I imagine Dr. Johnson meant a sneer at Lord Lyttelton, when he says laconically,—"his wife died, and he solaced himself by writing a long monody on her memory."—In these days we might naturally exclaim against a widowed husband who should solace himself by apostrophes to the Muses and Graces, and bring in the whole Aonian choir,—Pindus and Castalia, Aganippe's fount, and Thespian vales; the Clitumnus and the Illissus, and such Pagan and classical embroidery.—What should we have thought of Lord Byron's famous "Fare thee well," if conceived in this style?—but such was the poetical vocabulary of Lord Lyttelton's day: and that he had not sufficient genius and originality to rise above it, is no argument against the sincerity of his grief. Petrarch and his Laura (apropos to all that has ever been sung or said of love for five hundred years) are called, in a very common-place strain, from their "Elysian bowers;" and then follow some lines of real and touching beauty, because they owe nothing to art or effort, but are the immediate result of truth and feeling. He is still apostrophising Petrarch.
What were, alas! thy woes compar'd to mine?
To thee thy mistress in the blissful band
Of Hymen never gave her hand;
The joys of wedded love were never thine!
In thy domestic care
She never bore a share;
Nor with endearing art
Would heal thy wounded heart
Of every secret grief that fester'd there:
Nor did her fond affection on the bed
Of sickness watch thee, and thy languid head
Whole nights on her unwearied arm sustain,
And charm away the sense of pain:
Nor did she crown your mutual flame
With pledges dear, and with a father's tender name.
....*....*....*....*
How in the world, to me a desert grown,
Abandon'd and alone,
Without my sweet companion can I live?
Without her lovely smile,
The dear reward of every virtuous toil,
What pleasures now can pall'd Ambition give?
One would wish to think that Lord Lyttelton was faithful to the memory of his Lucy: but he was neither more nor less than man; and in the impatience of grief, or unable to live without that domestic happiness to which his charming wife had accustomed him, he married again, about two years after her death, and too precipitately. His second choice was Elizabeth Rich, eldest daughter of Sir Robert Rich. Perhaps he expected too much; and how few women could have replaced Lucy Fortescue! The experiment proved a most unfortunate one, and added bitterness to his regrets. He devoted the rest of his life to politics and literature.
About ten years after his second marriage, Lord Lyttelton made a tour into Wales with a gay party. On some occasion, while they stood contemplating a scene of uncommon picturesque beauty, he turned to a friend, and asked him, with enthusiasm, whether it was possible to behold a more pleasing sight? Yes, answered the other—the countenance of the woman one loves! Lord Lyttelton shrunk, as if probed to the quick; and after a moment's silence, replied pensively—"once, I thought so!"[68]
Lord Lyttelton brings to mind his friend and patron, Frederick Prince of Wales (grandfather of the present King). From the impression which history has given of his character, no one, I believe, would suspect him of being a poet, though he was known as the patron of poets. He sometimes amused himself with writing French and English songs, &c. in imitation of the Regent Duc d'Orleans. But, assuredly, it was not in imitation of the Regent he chose his own wife for the principal subject of his ditties. In the same manner, and in the same worthy spirit of imitation of the same worthy person, he tried hard to be a libertine, and laid siege to the virtue of sundry maids of honour; preferring all the time, in his inmost soul, his own wife to the handsomest among her attendants. His flirtations with Lady Archibald Hamilton and Miss Vane had not half the grace or sincerity of some of his effusions to the Princess, whom he tenderly loved, and used to call, with a sort of pastoral gallantry, "ma Sylvie." One of his songs has been preserved by that delicious retailer of court-gossip, Horace Walpole; and I copy it from the Appendix to his Memoirs, without agreeing in his flippant censure.
SONG.
'Tis not the languid brightness of thine eyes,
That swim with pleasure and delight,
Nor those fair heavenly arches which arise
O'er each of them, to shade their light:—
'Tis not that hair which plays with every wind,
And loves to wanton o'er thy face,
Now straying o'er thy forehead, now behind
Retiring with insidious grace:—