Another hero in a passion! Another lover threatens prosecution! No less a personage than that most prolific Plenipo, the Hon. Frederick Lamb, who yesterday called on Stockdale to threaten him, or us, with prosecution, death and destruction, if his conduct towards me in times, auld lang syne, was printed and published in any part of my Memoirs, after Part I., which he acknowledged that his counsel had informed him he could not lay hold of. No wonder that he is sore. I have certainly told, as the Hon. Frederick Lamb was well aware must be the case, harsh truths of him, I confess: but then it will disgust one to think that a man would feel such violent passion for a girl without the heart to save her from absolute want afterwards. Yet I never deceived him, and I endeavoured to live on nothing, at my nurse's in Somers Town, pour ses beaux yeux, as long as I possibly could. When I say nothing I mean nothing, in the literal sense of the word. Frederick had never given me a single shilling up to the time when hard necessity obliged me to accept the Duke of Argyle for my lover.
As to Frederick Lamb's rage at my publishing these facts, he was fully acquainted with my intention; and had he, now that he is in better circumstances, only opened his heart, or even purse, to have given me but a few hundreds, there would have been no book, to the infinite loss of all persons of good taste and genuine morality, and who are judges of real merit. But I hate harping on peoples' unkindness, and vice versâ, I cannot omit to acknowledge the generous condescension of Earl Spencer, who, though I have not the honour to be in the least acquainted with him, has very repeatedly assisted me. In short, his lordship has promptly complied with every request for money I ever made to him, merely as a matter of benevolence.
Lord Rivers, with whom I have but a bowing acquaintance, has not only often permitted me to apply to him for money; but once, when I named a certain sum to him, he liberally doubled it; because, as he kindly stated in his letter, he was so truly sorry to think that one who possessed such a generous heart as mine should not be in affluent circumstances. Lord Palmerston also, one fine day, did me a pecuniary service without my having applied to him for it. Neither can I express half the gratitude I feel, and shall entertain to the end of my life, for the steady, active friendship Mr. Brougham has invariably evinced towards me, actuated, as he is, solely by a spirit of philanthropy. When I see a man of such brilliant talents pleading the cause of almost all those persons whose characters I have sketched in these pages, with such honest warmth and benevolence of feeling, as Brougham did yesterday, to say I look up to him and love him, is but a cold description of the sentiments he inspires in my heart.
"A pretty list indeed," said Brougham, alluding to my characters, as advertised in the newspapers by Stockdale. "Almost every one of my particular friends is among them! The poor Duke of Argyle! What has he done? I am very angry with you. I don't really think I can shake hands with you."
"I have strictly adhered to the truth."
"Yes; but then, who wants to have their secrets exposed! Secrets, some of them, sixteen years old."
"Who do you think would have entrusted me with their secrets fifteen years ago? Besides, why don't my old friends keep me among them? They are all rich. I have applied to them and they refuse me the bare means of existence. Must I not strive to live by my wits? You say you have not read even the first part of my book. How do you know that it is severe?"
"Well! perhaps not! The Duke of Leinster tells me that it is not severe, nor does it, he says, contain any libel."
"To be sure not! Why, as His Grace goes on, he will find that I give him credit for a little more intellect than even a Newfoundland dog! Que voulez-vous? But I wish to explain the Duke of Beaufort's conduct, certainly."
"Aye! true! The Duke of Beaufort treated you shamefully. You are very welcome to tell the world that I am your counsel in that business; that I said then, and repeat now, that he took a shameful advantage of your generosity. There, you behaved only too well."