The remains of the late Mrs. Richard Trench

by Melesina Chenevix St. George Trench

Westminster,
March 10th, 1862.

REMAINS, ETC.

CHAPTER I.
1768-1799.

My Mother, Melesina Chenevix, was the only child of the Rev. Philip Chenevix and of his wife, Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Archdeacon Gervais. Her father was the son (at his marriage the sole surviving child) of Richard Chenevix, Bishop of Waterford, Lord Chesterfield’s correspondent, and is often playfully alluded to as ‘the young bishop’ in his Lordship’s letters.[1] In a brief sketch of her grandfather’s life, it is explained how the familiarity and confidence, which breathe in every line of Lord Chesterfield’s letters to the Bishop, grew up between them. It is as follows:—

My grandfather was educated at the University of Cambridge, took holy orders, married Dorothea, of whom I only know she was the sister of Admiral Dives, and much beloved by Queen Caroline. On Lord Chesterfield’s appointment as Ambassador Extraordinary to the States-General at the Hague, in 1728, my grandfather was recollected at court as a person whose political information and accurate knowledge of the French language would make him peculiarly useful, while his high principles and scrupulous delicacy fitted him for an unlimited confidence. He was accordingly named chaplain to Lord Chesterfield, and during the embassy gained the esteem of all parties. The Prince of Orange treated him with peculiar distinction, and presented him at parting with his picture and those of his family, together with a massive silver cup, engraven with the Stadtholder’s arms.[2] So great an impression did his talents and conduct make in this situation, that the wife of the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick, who was born very many years after his residence at the Hague, spoke to me of him in 1800 as one familiar with his character, having often heard his eulogium from her grandfather and grandmother. Lord Chesterfield conceived the warmest friendship for him; and till the hour of his death paid him the respect of appearing to him a strict friend to religion and morality, insomuch that my grandfather was really acquainted only with the bright side of this dazzling but imperfect character. On Lord Chesterfield’s appointment to the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, he recommended my grandfather to a bishopric, and enforced his recommendation, when he was answered that ‘the King wished he would look out for another bishop,’ by replying, that ‘he wished the King would look out for another Lord-Lieutenant.’[3] On this my grandfather was immediately appointed Bishop of Killaloe, and in a few months translated to Waterford. There he resided thirty-three years, and there, in 1779, he died, after a long life of primitive purity and continually active and often splendid benevolence; having survived two daughters, as well as Philip, his beloved and exemplary son, leaving only one grand-daughter, Melesina, writer of these memoranda.

Born in 1768, she had lost before her fourth birthday both her parents by death. I find among her papers, without date, but certainly belonging to later years, some brief recollections of her childhood, why, and for whom, written will be gathered from the introductory sentences:—

It is your desire that I should write some recollections of the past. Unaccustomed to order and precision in the use of my pen as I am, they will be incoherent and desultory, perhaps uninteresting. But I feel that compliance with your wishes is to me a sort of destiny; and therefore, however I may fail in the execution, since you desire it, I am compelled to make the attempt.

Whatever faults I may have, I do not inherit them from my parents. They were all love and gentleness, piety and benevolence; fondly attached to each other, and removed from this world by an early death, which seemed to have no terrors for either. Their separation was short, and I trust their reunion eternal. My paternal grandfather was one of those guileless, humble, benevolent, firm, affectionate, and pious characters, rarely seen, and never duly appreciated; particularly when a species of naïveté, which, for want of a better name, the world calls simplicity, is blended with these qualities. He was learned, active, and diligent, both in the performance of his duties and the cultivation of his mind, to the last hour of a life prolonged beyond the age of fourscore.

I have a dim recollection of my father in some playful scene; and of my mother conversing mildly with me, once taking from me some paper figures with which she found it impossible to please me by repeated alterations; and again, kneeling in her widow’s weeds, after my father’s death, and praying silently, at Clifton, where she went for the cure of that consumption she had caught in her tender and unwearied attendance upon him in the South of France.[4] It seemed as if her death, which soon followed his, interrupted the progress of my ideas, for I have then no distinct recollection of anything till that period of my infancy which found me with my paternal grandfather, my fondly attached nurse, Alice Cornwall, ‘the abstract and brief chronicle of the times;’ and a governess whom I thought old—I know not her age—with a very long face, a very long waist, and a stocking in her hand, which she knitted so perseveringly it seemed a part of herself; and a determination to rule by rigour, to pass nothing, to correct seldom, but then to do it with effect. The fear and distaste I had for her is indescribable. It was increased by the arrival of a large, coarse, furious-looking maid, who I understood was to replace my own Ally, the only remaining creature of the little group, all gentleness and joy, that I had been used to love. I shall not dwell on the cruelties I suffered, possibly from the best intentions; but they have impressed me with a deep horror of unkindness to the young, and of all that is fierce or despotic in every shape. My grandfather was deaf, and confined by infirmity to his chair. I had an aversion to complaint, and what is most singular, and to me now unaccountable, I never did complain to him; and I believe children suffer much rather than do so, partly from fear of worse treatment, and sometimes partly from generosity; they vaguely conceive their father’s house is all the world, and that the servant or governess dismissed at their instance, is dismissed to be an homeless wanderer for life. At least, this appears to me to have been the principal, perhaps the only, cause that restrained me.