Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906/Chapter 1
LADY CAROLINE LAMB IN HER PAGES DRESS
From a miniature in the possession of Mr. John Murray
"A creature of caprice and impulse and whim, her manner, her talk, her character shifted their colours as rapidly as those of a chameleon."
LADY CAROLINE PONSONBY, daughter of the third Lord Bessborough, was born on 13th November 1785. When she was three years old, her mother, a daughter of the first Earl Spencer and sister of the famous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, fell ill and was ordered to Italy. She took the little girl with her, but being obliged to return to England herself, as her condition became worse, she left the child in Italy for some years, chiefly in charge of a servant. Caroline was then sent to her aunt, the Duchess of Devonshire, to be brought up with her cousins at Devonshire House. The life of the children there was a curious one. Their meals were served on silver plate, but if they wanted more than was sent up, they had to carry their plates down to the kitchen, where the servants were too busy quarrelling to attend to them. They were quite extraordinarily ignorant. They thought that all people were dukes or beggars, that bread and butter grew ready-made, so to speak, and that horses were fed on beef. Even when Lady Caroline grew up and was married, she was singularly ignorant of the habits of people not of her own class, although she associated with men and women of genius whose incomes were small and who lived in a simple fashion. The first time she called on Lady Morgan in London—Lady Morgan was Sydney Owenson, the novelist, and wife of Sir Charles Morgan, a physician—she was announced by a footman in livery. As she was leaving, Lady Caroline said:
"My dear Creature, have you really not a groom of the chambers with you? nothing but your footman? You must let me send you something, you must indeed. You will never get on here, you know, with only one servant—you must let me send you one of my pages. I am going to Brocket, to watch the sweet trees that are coming out so beautifully, and you shall have a page while I am away." Later, as will be seen, notwithstanding Lady Morgan's modest household, the two ladies became fast friends.
When Caroline was ten years old she was transferred to the care of her grandmother. Lady Spencer, whose household consisted of seventy servants, and who herself had always lived among clever people and possessed brilliant conversational powers.—Her marriage was unconventional and romantic. Mr. Spencer had, as a minor, become attached to her; and with her father, Stephen Poyntz, a well-known diplomatist, and her mother and sister, she was invited to Althorp to celebrate the coming of age of the heir, where a large party of about fifty persons was assembled. Young Spencer informed Mr. Poyntz that now he was his own master he intended to marry his daughter the very next day. Only Lord and Lady Cowper were told besides Mr. and Mrs. Poyntz, and they and the bride and bridegroom stole away during the dancing that was going on to Lady Cowper's dressing-room, and the young couple were there duly married. They then rejoined the dancers; and it is further related that after supper everybody retired as usual to their different apartments, and that Louisa Poyntz, who had shared her sister's room, gave up her place on this occasion.
Caroline thus had no systematic education, but she possessed natural gifts of a high order. She became a good linguist, knowing well French, Italian, Greek, and Latin. She loved music and painting, devoting many hours all through her life to water-colours, and had a great talent for caricature. She was original in her conversation, in her dress, indeed in everything. At one period of her childhood her grandmother became alarmed at her originality, which bordered on eccentricity, and consulted a doctor as to the state of her mind. He decreed that her brain ought not to be overtaxed with lessons, and that she should not be too strictly disciplined. Consequently she really ran wild. Until she reached her teens she could neither write nor spell, but nevertheless she composed verses. She declared later, speaking of her childish days, "I preferred washing a dog, or polishing a piece of Derbyshire spar, or breaking in a horse"—she was a fearless rider and could ride bareback—"to any accomplishment in the world."
When she was thirteen, William Lamb, who was then twenty, saw her at Brocket Hall, where she had accompanied her cousins on a visit to his mother, Lady Melbourne, and was greatly attracted to her. She had already heard of him as a "friend of liberty," and was quite ready to admire him. Later on he used to see her at Lord Bessborough's villa at Roehampton, and became more and more fascinated by her, and she was equally delighted with him. But he was a second son, and his prospects at the Bar did not seem brilliant, and so neither family took any notice of the young couple. Lady Caroline at nineteen was slight and graceful, not tall, with small regular features, dark hazel eyes, and golden hair. She was not a beauty, but possessed the charm that is even more alluring. She was full of ideas and endowed with the power of expressing them gracefully; she had, moreover, a low, musical voice. Her friends gave her a variety of nicknames—such as sprite, Ariel, squirrel, bat, young savage—and they show the general impression she made on them. Her strong imagination coloured everything, and it is doubtful if at any time of her life she saw things as they really were. A girl so accomplished and attractive and with such distinguished connections seemed far removed from William Lamb, a younger son with his way to make in the world. But in 1805 his elder brother died, and he became the heir, and then he felt justified in offering himself to Lady Caroline.
At first she refused him, assuring him that her violent temper would make for unhappiness in married life, but suggested that she should adopt boy's clothes and act as his secretary. That arrangement did not commend itself to him, and so he waited in patience, and after a short space, proposed again and was accepted. The marriage excited great interest among Lady Caroline's friends and relations. They found her looking prettier than ever, and though sometimes nervous, she appeared to be very happy, and William Lamb quite devoted to her. The wedding took place between seven and eight on the evening of 3rd June 1805. Lady Elizabeth Foster, who was present, wrote to her son that Lady Caroline "was dreadfully nervous, but his (i.e. Lamb's) manner to her was beautiful, so tender and considerate." A passionate scene, however, occurred when the time came for the bride and bridegroom to go away, Lady Caroline never having contemplated that marriage meant leaving her parents and her girlhood's home.
The first year of married life was spent chiefly in London, where the young couple had a suite of apartments in Lady Melbourne's house in Whitehall; there were visits to Brocket Hall (where the honeymoon had been passed) and to Panshanger, William Lamb's sister Emily having married Lord Cowper in July 1805.[2]
In January 1806 Lamb entered Parliament as Whig member for Leominster. Lady Caroline led a gay, irresponsible life. She lacked concentration, and her versatile talents caused her to occupy herself with too many things. A little painting, a little music, a little reading, some writing of verses, playgoing, acting in private theatricals, with a large amount of riding and dancing, filled the days and nights. Her friends still found her "the same wild, delicate, odd, delightful person, unlike everything," as she had been before her marriage.
Life at Melbourne House was certainly gay. Waltzes and quadrilles, then new dances, were daily practised there, among the learners being Lady Jersey, Lady Cowper, the Duke of Devonshire, Miss Milbanke, who was later to become the wife of Byron, and a number of foreign notabilities whose diplomatic appointments made it necessary for them to live in London. Forty or fifty young people, all gay and noisy, would dance from noon until dinner-time, and afterwards there would be suppers and balls and routs to attend. Lady Caroline would give "immense assemblies" at Melbourne House in the evening, the guests often having to walk to their carriages, and some not getting away till 3 a.m. A few choice spirits would be invited to supper in Lady Melbourne's apartments below, and would stay till 6 a.m. Among them were the Prince of Wales and Sheridan; the latter got completely drunk. In 1807 in the midst of all this life of excitement, a son was born to Lady Caroline, and it was hoped that motherhood would tend to sober her and help her to lead a quieter life. But unhappily the child, though healthy in body, was feeble in mind. He was not actually imbecile, but never developed mentally. He outlived his mother, but died before his father[3] on 27th November 1836.
In the autumn of 1811 Byron returned from his travels with the first two cantos of "Childe Harold" in his pocket. Some early proofs were given to private friends, among them to Rogers, who lent them to Lady Caroline. She was enchanted, and determined to get to know the poet about whom every one was talking, and about whom she talked freely with extravagant praise. But nothing did Lady Caroline do in an ordinary way. At a party at Lady Westmoreland's, the hostess brought up Byron to introduce him to Lady Caroline. She, though dying to know him, looked earnestly at him and turned away, and recorded in her journal that he was "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." A day or two later she was calling on Lady Holland when Byron was announced. Lady Holland said, "I must present Lord Byron to you." He reminded her of her refusal to be introduced to him, and asked the reason, and begged permission to go to see her. Next day he called at Melbourne House. Rogers and Moore were there. Lady Caroline had just come in from riding and was, in her own words, "filthy and heated." She flew out of the room to wash herself. When she returned, Rogers said, "Lord Byron, you are a happy man; Lady Caroline has been sitting in all her dirt with us, but when you were announced she flew to beautify herself." Then Byron asked if he might come and see her when she was alone; she gave permission, and so the acquaintance was begun.
After the publication of "Childe Harold" Byron leapt into fame. He was the one subject of conversation. All the women, as Lady Caroline elegantly phrased it, threw up their heads at him. She herself absolutely besieged him, and wrote him the most imprudent letters. In the first she assured him that if he needed money all her jewels were at his service. When she met him at a party, a frequent occurrence, she insisted on being taken home by him to Melbourne House in his carriage; and if he was at an entertainment to which she was not invited, she would wait for him in the street outside the house until he left. Byron was of course attracted by her, and described her as "the cleverest, most agreeable, absurd, amiable, perplexing, dangerous, fascinating little being that lives now, or ought to have lived two thousand years ago," and was at first flattered by her bold attentions. He became an habitué of her circle, and even stopped the dancing so loved of the young people at Melbourne House, because it was a pastime in which his lameness would not permit him to join. But much as Byron admired Lady Caroline she never realised that he admired other ladies as well. In May 1812, when the report got about that he was going back to Greece, it was popularly said that husbands were greatly relieved and felt that then they could sleep in peace. There was fear, however, in some minds that Lady Caroline would insist on going with him, "she is so wild and imprudent." Byron seems to have teased and played with her and to have gone as far as she allowed him. They went about together in public, or retired from the crowd to read poetry together. Byron complained that she loved her husband better than she did him, and she was deeply grieved when she was told that Byron thought her heartless. The infatuation lasted about nine months, and then Byron grew tired of her. In the beginning he had certainly been flattered by the attentions of one so highly placed. They both liked to talk about themselves, a circumstance that did not make for peace; Lady Caroline imprudently read him her verses, a fatal error, for though he praised them mildly, he was much more anxious that she should praise his. Her attempts to monopolise him in public bored him and he grew cold. In the early days of their acquaintance, Byron had made her promise not to waltz; but later on, at a ball given by Lady Heathcote, she said to Lady Caroline, "Come, you must begin." She replied bitterly, "Oh yes, I'm in a merry humour," and whispered to Byron, who was standing by her, "I conclude I may waltz now?" He answered sarcastically, "With everybody in turn—you always did it better than any one. I shall have a pleasure in seeing you." So she danced, and afterwards, feeling ill and fatigued, she entered a small inner room where supper was laid. Byron and some ladies happened to come in after Lady Caroline, and Byron said to her, "I have been admiring your dexterity." Infuriated by his manner, she took up a knife. Byron continued his untimely and unwise jesting, saying, "Do, my dear, but if you mean to act a Roman's part, mind which way you strike with your knife; let it be at your own heart, not at mine, for you have struck there already." She ran away, still clasping the knife, but without the slightest intention of injuring either herself or him. The ladies very naturally screamed and followed her, and in the struggle to get the knife away from her, her hand got cut and the blood went over her gown. Of course the rumour went about that she had tried to murder Byron and commit suicide.
Her husband does not seem to have attached much importance to his wife's escapades. He knew her craving for excitement, how short a time, as a rule, her fancies lasted, how, as soon as anything ceased to be new and rare, she grew tired of it, and therefore thought her infatuation for Byron would die a natural and speedy death, and that it was better to laugh at it or ignore it than to treat it seriously. And in spite of her strange behaviour she was really fond of her husband, and if he had taken her in hand and brought discipline into her life, it would have been better for her and for him.
Her mother and her mother-in-law grew seriously alarmed, and the former carried her daughter off to Ireland, where they remained for three months. Byron then wrote her the following letter:
"My dearest Caroline,—If tears, which you saw, and know I am not apt to shed; if the agitation in which I parted from you—agitation which, you must have perceived through the whole of this most nervous affair, did not commence till the moment of leaving you approached—if all I have said and done, and am still but too ready to say and do, have not sufficiently proved what my feelings are, and must ever be, towards you, my love, I have no other proof to offer. God knows I never knew till this moment the madness of my dearest and most beloved friend. I cannot express myself, this is no time for words—but I shall have a pride, a melancholy pleasure, in suffering what you yourself can scarcely conceive, for you do not know me. I am about to go out, with a heavy heart, for my appearing this evening will stop any absurd story which the spite of the day will give rise to. Do you think now that I am cold and stern and wilful? Will ever others think so? Will your mother ever? That mother to whom we must indeed sacrifice much more, much more on my part than she shall ever know, or can imagine. 'Promise not to love you?' Ah, Caroline, it is past promising! But I shall attribute all concessions to the proper motive, and never cease to feel all that you have already witnessed, and more than ever can be known, but to my own heart—perhaps, to yours. May God forgive, protect, and bless you ever and ever, more than ever. Your most attached Byron.
"P.S.—These taunts have driven you to this, my dearest Caroline, and were it not for your mother, and the kindness of your connections, is there anything in heaven or earth that would have made me so happy as to have made you mine long ago? And not less now than then, but more than ever at this time. God knows I wish you happy, and when I quit you, or rather you, from a sense of duty to your husband and mother, quit me, you shall acknowledge the truth of what I again promise and vow, that no other, in word or deed, shall ever hold the place in my affections which is and shall be sacred to you till I am nothing. You know I would with pleasure give up all here or beyond the grave for you; and in refraining from this, must my motives be misunderstood? I care not who knows this, what use is made of it—it is to you, and to you only, yourself. I was, and am yours, freely and entirely, to obey, to honour, to love, and fly with you, when, where, and how yourself might and may determine."
It is difficult to know what to make of this letter. It shows, however, that the relationship between them had not overstepped the bounds of friendship, and it is probable that Byron, like most men in a similar position, had had enough of platonic affection. But recognising the dangers and inconveniences of going further, and desiring to withdraw without unduly hurting Lady Caroline's feelings, he adopted the soothing tone suitable to a tiresome child who, in spite of her faults, still held something of his affection. He deplored the difficulty, nay the impossibility, of any solution except that of parting, and yet, as is also the way of men with women in these cases, left the decision on her shoulders. He is hers to obey, honour, love, and fly with as she herself may determine. We cannot help suspecting that Byron well knew that Lady Caroline would not run away with him. This is not the attitude of a man sincerely in love, and ready to dare all for love's sake. However, Lady Caroline seems to have been satisfied, and Byron continued to write to her while she was in Ireland "the most tender and most amusing" letters. But Byron was thinking of matrimony, and had fixed his choice on Lady Caroline's cousin, Miss Milbanke, a project furthered by Lady Melbourne; and when he heard that Lady Caroline was returning to England he took the bull by the horns and addressed to her at Dublin the letter that put a real end to his connection with her, a letter in which he told her he was no longer her lover, that he was attached to another, that he was, however, grateful for her favour, and in proof of his regard advised her to correct her vanity, "which is ridiculous," to exert her absurd caprices on others, and to leave him in peace.[4]
This "cruel letter" threw her into such a fever that fears were entertained for her mind, but thanks to the careful nursing of her mother, she recovered and was brought home. She became more eccentric, unmanageable, and uncertain in temper than ever. One day she actually called on Byron. He was out, but she insisted on being shown to his room. On the table she found Beckford's Vathek, and wrote in the first page: "Remember me!" Byron on his return wrote under her words these stanzas:
"Remember thee! remember thee!
Till Lethe quench life's burning stream
Remorse and shame shall cling to thee,
And haunt thee like a feverish dream!
Remember thee! Aye, doubt it not.
Thy husband too shall think of thee;
By neither shalt thou be forgot,
Thou false to him, thou friend to me."
Lady Caroline marked the end of her connection with Byron by burning him in effigy one winter's day at Brocket with elaborate ceremonial, not omitting a poem specially written for the occasion, of which these lines will serve to show the quality:
"Ah! look not thus on me, so grave, so sad;
Shake not your heads, nor say the Lady's mad.
Judge not of others, for there is but one
To whom the heart and feelings can be known.
Upon my youthful faults few censures cast;
Look to the future—and forgive the past
London, farewell, vain world, vain life, adieu!
Take the last tears I e'er shall shed for you.
Young tho' I seem, I leave the world for ever,
Never to enter it again—no, never—never!"
She was in a terrible state of uncertainty as to what she should now do with her life, and in discussing the matter with Lady Morgan makes all sorts of wild suggestions. Should she live a good sort of a half kind of life in some cheap street, or above a shop, or give lectures to little children and keep a school and so earn her bread? Or should she write a sort of quiet everyday sort of novel, full of wholesome truths, or attempt to be poetical; or if she failed, beg her friends for a guinea apiece and their name to sell her work "on the best foolscap paper"; or should she fret and die?
But Lady Caroline, with all her cleverness, was no artist in life, and did not realise that true wisdom and happiness resided in making the most of what she possessed, and that the thing for her to do was to occupy herself with her husband and child.
All sorts of stories about her eccentricities got about. It was said that she beat a maid and turned her out of doors without clothes in the night, and tried to murder her page. The latter report she explains herself:
"One day I was playing ball with him; he threw a squib into the fire. I threw the ball at his head; it hit him on the temple, and he bled. He cried out, 'Oh, my lady, you have killed me I' Out of my senses, I rushed into the hall and screamed, 'O God, I have murdered the page!' The servants and people in the street caught the sound, and it was soon spread about."
William Lamb saw that this sort of thing could not go on, and his family, who realised the harm it was doing to his career, insisted on a separation. While the instruments were being drawn up. Lady Caroline wrote her novel Glenarvon. Here is her own account of the proceeding:
"In one month I wrote and sent Glenarvon to the press. It was written at night, without the knowledge of any one but a governess. Miss Walsh. I sent for a copyist, and when he came she pointed to me seated at a table and dressed in boy's clothes. He would not believe that a schoolboy would write such a thing. In a few days I received him dressed as usual. I told him the author, William Osmond, was dead." She always declared that her husband was delighted with the book. It was not shown to him till it was printed.
However that may have been, the deed of separation was ready for signing. As Lady Caroline put it: "If I will but sign a paper, all my rich relations will protect me, and I shall, no doubt, go with an Almack ticket to heaven." All the parties whose signatures were required were assembled, and Lamb went first to the room where she was, in order to speak to her about their son. The others waited and waited; at length, growing impatient, her brother went to see the cause of the delay. He found her seated beside her husband feeding him with tiny scraps of transparent bread and butter.
And so for a time things remained as they were.
Byron had married in 1815, and the next year was separated from his wife, and left England for ever. To her credit it must be said that Lady Caroline never forgot Byron. With all her caprice, the episode made a lasting impression on her mind. In November 1816 she wrote to John Murray, evidently considering she had every right to do so, asking him to let her see Byron's new poems before publication. The conclusion of her note proves that her old sprightliness had not abandoned her:
"Believe me, therefore, sincerely thankful for what I am going to receive—as the young lady said to a duchess when she was desired by her parents to say 'Grace.'"
Murray did not answer, so Lady Caroline wrote again, repeating her request with the adjuration:
"Let me entreat you to remember a maxim I have found very useful to me, that there is nothing in this life worth quarrelling about, and that half the people we are offended with never intended to give us cause."
In August 1818 Lady Morgan, calling one day on Lady Caroline at Melbourne House, was received in her bedroom, and found her lying on a couch, wrapped in fine muslins, full of grace and cordiality. In the bow window of the room there stood fastened to the ground the chair in which Byron had sat to Sanders for the picture painted by Lady Caroline's desire.
But Lady Caroline could not live without some sort of interest outside the more or less humdrum events of family and social life, and now set herself to captivate William Godwin. In 1819 her brother-in-law, George Lamb, was contesting Westminster, and she wrote to Godwin to ask him to vote for Lamb. He replied that he did "not mix in the business of the world," and was too old to alter his course "even at the flattering invitation of Lady Caroline Lamb." She conceived a great admiration for Godwin's works, and evidently read them with care and appreciation, and was much disappointed and vexed that the two children and the four young women to whom she endeavoured to read them did not choose to attend. Glad to have some one again to whom she could lay open her mind, for Lady Caroline was ever ready to confide her woes and her thoughts to any one who would listen, she entered into correspondence with Godwin. She further hoped that he, with his wisdom, might be able to advise her how to deal with her son, whose intellect showed no signs of developing. Godwin paid a visit to Brocket, saw the boy, but could suggest no means of improving his mental health. All the same. Lady Caroline in a while took Godwin for her guide, philosopher, and friend, and wrote him long letters about herself. They belong to the years 1821–23, and the following passages serve to illustrate the curious mixture of sense and sensibility contained in them:
"For what purpose, for whom should I endeavour to grow wise? What is the use of anything? What is the end of life? When we die, what difference is there here between a black beetle and me?"
"Brocket, 1821.
"You would not say, if you were here now, that nature had not done her best for us. Everything is looking beautiful, everything in bloom. Yet do not fancy that I am here in rude health, walking about, and being notable and bountiful. I am like the wreck of a little boat, for I never come up to the sublime and beautiful—merely a little gay merry boat which perhaps stranded itself at Vauxhall or London Bridge—or wounded without killing itself, as a butterfly does in a tallow candle. There is nothing marked, sentimental, or interesting in my career. All I know is, that I was happy, well, rich, joyful, and surrounded by friends. I have now one faithful kind friend in William Lamb, two others in my father and brother—but health, spirits, and all else is gone—gone how? Oh, assuredly not by the visitation of God, but slowly and gradually by my own fault!"
"1823(?).
"My own faults are so great that I can see and remember nothing beside. Yet I am tormented with such a superabundance of activity, and have so little to do, that I want you to tell me how to go on.
"It is all very well if one died at the end of a tragic scene, after playing a desperate part; but if one lives, and instead of growing wiser, one remains the same victim of every folly and passion, without the excuse of youth and inexperience, what then? Pray say a few wise words to me. There is no one more deeply sensible than myself of kindness from persons of high intellect, and at this period of my life I need it.
"I have nothing to do—I mean necessarily. There is no particular reason why I should exist; it conduces to no one's happiness, and, on the contrary, I stand in the way of many. Besides, I seem to have lived five hundred years and feel I am neither wiser, better, nor worse than when I began. My experience gives me no satisfaction; all my opinions, and beliefs, and feelings are shaken, as if suffering from frequent little shocks of earthquakes. I am like a boat in a calm, in an unknown and to me unsought-for sea, without compass to guide or even a knowledge whither I am destined. Now, this is probably the case of millions, but that does not mend the matter, and whilst a fly exists, it seeks to save itself. Therefore excuse me if I try to do the same."
In these letters we have Lady Caroline almost at her best. In another of them there is pertinent criticism of Godwin's books. She tells him, "There is a brevity which suits my want of attention, a depth of thought which catches at once, and does not puzzle my understanding, a simplicity and kindness which captivates and arouses every good feeling, and a clearness which assists those who are deficient, as I am, in memory."[5]
But unhappily the unstable and eccentric side of Lady Caroline held its own, and overshadowed her more sober and serious moods. The news of Byron's death was brought to her at Brocket and introduced with the remark, "Caroline, behave properly. I know it will shock you. Lord Byron is dead." A fever ensued, and the first day she was well enough to drive out in an open carriage she met a funeral procession. Her husband, who was riding on in front, asked whose funeral it was, and was told Byron's. Lamb was much shocked and affected, and naturally forbore to tell his wife. But as she kept on asking where and when Byron was to be buried, she had to be told. A fresh bout of illness was brought on, and she became more unmanageable than ever, more reckless and unaccountable. Once in the country she wished to drive out to call on an acquaintance. There was no one to accompany her, so she insisted on occupying the seat beside the coachman. On arriving at the house, the footman waited to help her down, but she exclaimed, "I am going to jump off and you must catch me." Before the man could prevent the catastrophe, he found her in his arms. She then proceeded to pay her visit in a perfectly calm, decorous, and dignified manner. Another time, when the butler was laying the table for a dinner-party, she chanced to go into the dining-room, and not liking the decorations, leaped into the middle of the table amid all the epergnes and china and glass to demonstrate by her attitude the way in which the centrepiece should be arranged, leaving the servant open mouthed with astonishment. Her husband was equally subject to the annoyance of her vagaries. After a worse outburst than usual during dinner at Melbourne House, as soon as Lady Caroline had left the room, Lamb ordered the horses and drove off to Brocket. He sat up very late, but soon after he had gone to bed he heard sounds in the corridor. He got up to investigate what they might be, and found his wife lying on the doormat outside his room, convulsively sobbing.
Meantime Lady Caroline had formed a friendship with Lady Morgan and entered into correspondence with her when either was away from London. The details of the Byron affair are given in these letters, but they are interesting and amusing on other counts. In one Lady Caroline asks that the curious stories that get about as to her actions shall be contradicted, and proceeds to explain them away with great plausibility. In another she refers to a governess whose chief recommendation is that "she is attached to an old mathematician in Russia—a Platonic attachment," and they are not to marry or meet for ten years. "Now," Lady Caroline continues, "as every one must, will, and should fall in love, it is no bad thing that she should have a happy, Platonic, romantic attachment to an old, mad mathematician several thousand miles off. It will keep her steady." And the young lady was ready for eighty guineas a year to dedicate all her time to the children after ten in the morning to six at night, would also play on the harp of an evening, read to the lady if she were ill, or write her letters for her. Her spelling and grammar seem to have been somewhat wanting, but before the matter was concluded she caught a bad cold, and Lady Caroline fears her would-be mistress will not care to wait till she is recovered. She again repeats that the girl has every good quality under the sun, but "she has a cold and cough, and is in love—I cannot help it; can you?" Another time she confesses to Lady Morgan, "The loss of what one adores affects the mind and heart; but I have resigned myself to it, and God knows I am satisfied with all I have and have had. My husband has been to me as a guardian angel. I love him most dearly."
But by 1825 things had come to such a pass that separation was inevitable. Everything was done to make the conditions as little irksome as possible to Lady Caroline. It was arranged that she should spend most of her time at Brocket with her old father-in-law, Lord Melbourne. She corresponded with her husband and retained her affection for him, such as it was. Soon after the separation became a fact she sent Lamb these verses:
"Loved one! No tear is in my eye.
Though pangs my bosom thrill,
For I have learned when others sigh
To suffer and be still.
Passion and pride and flatt'ry strove.
They made a wreck of me,
But oh! I never ceased to love,
I never loved but thee.
My heart is with our early dream.
And still thy influence knows.
Still seeks thy shadow on the stream
Of memory as it flows:
Still hangs o'er all the records bright
Of moments brighter still.
Ere love withdrew his starry light.
Ere thou hadst suffered ill.
'Tis vain! 'tis vain! no human will
Can bid that time return;
There's not a light on earth can fill
Again love's darkened urn.
'Tis vain—upon my heart, my brow,
Broods grief no words can tell.
But grief itself more idle now—
Loved one, fare thee well."
But notwithstanding her grief and sorrow, Lady Caroline could not live without admirers, and for a space young Bulwer came under her spell. His first acquaintance with her commenced in his childhood. A poor man was injured in a crowd, and with her usual impulsiveness she had him placed in her carriage and took him to his home. Bulwer heard of the incident, and touched by it wrote some childish verses on it, and sent them to Lady Caroline. Brocket, it should be remembered, was not far from Knebworth, where the boy was living with his mother. Lady Caroline, pleased with the verses, asked Mrs. Bulwer to bring the child to see her. Lady Caroline took a fancy to him, and painted his portrait as a child nearly nude, seated on a rock in the midst of the sea, with under it the motto, "Seul sur la terre." Such a visit was made once or twice a year in the time that followed.
But when Bulwer was twenty-one he was destined to come into closer intimacy with Lady Caroline, with whose remarkable powers of conversation he was thoroughly fascinated. She was eighteen years older than he was, but looked much younger, a fact due probably to her slight rounded figure and a childlike mode of wearing her pale golden hair in close curls. Bulwer describes her appearance, and it is interesting to see how she must have retained nearly all the features and qualities she possessed as a girl. She had large hazel eyes, capable of much varied expression, exceedingly good teeth, a pleasant laugh, and a musical intonation of voice. She had to a surpassing degree the attribute of charm, and never failed to please if she wished to do so. Her talk was, according to Bulwer, wildly original, "combining great and sudden contrasts, from deep pathos to infantine drollery; now sentimental, now shrewd, it sparkled with anecdotes of the great world and of the eminent people among whom she had lived. Ten minutes after, it became gravely eloquent with religious enthusiasm, or shot off into metaphysical speculations—sometimes absurd, sometimes profound—generally suggestive and interesting."
Bulwer delighted to listen to what she could tell him about Byron. Lady Caroline, of course, was pleased to imagine herself in love with Bulwer, and the young man's vanity was hugely flattered. On his return to Cambridge the pair corresponded, and a third person reading the letters might have thought that they were actually lovers, but that was not the case.
Lady Caroline fell ill, and when she was somewhat recovered sent for Bulwer to tell him that she felt she had acted wrongly in loving him, and was endeavouring to overcome her feeling. He was to be her dearest friend, or like a son might be to her, but in no way her lover. Bulwer, still fascinated, agreed, and went away more in love than ever.
Later on he was invited to Brocket for the purpose of attending a ball at Panshanger. He arrived at three or four in the afternoon and found the house full of company. He did not see Lady Caroline until dinner. To his surprise and chagrin she avoided speaking to him, and did not allow him to drive to the ball in her carriage. She had, in the meantime, found another admirer in the person of Mr. Russell,[6] a natural son of the Duke of Bedford, a very handsome man, very fashionable, in the prime of life. She took no notice of Bulwer until the end of the evening, and by that time he was furiously angry. As they all went up to bed he said to her, "I shall be gone to-morrow before you are up. Goodbye." About nine o'clock the next morning she sent a little note to his room imploring him not to go till he had seen her. He then went to her room, and was received with affection. Lady Caroline wept, entreated forgiveness, and finally persuaded Bulwer to stay on. He went out riding with her and Mr. Russell, but felt so miserable he soon returned to the house, retired to his room, and gave way to his feelings. In this state she found him, and again tried to pacify him. On rejoining the party downstairs he noticed that Mr. Russell was wearing a ring which Byron had given Lady Caroline, and which she only allowed those she loved to wear. Bulwer had had the privilege of wearing it; Lady Caroline had even wanted him to accept it, but he would not on account of its costliness. Bulwer's resentment increased. The rest must be told in his own words: "After dinner I threw myself upon the sofa. Music was playing. Lady Caroline came to me. 'Are you mad?' said she. I looked up. The tears stood in my eyes. I could not have spoken a word for the world. What do you think she said aloud? 'Don't play this melancholy air. It affects Mr. Bulwer so that he is actually weeping.' My tears, my softness, my love were over in a moment. I sprang up, laughed, talked, and was the life of the company. But when we broke up for the evening, I went to her and said: 'Farewell for ever. It is over. Now I see you in your true light. Vain and heartless, you have only trifled with my feelings in order to betray me. I despise as well as leave you. Instead of jealousy I only feel contempt. Farewell. Go, and be happy.'"
Bulwer records that a fever ensued and that he lost twenty ounces of blood, but that he endeavoured and with success to forget the whole episode, an easy feat since his feeling had chiefly been a mixture of vanity and imagination. He also testified to Lamb's kindness to him. "I think he saw my feelings. He is a singularly fine character for a man of the world."
The episode, however, left a deep impression on Bulwer, for he drew her in several of his early sketches for novels.[7] He also described her in a satirical sketch of Almack's, which expresses Bulwer's belief that her attachments were as innocent as they were fickle:
"But all thy woes have sprung from feeling;
Thine only guilt was not concealing;
And now mine unforgotten friend,
Though thou art half estranged from me.
My softened spirit fain would send
One pure and pitying sigh to thee."
For a time Lady Caroline continued to correspond with him, and her letters give a picture of her life at Brocket. "Happy, healthy, quiet, contented, I get up at half-past four, ride about with Haggard, and see harvest men at work in this pretty, confined green country, read a few old books, see no one, hear from no one, and occasionally play at chess with Dr. Goddard, or listen to the faint high warblings of Miss Richardson. This contrast to my sometime hurried life delights me. Besides, I am well. And that is a real blessing to one's self and one's companions."[8] She also says that she now, in her soothed and chastened spirit, detests wit and humour and satire. Bulwer seems to have made Lady Caroline his confidante in his love affair with Rosina Wheeler, the haughty, brilliant, and beautiful girl whom he married. For a time she sat at Lady Caroline's feet, and in some ways resembled her model in temperament.
Lady Caroline affected or more probably sincerely imagined that she possessed a love of literature, and frequented the literary salons of the day, and was to be seen at Lady Cork's, Lady Charleville's, Miss Spence's, and Miss Lydia White's. Again, any one who had known Byron possessed a passport to her favour. Thus she made the acquaintance of Isaac Nathan, the musical composer who had been intimate with Byron, and for whom Byron wrote the "Hebrew Melodies" for Nathan to set to music, and asked him to come and sing to her. "Come," she writes, "and soothe one who ought to be happy but is not." Nathan composed the music to many of her own verses, which he published in 1829 in a curious little volume entitled Fugitive Pieces. It contains the lines written by Lady Caroline that form a strange comment on her husband's well-known inveterate and incurable habit of decorating his conversation with oaths:
"Yes, I adore thee, William Lamb,
But hate to hear thee say God d:
Frenchmen say English cry d d,
But why swear'st thou? thou art a Lamb."
Hobhouse went to see her at Melbourne House, in 1824, and had a two hours' talk with her, and found her furious at what she considered the misrepresentation of her and of her attachment to Byron in Medwin's Conversations with Byron. She wrote Medwin a long letter which, making allowance for her vivid imagination, may be regarded as her apologia. She also sent Hobhouse sixteen quarto volumes of journals kept by her since 1806, which he returned, assuring her that no purpose would be served by their publication.
Another literary acquaintance was a man she was pleased to call a rising poet, Wilmington Fleming. His works have not survived, and judging by the verses he wrote describing the eccentric fashion in which Lady Caroline celebrated her wedding-day at Brocket, the world is scarcely the loser. He may have helped Lady Caroline to some extent, probably in the capacity of secretary, with her own literary work. For this assistance she seems to have paid him when she had any money,—she was the most extravagant of women, her father-in-law always called her "Her Lavishship,"—and there is a curious letter in which she tells Fleming, who has evidently asked for payment: "I received no money but just what the servants got for their food. I have been much too ill to write or see you." She evidently tried to help him to get his poems published.
But Lady Caroline's health was shattered, and despite the separation she turned more and more to her husband as her best protector and truest friend. The last years were spent at Brocket, and under wise surveillance, or more probably on account of enfeebled vitality, she had grown calmer and more reasonable. In November 1827 she underwent an operation, and in the middle of December alarming symptoms set in, and she was brought from Brocket to London (to Melbourne House) in order to have better medical assistance. She herself was in a state of calmness and resignation, complaining little, and unwilling to see many people. Her husband had been appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland in May, and was of course resident at Dublin. He was kept informed of her condition. She knew she had no chance of recovery, and was only anxious to live long enough to see Lamb again. He was summoned in time, and she was able to talk to him and enjoy his society. She died peacefully about nine o'clock on Sunday evening, 26th January 1828, and was buried at Hatfield. Lamb felt her death deeply, and her influence over him never quite died away. Years later he used to ask, "Shall we meet in another world?"
Something must be said of Lady Caroline Lamb as a writer. She published three novels, of which Glenarvon is the most important, and some fugitive verse.
Glenarvon was published by Colburn anonymously—though uncontradicted rumour attributed it to her—in three volumes in 1816. An Italian translation appeared in Venice in 1817, and it was reprinted in one volume in London in 1865 under the title of The Fatal Passion, It is an autobiographical novel, of which the hero is Byron (Glenarvon) and the heroine herself (Lady Calantha Avondale), whose character she thus describes:
"Her feelings, indeed, swelled into a tide too powerful for the unequal resistance of her understanding; her motives appeared the very best; but the actions which resulted from them were absurd and exaggerated. Thoughts swift as lightning hurried through her brain; projects, seducing but visionary, crowded upon her view; without a curb she followed the impulse of her feelings, and those feelings varied with every varying interest and impression.
"Calantha turned with disgust from the slavish followers of prejudice. She disdained the beaten track, and she thought that virtue would be for her a safe, a sufficient, guide … a fearless spirit raised her, as she fondly imagined, above the common herd."[9]
She actually printed in the novel, without alteration or disguise, the farewell letter that Byron had sent her, but in other directions her portrait of Byron is a mere caricature. In a letter to Moore he said: "The picture can't be good. I did not sit long enough." Lady Holland is introduced into the story as the Princess of Madagascar, Rogers as the pale poet, William Lamb as Lord Avondale, Lord and Lady Melbourne as Sir Richard and Lady Mowbray, Lady Oxford as Lady Mandeville. Barbary House is Holland House, and Monteith House, Brocket Hall. It is a rhapsodical tale, sentimental and melodramatic, yet written with eloquence and vivacity. The scene in which one of the women characters commits suicide by wrapping her cloak over her horse's eyes and calmly riding over the cliff is almost fine. The novel contains a song, "The Waters of Elle," that is the best poem Lady Caroline wrote.
In 1822 she published, also anonymously, in two volumes, her second novel, Graham Hamilton, in which she endeavours to show the difficulties and dangers involved in weakness and irresolution. The manuscript was placed in Colburn's hands two years earlier, with the injunction not to publish it then or to name the author. It contains the following verses, which had been written many years before:
"If thou couldst know what 'tis to weep,
To weep unpitied and alone.
The livelong night, whilst others sleep,
Silent and mournful watch to keep.
Thou wouldst not do what I have done.
If thou couldst know what 'tis to smile.
To smile whilst scorn'd by every one.
To hide, by many an artful wile,
A heart that knows more grief than guile.
Thou wouldst not do what I have done.
And oh! if thou couldst think how drear.
When friends are changed, and health is gone.
The world would to thine eyes appear.
If thou, like me, to none wert dear.
Thou wouldst not do what I have done."
Her last excursion into fiction was Ada Reis, published in three volumes in 1823, a fantastic Eastern tale, very Byronic in character. Her husband, somewhat disturbed by his wife's literary labours, wrote to John Murray severely criticising this book before publication, and begging him to prevail on the author to amend it. It contains two songs, one of which, beginning, "Weep for what thou'st lost, love," is accompanied by the music specially composed for it by Isaac Nathan. Another edition of the book, in two volumes, was published the next year in Paris.
In "A New Canto," published anonymously in 1819, she made an attempt at satire, obviously on the Byronic model. The poem describes the end of the world, and opens thus:
"I'm sick of fame—I'm gorged with it—so full
I almost could regret the happier hour
When northern oracles proclaimed me dull,
Grieving my Lord should so mistake his power—
E'en they, who now my consequence would lull,
And vaunt they hail'd and nurs'd the opening flower
Vile cheats! He knew not, impudent Reviewer,
Clear spring of Helicon from common sewer."
All Lady Caroline's works, both prose and verse, are forgotten and repose unread on the topmost shelves of old libraries. But they form an index to her mind and character, and should be studied side by side with her recorded actions. It is usual to dismiss her as mad and unaccountable for her actions. That is the easiest way, but is it the justest? Her gifts were by no means inconsiderable, but in the circle into which she was born there was, in the early nineteenth century, no outlet for the special activities and for the original turn of mind she possessed. Even her capacity for feeling degenerated into sentimentality. She lacked training. Under wise, skilful, and gentle guidance she would most probably have developed into a fine woman. As it was, she certainly did not help and probably retarded her husband's political career. But vivacity, high spirits, originality, courage combined with sensibility, are not too common in this world, and when such qualities run to waste, it is an irreparable loss out of life.
- ↑ Her husband was William Lamb, afterwards Lord Melbourne. He was Prime Minister in 1834 and 1836–41.
- ↑ See p. 101.
- ↑ Lord Melbourne died 24th November 1848.
- ↑ See p. 40.
- ↑ The correspondence is printed in C. Kegan Paul's Life of William Godwin.
- ↑ She told Lady Morgan she loved him chiefly because he stood by her when no one else did.
- ↑ Lady Melton in Dr. Lindsay; Lady Clara in Lionel Hastings; Lady Bellenden in Greville.
- ↑ 2nd August 1826.
- ↑ Disraeli describes Lady Caroline as Lady Monteagle in Venetia, and Mrs. Humphry Ward very skilfully uses Lady Caroline's career as the motive of her novel, The Marriage of William Ashe.