On the following morning Lords Northington, Lyttelton, and Colonel Ayscough made their visits of ceremony. Mr. Robinson was not at home, but I received them, though not without some embarrassment. I was yet a child, and wholly unacquainted with the manners of the world; yet, young as I was, I became the traveller of its mazy and perilous paths. At an age when girls are generally at school, or indeed scarcely emancipated from the nursery, I was presented in society as a wife—and very nearly as a mother.
Lord Lyttelton, who was perhaps the most accomplished libertine that any age or country has produced, with considerable artifice inquired after Mr. Robinson, professed his earnest desire to cultivate his acquaintance, and, on the following day, sent him a card of invitation. Lyttelton was an adept in the artifices of fashionable intrigue. He plainly perceived that both Mr. Robinson and myself were uninitiated in its mysteries; he knew that to undermine a wife's honour he must become master of the husband's confidence, and Mr. Robinson was too much pleased with the society of a man whose wit was only equalled by his profligacy, to shrink from such an association.
Fortunately for me, Lord Lyttelton was uniformly my aversion. His manners were overbearingly insolent, his language licentious, and his person slovenly even to a degree that was disgusting. Mr. Robinson was in every respect the very reverse of his companion: he was unassuming, neat, and delicate in his conversation. I had not a wish to descend from the propriety of wedded life, and I abhorred, decidedly abhorred, the acquaintance with Lord Lyttelton.
In the course of a few days his lordship presented me the works of Miss Aitken[[14]] (now Mrs. Barbauld). I read them with rapture. I thought them the most beautiful poems I had ever seen, and considered the woman who could invent such poetry as the most to be envied of human creatures. Lord Lyttelton had some taste for poetical compositions, and wrote verses with considerable facility.
On the following Monday I again visited the Pantheon. My dress was then white and silver. Again I was followed with attention. Lord Lyttelton was my cavaliere servente that evening, though, as usual, his chief attention was paid to Mr. Robinson. During the concert he presented the Count de Belgeioso, the imperial ambassador, one of the most accomplished foreigners I ever remember having met with. Lord Valentia was also introduced, but as his lordship had recently made some éclat by his attentions to the celebrated Mrs. Elliot, I rather avoided than wished to cultivate his acquaintance.
Mr. Robinson's intercourse with the world was now rapidly augmenting. Every day was productive of some new association. Lord Lyttelton presented many of his friends; among others, Captain O'Byrne, and Mr. William Brereton, of Drury Lane Theatre. In the course of a short time we also became acquainted with Sir Francis Molyneux, Mr. Alderman Sayer, and the late unfortunate George Robert Fitzgerald.[[15]] Lord Northington was also a constant visitor, and frequently rallied me on what he thought my striking likeness to his family.
Among my female friends, those for whom I entertained the strongest esteem were Lady Yea, the wife of Sir William Yea, and the sister of Sir John Trevellyan. She was a lovely and accomplished woman. Mrs. Parry, the wife of the Rev. Doctor Parry, and the author of "Eden Vale," a novel, was also one of my most favourite acquaintances. Mrs. Parry was a woman of considerable talents, a wit, and of remarkably pleasing manners.
Of those who frequented our house Lord Lyttelton was most decidedly my abhorrence; I knew that he frequently led my husband from the paths of domestic confidence to the haunts of profligate debasement. Toward me his lordship affected great indifference. He has even in my presence declared that no woman under thirty years of age was worth admiring; that even the antiquity of forty was far preferable to the insipidity of sixteen; and he generally concluded his observations by hoping he had not made "the pretty child angry."
I soon discovered that his intercourse with Lord Lyttelton produced a very considerable change in Mr. Robinson's domestic deportment. They were constantly together, and the neglect which I experienced began to alarm me. I dedicated all my leisure hours to poetry; I wrote verses of all sorts; and Mr. Robinson having mentioned that I had proposed appearing on the stage, previous to my marriage, in the character of Cordelia, Lord Lyttelton facetiously christened me the Poetess Corry.
It was with extreme regret, and frequently with uncontrollable indignation, that I endured the neglect of my husband and the tauntings of the profligate Lyttelton. "The child"—for so he generally called me—was deserted for the society of the most libertine men and the most abandoned women. Mr. Robinson became not only careless of his wife, but of his pecuniary finances, while I was kept in total ignorance as to the resources which supported his increasing expenses.