The remains of the late Mrs. Richard Trench

by Melesina Chenevix St. George Trench

My health, however, sunk under restraint, fear, and inflictions of every kind, combined with want of fresh air, and insufficient food. The two last privations were for the good of my health and beauty, both which they materially injured. The smooth, smiling cheek, affectionately remembered even now by those who cherished my childhood as being ‘round as an apple,’ grew pale and wan; the body delicate; the elastic step listless; and in all the useless and encumbering embonpoint of my present existence, I still shudder when I call to mind the thinness of my neck and arms.

I was the best little child possible. Happy had I been, if such dispositions as I then possessed had been cherished, and the faults which afterwards sprung up eradicated. I was obedient and loving, docile and lively, although timid. I do not remember the smallest disposition to falsehood or mischief, and I sympathized with every being that felt. I pined away so rapidly under the new régime, it was necessary to call in the physicians, and to recal my nurse. The symptoms of danger disappeared, and the physicians had the honour of the amendment produced by the good Alice Cornwall. Cure it could not be called, for I remained miserably thin; and the delicacy of my form, the brightness of my large black eyes, and the premature intelligence of mind and countenance produced by love and suffering, combined with early change of society and place, I am told gave something unearthly to my whole appearance. I remember those addressing me as a fairy queen, an Ariel, a sylph, who spoke to me in sportive kindness; but these were few; for I lived among the old, and old age was then less gracious, particularly to the young, than it is now.

Before I ceased to be a child, my good and kind, nay, doting grandfather, died. He had not made me happy, though he had tried to do so; nay, he had not prevented me from being miserable. But I felt he loved me more than all the world; and without knowing the value of deep and exclusive love, I regretted him, both from gratitude and from affection.

From him I went to my dear, ever dear Lady Lifford; my tender, kind, and constant friend. Once seen, she was ever known. She realized all the poetical delineations of feminine gentleness and sensibility; my heart clung to her from the first moment; and even now her dear idea mingles with my deepest and tenderest thoughts. She was the lovely mother of three affectionate children, whom she educated with suavity and apparent indulgence; but although we seemed to do as we liked, in fact we were doing all that she wished. How happy was the ensuing year, how full it appears when I look back; its bright rays set off by the dark hours which preceded and followed. I never heard the tone, or saw the look, of reproach; I cannot remember even that of the mildest reproof. What an enjoyment was the free air, and use of my own limbs, bounding along an extensive park, or inhaling and admiring beds of flowers. The woods, the garden, the deer, the peacocks, the sports of childhood, the voice of joy, even the cheerfulness of a well-regulated large English family, were all sources of joy. What a contrast to privation, severity, restraint, confinement; for I had never walked but in a walled garden, except when occasionally sent to the seashore to bathe. What a contrast to seeing none but the aged, the infirm, the severe, and being ever under the eye of a rigid governess. How delightful was it to me to find myself caressed, applauded. Applause was not quite so new a feeling as might have been wished; for I had been sent one night in my dear grandfather’s life, to a fancy ball, dressed as Sterne’s Maria, with my favourite little dog in a string, and I had drunk deep, fatally deep, of the intoxicating draught of delusive admiration paid to personal appearance. It was a dangerous experiment, and I can trace to it many of the tares which sprung up in my young heart.

My young affections entwined about Lady Lifford, and her children, Ambrosia, George, Elizabeth. All this dear group are vanished;

‘How populous, how vital is the grave.’

I was near a year older than the eldest; I had great influence over them; I was the leader in their sports, and each sought with eager competition for the largest share of my love. I gave it to George, yet, from instinct, I suppose, I sometimes teased him, though never his sisters. I would say, ‘George, you do not love me,’ and express doubts of his affection, till the large bright drops forced themselves from his mild hazel eyes, and then I would console him with the softest kindness, till I drew him from under the sofa, the place where he usually flung himself to hide his young sorrows. This strange exertion of feminine power over a child of nine by one three years older; was it instinct, or a species of coquetry awakened by having read in my grandfather’s study, Shakspeare, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Sterne, The Arabian Nights, an abundance of plays, and several works of imagination, which, describing the influence of female charms as invincible, excited an early desire to try their force? This childish exercise of power stands alone. I do not recollect any other instance of the slightest propensity to tyrannize; on the contrary, I did all I could to promote the pleasure of my companions, and even in points where I had any advantages over them, to be careful they should never feel it. I was their surest confidante, their most disinterested adviser, and in sickness their tenderest and most unwearied nurse. This looks too much like praising of myself, yet what can I do? The kindly qualities I have mentioned are compatible with a thousand faults, of which the germs were but slightly developed in these youthful days.

Some other fragmentary reminiscences of childhood, I do not know at what time written, but I am inclined to think of earlier date than those which have just been given, dwell with more fulness on the graces and virtues of the good Bishop; even as I can well remember that my Mother, in later years, loved often to speak of them. They leave, too, an impression of her own life under her grandfather’s roof, if not a happy one, nor one natural to a child, yet on the whole not so unhappy as the preceding notice would imply. It is in the very nature of such recollections of a distant past, that the colours which it wears should not always be exactly the same.

After my mother’s death I lived with my dear grandfather, the good Bishop of Waterford. I was the only remaining child of his once numerous family, and in me were centered all his earthly hopes and wishes. His domestic affections were uncommonly strong. They formed a solid and broad basis for his universal philanthropy. He often spoke of his lost children, of his departed wife, and of his revered father, who died on the field of battle.[5] Even his family pictures, a numerous collection, which he had carefully brought from England when he came to settle at his bishopric, were regarded by him with sentiments of greater tenderness and veneration than some appear to feel for their living friends. The education of his orphan grand-daughter became his favourite employment. She was to him as a ray of sunshine sent to gild the evening of his life. But she did not absorb the mild affections of that expanded heart, which looked on all the sons and daughters of affliction as its own. Inattentive to the voice of vanity, selfishness, or dissipation, and above all taste for luxury and splendour, his superfluity was exclusively devoted to acts of charity; and his idea of superfluity was that of a Christian bishop. To one who expressed fears of his injuring his family by his generosity, he replied, ‘No, no, I shall die scandalously rich.’ Prudent men accused him of being too lavish and indiscriminate in his bounty; and it was said that whoever awakened his feelings commanded his purse. But these were noble errors, and sufficiently punished by the occasional ingratitude he experienced. He proved by the whole tenour of his actions that his philanthropy was not the mere child of impulse; for he assisted numerous public charities with the utmost exertion of his vigilance and industry. In more instances than one he wrested from the strong grasp of power and affluence the portion of those who had none to help them; and saved from rapacious heirs the revenues of establishments, destined to last as long as our Constitution for the comfort of the widow and the fatherless.[6] He also sowed the first precious seed of many liberal endowments. Providence prospered his efforts, and those yet unborn may bless his name.