“Bushy House, Wednesday.
“My dear Sir,
“Not having the least suspicion of the business in Dublin, it shocked and grieved me very much; not only on my own account, but I regret that I should have been the involuntary cause of any thing painful to you, or to your amiable family. But of Mr. Jones I can think any thing: and I beg you will do me the justice to believe that my feelings are not selfish. Why indeed should I expect to escape their infamous calumnies? Truth, however, will force its way.* * * * * I wanted nothing from Mr. C * * *’s generosity, but I had a claim on his justice:—* * * * *
“During the two representations of ‘The Inconstant’ I represented to him the state Mr. Dwyer was in, and implored him, out of respect to the audience, if not in pity to my terrors, to change the play. As to the libel on Mr. Dwyer, charged to me by Mr. Gold, I never directly or indirectly, by words or by writing, demeaned myself by interfering in the most remote degree with so wretched a concern. I knew no editor—I read no newspapers while in Dublin. The charge is false and libellous on me, published, I presume, through Mr. Gold’s assistance. Under that view of the case, he will feel himself rather unpleasantly circumstanced should I call upon him either to prove or disavow his assertions. To be introduced any way into such a business shocks and grieves me: he might have pleaded for his companions without calumniating me: but, for the present, I shall drop an irksome subject, which has already given me more than ordinary uneasiness. * * * * * *
“Yours, &c.
“Dora Jordan.”[[34]]
I have seen this accomplished woman in the midst of one of the finest families in England, surrounded by splendour, beloved, respected, and treated with all the deference paid to a member of high life. I could perceive, indeed, no offset to her comforts and gratification. She was, in my hearing, frequently solicited to retire from her profession: she was urged to forego all further emoluments from its pursuit; and this single fact gives the contradiction direct to reports which I should feel it improper even to allude to further. Her constant reply was, that she would retire when Mrs. Siddons did; but that her losses by the fire at Covent Garden, together with other incidental outgoings, had been so extensive, as to induce her continuance of the profession to replace her finances. Her promise to retire with Mrs. Siddons, however, she did not act up to, but continued to gratify the public, with enormous profit to herself, down to the very last year she remained in England. It is matter of fact, too, (though perhaps here out of place,) that, so far from a desertion of this lady, as falsely reported, to the last hour of her life the solicitude of her royal friend was, I believe, undiminished; and though separated, for causes in no way discreditable to either, he never lost sight of her interest or her comforts. It was not the nature of His Royal Highness:—he was incapable of unkindness toward Mrs. Jordan: those reports had, indeed, no foundation, save in the vicious representation of hungry or avaricious editors, or in the scurrility of those hackneyed and indiscriminate enemies of rank and reputation, whose aspersions are equally a disgrace and an injury to the country wherein they are tolerated.
[34]. The speeches of counsel on that trial being published in the newspapers, she requested my advice as to bringing an action for defamation against some of the parties. My reply to her was the same that had been pleasantly and adroitly given to myself by Sir John Doyle.