It was at Ealing too, during his schooldays that the illustrious novelist tasted the bitter sweets of a first love, and his own pen has told the story.
“The country around where my good preceptor resided was rural enough for a place so near the metropolis. A walk of somewhat less than a mile, through lanes that were themselves retired and lonely, led to green sequestered meadows, through which the humble Brent crept along its snake-like way. O God! how palpably, even in hours the least friendly to remembrance, there rises before my eyes, when I close them, that singular dwarfed tree which overshadowed the little stream, throwing its boughs half way to the opposite margin! I wonder if it still survives. I dare not revisit that spot. And there we were wont to meet (poor children that we were!) thinking not of the world we had scarce entered, dreaming not of fate and chance, reasoning not on what was to come, full only of our first born, our ineffable love. Along the quiet road between Ealing and Castlebar, the lodge gates stood (perhaps they are still standing,) which led to the grounds of a villa once occupied by the Duke of Kent. To the right of those gates, as you approached them from the common, was a path. Through two or three fields, as undisturbed and lonely as if they lay in the heart of some solitary land far from any human neighbourhood, this path conducted to the banks of the little rivulet, overshadowed here and there by blosoming shrubs and crooked pollards of fantastic shape. Along that path once sped the happiest steps that ever bore a boy’s heart to the object of its first innocent worship.”
Lord Lytton does not disclose the name of his youthful and unhappy love. He was then 17 and she was, he informs us, one or two years older then he. This seems to be of course. Let the male reader ransack his own experience and it is odds there looms before his mental vision some angel of twenty whom he assured he should be sixteen in a few months, and that he felt old for his age. Lord Lytton had soon to part from the nymph, who, his Life by his son asserts, was forced into an early and uncongenial marriage. For three years, in obedience to duty, she strove to smother the love which consumed her; and when she sunk under the conflict, and death was about to release her from the obligations of marriage and life itself, she wrote a letter to her youthful adorer and with her dying hand informed him of the suffering which she had passed, and of her unconquerable devotion to him, and intimated a wish that he should visit her grave. It is she whom he apostrophizes in one of his earliest essays: “My lost, my buried, my unforgotten! you, whom I knew in the first fresh years of life, you, who were snatched from me before one leaf of the Summer of Youth and of love was withered; you over whose grave, yet a boy, I wept away half the softness of my soul, now that I know the eternal workings of the world, and the destiny of all human ties, I rejoice that you are no more! that custom never dulled the music of your voice, the pathos and the magic of your sweet eyes, that the halo of a dream was round you to the last! had you survived till now, we should have survived, not our love indeed, but all that renders love most divine,” and so the noble writer goes on in an ecstatic passage which means, if it has any meaning at all, that he was glad the lady died, because if she had lived they would have tired of each other.
On rising ground on the outskirts of Ealing where it borders on Turnham Green, stands the historic mansion of Gunnersbury, now owned by Baron Rothschild. The present mansion replaces an earlier edifice, which was pulled down at the end of the last century. The Gunnersbury of that date vied with Holland House and Strawberry Hill. At one time the old building was the abode of Sergeant Maynard who died there in 1690. There for many years dwelt his widow, his third wife, who ultimately married the Earl of Suffolk. On her death in 1721 Gunnersbury was acquired by Lord Hobart and later by the Princess Amelia, daughter of George II, and aunt of George III, who formed a Salon there. The princess had a considerable taste and talent for political intrigue, and her parties were resorted to by all that sought favor at Court. In 1761 we find in a letter of Sir Horace Walpole, “I was sent for again to dine at Gunnersbury on Friday, and was forced to send to town for a dress coat and a sword. There were the Prince of Wales, the Prince of Mecklenburgh, the Duke of Portland, Lord Clanbrassil, Lord and Lady Clermont, Lord and Lady Southampton, Lord Pelham and Mrs. Howe. The Prince of Mecklenburgh was back to Windsor after coffee, and the Prince and Lord and Lady Clermont to town after tea, to hear some new French plays at Lady William Gordon’s. The Princess, Lady Barrymore, and the rest of us played three games at commerce till ten. I am afraid that I was tired, and gaped. While we were at the Dairy, the Princess insisted on my making some verses on Gunnersbury, I pleaded superannuation, but she would not excuse me.” The mansion, the present seat of Baron Rothschild, is surrounded by grounds of considerable extent and laid out with much care and taste. The house contains many noticeable statues, and several striking pictures, one of which limns a historic scene, the introduction of the late Baron Lionel Rothschild into the House of Commons in 1858 after the removal of the Disabilities of the Jews. The baron’s sponsors were Lord John Russel and Bernal Osborne, of witty memory, and on the front benches on either side are to be seen the well-known faces of Lord Palmerstone, Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Gladstone, Cornewall Lewis, and the late Lord Derby.
Gunnersbury House, says Mr. Falkner, is a handsome specimen of the Tuscan order. The South front is 126 feet long, and consists of a centre and wings; the former is three stories high, and the latter two stories. The north front is of the same dimensions, but of more simple construction; it is ornamented with a grand portico with four columns of the Tuscan order; the whole front consisting of three stories. The east end is 60 feet wide, and is divided into two large and splendid bow windows, and is used as a conservatory. The terrace in front of the house is bordered by a dwarf wall and stone coping, and ornamented with vases. At the east end of this terrace is an alcove, in which is placed a statue of Apollo. The west end is bounded by an architectural archway, leading to the gardens. On the west is a handsome temple of the Tuscan order, supported by two pilasters and two columns. On the tympanum of the pediment is a shield with foliage. The interior is chastely arranged, and beautifully furnished with Chinese vases, antique chairs, &c., and the walls are ornamented with bas reliefs, representing the most striking scenes taken from the history of Greece. From the south front of this temple is obtained an extensive view of the surrounding country including Kew Gardens, and the Surrey Hills in the distance. This spot is the most elevated part of the grounds, as well as the most beautiful, and is further ornamented with a circular piece of water, consisting of about two acres. This part of the garden shows evident marks of the hand of Kent, who was employed by Mr. Turner for the purpose of embellishing the grounds and improving the landscape. A row of cedar trees here raise their majestic heads, and are greatly admired. The Italian garden at the back of the Temple is embellished with eight figures on sand-stone of Burns’s “Jolly Beggars,” admirably executed by Thoms.
On the edge of Ealing Common stands The Grove, which, in the later part of the seventeenth century, was occupied by Sir William Trumbull, the friend of Pope, and Secretary of State to William III. Pope wrote his epitaph:
A pleasing form, a firm, yet cautious mind;
Sincere, though prudent; constant, yet resign’d,
Honour unchang’d, a principle profest,
Fix’d to one side, but mod’rate to the rest,