In the evening Lower Grosvenor Street was blocked up with carriages, out of which gentlemen and ladies, all in blue and buff, descended to visit the famous Mrs. Crewe, whose husband, then member for Chester, was created, in 1806, Lord Crewe. This lady was as remarkable for her accomplishments and her worth as for her beauty; nevertheless, she permitted the admiration of Fox, who was in the rank of her admirers. The lines he wrote on her were not exaggerated. They began thus:
"Where the loveliest expression to features is joined,
By Nature's most delicate pencil design'd;
Where blushes unbidden, and smiles without art,
Speak the softness and feeling that dwell in the heart;
Where in manners enchanting, no blemish we trace,
But the soul keeps the promise we had from the face;
Sure philosophy, reason, and coldness must prove
Defences unequal to shield us from love."
Nearly eight years after the famous election at Westminster, Mrs. Crewe was still in perfection, with a son of one and twenty, who looked like her brother. The form of her face was exquisitely lovely, her complexion radiant. "I know not," Miss Burney writes, "any female in her first youth who could bear the comparison. She uglifies every one near her."
This charming partisan of Fox had been active in his cause; and her originality of character, her good humour, her recklessness of consequences, made her a capital canvasser.
The same company that had assembled in the morning at Carlton House now crowded into Grosvenor Street. Blue and buff were the order of the evening, the Prince of Wales wearing those colours. After supper he gave a toast,—"True blue and Mrs. Crewe." The room rang with applause. The hostess rose to return thanks. "True blue, and all of you," was her toast. Nor did the festivities end here. Canton House some days afterward received all the great world, the "true blues" of London. The fête, which was of the most varied kind, and of the most magnificent description, began at noon, went on all night, and was not ended till the next day. Nothing could exceed its splendour. A costly banquet was prepared for the ladies, on whom his Royal Highness and the gentlemen waited whilst they were seated at table. Nothing could exceed the grace, the courtesy, the tact of the prince on these occasions, when he forgot his two hundred thousand pounds of debt, and added to them. Louis XIV., said an eye-witness, could not have eclipsed him. This was probably the brightest era in the life of the Duchess of Devonshire. She was the lady paramount of the aristocratic Whig circles, in which rank and literature were blended with political characters. Slander soon coupled her name with that of Fox; and that name, though never wholly blighted, was sullied. Miss Burney, meeting her at Bath, some years afterward, describes her as no longer beautiful, but with manners exquisitely polite, and "with a gentle quiet" of demeanour. Yet there was an expression of melancholy. "I thought she looked oppressed within," was Miss Burney's remark. On another occasion she found her more lively, and consequently more lovely, vivacity being so much her characteristic that her style of beauty required it. "She was quite gay, easy, and charming; indeed, that last word might have been coined for her;" and Miss Burney soon perceived that it was the sweetness of her smile, her open, ingenuous countenance, that had won her the celebrity which had attended her career of fashion.
But even then there was a canker in the duchess's felicity. Lady Elizabeth Foster, the daughter of the Earl of Bristol, and a contrast to her in person,—large, dark, and handsome,—had attracted the duke, her husband, and the coldest of men had become, deeply enamoured of this woman, whom he eventually married. Gibbon said of Lady Elizabeth that she was the most alluring of women. Strange to say, a sort of friendship existed between the duchess and Lady Elizabeth, who was with her at Bath, when Miss Burney saw them together. Even then a cloud hung over—these two ladies of rank; and Mrs. Ord, Miss Gurney's cautious friend, reproved her for making their acquaintance.
Three children of rare promise were given to occupy the affections which were so little reciprocated by the duke. The elder of the three, Georgiana Dorothy, afterward married to the Earl of Carlisle, and the mother of the present Duchess of Sutherland, is described by Miss Gurney, at eight years of age, as having a fine, sweet, and handsome countenance, and with the form and figure of a girl of twelve. She, as well as her sister, was at that time under the care of Miss Trimmer, the daughter of Mrs. Trimmer, one of the most admirable writers for children that has ever delighted our infancy. Miss Trimmer is described as a "pleasing, not pretty" young lady, with great serenity of manner.
Lady Henrietta Elizabeth, married to the Earl of Granville, so long ambassador at Paris, was, at six years of age, by "no means handsome, but had an open and pleasing countenance, and a Look of the most happy disposition;" a tribute borne out by the many virtues of that admirable lady in after life. The Marquis of Hartington, afterward Duke of Devonshire, then only fourteen months old (this was in 1791), had already a house, and a carriage to himself, almost in the style of royalty. He lived near his father, whilst the duchess was staying with her mother, Lady Spencer. To persons of domestic notions this seems a singular arrangement.
This apparently happy family party had, however, some trials to obscure their supposed felicity. Scandal not only pointed at Lady Elizabeth Foster as possessing an undue influence over the duke, but attacked the duchess in the most sacred relations of her life. The little marquis was reputed to be illegitimate; the report assumed several shapes; of course rancorous political partisans pointed to the intimacy with Fox; others to the intimacy at Carlton House. Another story also obtained credit, and never died away. This was that at the time when the duchess was confined, Lady Elizabeth gave birth to a son, the duchess to a daughter, and that the children were changed; that the late duke entered into a contract with his uncle, the late Lord George Cavendish, never to marry, in order that his lordship's children might have an undisputed succession at his Grace's death.
There was another source of disquiet to Lady Spencer and the duchess at this time, in the deep depression of Lady Duncannon. This lady, the mother of Lady Caroline Lamb, so conspicuous for her eccentricity in our own time, seems to have been affectionately beloved by her brother, the Lord Spencer, the grandfather of the present earl. "He made up to her," says Miss Burney, "with every mark of pitying affection, she receiving him with the most expressive pleasure, though nearly silent." This afflicted woman lived, nevertheless, to a great age, and survived her gay, spirited sister, the Duchess of Devonshire.