To be near the Oxfords at Eywood, in Herefordshire, Byron took Kinsham Court, a dower-house of the family, where Bishop Harley died in 1788. At one time, as is evident from his correspondence with Hanson, he was bent on going abroad with Lady Oxford. In the end he only accompanied her to Portsmouth. Of Lady Oxford, Uvedale Price wrote thus to Rogers (Clayden,
Rogers and his Contemporaries
, vol. i. pp. 397, 398):
"This is a melancholy subject"—[the death, by consumption of Lord Aberdeen's children]—"and I must go to another. Poor Lady Oxford! I had heard with great concern of her dangerous illness, but hoped she might get through it, and was much, very much grieved to hear that it had ended fatally. I had, as you know, lived a great deal with her from the time she came into this country, immediately after her marriage; but for some years past, since she went abroad, had scarcely had any correspondence or intercourse with her, till I met her in town last spring. I then saw her twice, and both times she seemed so overjoyed to see an old friend, and expressed her joy so naturally and cordially, that I felt no less overjoyed at seeing her after so long an absence. She talked, with great satisfaction, of our meeting for a longer time this next spring, little thinking of an eternal separation. There could not, in all respects, be a more ill-matched pair than herself and Lord Oxford, or a stronger instance of the cruel sports of Venus, or, rather, of Hymen:
It has been said that she was, in some measure, forced into the match. Had she been united to a man whom she had loved, esteemed, and respected, she herself might have been generally respected and esteemed, as well as loved; but in her situation, to keep clear of all misconduct required a strong mind or a cold heart; perhaps both, and she had neither. Her failings were in no small degree the effect of circumstances; her amiable qualities all her own. There was something about her, in spite of her errors, remarkably attaching, and that something was not merely her beauty. 'Kindness has resistless charms,' and she was full of affectionate kindness to those she loved, whether as friends or as lovers. As a friend, I always found her the same, never at all changeful or capricious. As I am not a very rigid moralist, and am extremely open to kindness, 'I could have better spared a better woman.'"'Cui placet impares
Formas atque animos sub juga ahenea
Sævo mittere cum joco.'
'Cui placet impares
Formas atque animos sub juga ahenea
Sævo mittere cum joco.'
[cross-reference: return to Footnote 2 of Letter 300]
An account of the accident is given in the Chronicle of the
Annual Register