I
LADY CAROLINE LAMB[4]
“A creature of caprice and impulse and whim, her manner, her talk, her character shifted their colours as rapidly as those of a chameleon.”
Lady Caroline Ponsonby, daughter of the third Lord Bessborough, was born on 13th November 1785. When she was three years old, her mother, a daughter of the first Earl Spencer and sister of the famous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, fell ill and was ordered to Italy. She took the little girl with her, but being obliged to return to England herself, as her condition became worse, she left the child in Italy for some years, chiefly in charge of a servant. Caroline was then sent to her aunt, the Duchess of Devonshire, to be brought up with her cousins at Devonshire House. The life of the children there was a curious one. Their meals were served on silver plate, but if they wanted more than was sent up, they had to carry their plates down to the kitchen, where the servants were too busy quarrelling to attend to them. They were quite extraordinarily ignorant. They thought that all people were dukes or beggars, that bread and butter grew ready-made, so to speak, and that horses were fed on beef. Even when Lady Caroline grew up and was married, she was singularly ignorant of the habits of people not of her own class, although she associated with men and women of genius whose incomes were small and who lived in a simple fashion. The first time she called on Lady Morgan in London—Lady Morgan was Sydney Owenson, the novelist, and wife of Sir Charles Morgan, a physician—she was announced by a footman in livery. As she was leaving, Lady Caroline said:
“My dear Creature, have you really not a groom of the chambers with you? nothing but your footman? You must let me send you something, you must indeed. You will never get on here, you know, with only one servant—you must let me send you one of my pages. I am going to Brocket, to watch the sweet trees that are coming out so beautifully, and you shall have a page while I am away.” Later, as will be seen, notwithstanding Lady Morgan’s modest household, the two ladies became fast friends.
LADY CAROLINE LAMB IN HER PAGE’S DRESS
From a miniature in the possession of Mr. John Murray
When Caroline was ten years old she was transferred to the care of her grandmother, Lady Spencer, whose household consisted of seventy servants, and who herself had always lived among clever people and possessed brilliant conversational powers.—Her marriage was unconventional and romantic. Mr. Spencer had, as a minor, become attached to her; and with her father, Stephen Poyntz, a well-known diplomatist, and her mother and sister, she was invited to Althorp to celebrate the coming of age of the heir, where a large party of about fifty persons was assembled. Young Spencer informed Mr. Poyntz that now he was his own master he intended to marry his daughter the very next day. Only Lord and Lady Cowper were told besides Mr. and Mrs. Poyntz, and they and the bride and bridegroom stole away during the dancing that was going on to Lady Cowper’s dressing-room, and the young couple were there duly married. They then rejoined the dancers; and it is further related that after supper everybody retired as usual to their different apartments, and that Louisa Poyntz, who had shared her sister’s room, gave up her place on this occasion.
Caroline thus had no systematic education, but she possessed natural gifts of a high order. She became a good linguist, knowing well French, Italian, Greek, and Latin. She loved music and painting, devoting many hours all through her life to water-colours, and had a great talent for caricature. She was original in her conversation, in her dress, indeed in everything. At one period of her childhood her grandmother became alarmed at her originality, which bordered on eccentricity, and consulted a doctor as to the state of her mind. He decreed that her brain ought not to be overtaxed with lessons, and that she should not be too strictly disciplined. Consequently she really ran wild. Until she reached her teens she could neither write nor spell, but nevertheless she composed verses. She declared later, speaking of her childish days, “I preferred washing a dog, or polishing a piece of Derbyshire spar, or breaking in a horse”—she was a fearless rider and could ride bareback—“to any accomplishment in the world.”
When she was thirteen, William Lamb, who was then twenty, saw her at Brocket Hall, where she had accompanied her cousins on a visit to his mother, Lady Melbourne, and was greatly attracted to her. She had already heard of him as a “friend of liberty,” and was quite ready to admire him. Later on he used to see her at Lord Bessborough’s villa at Roehampton, and became more and more fascinated by her, and she was equally delighted with him. But he was a second son, and his prospects at the Bar did not seem brilliant, and so neither family took any notice of the young couple. Lady Caroline at nineteen was slight and graceful, not tall, with small regular features, dark hazel eyes, and golden hair. She was not a beauty, but possessed the charm that is even more alluring. She was full of ideas and endowed with the power of expressing them gracefully; she had, moreover, a low, musical voice. Her friends gave her a variety of nicknames—such as sprite, Ariel, squirrel, bat, young savage—and they show the general impression she made on them. Her strong imagination coloured everything, and it is doubtful if at any time of her life she saw things as they really were. A girl so accomplished and attractive and with such distinguished connections seemed far removed from William Lamb, a younger son with his way to make in the world. But in 1805 his elder brother died, and he became the heir, and then he felt justified in offering himself to Lady Caroline.