[1] In accordance with his republican principles, Lord Stanhope caused his armorial bearings to be defaced from his plate, carriages, &c. Nothing was spared but the iron gate before the entrance to the house. Even the tapestry given to the great Lord Stanhope by the king of Spain, with which one of the rooms in Chevening was ornamented, he caused to be taken down and put into a corner, calling it all damned aristocratical. He likewise sold all the Spanish plate, which Lady Hester said weighed (if I recollect rightly) six hundred weight.
[2] A friend has suggested that primosity is not in Johnson’s Dictionary; it was however a word of frequent recurrence in Lady Hester’s vocabulary; and it scarcely, I think, need be said, that it means prudery:
“What is prudery? ’Tis a beldam,
Seen with wit and beauty seldom.”
Pope.
[3] “In 1800, Mr. Pitt, for the third time, contemplated renewing his attempts to make peace with France, and he offered the mission again to Lord Malmesbury. Lord Grenville wished to appoint his brother, Mr. Thomas Grenville; and Lord Malmesbury, whose deafness and infirmity had much increased, readily consented.”—Diaries and Correspondence of the Earl of Malmesbury.
CHAPTER II.
Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs—The three duchesses—Anecdote of Mr. Rice—How Prime Ministers are employed on first taking office—The Grenville make—P—— of W—— at Stowe—Mr. Pitt and Mr. Sheridan—Duke of H—— —Mr. Pitt’s disinterestedness exemplified—His life wasted in the service of his country—Mr. Rose—Mr. Long—Mr.—— —Grounds at Walmer laid out by Lady Hester—Mr. Pitt’s deportment in retirement—His physiognomy—How he got into debt—Lord Carrington; why made a peer—Extent of Mr. Dundas’s influence over Mr. Pitt—Mr. Pitt averse to ceremony—Mr. Pitt and his sister Harriet—His dislike to the Bourbons—Lady Hester’s activity at Walmer—Lord Chatham’s indolence—Mr. Pitt’s opinion of Sir Arthur Wellesley.
On leaving Marseilles, in 1837, I ordered Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs to be sent after me to Syria, thinking that, as relating to Mr. Pitt’s times, and to people and politics with whom and in which both he and she had mixed so largely, these memoirs could not fail to amuse her. I received them soon after my arrival at Jôon, and many rainy days were passed in reading them. They served to beguile the melancholy hours of her sickness, and recalled the agreeable recollections of her more splendid, if not more happy, hours. She would say on such occasions, “Doctor, read a little of your book to me.” This was always her expression, when I had brought any publication to her: and, ordering a pipe, lying at her length in bed, and smoking whilst I read, she would make her comments as I went on.
“Let me hear about the duchesses,” she would say. After a page or two she interrupted me. “See what the Duchess of Rutland and the Duchess of Gordon were: look at the difference. I acknowledge it proceeds all from temperament, just as your dull disposition does, which to me is as bad as a heavy weight or a nightmare. I never knew, among the whole of my acquaintance in England, any one like you but Mr. Polhill of Crofton” (or some such place): “he was always mopish, just as you are. I remember too what a heavy, dull business the Duchess of R.’s parties were—the room so stuffed with people that one could not move, and all so heavy—a great deal of high breeding and bon ton; but there was, somehow, nothing to enliven you. Now and then some incident would turn up to break the spell. One evening, I recollect very well, everybody was suffering with the heat: there we were, with nothing but heads to be seen like bottles in a basket. I got out of the room, upon the landing-place. There I found Lady Sefton, Lady Heathcote, and some of your high-flyers, and somebody was saying to me, ‘Lady Hester something,’ when, half way up the staircase, the Duke of Cumberland was trying to make his way. He cried out, ‘Where’s Lady Hester? where’s my aide-de-camp? Come and help me; for I am so blind I can’t get on alone. Why, this is h—l and d——n!’—‘Here I am, sir.’—‘Give me your hand, there’s a good little soul. Do help me into this h—l; for it’s quite as hot.’ Then came Bradford; and, whilst he was speaking to me, and complaining of the intolerable heat and crush, out roared the Duke of Cumberland, ‘Where is she gone to?’—and up went his glass, peeping about to the right and left—‘where is she gone to?’ There was some life in him, doctor.