The domestic relations of the André family were ever peculiarly tender and affectionate; and in the loss of its head the survivors confessed a great and a corroding sorrow. To repair the shattered health and recruit the exhausted spirits of his mother and sisters, the son resolved to lead them at once away from the daily contemplation of the grave to more cheerful scenes. The medicinal waters of Derbyshire were then in vogue, and a tour towards the wells of Buxton and of Matlock was undertaken. Among the acquaintances that ensued from this expedition was that of the family of the Rev. Mr. Seward of Lichfield; and while a warm and lasting friendship rapidly grew up between André and Miss Anna Seward, his heart was surrendered to the charms of her adopted sister, Miss Honora Sneyd.
By every account, Honora Sneyd must have been a paragon of feminine loveliness. Her father was a country-gentleman of Staffordshire, who had been left, by the untimely death of their mother, to the charge of a bevy of infants. The solicitude of friends and relatives had sought the care of these, and thus Honora became virtually a daughter of Mrs. Seward's house. The character of this establishment may be conjectured from the history of Anna Seward. Remote from the crushing weight of London authority, she grew up in a provincial atmosphere of literary and social refinement, and fondly believed that the polite praises (for censure was a thing unknown among them) that were bandied about in her own coterie would be cordially echoed by the voices of posterity. In this she has been utterly deceived; but at the same time it must be confessed that there was much in the tone of the reigning circles at Lichfield, in those days, to contrast most favorably with the manners of the literary sovereigns of the metropolis, or the intellectual elevation of the rulers of fashion. At Lichfield, it was polite to be learned, and good-breeding and mutual admiration went hand in hand.
In such an atmosphere had Miss Sneyd been educated; and the enthusiastic, not to say romantic, disposition of Miss Seward must have given additional effect to every impulse that taught her to acknowledge and rejoice in the undisguised admiration of the young London merchant. His sentiments were as pure and lofty as her own; his person was as attractive as that of any hero of romance; and his passion was deep and true. With the knowledge and involuntary approbation of all their friends, the love-affair between the two young people went on without interruption or opposition. It seemed perfectly natural and proper that they should be brought together. It was not, therefore, until a formal betrothal began to loom up, that the seniors on either side bethought themselves of the consequences. Neither party was a beggar; but neither was in possession of sufficient estate to render a speedy marriage advisable. It was concluded, then, to prohibit any engagement, which must inevitably extend over several years, between two young persons whose acquaintance was of so modern a date, and whose positions involved a prolonged and wide separation. To this arrangement it would appear that Honora yielded a more implicit assent than her lover. His feelings were irretrievably interested; and he still proposed to himself to press his suit without intermission during the term of his endurance. His mistress, whose affections had not yet passed entirely beyond her own control, was willing to receive as a friend the man whom she was forbidden to regard as an elected husband.
It was by the representations of Miss Seward, who strongly urged on him the absolute necessity of his adherence to trade, if he wished to secure the means of accomplishing matrimony, that André was now persuaded to renounce, for some years longer, his desire for the army. He went back to London, and applied himself diligently to his business. An occasional visit to Lichfield, and a correspondence that he maintained with Miss Seward, served to keep his flame sufficiently alive. His letters are vivacious and characteristic, and the pen-and-ink drawings with which his text was embellished gave them additional interest. Here is a specimen of them. It will be noted, that, according to the sentimental fashion of the day, his correspondent must be called Julia because her name is Anna.
"London, October 19, 1769.
"From the midst of books, papers, bills, and other implements of gain, let me lift up my drowsy head awhile to converse with dear Julia. And first, as I know she has a fervent wish to see me a quill-driver, I must tell her that I begin, as people are wont to do, to look upon my future profession with great partiality. I no longer see it in so disadvantageous a light. Instead of figuring a merchant as a middle-aged man, with a bob wig, a rough beard, in snuff-coloured clothes, grasping a guinea in his red hand, I conceive a comely young man, with a tolerable pig-tail, wielding a pen with all the noble fierceness of the Duke of Marlborough brandishing a truncheon upon a sign-post, surrounded with types and emblems, and canopied with cornucopias that disembogue their stores upon his head; Mercuries reclin'd upon bales of goods; Genii playing with pens, ink, and paper; while, in perspective, his gorgeous vessels 'launched on the bosom of the silver Thames' are wafting to distant lands the produce of this commercial nation. Thus all the mercantile glories crowd on my fancy, emblazoned in the most effulgent colouring of an ardent imagination. Borne on her soaring pinions, I wing my flight to the time when Heaven shall have crowned my labours with success and opulence. I see sumptuous palaces rising to receive me; I see orphans, and widows, and painters, and fidlers, and poets, and builders, protected and encouraged; and when the fabrick is pretty nearly finished by my shattered pericranium, I cast my eyes around, and find John André by a small coal-fire in a gloomy compting-house in Warnford Court, nothing so little as what he has been making himself, and in all probability never to be much more than he is at present. But, oh! my dear Honora! it is for thy sake only I wish for wealth.--You say she was somewhat better at the time you wrote last. I must flatter myself that she will soon be without any remains of this threatening disease.
"It is seven o'clock.--You and Honora, with two or three more select friends, are now probably encircling your dressing-room fireplace. What would I not give to enlarge that circle! The idea of a clean hearth, and a snug circle round it, formed by a few select friends, transports me. You seem combined together against the inclemency of the weather, the hurry, bustle, ceremony, censoriousness, and envy of the world. The purity, the warmth, the kindly influence of fire, to all for whom it is kindled, is a good emblem of the friendship of such amiable minds as Julia's and her Honora's. Since I cannot be there in reality, pray, imagine me with you; admit me to your conversationés:--Think how I wish for the blessing of joining them!--and be persuaded that I take part in all your pleasures, in the dear hope, that, ere it be very long, your blazing hearth will burn again for me. Pray, keep me a place; let the poker, tongs, or shovel represent me:--But you have Dutch tiles, which are infinitely better; so let Moses, or Aaron, or Balaam's ass be my representative.
"But time calls me to Clapton. I quit you abruptly till to-morrow: when, if I do not tear the nonsense I have been writing, I may perhaps increase its quantity. Signora Cynthia is in clouded majesty. Silvered with her beams, I am about to jog to Clapton upon my own stumps; musing, as I homeward plod my way.--Ah! need I name the subject of my contemplations?
"Thursday.
"I had a sweet walk home last night, and found the Claptonians, with their fair guest, a Miss Mourgue, very well. My sisters send their amities, and will write in a few days.