IV
LADY PALMERSTON
"Full of vivacity, she surprises and interests; she finds her chief pleasure in conversing with persons of worth and reputation, and this not so much to be known to them, as to know them."
LADY PALMERSTON was one of the favourites of fortune. Born of a distinguished family, sister of one Prime Minister and wife of another, the trusted confidante of both, endowed by nature with beauty and charm, with keen intelligence and sprightly wit, she was a queen of society from eighteen to eighty, and for the last thirty years of that period an important factor, through her husband, in the great political affairs of the world.
Emily Mary Lamb was born in 1787. She was the only daughter of Peniston, first Viscount Melbourne, by his wife, Elizabeth Milbanke, a remarkable woman who exercised a great influence over the members of her family and of her immediate circle. Lord Byron had
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