Middleton took an interest in the grandchildren of his deceased wife. His favorite among them was his god-daughter Elizabeth, the elder of the two girls. When first he saw her she was not quite eight years old. He was at once struck by her precocious intelligence, and undertook to begin her education. Her power of attention, and strength of memory, were tested in the following way. He kept her with him while conversing with visitors on subjects far beyond her grasp, and expected her both to listen, and to give him afterwards some account of what had passed. The exercise was a severe one, but his little pupil profited by it. Guided by him, she made her first steps in Latin, her knowledge of which, in after-life, was an inexhaustible source of pleasure. She often regretted that she had not learnt Greek as well.
A favorite amusement of the young Robinsons was that of playing at Parliament, their gentle mother sitting by and obligingly acting as Speaker, a title which her children habitually used when mentioning her among themselves. Often, when dispute waxed too warm, had she to interfere, and restore order among the senators, of whom Elizabeth was not the least eloquent.
Wimpole Hall, now the home of the Yorkes, was, in the early part of last century, inhabited by Lord Oxford.[42] In 1731, Mrs. Robinson went from Cambridge to pay a visit there, taking her daughter Elizabeth with her. Lord and Lady Oxford had an only child and heiress, Lady Margaret Harley, who, a few years later, became Duchess of Portland. Lady Margaret was eighteen, and Elizabeth Robinson eleven. In spite of the difference in their ages, they became friends at once. Lady Margaret was immensely diverted by Elizabeth’s liveliness of mind, and restlessness of body, and—being addicted to dispensing nicknames—called her Fidget. Elizabeth was doubtless flattered by the notice the other accorded her. On getting back to Cambridge, she sat down to write a letter to her new friend, but had difficulty in finding something to say. One can imagine her chewing the feather of her pen, and rolling her eyes, in the agony of composition. At last she began:
“This Cambridge is the dullest place: it neither affords anything entertaining nor ridiculous enough to put into a letter. Were it half so difficult to find something to say as something to write, what a melancholy set of people should we be who love prating!”
Letter-writing soon ceased to cause her the slightest effort. This was well, for she was cut off for a period from all but epistolary intercourse with Lady Margaret, owing to her father’s settling at a place he owned in Kent, Mount Morris, near Hythe. Had Mr. Robinson followed his inclination, he would have preferred living in London, for he much appreciated the society of his fellow-men. But prudence forbade this. Though comfortably off, he was not wealthy, and already his elder sons were treading on his heels. He fell to repining at times, declaring that living in the country was simply sleeping with his eyes open. His daughter Elizabeth (evidently now an authority in the household) would rally him sharply when he spoke so, and we learn from one of her letters that she had taken to putting saffron in his tea to enliven his spirits. His temper, for all that, continued most uncertain. Once, after promising to take her to the Canterbury Races, and the festivities which followed them, he changed his mind suddenly, and decided on remaining at home. Keenly disappointed was Elizabeth, who was so eager about dancing, that she fancied she had at some time or other been bitten by the tarantula. But philosophy came to her aid, and she confessed that writing a long letter to her dear duchess, was a more rational pleasure than “jumping and cutting capers.”
Her health was not altogether satisfactory. An affection of the hip-joint was the cause of her being ordered to Bath in 1740. Neither the place itself, nor the lounging life led by the bathers, were much to her taste. It amused her, though, to comment satirically on the people she saw. Who, one wonders, were the good folks thus turned inside out?—
“There is one family here that affect sense. Their stock is indeed so low that, if they laid out much, they would be in danger of becoming bankrupt; but, according to their present economy, it will last them their lives. And everybody commends them—for who will not praise what they do not envy? To commend what they admire, is above the capacity of the generality.”
On leaving Bath, she spent some weeks with the Duke and Duchess of Portland, at their grand house in Whitehall. During her visit she was ordered by the doctor to enter on a fresh course of baths—this time at Marylebone—and thither she used to proceed every morning in the ducal coach. The duchess accompanied her on the first occasion, and was “frightened out of her wits” at the intrepidity with which she plunged in. Lord Dupplin, who was given to rhyming, actually found material for an ode in the account he received of Miss Fidget’s aquatic feats.
The following year, Mr. Robinson’s younger daughter, Sarah, caught the smallpox. Elizabeth who, besides being rather delicate, had a considerable share of beauty to lose, was at once removed by her parents from Mount Morris, and sent to lodge in the house of a gentleman farmer living a few miles off—a certain Mr. Smith of Hayton. By most young women, familiar, as was she, with the delights of Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and Marylebone Gardens, the life at Hayton would have been thought supremely dull; but Elizabeth had a mind too well stored to find time hang heavy. “I am not sorry,” she writes, “to be without the appurtenances of equipage for a while, that I may know how much of my happiness depends upon myself, and how much comes from the things about me.” Mr. Smith who enjoyed an income of four hundred a year, she describes as a busy, anxious person, very silent, and disposed to be niggardly. Mrs. Smith was a good sort of body, excellent at making cheeses and syllabubs. The two Miss Smiths were worthy damsels, yet hardly interesting to the pupil of Conyers Middleton. The house was as clean as a new pin; it contained much worm-eaten panelling and antique furniture, well rubbed and polished. The room assigned to Elizabeth was spacious though dark, owing to the masses of ivy veiling the windows. Here she reigned undisturbed; a big clock on the staircase-landing struck the hours with solemn regularity. From without came the cawing of rooks, and the grating noise of a rusty weathercock fixed in the stump of an old oak-tree. She wrote of course to the Duchess of Portland apologising for addressing her grace on paper “ungilded and unadorned.” To Miss Donnellan,[43] another favored correspondent, whose acquaintance she had made at Bath, she gives the following account of herself and her surroundings:
“I am forced to go back to former ages for my companions; Cicero and Plutarch’s heroes are my only company. I cannot extract the least grain of entertainment out of the good family I am with; my best friends among the living are a colony of rooks who have settled themselves in a grove by my window. They wake me early in the morning, for which I am obliged to them for some hours of reading, and some moments of reflection, of which they are the subject. I have not yet discovered the form of their government, but I imagine it is democratical. There seems an equality of power and property, and a wonderful agreement of opinion. I am apt to fancy them wise for the same reason I have thought some men and some books so, because they are solemn, and because I do not understand them. If I continue here long, I shall grow a good naturalist. I have applied myself to nursing chickens, and have been forming the manners of a young calf, but I find it a very dull scholar.”