But this indifference to all the nobler feelings was the style of the day. Religion was scarcely more than a form: its preachers were partisans; its controversies were court feuds, its principles were politics, and its objects were stoles and mitres. In an age when Sacheverel, with his rampant nonsense, had been a popular apostle, and Swift, with his pungent abominations, had been a church adviser of the cabinet, and when Hoadley was regarded alternately as a pillar and as a subverter of the faith, we may easily conjecture the national estimate of Christianity.
Unfortunately, a considerable proportion of the correspondence in these volumes is from clerical candidates for personal services; and if singular eagerness in pursuit of preferment, and singular homage to the influence of the queen's bed-chamber-woman, could stamp them with shame, the brand would be at once broad and indelible. But it must be remembered, that there are contemptible minds in every profession, that these men acted in direct violation of the principles of their religion, and that the church is no more accountable for the delinquencies of its members, than the courts of law for the morals of the jail.
Another repulsive feature of the period was the conduct of conspicuous females. The habits of Germany in its higher ranks were offensive to all purity. The Brunswick Princes had brought those habits to St James's. Born and educated in Germany, they were regardless even of the feeble decorums of English life, and a king's mistress was an understood portion of the royal establishment. It is to the honour of later times, that such offences could not now be committed with impunity. But the example of Louis XIV. had sanctioned all royal excesses, and the conduct of his successor was an actual study of the most reckless profligacy. The constant intercourse of the English nobility with Paris, to which allusion has already been made, had accustomed them to such scenes, and persons of the highest condition, of the most important offices of the state, and even of the most respectable private character, such as respectability was in those days, associated with those mistresses, corresponded with them, and even submitted to be assisted by their influence with the king.
We shall give but one example; that of Henrietta Hobart, afterwards Lady Suffolk. A baronet's daughter, and poor, she had married in early life the son of the Earl of Suffolk, nearly as poor as herself. In their narrowness of means, their only resource was some court office, and to obtain this, and probably to live cheap, they went to Hanover, to lay the foundation of favour with the future monarch of England. To some extent they succeeded. For, on the accession of George the First, Mrs Howard was appointed bedchamber-woman to Caroline the Princess of Wales.
Courts, in all countries, seem to be dull places; ceremonial fails as a substitute for animation, and dinners of fifty covers become a mere tax on time, taste, and common-sense. Etiquette is only ennui under another name, and the eternal anticipation of enjoyment is the death of all pleasure. Miss Burney's narrative has let in light on the sullen mysteries of the Maid of Honour's life, and her pencil has evidently given us only the picture of what had been in the times of our forefathers, and what will be in the times of our posterity.
Mrs Howard was well-looking, without the invidious attribute of great beauty, and lively, without the not less invidious faculty of wit. All the court officials crowded her apartments in the palace. Chesterfield, young Churchill, Lord Hervey, Lord Scarborough, all hurried to the tea-table of the well-bred bedchamber-woman, to escape the dreary duties and monotonous moping of attendance on the throne. Lady Walpole, Mrs Selwyn, Mary Lepell, and Mary Bellenden, formed a part of this coterie—all women of presumed character, yet all associating familiarly with women of none. Of Mrs Howard, Swift observed in his acid style—"That her private virtues, for want of room to operate, might be folded and laid up clean, like clothes in a chest, never to be put on; till satiety, or some reverse of fortune should dispose her to retirement."
Then, probably in reference to the prudery with which she occasionally covered her conduct,—"In the meantime," said he, "it will be her prudence, to take care that they be not tarnished and moth-eaten, for want of opening and airing, and turning, at least once a-year."
Those matters seem to have sought no concealment whatever. "Es regolar," says the Spaniard, when his country is charged with some especial abomination. Howard, the husband, though a roué, at last went into the quadrangle at St James's and publicly demanded his wife. He then wrote to the Archbishop. His letter was given to the Queen, and by her to Mrs Howard. Yet all this scandal never interrupted the lady's intercourse with the highest personages of the court. Mrs Howard continued to be the Queen's bedchamber woman; the Queen suffered her personal attendance, her carriage was escorted by John Duke of Argyle; her husband obtained a pension to hold his tongue; and even when the King grew tired of the liaison, and wished to get rid of her, actually complaining to the Queen, "That he did not know why she would not let him part with a deaf old woman, of whom he was weary," the politic Caroline would not allow him to give her up, "lest a younger favourite should gain a greater ascendency over him." After this, we must hear no more of the delicacy of Queen Caroline. Virtue and religion scarcely belonged to her day.
In a court of this intolerable worldliness, the worldly must thrive; and Mrs Clayton advanced year by year in the imitation of her mistress, and in power. She, as well as Lady Suffolk, adopted Caroline's patronage of letters, and corresponded a good deal with the clever men of the time. We quote one of Lady Suffolk's letters addressed to Swift, apparently in answer to some of his perpetual complaints of a world, which used him only too well after all.
"September, 1727.