LADY CAROLINE LAMB.
White gown. Blue bows. Crop of fair hair.
BORN 1788, DIED 1828.
By Hoppner.
SHE was the only daughter of the first Earl of Bessborough, by Lady Henrietta Spencer, daughter of the first Earl Spencer. She was in Italy when a child, with her mother, but, on their return to England, Lady Bessborough being in very delicate health, Lady Caroline was intrusted for a time to the care of her aunt, the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire. Throughout her life she kept a diary, and she gives a detailed record of her early days at Devonshire House. The children saw very little of their elders, and were brought up with a strange mixture of luxury and laxity. The nursery table was covered with dainties, and served with goodly plate, but the young lords and ladies were allowed to run wild backwards and forwards between the servants’ apartments in search of sweetmeats and ‘goodies.’ Caroline’s education was little cared for, her knowledge circumscribed, and she only believed in two classes of society,—aristocrats and beggars. At ten years old she could scarcely write, and could not spell at all; but she composed verses, ‘which were pronounced splendid in the family, and everybody petted me, especially my cousin Hartington (afterwards Duke of Devonshire), who was my constant companion. My chief delight consisted in polishing my specimens of Derbyshire spar, washing my dog, and breaking in a pony.’ Caroline was transferred from Devonshire to Spencer House, to live with her grandmother, and the change did not suit her small ladyship. ‘How well I remember the grand housekeeper, in a hoop and ruffles, who presided over seventy servants.’ Under Lady Spencer’s roof, of whom the poet Cowper speaks so highly, and to whom Horace Walpole, with his usual sneer, alludes as ‘the goddess of wisdom,’ it may be imagined the girl was subjected to a discipline which was so different from the liberty of Devonshire House that she soon broke out into open rebellion. ‘I was indeed very naughty, and used to give way to such paroxysms of rage that a physician was called in. Dr. Warren forbade all study, and desired that my brain should lie fallow. I believe he feared for my reason. I was very fond of music, and cried when I had to give it up. My governess was too severe, my relations too indulgent.’ It was not until Lady Caroline was fifteen that she tried to make up for lost time. As regarded her education, she showed great aptitude for languages,—French, Italian, Latin, ‘and I had even mastered enough Greek to enable me to enjoy a classical play, when taken to speech-day at Harrow, where my brother was at school.’ She could recite an ode of Sappho to admiring listeners at Devonshire or Spencer House, and was much praised and petted. She piqued herself on her unconventionality, and would plunge into intimacy, or manifest her aversion in the most unequivocal manner. Among the frequent guests at Spencer House was William Lamb, the second son of Lord Melbourne. It would seem strange that the vigilance of the young lady’s relations should not have been awakened by the growing intimacy between her and the captivating younger son. Well bred, well born, with a ringing laugh and an inexpressible charm, which never forsook him in advanced life amid the turmoil of politics, William Lamb had everything to recommend him but a birthright,—and had it not been settled in the family that Caroline was to make a brilliant marriage? Lady Caroline, who loved to record her own adventures, writes to her friend and confidante, Lady Morgan, not very long before her death, recalling her past life: ‘I fell in love, when only twelve years old, with a friend of Charles Fox,—a friend of liberty, whose poems I had read, whose self I had never seen, and, when I did see him, at thirteen, could I change? I was more attached than ever. William Lamb was beautiful, and far the cleverest person then about, the most daring in his opinions, in his love of liberty and independence. He thought of me but as a child; yet he liked me much. Afterwards he wished to marry me, and I refused him because of my temper.’ In another letter she says: ‘I was a fury. He asked me a second time, and this time he was not refused, for I adored him.’ The lady’s relations were reconciled to the match, possibly influenced in some slight degree by the consideration that William Lamb had become heir to a large fortune and a peerage, in consequence of the death of his elder brother.
Marriages never come single in a family. Lamb’s sister Emily was already engaged, and in the year 1805, within a month of each other, the brother was united to Lady Caroline Ponsonby, and the sister to Lord Cowper. Mr. Lamb and his wife passed the early days of their married life between Brocket (Lord Melbourne’s) and Panshanger (Lord Cowper’s) Houses in Hertfordshire; and when the London season began, Lady Caroline contributed not a little to the former attractions of Melbourne House, where she and her husband took up their abode. Society was at variance as to the bride’s merits; her eccentricities amused many of the guests, and affronted others,—for some people are indignant when merely called upon to stare at what is said to them. The Prince of Wales, an habitué of Melbourne House, was one of those who encouraged Lady Caroline in her wayward and wilful moods; her startling speeches, her flighty coquetry, her sudden quarrels, and as sudden reconciliations, whether with her husband or any other member of the community, were a great source of amusement to his Royal Highness. Miss Berry speaks of meeting the Prince at Lady Caroline Lamb’s in the year 1808. She says in her Diary: ‘It was an immense assembly. We came away at half-past twelve, and had to walk beyond the Admiralty to our carriage. Many of the company did not leave till past three; the Prince of Wales had supped below, in Lady Melbourne’s apartments, and remained till past six. Sheridan was there, and quite drunk.’ It would appear by these remarks that Lady Melbourne had vacated a suite of apartments in favour of her daughter-in-law, who received on her own account, as in another passage in Miss Berry’s correspondence there is mention, ‘I am going to Lady Caroline Lamb’s to-night. She gives a party, to be convenient for hearing what is going on, about this famous motion in the House of Peers.’ But Lady Caroline was of too romantic a turn of mind to be absorbed by politics; she had always some small flirtation on hand, and her admirers were frequently under age. We read in the Life of the late Lord Lytton some very early passages between him and this mature object of his adoration,—assignations entered into, notes passing clandestinely, engagements to dance broken off and renewed with playful inconstancy. Excitement, even on so small a scale, seemed necessary to the lady’s existence; she would have been bored to death without it. The novelist admired his goddess enough to put her in print, and describes the compassion she displayed one day, when, finding a beggar who had met with an accident, she insisted on his being lifted, rags and all, into the carriage beside her, when she drove the cripple to his destination.
But a luminary was about to appear on the horizon, which was destined to eclipse all lesser lights. Here is her own account of her first acquaintance with Lord Byron: ‘Rogers, who was one of my adorers, and extolled me up to the skies, said to me one evening, “You must know the new poet.” He offered to lend me the proofs of Childe Harold to read. That was enough for me. Rogers said, “He has a club foot, and bites his nails.” I said, “If he were as ugly as Æsop I must know him.” Lady Westmoreland had met Byron in Italy; she undertook to present him. I looked earnestly at him, and turned on my heel,’—conduct which the poet afterwards reproached her with. London had gone mad about him. All the ladies were pulling caps for him. He said once ostentatiously: ‘The women positively suffocate me.’ That night the entry in Lady Caroline’s Diary was—‘Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.’ She declared at first she had no intention of attracting him, but she confesses how she had come in from riding one windy, rainy day, all muddy and dishevelled, and had been conversing with Moore and Rogers in that plight, when Byron was announced, and she flew out of the room to beautify herself. ‘Lord Byron wished to come and see me at eight o’clock, when I was alone. That was my dinner-hour. I said he might. From that moment, for many months, he almost lived at Melbourne House.’
Lord Hartington, Lady Caroline’s favourite cousin, expressed a wish to have some dancing of an evening at Whitehall, as his stepmother (Lady Elizabeth Foster) objected to anything of the kind at Devonshire House, and accordingly for a time the drawing-room at Melbourne House was turned into a ball-room. But as Lord Byron’s lameness cut him off from the quadrilles and waltzes, this arrangement did not suit him, and his word being law with Lady Caroline, the dancing was soon discontinued. It was a strange flirtation between the poet and the poetaster. The lady would lie awake half the night composing verses, which she would repeat the next day to the great man, in the fond hope of a few crumbs of praise, a commodity of which Byron was very sparing, he being a great deal more taken up with giving utterance to his own effusions. Lady Caroline was often mortified, Lord Byron often wearied,—at least so it would appear. Lord Holland came up to them one evening as they were sitting side by side as usual, with a silver censer in his hand. ‘I am come,’ he said, ‘Lady Caroline, to offer you your due.’ ‘By no means,’ she returned in a tone of pique; ‘pray give it all to Lord Byron. He is so accustomed to incense that he cannot exist without it.’
A recent biography describes the situation well when it says: ‘He grew moody, and she fretful, when their mutual egotisms jarred.’ William Lamb’s wife was certainly not formed to make home happy. One day she extolled his generosity and lack of jealousy; another, she accused him of apathy and indifference with regard to her flirtations. Her conduct was marked by alternate tenderness and ill-temper: there could be no doubt of her affection for her invalid boy, yet her treatment of him was spasmodic and fitful,—now devoted, now neglectful. More than once a separation had been agreed upon, and Mr. Lamb had even gone so far as to forbid his wife the house, and believed she was gone. He went to his own room, locked himself in, and sat brooding over his troubles. It was growing late, when he was attracted by the well-known sound of scratching at the door, and he rose to let in his favourite dog. But lo! the intruder was no other than his wife, who, crouching on the floor, had made use of this stratagem to gain admittance. Half indignant, half amused, he did not long resist the glamour which this eccentric woman knew how to throw around him. Peace was restored for a short time, but not for long; another explosion, a violent domestic quarrel, occurred one night in London. Lady Caroline went out, called a hackney coach, and in her evening dress—a white muslin frock, blue sash, and diamond necklace—drove to the house of a physician, whom she scarcely knew. She describes with great unction the surprise and admiration of the assembled guests, ‘who took me for a child, and were surprised at my fine jewels.’