She is to have it for seven years and pay £600 a year. And now I must look out for a house in town, which you will find pretty near ready for you when you arrive. I am in a great bustle and hurry, for we are all alive with this election, though with the melancholy impression of poor Romilly’s death it is difficult to rouse people. Hobhouse[79] has behaved so ill that it is right to try to beat him, but I fear that Lamb[80] is too late. He will certainly be low on the poll for the first week, but it is possible that afterwards he may recover. In the meantime, people are very busy, and none of our friends are sanguine. Your affectionate brother,
AD.
Lord Auckland to Miss Eden.
[November] 1818.
MY DEAR EMILY, Lamb carried his election to-day by 604, and made a sort of a speech saying that now he was their member, and they were his constituents, and that they would soon learn to be friends. He was a little hooted, but not much more than usual; but all our foolish friends appeared to cheer him with cockades in their hats, and all was uproar and riot and confusion and pelting and brickbats and mud, and it is lucky none of them were very seriously hurt. They all arrived covered with dirt to the west end of the town, and the mob at their heels, for they were too gallant not to stop to be occasionally pelted.
I never saw such a scene. Your friend Graham[81] looked as if he had just come out from the pillory; Sefton, Morton, and twenty others in the same plight.
Report says that one servant is nearly killed; I hope it is not true. Ferguson had a blow on his head, and Mr. Charlton another more serious one; but I hear of nothing worse. It makes but an ugly triumph for our great victory. What a glorious debate was yesterday’s!
You will live at No. 30 Lower Grosvenor Street, the only house I can get, small but convenient, and I think we shall make it do well enough. Ever affectionately yours,
AD.
Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire.