Miss Eden's Letters. Eden Emily
was here, and who was a private friend of his, was so completely overcome that I was very sorry for him too. Altogether it is a horrible history, and only shows how very little we can know what is good for man in this life, when we were all saying some months ago that this would be the proudest year of Sir S. Romilly’s life. Your most affectionate
MY DEAR EMILY, I have this moment seen an agent of Mrs. Wildman, a rich Kentish widow, and she has agreed to take Eden Farm on my own terms, which gives us a prospect of being a little more settled and comfortable.
She is to have it for seven years and pay £600 a year. And now I must look out for a house in town, which you will find pretty near ready for you when you arrive. I am in a great bustle and hurry, for we are all alive with this election, though with the melancholy impression of poor Romilly’s death it is difficult to rouse people. Hobhouse79 has behaved so ill that it is right to try to beat him, but I fear that Lamb80 is too late. He will certainly be low on the poll for the first week, but it is possible that afterwards he may recover. In the meantime, people are very busy, and none of our friends are sanguine. Your affectionate brother,
MY DEAR EMILY, Lamb carried his election to-day by 604, and made a sort of a speech saying that now he was their member, and they were his constituents, and that they would soon learn to be friends. He was a little hooted, but not much more than usual; but all our foolish friends appeared to cheer him with cockades in their hats, and all was uproar and riot and confusion and pelting and brickbats and mud, and it is lucky none of them were very seriously hurt. They all arrived covered with dirt to the west end of the town, and the mob at their heels, for they were too gallant not to stop to be occasionally pelted.
I never saw such a scene. Your friend Graham81 looked as if he had just come out from the pillory; Sefton, Morton, and twenty others in the same plight.
Report says that one servant is nearly killed; I hope it is not true. Ferguson had a blow on his head, and Mr. Charlton another more serious one; but I hear of nothing worse. It makes but an ugly triumph for our great victory. What a glorious debate was yesterday’s!
You will live at No. 30 Lower Grosvenor Street, the only house I can get, small but convenient, and I think we shall make it do well enough. Ever affectionately yours,
MY DEAREST SISTER, …Mr. Ellis left this place yesterday, so I could not give him your message. I think he enjoyed the latter part of his visit here very much, as there was a very pleasant set of gentlemen, and Mr. Douglas, who is more amusing than ever. We had besides them, two Mr. Lascelles’s,82 one “a cunning hunter” and the other very gentlemanlike and pleasant; Mr. Duncombe, a pretty little London Dandy, rather clever in his way; Captain Cust,83 a soldierly sort of person, and a kind of Lusus Naturae (is that sense do you think?), because he is pleasant and well-looking though he is a Cust, and Mr. Petre, very rich and very stupid, so that we had a very proper mixture of character…
We are all hunting mad in these parts, and I am afraid that when I come to Eastcombe I shall be a great expense to you with my hunters and grooms. I have already made great progress in the language of the art.
I have heard a new name for the Miss Custs, in case you are tired of the Dusty Camels; by uniting their names of Brownlow and Cust, they become Brown Locusts, which is a very expressive title I think. I remain, ever yr. very affec. sister,
CHAPTER II
1819-1820
MY DEAREST SISTER, I was very sorry to hear of the unfortunate state in which you have been, and in which Sarah [Lady Sarah Robinson] is, as I have a sufficient recollection of the Mumps to know what a very disagreeable disorder they are, or they is.
We have had a spirt of company for the last three days, but they all very kindly walked off yesterday, and as it is wrong to dwell upon past evils, I spare you an account of most of them.
There were a Mr. and Mrs. Winyard amongst them, who were very pleasant. He was in the army, and is now in the Church, and though they are the sort of people who have a child every year, and talk about their governess, and though she very naturally imagined, that because she was absent, the high wind would blow away the little tittupy parsonage, and the ten precious children, yet they really were very agreeable.
He sang so very beautifully though, that it made all his other good qualities quite superfluous, and I am convinced it would have touched your unmusical heart to hear him sing some of the Irish Melodies.
I have some thoughts of writing an Essay on Education for the good of my country, and I think the little Robinsons84 will in most cases serve for example, and I must say that, tho’ children, they are very nice things, and uncommonly well managed.
If at any time you will let me know how you are going on, the smallest intelligence will be thankfully received. Ever, my dear Sister, your very affect.
MY DEAREST SISTER, This place affords so very little to say, that if this prove to be a long letter, of which at present I do not see much chance, I pity from my heart your feelings of weariness at the end of it. There is nobody here but the Campbells, but I imagine that the family of Thynne are much pleasanter out of a crowd. At least, we are not the least formal or dull, which from the account Mary and Fanny used to give I thought would have been the case.
The magnificence of the house far surpasses anything I have ever seen, and with all that, it is one of the most comfortable abodes possible. It is inconvenient too in some respects, at least to me, who have an unfortunate knack of losing my way even in a house that may consist of only ten rooms, so that I cannot stir without Fanny or some other guide.
There are several roads to our rooms. The servants make it, I think, about five and twenty minutes’ walk, a little more than a mile and a quarter; but then that is a very intricate way.
Lady Bath85 is very much out of spirits at times about Lord Weymouth,86 who is going on very ill; but she is always very pleasant and very good-humoured…
Lady Elizabeth87 and Lady Louisa88 both make themselves very pleasant.
We leave this place Saturday night, probably, which I am very sorry for, but George must be in town Monday, and therefore it is necessary to be there Saturday. However, he is first going to see poor Lord Ilchester at Weymouth,89 and is to rejoin me on the road, so our plans depend a little on Lord Ilchester’s. London will be a little dark and dismal-looking this weather, but the FitzGeralds are coming up to be at the Meeting of Parliament, and I shall be rather glad to meet Pam.90 Your most affectionate
So you are not dead at all, Emmy! I am very glad, for I can’t spare you. I have been what the people call in a great deal of trouble. Aunt91 frightened me, she chose to
John Cam Hobhouse, afterwards Lord Broughton. He lost this election.
Hon. George Lamb was standing for Westminster. He was a brother of Lord Melbourne.
Mr. James Graham stood as a Whig for Hull and was successful at the General Election of 1818.
Sons of Henry, 2nd Earl of Harewood.
Brother of the 1st Earl Brownlow.
Anne, Baroness Lucas (Lady Cowper). Mary, married in 1832 Henry Vyner. Frederick William Robinson, born 1810; died in 1831. Lady Grantham had a daughter in October 1816, probably Amabel, who died in 1827.
Isabella, daughter of 4th Viscount Torrington, married, 1794, 2nd Marquess of Bath.
Her eldest son. He married in 1820 Miss Harriet Robins.
Lady Elizabeth Thynne, married in 1816 John Frederick Campbell (Earl Cawdor).
Lady Louisa Thynne, married in 1823 Henry, 3rd Earl of Harewood.
Third Earl of Ilchester, married in 1812 Caroline, daughter of Lord George Murray. She died January 8, 1819, leaving four children.
Pamela FitzGerald, daughter of Lord and Lady Edward FitzGerald.
Lady Sophia FitzGerald, born in 1762.