ELIZABETH BERKELEIGH.
[BORN 1750. DIED 1828.]
TEMPLE BAR.
HE youngest daughter of Augustus, fourth Earl of Berkeleigh, born in 1750, came into the world two months ere by the laws of nature she was to be looked for; and this circumstance, which was a fit prelude to an eccentric life, had nearly led to an abrupt termination of the infant's earthly career ere its sands of life had run through the boiling of an egg. A certain ceremonial was observed in those days when ladies of a certain rank swelled the rolls of the aristocracy; and the first person who approached the bed of the noble accouchée was the Countess of Albemarle, her aunt. The infant which had so unexpectedly claimed its share of the world had doubly disappointed its mother; first, by being a girl, when a boy had been predicted with assurance, for Lady Berkeleigh had previously had four girls in succession, three of them, singularly enough, at one birth; next, the little being, so far from exhibiting any signs of the future beauty, presented the most miserable half-alive aspect imaginable; and there being nothing ready to receive it, a piece of flannel was huddled round it, and it was left on an arm-chair in a kind of despair, and for some minutes altogether unheeded, till the visitor already named was on the point of sitting down on foresaid arm-chair, and, but for the screams of the attendants, would have driven out, once and for ever, the small instalment of life-breath the forlorn babe had been strenuously endeavouring to suck in.
Thereupon Lady Albemarle snatched up the child, took it to the light to examine it, and observing that it there managed to open a pair of very bright eyes, pronounced its chances of vitality to be far from desperate. A wet nurse was therefore immediately procured; and, by dint of great care, the puny little being was preserved to become eventually the lovely, accomplished, and vivacious subject of this article [afterwards to become first Lady Craven, and subsequently the Margravine of Anspach]. Lady Berkeleigh, who is described by the margravine in her own memoirs as having but little maternal affection, treated her youngest daughter with even worse than indifference, and reserved all the indulgence and attention she was disposed to show to her offspring for her eldest sister, Lady Georgiana, who was regarded as the beauty. The neglect and severity of the mother stamped a peculiar air of shyness and modesty on Lady Elizabeth; and as her natural character was vivacious, and disposed to gaiety and enjoyment, a contrast was thus created, which, as she herself very unreservedly confesses, greatly contributed to her fascination.
Lady Elizabeth had already shot up into a tall, lithe figure; and her countenance developed the budding signs of that lively beauty which afterwards distinguished her. At this time, however, though she observes that many opportunities offered themselves of discovering her own personal charms, she protests herself to have been entirely ignorant of them; the exclusive admiration that was bestowed by her mother on her elder sister leading her to imagine herself rather ill-favoured than otherwise. There was no such blindness to the fascination of her person in after years, and her memoirs teem with amusing evidences of the high sense she entertained of her outward attractions. Among others is a passage in which she criticises the various portraits that have been painted of her; and though Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose portrait of her at Petworth seems charming enough, and Romney and Madame Lebrun exerted in turns, and more than once, their skill to transfer her graces to canvas, she declares they, none of them, have done justice either to her face or figure. The same candour, in exposing her thorough self-appreciation as regards her mental and moral excellences, is observable through the entertaining sketch of her career, and gives at first the impression that one is listening to the weakest and vainest woman that ever breathed. A little further acquaintance, however, removes this notion almost altogether. When a woman has been sought and admired all her life for her beauty, grace, sense, wit, and good nature by the highest and most distinguished personages of her age, it would seem more shocking than the grossest display of vanity to affect a mincing reserve and humility in speaking of her own merits.
[Lady Elizabeth was afterwards married to Mr Craven, who came to be Lord Craven. The marriage, at its outset, seems to have been in its most essential respects a happy one. The margravine acknowledges that Lord Craven possessed the highest admiration for the refined character and many graces and accomplishments of his young wife; and the contests between them were the amiable ones arising from his unbounded generosity towards her, and the refusals his offered presents met with from her discretion and modesty. At length a discovery was made by Lady Craven, which led to that eventful change in her life and fortunes, but for which, in all probability, the subject of this sketch would have attracted as little attention as many other brilliant noblewomen of her day. Lord Craven had for some time absented himself for long periods from home, under pretexts which his wife discovered to be false; but all doubts were removed when Lord Macartney came to the injured wife and entreated her to prevent Lord Craven from travelling in one of his coaches with a woman calling herself Lady Craven. This led to the explosion of a mine of intrigue. Lady Craven then went to France, and subsequently travelled over all Europe, at the various courts of which she was honoured and fêted. During her stay in Paris she had received the visits of the Margrave of Anspach, who had known her from childhood, and had formed a strong attachment to her. He had now invited her to pass some time at Anspach with himself and the margravine as his adopted sister. To this she agreed; and, subsequently, by a strange coincidence, the Margravine and Lord Craven having died about the same time, she became the wife of the margrave. In 1816 the margrave died, and from that time the margravine chiefly resided at Naples, where she died in the seventy-eighth year of her age.]
