of the chest, which has been universal of 
 late. Lady Cowper nearly carried off by it. 
 
 Madame de Genlis 2 describes some sentimental hours 
 she passed with the two old ladies 3 in the Vale of 
 Llangollen, who both declare they never saw her face 
 in all their born days. For veracity la Comtesse beats 
 la Margravine. 
 
 Joseph does not give a very splendid account of the 
 opera. Edward writes of great festivities among Irish 
 balls and belles, and of his victories over snipes and 
 smugglers. 
 
 They talk of Lord Granville going to Ireland, and 
 say Lord Wellesley would return to India if he were 
 invited. The King says Lady Wellesley 4 is one of 
 the most sensible and highly bred women he ever 
 
 1 Sir Edward Antrobus, Bart. 
 
 2 In "Souvenirs de FeliceV' 
 
 3 Lady Eleanor Butler, sister of the seventeenth Earl of Ormonde, 
 and Miss Sarah Ponsonby, related to the Earls of Bessborough. 
 They lived in seclusion at Plasnewydd, in the Vale of Llangollen, 
 and became celebrated as the "Ladies of Llangollen." They 
 died within a short time of each other viz., June 1829 and 
 December 1831 respectively. 
 
 4 She was the daughter of Mr. Richard Caton, of Philadelphia, 
 and married a Mr. Robert Paterson, by whom she was left a 
 widow.
 
 l6o MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. v. 
 
 conversed with. It seems she went to Ireland on the 
 avowed project of fascinating His Excellency, and that 
 for some time she made no impression. 
 
 The Duke of York's Palace 1 begins to present a 
 magnificent front to the Park. The fagade seems 
 double the extent of Lord Spencer's, and reduces Lord 
 Stafford's to a Lilliput villa. 
 
 The Duke recovered of a late indisposition, and 
 could I hobble more gracefully I should have dined 
 with him yesterday, though still I feel from so long a 
 domestication a decent horror of late dinners and cold 
 evening voyages, an amusement which Joseph is my 
 proxy for. So I shall wait to come out with the lilacs. 
 
 Our Lady of Holland still detains Milord at Paris 
 on the luxurious entremets of Talleyrand's cook, though 
 he had probably passed his time more agreeably in the 
 House of Peers. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Tuesday, July i8//z, 1826. 
 
 THE eternal dry weather brings frogs out everywhere, 
 and the croaking is universal. Blighted cauliflowers, 
 shrivelled pease, Yorkshire rebellions, starving manu- 
 facturers, and Catholic disaffection. Plenty of evils 
 for the new M.P.'s to discuss as an amusement. 
 
 Lord Manners was in hopes to have resigned the 
 Seal this summer, and has taken a place in Suffolk, 
 but His Majesty's Ministers are at such a puzzle about 
 the choice of his successor that he must return to 
 
 1 The present Stafford House.
 
 JULY 18, 1826.] ROGERS AND "JOHN BULL." l6l 
 
 Ireland for another year. The Lord-Lieutenant 1 has 
 taken a singular turn for economy, and the Castle is 
 devoted to conjugal love and saving money. His 
 Excellency's protection of Papists does not tend to 
 render Lord Manners' political position more palatable. 
 
 London is of course depopulated. A few are left 
 to eat whitebait at Greenwich, and yawn under Lord 
 Hertford's marquee in the Regent's Park. 
 
 My babies are paddling on the Thames to Richmond, 
 and stewing themselves at night with " Paul Pry." 
 
 Lord Clifden meditating his annual visitation to 
 Ireland unaccompanied by the Ellises, who have no 
 taste for whisky, priests, and Paddies, but disport 
 themselves at Cashiobury, the Priory, and Worthing. 
 
 The Duke of York better, but terribly ennuye by 
 Halford's imprisonment of him, and I dread his first 
 attempt to escape from it. 
 
 Lady Holland has transported her Telemachus to 
 some place abroad, where medicinal springs cure the 
 sweet passion. The Calypso is said to be very talented, 
 and Miladi declares there shall be no bel esprit but 
 herself in the family. 
 
 Piccadilly is animated now and then by Napoleon's 
 niece 2 looking out of Mother Coutts' window, and poor 
 Rogers does not dare peep out of his into the Green 
 Park, as John Bull advertises that he is the person 
 who lay dead under an avalanche for a century and a 
 half. 
 
 1 The Marquess Wellesley. 
 
 2 Lady Dudley Stuart. 
 
 II
 
 1 62 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. v. 
 
 Don't read Lady C. Campbell's " Alia Giornata," 
 don't read Lord Blessington's " Reginald de Vavasour," 
 both duller than death. 
 
 Poet Sotheby invites the boys to a Flte Champetre 
 at a hovel he has built in a bog on Epping Forest, 
 where his brother the Admiral is to waltz, but they 
 have no stilts, so decline it. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Saturday, October 7 th, 1826. 
 LAWYER LEE, who saw me yesterday on business, 
 has found benefit from the necromancer of Cowes. He 
 reports that Dr. L'Afan married a widow worth 
 4,000 a year near Canterbury, a place famous for 
 tales of all sorts, and consequently practises physic 
 rather as an amusement. He has above thirty patients 
 in the island, mounts them on donkeys daily and early, 
 and, I believe, graces the squadron by riding at the head 
 of it. He gives very gentle medicines, but inculcates 
 severe regimen, and bullied Lord Anglesey most 
 peremptorily out of his yacht and Lord Galloway out 
 of two cooks. In a fortnight he cured the Duchess of 
 Sussex of an abscess, blistered Lady L. Cadogan with 
 success, and has defeated Lord Anglesey's tic doleureux 
 for many months, though he declares he will never 
 attend another patient in that inscrutable disorder. The 
 doctor makes those who consult him keep a journal of 
 their most minute feelings, which Joseph applauds as the 
 system of his new idol professor, Hahnemann * of Leipzig. 
 
 1 Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of Homoeopathy. He 
 died in 1843.
 
 OCT. 7, 1826.] THE DUKE OF YORK 163 
 
 That luminous and interesting Cabinet minister, the 
 Earl of Westmorland, nearly closed his valuable life 
 at Cowes very recently. 
 
 A fantastic letter yesterday from the Honourable 
 Elizabeth Law, 1 who desires me to admire the motto 
 of her seal composed by herself 
 
 "Blest be that hand which letters first designed, 
 And thus gave wings and language to the mind." 
 
 To which 1 replied 
 
 " Blest be that silly goose who first 
 Gave belles her quills to taper, 
 And blest that dirty beggar too 
 Whose rags first gave them paper." 
 
 Yesterday I called at the Duke of York's, and re- 
 ceived the usual account. He was out airing. I have 
 too much authority to believe he underwent the opera- 
 tion, but only to relieve him from a very moderate 
 accumulation of fluid, the removal of which, it was 
 supposed, would facilitate the effects of medicine. 
 There is, however, a very general despair as to total 
 recovery. Rumour has even added an ulcer on the 
 leg, which threatened mortification for some hours, 
 and Lord Huntly has been named for the Grenadier 
 Guards. 
 
 Among other exaggerations of gossip is the 
 Chancellor's intended resignation at Christmas, and 
 Copley's succession to the seals. 
 
 Mr. Shields has vomited another tirade in Ireland 
 against the poor Duke of York, more brutal and 
 1 Afterwards Lady Colchester.
 
 164 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. v. 
 
 malignant than the first, and the Morning Chronicle 
 is proud to give it at full length. The Duke's letters 
 to Mrs. Clarke, are raked up, and to each of the Duke's 
 declarations of fidelity to her is added from his Catholic 
 Speech, " So help me God ! " 
 
 That little coxcomb, the Vice-Chancellor, gone to 
 bore Lord Granville at Paris. He struggled in vain 
 to succeed Lord Gifford in the House of Lords, but 
 must content himself with dowagers and e"carte. Les 
 tnnuytes begin to muster at Brighton ; Lady Holland 
 as usual the prima donna of the corps till Mother 
 Coutts arrives with the rouleaux from the Strand, and 
 a majority of side dishes. 
 
 We have no news except of a clever plan of Colonel 
 Trench to supply the new palace with fish, by salting 
 the Serpentine river to breed tame turbot, and making 
 lobster sauce by the treadmill. A meeting of fish- 
 mongers and other sea-holders is advertised to oppose 
 it ; and as it is to be held at Billingsgate the language 
 of the debate will probably be less polite than at 
 Andover. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, October 28^, 1826. 
 
 JOHN PEARSE, who sees the Duke of York frequently, 
 gave me an excellent account of him yesterday, and has 
 sanguine hopes of recovery. The Duke slept seven 
 hours the preceding night, a length of continued sleep 
 lie has not enjoyed for twenty years. In an adjoining 
 Toom, with the door open, a daily dinner is served for 
 his medical and military intimates Halford, Taylor,
 
 OCT. 28, 1826.] SHELBURNE'S EPITAPH. 165 
 
 Torrens, Greenwood. The Duke of course dines alone, 
 but by these means he hears their talk, and pleasantly 
 and cheerfully sees them by turns. There has been 
 an erysipelas on the leg, and Sir Astley Cooper was 
 called in. 
 
 When that strange man Lord Wycombe was dying of 
 liver and dropsy he wrote his own epitaph : " Here lies 
 William, Marquess of Lansdowne, 1 who was drowned in 
 his armchair." There is a newspaper story of a young 
 peer ruined by noble gamblers. Lord Clanricarde is 
 named, but whether as dupe or duper I cannot learn. 
 They say it has brought Canning, his father-in-law, from 
 Paris. 
 
 Your album makes me believe you are a Latin scholar, 
 so I venture to send a Latin epigram, and what is more, 
 composed by a lady. The various equivoque on the 
 verb solvo is excellent and untranslatable. 
 
 ON A DEBTOR WHITEWASHED UNDER THE 
 INSOLVENT ACT. 
 
 Qui niger et captivus eram, candore nivali, 
 Splendidus egredior carcere, liber homo 
 
 Solvuntur curae solventur vincula ferri 
 Solvitur attonitus creditor in lachrymis. 
 
 Solvor ego solum non solvitur aes alienum 
 A non solvendo rite solutus ero. 
 
 Henry Fox vacates the Duke of Norfolk's seat in 
 Parliament, stays abroad, cured of love, and exemplifies 
 
 1 The first Marquess, better known as the Earl of Shelburne, 
 who succeeded Lord Rockingham as Prime Minister in 1782. 
 He introduced Mr. Jekyll to political life.
 
 1 66 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. v. 
 
 the couplet in the puppet show which so exasperated 
 Don Quixote 
 
 " Don Gayferos at tables playing 
 Of Melissandra thinks no more." 
 
 Walter Scott going to Paris for six volumes of 
 Napoleon anecdotes. Mademoiselle Las Casas 1 offers 
 him a deluge of them to gratify the modern rage of dis- 
 figuring histoiy in a novel, 
 
 Monday Evening, December iWi, 1826. 
 
 LORD COLCHESTER has defeated Agar Ellis in a law- 
 suit about a chimney the latter had built to keep saddles 
 warm, and, strange to say, Edward's dry nurse, my old 
 Mary, was called as a witness to prove the little Col- 
 chester's house had stood where it still stands for the 
 last twenty years. The smoking of a new peer will be 
 a costly amusement to George. But we must pay for 
 our pleasures. 
 
 The " Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons " 2 are amusing ; but 
 there is too much of the green room, and too little of 
 her, in the book. The " Memoirs " and " Journal " of la 
 Princesse de Lamballe are interesting. 
 
 No one seems to entertain a hope of the permanent 
 recovery of our poor Duke. The King very well, and I 
 should guess in good spirits ; for the other day when 
 Edward was on guard he gave " Calne " 3 as the parole 
 to the regiment. 
 
 1 The daughter of the Marquis de Las Casas, the companion 
 and biographer of Napoleon at St. Helena. 
 
 2 By James Boaden. 
 
 3 The borough which Mr. Jekyll represented in Parliament for 
 many years.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY 
 (Continued']. 
 
 SPRING GAR-DENS, January i$th, 1827. 
 
 IT was unfortunately too certain in June last that a 
 disease so desperate, at the Duke's time of life, would 
 terminate fatally at no distant period, and I never enter- 
 tained a hope of recovery. 1 He had a heart of feeling, 
 sincerity, and attachment, and for a long series of years 
 manifested towards me the most disinterested kindness. 
 Yet miscreants were to be found whose malignity could 
 asperse him while scarcely cold in his coffin. Hard is 
 the lot of princes. The errors or follies of other men 
 are smiled at, but theirs are magnified into crimes. The 
 world, however, has done justice to his memory by an 
 unfeigned and universal sorrow. On Friday Edward 
 marches with the Grenadier Guards to Windsor to 
 escort the last remains of one who had voluntarily 
 promised to protect him when I ceased to exist. 
 
 It is the common misfortune of those who attain an 
 age like mine to outlive many they loved. Yet I am 
 thankful for a prolongation of life which has enabled me 
 to see my sons fairly launched in the world, and fixed 
 in professions which will not force them to desert me. 
 
 1 The Duke died on January 5th, 1827. 
 167
 
 1 68 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. vi. 
 
 Joseph has become the pupil, for a year, of an eminent 
 special pleader in the Temple, and his mornings are 
 now devoted to that difficult branch of the law. They 
 both dine with me continually, indeed, whenever they 
 are disengaged. Positive happiness I never enjoyed 
 since I lost their mother, to whom my attachment 
 bordered on enthusiasm ; but their own conduct, my 
 extraordinary spirits, and the return of health I now 
 enjoy, render my existence as satisfactory as I have 
 any right to desire. 
 
 I found Lord Stafford as well in health, nay, better, I 
 think, than when I last saw him two years ago. I passed 
 two very pleasant days there, and Lady Stafford hoped 
 I would repeat my visit with Joseph, who had gone to 
 Mr. Grenfell's, near Windsor, and could not accompany 
 me. We had the Gowers, the little Vice-Chancellor and 
 his unremitting fcarte, and the very agreeable Mr. Hay, 
 Lord Bathurst's secretary. Sir Humphry Davy gone 
 abroad for health. 
 
 Lady Cawdor has produced, and Lady Georgiana 
 has produced, and both most propitiously. Not so 
 my friend Sir J. Stanley's daughter, the recent bride 
 of Captain Parry. 
 
 Lord Orford's sister J asked Wolff, a converted Jew 
 and a beggar, to marry her. Lee is framing the settle- 
 ments. The couple set off for Syria and the Holy 
 Land directly on his pilgrimage as a missionary to 
 convert Jews. 
 
 1 Georgiana Mary, daughter of the second Earl of Orford. She 
 married the Rev. Joseph Wolff, D.D., vicar of Isle Brewers.
 
 MARCH 20, 1827.] COBBETT ON CLUBS. 169 
 
 Another religious union is taking place, that of Lord 
 Rocksavage l with a daughter of Sir George Gray, the 
 sainted Commissioner of Portsmouth. 
 
 London will begin to fill in February. Sir J. Stanley 
 has let his moderate house in St. Audley Square for 
 three months at 700. 
 
 Yesterday, at the request of my old friend, Smith, 
 M.P. for Norwich, I seconded the nomination of his son- 
 in-law, your neighbouring nightingale, as a candidate 
 for our Athenaeum. I hope Cobbett will spare our club. 
 On Saturday last in his paper he called Boodles 
 " Noodles." 
 
 We suppose the Duke of Wellington will be 
 Commander-in-Chief, and the Duke of Cambridge have 
 the Grenadier Guards, Lord Huntly probably the 
 vacant regiment of Guards. The King much depressed 
 in health and spirits. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, March 2oth, 1827. 
 
 LET me congratulate you on your nephew Morpeth's 
 debut' 2 ' in the House of Commons, which is highly 
 spoken of. A host of young gentlemen have appeared 
 there with more effrontery than talents ; and as 
 Parliament no longer possesses the supereminent cha- 
 racters of ancient days, the debutants are fearless of 
 eclipse, and spout without control. Lord Morpeth and 
 Villiers Stuart are the only exceptions dont on parle. 
 
 1 The second Marquess of Cholmondeley. This marriage did 
 not take place. 
 
 2 On a motion for the relief of Catholic disabilities.
 
 1 70 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vi. 
 
 Politics I have long bid adieu to, or the present 
 moment would not supply me with very comfortable 
 speculations on the state of public affairs. 
 
 Poor Lord Liverpool 1 is still without speech, and 
 almost without consciousness. Yet the machine of 
 government moves on. On the introduction of the 
 guillotine in France, I remember a young Englishman 
 wrote a treatise to prove that a man's existence might 
 be continued by art, though his head was wanting. He 
 did not extend this reasoning to an Administration, but 
 merely applied it to the ordinary class of mankind, 
 such as Justices of the Peace, county gentlemen, and 
 dandies. 
 
 Huskisson, too, is in a precarious state, such an 
 affection of the trachea, and such nightly perspira- 
 tions, as in an earlier stage of life would indicate 
 consumption. 
 
 Under the pretext of resorting for health to the 
 waters of Leamington, the Lady-Lieutenant 2 of Ireland 
 is said to be separating herself from her Lord. These 
 waters, like those of Lethe, probably teach wives to 
 forget their husbands, and resemble those Lady Holland 
 sent her son to drink in Italy as a cure for the tender 
 passion. 
 
 The Lord-Lieutenant, though by no means in despair 
 at this Catholic emancipation from wedlock, shuts 
 himself up in total seclusion. Whenever he does deign 
 to appear in public he presents a singular spectacle 
 a hoary head with eyebrows artificially blackened, 
 
 1 He died on December 4th, 1828. - Lady Wellesley.
 
 MARCH 20, 1827.] LORD WELLESLEY'S TOILETTE. 171 
 
 cheeks highly rouged, and a forehead painted white. 
 Grimaldi in a pantomime is a less picturesque Viceroy. 
 It is said Lady Glengall some time ago forced her 
 way to his toilette, and caught him in the very fact 
 of repairing himself. 
 
 Somebody said to-day the gallant Hertford was to 
 carry the Garter to the Emperor of Russia. Near the 
 aforesaid Marquess' Villa in the Regent's Park the 
 Zoological Society * is about to create a menagerie of 
 wild beasts and birds similar to that in the Jardin des 
 Plantes at Paris, much to the terror of Sir Herbert 
 Taylor's old nuns of St. Catharine's, who have just 
 built their new monastery hard by. The poor old 
 bodies expect tigers at their tea tables and hyaenas 
 as chaperons in their evening walks. The wolf who 
 devoured Lord Orford's Little Red Riding Hood is to 
 be chaplain to the menagerie. 
 
 My friend Luttrell, who is too good-natured for a 
 satirist, has published a poem on the modern Greeks 
 of Crockford's Gambling Club, and another on the 
 modern Romans, // ecrit les vers de societe asses 
 joliment ; but neither of these is so good as his " Letters 
 to Julia." Dr. Parr's life is about to be published, and 
 they have written to me for my correspondence with 
 him. So ends this budget on nonsense. 
 
 I sat two hours yesterday with my old friend Mrs. 
 
 Siddons, a majestic ruin ; but her powerful eyes 
 
 reminded me of Constance, Isabella, and Lady 
 
 Randolph. She promises me a tcte-d,-tete, and to read 
 
 1 The Zoological Gardens were opened in April 1827.
 
 172 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vi. 
 
 MacbetJi to me. She describes Mrs. Fitzhugh's nervous 
 irritability as almost amounting to craziness. 
 
 The late Lord Guilford left a good estate to his poor 
 nephew, Lord Sheffield ; but for want of the legal 
 number of witnesses the will is waste paper, so 
 superior is the talent of an attorney's clerk to that 
 of the founder of an university in the Ionian Islands. 
 As St. Paul says, " This is to the Greeks foolish- 
 ness." 
 
 P.S. the second. When old Baxter, the fanatic, 
 died, a man sold so profitably a pamphlet entitled " The 
 Last Words of Mr. Baxter," that he published a second, 
 entitled " More Last Words of Mr. Baxter." And I am 
 following his example. 
 
 Edward has just paid me a visit from Kew. He 
 dined there yesterday with the Duke of Cumberland, 
 who had been at Windsor in the morning, and said the 
 King never was in better health. On his telling the 
 King that Edward was to dine with him that day at 
 Kew the King said, " Jekyll is coming down here when 
 I get into the Castle." 
 
 I remember one day at the Lodge he said generally, 
 " You must visit me in the winter." If a command 
 came at present I should certainly plead the gout 
 (though it has left me), as a convalescent would not 
 relish a castle. 
 
 However, he cannot get into the Castle for some 
 days ; and if even then I felt stout enough, between 
 ourselves, I had rather avoid the honour, and prefer
 
 JAN. 14, 1828.] THE GUARDS' UNIFORM. 1/3 
 
 home to magnificence and a cold excursion in the 
 snow. 
 
 The Duke said the King had ordered that the 
 uniform of the three regiments of Guards and the Blues 
 should be changed in April, each officer to have 
 three coats with embroidery, at the cost of a hundred 
 and twenty pounds, though they had new uniforms 
 last year. Now this really seems a wanton expense ; 
 and there is no reason why it should not recur in six 
 months if a new fancy took place. However, as a 
 Lieutenant's pay, after regimental deductions, is only 
 ten pounds a year, it is presumed a young gentleman 
 ought always to be in debt to his tailor. 
 
 The last piece of nonsense I have heard is that 
 Lord Hill will resign the command of the Army, as 
 he thinks the King communicates more with Sir 
 Herbert Taylor than with himself, and that Sir George 
 Murray will leave the Colonial Office to succeed him. 
 It was not said where Wellington could get a new 
 Secretary of State. 
 
 But I will have done, for the daily on dits would fill 
 a quire. 
 
 January i^tk, 1828. 
 
 YESTERDAY we had a pleasant dinner with Poet 
 Rogers, Lord and Lady Holland, their pretty dimpled 
 girl, and Tom Grenville, whom I amused with the 
 following family anecdotes : 
 
 A volume entitled the " Interior of Foreign Courts," 
 and translated from the French, is now in circulation.
 
 1/4 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vi. 
 
 Mistaking Greville and Grenville, it gravely asserts 
 among the anecdotes of Naples that the present correct 
 Lord Grenville kept Lady Hamilton several years, 
 but falling into poverty handed her over to his uncle 
 Sir William Hamilton, who married her, imputing 
 thereby to his sedate and opulent lordship both penury 
 and profligacy. Lord Nugent told me this morning 
 that they contrived to hoist the Duke of Buckingham 
 to the top of Mount Etna. What a compliment to 
 the mechanical powers this age of intellect has arrived 
 at ! If they had thrown the corpulent cratur in they 
 would have blocked up the crater of Etna for ever, 
 and, as the servant says in the Clandestine Marriage, 
 got rid of two confounded things together. 
 
 They said at Rogers' Sir Astley Cooper the surgeon 
 was to marry the widowed Lady Bridgewater. 1 I 
 venture to hope he had not trepanned her into the 
 match. 
 
 Miguel 2 has been feasted and ducked at a stag hunt 
 and a review, has visited St. Paul's and the waxworks, 
 paid for seeing outlandish beasts at the Tower. As 
 they also saw him, it was disgraceful to take his money. 
 He mistook the pantomime at Covent Garden for 
 Hamlet. Lady Morley will make a good sketch of 
 him on his visit at Saltram. They wisely marry him 
 
 1 He did not. 
 
 * Don Miguel, brother to Pedro IV., King of Portugal and 
 Emperor of Brazil. Miguel usurped the Crown of Portugal from 
 his niece Queen Maria II., in whose favour Pedro had abdicated 
 in July of this year, and retained it until 1833, when Maria was 
 restored.
 
 JAN. 24, 1828.] THE GODERICH ADMINISTRATION. 175 
 
 to a miss of nine years of age, as no miss of ten would 
 have consented. 
 
 Lord Carlisle called here last Saturday. The King 
 far from well when they were at Windsor, and the 
 botheration of the present moment will not relieve gout. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, January z^th, 1828. 
 
 THE day before yesterday in the Park I met the 
 late Privy Seal 1 riding with full as much complacency 
 as if he was still in office. At least the merit of 
 philosophy cannot be denied to the late Administra- 
 tion, 2 for I never saw a set of gentlemen who seemed 
 to care so little about their catastrophe. But I think 
 it may be fairly added that they manifested as little 
 avidity to get into their late eminence. Nay, they 
 went further, for many of them seemed to accept with 
 reluctance. Twenty years ago I was a hot politician, 
 and the passing events would have excited me. At 
 present I feel no interest about them, except that with 
 such a fluctuation of men and measures it may become 
 more and more difficult to keep the countiy on its legs ; 
 and that is a general concern. 
 
 The King is convalescent at last, but he has been 
 well bothered as an invalid, and it retarded his recovery. 
 Lord Byron's shabby friend Hunt 3 has published a 
 large volume of rather abusive anecdotes of his Lord- 
 
 1 George, sixth Earl of Carlisle, Lady Gertrude's brother. 
 
 2 Lord Goderich's. 
 
 3 Leigh Hunt. This book, " Lord Byron and Some of His 
 Contemporaries," was the great mistake of Hunt's life. "The 
 only book that Hunt ever regretted he had written ... its
 
 1 76 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vi. 
 
 ship. London, you may be sure, has not been deserted 
 during all this tracasserie, and I have been heroic 
 enough to dine out frequently. 
 
 Lady Holland is the only dissatisfied minister out 
 of office. She counted upon sailing down daily with her 
 long-tailed blacks and ancient crane-necked chariot to 
 sit with Holland at the Secretary's office, to administer 
 the affairs of Europe, and make Sidney Smith a bishop. 
 As for him, he never cared twopence about the whole 
 job, and the delightful fellow was very wise in so treating 
 it. To say the truth, I never augured well of the per- 
 manency of the whole concern, even if Canning's death 
 and Goderich's impotency had not blown it up. 
 
 Talking of the Hollands, Joseph said this morning 
 they resembled the different ends of a magnet, attractive 
 one and repulsive the other. This was very good ; but 
 don't circulate it, for she is really kind to him, and it 
 would seem ungrateful. 
 
 I live in hopes of your arrival. 
 
 P.S. If anybody had asked me I should have said 
 I had no lady correspondent but yourself, yet to-day 
 I received a letter from Elizabeth Law to express to so 
 very old a member of the family their satisfaction at 
 Lord Ellenborough's l admission to a Cabinet office, and 
 
 manifold faults of taste and temper were severely criticised, the 
 book having especially hurt the feelings of many literary gentle- 
 men, who envied Hunt his opportunities of receiving ill-treatment 
 at the hands of a lord." Athetuzum, March 25th, 1893, p. 377. 
 
 1 Lord, afterwards Earl of Ellenborough, Privy Seal in Welling- 
 ton's Administration.
 
 MARCH 22, 1828.] LORD ALLEN AND LADY HOLLAND. 177 
 
 the prospect, within three or four weeks, of Lady Ellen- 
 borough presenting him with a heir or a heiress. 
 
 She writes she could be present at the first interview 
 between His Majesty and her brother, but that the 
 former is so good a performer that probably it would 
 not be discoverable that the latter had ever been in 
 disgrace, and she trusts now that the unfortunate rest 
 of the family will no longer be cut by their sovereign. 
 
 She adds that Lord Wharncliffe and his friends at 
 Brighton declare that the admission of her brother into 
 administration is a positive insult to the memory of 
 Canning, and that she hears Lady Holland is so furious 
 that she nearly killed old Allen for telling her that, like 
 an aloe, she must be content to have blossomed for 
 three months, and now make up her mind to be shut up 
 for the ninety-nine years of the future hundred. 
 
 Such are the Miss's communications of political 
 feeling, and which I have confided as a matter of amuse- 
 ment to you. The exultation on the event must be 
 considerable, as she volunteers so unexpected an epistle 
 to convey it to me. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, March 22nd, 1828. 
 
 EDWARD chronicles the gaieties of Dublin, the balls, 
 the drawing-rooms, and the popularity of the Lord- 
 Lieutenant. 1 Poor Lady Anglesey, I hear, wished much 
 to have gone over in the present spring, but it was 
 overruled. 
 
 Joseph is very well, and a great resource to me. He 
 
 1 The Marquess of Anglesey. 
 
 12
 
 178 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vi. 
 
 went last night to Lady Lansdowne, who had Pasta 
 Caradori, and all the thrushes and blackbirds who 
 whistle in the present season of London. 
 
 "Columbus" bored me before I got half across the 
 Atlantic with him, and I kicked him out to read " The 
 History of George Godfrey," which is a comical lie from 
 one end to the other, and therefore ten times more 
 edifying than four volumes of truth. 
 
 The crash of the Goderich Theatre maimed and 
 bruised many of my friends, but it murdered Tierney 
 and Abercromby. 1 The ruin of the latter I am really 
 and sincerely hurt at. He abandons London and an 
 income of three thousand a year, cannot return to his 
 profession, and unwisely thinks he can find resources 
 in a Derbyshire rustication. 
 
 A penurious father with a large income forces Spring 
 Rice 2 to exile himself to the East Indies. His rising 
 talents and virtues deserve a better fate, and the event 
 is universally deplored. Such are his popularity and 
 importance, to the interests of Ireland in particular, that 
 I have heard of many who were willing, if delicacy 
 would permit, to subscribe a magnificent free gift to 
 him with a view to keep him here. 
 
 1 James Abercromby, afterwards Lord Dunfermline, who cer- 
 tainly survived the shock. He was Judge-Advocate-General in 
 Canning's Administration, and Speaker of the House 1835-9, and 
 retired on a pension of ^"4,000. 
 
 * Thomas, first Lord Monteagle, the friend of O'Connell, and 
 an active Liberal. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer 1835-9, 
 in the Melbourne Government, but was not a success in that 
 office. He died in 1866.
 
 MARCH 22, 1 828.] MIGUEL'S MURDER. 179 
 
 Miguel is a splendid performer. When he caused the 
 murder of the unfortunate gentleman 1 who made such 
 successful love to his sister, they were so puzzled about 
 hiding the corpse from the King in his apartments, where 
 the deed was done, that Miguel contrived to put it 
 under the King's dining-table, and during the repast 
 kicked it near him, that his royal father's foot might not 
 discover it. 
 
 The murdered man's son took a singular revenge. 
 He made equally successful love to Miguel's next sister, 
 married her, and scampered to England. They were 
 very near meeting here when Miguel was sent to stare 
 at Greenwich Hospital. 
 
 The King has really no complaint but lameness. I 
 saw a letter yesterday from Jelf, 2 the tutor of the Duke 
 of Cumberland's 3 boy, 4 enclosing the following essay by 
 his pupil at eight years old. 
 
 " A good king should love his subjects, and particu- 
 larly locksmiths and clockmakers, as they make the 
 cleverest things I ever saw." This young Telemachns 
 does not degenerate from George the Third and his love 
 of pendulums. 
 
 The Dissenters have exchanged a bitter pill for a 
 sweetmeat. I wish our poor Catholics had also some 
 
 1 The Marquis de Louie, suffocated by Miguel or his orders in 
 the royal palace of Salvaterra. 
 
 2 Richard William Jelf, afterwards Principal of King's 
 College, a noted theologian, and the friend of Pusey and 
 Newman. 
 
 3 Ernest, King of Hanover, died 1851. 
 
 4 George Augustus, King of Hanover, died 1878.
 
 180 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vi. 
 
 candied orange-peel for their desserts, but I despair 
 even of the House of Commons. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Friday, March 28//z, 1828. 
 
 AN invitation from the Archipelago, I am sorry to 
 say, was generally more successful than in the present 
 instance has been that from Belvoir. 
 
 On Thursday next I am engaged to dine with our 
 new Privy Seal Lord Ellenborough, to meet Lord Eldon 
 and some of that ancient school. But Trojans and 
 Tyrians when mixed form no bad society, because that 
 bore called politics is necessarily excluded. 
 
 On Monday last I dined with the King ; and though 
 too lame to stand, I never saw him in better health and 
 spirits ; a small party. We had only the Duke of Leeds 
 and Lord Ravensworth. On Wednesday last I dined 
 with him again, and he was able to use his crutches. 
 We had only the Conynghams and their pretty 
 daughter, and two or three men of the Household. 
 
 The King goes to Windsor for the holidays, and on 
 his return to town levies and Drawing-rooms are ex- 
 pected. If he determines to sit, there would be no 
 difficulty in all this. 
 
 Edward writes that the Paddies are delighted to see 
 their Lord-Lieutenant ride about Dublin with no attend- 
 ant but his groom ; " Because," says Paddy, " it's for all 
 the world as if he was a raal gintleman." 
 
 A poor young Prussian artist is under Joseph's 
 patronage, and has drawn in pencil a very good likeness 
 of him for a guinea. I believe Sir Thomas Lawrence
 
 SEPT. ig, 1828.] NORMAN COURT. l8l 
 
 asks more, as Lady G. Ellis and her boy will cost an 
 additional four hundred and ninety-nine. 
 
 The papers announce nothing but balls and suppers. 
 Gunter and Weippart 1 more talked of than Nicholas 
 and the Grand Turk. On Sunday last I dined with the 
 Chancellor. Let Dudley beware, for Sir. F. Burdett 
 dined there, and is become a rival. 
 
 Remember me most kindly to Lady Cawdor. 
 
 NORMAN COURT, Friday, September igth, 1828. 
 
 WE leave Norman Court next Monday, having, at 
 the hospitable instance of Wall, prolonged our visit 
 beyond its intended limits. 
 
 Our host has an admirable establishment, luxury, 
 comfort, good taste, and not a syllable of ostentation. 
 A succession of pleasant society, plenty of books for 
 the lame, and plenty of game for the active. We have 
 pretty women, too Lady Caroline Calcraft and Mrs. 
 Vernon Smith. Marsh passed a day with us, and we 
 talked of you. 
 
 The weather has been propitious for my daily drives, 
 as I have been amused with the Memoirs of Le Comte 
 de Tilly 2 just published, who gives rather a profligate 
 account of himself in the true style of a French 
 fanfaroris veracity. It seems like an appendix to 
 the rascally anecdotes of the Due de Lauzun. Tilly, 
 however, does justice to the unfortunate Queen, and 
 
 1 A fashionable bandmaster and composer of dance music. 
 1 " Memoirs pour servir a 1'histoire des mceurs de la fin du dix- 
 huitieme siecle," 3 vols.
 
 1 82 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vi. 
 
 confines her attachments to Coigny and Fersen, which 
 I know to be true from authentic information, though 
 the Jacobins gave her a hundred lovers. 
 
 The book came awkwardly here for Mrs. Wall, 
 for Tilly recounts his elopement and marriage with 
 Miss Bingham in America, and his receiving a large 
 sum from the family to consent to a divorce on account 
 of some legal defect in the ceremony. The lady, you 
 know, is now the wife of Alexander Baring. 1 
 
 The Speaker says the first time old Lord Stowell 
 dined at Holland House Miladi, in her usual style, 
 addressed him as follows : 
 
 " Sir William Scott, to speak honestly, the first time 
 I knew you I hated you extremely." 
 
 " To speak honestly," replied Lord Stowell, " is an 
 admirable principle in your ladyship, and I am bound 
 to adopt it in declaring that the aversion was reciprocal." 
 
 We shall lounge along the coast to Worthing, and 
 if we tire of it proceed to Brighton. A line to the 
 Post Office, Worthing, will either find me there or be 
 forwarded. 
 
 YORK HOTEL, BRIGHTON, Monday, October 6t/i, 1828. 
 
 BRIGHTON is very pleasant and comfortable, a good 
 hotel, a fine sea view at my windows, my morning 
 drive, my lounge at a library, a late dinner, and an 
 early bed. So I have paid no visits for fear of repay- 
 
 1 First Lord Ashburton. The lady was Anne Louisa, eldest 
 daughter of Mr. William Bingham of Philadelphia, a senator of 
 the United States. They were married in 1798.
 
 NOV. 3, 1 828.] BRIGHTON. 183 
 
 ment ; but Sir A. Legge 1 and I consolidated our meals 
 yesterday, as we are under the same roof. Here are 
 people I know, if I choose to look for them ; but 
 Brighton is so like London decanted upon the sea 
 shore, that I will not complete the resemblance by 
 morning visits and dinners. 
 
 Here are the Argylls, old Lord Harrington, Lord 
 Camden, and I believe the Hollands and Tierney, but 
 I am quiet and sulky. Not so the Guardsman, who 
 improves his mind with dandies of the Tenth and their 
 valuable occupations. 
 
 The harridan Countess of Cork and Orrery is hunting 
 for me all over the place. I have told the master of 
 the hotel to inform the Countess' servant that while 
 bathing yesterday I was unfortunately drowned. 
 
 Chantrey is coming down to place the King's statue 
 on the Steyne, which we subscribed for years ago. 
 The Brighton democrats pelted the former to pieces 
 in gratitude for creating their town. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, November ^rd, 1828. 
 
 WE left Paultons, as we always do, with regret, and 
 I think more so this time than ever ; we were so 
 comfortable and snug. I must repeat the greatest 
 compliment I know, in saying I never once felt I was 
 a mere visitor. 
 
 I have been already among my lawyers, Joseph 
 among his philosophers, and Edward among his red- 
 coats, but I have gleaned little more gossip than the 
 
 1 The Admiral.
 
 1 84 MR. JEKVLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vi. 
 
 gossiping Morning Post I send you. Lord Stowell was 
 one of the three peers to adjourn Parliament, and tells 
 me the King's signature to the Commission was quite 
 illegible. He says the gout fled from the arm to the 
 bowels, and occasioned alarming inflammation for many 
 hours. This has been confirmed to me by Lord 
 Farnborough. But certainly at present there is 
 convalescence, however precarious as to duration. 
 
 Nothing transpires as to Ministerial intentions to- 
 wards Ireland when Parliament meets after Christmas. 
 It is said somebody tried to pump the Duke of 
 Wellington on the subject, who replied, " No pumping ! 
 It won't do ! If the hairs of my head knew what my 
 brain had decided I would cut them off and wear 
 a wig." 
 
 I see my friend Will Smith has not learned soothing 
 notes among the .nightingales, for he announces, as 
 Chairman, a public dinner in honour of Mr. Shiel, to 
 manifest a total union between Catholics and Dissenters, 
 and bother the Bruns wickers. This is not gratitude for 
 the repeal of the Test Act. As far as I can form an 
 opinion on this horrible dilemma, I fear Government 
 will be compelled to violent measures. But a truce to 
 the odious topic of politics. 
 
 P.S. As a frank has dropped in I enclose the Minerva 
 Seal of our Athenseum Club, engraved by Wyon of 
 the Mint from a drawing by Sir T. Lawrence. 
 
 Thursday, November \<)th, 1828. 
 JOSEPH and I met Tom Moore t'other day at dinner,
 
 NOV. 19, 1828. j MOORE'S JOKES. 185 
 
 and he amused us with stones which manifest how 
 sincerely the poets love one another, so I must send 
 you a brace of them. 
 
 A friend of Rogers' observed that viper broth was 
 very nutritious for persons of weakly and decaying habit, 
 and that Rogers lived upon it. Somebody said it must 
 be an expensive diet. " No," replied the friend, " Rogers 
 finds his own venom." 
 
 Rogers dined last summer where the Duke of Wel- 
 lington came the very last to dinner. In the evening 
 the Duke apologised to the master of the house, and 
 said, "The real fact is, I was detained in the House of 
 Lords on the Anatomy Bill, 1 but I did not like to 
 mention it, as Mr. Rogers was present." 
 
 We were abusing the drama of Don Jtian, which 
 has been popular in all countries, and agreed it was a 
 disgusting tissue of fire, murder, violation, and concluded 
 with sending a human being into eternal perdition. 
 Tom said it was a moral spectacle, because it taught 
 people to take care whom they invited to supper. 
 
 I called on your delightful sister. She had left town, 
 and was to return for a single day, and then proceed 
 northwards. I told our friend the Attorney-General 
 (Scarlett), who was fortunate enough to find her at home 
 on that single day. He tells me she had a bad cold 
 the customary tribute of coming to town in November 
 but it did not prevent her journey. 
 
 Rogers was here yesterday from the Spliigen. He 
 
 1 An allusion to Samuel Rogers' personal appearance, which 
 was a standing subject for the jokes of his contemporaries.
 
 1 86 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vi. 
 
 was " beat bootless home and weather beaten back," but 
 he contrived afterwards to scale St.Gothard at Mayence. 
 Like the Devil of old, he took himself up to an exceeding 
 high tower to view the landscape of the Rhine, and who 
 should come up, to his surprise, while there, but the 
 Arch-Duke Constantine. His Imperial Highness, with 
 that talent of questioning which is not confined to the 
 family of the Czars, inquired rapidly to whom two 
 chateaus in view appertained, and, without waiting for 
 answer, said, " I suppose nothing more is to be seen ? " 
 and descended. 
 
 His plea on visiting Germany is to escort a sick wife 
 to some baths, but I suspect Nicholas has sent him on 
 a sort of honourable exile, as his craziness and tyranny 
 at Warsaw had almost disaffected the Polish army. 
 
 George IV. is very well, though the newspapers give 
 him a mortal disease once a week. I had a letter 
 yesterday from Lord Conyngham. 
 
 Lady Holland is beating up for recruits at Brighton, 
 Rogers, Whishaw, Luttrell, Moore, and Mackintosh, 
 but they seem lax in their obedience. " I can call 
 spirits," says Shakespeare's Mortimer, " from the vasty 
 deep." " But will they come when you do call for 
 them?" is the reply of Hotspur. Miladi calls her 
 beaux esprits to the vasty deep as unsuccessfully. 
 
 Lord Lansdowne called just now on his way through 
 London, and seems much amused at being elected, 
 
 Lord Rector of the U- 
 -Niversity of Glasgow.
 
 NOV. 24, 1 828.] GOSSIP. 187 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, November 24/A, 1828. 
 
 A SLIGHT attack of gout confined me some days ; 
 but I am well again, though it has left me very lame for 
 the present 
 
 Lord Blessington told me just now his lady's pretty 
 sister, Mrs. Purves, is to marry the Speaker l next 
 week. 
 
 Miss Pinney's nuptial day was announced to me by 
 a despatch from Mr. Gunter, in the form of a huge cake, 
 which looked so much blacker and sweeter than an 
 ordinary honeymoon, that we left it for the indigestion 
 of the servants. The newly married couple went imme- 
 diately to Paris, whither the parents followed them on 
 their progress to Nice and Italy for the winter. 
 
 The Ellises are returned from Venice and Florence. 
 To avoid the heat of the Italian journey they left their 
 boy at Geneva, and took him up on their rebound. 
 
 Yesterday I saw a letter from Lord Anglesey, who 
 reports himself in perfect health ; and so is the King, 
 in spite of newspapers. 
 
 Torrents of scandal afloat. They call Schwartzenberg 
 Cadlands, as he has beat the Colonel (Anson) out of 
 Lady Ellenborough's good graces. It is added that she 
 talks publicly of her loves, and, moreover, is turned 
 Catholic, and never misses her Sunday Mass at a 
 chapel. 
 
 I saw to-day a letter from Navarin describing Ibrahim 
 Pacha, a jolly Mussulman who swills champagne. He 
 
 1 Mr. Manners Sutton, afterwards Lord Canterbury.
 
 1 88 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vi. 
 
 asked a French officer if he had served in Spain to 
 restore Ferdinand ? He was answered, " Yes." " You 
 are odd fellows in France," replied Ibrahim. "You 
 go to Spain to destroy liberty, you come to Greece 
 to revive it." 
 
 I should think Lord Morpeth would rather have 
 excused O'Connell's public dinner. 
 
 If George is to begin residence at Oxford in October 
 he should be entered there in the preceding term in June, 
 as the term of entering is counted without residence. 
 Till this is decided I do not write to the Dean of Christ 
 Church. 
 
 P.S. Will you have the two Rutland prints when you 
 come to Town ? 
 
 At the hotel at Paris her Grace of St. Albans ordered 
 a Bif Stake, a Maitre cT Hotel, and a Diable. 
 
 The poor Maitre cTHdtel was alarmed at hearing what 
 she ate for dinner. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, December i^th, 1828. 
 
 LAST Saturday I was to have dined with the Carlisles 
 and half the Cabinet at Lansdowne House, but sent 
 excuses from prudence. Lady Goderich is half mad. 
 She makes my apothecary drive out with her daily in 
 an open carriage ; she lies at length. He feels her pulse 
 the whole way, and two maids sit opposite with brandy 
 and water. Your sister, Lady Cawdor, will be very 
 sorry to hear Lady Scarlett has undergone the opera-
 
 DEC. 13, 1828.] THE YOUNGEST BABY. 189 
 
 tion of tapping, but it is a species of dropsy which 
 frequently admits of a cure, being of a local nature. 
 
 Edward writes that Dublin is very gay, and that an 
 Irishman declared he was the youngest child that ever 
 came into the world, as he was born on the very day 
 after his mother was married. 
 
 Your ci-devant butler came to ask me a bit of law, 
 brought a cargo of papers, and bored me about nothing 
 for more than an hour. 
 
 An antiquated piece of furniture, who played footman 
 to Mr. Stanley at his death, came to-day to desire I 
 would speak to Lord Stowell to get him a place in 
 the British Museum, which he said Mr. Stanley had 
 promised to obtain for him. But he could not describe 
 what sort of place he wanted, nor whether any place 
 was vacant by the departure of any porter, trustee, 
 mummy, or crocodile. 
 
 Joseph gives a good account of Mrs. Feason Glossop 
 the singer, who has been prima donna at Naples and 
 Milan. 
 
 A. Ellis gives Lawrence five hundred guineas for a 
 portrait of Lady G. and child. I have a picture he 
 painted for half-a-guinea. 
 
 They say His Majesty detests his London palace. 
 Walter Scott's " Chronicles of the Canongate " fall off. 
 
 Sturges Bourne is preparing to inhabit his official 
 house. The Grand Turk and Don Miguel keep the 
 Ministers in London. Miguel either stays four days 
 or eight, and dinners will be arranged accordingly. 
 George paid me a visit, but I was not visible.
 
 I9O MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vi. 
 
 Monday, December i$t/t, 1828. 
 
 DICKINSON tells a marvellous story of the two young 
 men, Anson and Strangeways, who were said to have 
 died of the plague on their Eastern tour. He says they 
 were discovered in a Seraglio, and the Turks gave them 
 the choice of poison or mutilation. Anson preferred the 
 former, and Strangeways chose to have his nose and 
 ears cut off and his tongue torn out. Tastes differ. The 
 papers said yesterday Strangeways was returned to 
 London ; and as a dandy in Bond Street without nose 
 and ears is an awkward personage, I doubt Dickinson's 
 history. As to the loss of a tongue, considering the 
 usual conversation of dandies, the grievance seems 
 unimportant. 
 
 Half the plum-cake Gunter manufactures finds its 
 way to Spring Gardens a huge slice a week ago from 
 the Speaker and his bride, who are honeymooning at 
 Hastings. It had a novel accompaniment of white kid 
 gloves, which my Grenadier pounced upon for ball- 
 cartridges. 
 
 Agar Ellis is ambitious of being enrolled in the new 
 edition of noble authors. He advertises two octavo 
 volumes of State papers 1 of some Ellis during the 
 Revolution. An ancestor probably. Lord Morpeth's 
 speech was temperate and judicious, and it was a 
 difficult position to deal with. One of the Brunswick 
 Irish papers says of him that " he is certainly a clever 
 young man, not of age till two years hence, and little 
 
 1 The Ellis Correspondence.
 
 DEC. 15, 1828.] GOSSIP. IQI 
 
 known but as the brother-in-law of Agar Ellis." So 
 much for the Anti-Catholics. Brighton has been liter- 
 ally crammed. Of nobility and mobility they count 
 three thousand visitors, but the aristocrats are retreating 
 from it. 
 
 Joseph says Lady Flint passed a month at the Due 
 de Bourbon's Chantilly, and met there Lady Steele, 
 Tom Steele's daughter-in-law. John Bull said the 
 collision of two such ladies must have supplied them 
 with sparks enough. 
 
 Poor Miss Macdonald devoted herself to the ravings 
 of Trving the preacher, whom all the fine ladies flocked 
 to hear in the City some years ago. Her brother 
 paralytic. 
 
 London not empty, people always fluctuating to and 
 from it. Daily political fables : Ellenborough squabbling 
 with Wellington and retiring ; Aberdeen going out, 
 and fifty other absurdities ; the potato in O'Connell's 
 brain leading him to quarrel with the English Catho- 
 lics ; that Scandinavian gander Nicholas, as if his old 
 namesake were at his heels, running away from the 
 Turks ; * the Balkan Mountains are well named. I was 
 always a Turk in my heart, and could sit for ever on 
 a divan with iced sherbet and a pipe, and surrounded 
 by pretty women. Their only defect is they never 
 subscribe to a circulating library, and it is my daily 
 bread. 
 
 1 The retreat of the Russians from Shumla in the autumn of 
 this year.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY 
 (Continued). 
 
 Thursday, January %th, 1829. 
 
 WE had three pleasant days with Lord Clifden, and 
 we had postponed our visit till Ellis and Lady G. 
 returned from Royalty at Windsor. We had Lord 
 Melbourne, Lord Clanwilliam and Sharpe, and Parson 
 Bouverie with us. 
 
 On Sunday last Rogers gave Edward and me a 
 dilettante dinner, Sir T. Lawrence, and three other 
 Royal Academicians, Wilkie, Callcott, and Newton 
 and last, not least, Callcott's wife, the ci-devant clever 
 Mrs. Graham, 1 who wrote that excellent account of her 
 travels in South America. The Emperor had per- 
 suaded her to return to the Brazils to educate his four 
 infant children, but she found it so uncomfortable a 
 job that she stayed only ten months. 
 
 The Emperor, 2 only twenty-seven years old, good- 
 looking, and of course unlike brother Miguel, but an 
 unpleasant character, and behaved so ill to his late 
 
 1 The widow of Captain Graham, R.N. She was a daughter of 
 Admiral G. Dundas, and wrote much. Her most successful work 
 was " Little Arthur's History of England." 
 
 - Pedro I. of Brazil, the IV. of Portugal. 
 
 192
 
 JAN. 8,1829.] GOSSIP. 193 
 
 Empress, 1 an amiable woman, that he has in vain 
 asked half the European Princesses to fill her place. 
 Among other comforts, she was never allowed to quit 
 the Palace, not even for an airing. She says thirty 
 years will not civilise the manners of the country. 
 
 The King very joyous with his numerous guests 
 at the Castle. He rises from his chair without assist- 
 ance, and walks very well, but is grown much thinner. 
 
 On his visits to Lord Clifden Luttrell comes down 
 in the Roehampton Stage, and has twice had the 
 misfortune of travelling with the fattest man alive, who 
 has a cottage in the neighbourhood ; and, as Luttrell 
 learned from the coachman, is really a Colonel Dudgeon. 
 
 The Princess Lieven said yesterday Miguel is still 
 in a most dangerous state. 
 
 The times are most prolific in gossip the Scotch 
 murder, 2 the runaway banker, and the abdicating 
 Anglesey in succession. The political cauldron was 
 boiling pretty highly without the last ingredient. 
 
 Will Cobbett accept the Lord-Lieutenancy? 
 
 P.S. They say Lord Ashburnham is to have one 
 of the Blue Ribbons. 
 
 Lord F. Leveson remains in his ofHce of Secretary. 
 The King delighted with the little Queen of Portugal, 
 and talks much of her. 
 
 "The Sorrows of Rosalie" pretty verses dedicated 
 
 1 Leopoldine Caroline Josephe, Archduchess of Austria. 
 - By the notorious Burke. He was executed at Edinburgh 
 on January 28th. 
 
 13
 
 194 MR - JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vn. 
 
 to Lord Holland by Mrs. Norton, 1 a daughter of the 
 late Tom Sheridan. 
 
 Monday, March ibth, 1829. 
 
 THE system of Burking I hope will proceed, as it 
 really ascertains the true value of one's acquaintance. 
 I know a great many of those one calls friends in 
 London whom the surgeons, when dead, will think worth 
 ten pounds, and for whom, when alive, nobody would 
 give half the money. 
 
 Lord Morpeth comes to see me. He is a delightful 
 personage, so clever and pleasant, " one of the hopes of 
 Rome," as an ancient writer said when the Republic, 
 like Great Britain at this day, was overrun by dunder- 
 pates. 
 
 Yet never let it be said again that soldiers are unfit 
 for political debate. In the late speech of Sir George 
 Murray there was a passage of as much beauty and 
 eloquence as ever was pronounced by man. At Sir 
 L. Cole's I once passed three days with him, and a mind 
 better informed I never met with. 
 
 For a sketch of roguery Garth 2 beats Hogarth out 
 and out ; but it is said that the letters in no way 
 
 1 The Honourable Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton. 
 
 2 Captain Garth, son of General Garth, delivered up some 
 papers to the bankers of Sir Herbert Taylor on condition of 
 his debts being paid and ^3,000 a year settled on him. The 
 terms of this alleged agreement were not fulfilled, and he com- 
 menced an action for its performance. The papers were said 
 to contain damaging evidence against certain members of the 
 Royal family.
 
 MARCH 16, 1829.] EFFECTS OF THE COLD WEATHER. 195 
 
 support the slander on the Duke, and others say 
 the reverse. 
 
 A son of Sir J. Stanley, now at Valparaiso in South 
 America, begged of a farmer there a glass of water when 
 shooting on a hot day. The farmer learned his name, 
 and asked if he was of the Derby family. " If you 
 are," continued he, " be so good as to desire the Earl, 
 who has the best game cocks in the world, to send me 
 a brace, and in return I will send him the finest horse of 
 our celebrated Valparaiso breed." Cock-fighting is the 
 rage of South America, and seems particularly appro- 
 priate to what was once called " The Spanish Main." 
 
 The King, sympathising with half his subjects, has 
 had a cold. I wish he would attend to his diet as his 
 brother monarch of Poland used to do ; but he has now 
 a favourite beverage, called his beer cup, to assist gout 
 and other bilious amusements. 
 
 They are playing theatricals at Lord Harrington's, 
 and, they say, so well, that I regret I have not gone 
 there. Coughing and sneezing and the Catholic Bill 
 are all one hears in London, and the opera donne are 
 as hoarse as if they had been marched with their dead 
 compatriots by Napoleon to Moscow. The wheels of 
 the doctors catch fire in the streets, and there is a sub- 
 scription to convert the Serpentine River into lemonade 
 and barley water and gargles. 
 
 P.S. Palmer, M.P. for Surrey, says he became a con- 
 vert against the Catholics by reading the iyth verse 
 of the 1 7th chapter of the Revelation, and would
 
 196 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CM. VH. 
 
 now die on the field or scaffold rather than vote as 
 formerly. " Mark," says Shakespeare, " how the devil 
 can quote Scripture for his purpose ! " Joseph was 
 dancing at a ball last week with one of Anglesey's 
 misses, and when the father came in there was a sort 
 of respectful silence, as if Royalty had arrived, a 
 tribute to honest conduct, which speaks a great deal. 
 
 \ 
 
 Saturday, March list, 1829. 
 
 I REJOICE that you are so surrounded par les 
 impies (whom I remember Madame de Flahault once 
 mistook les M.P.'s for), and that you continue to 
 worship my correspondence as our friends the Popery 
 folks do their saints with frankincense. 
 
 It is impossible to describe the credit Palmerston's 
 speech has universally obtained. Everybody was 
 dazzled by it. Sturges Bourne said to me to-day (and 
 whatever may be his nature, he is a most competent 
 critic of such a display) that he thought eloquence 
 in the House of Commons had expired with Canning, 
 but that it had actually and positively revived in 
 Palmerston. He always, when in office, spoke well 
 and sensibly, but this burst was in the highest style 
 of oratory and argument ; and I am free to confess I 
 did not think he possessed powers of such a superior 
 cast. We had a banquet with Lord Dudley on 
 Wednesday, and you will not wonder at a sort of gloom 
 coming over me when I reflected that in the room 
 where we assembled the poor Duke of York expired.
 
 MARCH 2 1, 1829.] THE DUKE'S DUEL. 197 
 
 The remembrance of all his kindness to me and his 
 bonJioniie to the whole world was painfully excited. 
 
 Joseph was gallanting last night at Mrs. Hope's. 
 Tom turned me off as an acquaintance because, unfor- 
 tunately, I was counsel for the painter who drew Tom 
 and wife as la belle and la bete, and Tom called his 
 best friends to prove it could mean nobody else ; though 
 1 of course termed it a mere fancy picture, wantonly 
 destroyed by a foolish parson, Beresford, her brother. 
 
 Our Catholic tide flows merrily. Neither the dykes 
 of Holland nor the banks of the Commons can obstruct 
 it ; and as for the attempt at a breakwater by the 
 wisdom or piety of the Lords, I trust, without profane 
 swearing, it is not worth a dam. 
 
 But as the delicacy of my style seems now fairly on 
 the decline it may show some sense of shame to conclude 
 this despatch. 
 
 More last words. 
 
 Edward came off guard just now to tell me the Duke 
 of Wellington and Lord Winchilsea fought this morning. 
 The Duke fired first, and missed. Lord Winchilsea 
 fired in the air, so probably was the person challenged. 
 The cause was not mentioned. 1 Precise details are not 
 yet given so accurately as in the School for Scandal's 
 
 1 George William, ninth Earl. Lord Winchilsea wrote to the 
 Secretary of King's College : " The Duke, under the cloak of 
 some coloured show of zeal for the Protestant religion, carried 
 on an insidious design for the infringement of our liberties and 
 the introduction of popery into every department of the State." 
 The Duke replied with a challenge, and at the meeting fired 
 first. Lord Winchilsea apologised, after firing in the air.
 
 198 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vn. 
 
 account of Sir Peter Teazle's wound in the thorax. I 
 guess it arises out of Winchilsea's letter about the college 
 which you alluded to. The duel was said by Edward 
 to have taken place at Chelsea. How comes a saint 
 to fight? 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, October 24^, 1 829. 
 
 LONDON of course is a desert pavements broken up ; 
 and the nearest way from Pall Mall to Berkeley Square 
 is through the Regent's Park, I believe. Nor will the 
 population increase to maintain Mr. Malthus' system, 
 as, for want of a railing round it, good folks are fished 
 up every morning in the Green Park Basin 1 stone dead. 
 
 But I have my judges and lawyers in town, and 
 dinners and Temple repasts, so I care nothing for 
 barometers and thermometers, and have but one tree 
 to tell me of the fall of the leaf. 
 
 Gertrude and I had conversations about new literary 
 works, so tell her I am not much delighted with Mr. 
 Cooper's 2 American tale of the Borderers. 
 
 Edward surprised me by a short visit yesterday. He 
 was sent, a single officer with sixty men, from Windsor 
 to Kew, where he stays a fortnight, to protect the old 
 palace and the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland, who 
 have an ordinary dwelling on Kew Green. Edward had 
 dined the day before with Sir George Quintin, of the 
 
 1 The reservoir of the Chelsea Water Company, made in this 
 year, and filled up in 1855. It occupied the northern side of 
 the Park, facing Piccadilly. 
 
 2 J. Fenimore Cooper.
 
 OCT. 27, 1829.] THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE AS A BOY. 199 
 
 roth Dragoons, who lives with his family there, and 
 met the young Prince George, 1 whom he represents as 
 a fine, active, pleasant boy, very like George III., but an 
 odd cast about his eyes, talks English pretty well, and 
 fills up his leisure moments with rattling castanets. He 
 wears a sort of Hussar uniform, and it is his daily 
 amusement to walk to the palace and barracks, at each 
 of which the whole guard is obliged to turn out to 
 salute him. Ladies came at night to Sir G. Quintin's, 
 and among them the widow of my old friend General 
 Gwyn, who retains her beauty at near eighty. She told 
 Edward the mosaic on my snuffbox was brought many 
 years ago from Italy by her husband, and presented by 
 him to the King, whose equerry he then was. Jelf, 
 Prince George's parson tutor, is about to marry a Polish 
 countess attendant on the Duchess of Cumberland, with 
 a name which defies spelling or writing. 
 
 My lieutenant speaks with wonder of the Botanical 
 Gardens, four hundred acres, with glazed conservatories 
 lofty enough for palms and other gigantic exotic trees. 
 For lies and gossip I refer you to the Morning Herald, 
 which are more plentiful commodities than franks at 
 this season, as you will know to your cost for this scrawl. 
 In return pray give me an early bulletin of Willie. I 
 saw the Stafford carriage yesterday at the Ellises. 
 
 Tuesday, October 27/7*, 1829. 
 
 As A. Ellis offered a frank, I may as well contradict, 
 on the authority of the Morning Chronicle, the surmises 
 1 The present Duke of Cambridge.
 
 20O MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vn. 
 
 of the Morning Herald on Huskisson's visit to Sud- 
 bourn, which is said to have taken place merely on 
 Wellington's liberality as to meeting foes or friends 
 indiscriminately. 
 
 Wellington's system is to get as many clever heads as 
 he can from any party, and so far Huskisson would be 
 an advantage. \ But the Duke has not room for what the 
 Scotchmen call his tail, though, as Huskisson is a soldier 
 of fortune, perhaps he would not be very scrupulous as 
 to the abandonment of his adherents, and be willing, at 
 any rate, to resume a seat in the Cabinet. 1 Yet, on the 
 whole, I give no credit to this guess work. 
 
 Lady Conyngham has had a bad illness, but is 
 recovered. She does not like Brighton, from some ill 
 treatment there formerly from the populace. It is said 
 Halford,: played a ruse de guerre in advising the King to 
 go there, where he uniformly shuts himself up. Halford 
 fears that at the Castle he will occasionally drive out> 
 and so incur the risk of colds and habitual inflamma- 
 tions. 
 
 Edward called again this morning, but returns to Kew 
 to dine with the Duke of Cumberland, who sent him 
 an invitation yesterday, and an inquiry after me. As 
 Edward is not known to him, this is very civil. 
 
 A. Ellis says Lord Grosvenor's palace ~ is detestable 
 in point of taste, though it cost 700,000 ! I admired 
 the drawings of it. 
 
 1 Mr. Huskisson entered the Duke's Cabinet as Colonial 
 Secretary. 
 ' 2 Eaton Hall.
 
 NOV. 6, 1829.] FANNY KEMBLE. 2OI 
 
 Lord Kerry, 1 Lord Lansdowne's son, is six feet two 
 inches high, and has been ill. It is feared his uncommon 
 growth is injurious to health, as he has always been 
 weakly. 
 
 Codrington z is at Sir H. Bunbury's, and I hear in 
 high spirits, and meditating a public retort on the 
 Admiralty, which perhaps he had better decline. 
 
 I must go and congratulate Mrs. Siddons on Fanny 
 Kemble's 3 triumph. Was not Mrs. F[itzhugh] in addi- 
 tional frenzy upon it when she gratified you with her visit? 
 
 Lady Quintin has musical evenings, and Edward 
 pipes. A new uniform for the Guards is ordered to 
 rob their pockets. No lace, but covered with embroidery. 
 What folly ! 
 
 November 6th, 1829. 
 
 JOSEPH last night saw Fanny Kemble in Juliet a 
 second time. He says she is excellent, but, with his 
 usual fastidiousness, declares she is no miracle. 
 
 Lady Ellenborough had Prince Leopold's 4 box 
 yesterday, and gave Joseph and three dandies a supper 
 
 1 He died in 1836, aged twenty-five, before succeeding to the 
 Marquisate. 
 
 2 Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, who commanded the allied 
 fleets at Navarino. He had been recalled from the command 
 in the Mediterranean after an inquiry as to the circumstances 
 of that action. He eventually completely justified himself. 
 
 3 This lady, afterwards Mrs. Butler, made her debut with great 
 success as Juliet, at Covent Garden, on October 5th. Her father 
 and mother, Mr. and Mrs. C. Kemble, were both acting (as 
 Mercutio and Lady Capulet). She died in 1892. 
 
 4 Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, husband of Princess Charlotte 
 of Wales.
 
 202 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vn. 
 
 after the play, till two in the morning. A fine dissipated 
 dowager ! 
 
 As it was only a drive, 1 visited Edward at his earnest 
 request one morning at Kew, and found him in an 
 extremely pretty cottage and garden, which is given 
 to the single officer on the detachment from Windsor. 
 The Lieutenant was anxious I should enter his residence, 
 and there I found a most dandy set-out A table with 
 inkstands of Sevres china, cut-glass bottles of Eau-de- 
 Rose and Cologne, six snuffboxes, a doll of elastic 
 rubber given by an Irish flirt, and a great half-grown 
 Newfoundland dog, which he called a " Retriever." 1 
 laughed excessively at the furniture, and almost forgot 
 a German pipe set in silver, with an ivory head of 
 Punch. 
 
 The Duke of Cumberland asked him continually to 
 dinner, a family party, the Duchess only and her 
 suivantes. Plain service of soup, fish, roast mutton, and 
 game ; sherry, port, and claret Edward returned to 
 Windsor on Tuesday, so was not made entirely a 
 Brunswicker. 
 
 To-day I have had a letter from Lord Conyngham in 
 answer to my inquiry about Lady Conyngham as to her 
 late serious illness, for I have known them both intimately 
 thirty-two years. He says it was a bad bilious fever, 
 and that she is still low and weak ; and he adds that 
 the King's eyes are exactly in the same state as when 
 I left him, which seemed by no means formidable. 
 
 Poor Birdy left all, as she told me, to a Miss Emery, 
 her god-daughter. I take it she died of the disease of
 
 NOV. 6, 1829.] " BIRDY." 203 
 
 eighty years of age ; a very good and religious woman, 
 and I daresay gone to heaven, but latterly grown 
 peevish, morose, and very intolerable. To me, I may 
 add, ungrateful, for I offered to receive an apology for 
 her language, which she was absurd and obstinate 
 enough to refuse, and it was language not to be over- 
 looked. Dowager Lady Carnarvon recommended her 
 as a gouvernante to Mr. Sloane, for my wife, at her very 
 early age on the loss of her mother, as a sedate person, 
 though without any means of instruction as to any 
 accomplishments in music, languages,, etc., for she 
 possessed none. She had lived many years with Mrs. 
 Darner, and parted in a quarrel. Strange to say, though 
 I often spoke of Mrs. Darner as a friend, she remained 
 silent. 
 
 Lewis Way, a mad sort of fellow, and I, visited Miss 
 Sloane from Southampton when we were both riotous 
 on the circuit. On our way back in the evening from 
 Stoneham, Lewis made verses on poor Birdy, who had 
 been as grumpy as if we wished to carry off her protegee. 
 
 " The Father is gone to Vienna, 
 And leaves behind a Duenna, 
 Whom I heartily wish at Gehenna."' 
 
 I count nothing for her rumpus with Philly, whom the 
 devil could not live with, for she has neither brains nor 
 good temper. 
 
 L'Abbe Morellet, of high talent in literature, and 
 ruined by the French Revolution, desired me to negotiate 
 the sale of his Library at Brussels for ^"3,000. He had 
 a catalogue raisonnee, and it was well worth the money ;
 
 204 MR - JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vn. 
 
 but it failed with Lord Spencer and others. He had 
 made a singularly ingenious and novel arrangement of 
 his books under the three operations of the human mind, 
 " Memory, Judgment, and Imagination." Under Memory 
 he classed history, etc. ; under Judgment works on 
 science, morals, etc. ; under Imagination poetry and 
 works of fiction, etc. 
 
 At dinner with Fox one day Fitzpatrick and I had 
 a long contest where to class Addison's " Spectator "- 
 whether under Judgment, as morals, or under Imagina- 
 tion, as a work of invention ? It remained undecided. 
 
 Heavens what a volume is this ! so I will have done. 
 
 More last words. 
 
 Miss Fox shocked me yesterday with an account 
 of the death of my intimate and interesting friend, 
 M. Dumont, 1 of Geneva, one of the most learned men 
 in Europe, and the most engaging. The Duke of 
 Cumberland told Edward to invite me to meet him at 
 dinner at Kew, but Edward wisely said I was out of 
 town. 
 
 November 6th, 1829. 
 
 THE Guards are to have their dress changed no lace, 
 but embroidery on the collars and cuffs, and gold instead 
 of silk sashes. A shame and folly ! for half of them 
 had just got new coats at the expense of near 80, and 
 must now dress like French marshals. His Royal 
 
 1 Pierre Louis Dumont. Mr. Jekyll probably made his 
 acquaintance at Bowood, where he at one time was tutor to Lord 
 Shelburne's children. He was a friend of Sheridan, and Fox, and 
 Romilly, and a fellow-worker with Jeremy Bentham.
 
 NOV. 12, 1829.] MOLLY DACRE. 20$ 
 
 Highness told Edward that if he was Commander-in- 
 Chief the whole army should wear moustaches, and no 
 officer appear out of regimentals. This would increase 
 popularity. 
 
 The summer has been postponed to November. Tom 
 Moore says an Irish woman was charged before the 
 Cheltenham justices with being a street-walker. 
 
 " Plase your Worships," she said, " must I be walking 
 on the tops of the houses ? " 
 
 November \2th, 1829. 
 
 I DON'T remember whether I ever sent you these 
 verses or gave you the anecdote : 
 
 Though years have spread around my head 
 
 The sober veil of reason 
 To close in night, sweet fancy's light 
 
 My heart rejects as treason. 
 A spark then lies still fann'd by sighs 
 
 Ordained by beauty's maker, 
 And fixed by Fate, burns yet, though late, 
 
 For lovely Molly Dacre. 
 
 Oh ! while I miss the days of bliss 
 
 I passed in raptured gazing, 
 The dream impressed still charms my breast 
 
 Which fancy's ever raising. 
 Though much I meet in life is sweet, 
 
 My soul can ne'er forsake her; 
 And all I feel still bears the seal 
 
 Of lovely Molly Dacre. 
 
 Whene'er her course by chaise or horse 
 
 Conveyed her to our City, 
 How did I gaze in blest amaze 
 
 To catch her smile of pity ! 
 
 1 Carlisle.
 
 206 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vn. 
 
 Around the door the night I wore, 
 
 Still mute as any Quaker 
 With hope-fed zeal, one glance to steal 
 
 From lovely Molly Dacre. 
 
 When rumour dear proclaimed her near, 
 
 Her charms a crowd amassing, 
 How would I start with fainting heart 
 
 To catch her eye while passing. 
 When home she turned I ran and burned 
 
 O'er many a distant acre, 
 To hope by chance one parting glance 
 
 From lovely Molly Dacre. 
 
 I've often thought that happy lot 
 
 Of health and spirits lent me, 
 Is deem'd as due to faith so true, 
 
 And thus by Fate is sent me. 
 While here she be there's life for me ; 
 
 But when high Heav'n shall take her, 
 A like last breath I'll ask of death 
 
 To follow Molly Dacre. 
 
 From CAPTAIN MORRIS. 
 
 These very pretty verses of the celebrated Captain 
 Morris should be accompanied with an anecdote. 
 
 Molly Dacre was the beauty of Carlisle. She married, 
 and is now living at the age of eighty-four. Lord 
 Stowell, at the age of eighty-six, and Captain Morris, 
 at the age of eighty-one, declare they adored her, and 
 though both widowers, declare they never loved any 
 woman so ardently. Nay, they go farther, and say 
 they still love her. In the year 1745, at the moment 
 of her birth, the Scottish rebels entered Carlisle, and 
 an officer of the Prince Pretender, with his soldiers, 
 quartered themselves in her mother's house. 
 
 At such a crisis a remonstrance was made on the 
 disturbance of the household and the mother.
 
 NOV. 19, 1829.] STORY OF MOLLY DACRE. 2O/ 
 
 The Prince Pretender immediately ordered the 
 soldiers to be withdrawn, and the officer requested 
 that the white cockade he wore in his hat should be 
 pinned on the newly born infant's cap. This was done, 
 and Molly Dacre has preserved it religiously. 
 
 All this came out last June at a dinner I had with 
 Lord Stowell and Captain Morris at John Pearse's, and 
 the very next day the old bard sent us the verses. 
 
 The joint ages of the three lovers amount to 253 
 years. I am sure the song deserves a place in 
 Gertrude's book or yours, and perhaps the explanation 
 also. 
 
 Saturday, November igth, 1829. 
 
 THE Lieutenant is under orders to send me all the 
 scandal of Brighton. While my lord is dispensing 
 justice in London, Lady Lyndhurst is dispensing smiles 
 on the Steyne, and I trust with the same equitable 
 principle between her ancient idolaters Dudley and 
 Burdett. I do not hear that the tide rises there, so 
 presume that your friends the Petres do not bathe, 
 as, philosophically speaking, the displacing so large a 
 mass of the ocean would naturally produce that effect. 
 
 Joseph dined yesterday with that crazy metaphysician 
 Lady Mary Sheppard, who swore to me that she read 
 and mastered Mr. Locke's profound treatise at eight 
 years old. The best of it is that Joseph will not admit 
 that she is insane, as she gives \L\TQ. fricandeau, 
 
 To-day our Dowager Donegal gives him and me a 
 dinner and a constellation of wits and poets, Rogers,
 
 208 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vn. 
 
 Tom Moore, and Washington Irving, whose " Brace- 
 bridge Hall " Joseph purloined from George when we 
 stole away from Paultons. 
 
 George Colman advertises his Memoirs under the 
 title of " Random Records," and I fear very much the 
 comical dog will put me into them. 
 
 They kill the King once a week, though the dying 
 man drives his phaeton daily. " To catch the flying 
 Cynthia of the minute," I will see to-day if your fair 
 sister has flown northwards. 
 
 I must ask Miss Fox for a lithographic print of her 
 pretty niece. I heard that the Duke of Somerset's 
 eldest son was an admirer whom Miladi would probably 
 not reject as a son-in-law. I heard he had a rival, but 
 forget who. 
 
 In visiting from Castle Howard to Testwood, I 
 rejoice that the gout has not dropped a card at my 
 door on his way, and my spirits are better than Sultan 
 Mahmoud's ] at the present moment, so I could not 
 read the " Borderers." 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Monday, December jth, 1829. 
 EDWARD and his four comrades have marched back 
 their three hundred fur caps to Windsor in deep 
 dismay at quitting the delights of Brighton, where 
 they were feted and dandled from morning till night. 
 Dinners, balls, assemblies, and suppers incessant, and 
 invitations whether acquainted or not. They were 
 
 1 Mahmoud II. of Turkey. He had recently been forced by 
 the Russians to acknowledge the independence of Greece.
 
 DEC. 7, 1829.] GOSSIP. 209 
 
 hailed as the harbingers of Royalty, and hopes did not 
 vanish till they were recalled. Lady Holland gave the 
 Lieutenant fricandeaux, lots of old women playing loo 
 at the routs, and cheating the dandies, who called 
 them " the forty Thieves." The Guards stayed nearly 
 three weeks. 
 
 Glengall has made what he calls a comedy 1 by steal- 
 ing ideas from Sheridan, Cumberland, and the elder 
 Colman ; and Alvanley has made what he calls an 
 epilogue to manifest that the best joker of White's bow 
 window cannot string two lines together. 
 
 I meant to write a memoir of my poor friend Dumont, 
 but Sir James Mackintosh has done it in the Foreign 
 Quarterly Review, and butters the elite of Holland 
 House by saying : " No such assemblage can ever again 
 be found till another house can find such a master." 
 Will Miladi be pleased to hear that Holland is the 
 master there? 
 
 I have no patience at seeing Morpeth's excellent 
 verses mixed up in the trash of the annuals, and Lady 
 Ann Becket engraved among the beauties, "The Ex- 
 clusives," miserable stuff, and poor Lady Jersey the 
 heroine ; Ministers visiting their enemies and hunting 
 and shooting with friends. H. Baring sends me phea- 
 sants killed by Wellington and the Cabinet. They had 
 better bag Charles X., who seems playing away his crown. 
 Think of Poet Sotheby translating Homer after Pope. 
 
 1 The Irish Tutor, acted at Covent Garden October a8th, 
 1822, and never afterwards repeated. Published in 1829. "A 
 poor piece." GENEST. 
 
 H
 
 210 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vn. 
 
 Poor M. Angelo Taylor undergoing a sad surgical 
 operation. 
 
 Playhouses crammed, and many people in town. 
 Lord Sydney 1 said to be dying, so his son-in-law 
 Cholmondeley will survive him. Lady Conyngham not 
 yet quite well, but getting better. 
 
 P.S. You are no stranger to my inveterate cock- 
 neyism. Petersham, who I hope has not lost his wit 
 with his title, by becoming Earl of Hair-in-town, always 
 said, " London is the best place for nine months in the 
 year ; and there is no place so good for the other three." 
 
 December gt/i, 1829. 
 
 THOUGH I despatched a volume on Monday, a frank 
 has occurred, and I may as well scribble to say I remain 
 quite well without a soupgon of gout. A. Ellis says 
 Lady Lyndhurst endeavours to captivate the obdurate 
 heart of the Duke of Devonshire at Brighton. The 
 Ellises are going to Prince Leopold for a few days. 
 
 Tierney, I am sorry to hear from Brighton friends, 
 looks ill, and has a serious cough. The Duke of Cumber- 
 land's inflammation was at one time alarming, and 
 resembled the Duke of Kent's. 
 
 A fable has been circulated, probably by herself, that 
 Miss Chester, the handsome actress, who lived long with 
 Calcraft, reads comedies to the King. Three years ago 
 it was rumoured, with equal truth, that he had beautified 
 a cottage for her near Windsor. As Lady Conyngham 
 
 1 Thomas Townshend, first Viscount Sydney.
 
 DEC. 9, 1829.] " BLACK-EYED SUSAN." 2 1 1 
 
 remains an invalid it is said the King dines in his 
 chamber with her and her family, and not with his 
 suite. 
 
 Chantrey's bronze statue of Canning is to be placed 
 in Palace Yard, and Westmacott's statue of Pitt in 
 Hanover Square. 
 
 Joseph reports last night from the playhouse that 
 Black-eyed Susan 1 is the most interesting and pathetic 
 thing ever played. The audience in tears. The 
 scenery of a man-of-war, the court martial, the pre- 
 paration for the execution, and the unparalleled acting 
 of T. P. Cooke, surpass anything ever seen. Miss 
 E. Tree's 2 eyes are unluckily blue, but the audience 
 kindly accepts them as black for the beautiful use she 
 makes of them in Susan. 
 
 Don't you long to see a waltz by the Siamese Boys ? s 
 By the way, what a misfortune it might be to be so 
 attached for better or worse to such an inseparable 
 companion ! Imagine yourself linked for life to Mr. 
 Timpson, or me tied to a fox hunter. Almack's would 
 be ruined for want of single men at Siam. Edward's 
 new friend, the Duke of Cumberland, will soon leave 
 Kew for Windsor, when he is to have apartments in 
 the Castle for himself and Duchess. I did not expect 
 this. 
 
 Edward's journal of Brighton is very amusing. The 
 
 1 By Douglas Jerrold, produced at the Surrey Theatre by 
 Elliston on June 8th, 1829. It ran for three hundred nights. 
 
 2 Mrs. Charles Kean. 
 
 3 The Siamese Twins, exhibited this year at Bullock's Museum, 
 Piccadilly, now the Egyptian Hall. They lived till 1874.
 
 212 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. vn. 
 
 Petres very kind to him, asked him twice to dinner, and 
 carried him to Mrs. Fitzherbert, and other places, both 
 Popish and Protestant He dined often with the 
 Hollands. Much civility from Lannoy Hunter, and 
 from my friend Tierney. 
 
 Mother Coutts has two houses, one to breakfast in 
 with a view of the ocean, as she says she cannot eat 
 prawns except when looking at the sea. Time was 
 when she had none to eat. After her ball she gave a 
 grand supper, and drank soda-water the whole evening 
 to alleviate the thirst brought on by Madeira. The 
 bulk decreases, not so that of Edward's friends, the 
 Misses Petre, the eldest of whom was compared to a 
 " fillet of veal on casters." 
 
 Two Jewish misses, daughters of the rich Rothschild, 1 
 with enormous fortunes, and whose vulgar phrases were 
 the joke of the day, but I hear of no beauties. At two 
 o'clock a string of carriages two miles in length. 
 
 They say the pedestal of the King's statue looks like 
 the box that brought it ; people giving twenty-five 
 guineas a week for a house, and hardly a bed to be had 
 in an hotel ; the women walking with the men from 
 morning to night ; for freedom of manners beyond 
 what Bath was in old times ; and for total dissipation 
 beyond what London is in new times. Fifty-four years 
 ago, when Osgood and I first embarked there for 
 France, it was a fishing town, with one bad inn and a 
 packet once a fortnight. 
 
 1 Nathan Meyer Rothschild, Baron of the Austrian Empire. 
 He died in 1836.
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY, 1829.] SIR SIDNEY SMITH'S ESCAPE. 213 
 
 On the march near Kew Edward met the Duchess of 
 Cumberland, and halted his army to salute her. 
 
 Arthur Upton in bad health at Brighton ; a handsome 
 niece of his there. The pastry-cook's girl at Brighton, 
 whom Ellenborough preferred to his bride, very pretty. 
 I recollected to-day, with contrition, as the verses were 
 prophetic, that at Lord Ellenborough's request I wrote 
 some in his bride's alburn when I visited him at Roe- 
 hampton in the honeymoon. The general subject was 
 his lordship's lamentation at being called away so fre- 
 quently from his beautiful wife by debates and politics. 
 I forget the verses, but there was this line, 
 
 " And peers in vain by firoxy love." 
 
 Miladi, however, found it practicable, and I suppose 
 Milord has now cancelled my poetry. 
 
 I asked Rogers to-day what he thought of Fanny 
 Kemble ? The cynic replied " Master Betty." * 
 
 Christmas Day, 1829. 
 
 WRITING to-day to Dickinson, I enclose for his 
 perusal the enclosed curious account, which, according to 
 my promise, he will frank to you. 
 
 " Upon my being taken, an order was sent to Havre 
 to send to Paris ce monstre qui brulait Toulon, etc., and I 
 was for three months in close confinement in the 
 
 1 A celebrated boy actor, William Henry West Betty, the 
 "young Roscius," who made a large fortune between the years 
 1803 and 1808. He was quite a failure as a man, and Rogers' 
 comparison was of course a sneering one. Betty died so late 
 as 1874.
 
 214 MR - JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vn. 
 
 Abbaye, without anybody but my guard. I was then 
 removed to the Temple, and had the apartment of the 
 Royal Family, with orders to keep me a close prisoner, 
 but I won over the sentinel to my interest. Some of 
 the Royalists got among the guards who were to do 
 duty at the Temple, and I had a letter given me by the 
 sentinel from Wyndham. I got boots, walked in the 
 garden with his leave, and several times he permitted 
 me to go with him to the play, and once I went two 
 posts off a-shooting. When I returned, after being out 
 upon my parole with my guard, I used to say, ' Now 
 lock me in, the agreement is over ; you must lock me 
 in, or I shall be through the keyhole.' At last there 
 was an order issued for the transfer of the prisoners 
 from some of the prisons to Fontainebleau. An order to 
 this effect was forged, and a man dressed like an officer 
 of police came to the jailer at the Temple about eight 
 in the evening, showed him the forged order, and 
 demanded me. The jailer came up as pale as death. 
 I said, ' What is the matter ? ' He replied, ' I am very 
 sorry,' etc., etc. I went down inquiring what accom- 
 modation I should have there, etc., etc., with great 
 apparent anxiety. The pretended officer of police imme- 
 diately carried me off. I walked through the gates, and 
 then got into a carriage and went off. At two or three 
 of the towns a party of a dozen or more walked out to 
 meet me. One of them took my place in the chaise, and 
 I took his place in the company, and walked back with 
 them as one of the party, and was so passed on, and 
 got safe to Havre. At one house where I stopped upon
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY, 1829.] NAPOLEON A POISONER ? 215 
 
 the road I found four or five who had escaped like 
 myself. One said, ' I ought to be in the conciergerie! 
 another said, ' I should be at Cayenne. I escaped from 
 the Abbaye, and no names were asked. The master of 
 it, upon my entering, showed me a picture, saying, "In 
 case of alarm, behind that picture you'll find a place 
 of concealment." ' " 
 
 The above account I had from Sir Sidney Smith in 
 1802, and made the above memorandum of it, which 
 I have transcribed from my octogenarian reminiscence, 
 if that term is not out of all repute. He did not 
 mention the persons by whom all the arrangements 
 had been made for obvious reasons. At the same time 
 he told us that after the siege of Acre he took a boat 
 containing from ten to twenty very emaciated French 
 soldiers, who said that they, with many others, had 
 been poisoned, but had survived it. Sir Sidney delivered 
 them up to some French officers upon the coast, who 
 admitted the fact, and afterwards Captain Wright, a 
 very temperate, credible man, confirmed the account, 
 saying he was with Sir Sidney at the time, and that 
 he had heard it also from the physician whom Bona- 
 parte applied to in the first instance to administer the 
 opium, which he declined doing. Captain Wright added 
 if Bonaparte should ever deny it he should publish the 
 account. He was afterwards captured, and certainly 
 murdered in the Temple. He imputed the act to 
 Bonaparte being desirous of relieving himself from the 
 embarrassment of removing them in his retreat, without 
 the discredit of leaving them to the English.
 
 2l6 MR. JEKVLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vn- 
 
 Sir Walter Scott discredits the story, because he 
 says if it had been true Sir Sidney must have known 
 it, and that he never mentioned it. 
 
 P.S. If Shakespeare had called Romeo and Juliet 
 Tapps and Buggin after your two Hampshire Baronets, 
 do you think anybody could have wept at the tragedy ? 
 
 Imagine how an audience would be affected at 
 hearing Fanny Kemble, as Miss Tapps, exclaim in the 
 third Act : 
 
 " Oh, Buggin ! Buggin ! Wherefore art thou Buggin ? " 
 
 I once asked Dr. Goldsmith what he thought the 
 meanest name in England ? He said " Tibbs," and he 
 was a great artist of the ridiculous. So I always felt 
 a secret pang when I called a Hampshire friend 
 " Knibbs."-- I could make Willy laugh in his bed with 
 this nonsense.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE S2ANLEY 
 {Continued), 
 
 January 8t/t, 1830. 
 
 EDWARD called yesterday, and had again dined the 
 day before with the Duke of Cambridge. The Lievens 
 dined there, and they only. By the postponement of 
 the Brighton trip, and no invitations being sent from 
 Windsor Castle, so usual at this period, I should guess 
 Lady Conyngham is still unwell. 
 
 Lord Holland has the gout, and Miladi the blue 
 devils. Their son Henry and his sister went to 
 Bowood at Christmas, and crossing Marlborough Downs 
 imprudently at a late hour of the night, got completely 
 bothered by the snow. A guide whom they had taken 
 behind their carriage from the last inn had disappeared, 
 and could not be heard of in any way. 
 
 The Lansdownes are uneasy about Lord Kerry, who 
 outgrows his strength, lives on a regimen, dines at 
 three, and requires much care and attention. 
 
 The newspapers have accused Palmerston, Wilmot 
 Horton, and the Gaily Knight of forming a Jacobin 
 junta at Paris to depreciate Polignac as the puppet of 
 Wellington. The lie is ridiculous, and I see Palmerston 
 is come home. 
 
 217
 
 21 8 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vin. 
 
 The press is grown cruel as well as revolutionary. 
 Three days ago the Herald made great merriment of 
 the poor King's supposed cataract. Yet Scarlett is 
 horribly abused by them for prosecutions. The Radical 
 Alexander, who is convicted of the libel in the Morning 
 Journal, for many years conducted a slanderous news- 
 paper in Edinburgh. 1 My poor imprudent friend, Sir 
 A. Boswell, lost his life in a duel for publishing some 
 squibs in it. 
 
 A man said to me yesterday with a very grave face, 
 " The Attorney-General admires Lady Cawdor ex- 
 tremely, and would probably like to marry her." I 
 said, " So do I ; and if her Ladyship chooses a lawyer, 
 I am a much better match than Scarlett, as I should 
 die much sooner." 
 
 Petrified sufficiently by the weather, I have not even 
 visited Lady Petre. This is ungrateful after the 
 caresses at Paultons, and their kindness to Edward at 
 Brighton. I hope she thinks me out of town, and I 
 am not supposed to know she is in it. 
 
 Monday, January 18^, 1830. 
 
 JOSEPH and I are just returned from Lord Clifden's, 
 where we have spent four pleasant days in a warm 
 
 1 The Glasgow Sentinel, of which Robert Alexander was a 
 proprietor. There were law suits between him and his partners, 
 and Boswell, (the son of James Boswell,) attacked a solicitor, 
 James Stuart, who was engaged in the case, in the issue of 
 October 2oth, 1821. In the course of the action Stuart dis- 
 covered who his assailant was, called him out on March 26th, 
 1822, and killed him.
 
 JAN. 18, 1830.] THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND. 2 19 
 
 house and good society, Lord Ashley, Lord Clanwilliam, 
 Mr. William Howard, and Mr. Hay, the Under-Secretary 
 of State. Lady Gower came one morning in hiefh 
 
 o o 
 
 good looks and spirits. We had a corps of infantry, 
 Ellis's nice children, two pretty girls of Lord Gower, 
 and a brace of Lord Carlisle's boys. 
 
 Vesey Fitzgerald 1 must resign from ill health, which 
 is a serious loss to the Cabinet, but the other rumoured 
 changes are groundless. 
 
 I have seen the extraordinary correspondence between 
 the Duke of Cumberland and the Lord Chancellor. 2 
 The Duke begins by indignation at a newspaper 
 paragraph stating that Lady Lyndhurst had turned 
 him out of her house for impropriety of conduct, of 
 which he asserts the falsehood, and desires that her 
 ladyship will confirm his assertion. 
 
 The Chancellor replies that Lady Lyndhurst has been 
 of late assailed by similar falsehoods, but despises them. 
 
 The Duke rejoins, and repeats his desire that Lady 
 Lyndhurst will support his denial of so scandalous an 
 insinuation. 
 
 The Chancellor finally answers much to the same 
 effect as before, so that the Duke does not ultimately 
 obtain what he asks for. 
 
 Lord Albert Conyngham, indignant at some national 
 
 1 William, first Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey. He was President 
 of the Board of Control in the Wellington Administration. 
 
 3 Lord Lyndhurst. The facts appear to have been exactly as 
 stated in the newspaper paragraph which the Duke wished 
 contradicted. See Greville's "Memoirs."
 
 22O MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. vin. 
 
 reflections cast on England by the Secretary of the 
 French Embassy at Berlin, calls him out. They 
 exchange a pistol shot, and then fall to with sabres. 
 Lord Albert is slightly wounded in the hand, which 
 terminates the matter. He is young and dashing, and 
 I suppose they must both be withdrawn from Berlin. 
 
 Poor Sir T. Lawrence is the subject of universal 
 regret, terribly in debt, 6,000 they say to Lord Dudley, 
 and God knows how much to others. To Colnaghi 
 they say 2,000, in short, to everybody who would lend. 
 It is false that he ever played. The riches of his port- 
 folios very great, for so he spent all he had. They 
 talk of a value of 60,000 in sketches, studies, etc., of 
 the great masters, an irreparable blow to the Academy. 
 No such successor can be found. Beechy is old, Wilkie, 
 Chantrey, and others talked of are vulgar men, and 
 cannot represent as he did. 1 
 
 Tatham called in my absence, and left word he had 
 a daughter dangerously ill. The King has had a bad 
 cold, but is recovering. His colds are so inflammatory 
 that some bleeding becomes necessary. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Tuesday, January 2(>th, 1830. 
 REJOICE, my dear Lady Gertrude, that you are 
 ploughing the snow, living with innocent country 
 neighbours, and soothing yourself with the bagpipes of 
 Mrs. Dugald Stewart, for this infamous town swarms 
 with slander to such an excess that the most imma- 
 culate characters are unsafe. 
 
 1 Sir Martin Shee succeeded Lawrence as P.R.A.
 
 JAN. 26, 1830.] SCANDAL. 221 
 
 Even H.R.H. the Duke of Cumberland, with all his 
 purity, cannot escape, and is charged with an unfor- 
 tunate love for Lady Graves. It is added also that 
 her Lord has adopted the language of Romeo's apothe- 
 cary : " My poverty and not my will consents," and 
 taken 30,000 to keep the secret. Edward dined with 
 me yesterday from Kew, and declares the whole is an 
 infamous falsehood, and merely a joke upon Ernest. 
 If so 'tis a pity, and spoils a conundrum. " Why is 
 the Duke like a resurrection man ? " " Because he 
 disturbs the Graves." 
 
 When Foote attempted a grave rebuke of the bass- 
 viol in his orchestra for making love to the flute's 
 wife, he ruined all its effect by saying, " Sir, you have 
 been guilty of a base violation of this man's domestic 
 happiness." 
 
 In the catalogue of slander next stands Mrs. Parnther, 
 who is said to have played Calista to the Lothario of 
 that wrinkled Adonis, the Earl of W. For some 
 years she has attempted to become a beauty, is an 
 exquisite, her husband a nimini pimini gentleman, 
 who talks pretty in the matter of Lord John Fitzroy, 
 and one fine morning had just sense enough to quit 
 the law when he never would have got a guinea. 
 
 The King had a cold, and was bled, but is perfectly 
 well. The Duke of Cumberland confined by illness 
 to his bed. Poor Lord Lansdowne has been obliged 
 to receive Gloucester's Duke at Bovvood. 
 
 What a havoc has death recently made among my 
 friends Redesdale, Lawrence, Lady Donegal, Miss
 
 222 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH.VIII. 
 
 Vernon, and now poor Tierney. They said yesterday 
 old Lady Cork had departed also. 
 
 Poor Tatham in sad tribulation. Waters, a son of 
 the Opera Waters, after a courtship of seven years and 
 a house taken for the marriage, has suddenly jilted his 
 daughter. It has affected her health, and she is going 
 to Sir A. Paget's for a change of scene. 
 
 Moore has crammed his book of " Byron " too much. 
 As he was forced to slur Sheridan's treachery to his 
 party, he is forced to slur Byron's treachery to his wife. 
 But what can a man do who, like the Newgate calendar, 
 selects only rogues for biography ? 
 
 Read " Tales of a Curate," Colman, very good fun 
 indeed. Lord King mortal heavy. 1 The Squires will 
 come sulky to Parliament, and leave wives at grass, for 
 the rents won't pay opera boxes. They deserve it, for 
 they huzzaed Mr. Pitt and his wars into a debt which 
 has ruined the country. Joseph and I unite in loves 
 to sick and well. 
 
 P.S. Miss Vernon was an excellent woman. She 
 bought a seat in Parliament lately for her nephew 
 Vernon Smith, the son of Bobus, 2 who, though rolling 
 in riches, would not draw his purse-strings. I pity 
 poor Miss Fox, who is now solitary. Lord Holland 
 would delight to have her. But there is Miladi, and 
 neither she nor Miss Fox would muster any delight 
 
 1 " The Life of John Locke, with Extracts from his Corre- 
 spondence " (London, 1829), by Peter, seventh Baron King. 
 Brother of Sydney Smith.
 
 FEB. 12, 1830.] A DINNER OF WITS. 223 
 
 between them. Two more opposite beings never 
 existed. 
 
 I cease to grumble at the folly of my portrait, as it 
 supplied me with a relic of poor Lawrence. It was 
 impossible to find a successor with talents and manners 
 like his. And when the country manager had no more 
 white paper to make snow in his pantomime he 
 exclaimed, " Curse you ! why don't you snow brown ? " 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, February 12th, 1830. 
 
 DON'T go into hysterics at a Radical frank of 
 Burdett's, and expect a tirade on Parliamentary Reform ; 
 but as I wanted to thank you speedily for a very newsy 
 letter, I have put the rebel Baronet's hand in requisition. 
 
 Joseph and I had a comical dinner yesterday with 
 Kenney, who wrote Raising the Wind and other 
 excellent farces. We had all the wits, poets, and 
 authors Rogers, Tom Moore, Washington Irving (the 
 Sketch Book), Barry Cornwall, and George Colman. 
 They were quizzing Shee, the new President of the 
 Royal Academy, for publishing his pedigree in the 
 papers to prove he was a gentleman and a relation of 
 Sir G. Shee and my idol Mrs. Shee. I said a man 
 might be proud of his family from antiquity when the 
 first She was Mrs. Eve. 
 
 Kenney said when last at Paris he was seduced by a 
 placard in the Palace Royale signifying that within was 
 to be seen a curious animal, the offspring of a duck and 
 a rabbit. He paid his franc and went in. 
 
 The master of the show apologised to him for the
 
 224 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. vni. 
 
 accidental absence of the prodigy by saying it had been 
 sent that morning to the Jardin des Plantes, for the 
 inspection of Cuvier. " Mais, Monsieur," said he, point- 
 ing at a cage which contained a duck and a rabbit, 
 "Voila ses respectables parens." 
 
 Joseph condescended at last to assist at one of 
 Lady Holland's soirees, and found there a round dozen 
 of discontented peers Devonshire, Lansdovvne, Car- 
 narvon, Clanwilliam, Normanby, Palmerston, etc. They 
 did not seem to object to Wellington if he would 
 sweep out his Cabinet and stick some of them into it. 
 I heard yesterday that Lord Lansdowne brings in a 
 Mr. Macaulay 1 at Calne in Abercrombie's room, perhaps 
 to sit till Lord Kerry is of age. 
 
 Lady Belgrave wrote these lines on leaving the 
 Staffords' House : 
 
 "'Mong the terrible punishments censured by Bentham 
 He omitted to mention a fortnight at Trentham." 
 
 One of Edward's cronies in the Guards has had a 
 tiger skin sent him, and cuts it into waistcoats among 
 his friends, and Edward is fitted with one splendid 
 enough to ornament the Zoological Menagerie or 
 fascinate Mr. Parnt/ier. He says it is for travelling in 
 wet weather, and it is really too tremendous for general 
 use, and exceeds the hat he brought to Paultons. 
 
 Byron was certainly half crazy, but he must have had 
 lucid intervals, and in one of them admired your interest- 
 ing friend, Lady Surrey. It would have been well if 
 
 1 Lord Macaulay.
 
 MARCH 15, 1830.] LORD GRAVES. 225 
 
 his admiration had always been as judicious. Edward 
 saw in the new pantomime last night an ingenious 
 clock-work spider, who weaves a web of twenty feet 
 square round the clown. What things they rack their 
 brains for ! 
 
 Brougham has wisely shifted his flag to Knares- 
 borough under the Duke of Devonshire. John Williams 
 (Queen Caroline's counsel) supplied his seat at Win- 
 chilsea under the Marquess of Cleveland. 
 
 The Duke of Cumberland denies the whole story, and 
 now they say Graves 1 killed himself merely on being 
 hurt at the scandal. Is that likely, as it would tend to 
 confirm it? 
 
 Poor Tierney seems entirely forgot. Byron says, of 
 human life 
 
 " Passion, ambition, dust, perhaps a name." 
 
 Monday, March i$th, 1830. 
 
 THE ministers, I am sure, ought to be as popular 
 as they really seem to be in a great measure, for 
 they appear to be bullied into all the wishes of their 
 opponents. Peel civil and obsequious, and Reform 
 becomes the watchword of Tories as well as Radicals. 
 All my consolation in the crisis is that we have got 
 some sunshine ; but it comes with so much dust and 
 east wind that one is little the better for a peep at a 
 crocus or a violet. It is said Lord Colchester died at 
 sea lately. 
 
 1 Thomas, second Lord Graves. He was Comptroller of the 
 Household to the Duke of Cumberland. 
 
 15
 
 226 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH.VIII. 
 
 A courtier tells me that Lady Conyngham since her 
 recovery is so embellie in point of beauty that she 
 looks twenty years younger. That pious prop of our 
 Protestant religion, Edward's friend, the Duke of 
 Cumberland, has not yet regained any popularity, and 
 it is said that the King declares if he stays in England, 
 and subjects himself to any insult from popular indigna- 
 tion, he cannot protect him. They add also, that the 
 Directors of the Ancient Music have abolished their 
 dinners to avoid his intrusion. 
 
 Read two novels, " The Manners of the Day " and 
 " Cloudesley," the first by some one who knows well the 
 London world and paints it often, with wit and humour, 
 the second a serious story by Godwin, the celebrated 
 author of " Caleb Williams," and who at an advanced 
 age still writes with vigour and talent. 
 
 Stapylton, a natural son of Lord Morley, and private 
 secretary to poor Canning, advertises the life of his 
 patron, of which it is said the Minister prohibited 
 the publication. If he were a lord of the bedchamber 
 the Duke would turn him out sans fa$on> but he can 
 hardly divest him of his Commissionership of the 
 Customs. To vindicate also Canning's politics, and 
 attack the Duke, a strong pamphlet has appeared, and 
 is said to be from the pen of Lady Canning. The 
 young Frenchman who had a duel with Lord Conyng- 
 ham at Berlin behaved well, seeing that his antagonist 
 knew nothing of the use of the sabre, played with him, 
 and ended the conflict by a slight cut on the wrist so as 
 to disable him.
 
 MARCH 28, 1830.] "THE ELEPHANT." 22/ 
 
 From Ellenborough's 1 foolish letter to Sir John 
 Malcolm in India, he goes by no other name than the 
 elephant. Rogers gave us one of his pleasant dinners 
 yesterday, and mixed blue ladies with us Morley and 
 Lindsay and Davy. My boys report poorly of the 
 opera. We are on tiptoe for the Budget to-night, and 
 are dazzled by an expectation of an enormous sacrifice 
 of taxes by the minister. God knows how it could be 
 afforded ; and as a property tax would only drive 
 money into foreign funds, a scrape either way. Do 
 not hunt for franks, for I have several ninepences left. 
 
 Sunday, March 28//z, 1830. 
 
 YOUR account of Miss Petre's 2 rapid death really 
 shocked me poor, good-natured, amiable, young woman. 
 In a gross habit like hers fever is a fatal antagonist ; 
 and little did I expect so sudden a termination of our 
 acquaintance. But such is fate. 
 
 Tatham called yesterday to invite me to follow Tom 
 Grenville's example, and give twenty-five guineas to a 
 Mr. Pyne for a hole in his new cimettire 1 of four 
 
 1 Lord Ellenborough was President of the Board of Control 
 of the East India Company, and wrote to Sir John Malcolm, 
 Governor of Bombay, describing one of the Judges of the Supreme 
 Court as " a wild elephant led between two tame ones." There 
 had been friction between the Government and the Court, and 
 two new judges, to whom he alluded, had just been appointed. 
 The matter was discussed in Parliament, but no motion was 
 made. 
 
 2 The third daughter of the tenth Lord Petre. 
 
 3 Kensal Green Cemetery was opened two years later, in 1832,. 
 but consisted only of fifty-three acres.
 
 228 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vm. 
 
 hundred acres, on the model of Pere la Chaise, in the 
 centre of which will be a Trajan's Pillar and an 
 Acropolis. As the work may take some years for com- 
 pletion, I inquired where I was to be lodged by Mr. 
 Pyne in the meantime, as my corpse would naturally 
 be impatient for the new landscape, and to lie among 
 daffodils, jonquils, and rose trees ; and as the gaiety of 
 France had found out that funerals were only vaudevilles, 
 I meant to have a pink-and-silver hearse, with Matthews 
 and Listen as chief mourners. 
 
 But Tatham's friend has a rival, who proposes to let 
 lodgings in a pyramid on Primrose Hill, which is to 
 contain five millions of nervous defunct who are afraid 
 of the surgeons. Now really there is foolery enough 
 among us while we are alive without inventing projects 
 to continue the foolery to parterres and pyramids here- 
 after. 
 
 Dining at Lord Camden's yesterday I met Lord 
 Chatham, 1 cheerful but very feeble, observing to my 
 youths that so much dissipation before Easter was 
 unusual. They said the girls prophesied a short season 
 after it, as Parliament would probably rise early, and 
 they would be packed home by papas. It is not 
 impossible that the misses may conjecture rightly, and 
 so are glad to work double tides at present. 
 
 Her Grace of St. Coutts announced supper by the 
 tolling of an immense bell, which shook the house and 
 the nerves of fifty dowagers to a palsy. 
 
 I dined t'other day at the Morleys. The comical 
 1 John, second Earl, brother of William Pitt. He died in 1835.
 
 MARCH 29, 1830.] MACARTNEY IN CHINA. 229 
 
 Countess is Hogarth in petticoats. She showed me a 
 quarto of caricatures of her own The History of the 
 Families of Snuggins and Sucklethumb from their own 
 ancestors, who were aldermen in the reign of Henry VII., 
 to the young cub of the two families entered at 
 Christ Church, Oxford, last month, accompanied with 
 biography written in the various English of the times, and 
 the costume of the different periods admirably accurate. 
 
 Monday, March 2<)th, 1830. 
 
 THINK of my partaking yesterday of a really splendid 
 dinner at Mr. and Mrs. FitzHugh's. We had Lady 
 Pembroke and her very handsome daughter, Captain 
 and Mrs. Bowles, Lord Sandon, Lord Palmerston, Mr. 
 Temple, and Sir George Staunton, who went to China 
 with Lord Macartney, 1 and with his Lordship refused 
 to knock his head nine times at the Emperor's feet 
 in the ceremony of Kotoo. Palmerston looked pale 
 and jaded, and five years older since last summer, 
 from his parliamentary anxieties and displays. Mrs. 
 Bowles told me that house in Stanhope Street would 
 have suited the Bournes, as she inspected it for them, 
 but found that it had been suddenly sold for .6,000. 
 
 She said old Woronzow reads all night, remains in 
 bed till six o'clock of the day, when he gets up to 
 
 1 In 1793, on a mission to negotiate a commercial treaty to the 
 Emperor of China. Lord Macartney evaded the ceremony by 
 consenting only on condition that a Chinaman of equal rank 
 to his own should make a similar obeisance to a picture of 
 George III. This was refused, and the ambassador made the 
 usual salute by dropping on one knee.
 
 230 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. VIIT. 
 
 dinner, and then drives to Lady Pembroke. It is thought 
 he is ninety years of age. There is a talk of a young 
 Irish painter coming over, who is a second Sir T. 
 Lawrence. 
 
 My youths say that a Miss Brandling of the north 
 is the reigning beauty of London. I think last year 
 it was a Miss Bailey, who is now of course " the unfor- 
 tunate Miss Bailey" of Matthew's ballad. But I am as 
 little read in the list of beauties as I am in the " Racing 
 Calendar," so can only speak from dandy reports. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, May ist, 1830. 
 
 THE King's health is certainly precarious, and the 
 bulletins are so clumsily and cloudily worded, as to 
 increase instead of quieting the public fears. Water 
 is surmised, but my own opinion is that it is merely 
 inflammation of the chest to a greater and more difficult 
 excess than the attacks he has so often experienced, 
 and the necessary bleedings of course debilitate, at his 
 age, a corpulent and inactive man, who in early life 
 lived in such excesses ; inflammation may be fatal. How 
 shall we manage under Clarence, whom they certainly 
 were constrained to dismiss from the Admiralty on 
 suspicion of craziness? 
 
 Yet Lady Jersey posted down to Bushey on the 
 King's first attack to serve either the Whigs or the 
 Duke of Wellington, and Holland, from his legitimate 
 relationship, has also visited the rising sun. 
 
 Parliament sits like a hen, never quits the nest
 
 JUNE 14, 1830-] GOSSIP. 231 
 
 till long after midnight. God knows what chickens 
 they may hatch, or any worth rearing. 
 
 Thursday we dined with Rogers. He said Luttrell l 
 loved a newspaper so intensely that he read from the 
 Calais steamer at the top of the first page to high water 
 at the bottom of the last. 
 
 It was reported the King had ordered a superb dress 
 from Paris for Lady Conyngham at the intended 
 Drawing-room, and that the Londonderrys flew there 
 immediately to get a finer. 
 
 Lord Lansdowne is returned after the agreeable 
 exploit of three weeks' gout in a hotel at Paris. All 
 sense of shame is lost, and people are exposing them- 
 selves in private theatricals daily. As none but geese 
 would attend as an audience I marvel they escaped 
 hissing. 
 
 When the poor Duke of York was so intent on his 
 new palace, I looked at it always as his mausoleum. 
 Another palace 2 now rising reminds me of that reflection. 
 
 Our loves to you all, and our regrets also, for under 
 the present state of things I fear you cannot contem- 
 plate a visit to London. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Monday, June \$th, 1830. 
 
 I SHALL now break silence, as your two spies have 
 
 left London. The poor King holds out miraculously, 
 
 but the case remains hopeless, and we are daily misled 
 
 by false reports of appetite. We are told of dissolution 
 
 1 Mr. H. Luttrell, author of " Advice to Julia." 
 
 2 Buckingham Palace.
 
 232 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vin. 
 
 of Parliament, but I should think there must be a 
 Regency Bill previously enacted. I met the Duke 
 of Wellington last week at Lord Camden's. He looked 
 stout, but complained to me of perpetual work, and 
 indeed he is ill seconded in the Lords by the bungling 
 of Aberdeen. 
 
 I dined t'other day at Holland House. They speculate 
 on a short trip to the Rhine. Newton l has painted 
 a sweet portrait of Mary Fox, small whole length, and 
 has preserved that pretty look of espieglerie, and her 
 hereditary dimples. 
 
 Tatham's son has really executed a clever bust of 
 Lord Eldon, for a statue which some vulgar citizen 
 is going to erect over a Charity School. Tatham was 
 angry with me for saying if Eldon was still Chancellor 
 he would prevent such a lunatic from spending his 
 children's fortunes in foolery and ultra-Toryism. 
 
 Edward is committed to the Tower with other wild 
 beasts for a few days. I asked him if the public were 
 admitted to see the Guards fed. He said no, as Hume 
 would complain of second courses and champagne. He 
 has been again at Kew, and to complete the morality 
 he has imbibed from the Duke of Carabas is become 
 a crony of the Lord Marquess Wellesley, who lives at 
 Marble Hall, and details more effusions of good fun 
 and nonsense than I have been supplied with for a 
 
 1 Francis Milner Newton, an American, whose early manner 
 was formed on that of Watteau. " Yorick and the Grisette " is 
 a specimen of his work in the National Gallery. He died insane 
 in 1835.
 
 JL-N-E 14, 1830.] PEEL AND HUME. 233 
 
 very long time, and I only wish they were pure enough 
 to be repeated. The Lady Marchioness of Carabas 
 sojourns at his villa in the Regent's Park. 
 
 I also wish I could tell you to read six volumes of 
 the " Memoirs of Madame du Barry," 1 which are more 
 amusing than can be imagined. The style is charming 
 and graceful, but the topics are too often indelicate. 
 Mrs. Norton's new poems seem overrated. Edward's 
 new friend a sends me some comical verses of too gay 
 description, and Edward adds that he abuses the Duke 
 of Wellington by the hour. 
 
 Two days ago I was met by Peel in Hyde Park, and 
 when he left me a companion observed how pale he 
 looked. " So would you," I replied, " if you had been 
 exHumed only this morning at three o'clock," 3 Apropos 
 of Hyde Park, last week I performed a Samaritan act 
 there. I saw a gentleman lying on the grass just 
 thrown from a starting horse. I offered my services, 
 which were thankfully accepted, and the people with 
 difficulty conveyed into my carriage Sir Frederic 
 Lamb. 4 A surgeon in the crowd pronounced a fracture 
 of both bones of the leg just above the ankle. We 
 placed him on the floor of the carriage, with his back 
 
 1 By the Baron de la Motte Langon and M. Paul La Croix. 
 They are not authentic. 
 3 The Marquess Wellesley. 
 
 3 An allusion to the activity in Opposition of Joseph Hume. 
 He kept several clerks to check the accounts of public expendi- 
 ture, and was always a keen critic of the financial proposals of 
 Government. 
 
 4 Afterwards Lord Beauvale.
 
 234 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vm. 
 
 against the door and the limb extended ; he was very 
 faint from pain. I conveyed him down Constitution Hill 
 to Melbourne House, so avoided the stones. Unluckily 
 Sir A. Cooper was not found for three hours, so the 
 swelling and inflammation postponed the setting of 
 the fracture till the next day, when it was found that 
 only the smaller bone was broken, and he is of course 
 doing well, as Lord Melbourne told me this morning. 
 I rejoice I was passing, as in twenty minutes after this 
 fall he was at home. 
 
 I was told yesterday that my friend Allen, Lady 
 Cawdor's neighbour, once had as a servant, Sellis, the 
 Duke of Cumberland's assassin. 1 Allen had received a 
 large sum of money, and was awakened in the night by 
 a light and a movement of his curtain. He found Sellis 
 at his bedside, who pretended the bell had rung for him. 
 It is needless to say he contrived to dismiss him soon 
 after, but without disclosing a suspicion which might 
 have roused Italian revenge and excited the bump of 
 murder in his craniology. 
 
 P.S. Marquess Wellesley told Edward three or 
 four stories of myself as having passed in a Court 
 of Justice. The stories were excellent, but totally 
 invented. 
 
 1 Sellis entered the Duke's bedroom at St. James's Palace in 
 1810, with the intention of killing him, but the Duke awoke and 
 beat off his assailant, who went to his own room and cut his 
 throat. Owing to the general unpopularity of the Duke, an 
 absurd rumour that he was the murderer of his valet was credited 
 by the ignorant classes for some years.
 
 JUNE 14, 1830.] LORD WELLESLEY'S LATIN. 235 
 
 He always quizzed the late Lord Liverpool, and he 
 sent me this : 
 
 nson. 
 
 While he was Lord-Lieutenant there was presented to 
 him at a levee Sir Lynch Bios, Bart. Show Willy what 
 his Excellency wrote on the presentation, and how gram- 
 matically he framed a declension of the Baronet's name. 
 
 " Ut rosa flos florum, sic es Bios, tu quoque Blorum." 
 
 Declension. 
 Singulariter. 
 
 Nom. Hie Sir Linchpin Bios. 
 Gen. hujus Sir Linchpin Bloris. 
 Dat. huic Sir Linchpin Blori. 
 Ace. hunc Sir Linchpin Bios. 
 Voc. O Sir Linchpin Bios. 
 Abl. hoc Sir Linchpin Blore. 
 
 Pluraliter. 
 
 Nom. Hi Sir Linchpin Blores. 
 
 Gen. Horum Sir Linchpin Blorum. 
 
 Dat. His Sir Linchpin Bloribus. 
 
 Ace. Hos Sir Linchpin Blores. 
 
 Voc. O Sir Linchpin Blores. 
 
 Abl. His Sir Linchpin Bloribus.
 
 236 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY [CH. vm. 
 
 I know no greater privilege than the right a man of 
 great talents enjoys of talking or writing nonsense with 
 impunity. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Saturday, 10 o'clock, June 2.6th, 1830. 
 MY poor King seems drooping daily. I fear the word 
 " languor " which these stupid doctors adopt means the 
 total sinking of the powers of life. When I think of 
 the friendship and familiarity of forty-six years I 
 remember what Dr. Johnson said of his dying bene- 
 factor : " Those eyes are closing for ever which during 
 a long life were never turned upon me but with benevo- 
 lence." I hear what I do not believe, that he said to 
 the Duke of Clarence, " Do not let the fall of the Conyng- 
 hams be without gentleness. I desire that you will 
 act kindly towards them for my sake." They say they 
 will dissolve Parliament immediately on his death, 
 prematurely, I think, if they do not previously pass 
 a Regency Bill. 
 
 On Thursday I dined with a host of Canningites at 
 Sturges Bourne's Harrowby, Goderich, Dudley, Hus- 
 kisson, etc. Mrs. Huskisson a clever, ugly little body, 
 with the air of a French woman. Mrs. Bourne is 
 cheerful, but looks altered. Lord Harrowby grown very 
 old suddenly, and wrinkled. 
 
 Joseph met Mrs. Leigh somewhere at dinner, and 
 to-day she writes to him for our votes at the Athenseum, 
 where the canvas is no sinecure as there are sixteen 
 hundred candidates. 
 
 Yesterday at the Temple I called to the bar a
 
 JUNE 26, 1830.] LORD ST. HELENS. 237 
 
 younger son of the Archbishop of York. 1 I hear his 
 father gets an immense property by the death of Lord 
 Harcourt. 
 
 Bishop Heber's life is amusing, but his widow has 
 unnecessarily made two large volumes of it. Joseph 
 and I dined yesterday at five o'clock with Rogers to 
 accommodate old Lord St. Helens 2 and Brougham ; the 
 latter was detained in the House of Commons. Rogers 
 told us St. Helens always sleeps with his face to the east, 
 on some principle I do not understand, because the 
 world turns half round in the night. Yet the old fellow 
 does not want brains. Christians and Mohammedans 
 bow to the East on account of Jerusalem and Mecca, 
 but as the Saint of Helens is of neither religion I do not 
 comprehend it. 
 
 As your prudery relents about Madame du Barry you 
 will be much amused by her good stories. 
 
 I have bribed the Attorney-General for this frank by 
 promising to convey his best remembrances to Lady 
 Cawdor, who I hope is still with you. Joseph met all 
 the world t'other night at Lady Stafford's, and the people 
 would not quit the fine hall 3 in their perambulations, 
 they were so impressed by it. 
 
 1 Archbishop Vernon. He assumed the surname of Harcourt 
 on Lord Harcourt' s death. 
 
 * Sir Alleyne Fitzherbert, the eminent diplomatist, created 
 Lord St. Helens in 1791. He died unmarried in 1839. 
 
 3 Stafford House, the residence of the Dukes of Sutherland. 
 It was built in 1825 by the Duke of York, it is said from his own 
 designs, and after his death was acquired by the Marquess of 
 Stafford. The Marquess and his family have since spent vast 
 sums on this famous house.
 
 238 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vm. 
 
 Saturday, 2 o'clock, June -26th, 1830. 
 
 ALL is over. The King was released from a state 
 of suffering about three o'clock this morning. 
 
 Edward came to me early this morning and said 
 that he and other officers on leave were suddenly 
 ordered on duty at the Tower. 
 
 I conjectured that the sad event had taken place, 
 but I did not know it authentically till this moment. 
 Shops shut, bells tolling, and very universal feeling. 
 
 June 1830. 
 
 I DO not pretend to be more sentimental than most 
 people, but the minute guns of Thursday night brought 
 many sad recollections of the weeks and days and 
 hours with him " who now lies festering in his shroud." 
 I agree with you that it was unfeeling and disrespectful 
 to open theatres, but the cruel and scandalous abuse 
 of many newspapers is absolutely disgusting. The 
 " gentlemen of the press," as they call themselves, resemble 
 those fabled vampires who issue from the grave and 
 torment the living. The corpse was scarcely cold when 
 the attack commenced, and on the very day it was 
 consigned to its last abode the Times published a 
 tirade of the most savage and atrocious character. 
 Edward went to Windsor with the Grenadier Guards 
 for the funeral. London will be in a singular and novel 
 state for some time. There are to be levees and reviews, 
 so many will linger here who are not to be occupied 
 in carousing, and elections, and a Parliament assembling 
 in the autumn will also be a very unusual event.
 
 JULY 8, 1830.] THE LYING IN STATE. 239 
 
 If Mrs. Timpson has the least wish to be Mistress 
 of the Robes, let her come up to Berkeley Square by 
 the very next Southampton coach, for Lady Jersey will 
 dispose of all the Household. Elle est rayonnante, and 
 looks in much better humour than Lady Holland. 
 
 Lord Clifden came yesterday, and mentioned a Dr. 
 St. John Long, 1 a physician of Harley Street, who says 
 he has been celebrated for cures of a complaint similar 
 to Willy's. I told him I believed you were satisfied with 
 the treatment of your present advisers, but that I would 
 name him to you. 
 
 Edward is returned. Between Wednesday and yester- 
 day the Guards marched sixty miles, as from want of 
 room they were marched back on the first day from 
 Windsor to Slough. He says the lying in state was 
 mean, though exaggerated by the newspapers. The 
 procession well arranged, and the solemnity of the 
 silence, the March in Saul by the late King's band and 
 those of the Guards, and the minute firing of the guns 
 most impressive. 
 
 July Wi, 1830. 
 
 MY old friend, Lord Ashburnham, has published a 
 vindication of his ancestor, who was at Carisbrook with 
 Charles I., when among other foolish things of his reign 
 
 1 A celebrated quack doctor, whose treatment seems to have 
 consisted of rubbing and applications of cabbage leaves. He 
 was convicted of the manslaughter of a Miss Cashin in 1830, 
 and fined ^250. He was acquitted on a similar charge in the 
 following year.
 
 240 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. VIM. 
 
 he tried to get out of a window too narrow for him. 
 It is but a dull book. 
 
 The King's will is dated 1824, and in the handwriting 
 of Lord Eldon. He bequeathed his property to his 
 successor, but without naming him. 
 
 Take it for granted certain favourites were adequately 
 gifted in his lifetime, that their name might not appear 
 in a will. It is kind in William IV. to pension poor 
 Mrs. Tierney. That little spendthrift Wellesley has 
 not ^4,000 per annum, having sold all his pensions 
 and resources, and keeps two establishments for wife 
 and self. We are to meet him at Lord Sidmouth's, 
 and Edward says he is delightful. There is no regular 
 separation, but the Lady Marchioness lives at a villa 
 in Regent's Park, and is going to Harrogate for an 
 eruption which threatens her beauty. 
 
 This day the Due de Montebello, Pair de France, 
 son of Marshal Lannes, is to marry the daughter 1 of 
 William's virtuous friend Jenkinson at Paris. Joseph's 
 friend, young Flint, is fool enough to want to marry 
 the said Duchess' sister, who has not so much fortune 
 as would buy a joint stool, though the Duchess has 
 Le droit du tabouret? 
 
 A Gens d'anne at Paris stopped a passenger to look 
 at his passport, and asked him from whence he came. 
 "Gens d'arme," replied the passenger, "je suis ne a 
 
 1 Lady Eleanora Jenkinson, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Liverpool. 
 
 3 Le droit du tabouret was the privilege enjoyed by 
 Duchesses of remaining seated (on a folding stool) during the 
 King's supper and the Queen's reception.
 
 JULY 8, 1830.] LAST DAYS OF GEORGE IV. 24! 
 
 Paris." "Ah, menteur," said the Gens d'aruie,")^ lis 
 dans votre passeport, ' nez aquilin.' " 
 
 July 8M, 1830. 
 
 A FEW days ago I dined at Holland House, which 
 is, as you may guess, the very focus of political gabble. 
 Lord Holland at the Lords till ten, and then returned 
 to us with the Duke of Sussex. 
 
 Lord Farnborough tells me to-day that the poor 
 King, whom he saw perpetually, suffered but little pain 
 at intervals, and that he often mentioned me with 
 kindness. I did not hear it from Lord Farnborough, 
 but I know that the King mentioned Sturges Bourne's 
 name as a fit person to be associated with him for 
 affixing the stamp. It was observed that as Sturges 
 Bourne loved retirement it might embarrass him, and 
 it was given up ; but as the King was but little 
 acquainted with him, it marked his opinion of Bourne's 
 integrity and character. 
 
 London is in a singular state, and will remain so 
 till it exhibits the unusual spectacle of a Parliament 
 reassembling in the autumn, and a court of a Queen 
 full of ladies. You can send us three Maids of Honour, 
 if you please. The squires are setting off to their 
 constituents, and I am glad Dickinson has no opponent. 
 Even the lawyers are departing for their assizes, and 
 Lord Manners and I had a farewell dinner of our friend 
 Lord Tenterden yesterday. 
 
 " The Americans," by Macfarlane, worth reading for 
 its information as to Eastern manners. Mrs. Norton 
 
 16
 
 242 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vin. 
 
 has published poems. Lord Holland was enthusiastic 
 about her " Rosalie," but her " Undying One " in this 
 new volume is a very inferior performance. 
 
 The doctors and the newspapers abuse the poor King's 
 physicians, though yesterday at dinner we had Halford 
 smirking under his Star of the Guelph, which somebody 
 named " the Order of Refuge for the Destitute." 
 
 Brougham came to Holland House, and put under 
 the protection of Miladi Miss Spalding, a handsome, 
 clever woman, the daughter of Madame Brougham by 
 her former husband. 1 
 
 P.S. I send an epitaph written by my poor friend 
 Archdeacon Nares, on himself, but not on his tomb : 
 
 " ' Time has not thinned my flowing hair,' 2 
 Nor laid my aged temples bare, 
 But he has played the barber's part, 
 And powdered them with wondrous art ; 
 Meaning, no doubt, to let me see 
 He thinks to make mere dust of me. 
 But let him know that on a day 
 God will reanimate this clay, 
 And life unchangeable will give 
 When Time himself shall cease to live." 
 
 Saturday, Juty i7//z, 1830. 
 
 EDWARD, I am sorry to say, gave a sad account of 
 the King at the funeral, who, instead of silence and 
 gravity during the procession of a good hour and a half, 
 talked incessantly and loudly to all about him, so that 
 
 1 Mr. John Spalding, of Holme. Lady Brougham's maiden 
 name was Eden. 
 
 2 A line in a popular song set to music by Jackson of Exeter.
 
 JULY 17, 1830.] THE KING'S FUNERAL. 243. 
 
 most frivolous things were overheard. He looked ill, 
 jaded, and most undignified ; and it is unpleasant to 
 add that there was a general impression made to the 
 disadvantage of his understanding. Unless he can be 
 controlled, which is difficult at sixty-five, I fear some 
 awkward pranks will be acted. What minister can con- 
 trol him we are yet to learn ; and without control where 
 will the country be ? 
 
 I knew him very much less than his brother, but I 
 think him good-natured. The late King quizzed him r 
 but loved him. 
 
 Edward said there was much bad taste in the decora- 
 tion. The crown on the canopy in the chapel was twice 
 as big as a coach. Women fainting from pressure, 
 which they deserved for being there. 
 
 All Windsor drunk. Suppers and champagne for 
 parties who remained there, and everything but grief 
 or regret. 
 
 Between three and four thousand troops under arms, 
 much exceeding the Duke of York's funeral. 
 
 The troops held flambeaux in the chapel, the smoke 
 of which eclipsed the spectacle. 
 
 The Duke of Cumberland seemed much affected, and 
 descended alone into the vault after the body was 
 lowered to the place where it will remain till placed in 
 the tomb-house at some distance through a subterranean 
 passage. He has much to lose. 
 
 I asked Edward how the King looked. He said very 
 like Mrs. D'Oyly. The Princes and some others slept 
 at the Castle.
 
 244 MR - JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vm. 
 
 Theodore Hook, a clever fellow who writes in Jo/in 
 Bull, got drunk with others last week at a Countess'. 
 Somebody alluded to a secret, and said, " Hook knows." 
 Hook, with the decanter in his hand, replied, " Bottle 
 nose." 
 
 We are inundated by daily on dits of adhesions 
 and negotiations but last night's speeches of Lans- 
 downe and Holland look hostile to the Duke. A novel 
 called " The English at Home " 1 is read, as it alludes to 
 Canning and other political characters, but I do not 
 admire it. 
 
 Some of the mourners at Windsor despoiled my 
 foolish neighbour, old Penn, of his watch. Edward says 
 Mrs. Manners Sutton's ball was made up of scarecrows. 
 Joseph would not go. I see Lady Stafford trotting 
 about Pall Mall with the elasticity of eighteen. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, August 8t/i, 1830. 
 
 UNLESS a revolution intervenes, I think we shall 
 kiss four fair hands at Paultons on Thursday next. 
 
 Paris has read a potent lesson to Kings and ministers. 
 Charles X. enthroned on Tuesday, and Philip on Friday, 
 and a disciplined army defeated by a mob. 
 
 They talk of Lulworth Castle for Charles a seques- 
 tered spot with a beautiful Catholic chapel, and the 
 ruins of Weld's monastery of La Trappe. No neighbours 
 for the ex-King but the ex-Chancellor Eldon. How 
 naturally a youth of profligacy ends in an old age 
 of bigotry and folly. 
 
 1 By Colburn.
 
 AUG. 8, 1830.] PROSPECTS OF REFORM. 245 
 
 Lord John Russell lost Bedford by the single vote 
 of the mayor. The great M. A. Taylor's vote was too 
 late by seven miles when the poll closed. Lord William 
 Russell l absented himself during the last session, and 
 poor Lord John had abused the Methodists in his late 
 " History of Europe," who compose half the town of 
 Bedford. So Rogers tells me. A rebellion against Lord 
 Lansdowne in my old pure borough of Calne, and a 
 petition. 
 
 The spirit of reform, like that of the schoolmaster, 
 is abroad, and, like that of the Catholic Question, will 
 finally force its way, especially with a temporising 
 Government. Lord Grosvenor is fortunate to buy two 
 boroughs, and have two contests thrown into the 
 bargain. 
 
 Plenty of men still in London society, but the weather 
 is like November. Coals in requisition by dinner-time 
 everywhere ; and if I don't find a bonfire in my chamber 
 on arrival at Paultons I will burn all Lord Mendip's 
 old chairs and tables in the room. 
 
 I wish I could tell you to read Richelieu's " Memoirs," 
 but they are too gay even for matrons and chaperons. 
 Till yesterday I never saw " A Dream," Lord Holland 
 wrote and printed in 1813 ; and a more foolish thing 
 I never read. 
 
 Young Flint, who saw the whole scene at Paris, told 
 me to-day that, notwithstanding the present tranquillity, 
 many English had broken up their establishments and 
 
 1 Lord William Russell, murdered in his bed in May 1840, 
 by his valet Courvoisier, whom he had detected in a theft.
 
 246 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vin. 
 
 were returning home when he left Paris last Thursday. 
 The greatest conflict was on the Wednesday, when the 
 firing was incessant from five to eleven in the evening. 
 And so adieu for a few days. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, August \Qth, 1830. 
 
 THANKS for your delightful letter. I really was in 
 debt, but I postponed payment till the immaculate 
 electors of Stockbridge had agreed to save ninepence 
 out of your pin-money. 1 My friend Leycester writes 
 me word that his nephew Penrhyn and his colleague 
 have had their success at Shaftesbury mixed up with as 
 plentiful a shower of stones and brickbats as Charles X. 
 had at Paris. The candidates at dinner with all their 
 windows broken. The houses of the agents attacked 
 till they decamped incognito, and the two members 
 advised to take flight in an hour after the close of the 
 poll. It seems the poor agent was unpopular because 
 he was near-sighted, and consequently sometimes passed 
 a voter without recognition, which was imputed to pride 
 and insolence. Penrhyn reports to his Uncle Leycester, 
 in speaking of the hard run at Stockbridge, that 
 " William canvassed and kissed the voters' wives with a 
 bottle of wine in his pocket, which, being poured plenti- 
 fully into the female stomach, had a great effect in 
 winning the female heart." 
 
 Morpeth and Brougham glorious ! ' 2 A few such 
 
 1 By returning Lady Gertrude's husband to Parliament, and so 
 extending to her the privilege of franked letters. 
 
 - Their speeches at the York election, when both were 
 returned.
 
 AUG. 10, 1830.] THE FRENCH MOB UNDER FIRE. 247 
 
 examples will alleviate my enthusiasm for Reform. The 
 Duke has given one exemplary instance of the necessity 
 of obedience to public opinion. The example of France 
 and the tone of the General Election, I think, will hardly 
 induce him to hazard any other course. 
 
 Joseph surprises me by disclaiming any intention of a 
 visit to foreign parts this summer, though as a political 
 scene Paris will be interesting. The letters from thence 
 of a young friend of his are curious. In one I saw 
 to-day, mention is made of an opinion delivered by a 
 distinguished officer of ours, who says he never saw the 
 most disciplined army remain so unshaken under a most 
 murderous fire as the Parisian mob in the late conflict. 1 
 So kings must not rely on soldiers. 
 
 Some poet of Deptford kindly sends me to-day a 
 packet of ballads to abuse my poor departed King, 
 but I balance his doggerel with some good verses of 
 Canning for you. 
 
 Lines to Canning's aunt, Mrs. Leigh, on the anniversary 
 of her wedding, on her having sent him a pair of plush 
 shooting breeches : 
 
 " While all on this auspicious day 
 Well pleased their grateful homage pay, 
 And sweetly smile and softly say 
 A thousand civil speeches, 
 My Muse shall strike the tuneful strings 
 Nor scorn the grateful gift she brings, 
 Though humble be the lay she sings 
 A pair of shooting breeches. 
 
 1 The Revolution of 1830.
 
 248 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. VIH. 
 
 " Soon shall the tailor's nimble art 
 Have made them tight, and spruce, and smart, 
 And fastened well in every part 
 With twenty thousand stitches. 
 Mark, then, the moral of my song 
 Oh may your loves but last as long, 
 And wear as well, and prove as strong, 
 As these, my shooting breeches. 
 
 " And when, to ease the load of life 
 Of private care and public strife, 
 My lot shall give to me a wife, 
 I ask not rank or riches. 
 For worth like thine alone I pray, 
 Temper like thine, serene and gay ; 
 And formed like thee, to give away, 
 Not wear herself, the breeches ! " 
 
 PARODY. 
 
 On Whitbread 1 s Speech in Lord Melville's Trial. 
 
 BY CANNING. 
 
 I am like Archimedes for science and skill, 
 
 I am like a young prince who went straight up a hill, 
 
 And, to interest the hearts of the fair, be it said, 
 
 I am like a young lady just bringing to bed. 
 
 Would you know why the eleventh of June I remember 
 
 So much better than April or March or November ? 
 
 Tis because on that day, as with pride I assure ye, 
 
 My sainted progenitor took to his brewery. 
 
 That day in the morn he began brewing beer, 
 
 That evening commenced his connubial career. 
 
 On that day he died, having finished his summing, 
 
 And the angels sung out, ' Here's old Whitbread a-coming ! 
 
 So that day I hail with a smile and a sigh, 
 
 For his beer with an E and his bier with an I. 
 
 And on that day each year in the hottest of weather 
 
 The whole Whitbread family feast altogether. 
 
 My Lords, while the beams of this hall shall support 
 
 The roof that o'ershades this respectable court,
 
 AUG. 1 8. 1830.] POLITICS. 249 
 
 Where Hastings was tried for oppressing the Hindoos, 
 While the beams of the sun enter in at the windows, 
 My name shall shine bright, as my father's now shines, 
 Emblazoned on Journals as his is on Signs." 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, August i%th, 1830. 
 
 AT Holland House yesterday I had an uncomfortable 
 bulletin. No danger, I believe, but he still keeps his 
 chamber, and a second physician attends with Dr. 
 Holland. Lady Lilford's health quite restored. 
 
 1 am visited for the sins of my youth by the Literary 
 Gazette of last Saturday, which revives an ancient 
 epigram of Mr. Jekyll on Pitt's Taxation of Tea and 
 Hair Powder. 
 
 "With his tax upon powder and tax upon tea, 
 Not a beau will be left, not so much as bo-hea." 
 
 The general expectation is that Parliament will sit 
 five weeks at least on its meeting in October. A shorter 
 period could hardly be allotted for two such pressing 
 discussions as the Civil List and the Regency, inde- 
 pendent of the arrear of important matters so abruptly 
 abandoned last session. And I should guess the Christ- 
 mas adjournment would only extend to February. 
 
 Forty years ago I little hoped my votes on the Catholic 
 Question, the Slave Trade, and Reform of Parliament 
 would be ultimately successful. The triumph of more 
 enlightened times has accomplished the two first, and 
 the recent elections are practically forwarding the last. 
 
 The French business is too wide a field for discussion. 
 No man can yet predict how it will affect the general 
 state of Europe. The first Revolution developed prin-
 
 250 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vui- 
 
 ciples which have never since been silenced, and I tell 
 my sons they must be prepared to witness extraordinary 
 changes in their times. 
 
 William IV. has read Smollett's novels most profitably, 
 and plays Tom Pipes the Boatswain to the admiration 
 of the newspapers, who are ready to swear he even 
 makes his tea with tar-water. All this panegyric will 
 turn sour when the Civil List is to carry double by 
 putting Adelaide on her pillion, with expensive donkeys 
 for six Maids of Honour. 
 
 I must mention a trait of royal honesty. His Majesty 
 to-day directed a payment to me of forty guineas, 
 as the executor of Sir C. Bunbury, to whom he owed 
 it many years ago, and which Sir C. despaired of. 
 
 So God bless you all, and I could say no more 
 if I were a bishop. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, November \^th, 1830. 
 
 BY desire of the nobility, gentry, and others, the 
 revolution is put off till further notice, or till Alderman 
 Key, 1 the new Lord Mayor, who they merrily call 
 Don-key, and Sir Claudius Stephen Hunter, choose 
 again to frighten the Duke of Wellington with an army of 
 pickpockets. There were twelve regiments in London 
 an army of 10,000 men, Edward and his Guards in 
 the thick of it. Three nights did they bivouac under 
 
 1 Key, Lord Mayor Elect, wrote to the Duke, warning him that 
 there was danger in his coming to the city on November gth 
 with the King and Queen. Upon this the Cabinet advised the 
 abandonment of the royal visit.
 
 NOV. 13, 1830.] THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE AS A BOY. 2$ I 
 
 arms in the new Palace. 1 How my poor George IV 
 would have stared to see Lancers and Guards eating 
 oysters and drinking punch among his scagliola columns ! 
 On the second night Edward sent home for a mattress 
 to rest his bones upon. Some slept on the inlaid floors, 
 which had beert newly oiled, and arose with the patterns 
 inflicted on their new embroidered regimentals. He 
 made out to me a sketch of the distribution of the 
 apartments, which I enclose, as I think it is intelligible. 
 
 During his fortnight's duty at Kew the Duke of 
 Cambridge told him to dine with them every day, but 
 said he grew so fat that he had better not come to 
 luncheon. The Cumberland boy is not so handsome 
 as his cousin of Cambridge, but a finer fellow. The 
 Duke sent them every day coursing with Edward. 
 
 As the new Civil List is not settled, the Duke said 
 he had not sixpence, and must borrow of his banker, 
 and I believe he never is in debt. He seems so ill that 
 Edward read the newspaper every night to the Duchess. 
 
 The boys, in whose ages there are only two months 
 of difference, have two singular horses an Arabian 
 sent as a present to Napoleon at St. Helena, and on 
 his death sent to the late King ; another taken in the 
 Burmese War, and sent from India to England. 
 
 Joseph went to Lord Burghersh's opera, 2 performed 
 
 1 Buckingham Palace, built 1825-30, at the cost of nearly a 
 million. Nash was the architect employed by George IV., but 
 large alterations were made after Queen Victoria's accession 
 by Blore. 
 
 3 Catherine; or, the Austrian Captive, by John Lord 
 Burghersh, afterwards Earl of Westmorland.
 
 252 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vm. 
 
 before their Majesties by the pupils of the Royal Academy 
 of Music. He says nothing could be worse than the 
 opera, except the performers. 
 
 The Duke will not budge unless there should be some 
 awkward division against him in the House of Commons, 
 and some formidable questions approach which may 
 leave him with majorities too slender for a minister's 
 reliance. If St. John Long plays at whist as well 
 as he does at manslaughter, his odd tricks and 
 rubbers may succeed ; but the dog ought now to be 
 transported. 
 
 The Whigs two years ago elected O'Connell at 
 Brooks's during the Catholic crisis. He never goes 
 there now, as no one speaks to him. 
 
 Lord Holland is suffering at this gouty season. 
 Lady Morgan's " France " is amusing, in spite of her 
 ludicrous vanity and republicanism. Constant's 1 Memoirs 
 excellent. 
 
 The town seems crammed with people. Dinners and 
 soirees by wholesale. His Majesty feeds forty guests 
 a day of all sorts and conditions. 
 
 Talleyrand is the great lion of the circles. Croker 
 has published a caustic pamphlet, which was attributed 
 to Brougham. 
 
 The squires look doleful, as their tenants are throw- 
 ing up their farms in Devonshire, Oxfordshire, and 
 Bucks. 
 
 As for our neighbours abroad, I think we shall have 
 
 1 " Memoirs de Constant," 6 vols., Paris, 1830. Louis Constant 
 Wairy was valet de chambre to Napoleon I.
 
 NOV. 13, 1832.] BUCKINGHAM PALACE. 253 
 
 no difficulty about Belgium, and no trouble from 
 France. 
 
 It is said to-day that St. John Long after this second 
 exploit has wisely run away. Think of so general an 
 infatuation that Lord Clifden in the summer recom- 
 mended the rascal for William's case. 
 
 I asked Edward generally the striking things of the 
 new Palace. He said the staircase and the polish of 
 the marble floors, which he represented to be so bril- 
 liant that they reflected like a mirror not only the 
 person, but the dress of the individual who trod them ; 
 next, the effect of the pink, real marble which lined 
 the staircase, and the capitals of the columns in the 
 drawing-room, which, formed of the new mosaic gold, 
 had the effect of transparency. He added that the 
 staircase surpassed Windsor. 
 
 But we are too poor to complete this bijou. The 
 garden is beautiful, the windows towards it of one entire 
 glass, a piece of water with the effect of a river. As the 
 walls were bare the soldiers could commit no injury, and 
 great care was taken to prevent any. Furniture, of 
 course, there was none. The officers ate their cold meat 
 on a carpenter's bench, and Edward spread his mattress 
 on the table of a joiner. Such are the horrors of war 
 the Guards encounter, after all their perilous campaigns 
 in Pall Mall and St. James's. 
 
 Your senator visited me on my safe arrival. I 
 suppose he is now at Cheveley. But Tuesday he must 
 be in town on Brougham's motion for Reform, as the 
 Duke has declared open war on that subject.
 
 254 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vm. 
 
 It is incredible with what spirit and firmness the new 
 police 1 has defeated the canaille, and we sleep safely 
 under their protection without the aid of soldiers. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Saturday, November 27 th, 1830. 
 
 I HAVE been most anxious to hear from you, though 
 I knew that your excellent understanding would supply- 
 all the calmness and fortitude necessary in so unpleasant 
 a state of things. 
 
 There is no longer any alternative force and the 
 law to put down the insurrection ; 2 and this will be 
 accomplished, but probably not without serious events. 
 It is a singular opinion for a lawyer to pronounce, but a 
 few volleys would be more effective than numerous trials 
 and transportations. 
 
 When tranquillity is restored a most important matter 
 still remains to be settled by the State a system of 
 employment and competent remuneration for those 
 employed, or else desperation must lead to disorder. 
 Such a system of cure must ultimately and necessarily 
 reduce the value of every species of our property, and 
 reduction of expenditure by economy affects trade and 
 manufacture. Through such a labyrinth of conflicting 
 evils no ministers ever had a more difficult course to 
 steer. 
 
 The Right Honourable George Agar Ellis has just 
 
 1 Peel's police were a little more than a year old. They began 
 their duties on September 2Qth, 1829. 
 
 - The agricultural troubles of the autumn of 1830, chiefly in 
 the south of England, which took the form of incendiary fires 
 and destruction of machinery.
 
 NOV. 27, 1830.] LADY BUNBURY. 255 
 
 left me, highly pleased with his new office, which, he 
 says, is the only one he would have accepted, and, to 
 say the truth, it suits him exactly. It is in no way 
 laborious to a man of slight health, and he has good 
 taste and judgment for his different duties. He must 
 visit all your forests. 
 
 I have been surprised to find that my friend, Sir H. 
 Bunbury, married at Spa, last October, Miss Napier, the 
 daughter of his ci-devant divorced aunt, the late Lady 
 Sarah Bunbury, 1 by her second husband. 2 I knew her 
 as a pretty girl, brought up by old Lady Louisa Conolly, 
 and saw her four years ago at Bowood. She was 
 always one of the most agreeable and interesting 
 persons possible, and the widower with four sons could 
 not have found a more delightful companion. She is 
 now forty-six years of age, and, I understand, has been 
 long so disabled by some defect in the ankles as to 
 move about with difficulty. 
 
 It rejoices me to hear that poor Charles Wynne is to 
 be Secretary for War, and I suppose a Yorkshire election 
 has been in the way of Lord Morpeth's appointment to 
 office. What a pantomime are politics ! Who would 
 have predicted at the Queen's trial that a slap of 
 Harlequin's sword would have turned Brougham and 
 Denman into a Lord High Chancellor and an Attorney- 
 General ? 
 
 Talleyrand is still the lion of the day. T'other night, 
 at Lady Lansdowne's, he was even talkative. He has 
 
 1 Lady Sarah Lennox. 
 
 - The Honourable G. Napier.
 
 256 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. vm. 
 
 an avalanche of curls or wig, and a thin little queue of 
 the ancien regime. 
 
 The French still believe the poor old Prince of 
 Conde l was strangled by his English mistress, 2 and then 
 hung up to give it the air of suicide. She had lived 
 with him twenty years ; and knowing that by his will he 
 had left her great riches, she thought his property might 
 be confiscated by the new Revolution, so rather than lose 
 her legacy she hung him on to the window bar a 
 machine that I never could find in France would either 
 open or shut, so its only utility now appears to be the 
 hanging of a prince of the blood. 
 
 Ellis moves to Melbourne House in July, and will 
 not inhabit the official residence. Lord Lansdowne's 
 indolence was alarmed at the Home Office, and retreated 
 into the armchair of President. The papers make Grey 
 put sixteen relations into office, and Palmerston must 
 speechify in the House for Althorp. The new Bishop 
 Philpotts pleads his right to keep the great living also, 
 as he tells Parliament he has fourteen young Phily- 
 potties to provide for. Sidney Smith must leave off 
 joking, and get a mitre by Lady Holland's Duchy of 
 Lancaster. 
 
 They persist in the story of Lord Lyndhurst's debts, 
 nay, that he has sold his pension. He was long a 
 bachelor with considerable gains at the Bar. On 
 marriage I saw no expenses by him or her that were 
 
 1 Louis Henry Josephe de Bourbon, Prince de Conde, found 
 hung in his bedroom at St. Leu on August 27th. 
 
 * Madame de Feucheres (Sophia Dawes). See post.
 
 DEC. i, 1830.] THE AGRICULTURAL TROUBLES. 257 
 
 unusual. On being Chancellor with ^i 5,000 a year some 
 great dinners, etc., of course, but still nothing of show or 
 profusion. 
 
 I have no books to recommend. Gait's " Byron " l is 
 not unworthy of perusal. I long to see Theodore 
 Hook's "Maxwell." 
 
 Last week a member got leave of absence from the 
 House of Commons to go and be married the first 
 time a special licence was held insufficient. 
 
 Drummond says Lady E. came to London alone, 
 but luckily did not know the mob were stopping 
 travellers to pillage them. Reform of Parliament goes 
 on merrily, and will puzzle the lords and their boroughs. 
 Wiseacres charge the Jews with the fires, to lower the 
 Stocks. 
 
 In a Gazette or two I think you will see Lieutenant 
 Edward Jekyll promoted to the rank of Captain in the 
 Grenadier Guards, where he will stick till he becomes 
 a Lieutenant-Colonel. 
 
 December \st, 1830. 
 
 YOUR letters are always interesting to me, but doubly 
 so at this distressing period. We entertain hopes that 
 by the promptitude of law and force mischief will 
 now be arrested. To-day I saw a Wiltshire letter from 
 the sister of Mr. Penrhyn, Lord Grosvenor's member 
 for Shaftesbury, with a sad account of the injuries to 
 the skull of Mr. Pyle, a neighbouring farmer. The 
 
 1 " Life of Lord Byron," by J. Gait, 1830. 
 
 17
 
 258 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vm. 
 
 newspapers have worked much evil by falsehood and 
 exaggeration, and the punishment of seven years' 
 transportation for breaking machinery, as a Bow Street 
 officer said yesterday, only makes villains more adroit 
 on their return or escape. A most extraordinary story, 
 and believed to be authentic, circulated yesterday, that 
 two or three days after a gentleman's property had 
 been burned, he received a letter saying it had been 
 destroyed by mistake, and enclosing 300 to indemnify 
 the proprietor for his loss. This is systematic organi- 
 sation with a vengeance. They talk nonsense of 
 foreigners. 
 
 I dined yesterday with my old friend, the widow of 
 General Gwyn, a positive Ninon de 1'Enclos. She is 
 a beauty near eighty, and does not look fifty. 
 
 We hear Lord Shaftesbury's daughter is to marry 
 the rich nephew of the late Rundell the Jeweller, so 
 both ends of the town will unite on an income of forty 
 thousand a year. 
 
 Poor Lord Anglesey is under an attack of his sad 
 complaint. Viceroyalty, alas ! is no equivalent for 
 pain. 
 
 It is said Agar Ellis is tinctured with Methodism, 
 and a constant attendant at the Lock Hospital sermons. 
 He was always of a religious cast, which is thus fre- 
 quently misinterpreted. 
 
 I expected a better thing than " Maxwell " from the 
 talent and humour of Theodore Hook. The plot hinges 
 on an impossible event. The body of a murderer 
 executed in London is uniformly by the sentence
 
 DEC. ii, 1830.] POLITICAL RUMOURS. 259 
 
 publicly dissected at Surgeons' Hall, and never could 
 reach alive the hands of a private practitioner. 
 
 I am sorry for Dr. Jones' pistol, though fired in 
 self-defence, as the rascals may mark him for it. 
 
 My engagements are diversified among Whigs, Tories, 
 and ultras of both sorts. To-day I dine with Lord 
 Farnborough, on Friday with Gordon's Duke, wha 
 plays battledore and shuttlecock about office with the 
 Duke of Argyll. 
 
 The Reformers say that Holland in taking Lancaster 
 has got a sinecure place, and that it was included 
 virtually in the King's surrender by that blundering 
 speech of the Duke of Wellington's crammed into his 
 mouth. There really are a great many people who 
 believe in a dissolution, but I should think that Grey 
 will first feel the pulse of the new Parliament. What 
 a task he has before him, difficulties enough to hazard 
 a dozen Administrations ! 
 
 Read Northcote the painter's " Conversations " by 
 that clever coxcomb Hazlitt. Mrs. Gwyn sent it to 
 me, and I found a page of compliments to her Ninon 
 preservation of complexion. 
 
 Satttrday, December nth t 1830. 
 
 I TRUST that you are now in a state of tranquillity, 
 and lament only that a wiser and more vigilant 
 resistance to disorder had not been adopted at its 
 commencement. The times, however, are still most 
 feverish, and the new Ministry has a task formidable 
 enough to overthrow a dozen Administrations.
 
 260 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. vin. 
 
 The papers assert that your mummies have been 
 frightened out of a heavy diminution of rent. At this 
 crisis there should at least be some concert among 
 neighbours on so important a subject, as dissentients 
 might become marked men ; and if ever there was a 
 period when the country gentleman stood most in need 
 of prudence and calmness it is the present, for their 
 property as well as that of the whole country seems 
 put to the hazard. 
 
 The mass of the people within the last ten years 
 has been enlightened, and abuses no longer will be 
 tolerated because they are ancient ; but it will require 
 time to reform them, and for the first time the minister 
 of the Reform has the support of the throne. 
 
 Joseph conversed yesterday with Madame de Monta- 
 lembert, 1 an English lady married to a peer of France, 
 and who comes here on a visit during his detention on 
 the trial of the ex-ministers. She says there is still 
 much murmuring at Paris. The Cabinet is continually 
 shifting its members. The populace clamorous at the 
 Chamber, and calling for its dissolution A fear that 
 on a fresh insurrection pillage might become the motive, 
 and an idea that the present armament is political, to 
 divert the people to a new object. 
 
 My Captain went last Friday to begin three months' 
 duty at Windsor, and the very next day was detached, 
 
 1 Wife of Comte de Montalembert, author of " Histoire de 
 Sainte Elizabeth de Hongrie," and editor of L'Avenir newspaper, 
 in which latter capacity he endeavoured to excite the sympathy 
 of French Catholics for their Irish co-religionists during the 
 agitation of Daniel O'Connell.
 
 DEC. 18, 1830.] THE SOLDIER AND THE LANDLORD. 261 
 
 with eighty Grenadiers and an officer under his command, 
 to High Wycombe, where burnings and machine break- 
 ings abound. Their arrival was hailed by the trembling 
 mayor and justices and corporation ; dinners offered to 
 the warriors. 
 
 In the year 1745, a soldier returning after the victory 
 at Culloden is said to have thus upbraided the keeper of 
 an alehouse, on his march back 
 
 "You now ungratefully refuse me good ale and 
 quarters which you promised if we beat the rebels ; 
 nay, you then said we soldiers were the pillars of the 
 state." 
 
 " You rascal ! " replied Boniface, " I said caterpillars." 
 
 Boaden's " Memoirs of Mrs. Jordan " amusing. 
 
 December i%th, 1830. 
 
 EDWARD is still on duty at High Wycombe, and 
 reports tranquillity, which I trust prevails also in your 
 neighbourhood ; but on conversing with the lower people 
 he finds a very bad spirit prevails, and that the mis- 
 creant Cobbett is read in every cottage where the march 
 of intellect has enabled them so to do. They admit 
 that they have seen formerly much worse times, and that 
 the poor rates in that county are diminished one half, 
 but their language is " the landlords and the parsons eat 
 our bread." Disaffection which does not arise from 
 distress is formidable. 
 
 The Hollands went to Brighton yesterday, but I think 
 Miladi will not succeed in her laborious efforts to be
 
 262 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. VIIL 
 
 presented at St. James's. The Queen, 1 I take it, is all 
 morality, and will probably adhere to old Charlotte's 
 exclusion of divorced ladies. This is severe on the 
 mother-in-law of His Majesty's daughter ; but it is said 
 that the FitzClarences have so teased and tormented the 
 King by applications, that he has sent them all to the 
 rightabout. 
 
 Joseph and I dine to-day with Rogers. The poor 
 poet is just convalescent from a bilious fever, which does 
 not improve a tete morte in complexion. 
 
 The town is still full, and the playhouses crammed 
 by Byron's tragedy, 2 but we have had fogs and candle 
 light at breakfast. 
 
 Going down to dinner at the Duke of Gordon's my 
 ears (though not too susceptible) were assailed by the 
 most dreadful din imaginable ; fifty screech-owls could 
 not have equalled it. At the bottom of the stairs I found 
 in plaid and philibeg the hereditary piper of the illus- 
 trious clan of Gordon blasting out a pibroch to the full 
 extent of bag and breath, and I declared that I had 
 rather endure the extraneous melody of Scotland than 
 its instrumental music. 
 
 1 Queen Adelaide. 
 
 * Werner, at Drury Lane. It ran for seventeen nights.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY 
 (Continued}. 
 
 Jamtary %th, 1831. 
 
 BAD accounts to-day of Flintshire colliers ; a battle 
 and a rescue. We have a gentlemanly parson at the 
 Temple, our Reader and Librarian, who maintains a 
 sick wife and eight children. Brougham heard him 
 once at our church two years ago. The poor man told 
 me yesterday the new Chancellor sent him word last 
 week he meant to give him a living. The parson's wife 
 is a sister of the young person to whom Birdy left her 
 money a good-natured trait ; and here is another. 
 Erskine came to us in Cornwall on a great cause, and 
 swore his lodgings smelt of paint, and he would not 
 enter them. I got a poor old curate and his wife to 
 lodge him, who refused payment for the two days he 
 stayed. A week after he became Chancellor he said 
 to me, " Jekyll, I have this morning given your poor 
 Cornish parson a living." 
 
 Morning Herald uses me scurvily to-day. 1 
 
 1 By attributing the following to Mr. Jekyll: " Her Majesty 
 has expressed her intention of appointing the Scots Greys to be 
 her escort during their Majesties' projected visit to Scotland in 
 the ensuing year. ' Why not ? ' said Jekyll. ' When the English 
 
 263
 
 264 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 On dit O'Connell called on Anglesey, and said, " I will 
 oppose you to the utmost." Anglesey replied, " Thanks 
 for your candour ; and to be candid, on my part I advise 
 you to keep within the law, otherwise I will hang you." 
 Bad advice of Anglesey, and I fear O'Connell will follow it. 
 
 Dowager of Cork and Orrery bivouacs somewhere in 
 Gloucestershire, gets the lady of the house to supply 
 paper, and makes her write crazy letters to me, and 
 the poor young Lord Redesdale frank them. But the 
 beldame gets no answers. 
 
 Saturday, January i%th, 1831. 
 
 As, except a few specimens to be hung up for show at 
 Winchester, my lords the judges l have been sending 
 half the country gentlemen of Hampshire to Botany 
 Bay, it is natural that I should inquire about the health 
 and happiness of those who are left. 
 
 The landlords have been accused of hard hearts and 
 the farmers and parsons also. Providence has been very 
 kind in hardening their skulls at the same time, or they 
 never could have resisted the sledge hammers of their 
 neighbours and friends. Would to God the Poles on 
 the other side of the water were equally impenetrable 
 to the Czar and his Cossacks, and I would advise the 
 schoolmaster to be no longer abroad, as he is a species 
 of thrashing machine, and may be roughly treated ! 
 
 Greys have got hold of the King, why should not the Scots 
 Greys have the Queen ? ' ' 
 
 1 Two special Commissions were appointed to try the incen- 
 diaries and rioters in the agricultural districts. They convicted 
 some hundreds of persons, and checked the outrages. Two 
 executions took place at Winchester.
 
 JAN. 27, 1831.] SOME EFFECTS OF THE AGITATION. 265 
 
 The town is empty, but morning visitors abound. 
 They are the cholera morbus of a great city. I wish 
 they were taxed, or, like the new police, marked on the 
 collar with " M. V." that decent servants might know to 
 shut them out. 
 
 What with revolution abroad and disaffection at home, 
 ministers have not a merry Christmas to get their 
 lessons by the opening of Parliament. The footmen 
 read Cobbett in the servants' hall, and complain of 
 rents, tithes, and taxes. The oranges look as pale as if 
 Miguel had frightened them out of Portugal, and mince 
 pies are melancholy and out of spirits till you set fire to 
 them with brandy. 
 
 Tom Moore's second volume of " Byron " tired me. 
 Joseph says Byron's play of Werner has been fitted to 
 the stage by Macready, who plays capitally in it. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Thursday, January 2,7 th, 1831. 
 
 MY Captain and his comrade, to their regret, marched 
 back to Windsor the Grenadiers last week, with thanks 
 from the county for their services and protection. Not 
 a dry eye left in High Wycombe, the Mayor and 
 Corporation in tears, and all their pretty daughters 
 in hysterics at the desertion of the gay deceivers ! 
 
 George Cholmondeley, whose father l was a poor 
 parson, and whose mother was a sister of Peg Woffington, 
 the celebrated actress of ancient days, has left to his 
 only son ten thousand a year, and one hundred and 
 twenty thousand pounds to the two Archbishops, to be 
 distributed in charity. How such a fortune has been 
 
 1 Robert, the second son of the third Earl of Cholmondeley.
 
 266 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 accumulated it is difficult to calculate, for he had only 
 an office. 1 Old parson Cholmondeley, then in the Guards, 
 ran away at the battle of Dettingen, and was found 
 snug and safe in a ditch with a cold fowl in his pocket. 
 He then went into holy orders, which were less trouble- 
 some than those of the War Office, and the militancy of 
 the Church preferable to that of a German campaign. 
 John Wilkes told me it was beautiful to hear with what 
 emphasis and fervour the old parson read that part 
 of the Litany which deprecates " battle and murder, 
 and sudden death." 
 
 Dining with the two members at Marlow, one of 
 whom has the Hussar yacht, Edward met that right 
 Reverend Father in God, Kent, Lord Bishop of Cowes, 
 and chaplain of the Yacht Club, with the members of 
 which the said prelate forages during the winter at their 
 respective chateaux, and quaffs the champagne of those 
 distinguished commanders gratis. 
 
 Lady Stafford showed Rogers a French epigram of 
 two lines which I forget, but the turn of it was this : 
 the 'sovereign mob makes a riot daily under the windows 
 of Philippe's apartment in the Palais Royale ; a stranger 
 inquires the cause of the tumult, and is answered, 
 
 " Le Souverain va visiter le Roi." 
 
 The Prince of Orange 2 has much popularity in the 
 society of London, however little he may possess in the 
 
 1 He was Receiver- General of Excise. 
 
 2 William I., King of the Low Countries. Belgium declared 
 its independence, and its separation was acknowledged by the 
 powers on December 26th, 1830.
 
 JAN. 27, 1831.] DR. BAILLIE AND HIS PATIENT. 267 
 
 beau monde of Belgium. Lately at a supper he hob- 
 nobbed with Lady Dudley Stuart, Napoleon's niece, and 
 as he filled her glass said, "A nos grandeurs passees I " 
 
 It is believed that the Duke of Northumberland is 
 to purchase the Pimlico Palace, 1 and surrender his house 
 to Government for the Strand improvements as part 
 of payment. Of course he will not be expected to pay 
 in any proportion to the enormous expense the Palace 
 has cost. George the Third bought it for 26,000. 
 The Duke, it is supposed, will pull down the wings, 
 but two vast triumphal arches seem an inappropriate 
 access to a private peer's residence. 
 
 Magnificent structures now fall from kings and princes 
 to their subjects, and if the splendid new Bedlam 2 were 
 sold, I do not see why Sir Claudius Stephen Hunter 
 should not buy it. 
 
 Lord Holland is still tormented with gout, and unable 
 to attend Councils or Cabinet dinners. He made an 
 effort last week to go after dinner to Lord Grey's, and 
 was the worse for it. 
 
 On the subject of health I must send you an anecdote 
 of the late Dr. Baillie. He attended a very fine and very 
 fanciful lady who bored him an hour with questions on 
 her numerous symptoms and maladies, and ended by 
 saying she was going to the opera. At last the doctor 
 escaped from her, but as he was shutting the door she 
 screamed after him, " My dear Dr. Baillie, I forgot 
 
 1 Buckingham Palace. 
 
 8 Bethlehem Hospital, St. George's Fields, built in 1812 from 
 designs by James Lewis.
 
 268 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 another question. May I eat a few oysters when I come 
 home from the opera ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," he said, " shells and all." 
 
 They say Colonel Fox refuses to be called Sir Charles, 
 and does not wear the Guelphic Order, which is called 
 " The Refuge for the Destitute." 
 
 The malignants report that with the five difficulties 
 they have to encounter, the Ministry will not last two 
 months ; if so, all parties have been tried in vain, and 
 we have no resource but Mr. Hunt. 
 
 A bitter pamphlet to Scarlett 1 on the imprudent 
 publication of his speech at the Malton Election. He 
 is sadly fallen, and feels it deeply. 
 
 The Queen lectures ladies on want of drapery, and 
 
 Lady has been told to adopt warmer clothing in 
 
 the winter. 
 
 It is said the judges on the late Commissions are 
 dissatisfied at the reprieves Government has accorded 
 to some capital convicts whom they thought fit subjects 
 for execution, and after the deepest consideration. 
 
 Lord Clifden thinks a Dublin jury may be easily 
 found to convict O'Connell, and I think the legal net, 
 provided the jury are not intimidated, will be sufficient, 
 though some of the Irish lawyers are of a different 
 opinion. I wish it may be so, as an acquittal would be 
 a most serious triumph. 
 
 I wish Anglesey would not ride about Dublin. It 
 is useless and foolish, as it tends to excitement and 
 personal danger from an Irish rabble. 
 
 1 Sir James Scarlett, afterwards Lord Abinger.
 
 JUNE 20, 1831.] DANGERS OF DICTIONARIES. 269 
 
 Monday, June 2oth, 1831. 
 
 MY old friend Hippesley had played in early life, and 
 when he and a learned foreigner named Paradise were 
 presented for doctors' degrees at Oxford, Vansittart, a 
 man of wit, proposed this address 
 
 " Insignis Vice-Cane ellarie 
 Et vos Egregii Procuratores 
 Praesento Vobis Dominum Hippisley cum 
 
 Pair-o-dice." 
 
 Let your Oxonian translate this for country gentle- 
 women, but not in the way Paradise did by the help of 
 his dictionary. 
 
 " Most remarkable Vice-Chancellor, 
 And you very singular Proctors " ! 
 
 Dictionaries are fallacious guides. An English lady 
 at Paris wanted a chest of drawers, and unluckily 
 resorted to her Boyer, where she found poitrine, " chest," 
 cale$ons, "drawers," which sorely puzzled her cabinet- 
 maker. 
 
 I sat an hour on Friday with your charming sister, 
 pleasant and blooming as ever ; and what none of us 
 could ever do at three months, she is almost able to go 
 alone. 
 
 Within this fortnight I have also dined with no less 
 than three immaculate Countesses she of Cork and 
 Orrery, she of Blessington, and she of Harrington. At 
 Harrington House a superb banquet and a jollification 
 of twenty merry folk Alvanley, 1 George Colman, and 
 
 1 William, second Lord Alvanley, the famous sayer of good 
 things, died 1845.
 
 2/0 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 James Smith of the " Rejected Addresses," and more 
 than this, Lord and Lady Tavistock ! The bride pretty 
 and interesting, but she looks thin and worn, and all the 
 freshness of youth has vanished. They called here next 
 day. He left a card and she a bouquet. On my card 
 of return I wrote most gallantly 
 
 "When Beauty pays visits her card is divine, 
 For roses, carnations, and kindness combine." 
 
 Nostra senora, of Blessington, has a house of bijoux 
 in Seymour Place. Le Comte d'Orsay, an Antinous of 
 beauty and an exquisite of Paris, married the rich 
 daughter of Lord Blessington, and they live here with 
 la belle mere. 
 
 This Dandy D'Orsay, says a friend, asked another to 
 whom he was writing. " To my father," was the answer, 
 " to condole with him on the loss of my mother-in-law." 
 The writer then called for a glass of water, and 
 sprinkled the letter with his fingers. " What are you 
 about ? " said the friend. " Only giving an appearance 
 of tears to my paper," said the writer. 
 
 The crazy Londonderry gave a dinner yesterday to 
 the leader Mansfield and eighty Anti- Reformers, Lords 
 and Commons, but still disdains to mend his windows 
 or his manners. 
 
 The Duchess of Coutts, 1 Edward says, had an ambu- 
 latory cow at her breakfast to administer syllabubs. 
 
 Theodore Hook is celebrated as an improvisatore. 
 He was charged t'other day with preparing his impro- 
 
 1 The Duchess of St. Albans.
 
 JULY 18, 1831.] THEODORE HOOK. 2/1 
 
 visations beforehand, and that they were merely les 
 impromptus faits d loisir. " Put me to the test," he 
 said, "and tell me who was that man that called just 
 now and received your money so immediately ? " 
 "Why," they said, "it was Mr. Winter, the tax- 
 gatherer." Hook replied instantly 
 
 " Mr. Winter, I find, is collector of taxes, 
 And seems to get money whenever he axes, 
 And he gets it without either menace or flummery, 
 For though his name's Winter his process is summary." 
 
 So adieu till the 3Oth, when the Queen brings all 
 dancing damsels to town. 
 
 Monday, July :8//&, 1831. 
 
 EDWARD commanded the King's Guard on the night 
 of the Opera House benefit for the Irish. He says the 
 Duke of Braganza 1 is not an Adonis, short and sallow. 
 They have put Lady Holland's son, Major Webster, 
 about him as a bear-leader, as they did Poodle Byng to 
 gallant the unfortunate King and Queen of Otaheitee. 
 Poodle gave them the measles, of which they died, and, 
 I believe, as Poodle is poor, Government gave him leave 
 to take what he could find in their royal pockets. So 
 far the Poodle was better off than the Major. 
 
 Yesterday I dined with Colonel Fox and Lady Mary. 
 They have one of the new small villas near Holland 
 House. I had pleasanter fitzes than the gout gives. 
 Lady Frederick Fitzclarence, the divine's wife, and 
 Lady Sophia Sidney, who is herself divine, so good- 
 1 Pedro IV. of Portugal.
 
 2/2 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 looking, so clever, and so lively that my " withered nut " 
 was in danger. The passion was mutual, and she 
 invited me to the Arcadian shades of Penhurst. I sent 
 her to-day a curious and scarce print of the great Sir 
 Philip Sidney, one hundred years old. The modern 
 Sir Philip will not write an Arcadia, but she manages 
 him, and Shakespeare agrees that " when two ride on a 
 horse one must ride behind," which is fortunately Sir 
 Philip. They say, too, she manages the whole family 
 with royalty at the head of it. 
 
 Lord Holland has built a new entrance lodge at 
 Kensington, and I congratulated a lame man who could 
 thus improve his gait The Countess of Blessington 
 gave a dinner to us on Friday. Lord Wilton, General 
 Phipps, Le Comte d'Orsay, and myself Cuisine de 
 Paris exquise. The pretty melancholy Comtesse * glided 
 in for a few minutes, and then left us to nurse her 
 influenza. The Misses Berry tell me they have dined 
 with the Speaker and wife, who have thrown my 
 Blessington overboard. The English at Naples called 
 my friend the Countess of Cursington. If Mr. Speaker 
 outlives the Reform Debate he may defy la grippe 
 and the cholera. I can recommend no books, for the 
 booksellers declare nobody reads or buys in the present 
 fever. The newspapers furious, the Sunday papers 
 talking treason by wholesale, and the Age for his sins 
 has got hold of his lordship the Lord Dover, and 
 
 1 The Comtesse D'Orsay, Lord Blessington's daughter by a 
 first wife. After D'Orsay's death she married the Hon. C. 
 Spencer Cowper, and lived until 1869.
 
 JULY 18, 1831.] KING LEOPOLD. 2;; 
 
 quizzes him unmercifully for puffing himself in news- 
 papers, and toad-eating Princes and Ministers. Peel 
 does all he can to make his friends behave like gentle- 
 men. But the nightly vulgarities of the House of 
 Commons furnish new reasons for Reform, and not 
 a ray of talent glimmers among them alL Double- 
 distilled stupidity. 
 
 The town remains crowded and crazy, and we are 
 to have a Coronation at half price. Leopold is off to 
 his Belgians, and we hope soon to hear "he is as well 
 as can be expected." He has done the right and 
 handsome thing towards England by letter to Lord 
 Grey, signifying that after some annual payments to 
 servants and others he desires his pension may be paid 
 in to the public as long as he remains on the throne of 
 Belgium. This will quiet the Republicans abroad who 
 abused the new King as a British pensionary, and please 
 John Bull. The influenza still lingers here. Lady 
 Lyndhurst was in danger, and her husband sent for 
 from his circuit Lady Morley, too, was very ilL 
 
 The King continues to wear himself, and his health 
 is doubtful. It is believed the whole army in Portugal 
 is ripe to receive Don Pedro, and to kick out Don 
 Miguel. 1 The Tory M.P.'s abuse Peel and Wellington 
 for lukewarmness, and the Tory Peers begin to hold 
 the language of expediency and prudence ; perhaps, too, 
 they have just brains enough to keep out of the fire. 
 
 The Court Journal to-day had a squib of infinite 
 wit and humour in a mock trial of Londonderry and 
 1 Miguel did not capitulate until the early part of 1834. 
 
 IS
 
 274 MR- JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 Croker. They say Calcraft has fallen into a state of 
 such nervous hypochondriasis that he cannot be per- 
 suaded to enter the House of Commons. 1 To be sure 
 he is no ordinary girouette, so ratting cannot have 
 depressed his spirits. 
 
 A breakfast under an umbrella every day at a villa. 
 Dull dinners of twenty people every day in town, with 
 the sempiternal saddle of mutton, and the doleful master 
 of the house on a pillion behind it, making clumsy 
 efforts at conviviality till the dumb Shees grow merciful 
 and draw their gloves on. Yet such are the pleasures 
 you abandon for ponds and pinasters. The Ladies 
 Morley and Holland have made peace after the war, 
 about Henry Fox and Miss Villiers, as she has got a 
 preferable husband. Colonel Trench proposes to-night 
 in Parliament to convert the Pimlico Palace into a 
 laundry for half-pay officers to wash their own linen. 
 
 July iSM, 1831. 
 
 THE Coronation expense is limited to .20,000, so 
 perhaps Gunter will contract for the whole of it. There 
 must be galleries for Peeresses, and a new organ, which 
 the Dean and Chapter pouch as a perquisite. 
 
 It is said that for economy Hume suggests a hand 
 
 1 John Calcraft, who held office in the Granville Administra- 
 tion. He temporarily abandoned his Whig convictions 1828-30, 
 when he took office under Wellington, but he returned to his old 
 faith, and voted for Reform in 1831, when the Bill was carried 
 by a single vote. He was so reproached by the Tories with 
 whom he had acted that his mind gave way, and he committed 
 suicide in September 1831.
 
 AUG. i, 1831.] THE RADICALS. 275 
 
 organ. No Coronation robes for Peers, but the parlia- 
 mentary robes only. To accompany the anthem it was 
 thought a single fiddler on a single string would be the 
 cheapest way, but Paganini asked ^30,000. 
 The Treasury would not hear of this. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Monday, August ist, 1831. 
 
 THE fever of politics and dissipation runs as high 
 as ever, and the thermometer increases it, dinners, 
 breakfasts, and Billingsgate in Parliament. Edward was 
 to have marched away with his battalion for Bristol 
 and Dublin this day, but it is postponed till to-morrow, 
 as they are suddenly ordered to remain under arms, 
 for a most multitudinous mass of Radicals is to meet 
 at Copenhagen House, near Islington, the scene of Mr. 
 Hunt's former triumphs, and a tumult may arise while 
 the world is gazing at Royalty in the city. I hear 
 there was rioting yesterday at Oxford, and the Life 
 Guards sent for. 
 
 Mrs. Gore's pin-money novel pretty, and her new 
 comedy very successful. She has desired old Corky 
 to invite Rogers and me to meet her on Wednesday 
 to dinner at Gorky's house. They say she is handsome. 
 She married a captain who spent her money, and they 
 now live by circulating libraries and managers of play- 
 houses. 
 
 My lively little Dowager, Lady Morton, is taking 
 a very young husband. 1 
 
 But I must be serious, for I have just heard distressing 
 
 1 Mr. Edward Godfrey, of Old Hall, Suffolk.
 
 276 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. IX . 
 
 news. Poor Manning 1 is ruined ; his house has stopped 
 payment ; the debts enormous. West India distresses 
 have produced the catastrophe, but his honour is un- 
 sullied. A meeting of his creditors on Friday next, 
 and perhaps his bankruptcy in the next day's Gazette. 
 I feared some misfortune, as I saw his Kentish Coombe 
 Bank advertised for sale last week. 
 
 They are a family of excellent people reduced to 
 poverty. Duke of Wellington has wisely declined the 
 stupid Mayor's invitation to-day, as he thinks his 
 presence might excite the mob, who would delight to 
 reform anything but themselves, and might duck the 
 man who saved the country. Such is popularity. 
 
 Little Master of the Rolls gone off for Rome and 
 the malaria to-day. Lady Glengall in tears, of course. 
 
 We have hired sixty ragamuffins to-day to keep 
 the peace of our garden, and to beat the new police if 
 they threaten to protect us ; and we have given our 
 gardener a sumptuous present to prevent bribery for 
 admission. 
 
 As Falstaff says, "would it were bedtime and all 
 were well " ; but I expect all the miseries which generally 
 befall intended felicity. 
 
 Pearse says Claud Hunter is to propose the Queen's 
 health at the Bridge, and has been hammering out his 
 speech these three days. 
 
 To return to poor Manning's case " From gay to 
 grave, from lively to severe." I hear his house owes 
 
 1 Mr. William Manning, of Coombe Bank, Brasted, Kent, the 
 father of Cardinal Manning.
 
 AUG. 15, 1831.] RUIN OF MR. MANNING 2// 
 
 ; 1 00,000 to their bankers Smith. Lord Carrington's 
 brother, John Pearse, is also a creditor of some thousands, 
 but does not speak in despair of ultimate payments, 
 though Manning's partner and son-in-law, Anderson, 
 seems to think ill of the result. 
 
 Thus it is while the world is fiddling, dancing, feasting, 
 and flirting all round us. 
 
 Poor Edward sends his best love to you all. I am 
 very, very sorry to lose him for nine months. I gave 
 him a line to the Lord-Lieutenant, who I know will be 
 kind to him. 
 
 Rose Bank, where Londonderry affected to give &fete y 
 is a cottage and garden at Fulham not fifty yards 
 square. I once visited friends there. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Monday, August i$th, 1831. 
 
 POOR Isted has taught Willie what certainly does 
 not abound in the House of Commons, eloquence at 
 his finger ends. How fortunate it had been for the 
 stammering idiotism of Londonderry if he had been 
 visited by Isted's fatality, and how fortunate will it be 
 for the Radicals if the Tory Lords reject the bill, 1 for 
 then Vive la Re'publique I A bas la Patrie. 
 
 But we have been fiddling here while Rome is burn- 
 ing. Fetes upon fetes. We feasted five hundred belles 
 and beaux in our Temple Hall and Garden on the 
 London Bridge Day. Lord Hertford's, too, was gay as 
 royalties, beauties, turtle, and venison could make it, 
 and the weather on both days was propitious. 
 1 Reform Bill.
 
 278 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 To keep the grim antiquity of St. Dunstan's clock 
 and figures in countenance, there sate the three weird 
 sisters of Rutland, Richmond, and Hertford. The 
 horrible spectacle the first exhibits is indescribable. 
 Yet it was once super-eminent beauty. I rejoice that 
 I never was pretty. 
 
 The Duke of Cumberland presented me to his 
 Duchess, who said a thousand kind things about 
 Edward, and is a very agreeable person ; of course le 
 bon papa thought so. 
 
 Dowager Corky gave us a dilettante dinner last week 
 Rogers, Luttrell, Mrs. Gore, who writes pretty novels, 
 and Mr. Bulwer, 1 who cannot. 
 
 The King is at times unwell ; his advisers cannot 
 dissuade him from eternal bustle and publicity. He 
 says he is never so well as in a state of excitement, 
 which he will find is not a very salutary opinion. 
 
 Lady Jersey scolds me for neglecting her Calcutta 
 soirees. 
 
 Tom Moore's " Life of Lord E. Fitzgerald " worth 
 reading. Lord George Seymour told me they were 
 willing to lend Norris Castle to the Duchess of Kent, as 
 it would have given an eclat to the place, and secured 
 a better sale of it. But she insisted on paying for the 
 summer residence, I think 500. 
 
 Windsor is a zoological menagerie of German Princes 
 and Princesses at present, and a merrier, pleasanter little 
 fellow than Braganza never lost an Empire. I am quite 
 enamoured of him. 
 
 1 Lytton Bulwer.
 
 AUG. 15, 1831.] GOSSIP. 279 
 
 I sate an hour t'other day with poor Armstrong, who 
 has at last resorted to the medical conjurer of Bromley, 
 but gains no ground. Armstrong has produced an 
 illegitimate son and daughter, who are a comfort to his 
 confinement. The girl is womanly, and Dowager Cork 
 protects her, for the filthy lucre of stealing her father's 
 wax and writing paper. Minerva, I think, except Eve, 
 was the only lady who never had a mother, but 
 proceeded at once from the skull of Jupiter, and 
 as a warlike goddess was probably of the Armstrong 
 family. 
 
 They say that crazy Dudley has put two years' income 
 into the American Fund. Some add that Hertford has 
 sent 200,000, but he is too wise to follow such lunacy. 
 Dudley has adopted a boy relation, and sent him to 
 Eton as his successor. Marriage is out of the question, 
 as it would force him to buy a new coat and hat, but 
 then it would give him pin-money to supply the place 
 of buttons to his waistcoat. 
 
 Poor Leopold ! I wonder how many times he has 
 already wished himself parish clerk of Claremont ? 
 
 Mrs. Ashton I remember, a comely, plump flirt with 
 a dull squire sposo. The sister, a romp, married a sort 
 of friseur, the son of the old Viscount Fitzwilliam. 
 When we were at Paris last she pressed Joseph, but 
 in vain, to her soirees in the Rue de Rivoli. I marvel 
 how the French pronounce la feinme de Fitch Villiame. 
 
 I flirt with Lady Dudley Stuart, Napoleon's niece- 
 pretty French eyes and -clever and yesterday passed 
 three hours with some new foreigners at the Zoological,
 
 28O MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 which is the best lounge of London. The young elephant 
 is so sensible and agreeable, that next to Napoleon's 
 niece and yourself, I prefer him to half my acquaintance. 
 I wish to God he was in Parliament. I brought him 
 a white paper full of buns, which I had placed on the 
 seat beside me of a wheeling chair. Turning my head 
 to hear Sir H. Hardinge detail a new defeat of the 
 Belgians, I felt two cold pats on my head. It was the 
 trunk of my friend. I told him the last bun was gone. 
 He looked grave, patted me again, and devoured the 
 paper. 
 
 August i$th, 1831. 
 
 A GALLOWS with two halters was erected on Lord 
 Hertford's lawn, on which a fellow performed various 
 antics, and suspended himself by the ropes. Drapery 
 he had hardly any, but the ladies said he was meant 
 to represent Hercules, and that it was proper. 
 
 Duke of Sussex said the execution of the Russian 
 band was perfect, which I denied, as their hanging was 
 omitted. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons left Mrs. Fitzhugh only a ring for her 
 nose, probably as the common legacy to bores. 
 
 Leopold was very nearly made a prisoner in this last 
 defeat of his cowards. 1 I reminded Sir H. Hardinge 
 of the Duke of Wellington's contempt of the Dutch 
 troops at the outset of this quarrel. Hardinge said that 
 
 1 At Louvain on August i2th. The conduct of the Belgian 
 troops in the short campaign against Holland was so bad as to 
 excite the derision of Europe.
 
 OCT. 27, 1831.] WELLINGTON'S UNPOPULARITY. 281 
 
 the Dutch had now Swiss regiments and other foreign 
 officers and engineers. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, October 27 'tk, 1831. 
 
 " CONFOUND ye all ! I hope you will all be mutton 
 chops in a week." 
 
 This was the fulmination of the celebrated Earl of 
 Chesterfield, when he found his post-horses impeded by 
 innumerable flocks of sheep on the road, and in which 
 we religiously agreed when the Winchester fair on 
 Monday poured forth more moutons than Ajax slew, 
 or Don Quixote attacked in the Sierra Morena. 
 
 Yesterday at three o'clock we reached our household 
 gods ; the roads in good order, and not a shower while 
 we were on our wheels. The turtle at Popham Lane 
 well dressed, and Mrs. Martin's fricandeau exquisite. 
 Her hock inferior to her cote-rotie, as the former had 
 some flavour of the Bagshot chalybeate. 
 
 At Hyde Park Corner we found Wellington 1 and 
 Gloucester had not missed deal, for their windows were 
 boarded up " Boarding without Lodging," the reverse 
 of the Bath invitations. Missing deal would be an 
 awkward blunder at the present game of political whist, 
 where the odd trick is played by the bishops and the 
 Lords are almost at nine, when honours go for nothing. 
 
 The morning papers redouble in fury, and the Morning 
 Chronicle modestly suggests a National Guard. 
 
 1 The new Parliament met this day. The Duke was very 
 unpopular, and less than a month later his Ministry was defeated, 
 and resigned.
 
 282 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 The Countess of Harrington (nee Foote) is about to 
 give a young Lord Petersham to the peerage. 
 
 I have a note to-day from my clever friend James 
 Smith, one of the two brothers who wrote " The Rejected 
 Addresses." George Eyre's late partner, old Andrew 
 Strahan, the King's printer, was a great friend of his. 
 The old man was very clever, but had lost the use of his 
 legs. Smith sent him an epigram last year, and he left 
 him by his will 2 50. This was Smith's epigram : 
 
 " Your lower limbs seemed far from stout 
 
 When late I saw you walk ; 
 The cause I instantly found out 
 
 Soon as I heard you talk. 
 The power that props the body's length 
 
 In due proportion spread, 
 In yours concentred, all the strength 
 
 Is got into the head." 
 
 Stanley goes to Dublin in a fortnight, so there will be 
 no early meeting of Parliament. They think little of 
 the cholera at Hamburgh, and Dr. Chalmers, the physician 
 there, laughs at our panic. 
 
 Saturday, November 12th, 1831. 
 
 As game is now saleable by Act of Parliament, I 
 expect a bill will also pass to permit apothecaries to 
 hang up dead patients at their doors for anatomical 
 purchasers, and as cheap as pheasants and partridges. 
 I don't think old ladies and gentlemen will sell for more 
 than nine shillings apiece, and a brace of young ladies 
 who are not yet out for a crown, and a leash of dandies 
 for a couple of shillings. The law would be most 
 prolific. Graves would be undisturbed, science promoted,
 
 NOV. 12, 1831.] GOSSIP. 283 
 
 and as apothecaries are duly qualified to kill they have 
 a right to sell. 
 
 If I have not a new peerage I have had a new title 
 conferred upon me. The newspapers, on purring the 
 poets and poetesses of the Keepsake, add, that Mr. 
 Jekyll, " the Nestor of beaux esprits of the day," has 
 contributed a lively trifle. 
 
 Poor Armstrong is much better, and can walk about 
 his room without crutches. After a year's confinement 
 to his couch his illegitimate son, a clever young man 
 in a public office, whom Willie knew at Harrow, is sent 
 in a decline to Gibraltar and Malta. 
 
 The rector of my parish, who was Lord Dover's tutor 
 in the Medlar School, threatens me with a printed paper 
 that a Committee will call next week to see if I keep 
 my house and myself in cleanliness. 
 
 I dined tete-a-tete yesterday at our Temple banquet 
 with Sir E. Wetherell, 1 who also lives in my parish, but 
 did not mention the doctor's menace, as it might have 
 put the Recorder of Bristol to the expense of washing 
 a change of linen, which I believe is only an annual 
 practice with him. 
 
 I saw Lady Stafford yesterday on foot in Pall Mall, 
 brushing with hasty steps the mud away, and was sorry 
 to observe she stoops very much. But I was soothed 
 in Jermyn Street by " nods, and becks, and wreathed 
 
 1 Sir E. Wetherell, Solicitor-General and Attorney-General in 
 the Liverpool and Wellington Administrations. He first came 
 into prominence by his able defence of the Cato Street con- 
 spirators. In politics he was a violent anti-Catholic.
 
 284 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 smiles " from a beauty in a cabriolet, driven by a much- 
 mustachioed cavalier. Need I mention the Earl and 
 Countess of Harrington ? 
 
 November 2$th, 1831. 
 
 YOU ordered me to write soon, so here goes to fill a 
 letter if I can. The Herald gives you news of the day 
 past, and the stupid Albion of the last week. The Antis 
 are ill off with Albion, Standard, and Morning Post, 
 and are now reinforced by the Age. They have long 
 renounced arguments, and content themselves with 
 calling names. 
 
 The active William IV. is all alacrity for Grey. They 
 were going to Brighton for a council to settle about the 
 meeting of Parliament, and William came to town to 
 save trouble. 
 
 A letter from Dickinson very desponding, and over- 
 grown with moss like a country Squire's ; going to the 
 Pinneys at Lyme Regis, where the hope of that family is 
 a candidate for the Reformed election. Dickinson's son 
 is gone to Cambridge by his father's apostacy from 
 Oxford and Christ Church, but he has been bit by a 
 Cambridge private tutor and mathematician. 
 
 I did not recollect Vernon at the Staffords with a 
 new name and extraordinary head of hair. Poor Lord 
 Stafford seems nearly annihilated. I thought of the 
 mummy of the Cheops the Egyptian King found in the 
 most splendid of the Pyramids. 
 
 I have seen nothing of the Viscount Clifden nor the 
 Peer of Dover for ages, so conclude they are Burked.
 
 NOV. 24, 1831.] MR. JEKYLL AND THE COUNTESSES. 285 
 
 Old Lady Glyn immortalised in the Duke of Rutland's 
 tour through England said, " One's acquaintance wears 
 out like one's clothes, but one gets new ones." 
 
 Old Dowager Cork has been passed back to London 
 by sundiy country parishes, and to-day, at her earnest 
 request, I saw her an hour in her nightcap attended by 
 a toady to write her notes. A womanuensis is necessary 
 for her spelling. She abused me for leaving her to 
 visit Lady Blessington, whom she called the worst of 
 women. I told her my virtue was impregnable, and I 
 never troubled myself about the morality of countesses 
 if they were agreeable, and did not try to borrow my 
 carriage. 
 
 If we are to have a new batch of peers to counteract 
 the lunatics who are committing suicide I wish we may 
 find as good materials as the French have. 1 A selection 
 of better judgment or more free from party could not 
 have been imagined. Yet peers for life are mere puppets, 
 and, in France, when hereditary were beggars, and never 
 analogous to ours. So it is a mere court of aldermen, 
 and leaves France what the last Revolution meant, a 
 King with a Republic. 
 
 Lady Ellenborough is going to marry her youngest 
 daughter of nineteen to the eldest son of Sir Charles 
 Desvoeux, an Irish baronet. Her eldest sisters yet 
 unmarried. By a long minority she will be richer than 
 they ; but the honeymoon will not be opulent, as Lady 
 Ellenborough tells me. 
 
 1 Thirty- six new peers created in 1831, in order to carry the 
 motion for the abolition of the hereditary peerage in France.
 
 286 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY- [CH. ix. 
 
 Such are the dangers of the portentous year of 1832, 
 that with the exception of a few whom you can easily 
 think of, it is believed that under some arrangements in 
 the bill the way through the Lords will be smoothed. 
 Foreigners, nevertheless, are daily investing their property 
 in our funds as the best depot in Europe. Poor 
 Manning's affairs wind up deplorably, and I fear the 
 inferior creditors will suffer sadly. Out of the wreck 
 this unfortunate couple will not have 1,000 per annum 
 to exist upon. His first wife was Lord Carrington's 
 sister, who with the rich Smiths it is hoped may assist 
 them. Lady Sidmouth is in so debilitated a state 
 from long illness that her life is very precarious. The 
 Keepsake contains my squib of eight years old, and 
 sundry withered nuts of Dover Pier, Lord Holland, 
 Morpeth, and rhyming ladies. The outside of the book 
 as usual the most attractive. Williams, M.P., became 
 the Captain's acquaintance by dining with him at 
 Marlow, when he commanded the Guards at High 
 Wycombe on the riots there, and at whose house he met 
 Parson Kent, who blesses the yacht commanders in the 
 winter. The papers have been killing Winchester and 
 Ely, and the mob roasting the rest of the Bishops. The 
 cigar-smokers of Dublin use spitting vases in the shape 
 of mitres. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Wednesday, December 7.-$rd, 1831. 
 
 THE Antis threaten to repeat their antics in the 
 Lords. So William IV. must make his noble bundle 
 of faggots, and swear them in as special constables to
 
 DEC. 27, 1831.] MADAME DE FEUCHfcRES. 287 
 
 prevent lunatics from cutting their own throats. The 
 cholera is fading away, and Burking is suspended as 
 well as its professors, or they are both excellent receipts 
 for pulling down a majority. 
 
 Lord Dover is just gone, and has given me a vote 
 for Thomas Garrett. Lady Garrett is in town for her 
 confinement. I have just got his " King of Prussia," 
 This fascinating Madame de Feucheres * lived formerly 
 with Nugent, the brother of Luttrell. The share that 
 would come to the Due d'Aumale would be ^"50,000 per 
 annum. It is believed the will is to be confirmed, as 
 French judges are always well disposed to royalty. 
 
 Rogers gives Joseph and me dinner to-day, and to 
 meet all the wits and wags that can be recruited in 
 London. 
 
 Tuesday, December 27th, 1831. 
 
 JOSEPH dines all over the town, and protects Madame 
 Vestris. 2 God forbid ! it should be in the bad sense 
 of that unhappy verb. My friend Lady Harrington 3 
 has produced a young Petersham, to the great dismay 
 of a whiskerandos, second brother of my lord, who 
 flattered himself the noble earl would only philander 
 with dramatic heroines, and not marry one. 
 
 The Altar of High-men has been auspicious to pretty 
 actresses ; and when Peers have brains enough to buy 
 
 1 Sophia Dawes. 
 
 * The popular actress, wife of Armand Vestris, ballet master 
 of the King's Theatre. She afterwards married Charles James 
 Matthews, the comedian. 
 
 3 Miss Maria Foote.
 
 288 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 beauty and talents with their coronets, one has great 
 hopes of their lucid interval on the Reform Bill. 
 
 Joseph knew Madame de Feucheres at Paris. She is 
 handsome, and has shown much talent in theatricals 
 at Chantilly, and the daughter of old Dawes, the 
 fruiterer, in Oxford Street, and had already forced the 
 poor old Duke 1 to give an estate to young Master 
 Dawes, her worshipful nephew, and to get him made 
 a peer of France. 
 
 Somebody wrote to Grosvenor and addressed him, 
 "Expensive Wig," "Dear Bob." 
 
 I felicitated R. E. N. Lee on the nuptials of his 
 dandy, who hath espoused a tall thin widow with a 
 thinner jointure. 
 
 Watson Taylor sends me two volumes of his verses 
 privately printed, but has not eclipsed Byron as yet. 
 Lord Nugent's " John Hampden " not ill done. I wish 
 I could name something better worth the skimming. 
 
 LONDON, January qth, 1832. 
 
 JOSEPH and I dined on Tuesday at Dover House. 
 We had only Lord Clifden and Sir Robert Wilson. 2 
 
 1 The Prince de Cond6. Madame de Feucheres was the 
 wife of the Baron de Feucheres, whom she married in 1818 
 Originally an actress at Covent Garden Theatre, she later 
 became the acknowledged mistress of the Prince. She died 
 in 1841 in England. 
 
 2 Sir Robert T. Wilson, a distinguished soldier, who was dis- 
 missed the service by George IV. for his known sympathy with 
 Queen Caroline. The occasion was the part taken by Wilson 
 at the Queen's funeral, where he endeavoured to prevent the 
 collision between the people and the military.
 
 JAN. 9, 1832.] GOSSIP. 289 
 
 The former looked ill and out of spirits. The latter 
 became a violent Tory, because Ministers do not give 
 him a regiment, though he might have been contented 
 with the restoration of his rank, and the subscription 
 at Brooks' of ; 14,000 to indemnify him for the for- 
 feiture of his commissions, and which was double their 
 value. Lady Dover and I chatted on the sofa all the 
 evening, and the next day she produced a daughter. 
 So the Barony of Dover has presumed to increase the 
 Cinque Ports by the addition of a sixth. He wanted 
 a boy. 
 
 Lord Romsey marries the widow of George Chol- 
 mondeley, by which she forfeits half his churlish will 
 bequeathed her. He left ; 100,000 to the two arch- 
 bishops to distribute in charity, and left his eldest son 
 scantily provided for. A vain, heartless man. 
 
 Hayter, who painted the " Queen's Trial," is employed, 
 I hear, by His Majesty on a family picture of himself, 
 the Fitzclarences' and the late Mrs. Jordan in the male 
 attire of Little Pickle in the farce of the Spoiled 
 Child. 
 
 The King borrowed Mrs. Jordan's portrait of Sir 
 H. Bunbury, who begged him to accept of it. This 
 was to enable Hayter to transfer the likeness to his 
 group on the canvas. Rogers does not look well. 
 Dudley says he never did. 
 
 The Northamptonshire squires subscribed for a statue 
 to Lord Althorp ; but the sculptor was puzzled about 
 a dignified posture, as Milord usually speaks with his 
 hands in his pockets. Luttrell said, " The attitude is- 
 
 19
 
 2QO MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 obvious. A Chancellor of the Exchequer should be re- 
 presented with his hands in other people's pockets." 
 
 George Colman, James Smith of the " Rejected 
 Addresses," Rogers of the " Pleasures of Memory," and 
 Campbell of the " Pleasures of Hope," dined with me 
 yesterday at a Parisian repast of much refinement given 
 us by the Countess of Blessington. There was wit, 
 fun, epigram, and raillery enough to supply fifty county 
 members for a twelvemonth. Miladi has doffed her 
 widow's weeds, and was almost in pristine beauty. 
 Her house is a bijou, or, as Sir W. Curtis' lady said, 
 " a perfect bougie." 
 
 A pretty girl showed me this morning a small lump 
 of lead which the fire had melted into a sort of foliage. 
 She said it was a present from H.R.H. the Duke of 
 Cumberland. 
 
 It seems there is a custom in Germany on New 
 Year's Day for the lord and lady of the house to 
 chuck into the fire various lumps of this precious metal. 
 They come out melted into fantastic forms, and are 
 gravely presented as souvenirs to affectionate friends. 
 This solemnity is religiously observed at Kew. My 
 pretty friend added that as his new house had beds 
 in plenty, H.R.H. told her he must have me to pass 
 a week there ! ! ! What would my Whigs say ? 
 
 Lord Dover's " King of Prussia " 1 is extremely well 
 done, and with great industry. He has got together 
 and condensed the scattered memoirs of Voltaire, 
 
 1 " Life of Frederic II., King of Prussia," 2 vols., by George 
 James Wallace Agar Ellis, Baron Dover.
 
 JAN. 9, 1832.] EUGENE ARAM. 29 F 
 
 Thibadeau, and the Royal vaiirien himself. People are 
 reading " Eugene Aram," a mean schoolmaster and a 
 sordid assassin, whom Bulwer, M.P., has exalted into a 
 romantic lover and a paragon of sensibility. When I 
 was a very young boy I saw this prodigy of learning 
 and virtue hanging in chains for murder at Knares- 
 borough. Last week I condoled with Sir James 
 Mackintosh that his borough of Knaresborough had been 
 poked into Schedule A, after having immortalised itself 
 as the Alma Mater of three such historical and oratorical 
 characters as himself, Tierney, and Eugene Aram. 
 
 Lord Tavistock has got Lord Dover's late house in 
 Spring Gardens. Campbell the poet is going to write 
 the life of Mrs. Siddons, and sends to me for anecdotes. 
 Sir C. Flint, who visited Chantilly often, says that 
 Madame de Feucheres is very amiable, and that her care 
 and kindness preserved the Duke's life and happiness 
 for eighteen years, and that a great rogue instigated the 
 Rohans * to the law-suit, and tried to support it by 
 subornation. However, the will has not been shaken, 
 as we lawyers think. 
 
 The King has given the Bishops leave to abandon 
 wigs except in the House of Lords or the pulpit. 
 Bishop of London dined at General Phipps' on Sunday 
 without one. Upon my word, the poor Right Reverends 
 are in a sad way. The Crown plucks off their wigs, the 
 
 1 The heirs-at-law of the Prince de Conde. There was great 
 diversity of opinion as to Madame de Feucheres' conduct. 
 M. Louis Blanc said : " Madame de Feucheres gagna sa proces 
 devant les tribunaux, et le perdit devant 1'opinion publique."
 
 2p2 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 Radicals will make cravats of lawn sleeves. The boys 
 burn prelates with Guy Vaux, and the judges hung an 
 unfortunate Mr. Bishop for Burking under an unpopular 
 name. 
 
 Cobbett's last number on Saturday is high treason, 
 and his address to the Yeomanry Cavalry more atrocious 
 than all his atrocities. The law seems asleep. George 
 Colman grows old and gouty, and has wisely sold his 
 Lieutenancy of the Yeomen of the Guards for .6,000. 
 I addressed him on Saturday from Sheridan's Critic 
 
 "Am I a beefeater now?" 
 
 P.S. How I rejoice the " Squires are become poul- 
 terers." I was ruined by shillings for porterage of game, 
 and had rather eat magpies, or any pies but those you 
 make for the unfortunate Taty. 
 
 Whole battues are hung up at the corner of every 
 street, and so cheap that servants on board wages had 
 rather be poachers of eggs. 
 
 Monday, January gth. 
 
 Postscript the second, for I scorn to write across. 
 
 It is whimsical that Lord Romney's first wife was 
 Moreton Pitt's daughter, and that George Cholmondeley's 
 first wife was Moreton Pitt's sister. 
 
 This moment a letter from Edward dated from some 
 unpronounceable chateau in the Wicklow Mountains. 
 Troops have been sent from Dublin to Kilkenny, but 
 still he reports general tranquillity. 
 
 He saw Kean play Richard so drunk that he fell in
 
 JAN. 27, 1832.] KEAN AS " RICHARD III." 293 
 
 the Battle of Bosworth Field before Richmond had con- 
 descended to kill him, and while lying on the ground 
 blew his nose. He arose at last and stammered the 
 following apology 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen, you see you see argu- 
 mentum ad hominem I " He then reeled off nobody 
 knew whither, or comprehended the argutnentum. 
 
 Friday, January 2jth, 1832. 
 
 I HAVE been sending you the Town, 1 sent to me 
 on Sundays by the editors, Captain Stanhope of the 
 Navy, and young Reynolds, the son of the comedy 
 writer. It does not as yet seem to surpass its rivals. 
 
 On dit, Lord Cawdor to be Chamberlain to the 
 Queen ; little bandy-legged Arthur Stanhope, the 
 favourite of George III. and George IV., is to lose 
 his place of .1,500 a year in Post Office by the 
 new economy. 
 
 Joseph and I had a visit and a dinner of a singular 
 sort three weeks ago. For the first time in his life rolled 
 in Jack Fuller. He roared out, " Name your day, and I 
 will get wits and choice spirits, whom you live with, to 
 meet you at dinner. I will give your son a skinful of 
 Burgundy such as England never tasted." Naming a 
 day could not be carried. We went expecting an 
 Abyssinian feast. We were disappointed. Jack had read 
 Lord Chesterfield of course all the morning. He was 
 quiet and well bred, and all the beaux esprits had agreed 
 
 1 A weekly society paper, price "jd. The first number appeared 
 on January ist, 1832, and it ran for ten years.
 
 294 MR- JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 to meet me. A dinner of taste and magnificence, a 
 superb service of plate, a pack of lacqueys in rich liveries, 
 a French cook of 150 wages, a splendid dessert, 
 pictures of the Sussex Domains by Turner, some, as 
 Joseph said, Turner must have been paid 500 for. At 
 night we had four musical artistes, the nephews and 
 nieces and Miss Stevens, to whom Jack had given a 
 magnificent pianoforte. Jack rang a silver bell for 
 silence when a piece began. We found above stairs the 
 Dowager Lady Ashburnham and daughters and a few 
 ladies. She told me the good Jack did in Sussex to 
 the tenants and the poor was exemplary. He took 
 Joseph aside, and said, "You are like your mother. I 
 loved her when a girl ; she was the best of the bunch. 
 I never liked old Sloane nor the rest of them nor the 
 chap his son, who has always his eyes in his pocket." I 
 never had such a day in my life. Ask William whether 
 he was not his mother's first cousin? His 1 5,000 a 
 year will go to his sister's son, Sir T. Acland, a young 
 baronet in Somerset. What relation was he to the 
 fiddling divine at Paultons ? 
 
 In spite of the lady protocols I am glad to see our 
 Dummy Taffy was elected. One day last week I met 
 at dinner Lord Cavendish, the prodigy of Cambridge, 
 who, like other prodigies, disappointed the House of 
 Commons, He was dead silent, and reminded me of 
 what Congreve says in one of his comedies : " At the 
 bottom of the table sate my Lady's eldest son, who, not 
 having learned from nature to breathe through his nose, 
 sate with his mouth open."
 
 JAN. 27, 1832.] MRS. PITT AND DUCHESS OF GORDON. 295 
 
 Did not William go to the Duke of Rutland's birthday ? 
 I have always thought he who keeps his birthday 
 desires his friends to congratulate him on what must 
 have happened to every one of themselves. 
 
 I am reading a pretty French book by Blacas, " Les 
 Scenes de la Vie privde." Lord Dover's " King of 
 Prussia " is liked. 
 
 Jack Fuller said he never dined out. I should think 
 inviters were scarce. Joseph and I could not make out 
 whether he meant to impute to the chap William 
 stinginess or great caution against those who meant to 
 pick his pocket. Joseph says the Bonassus or the Polar 
 Bear will soon ask us to dinner. 
 
 January 27 'th, 1832. 
 
 You see a newspaper admirer of mine congratulates 
 me on deafness, and instead of considering it a defect 
 or a misfortune, tells me it is an advantage, and even 
 an accomplishment, inasmuch as it relieves me from 
 hearing the dull absurdities uttered at fashionable 
 dinners. 
 
 It reminds me of a retort I heard Mrs. Pitt make 
 to the late Duchess of Gordon. " Well, Pitt," she said, 
 " we have not met for a long time ; have you been 
 talking as much nonsense as usual ? " " Perhaps," 
 replied Pitt, " but I have not heard so much." 
 
 Poor old Greenwood, 1 a good-natured friendly man, 
 
 1 Charles Greenwood, the Army Agent. He had dined with 
 the King at the Pavilion, Brighton, on January 25th, 1832, and 
 died while playing a game of whist after dinner. He was 
 eighty-four.
 
 296 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 a good deal of vanity, which would have been gratified 
 had he known he was to die at the table of a king. 
 I knew him much in the Duke of York's time, who 
 showered upon him two-thirds of the regimental 
 agencies. I believe Greenwood occasionally assisted 
 him under his embarrassments, but have heard lost a 
 very few thousands only by his insolvency, and which 
 former benefits and patronage had amply balanced. 
 
 My friend the Countess of Blessington sends me a 
 beautiful print of herself from Lawrence's portrait. 
 
 I pity Peel, who must feel mortified in leading such 
 a wretched fry of Opposition. The House is sick to 
 death of such worthless repetitions, and members are 
 ranges d'ennm, and don't attend as they ought to do, 
 for the divisions are all that is necessary for newspapers. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, August ist, 1832. 
 
 THE Captain has been playing Adjutant at the 
 Tower for a sick comrade, and is now released from 
 the garrison and the cholera there. It has pleased 
 his most gracious Majesty to form a camp in Windsor 
 Park of the flank companies of the Guards and some 
 artillery, so in a few days the gallant Captain and 
 his light infantry are to pitch their tents for some 
 weeks, which they suppose will supersede his balls and 
 breakfasts. 
 
 The Duchess of Coutts, 1 he reports, had a cow with 
 gilt horns at her dejeuner, to supply her noble milkmaids 
 with syllabubs, and went about laying the dust at her 
 1 The Duchess of St. Albans.
 
 AUG. i, 1832.] HOMOEOPATHY. 297 
 
 ball with a silver watering-pot, the contents of which 
 were so glutinous from aromatic gums, that it glued 
 the misses' shoes to the floor, and many danced barefoot. 
 His Grace took no part in the shower, but walked about 
 very like Miss Bagster in male costume. 
 
 Joseph is in a blue-striped shirt on the Thames, 
 and has hitherto escaped the coroner's inquest, and 
 continues a very regular spectator of Mademoiselle 
 Mars. Dr. Quin, a disciple of Joseph's idol, Dr. 
 Hahnemann, is fixed in London, and every old lady 
 has a bottle of his cholera drops in her reticule. Dr. 
 Wolff, of Dresden, has sent Joseph a most curious 
 present, a box not larger than an octavo volume, con- 
 taining two hundred phials. Each phial contains one 
 thousand globules of the smallest size from every known 
 drug in use. So the sum total is two hundred thousand 
 doses, and eclipses all the apothecaries' shops I ever 
 heard of. Joseph dined t'other day with his godpapa 
 Lansdowne, who mentioned a singular observation of 
 medical people that when cholera renewed its visit 
 to any country it attacked persons of a superior class 
 to those it first demolished. 
 
 Of all the horrible attacks on Lady Holland, Lady 
 Blessington's " Memoirs of Byron " in the last New 
 Monthly Magazine'*- are the most sanglans. He does 
 not spare her son Henry, and deplores Lord Holland's 
 slavery to his rib. These " Memoirs " will be continued 
 monthly, and Byron's former associates are frightened 
 to death ; some, too, who deluded themselves into a 
 1 Vol. xxxv., p. 8.
 
 298 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 belief they were beloved. As Lady Blessington is stout 
 I hope she will be merciful. She recited to me most 
 dreadful verses by Byron against his friend Rogers, 
 but will not publish them, or the poet must inevitably 
 plunge into the Serpentine. The conversations of a 
 dead man cannot be contradicted, so if Miladi is not 
 scrupulous on the score of veracity she may report 
 Byron as she pleases. I was alarmed enough to ask 
 if I was safe. She said, to my comfort, that she spoke 
 of me as a favourite. 
 
 Emboldened by the success of her Italian translations, 
 Elizabeth Law is about to print privately some English 
 verses I never saw, 1 and declares she will dedicate them 
 to me. 
 
 As you have now room for " meditation even to 
 madness," I wish I could recommend to you some food 
 for the mind ; but I think I am only disporting myself 
 with a deluge of new French novels in the highest 
 style of Paris nonsense and trash. But I am turning 
 author, and composing an account of the antiquities 
 of the Temple Church. 2 
 
 How you country folks have contrived to ripen your 
 harvest without hothouses I know not ; but I sate by 
 
 1 "Miscellaneous Poems," by E. S. L. Miss Law, afterwards 
 Lady Colchester, was the author of several volumes. She trans- 
 lated Goldsmith's "Traveller" into Italian, wrote "Views in 
 London," etc. A tale of hers, " Algernon Graham," was published 
 so late as 1872. 
 
 2 " Facts and Observations Relating to the Temple Church 
 and its Monuments." It was published in pamphlet form in 
 1811. Mr. Jekyll was also responsible for "The Letters of 
 Sancho, with a Memoir," 1803.
 
 AUG. 27, 1832.] TRIUMPH OF REFORM. 299 
 
 my fireside some evenings last week and sharpened a 
 pair of skates for immediate use. Lord Hertford gave 
 MS fetes with lighted tar barrels for warmth and perfume, 
 and has left town I hear with a cold and a doctor, and 
 the hailstones broke half my skylights. 
 
 Almacks and marriages are all over for the season, 
 and the Board of Health permits us at last to eat 
 anything but cucumbers, so we hope to be alive till 
 the winter. 
 
 The two Houses of Parliament have ended in calling 
 one another very bad names ; and if you can send us 
 as romantic a title as Lyndhurst for the Speaker's 
 peerage, 1 we shall be obliged to Hampshire for it. 
 
 P.S. The Dovers gone to give him some sea air 
 at Ramsgate. I am going to dine with Burdett to-day ; 
 bumpers to Reform. There never was a doubt as to 
 the result, and the whole botheration has now passed 
 over us " like a summer cloud." 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Monday, August 27 th, 1832. 
 EVEN His Majesty's ministers have fled to landscapes, 
 and Lord Lansdowne has made a fruitless effort to 
 seduce us to Bowood with Rogers. We dined yester- 
 day with the poet, who says poor Crabbe left some 
 finished tales in verse, which I think Rogers will give 
 to the public. 1 am reading very interesting " Memoirs 
 of Louis XVIII.," said to be written by himself. Of 
 their authenticity of course I doubted, but I am told 
 Talleyrand believes them to be genuine. 
 
 1 Viscount Canterbury.
 
 300 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 The Hollands are disposed to let Ampthill, which 
 Lord Ossory left him. Miladi cannot get people down 
 there, and .500 a year for it may probably be con- 
 venient in other respects. The King makes speeches 
 from morning to night ; a good-natured creature, and 
 means well, when he has any meaning at all. The 
 Queen is of use ; and whenever his tirades grow foolish 
 beyond the usual mark she either interrupts him or 
 talks across so as to stifle the nonsense and turn the 
 conversation. The Castle is gorged with Tories, and 
 the poor Ministers seem only occasional guests by 
 solemn invitation. If Wellington could muster a ragged 
 regiment able to form a Cabinet, my love Lady Sophia 
 and the Duke of Cumberland would try hard to throw 
 Grey and Brougham overboard with the help of that 
 comical club called the House of Lords and the Bishops. 
 There is a clamour in London for a short session of 
 Parliament in autumn, to tinker the Reform Bill, but 
 it will not take place. 
 
 There is another fable, that Leopold's bride 1 has a 
 prior attachment in France ; but Palmerston must settle 
 that by a hundred and twentieth protocol. Nobody 
 cares about Pedro and Miguel except the amateurs of 
 dog-fights. So much for the chapter of politics. 
 
 My friend's, Lady Blessington's, " Memoirs of Byron " 
 in the last New Monthly Magazine fall desperately foul 
 of the Jerseys, insinuating that Miladi has more talk 
 than brains, and that her lord lives upon horseflesh at 
 
 1 The Queen of the Belgians, Princess Louise of Orleans, 
 eldest daughter of Louis Philippe.
 
 AUG. 27, 1832.] GOSSIP. 301 
 
 Newmarket, with a clever allusion to Pegasus. But I 
 suppose you have seen it, as nothing is so relishing as 
 a libel on friends. 
 
 Lord Lansdowne is just as safe at Calne with his two 
 hundred and ten lo-pounders as he was with my score 
 of burgesses, and has sent Lord Kerry on a summer 
 tour to Germany. 
 
 Leopold has lost all his teeth, and they say that 
 Prince Otho of Bavaria, whom they have now made 
 King of Greece, 1 is uglier than Sharpe or Quintin Dick. 
 It is hard upon a country which sculptured the Apollo 
 Belvidere. ., 
 
 I cannot touch upon the fine Arts without men- 
 tioning that young Eddis has made two very good 
 portraits of my beauties Joseph and Edward, and I 
 hope all the inhabitants of the Zoological Garden will 
 sit to him. 
 
 Sad work with the Church ! They pelt Archbishops 
 at Canterbury. I am glad I did not buy a living for 
 Edward, though he would have made an exemplary 
 parish priest 
 
 " Our parson called, and took French leave, 
 
 But took his Tithe Pig too. 
 The ungodly call for a farewell, 
 The godly for a due." 
 
 This avalanche of nonsense I trust will reach you 
 if the Post Office can decipher my friend Wetherell's 
 hieroglyphical frank ; but Tories always make a bad 
 hand of it. 
 
 1 Otho I., son of King Louis of Bavaria. He was deposed in 1862.
 
 302 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, October 3 is/, 1832. 
 
 THE Captain having fulfilled his duty at the Tower, 
 which lasted only three days, dined with us on arrival. 
 Joseph is in his altitudes, for a homoeopathic hospital 
 and college have been founded at Leipsic, another at 
 Lyons, and His Majesty of Prussia patronises the 
 doctrine, as one of its disciples has cured a princess of 
 his royal house of the epilepsy. 
 
 Mr. Reynolds, the editor of the Keepsake, sends me 
 the new volume most undeservedly. The engravings 
 of these annuals induce the world to endure their prose. 
 Mirabeau once told me that Diderot was so jealous 
 of his fame that he hid himself daily at his bookseller's 
 to watch who came to purchase his volumes, and was 
 mortified by a Milor Anglais, who said to the book- 
 seller, " Cut out the printed parts, for I only want the 
 pictures." 
 
 The Memoirs of the late John Taylor * are amusing. 
 I knew the good-natured old gossip, who cantered his 
 pony about Parnassus in bad prologues and epilogues, 
 and used to puff me in his newspaper, for which I was 
 thankful, of course, as scandal is now the only attrac- 
 tion of readers. Mrs. Ramsbottom, in John Bull, calls 
 the unfortunate Foreign Secretary Lord Pumicestone ; 
 and Cobbett, in his last register, mobs poor Lady 
 Stafford plentifully for forcing her bag-piper shepherds 
 of Sutherland to become fishermen. 
 
 James Smith, of the " Rejected Addresses," was here 
 
 1 " Records of My Life," two vols, 1832. John Taylor, the 
 author of " Monsieur Tonson."
 
 NOV. 15, 1832.] LORD ALVANLEY. 303 
 
 just now, and wrote this epigram on the two great 
 rival Gunsmiths, Manton and Egg : 
 
 " Two of a trade can ne'er agree, 
 
 Each worries each, if able. 
 
 In Manton and in Egg we see 
 
 The proverb proved a fable. 
 
 " Both deal in guns, whose loud report 
 
 Confirms the fact I'm broaching 
 Manton's are made for lawful sport, 
 And Egg's are best for poaching." 
 
 Sheridan said he preferred Lear to all Shakespeare's 
 tragedies. John Taylor replied, " That's because you 
 married an Ogle." 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, November i^th, 1832. 
 
 LONDON is full enough of men, at least. Discussing 
 the other day the absurdity of ever leaving it, Alvanley 
 said that he had always suggested a plan to make a 
 London house full as interesting as a house in the 
 country. " You have only," says he, " to invite a parson 
 of the parish to dine with you on Sunday, and to order 
 your servants to bring you no newspapers nor letters 
 on Monday." 
 
 Lady W. Williams gives her two daughters twenty 
 thousand pounds apiece, and if they die unmarried she 
 gives the forty thousand to poor Charles Wynne and 
 his children. She gives her house in Upper Brook 
 Street (which par parent/iese was built by my aunt, 
 Lady Anne Jekyll) to her son-in-law, Lord Delamere. 
 
 Mrs. Gwyn has just sent me an unpublished curiosity, 
 a folio volume of most horrible sketches, drawn and
 
 304 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 etched by the Princess Elizabeth, now Homburgh. 
 It is entitled " The Progress of Genius," and inscribed, 
 by a most ungrammatical dedication, to her talented 
 mother, the antiquated Charlotte. Such hideous draw- 
 ings no eye ever saw ; and as Mrs. Gwyn was favoured 
 with the gift of them, she begs, out of pure gratitude 
 to the unhappy artist, that I will not show them. 
 Thank God Freddy and Carry were not born Princesses- 
 The pretty poetess, Mrs. Norton, discovered that her 
 maid was corresponding with a private soldier of the 
 3rd Regiment of Guards, recently named the Scotch 
 Fusiliers. She made the poor girl give up his letters, 
 one of which concluded in the following romantic 
 manner : 
 
 " Dearest and loveliest of beings, farewell ; but let 
 me beg of you not to direct your next charming letter 
 ' to the Fuzzyleers.' " 
 
 My friend Denman, Chief Justice, the triumph of 
 consistency. Poor Scarlett must for ever lament the 
 course of Girouettes. 
 
 Thursday, November 29^, 1832. 
 
 Mille graces for a newsy letter, and the list of an 
 avalanche of visitors. I like Lady Pollen, and, God 
 knows, it is not the lust of the flesh ; Sir John is like 
 Shakespeare's Gratiano, 
 
 " And speaks an infinite world of nothing." 
 
 Edward writes in high glee from his sports at Here- 
 fordshire, and says Lady Ellenborough angled last
 
 NOV. 29, 1832.] LADY JERSEY AND THE REGENT. 305 
 
 year there with her daughter Anne for his friend 
 Colonel Clive, but the line broke. The Colonel is 
 the eldest son of my old friend, M.P. for Hereford, at 
 whose mansion the Captain now bivouacs, and returns 
 about the end of the month, when he has slaughtered 
 their pheasants ; and as the Cootes, though called Eyre, 
 are waterfowl, I suppose by this time his uncle has 
 shot his landlord near Ringwood. Cootes, I believe, 
 are not game, so he cannot be tried for poaching, but 
 has the pleasing alternative of being hanged for murder. 
 I knew old Jerningham 1 well a good-natured goose, 
 who dreamed he was a poet till Gifford (Lord Grosvenor's 
 tutor) undeceived him by two lines in his clear satire 
 the " Baviad " : 
 
 " See snivelling Jerningham at fifty weep 
 O'er love-lorn oxen and deserted sheep." 
 
 Jerny was the laughing-stock of a circle of women I 
 lived with, at whose soirees he used to shell off, I am 
 sorry to say, almost all his buttons. He was then 
 the platonic cavalier serviente of the late old Lady 
 Harcourt, who had a head like the bust of Homer on 
 a bookcase. After her loss of the Prince the late 
 Lady Jersey said to me, " I loved the Prince's fame 
 as I did his person. I wished to make him as splendid 
 a monarch as Louis XIV. I made suppers for him of 
 men of talent. I wished to detach him from his idle 
 companions. I used to invite Jerningham, and tell him 
 to bring the small harp he placed on the table." 
 
 1 Edward Jerningham, author of " the Siege of Berwick," 
 " Stonehenge," and many other volumes of plays and poems. 
 
 20
 
 306 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 I burst into immoderate laughter, and she ordered 
 me out of the room. You will admit I did not banish 
 the poor poet, like John Taylor's anecdotes. 
 
 " Memoirs of Banditti," two volumes, a pretty book by 
 Macfarlane, who wrote the clever " Tour from Constan- 
 tinople." 
 
 This is a sad loss to the poor Archbishop of 
 York 1 at his time of life, and I am very sorry for 
 him. 
 
 I have condoled with my pretty friend Lady 
 Blessington on the probability of burking her beaut}*, 
 as she and le Comte D'Orsay were menaced in the 
 papers with a pamphlet signed " Dissector." She 
 suspects a cast-off friend of Lord Byron. Politics keep 
 men enough in London. Ladies scarce except those 
 who frequent bazaars, and mistake other people's pro- 
 perty for their own. It was the blunder of my client 
 Mrs. Leigh Perrot, in former days, and I am told is 
 still frequently committed. The mother of these un- 
 lucky misses had a handsome sister who married Sir 
 T. Plumer, Master of the Rolls. 
 
 I thought the Game Laws were abolished in France. 
 But as they now make game of kings they begin to 
 shoot them. 
 
 Sotheby will not let poor Sir Walter lie quietly in 
 his grave, but vampires him with verses that would 
 disgrace even the annuals ; gives us " Syren Bay " 
 twice over, and makes " to trance " an English verb, 
 
 1 Archbishop Vernon Harcourt. This refers to the loss of his 
 wife, Lady Anne Leveson-Gower.
 
 NOV. 29, i 832.] MRS. NEWTON. 307 
 
 unheard of before by Dr. Johnson or any other 
 lexicographer. 
 
 Their Majesties invite such mobs to dinner at Brighton 
 that I really read the arrivals at Margate t'other day 
 by mistake for the list of their guests. 
 
 Joseph's friend, Newton, the American painter, has 
 imported a pretty little wife from New York, and 
 brought her to see me. Her peculiar phraseology 
 amused me, but by no means was it burlesque, as given 
 by Mrs. Trollope in her new novel, " The Refugee " ; 
 and, by the way, Mrs. Trollope seems never to give us 
 the manners of any but the inferior towns of America. 
 Lady Wellesley has visited her compatriot, the little 
 Newton, and Joseph says the Republican bride was not 
 the least dazzled by the presence of a live marchioness, 
 but chattered away with all the simplicity of liberty 
 and equality. 
 
 Edward says they have a house full of Whigs at 
 Clive's, and daughters of the late Lady Oxford, and 
 eternal rain. Willie produced a bad caricature of 
 Talleyrand and Palmerston as an old spider catching 
 a fly, and John Bull calls P. 1 "the Romsey Dandy." 
 
 My neighbour Scarlett affects high spirits to conceal 
 his disappointment, and has given a grand dinner last 
 week to his highness of Gloucester, and a batch of 
 other Conservative conjurors, which we entitled " Le 
 Festin des Girouettes." According to the Tory papers, 
 the Reformed Parliament will be the best that ever 
 was, as all their candidates are to succeed ; and certainly 
 1 Palmerston.
 
 308 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. ix. 
 
 it will be the most numerous, as half a dozen of their 
 friends are sure of coming in for the same place. This 
 expression of delight reminds me of the plough-boy 
 who whistles in a churchyard at midnight to show he 
 is not afraid. 
 
 The active are all busy at their elections. The 
 loungers crawling to Brighton, as London has no attrac- 
 tion. A good many idle people here seem to amuse 
 themselves by dying ; but except a few occasional 
 twinges of gout or rheumatics I have weathered 
 November very auspiciously, and don't intend to par- 
 take of their divertisement.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY 
 .(Continued)., 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, January qth, 1833. 
 
 ROGERS has lost a favourite brother, and in the midst 
 of his sorrows was assailed by the dreadful verses of 
 Byron 1 against him, a copy of which has appeared in 
 Fraser's Magazine, and of which I have always heard 
 only three were known to exist. 
 
 The cleverness of the libel almost equals its bitter- 
 ness and cruelty, especially as the public believed they 
 were linked in friendship. Rogers may perhaps have 
 been caressed into vanity, but I know he is possessed 
 of a thousand good qualities, and will feel this deeply. 
 
 Dickinson writes me word that his sister has bivouacked 
 half the summer at Lyme, to secure her son's election. 
 She must be an admirable canvasser, for she has routed 
 the ancient family interest of the leatJier-headed Earl of 
 Westmorland, who, the late Lord Ellenborough said, had 
 
 ' The following is not an unfair specimen of these lines : 
 
 "He's the cancer of his species, 
 And will tear himself to pieces, 
 Plague personified, and famine, 
 Devil, whose sole delight is damning. 
 For his merits, would you know 'em ? 
 Once he wrote a pretty poem." 
 
 309
 
 310 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 never been educated at all, inasmuch as he was born 
 before Sunday Schools were invented. 
 
 Your Hampshire confoundatives came to a dismal 
 end. To be ridiculous is worse than to be kicked out in 
 every quarter. I condole with William on the oaths and 
 guineas he squandered to save his property from revolu- 
 tion, by supporting the talent of Fleming, and unfor- 
 tunately giving a victory to such villains, rascals, 
 scoundrels, burkers, vampires, cheats, and swindlers as 
 neighbours Palmerston and his gang. As he has had a 
 long experience of managing lunacy, Brougham thinks 
 the Hampshire Tories might be confided to his care in 
 Chancery. 
 
 It is pleasing to find that distress does not always 
 depress the spirits of philosophical persons. I read that 
 the Castellan of Belvoir does not only keep a fifty-fifth 
 birthday, but dances upon it, and that Wellington dances 
 before him. Two Graces instead of three is not classical, 
 especially as the slender addition of his Grace of Bucks 
 might have corrected the number. When the old Duke 
 de Brissac danced at Versailles some wag slyly pinned 
 on his back a paper with these words 
 
 " A cinquante ans on ne danse plus." 
 
 The Duke overheard everybody behind him reading it 
 aloud, and, as it therefore appeared to be the expression 
 of a general opinion, he sate down. My father had an 
 old Irish lieutenant who always kept his birthday when 
 he received his half pay, which occurred three times a 
 year.
 
 JAN. 9, 1833.] THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT. 311 
 
 I sent you young Reynolds' 1 extravaganza of " Miser- 
 rimus ; or, the History of a Devil Incarnate." Old Lady 
 Milbanke used to swear that Byron declared an hour 
 after the ceremony, that he only married her daughter to 
 acquire the right of tormenting her. When old Fuseli 
 designed to paint a horrible group he supped on toasted 
 cheese, and the dreadful faces his indigestion produced 
 in dreams he sketched when he awoke in the morning. 
 Reynolds must have followed him. There is less talent 
 than I expected in Lady Dacre's three volumes of "A 
 Chaperone." There seems only the common quantity of 
 ragamuffins in the new Senate. In one of Pitt's Parlia- 
 ments I remember sitting with two waiters of a Tavern, 2 
 two M.P.'s who had been found lunatics on a commission, 
 and one honourable member who had stood in the 
 pillory. We have exchanged Hunt for Cobbett ; and 
 though Newmarket was not elevated into a borough, I 
 suppose Gully may fairly be considered as its virtual 
 representative. James Smith wrote to me the 
 following : 
 
 "EPIGRAM ON GULLY, BOXER, AND M.P. FOR 
 
 PONTEFRACT. 
 
 " You ask me the cause that made Pontefract sully 
 Her fame by returning to Parliament Gully. 
 The etymological cause I suppose is 
 His breaking the bridges of so many noses." 
 
 I was sorry to lose my old friend, Lord Conyngham, 
 
 1 Frederick Mansel Reynolds, author of "Coquette" and 
 " Parricide." 
 
 2 Sir Robert Mackreth and Sir Thomas Rumbold, both in early 
 life connected with White's Chocolate House.
 
 3 1 2 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 by a rapid liver attack, in his pretty daughter's honey- 
 moon a rich widow, fair, fat, and fifty ; but I have no 
 thoughts of her, though at present free from the gout. I 
 suppose Gully and Cobbett are at Brighton dining with 
 their Majesties, or I would have got a frank to you. So 
 you must take eightpennyworth of our loves in the 
 most expensive way. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Tuesday, February \2th, 1833. 
 
 YOUR tidings of this morning have afforded me such 
 real delight that I will not hunt for a frank to express it. 
 
 Pretty, dear girl, 1 she deserves all the good that can 
 happen to her, and so do you ; for never did a woman, 
 by example as well as precept, more effectually than 
 yourself prepare her girls to be excellent wives and 
 mothers, and it seems a talent inherent in your family. 
 
 They say it is natural to fall in love with the sister of 
 a friend, and I think it will make Willie happy to have 
 Mott allied to him. Edward has often said to me, 
 " Mott is an excellent fellow " ; and he became intimate 
 with him at Paultons. 
 
 As happiness is of more importance than money, I 
 trust that the fathers will easily make such arrange- 
 ments on a quiet scale, for the present, as may enable 
 " the course of true love to run smooth." And with 
 these anticipated satisfactions, I wish you joy sincerely, 
 for next to my own brats I love yours. 
 
 Parliament amusing with the pas de trois of O'Connell, 
 
 1 Lady Gertrude's daughter Caroline, who married Mr. J. T. 
 Mott, of Barmingham, Norfolk.
 
 FEB. 12, 1833.] ALDERMANIC FRENCH. 313 
 
 Hume, and Cobbett. A Manchester schoolmaster in 
 jail for threatening letters to our sovereign ; so even 
 Brougham begins to think " the schoolmaster ought not 
 to be abroad." 
 
 Alvanley dined with some grandee, whose mansion 
 had been recently fitted up in great splendour, but the 
 dinner was scanty. Alvanley said more carving and less 
 gilding would have been preferable. 
 
 A friend said to Claud Hunter at Paris, " My dear 
 Alderman, you speak French execrably. You for ever 
 confound the articles. Why cannot you remember that 
 le is the masculine and la the feminine article ? " 
 
 " It is no such thing," replied the worthy baronet. 
 " Is La Fayette a lady ? " 
 
 My friend Mrs. Gore has published " The Sketch 
 Book of Fashion," three volumes of six pretty novels. 
 
 P.S. I used to congratulate Carry on the fortunate 
 moles of her hand, and now the ring finger will be 
 mottled. 
 
 I send you another squib of James Smith on Sunday 
 newspapers, received this morning from Twickenham, 
 so he signs himself Alexander Pope, and the verses are 
 no bad imitation of Pope's. Old Sir J. Jekyll was a 
 friend of Pope's, so Smith quotes from him. 
 
 " TWICKENHAM, April -2.2nd, 1833. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, Having had the pleasure of being well 
 acquainted with your great uncle, Sir Joseph Jekyll, 
 ' who never changed his principles or wig,' I think it
 
 3 14 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAXE STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 right to send you some lines which I have written with 
 a pen dipped in Styx, and plucked from Mercury's left 
 heel as he was ferrying the Rev. Reuben Hill down that 
 inky stream. The stanzas relate to your Sunday news- 
 paper, a Sabbath recreation unknown during the lifetime 
 of 
 
 " Dear sir, 
 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 " ALEXANDER POPE. 
 
 "JOSEPH JEKYLL, ESQ." 
 
 " Hard is his task who edits thankless job ! 
 A Sunday journal for the factious mob ; 
 With bitter paragraph and caustic jest 
 He gives to turbulence the day of rest. 
 Condemned, this week, fresh rancour to instil, 
 Or thrown aside, the next, for one who will. 
 Alike undone, or if he praise or rail 
 For this affects his safety, that his sale, 
 He sinks at last in luckless limbo set, 
 If loud, for libel, and, if dumb, for debt." 
 
 P.S. Dowager Lansdowne's ^"4,000 per annum a 
 godsend to Berkeley Square. We think Duke of 
 Norfolk should have the blue ribbon. 
 
 August $ist, 1833. 
 
 PARIS is electrified with Victor Hugo's last novel of 
 " Notre Dame," which is unintelligible nonsense. 
 
 The Countess of Blessington's house broken open, 
 and robbed of trinkets, buhl, clocks, odes, pastorals, 
 and charades. She has a volume of poems on the 
 anvil ; contributory, I find, but she will not catch me 
 for a couplet ; but Lord Morpeth has sent her verses
 
 AUG. 31, 1833.] SUCCESS OF THE WHIGS. 315 
 
 on the jasmine growing out of Naworth Castle, full 
 of all the sentiment and prettiness of the annuals. 
 
 Lady Holland going to drag sposo to meet the 
 bridal son and daughter 1 at Paris. All the old men in 
 London are marrying themselves, so it is prudent for 
 me to quit it. Ailesbury began, but it is not true that 
 Somerset's Duke marries my poetess Lizzie Law. I 
 told her, if she could not be one of the Muses, she 
 should be one of the Graces. When the Duchess of 
 St. Albans denied her love affair with the romantic 
 Duke, " and let concealment feed on her damask 
 (damaged) cheek," she said, " There are plenty of 
 duchesses, but only one Mr. Coutts." 
 
 " Village Belles," three volumes, rather a pretty 
 novel. I read yesterday " Memoires de 1'Imperatrice 
 Josephine," par Mademoiselle d'Avrillion, Dame de sa 
 Chambre ; it is amusing. 
 
 On Brougham's parliamentary assertion, that the 
 King could advance a negro to the peerage, D'Orsay 
 has made a wonderful caricature, and even uglier than 
 the learned original. He is represented as a naked 
 negro, with a full-bottomed wig and coronet. 
 
 The Whigs have wound up the session famously ; and 
 in spite of too much talking have accomplished most 
 important things, and laid the basis for many more. 
 Public opinion must now govern, and Toryism can 
 never revive. They had a hard struggle, though their 
 enemies, after a silly experiment, confessed they were too 
 weak to form a Government. For thirty-three long years 
 1 Lady Mary Coventry, daughter of the eighth Earl.
 
 3l6 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 I gave hopeless votes for Reform, Catholics, Dissenters, 
 and black men, but all has been accomplished, and 
 I may now sing the song of Simeon, and be let depart 
 in peace. 
 
 P.S. We have got rain at last as a godsend, though 
 it may not be relished at Aberdeen and Ramsgate, 
 and I delighted in a damp, wet day as an excuse for 
 a fire. The measures of Government have produced 
 much tranquillity in Ireland, 1 and Cobbett refuses to 
 attend political unions. The home politics look peace- 
 ably, and the good harvest will give a quiet winter. If 
 the foolish lords had not sneaked off in time it might 
 have provoked the people to a revolution. As for 
 foreign politics, Spain and Portugal are too priest- 
 ridden for a free constitution, and as for those gemini 
 of baboons, Pedro and Miguel, nobody cares if they 
 were at the bottom of the Douro. The foolery of your 
 Yacht Club, with its commodores, vice-commodores, 
 and salutes is really sickening. I am sorry it is to 
 make us ridiculous at Cherbourg. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, September 7 th, 1833. 
 
 JOSEPH and his friend steamed to Ramsgate on that 
 dreadful Friday, though they arrived there before the 
 storm was violent. They had the rashness to attempt 
 their return the next day, but the tornado still continued 
 and forced them back, after six hours of a tremendous 
 
 1 Measures reducing the incomes of the bishops of the Irish 
 Church, and throwing the payment of tithe on the landlord, 
 and Acts for the reform of grand and petty juries.
 
 SEPT. 7, 1833-] WILLIAM IV. 317 
 
 sea, during which they saw vessels founder. However, 
 he reached home on Monday last. 
 
 If I had a numerous family, my sons obligingly supply 
 me with every chance of its diminution which wind and 
 weather can afford. Foote said to a man with twelve 
 children, " When do you begin to drown ? " 
 
 The Windsor treasurer grumbles terribly at snug 
 dinners to one hundred and twenty tags and rags every 
 week. Yet poor William has no other expenses, for he 
 buys no pictures, statues, racehorses, nor diamonds for 
 pretty ladies. His babies, they say, pillage him, as the 
 parish does not feed illegitimates ; and he was literally 
 removed from the Admiralty for his expensive tours to 
 the seaports, to make speeches of four hours' length to 
 unhappy tars who would have been flogged if they did 
 not listen. 
 
 In the present New Monthly Magazine, the tenth 
 continuation of Lady Blessington's " Conversations with 
 Lord Byron " is given. In it he paints, in a most elo- 
 quent and enchanting manner, the character of his sister, 
 your friend Mrs. Leigh, and which we know she well 
 deserves. He delighted in mystification, and I believe 
 he humbugged Lady Byron a good deal. " Lights and 
 Shadows of German Life " is a bundle of pretty stories. 
 
 I am in high feather for a gentleman who on the 23rd 
 of next January will complete the age of eighty years, 
 and has survived almost all his contemporaries, after a 
 happier life than most men have experienced, if he 
 could blot from memory one deprivation as premature 
 as irreparable.
 
 318 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, October 2yd, 1833. 
 
 LONDON, of course, is a desert. Nobody left but 
 beggars and Cabinet Ministers. The Radicals gone to 
 Brighton to swamp the pierage, and I suppose that of 
 Southampton, being only illustrious by courtesy, will 
 follow its predecessor. Captain Ross l is the lion of 
 the day, has dined and grogged with messmate William 
 at Windsor. I long for the publication of his log 
 book, and his account of those amiable Esquimaux, who 
 must have read penny magazines or got Brougham's 
 schoolmaster to polish them. 
 
 I find the fame of my erudition and talent is estab- 
 lished all over Europe. King Philippe has founded in 
 France " La Societe Statistique." All the crowned heads 
 are directors. A hundred English members are nomi- 
 nated, and associated with the other savants of the 
 universe. To-day I have received a diploma as an 
 honorary brother, splendidly engraved and signed. The 
 Due de Montmorency is President, who requests my 
 assent through the Viscount Palmerston, as that 
 minister is instructed by his royal master to forward 
 gratuitously all such important communications to him. 
 
 As I expect you will now treat me with more respect, 
 I have thought it right to mention so new and so 
 unexpected an honour. To compare great things with 
 small, I will now transcribe for you a letter from the 
 proprietor of the Learned Pig, to a Cheshire friend 
 of mine. 
 
 1 Sir John Ross, the famous Arctic explorer. He had just 
 returned from his second expedition of 1829.
 
 NOV. 21, 1833.] THE LEARNED PIG. 319 
 
 " SIR, Having had the honour to exhibit my sapient 
 pig at Sir Thomas Stanley's, Baronet, at Alderley Park, 
 at Honourable T. Erskine's at Adlington Hall, in the 
 drawing-room, to the greatest admiration, at the Duke 
 of Devonshire's at Chatsworth, and at Sir P. Egerton's, 
 and nearly at all the nobilities and halls in Europe, 
 I will call to know if I am to bring it up clean before 
 company. 
 
 " The quadruped is clean in his exploits, and I hope 
 to have the honour to attend. " J. BERMET." 
 
 Pray inform William that I will leave Hany Bun- 
 bury 's clever drawing of the old jockeys in Curzon 
 Street. They are rather portraits than caricatures. I 
 make out of the whole group of fifteen or twenty 
 very few Duke of Grafton, Lord Clermont, Lord J. 
 Hamilton, old Mr. Vernon, Mr. Wastell, Sir C. Bunbury 
 in the margin, and Colonel O'Kelly, the owner of the 
 famous Eclipse. The late King made them all out. 
 The drawing is in perfect preservation, but very dirty. 
 It must be varnished and cleaned by means not to 
 injure water-colours. 
 
 Henry Fox's Coventry wife is little, and not to be 
 called pretty, but she will be very rich, so the Hollands 
 will not vote her to Coventry again. 
 
 November 2\st, 1833. 
 
 THANKS for your letter and Lord Surrey's account 
 of his eccentric neighbour Stanhope. An old friend of 
 mine was his contemporary at Eton and Cambridge, 
 and found him at Paris in 1816, where he had lived
 
 320 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 through all the storms of the Revolution, and had 
 escaped the guillotine. 
 
 He had a wife and children with him. Went to bed 
 in the afternoon, and got up for his wife's soirees and 
 musical parties. My friend added that the Lord 
 Chesterfield could not hammer the graces into him. 
 Stanhope is a man of parts and reading. 
 
 Farebrother, the Lord Mayor, is an auctioneer. Some- 
 body asked which way his politics inclined, and was 
 answered by "always to the best bidder." 
 
 Emigration goes on. On Tuesday Lady Jersey sent 
 me a note about a charity vote, and added that they 
 were going abroad only for a few months. 
 
 Lord Palmerston is to be congratulated, for he has 
 got Lady Holland for his neighbour in Stanhope Street. 
 With her usual spirit of domination and restlessness 
 she has seized and possessed herself of her poor, quiet 
 son-in-law's l mansion for cabinet dinners ; and most 
 likely will attempt to enthrone herself at the head of 
 the table, and suggest secret measures for the conduct 
 of ministers in Spain, Portugal, and Belgium. I saw 
 Mrs. Bowles yesterday near Palmerston's, but did not 
 stop her to announce this new volunteer in the Cabinet. 
 
 Joseph and I dined last week with Rogers, who is 
 going to publish the "Pleasures of Memory" with 
 engravings like his " Italy." We had Tom Moore in 
 high glee, and that oddity little Kenney, the successful 
 author of Raising the Wind, and other clever farces. 
 A merry day. 
 
 1 Lord Lilford.
 
 NOV. 21, 1833.] LADY BLESSINGTON'S EPIGRAM. 321 
 
 Read " Trevelyan," a very clever novel, by the widow 
 of Admiral Scott, a relation of Sir Walter. I hear she 
 also wfote another of merit called " The Inheritance." 
 
 They say our unwashed bencher, Sir E. Wetherell, 
 wanted to marry some plebeian miss, 1 who preferred 
 the most noble the Marquis of Ailesbury, because he 
 was thirty years older than herself. 
 
 And they say also that Doctor Halford is not to 
 marry one of the princesses of the House of Brunswick, 
 to the great vexation of the College of Physicians. 
 
 But I must finish for I had rather be put on 
 Cobbett's gridiron than write across so I send my 
 benediction to Benedict and Co. 
 
 LINES BY LADY BLESSINGTON. 
 
 To a Friend* who, in her presence, had received a very rude 
 answer on account of his deafness. 
 
 Giuseppe's head's so stored with wit, 
 
 That, fearing in a lapse of years 
 It might be sullied, time thought fit 
 
 To keep it safe, so closed his ears. 
 Thus he escapes each noisy bore, 
 
 Whose dulness might his/ drums invade. 
 And happy, heard not Bufo's roar, 
 
 Nor the coarse joke the blockhead brayed. 
 But when our modern Attic Bee, 3 
 
 With sparkling wit delights the ring, 
 The hoarded honey all may see, 
 
 Though few have ever felt the sting. 
 July lot h, 1833. M. B. 
 
 1 Lady Ailesbury's birth was scarcely plebeian. She was the 
 daughter of the Hon. Charles Tollemache. 
 - The friend was probably Mr. Joseph Jekyll. 
 3 A name given to Lady Blessington's friend by Lord Byron. 
 
 21
 
 322 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY [CH. x. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, January 2nd, 1834. 
 
 NOTHING like glorious London for quiet and 
 retirement, you shut out the pack of Cossacks called 
 morning visitors, who, tired of themselves, claim a right 
 to tire the rest of the world. Mr. Hood, the most 
 disagreeable of men, next door to you, dares not knock 
 as neighbour Hood ; but if Mr. Hood lives three miles 
 off in the country from you he rides over as neighbour 
 Hood, and perhaps forces you to dine with him and his 
 merry family the first moonlight night. Nor have I 
 been solitary, for my two little boys have remained in 
 the nursery. There is another reason also for an epistle 
 to you. We old gentlemen are disappearing so rapidly 
 that it is necessary to afford some proof of being alive. 
 Your neighbour of Cadlands I see has departed, and 
 poor Sotheby is no more. Of what he died I am 
 ignorant, as it is a long time since I saw him. 
 
 He was a man of considerable talents and many 
 virtues, as a husband and parent exemplary, kind, 
 friendly, generous, and charitable. Many of his original 
 compositions were highly poetical, but his principal 
 fame will rest on his translations. His " Virgil," his 
 " Wieland," and I think, too, his " Homer," manifest 
 a scholar's intimacy with the idiom of their respective 
 languages, and extraordinary facility of versification. 
 
 Joseph has been really in distress at a late event. 
 Newton, the American painter, with whom and 
 Washington Irving he went abroad two years ago, 
 and to whom he has been long attached, manifested 
 symptoms of insanity last month, and is now in a private
 
 JAN. 24, 1834.] INSANITY OF NEWTON, R.A. 323 
 
 house of reception for lunatics. Independent of his high 
 talents as an artist, his pleasing manners had been a 
 passport into the best society. Pour conible de malheur, 
 a pretty little wife he brought from America last summer, 
 has just produced an infant, and is interdicted by the 
 physician from seeing him. Washington Irving, his 
 friend, has left England for ever, but Joseph's kind 
 feelings have been exerted in every arrangement for 
 him. There is no violence, but singular delusions, 
 which, I believe, Joseph first discovered. 1 
 
 The confusion of tongues at Broadlands I suppose 
 has terminated, and Palmerston returned to Talleyrand 
 and protocols. 
 
 The Tory chateaux have also assumed as much 
 Christmas gaiety as they were able to pretend. The 
 newspapers mentioned an untoward accident at the ball 
 of Hatfield House, where the dancers unluckily threw 
 down the Dowager Marchioness of Salisbury, and behold 
 it is now written thus : 
 
 "Conservatives at Hatfield House 
 Are really harum-scarum ; 
 What worse could the Reformers do 
 Than overset Old Sarum ? " 
 
 Friday, January 24^/1, 1 834. 
 
 ROGERS sends me his costly and splendid volume 
 with proof prints, 2 price two guineas and a half. The 
 engravings beautiful, after Turner and Stothard. 
 
 1 This madness ended in the painter's death a twelvemonth 
 later. 
 
 - The " Italy," now a rare and valuable book.
 
 324 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 Sir Charles Flint died last week, at the age of fifty- 
 four only ; he was a pleasant, clever man. Lamartine 
 the poet disappointed the Chamber of Deputies at Paris 
 lately by a speech much inferior to what was expected 
 from him ; but every poet is not an Orator. 
 
 La Duchesse de Guiche (the relation, if not the mother, 
 of Le Comte d'Orsay) is possessed of an authentic 
 Memoir, if not a journal, of that madcap the Duchess of 
 Berri l during all her Quixotic escapades in La Vendee. 
 The Duchess de Guiche does not know Lady Blessing- 
 ton but as a good writer, and volunteers these curious 
 papers to her for publication in English. It will be a 
 most amusing book. 
 
 Among the delusions of Joseph's poor friend Newton, 
 the painter, he believes he is Lord Dudley, and that the 
 house of confinement he is consigned to is his own, and 
 the gift of the Duke of Wellington. 
 
 Poor Lady Lyndhurst has followed her generous 
 friend Lord Dudley most rapidly. From the strange 
 legacies he left it is said his will is to be contested on 
 the ground of insanity. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, Wednesday, January 30^, 1834. 
 
 LADY HOLLAND sends affectionate notes to invite 
 Joseph to dinner, and the sage never goes. Edward 
 
 1 Caroline, daughter of Ferdinand I., King of the Two Sicilies, 
 and wife of the Due de Berri, second son of Charles X. She 
 tried to raise a civil war in France against Louis Philippe in 
 1832, but was captured and imprisoned in November of the 
 same year. This book of Memoirs does not seem to have been 
 published.
 
 MARCH 10, 1834.] GOSSIP. 325 
 
 has escorted the Bishop of London with a Guard of 
 Honour, who came in lawn sleeves to consecrate part 
 of the Tower Ditch as a Pere la Chaise for their dead 
 Grenadiers, and they erected a tent for the Right 
 Reverend Prelate's prayer and luncheon on the model I 
 suppose of that in the Isle of Paultons. 
 
 Rogers declared to-day here that he had never seen 
 Byron's horrible verses. The assertion seems rather 
 poetical. Poor Manning called, and from anxiety and 
 misfortune looks ninety years old. Wolff has left his 
 wife, Lord Orford's sister, these two years at Malta, and 
 is preaching at Babylon. 
 
 Lady Dacre's " Chaperone " is no great performance. 
 Godwin, the author of " Caleb Williams," is about to 
 publish " Deloraine," a novel which raises expectations. 
 " The Georgian Era " is come out in four stupid volumes, 
 and contains, I am told, a life of myself with more 
 lies than lines in it. 
 
 It was right to make Sutton Speaker. There was 
 no one from experience so fit, and a Speaker's politics 
 are immaterial, as he cannot display partiality, and 
 never attempted it during the two years' war on the 
 Reform Bill. 
 
 Besides in these times the Whigs should abstain from 
 the example of rancour adopted by their opponents. 
 
 Monday, March \Qth, 1834. 
 
 DULNESS itself. I have not read Miss Edgeworth 1 
 nor heard much in her praise. I was in hopes of some 
 1 She had just Published her last novel, " Helen."
 
 326 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 Irish stories, of which I heard the following yesterday. 
 When the Custom House was on fire some years ago, 
 they dragged out of the cellars all casks of inflammable 
 liquor, and threw so many pipes of port wine into the 
 Thames as to discolour the water. 
 
 An Irish labourer said to his companion, " Why, Pat, 
 I have heard tell of the river Tagus, but I never saw 
 the river Nagus before." 
 
 Bulwer's " Pilgrims of the Rhine " is most fantastical, 
 and bedizened with pretty pictures of the newly adopted 
 fashion. 
 
 Yesterday came anonymously a present of a novel 
 of three volumes called " The Hamiltons," from the 
 author of " Mothers and Daughters," whom I do not 
 know, but I suspect my friend Mrs. Gore. 3 
 
 God knows where our poor new Attorney-General 
 is to get a seat in the House. If he had duly read 
 the Scriptures, he would have learned that the borough 
 of Dudley is like unto the eye of a needle, and difficult 
 of access to a camel. 
 
 " Imaginative Biography," by Sir Egerton Brydges, ;! 
 is not ill done. 
 
 Poor Macaulay was much alarmed just before he 
 
 1 They are both by Mrs. Gore, and both published in 1831. 
 
 2 Sir John, afterwards Lord Campbell. Three months after 
 his rejection at Dudley he was returned for Edinburgh. Lord 
 Campbell is now best remembered as the author of " Lives of the 
 Chancellors" and " Lives of the Lord Chief Justices." 
 
 3 Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, the Early English editor and 
 genealogist. His autobiography was published the same year. 
 He died in 1837.
 
 JULY 18, 1834.] RESIGNATION OF LORD GREY. 327 
 
 departed for India with an eruption on the lip, which 
 he feared was cancerous ; but it was dispelled entirely 
 by a very slight excision, for 10,000 annual salary 
 would not have balanced it. 
 
 A lady asked this of an Irish physician, " Doctor, 
 how do you treat a cold?" "Why, madam," said the 
 doctor, " I treat a cold as I do a lumbago, with sovereign 
 contempt." 
 
 So my blessing on you all, though I am no bishop, 
 nor desire it, as it seems they are likely to be put on 
 half pay. 
 
 Friday, July i8//fc, 1834. 
 
 THANKS for a satisfactory bulletin. So you are 
 really a grandmama ! What a venerable personage in 
 your bloom. Don't despair of your small descendant. 
 George III. came into the world as long before he 
 was invited, and lived long enough to survive every- 
 body else, as well as the interests of England. 
 
 We have had a famous political pantomime, and our 
 theatre was in danger from a flare-up of the actors ; * 
 but we have patched up the scenery, got a new 
 harlequin, and trust a generous public will permit us 
 to play through the season. 
 
 Yesterday I had a letter signed " Richmond, Suther- 
 land, and Holland," desiring a subscription to present 
 Lady Grey with a statue of her husband at the cost 
 
 Lord Melbourne's Administration. Earl Grey had resigned 
 on July Qth, on the rejection of the Irish Coercion Bill in the 
 Commons.
 
 328 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 of 2,000 guineas. Now the statue of a great statesman 
 should be in public, and not consigned to a boudoir ; 
 but I believe it is a rule in that case that the great 
 statesman should die first, which probably a great 
 statesman and his wife might object to. 
 
 This bustle and the eternity of parliamentary sittings 
 keep London in a state of interest and soireety ; but 
 the Captain describes Almacks last Wednesday as 
 manifesting a desertion of beauties. Lord Hertford 
 invites me to dance at a ball in the Regent's Park 
 next week, but I decline passing so near the Zoological 
 Garden, as I might be caught and shut up for life as 
 a singular specimen of a dancing animal. 
 
 All extraordinaries are dying, so I wonder at my 
 existence. Michael Angelo [Taylor] is gone, and so is 
 St. John Long, whose epitaph I proposed from Hamlet's 
 
 soliloquy 
 
 " Ay, there's the rub." 
 
 Of love affairs I have nothing to report except an 
 epigram on elopement : 
 
 " If Margaret Watson ran away, 
 I'll bet a golden guinea 
 'Twas only to convince papa 
 She was both Peg and Ninny." 
 
 If one's lady friends will write novels one is bound 
 in conscience to read them. Lady Morley calls herself 
 only the editor of " Dacre," but it is suspected to be a 
 joint performance by herself, and her niece and nephew- 
 Mr, and Mrs. Lister. It turns on a fact equally im- 
 probable and impossible. Lady C. Bury gives us two
 
 JULY 18, 1834.] PROUT AND STANFIELD. 329 
 
 stories, the " Disinherited " and the " Ensnared " the 
 latter the best, but both feeble in the catastrophe. 
 But read Poet Campbell's life of Mrs. Siddons, which 
 is much better than the miserable book by Boaden. 
 
 To show the contrast in character of Mrs. Siddons* 
 correspondents, he gives a letter from Hannah More, 
 and another from Joseph Jekyll. Rogers tells me that 
 Lady Morley's father, a Norwich apothecary, of the 
 name of Talbot, left her 2,000, with which she went 
 abroad to accomplish herself, in company with Lady 
 Cholmondeley. At Rome a rich citizen of London 
 desired to marry her, as he said it had been clear to 
 him that she was descended from Sir John Talbot, who 
 is represented as a man of rank in Shakespeare's 
 tragedy of Henry VI. But she preferred Morley, who 
 found her one morning copying a Raffaelle in the 
 Vatican. 
 
 Samuel Prout, the artist, quarrelled with Stanfield, 
 the scene painter, for putting over the door of a green- 
 grocer's shop in a pantomime, 
 
 S. PROUT. 
 
 Now you are to come fairly to an anchor. I have 
 ordered the Herald to you, which is grown almost Tory, 
 and will not indemnify you for William's Standard. In 
 revenge, I wish him sour ale and the worst toasting 
 cheese TafTyland can supply. I envy my native soil 
 nothing but the possession of your sister. 1 
 
 The heat yesterday was uncommon, but I am very 
 
 1 Lady Cawdor.
 
 33O MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 well, and all the better for it, for I am such a chilly 
 crater that I should not object to take a summer 
 lodging on the ground floor in Vesuvius. I had always 
 more gaiety than Sturges Bourne's under jaw ; and even 
 in the gout I never think with despondency of the end 
 of the world, though I am getting personally so very 
 near it. 
 
 I am glad, however, I am not William IV.'s " old 
 woman," as he calls her, for I should have been sick 
 seventeen hours on my voyage to Rotterdam, with all 
 my maids of honour and maids without honour sick 
 round me, and nobody but Lady Errol to bring me a 
 basin. 
 
 Saturday, August 2oth, 1834. 
 
 A LETTER to-day from Lord Clifden. Thanks to the 
 Coercion Bill, he reports Kilkenny the riotous as quiet 
 as. Hampshire, says the rejection of the Tithe Bill is 
 starving the parsons, that the wheat harvest has been 
 saved, but that as corn is as cheap as it was seventy 
 years ago rents will be problematic. He adds that the 
 Lord-Lieutenant 1 is clear and strong in head and mind. 
 
 Read "Truth and Anecdotes of the ipth Century," 
 three volumes. Amusing, and has not been puffed like 
 the stuff called fashionable novels ; and Crabbe's 2 son has 
 added to his father's works a volume of unpublished 
 verses. 
 
 1 Marquess Wellesley. 
 
 - In the complete edition of Crabbe's works, published by 
 Murray in eight volumes, 1834.
 
 SEPT. 20, 1834.] MR. JEKYLL A BOTANIST. 331 
 
 September loth, 1834. 
 
 THE Captain arrived this morning at daylight, and 
 in an hour set off to Windsor on military duty, so I 
 hardly saw him. On his return he must be contented 
 to beat the covers of St. James's Street, get a shot at 
 some of Crockford's l pigeons, or bag a few old Boodlers. 
 
 William, I conclude, like Nebuchadnezzar, is walking 
 on all fours to recover his footing with the quadrupeds 
 of Newmarket, and your youthful quartette of emigrants 
 are preparing to cheat Beddome of emetics by steaming 
 up the Rhine with beau Monde of Fleet Street and 
 Whitechapel. Joseph says travelling in foreign parts is 
 an infantine disease, like measles and whooping cough, 
 which he is satisfied to have had so favourably, and 
 which, like those calamities, are not likely to recur. 
 
 Four or five cronies of mine have places about 
 Richmond, Sheen, and Roehampton, so I sometimes take 
 a villa-nous day with them. Mrs. Gwyn lately showed 
 me (as she knew I loved conservatories) the exotic 
 gardens of Kew, and told her neighbour H.R.H. the 
 Duke of Cumberland of it when he called to take leave 
 of her. " You did well," said the illustrious Duke, " for 
 I know that among his other acquirements Jekyll is 
 admitted to be one of the best botanists in Europe." 
 Now this is a new feather in my cap, for you well know 
 that so little of King Solomon's wisdom do I possess, 
 that I cannot distinguish between " the cedar of 
 Lebanon and the hyssop on the wall." 
 
 1 The noted gaming house in St. James's Street kept by 
 William Crockford, now the Devonshire Club.
 
 332 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 Let no royalty visit Hampshire, for it is a most 
 regicide county. You began by murdering William 
 Rufus for no other reason I could ever learn, except 
 your dislike to red hair. You nearly murdered King 
 Charles in the dungeons of Hurst and Carisbrooke, 
 and now you have murdered the poor Queen of Spain 
 at Gosport. 
 
 Tuesday, December gth, 1834. 
 
 OUR crisis * here has been entertaining, and Peel is 
 expected to-day. I wish he could have remained long 
 enough at Rome to have learnt Mosaic, of which party- 
 coloured materials our Cabinets have been constructed 
 for twenty years, and for want of cement have fallen to 
 pieces. The Whigs squall out, " Let us depart, for the 
 Reformers grow too impatient." The Tories squall out, 
 " Let us come in, and we will be very good boys, and 
 become Reformers ourselves." However, the country is 
 safe by the Reform Bill ; for as no minister can remain 
 in office now by corrupt Parliaments, he must act with 
 the approbation of the country, or lose his cabinet in 
 a couple of months. 
 
 Pinney pere called yesterday, and said his son has 
 a contest at Lyme ; for old Westmorland has repaired 
 his breaches with the corporation, and to revive an 
 
 1 William IV. dismissed the Melbourne Administration quite 
 suddenly on November I5th, and sent for the Duke of Wellington. 
 The Duke advised the King to place Sir R. Peel at the head 
 of the new Administration. Peel was in Italy, and the Duke held 
 the seals until he reached London on December gth, when the 
 Duke took office under him as Foreign Secretary.
 
 JAN. 19, 1835.] EFFECT OF SYDNEY SMITH'S SERMON. 333 
 
 interest as obsolete as the leather article of his costume, 
 starts Lord Burghersh. I do not envy you the braying 
 of your county politics. 
 
 January igt/t, 1835. 
 
 SOMEBODY complimented Sydney Smith on a 
 chanty sermon he had preached, to which the divine 
 wag replied, " I believe it was effective, for old Lady 
 Cork borrowed a sovereign of a stranger in the pew to 
 put in the plate, and scuttled out of sight before he 
 could catch her again." 
 
 Charity should not begin at home. The King has 
 given 1,000 a year to Lady Mary Fox, as her husband 1 
 has lost his place, which was their only income. I con- 
 gratulate you most cordially that the foolery and violence 
 of your county is over. 
 
 The hospitality of Windsor is very little afforded to 
 His Majesty's ministers, who are kept on board wages 
 while the family visits Sion House, Kenwood, Hertford's 
 Villas, and other conservatories. I congratulate you 
 on Morpeth's success in a very complicated business, 
 though I cared but little for the speeches, as the only 
 real question in the debate was, whether on a polling 
 match Peel or Melbourne should be churchwarden of 
 our parish for the next three months, and the victory 
 has still to meet the fury of the Lords. 
 
 Of course I read all the trash daily vomited by 
 publication. " Tales of the Peerage and the Peasantry," 
 edited, if not written, by Lady Dacre, are two pretty 
 1 Henry, fourth Lord Holland.
 
 334 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 stories ; and Mrs. Shelley l has written a clever novel 
 called " Lodore," in which there is such a pretty, loving 
 couple that the reader feels as if he had dined upon 
 sweetmeats. Don't read Captain Ross, for it is more 
 tiresome than going to the North Pole in person. I 
 hope if there is to be a double crop of Yeomanry Cavalry 
 in Hampshire half your squires who get no rents, and 
 half your farmers who can't pay any, will divide into 
 two armies, and send half the warriors to fight for the 
 young Queen of Spain. 
 
 March loth, 1835. 
 
 YOUR solicitude about me is not thrown away, and 
 I feel all the kindness of it. I pronounce myself 
 perfectly well, as the old Lord Liverpool concluded 
 all his sentences, " in every respect whatsoever." 
 
 Poor Manning, whom I had not seen for a long time, 
 called last week, broken down, altered, and shattered all 
 to pieces. He has had losses " enough to weigh a royal 
 merchant down," when everything was shipwrecked but 
 his honour, as Francis I. said after his defeat at Pavia. 
 
 Lord Albert Conyngham's translation of the " Natural 
 Son," from the German, is well done, and worth reading. 
 So is Washington Irving's little volume of "A Tour 
 to the Prairies." 
 
 No truth in Wellington's resignation, but the lies 
 on all sides are intolerable. The present Ministry 2 is a 
 
 1 Maty Woolstonecroft Shelley, wife of the poet, and author 
 of " Frankenstein," etc. 
 
 2 Sir R. Peel's Government. They were defeated on April 4th,
 
 AUG. 27, 1835.] THE PEEL ADMINISTRATION. 335 
 
 mere experiment, and its existence depends on the 
 chapter of accidents ; though, thanks to the Reform Bill, 
 no worthless Cabinet can ever again maintain its post 
 long. But unfortunately, such is the splitting of parties, 
 that whatever Cabinet succeeds them will be sure to 
 encounter a very formidable opposition, so that I think 
 our national prosperity is postponed for a serious 
 period. 
 
 The merry Doctor of Swatling visited me last week, 
 and I saw by his cheerfulness that the Southampton 
 railway was now sure to be accomplished. Edward is 
 recruiting in the north of Devon, and I expect every 
 day to hear he is on the King's duty at Windsor, a 
 quarter, strange to say, all the officers dislike. He 
 expects to be sent to Brighton, so will be an alien to 
 the paternal roof for some months. 
 
 Fine ladies are beginning to muster, operas are 
 announced, and I see Lady Cawdor at the Drawing- 
 room, so expect you will not linger much longer in the 
 politics of Belvoir. 
 
 August 2jth, 1835. 
 
 A LETTER from you always delights me, but you 
 send me an unpleasant story of dear Caroline, and the 
 loss of her poor little Neapolitan. It seems decided by 
 the Fates that you do not look sufficiently solemn and 
 respectable for a grandmama. 
 
 on Lord J. Russell's resolution in Committee of the Irish Church 
 Bill, and resigned the following day, when Lord Melbourne again 
 took office.
 
 336 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 As to public affairs, Windsor is full of foreign princes, 
 and luckily our Sovereign's French is not so fluent as 
 his English. The Lords are delighting the Radicals 
 with the hopes of confusion and a Republic, and they 
 are gratifying the Pope and O'Connell by starving the 
 poor Protestant parsons of Ireland. I am very well, 
 very lame, a double-distilled bookworm, and a worse 
 joker than ever. I can recommend nothing for your 
 studies. Mrs. Norton's " Coquette " is dull. In a life 
 of Sir J. Mackintosh she writes thus after a visit at 
 Dunrobin : 
 
 " The most remarkable feature of the place was its 
 mistress, a woman of great understanding, spirit, and 
 dignity, with more of the character and talents of a 
 queen than any other female whom I have seen." 
 
 Lord Canterbury is so totally ruined that he sells all 
 he has, and becomes a fugitive in foreign parts. Three 
 generations of extravagance himself, his father, and 
 his son. I will now send you some squibs, showered 
 upon me by my neighbour, James Smith, of the 
 " Rejected Addresses." 
 
 "Where'er a hatchment we discern 
 It hath before ne'er started, 
 The motto makes us surely learn 
 The sex of the departed. 
 If 'tis the husband sleeps, he deems 
 Death's day a felix dies 
 Of unaccustomed quiet dreams, 
 And cries in ccelo quies. 
 But if the wife, she from the tomb, 
 Wounds Parthian, like, post tergum, 
 Hints to her spouse his future doom, 
 And threatening cries ' Resurgam* "
 
 DEC. 7, 1835.] JAMES SMITH'S VERSES. 337 
 
 EPIGRAM ON A NOSE. 
 
 " A truth erst unnoticed now drops from my pen, 
 The nose and its actions all start with S N ; 
 The fact, as I state it, is placed beyond doubt, 
 Snort, snivel, sneeze, snigger, sniff, snarl, sneer, and snout." 
 
 I asked James Smith " why he never married." He 
 replied : 
 
 " Should I seek Hymen's tie? 
 
 As a poet I die, 
 Ye Benedicts mourn my distresses. 
 
 For what little fame 
 
 Is annexed to my name 
 Is derived from ' Rejected Addresses.' " 
 
 ON THE CITY OF LIMERICK PROPOSING TO ELECT 
 TOM MOORE THE POET. 
 
 "When Limerick in idle whim 
 
 Moore as her member lately courted, 
 The boys, for fun's sake, asked of him 
 
 To state what party he supported. 
 When thus the answer glibly ran, 
 
 ' My friends, I scorn to tell a story, 
 I am a Whig, sirs, as a man, 
 
 But as a poet am a Tory.'' " 
 
 Morning Herald is a twaddling, lying paper, pro- 
 fessing reform and abusing the Whigs, but I like to 
 read the enemy to counteract my daily perusal of the 
 Morning Chronicle. Herald said yesterday, " The Duke 
 of Rutland was dead from the bite of a mad dog 
 inflicted five years ago ! " 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, December 7/A, 1835. 
 I AM in the Park daily with my coterie of dowagers, 
 and have levees of gossips to murder my books and my
 
 338 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 time. To chronicle and contradict the falsehoods they 
 and the hostile garreteers of the newspapers supply 
 would fill a folio ; and faction is grown so virulent and 
 vulgar that Whig and Tory aldermen cannot be brought 
 together by turtle. The wisdom at the pavilion I think, 
 if it had materials, would not be disinclined to da capo 
 the successful farce of last year. The Mayor of Oxford 
 apologised to Charles II. for omitting a royal salute 
 when the King entered that city. He said he had three 
 excuses, and the first was that he had no cannon. The 
 King graciously dispensed with the other two. 
 
 The two-year-old person on the throne of Spain is 
 a long time scratching and biting her uncle, and the 
 French House of Peers, though reformed, is a long time 
 puzzled how 'to hang a gentleman, 1 who admits he has 
 murdered a whole covey of marshals. 
 
 We are going on as merrily as usual here, steamers 
 killing parties of pleasure, suicides at each of the six 
 bridges, railroads burying labourers alive, Poor Laws 
 fattening paupers in St. George's parish, and creating 
 gluttons and epicures at thirteenpence per week, a 
 tragedy at Hatfield House, 2 and Mr. Braham opening a 
 new Opera House. 3 
 
 1 Fieschi, who in attempting the assassination of Louis Philippe 
 on July 28th, killed many of the suite and some bystanders. 
 He was condemned to death, and guillotined, after long debates 
 in the House of Peers. 
 
 3 The death of the Dowager Marchioness of Salisbury. She 
 was burnt in her boudoir in a fire which destroyed a part of the 
 palace, and which it is supposed was caused by Lady Salisbury's 
 head-dress catching fire at a candle. 
 
 3 The St. James's Theatre.
 
 DEC. 7, 1835.] LADY COLCHESTER. 339 
 
 Joseph maintains his hereditary love of a metropolis, 
 and thinks rustication has no vitality, and could not be 
 revived by the Humane Society. Old George III. con- 
 doled with the Austrian minister because ambassadors 
 could not leave London. " Sir," replied his Excellency, 
 " I am not fond of duck -hunting and other usual country 
 sports." 
 
 My little poetess, Elizabeth Law, writes for my con- 
 sent to marry Lord Colchester after Christmas, to which 
 I have agreed. He is a very excellent man, has property 
 in Sussex and his father's pension as Speaker, and the 
 mother has a good jointure to fall in. Elizabeth has 
 her ;i 5,000, is, I think, thirty-six years old, and a 
 year older than the bridegroom. Lord Colchester was 
 a famous good scholar at Westminster, and his father 
 tried hard to prevent his entering the Navy ; but he is 
 now a captain and distinguished officer. 
 
 A friend of mine tells me to-day he saw the ci-devant 
 Lady Ellenborough last summer at Munich ; she has 
 married a Bavarian Baron, whose name I can neither 
 spell nor pronounce. She is received at Court and 
 everywhere. The ladies of the Bavarian Almack's know 
 all her pranks, and say the poor child was sacrificed in 
 marriage in London to an old, rich, ugly Lord. Her 
 liaison with the King is never denied. The King is 
 a man of talents. My friend saw in one of his palaces 
 a fine painted ceiling of the " Triumph of Neptune," and 
 among the sea-nymphs discovered the portrait of Lady 
 Ellenborough, which the King had given orders to 
 introduce, and which the guide reported readily.
 
 340 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 Old Lord Stowell, aged ninety, and now unconscious 
 of events, has lost his only son, a dissipated man, so the 
 new peerage is extinct. His brother, Lord Eldon, lost 
 all his sons, and his earldom descends to his grandson, 
 Lord Encombe, to whom will probably pass the principal 
 amount of his great riches. Lord Stowell, I know, has 
 22,000 a year. I trust he will not fail towards his 
 daughter, Lady Sidmouth ; but she has no descendants, 
 and is a valuable woman, though in very precarious 
 health. 
 
 Lord Eldon was reconciled to his eldest daughter, who 
 married Repton, 1 an architect. Her sister married a son 
 of my old friend and schoolfellow Bankes. 2 I should 
 not be surprised if the great mass of property these 
 two old Croesuses possess ultimately centred in Lord 
 Encombe. 
 
 King of Bavaria and a " Triumph of Neptune " remind 
 me of Corporal Trim's long story of the Seven Castles, 
 when he was puzzled by my Uncle Toby's asking him 
 why he called the King of Bohemia unfortunate ? 
 " Because," said Trim, " he has no seaport in his domi- 
 nions." " How could he," replied my Uncle, " seeing 
 that Bohemia is an inland country, and if near the sea 
 would cease to be Bohemia?" "It might have been 
 near the sea, your honour," quoth Trim, "if it had 
 pleased God." Uncle Toby could not deny this. 
 
 The city has rejected an Alderman because he is a 
 Jew, and a candidate literally of the name of Tagg has 
 
 1 George Stanley Repton. 
 
 * Henry Bankes, M.P. He died in 1834.
 
 JAN. 5, 1836.] POLITICAL SPECULATIONS. 341 
 
 been proposed. It is very pleasing to mark the delicacy 
 of Mr. Rag, and Mr. Bobtail, who decline coming 
 forward. 
 
 Lady Blessington tells me she thinks of writing a 
 book called " The Old Gentleman." I offered to sit to 
 her as a specimen of an old gentleman preserved in 
 spirits, and who laughs nearly as often as he did twenty 
 years ago. 
 
 It seems like a dream to reflect how imperceptibly 
 two years have elapsed since I saw Paultons, in all 
 gouty probability, for the last time, and I shall never 
 visit any other chateau. Don't forget the innumerable 
 and pleasant summers I have spent with you there, for 
 I never can. 
 
 January $th, 1836. 
 
 HEAVEN and earth are grown political, and we live in 
 a confusion of Tory frosts and Liberal thaws. But my 
 dowagering is of the juste milieu, so was only two days 
 suspended, during which a select party of sensible anti- 
 Reformers conserved themselves under water in the 
 Serpentine and canal. Except putting the New Palace 
 into the latter, it could hardly have been more tastefully 
 and beneficially applied. 
 
 As to knotting and splicing to make a new Ministry 
 I do not expect it, because I think it is impracticable, 
 and if practicable of no value ; and unless the good- 
 humoured fellow who keeps a table cTIwte at Brighton 
 could play over again the celebrated comedy of 
 November, which ran so few nights, I think he will
 
 342 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 remain contented with no other variation than a drive 
 to Shoreham on Monday and to Rottingdean on 
 Tuesday. 
 
 Volume the second of the ci-devant Lady Ellenborough. 
 *' My dear Queen," said His Majesty of Bavaria, " I 
 wish you would permit her to be presented." 
 
 "My dear King," said the Queen, "it is impossible. 
 Consider her position with respect to yourself. Why 
 don't you get her married, and then she would be 
 presented, of course ? " 
 
 " That may be difficult," quoth the King. 
 
 " Not the least," rejoined Her Majesty. " Order one 
 of your marshals or barons, and the man will be flattered 
 by the mark of your favour." 
 
 The thing was done. A baron was instantly found ; 
 old loves preserved ; and three people made happy. 
 
 Joanna Baillie's new " Dramas " l are curious but 
 unequal. Mrs. Trollope's " Paris " very amusing ; but if 
 you want humour read " Gilbert Gurney," by Theodore 
 Hook. Last week Alaric Watts, the poet, asked his 
 publisher, Murray, to dinner, and made him very 
 drunk. Hook said, " Watts turns his wine cellar into 
 his bookseller." 2 
 
 James Smith said here, just now, that Incledon, the 
 singer, once complained to him in the Green Room that 
 his headache was so intense that he should never be able 
 to sing " Mackheath " that evening. " The first song 
 
 1 " Dramas," three volumes, 1836. 
 
 2 The joke was made by Mr. Murray himself on refusing to take 
 more wine.
 
 JAN. 5, 1836.] JAMES SMITH. 343 
 
 will relieve you," said Smith. " How happy could I be 
 with ether ! " 
 
 James Smith's fame stands conspicuously on his 
 " Rejected Addresses," so I did not reject his address 
 to me yesterday, as followeth : 
 
 " DEAR G KILL, 1 congratulate U on the new Year 
 and on the Thaw. F U C A B settle on your window 
 U need not be surprised. There is a tame J at my neigh- 
 bour's on Northumberland K with wings L wide. M N ent 
 for Beauty of Plumage. You remember the O P War. 
 What a Q for passion it was. I wrote X L ent song 
 called ' Heigho ! says Kemble.' Not that I mean to 
 W in wit. Are U an F.R.S. ? They meet after T, but 
 not to drink XX. My Y Y Z is now exhausted." 
 
 In case the Hampshire brains remain as foggy as 
 formerly, I think it right to subjoin some glossary for 
 the use of country gentlewomen : 
 
 FUCAB If you see a bee. 
 
 A tame J = A tame jay. 
 
 Northumberland K = Quay. 
 
 M N ent = Eminent. 
 
 Q = Cue for passion. 
 
 To W in wit To double you in wit. 
 
 XX = A new sort of ale. 
 
 My Y Y Z = My wise head. 
 
 Death has been busy here. Poor Billy Churchill, who 
 died rich, and made a liberal will. I, too, lost Leycester 
 on Saturday last. His infirmities and very advanced age
 
 344 MR - JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY. [CH. x- 
 
 had taught me to expect the event at any moment. He 
 died without suffering, and maintained to the last his fine 
 temper and powerful intellect. A more exemplary and 
 beloved man never existed, and a blow which has severed 
 the uniform friendship of more than half a century is 
 severe. 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, March ////, 1836. 
 
 POLITICS in a droxvsy state. As yet the Lords have 
 nqt even yawned and stretched themselves, nor, even as 
 last year, talked in their sleep. The Commons as yet 
 gabble parish affairs, but next month may produce some 
 symptoms of animation, though the Ministry has never 
 stood in so safe a position as this session. 
 
 Lady Sidmouth derives for her life an enormous 
 income of many thousands, and her Lord resigns his 
 pension, an example which poor Lord Eldon will think 
 insanity. Old Stowell had an income of 23,000, and 
 began the world a college tutor. 
 
 Londonderry threatens to go abroad. I remember a 
 bad actor who was hissed at Paris turning round 
 indignantly on the pit and exclaiming, 
 
 " Publique ingrat ! Je te quitte." 
 
 Charles Hatchett, 1 the gentleman chemist, sent me his 
 
 1 A writer on scientific subjects, of some note in his day. He 
 was a member of the famous literary club founded by Johnson 
 and Reynolds in 1764, and he succeeded Dr. Burney as secretary 
 in 1814. He furnished Croker with a complete list of its 
 members, which appears in his "Boswell." The print men- 
 tioned is by J. C. Lewis, after T. Phillips. Hatchett died in 
 1847.
 
 MR. NORTON'S SUIT. 345 
 
 mezzotinto head on the 3Oth of January, and I thanked 
 him for selecting a day so appropriate to heads, 
 hatchets, and Charleses. 
 
 Smith, of the " Rejected Addresses," versified my note 
 to Hatchett, and put it into this number of the New 
 Monthly Magazine. 
 
 MARTIAL IN LONDON. 
 
 MR. JEKYLL TO MR. HATCHETT, ON RECEIVING HIS 
 PORTRAIT. 
 
 " An answer, Charles Hatchett, them claimest, 
 
 I'll make it both pithy and short ; 
 And surely so able a chemist 
 
 Can never refuse a retort. 
 Thy portrait, no painter can match it ; 
 
 I laugh at their critical snarls ; 
 Like Cromwell, I owe to a hatchet 
 
 My gaining the head of a Charles." 
 
 Monday, June 41/1, 1836 
 
 I HAVE seen since the trial several of Mrs. Norton's 
 letters to her most intimate female friends, and one 
 to the clergyman of the parish. They breathe the 
 air of innocence and indeed no human being gave 
 credit to the evidence. For the sake of the unfortunate 
 children she would even return to this luminous police 
 justice. The ass * thought antlers would be ornamental 
 to an animal of that species, but could not accomplish 
 them, so will now have to pay the expenses of Mel- 
 bourne and his own. His father, the old Lord Grantley, 
 
 1 The Hon. G. Norton, a police magistrate. He brought an 
 unsuccessful action against Lord Melbourne for crim. con.
 
 346 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOANE STANLEY, [en. x. 
 
 Speaker of the House of Commons, was the greatest 
 liar of his time, and on retiring the usual pension was 
 granted. John Wilkes said his title was composed of 
 his two favourite objects a grant and a lie. 
 
 I am very well, dowager daily ; and the town remains 
 full of loungers to infest me with morning visits. 
 
 My friend Mrs. Gore, who still resides at Paris, sends 
 me to-day her new novel of three volumes, " Mrs. 
 Armytage ; or, Female Domination." 
 
 I grow fastidious perhaps, but I have been consider- 
 ably bored by many new publications which are liked. 
 Wraxall's second series of Memoirs, 1 Cooper's " Switzer- 
 land," 2 Lawyer Talfourd's Tragedy, 3 Coleridge's * two 
 volumes, clever, but too abstruse and metaphysical for 
 ladies. 
 
 I grieve for the Duke of Gordon, 5 of whom I saw a 
 great deal for many years ; but I begin to outlive every- 
 body, and for no use. 
 
 When Monsieur de Tartines was Minister of the 
 Police Department at Paris, a vagabond was brought 
 before him for a hundred rogueries. The Minister 
 asked him what he had to say for himself. " Mon- 
 seigneur," said the culprit, " I must live" " Upon my 
 word," said the Minister, " I see no necessity for it." 
 
 So now for Hyde Park, after giving special orders 
 
 1 " Posthumous Memoirs of Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, Baronet." 
 
 2 " Excursions in Switzerland," by J. Fenimore Cooper. 
 
 3 I' on, a. tragedy in five Acts, by Sir James Noon Talfourd. 
 
 4 " Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of Samuel Taylor 
 Coleridge," two volumes, edited by T. Allsop. 
 
 5 George, fifth and last Duke.
 
 OCT. 4, 1836.] THE NOBLEMAN AND THE SQUIRE. 347 
 
 to my coachman not to run over any foreign prince, 
 potentate, margrave, vizier, stadtholder, or bashaw of 
 three tails, as the town really swarms with vermin 
 of the highest rank on the Continent ; and if we 
 possessed Whittington's cat, it would puzzle her which 
 she should destroy first. 
 
 Did I ever tell you the following story of that 
 pompous ass, the late Lord - ? 
 
 Blazing in his star and ribbon he met a country 
 gentleman wandering alone above stairs at the Opera, 
 in the passage to the private boxes. 
 
 " Are you the box-keeper ? " said the Marquis of 
 Carabas. 
 
 " No," said the Squire. " Are you ? " 
 
 SPRING GARDENS, October ^th, 1836. 
 
 As no one can form a better judgment on such a point, 
 I am glad to hear your approval of Edward's choice of 
 a wife, whom, with Mrs. Hammersley, he brought to me 
 for an hour a day or two before their marriage. They 
 express great pleasure on their kind reception at 
 Paultons, and have just concluded a visit in Cornwall 
 to its county member, from whence they were to return 
 to Devonshire, like Dr. Syntax, in search of a residence, 
 though I think they are to visit Colonel Clive, near 
 Hereford, at the close of the autumn. 
 
 Adversity taught Louis Philippe how to be a good 
 ruler, but prosperity has made him an ass. We must 
 repair three cells in Bedlam for him and the brace of
 
 348 MR. JEKYLL TO LADY G. SLOAN E STANLEY. [CH. x. 
 
 sensible ladies, who have got straw crowns on their 
 empty noddles in Spain * and Portugal.- 
 
 Thank God James Smith is not a crowned head, for 
 I should lose all the fun he sends me as follows, and 
 within one short week : 
 
 1. A stupid witness would not speak out. The 
 counsel exclaimed, " The man is an ass ! " " Let him 
 be Balaam's," muttered the judge, "and he will speak 
 out." 
 
 2. A mass of raspberries found in the stomach of 
 a mummy three thousand years old. Smith said they 
 must be elder berries. No offence to the ladies of that 
 name. 
 
 Southey, the Poet Laureate, writes that the ancestors 
 of the Duke of Wellington and of old John Wesley, 
 the Methodist preacher, were the same. If so, said 
 James Smith, 
 
 " Each takes his seat on glory's bench, 
 
 And finds in Fame his level ; 
 Arthur as boldly fought the French 
 As John engaged the devil." 
 
 Dowager Countess of Cork and Orrery, at ninety, 
 goes to six o'clock prayers. I hope it will succeed. 
 
 Don't you admire His Serene Highness the Duke 
 of Brunswick 3 paying the poor woman merely her 
 
 1 Queen Christina, Regent during the minority of her daughter 
 Isabella. 
 
 -' Maria II. 
 
 3 Charles, ex-Duke of Brunswick, deposed in 1830. He ascended, 
 with Mrs. Graham, a professional aeronaut, from Bayswater, on 
 August 22nd, and in preparing to descend near Brentwood, the
 
 OCT. 4, 1836.] THE DUKE OF BRUNSWICK. 349 
 
 fare in the balloon, after he had nearly broke her neck ? 
 No highness could manifest more serenity. Highness 
 was bad luck to the unfortunate lady. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 JOSEPH JEKYLL. 
 
 car was turned on one side, and both fell out, Mrs. Graham 
 from a height of thirty feet, the Duke just as the car touched the 
 ground. Mrs. Graham was seriously hurt, the Duke hardly at 
 all. 
 
 FINIS.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 ABERCROMBY, J., Lord Dunferm- 
 
 line, 178. 
 
 Adelaide, Queen, 262, 268, 300. 
 Agricultural troubles in 1830, 
 
 259, 260. 
 
 - 1831, 264, 268. 
 Aigues-vives Convent, 1775, 41. 
 Aiguillon, Due d', 1775, 34- 
 Albans, St., Duchess of, 188, 228, 
 
 270, 296, 315. See Coutts. 
 Ali Pacha, 116, 117, 136. 
 Almack's, last' of, 145. 
 Althorp, Lord, 289. 
 Alvanley, Lord, 209, 269, 303, 
 
 3i3- 
 Amboise in 1775, 33. 
 
 and Charles VIII., 33. 
 Angerstein, J. J., 92. 
 Anglesey, Marquis of, 193, 258, 
 
 264, 268. 
 
 Ashburton, Lady, 182. 
 " Auld Robin Grey," 92. 
 
 B. 
 
 Baillie, Dr. M., no, 267. 
 Ballantyne & Co., 1 58. 
 Bankes, Rev. E., 90. 
 Barry, Madame du, 34. 
 and her brother, 34. 
 
 Baxter's "Last Words, ' 172. 
 
 Bedlam, 267. 
 
 Belzoni, 91. 
 
 Bergami, Queen Caroline's 
 
 courier, 103. 
 Berri, Duchess of, 324. 
 
 in 1775, Province of, 43. 
 
 Berry, the Misses, 145, 272. 
 
 Bethune, Countess of, 21. 
 
 Betty, Master, 213. 
 
 Birdy, 202. 
 
 Blessington, Countess of, 102, 
 
 270, 272, 290, 296, 297, 300,. 
 
 306, 314, 317, 321, 341. 
 
 lines by, 321. 
 
 Blois in 1775, 21. 
 
 and Windsor, 29. 
 
 and the Kings, 29. 
 
 the Bishop of, 63. 
 
 Bios, Sir Lynch, declined, 235. 
 Boar hunt in 1775, 25. 
 Boehms, the, 106, 154. 
 Bolingbroke, Lord, 19. 
 Boswell, Sir A., 218. 
 Bowood, 1824, 142. 
 Braham, 338. 
 Brandling, Miss, a reigning 
 
 beauty, 230. 
 
 Brighthelmstone in 1775, I, 2. 
 Brighton in 1828, 182. 
 in 1829, 212.
 
 352 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Brougham, Lord, 74, 91, 103, 
 225, 242, 247, 255, 263, 310, 
 
 3'5- 
 
 Brydges, Sir S. E., 326. 
 Buckingham Palace, 231, 251, 
 
 253, 267, 274. 
 Buffon's son, 33. 
 Bulvvcr, Lytton, 276, 291, 326. 
 Bunbury, H. W., caricaturist, 
 
 no, 319. 
 
 Sir H., 130, 255. 
 Surges, Sir J. B., and Pitt, 92. 
 Burghersh, Lord, opera by, 251. 
 Burvill, Mr., 23, 31, 33. 
 Byng, "Poodle," 144, 271. 
 Byron, Lord, 70, 75/81, 82, 90, 
 
 120, 122, 126, 146, 175, 224, 
 297, 3OO, 308, 311, 317, 321. 
 
 C. 
 
 Calcraft, John, M.P., 274. 
 
 Cambridge, Duke of, 251. 
 
 Prince George of, 199. 
 
 Campbell, Lord, 326. 
 poet, 291. 
 
 Canning, 119, 139, 158, 165, 176, 
 226. 
 
 lines by, 247-249. 
 
 Lady, pamphlet by, 226. 
 
 Canterbury, Viscount, 299. 
 
 Cardiere, Miss, 46. 
 
 Caroline, Princess and Queen, 
 76, 94, 96, 99, 101, 102-105, 
 107-109, no, in, 114, 117. 
 
 Casas, Marquis de las, 166. 
 
 Catholic disabilities, Roman, 169. 
 
 emancipation, Roman, 197. 
 
 Cato Street conspiracy, 98. 
 
 Cavendish, Lord, 294. 
 
 Celles in 1775, chateau, 42. 
 
 gallery at, 42. 
 
 Chambord, Marshal Saxe at, 43. 
 
 Chante-loup, Palace of, 34. 
 Chantrey, 78, 183, 211. 
 Charles X. of France, 209, 244. 
 Charlotte, Queen, 96. 
 Chartreux Monastery, a, 41. 
 Chateau in 1775, 15. 
 Chatham, Lord, 228. 
 Chaumont chateau, 37. 
 Chenonceau chateau, 41. 
 Cher, river, 41. 
 Choiseul, Due de, 34, 61. 
 
 Duchesse de, 35. 
 Cholera, the, 282, 297. 
 Cholmondeleys, the, 152, 267, 
 
 289, 292. 
 
 Clarence, Duke of, 108, 230. 
 Cleopatra's Needle, 91. See 
 
 William IV. 
 Cobbett, 150, 169, 261, 292, 302, 
 
 3 16. 
 
 Codrington, Admiral, 201. 
 Cognac in 1775, 38. 
 Colburn, Henry, publisher, 135. 
 Cold, an epidemic, 58. 
 Colliveau, life at, 1775, 5 1 - 
 Colman, George, 208, 292. 
 Conde, Prince of, 256, 288. 
 Constable & Co., 158. 
 Constant's Memoirs, 252. 
 Constantine, Archduke, 1 86. 
 Conyngham, Lady, 95, 117, 157, 
 
 200, 202, 226, 231. 
 
 Lord, 311. 
 Cooke, T. P., 210. 
 
 Cooper, J. Fenimore, 198, 346. 
 Copley, Solicitor-General, 104, 
 
 107, 163. 
 Corbrand, 31. 
 Cork, Lady, 89, 183, 264, 276, 
 
 285, 333. 348. 
 
 Coronation, the, 1821, 114, 116. 
 1831, 274.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 355 
 
 Coronation of Louis XVI., 1775, 
 
 28, 38, 39. 
 Coutts, Mr., 125. 
 Mrs., 79, 91, 125, 126, 130, 
 
 1 56. Sec Albans, St. 
 Cox and the diamonds, 17. 
 Crabbe, 75-76, 33- 
 Crockford's, 331. 
 Croft, Sir R., 68. 
 Croker, pamphlet by, 252. 
 Cumberland, Duke of, 179, 200, 
 
 202, 219, 221, 226, 234, 243, 
 
 2/5, 2 9. 331- 
 
 D. 
 
 Dacre, Lady, 325, 333. 
 
 Mary, 205-207. 
 Davves, Sophia, Madame de 
 
 Feucheres, 256, 287, 288, 291. 
 Denman, Lord, 103, 108, 255, 
 
 304- 
 
 D'Orsay, Comte, 270. 
 Dictionaries, using, 269. 
 Diderot, 302. 
 Dieppe, 3. 
 Diet in France, 1775, 4, 5, IT > 
 
 15, 22,44, 53- 
 
 Dissenters, relief of the, 179. 
 "Don Juan," 185. 
 Dover, Lord, 272, 290, 295. 
 D'Oyly, Mrs., 66, 80, 91, 125. 
 Dress in France, 1775, 19-21, 28, 
 
 47, 57- 
 
 Dudley, Lord, 75, 277, 324. 
 Dumont, Mons. P. L., 204-209. 
 
 E. 
 
 Eaton Hall, 200. 
 Edgeworth, Miss, 325. 
 Eldon, Lord, 340. 
 
 Ellenborough, Earl' of, 146, 148, 
 
 176-213, 227. 
 - Lady, 146, 148, 187, 339, 
 
 342. 
 
 Lord, 70, 74, 227. 
 
 Ellis Correspondence, the, 190 
 " English at Home, The," 244. 
 
 at Orleans, 1775, 38. 
 
 Equivoque on solvo, 165. 
 Etiquette in France, 1775, 16, 17, 
 
 28, 38. 
 " Eugene Aram," 291. 
 
 F. 
 
 Farming, depression in, 252. 
 Farnborough, Lord, and George 
 
 IV., 241. 
 Farren, actor, 74. 
 Fieschi, 338. 
 
 FitzHughs', dinner at the, 229. 
 Fonthill Abbey, 134. 
 Foote, Miss. See Harrington 
 Foscolo, Ugo, 67. 
 Fox, Colonel, 268, 271. 
 Francis I. and Tranche Comte, 
 
 37- 
 
 Freischittz, Der, 147, 148. 
 French equestriennes, 1775, 47. 
 Fuller, Jack, 293, 295. 
 Furniture in France, 1775, 6. 35- 
 
 G. 
 
 Gaillon, 5. 
 
 Galley slaves, 25. 
 
 Gait John, author, 141-143, 257. 
 
 Galway, Lord, 17. 
 
 Garth, Captain, 194. 
 
 Garveys, The, 4. 
 
 Genlis, Madame de, 159. 
 
 George III., 83, 91, 93, no. 
 
 IV., 101, 115, 117, 118, 166, 
 
 23
 
 354 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 172, 175, 179, 180, 184, 186, 
 189, 193, 195, 200, 202, 210, 
 224, 230, 231, 236 ; death, 
 238; lying in state, 239; will 
 of, 240 ; funeral of, 242. 
 
 Gibbs, Sir Vicary, 96. 
 
 Goderich's ministry, Lord, 175. 
 
 Godwin, author, 325. 
 
 Goldsmith, 216. 
 
 Gore, Mrs., 276, 278, 313, 326, 
 
 346. 
 
 Gough, Sir Harry, 45, 48, 55. 
 Graham, Mrs., authoress, 192. 
 Graves, Lord, suicide of, 225. 
 Greenwood, army-agent, 295. 
 Grippe, the, 64. 
 Guilford's will, Lord, 172. 
 Gully, Mr., M. P., 311. 
 Gwyn, Mrs. General, 199, 258, 
 259. 303- 
 
 H. 
 
 Hahnemann, S., 162. 
 Halford, Sir H., 80, 200, 242, 321. 
 Hangman, the French, 1775, 53. 
 Harrington, Lady, 269, 287. 
 Hastings, Marquis of, 88. 
 Hatchett, Charles, 344. 
 Hatfield House, fire at, 338. 
 Hatsell, John, 66, 96, 101, 105. 
 Heber, life of Bishop, 237. 
 Helens, Lord St., 237. 
 Hennesy, Mr., 33-37. 
 Herem, Marquis de, 64. 
 Hertford, Lord, 77, 115, 136. 
 Hervey, Lady Mary Lepel, 120. 
 High Wycombe, riots at, 261. 
 Holland, Lady, 140, 160, 161, 
 176, 185, 209, 224, 297, 315, 
 
 3 2 . 324- 
 Lord, 69, 78, 81, 84, 92, 148, 
 
 149, 209, 217, 222, 267, 272. 
 
 Homoeopathy, 162, 297, 302. 
 
 Hone, W., 87. 
 
 Hook, Theodore, 244, 257, 258, 
 
 270. 
 
 Horses in France, 1775, 5. 
 Houses in France, 1775, 47. 
 Howley, Bishop, 113. 
 Hugo, Victor, 314. 
 Hume, Joseph, M.P., 233, 274. 
 Humour. See Wit. 
 Hunt, Leigh, 175. 
 Huskisson, Mr., 200. 
 
 I. 
 
 Ibrahim Pacha, 187. 
 
 Influenza, the, 272, 273. 
 
 Irving, Washington, 208, 322, 
 
 323. 334- 
 
 J- 
 
 Jacobite, English, 1775, 5- 
 Jekyll, Edward, 115, 138, 144, 
 159, 1 66, 167, 177, 183, 197, 
 
 198, 2OO, 20I-2O8, 211, 217, 
 
 221-224, 22 5 232, 234, 239, 
 
 242, 250, 253, 257, 260, 261, 
 
 266, 271, 280, 292, 296, 304, 
 
 324, 331, 347. 
 
 Joseph, 143, 145, 146, 151, 
 
 159, 176, 177, 183, 189, 191, 
 196, 200, 207, 211-218, 223, 
 224, 247, 251, 260, 262, 287, 
 288, 293, 297, 315, 322, 324, 
 
 339- 
 
 Jekyll's, Mr., works, 298. 
 Jelf, R. W., 179, 199. 
 Jerningham, Edward, 305. 
 Jerrold, Douglas, 211. 
 Jersey, Lady, 81, 209, 230, 239, 
 
 SOS- 
 John Bull, 93, 118, 191.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 355 
 
 Johnson, Dr., 71. 
 
 Jordan, Memoirs of Mrs., 261. 
 
 K. 
 
 Kean, 74, 125, 292. 
 Keen, Mr., 48. 
 Kemble, Fanny, 201, 213. 
 Kenney, playwright, 320. 
 Kent, Duchess of, 276. 
 Kerr, Mr., 16. 
 Kew Gardens, 199. 
 Key, Lord Mayor, and Welling- 
 ton, 250. 
 King, Lord, 222. 
 
 L. 
 
 Ladies of Llangollen, the, 159. 
 
 Lamartine, 324. 
 
 Lamb, Lady Caroline, 154. 
 
 Sir F., 233. 
 Lambert, Sir J., 8, 9, 10. 
 Latham, Dr., 80. 
 Law, Miss E., authoress, 298, 
 
 339- 
 Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 180, 189, 
 
 220. 
 Leopold I., King of the Belgians, 
 
 273, 277, 300, 301. 
 Letter-writing, on, 52, 55. 
 Lewisham, Lord, 50. 
 Lieven, Madame de, 140. 
 Liverpool, Lord, 170, 334. 
 Lloyd's, 92. 
 Loire, the, 10, 14, 19. 
 
 from Amboise to Tours, 36. 
 London in 1819, 86. 
 Londonderry, Lord, 270, 275. 
 Long, St. John, quack doctor, 
 
 239, 252, 253, 328. 
 Louis XVI., coronation of, 28, 
 
 38, 39- 
 
 Louis XVIII., Memoirs of, 299. 
 
 vigil of St., 48. 
 
 Luttrell, 171, 193, 231. 
 Lyndhurst, Lord, 256. 
 
 M. 
 
 Macartney, Lord, 229. 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, 224, 326. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, 83, 209. 
 
 Macready, 265. 
 
 Mahmoud II., 208. 
 
 Majocchi, " Non mi ricordo," 103. 
 
 Manning, Mr. William, 278, 279, 
 
 286, 325. 
 
 Marigny, Marquis de, 58. 
 Martin, Mr., 13, 16. 
 Mathews, Charles, the elder, 
 
 119. 
 Melbourne, Lord, 327, 332, 335, 
 
 345- 
 
 Members, queer, 311. 
 Menars, palace of, 58. 
 
 pictures and statues, 59. 
 
 " Methusalems, The," 66. 
 Miguel, Don, 174, 179, 189, 273. 
 Milman's Fazio, 69. 
 Molly Dacre, 205-207. 
 Montalembert, Comte de, 260. 
 Montebello, Due de, 240. 
 Moore, Thomas, 81, 123, 142, 
 
 158, 184, 205, 208, 222, 265, 
 
 276, 320. 
 
 Morellet, L'Abbe, 203. 
 Morgan, Lady, 72, 115, 252. 
 Morning Herald and Mr. Jekyll, 
 
 263. 
 Morpeth, Lord, 190, 194, 209, 
 
 247, 255, 314, 333- 
 Morris, Captain, 205, 206. 
 
 Colonel, and the '45, 37. 
 
 Murray, publisher, 75, 122, 342.
 
 356 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 N. 
 
 Nares, Archdeacon, 242. 
 Newton, F. M., American painter, j 
 
 232, 37, 322, 324- 
 Northcote's " Conversations," 
 
 259. 
 Norton, Mrs., 194, 233, 241, 336, 
 
 345- 
 Notre Dame, 1775, 6. 
 
 O. 
 
 O'Connell and Brooks's, 252. 
 
 and Lord Anglesey, 264. 
 
 trial of, 268. 
 
 O'Donnell, Mr., 31. 
 Opie, Mrs., 151. 
 Orange, Prince of, 266. 
 Orleans in 1775, 10-21. 
 Osgood, Mr, 20, 37, 45 -53. 
 Otho, King of Greece, 301. 
 
 P. 
 
 Paganini, 275. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, 196, 216, 229, 
 
 256, 302, 307, 310, 320, 323. 
 Paris in 1775, 6-10, 12. 
 
 1776, 65. 
 
 1830, 245, 247, 260, 266. 
 
 Peasants in 1775, French, 32, 37, 
 
 51- 
 Pedro I., of Brazil, 192. 
 
 IV., of Portugal, 271, 276. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, in, 233, 273, 
 
 296- 332, 334- 
 
 Pensions, 1775, expenses at, 45. 
 Perreau, the forger, 14, 48 
 Persian ambassador, the, 83. 
 Petre, Miss, death of, 227. 
 Philepeaux, Comte de, 61. 
 Philpotts, Bishop, 256. 
 Piozzi, Mrs., 105. 
 
 Police, Peel's, 254. 
 Pompadour, Madame de, 34, 58. 
 Pont-le-voy convent fete, 39. 
 Pope on reading, 151. 
 Prout, S., 327. 
 
 Q- 
 
 Quin, Dr., 297. 
 
 R. 
 Reform, parliamentary, 245, 247, 
 
 257, 260, 273. 275, 278, 286, 
 
 299, 307. 
 Regent, the, 77, 79, 87. See 
 
 George IV. 
 Regent's Park " Menagerie," 171, 
 
 277. 
 
 Relics, 4, 32, 34, 36. 
 Reynolds, F. M., author, 302, 311. 
 Richmond, Duke of, 84. 
 Rockliff, Mr., 50, 53, 55. 
 Rogers, 75, 161, 173, 185, 207, 
 
 213, 262, 287, 308, 320, 323, 
 
 325- 
 
 Roman remains in France, 32, 42. 
 Romilly, Sir S., 72, 74. 
 Ross, Sir John, 318. 
 Russell, Lord John, 245, 335. 
 Lord William, 335. 
 
 S. 
 St. Germains in 1/75, 5, 6. 
 
 Gervais, 23. 
 
 Paul, Mr., 8. 
 
 Sandwich Isles, King and Queen 
 
 of the, 144-271. 
 Saumery family, the, 54, 60. 
 Scarlett, Sir James, 268, 304, 307. 
 Schools, the public, 133. 
 Scott, Mrs., authoress, 321. 
 
 - Sir Walter, 70, 78, 158, 166, 
 
 189.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 357 
 
 Seal of the Athenaeum Club, the, 
 
 184. 
 
 Sellis, the assassin, 234. 
 Session of 1833, the, 315. 
 Shaftesbury Election, 1830, 246, 
 
 257- 
 
 Shee, Sir Martin, 220, 223. 
 Shelbume, Earl of, 165. 
 Shelley, Mrs., 334. 
 Siddons, Mrs., 166, 171, 280, 329. 
 Sloane, Mr., 69, 83, 85, 93, 100, 
 
 101, 107, 121. See Stanley. 
 Smith, James, joint author of 
 
 " Rejected Addresses," 282, 
 
 302, 311, 313, 336, 342, 345, 
 
 348. 
 
 Sir Sidney. 213-216. 
 
 Soin and its curate, 1775, 42. 
 
 Solas, Abbe, 35 
 
 Sotheby, poet, 127, 149, 209, 
 
 322. 
 Spring Rice, Lord Monteagle, 
 
 i 7 &. 
 
 Stafford House, 237. 
 
 Staircase, double screw, 1775, 
 
 43- 
 
 Stanfield, painter, 327. 
 Stanley, Mr. Sloane, 129, 130, 
 
 133, 134, 139- 
 Stapylton, " Life of Canning," 
 
 226. 
 
 Stowell. Lord, 206, 340, 344. 
 Stuart, Lady Dudley, 161, 267, 
 
 277. 
 Studies, 1775, ii. 18, 21,44,62, 
 
 63- 
 
 Sturges Bourne, 82. 196, 241. 
 Sutton, Manners, 187, 325. 
 
 T. 
 
 Tabouret, Le droit du, 240. 
 Talleyrand, 252, 255, 299. 
 
 Tatham's cimetiere, 227. 
 
 bust of Lord Eldon, 232. 
 
 Taylor, John, author, 302. 
 
 Watson, poet, 288. 
 
 Tea in 1775, 18, 48. 
 Test Act Repeal, 184. 
 Theatre, 1775, the French, 49. 
 Theatres, December 1823, the 
 
 English, 131. 
 ThesSe, Labienus at, 42. 
 Tierney, Mrs., pension of, 240. 
 
 Sir M., 78, 94, 178, 225. 
 
 Tilly's memoirs. Comte de, 181. 
 Tory M.P.'s and Peers, 278. 
 Tostes, 4. 
 Town, the, 293. 
 "Travellers, The, " 82. 
 Tree, Miss Ellen, 122, 211. 
 Trollope, Mrs., 307. 
 
 V. 
 
 Valliere, M. la, 46. 
 
 a curious bedding at, 46. 
 
 Vansittart, Lord Bexley, 149, 269. 
 Veil, taking the, 1775- 2 4. 33- 
 Vernon, 5. 
 Vernon-Harcourt, Archishop of 
 
 York, 237, 306. 
 Verrat, Chateau. 1 77 5, 34- 
 Vestris, Madame, 287. 
 Voiture, the, 1775. 3. 
 
 \V. 
 
 Weare, Mr., murder of, 131. 
 Wedding, a French, 1775, -5. -7- 
 Weippart, Bandmaster, 181. 
 Wellesley, Lord, 159, 170, -5-- 
 
 233. 2 34, 33- 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 73. l8 4, 
 185, 197, 200, 232, 250, 253, 
 259, 279, 281, 310, 332, 334.
 
 358 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 "Werner," Byron's, 262, 265. 
 
 Westmacott, 211. 
 
 Wetherell, Sir E., 138, 283, 321. 
 
 Wheel, breaking on the, 1775, 12. 
 
 Wigs, bishops', 291. 
 
 Wilkes, John, 266. 
 
 William IV., 240, 242, 250, 273, 
 
 276, 284, 300, 317, 333. See 
 
 Clarence. 
 
 Wilson, Sir Robert T., 109, 288. 
 Winchilsea, Lord, 197. 
 Wit and humour, 71, 75, 83, 95, 
 
 112, 117, 119, 150, 152, 156, 
 
 163, 165, 182, 185, 188, 205, 
 
 223, 224, 233, 235, 240, 244, 
 249, 261, 264, 266, 268, 269, 
 271, 282, 288, 295, 301, 303, 
 
 304, 310. 3". 313. 317. 323, 
 327, 328, 329, 336, 337, 342, 
 344, 345, 347, 348. 
 
 Wolff, D.D., Rev. J., 168, 325. 
 
 Wollstonecrafts, the, 149. 
 
 Woronzow, 74, 229. 
 
 Y 
 
 Yarmouth, Lord, 105. 
 York, Duke of, 94, 99, 101, 154, 
 160, 161, 163-165, 167. 
 
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