Beaux and Belles of England by Mary Robinson

M >> Mary Robinson >> Beaux and Belles of England

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My mother (who, content with affluence and happy in beholding the
prosperity of her children, trembled at the fear of endangering either),
in vain endeavoured to dissuade my father from putting his favourite
scheme in practice. In the early part of his youth he had been
accustomed to a sea life, and, being born an American, his restless
spirit was ever busied in plans for the increase of wealth and honour to
his native country, whose fame and interest were then united to those of
Britain. After many dreams of success and many conflicts betwixt
prudence and ambition, he resolved on putting his scheme in practice;
the potent witchery possessed his brain, and all the persuasive powers
of reason shrunk before its magic.

Full of the important business, my misguided parent repaired to the
metropolis, and on his arrival laid the plan before the late Earl of
Hilsborough, Sir Hugh Palliser, the late Earl of Bristol, Lord Chatham
(father to the present Mr. William Pitt), the chancellor Lord
Northington, who was my godfather, and several other equally
distinguished personages; who all not only approved the plan, but
commended the laudable and public spirit which induced my father to
suggest it. The prospect appeared full of promise, and the Labrador
whale fishery was expected to be equally productive with that of
Greenland. My parent's commercial connections were of the highest
respectability, while his own name for worth and integrity gave a
powerful sanction to the eccentric undertaking.

In order to facilitate this plan, my father deemed it absolutely
necessary to reside at least two years in America. My mother, who felt
an invincible antipathy to the sea, heard his determination with grief
and horror. All the persuasive powers of affection failed to detain him;
all the pleadings of reason, prudence, a fond wife, and an infant
family, proved ineffectual. My father was determined on departing, and
my mother's unconquerable timidity prevented her being the companion of
his voyage. From this epocha I date the sorrows of my family.

He sailed for America. His eldest son, John, was previously placed in a
mercantile house at Leghorn. My younger brothers and myself remained
with my mother at Bristol. Two years was the limited time of his
absence, and, on his departure, the sorrow of my parents was reciprocal.
My mother's heart was almost bursting with anguish; but even death would
to her have been preferable to the horrors of crossing a tempestuous
ocean and quitting her children, my father having resolved on leaving my
brothers and myself in England for education.

Still the comforts, and even the luxuries of life distinguished our
habitation. The tenderness of my mother's affection made her lavish of
every elegance; and the darlings of her bosom were dressed, waited on,
watched, and indulged with a degree of fondness bordering on folly. My
clothes were sent for from London; my fancy was indulged to the extent
of its caprices; I was flattered and praised into a belief that I was a
being of superior order. To sing, to play a lesson on the harpsichord,
to recite an elegy, and to make doggerel verses, made the extent of my
occupations, while my person improved, and my mother's indulgence was
almost unexampled.

My father, several years before his departure for America, had removed
from the Minster House, and resided in one larger and more convenient
for his increased family. This habitation was elegantly arranged; all
the luxuries of plate, silk furniture, foreign wines, etc., evinced his
knowledge of what was worth enjoying, and displayed that warm
hospitality which is often the characteristic of a British merchant.
This disposition for the good things of the world influenced even the
disposal of his children's comforts. The bed in which I slept was of the
richest crimson damask; the dresses which we wore were of the finest
cambric; during the summer months we were sent to Clifton Hill for the
advantages of a purer air; and I never was permitted to board at school,
or to pass a night of separation from the fondest of mothers.

Many months elapsed, and my mother continued to receive the kindest
letters from that husband whose rash scheme filled her bosom with regret
and apprehension. At length the intervals became more frequent and
protracted. The professions of regard, no longer flowing from the heart,
assumed a laboured style, and seemed rather the efforts of honourable
feeling than the involuntary language of confidential affection. My
mother felt the change, and her affliction was infinite.

At length a total silence of several months awoke her mind to the
sorrows of neglect, the torture of compunction; she now lamented the
timidity which had divided her from a husband's bosom, the natural
fondness which had bound her to her children; for while her heart bled
with sorrow and palpitated with apprehension, the dreadful secret was
unfolded, and the cause of my father's silence was discovered to be a
new attachment--a mistress, whose resisting nerves could brave the
stormy ocean, and who had consented to remain two years with him in the
frozen wilds of America.

This intelligence nearly annihilated my mother, whose mind, though not
strongly organised, was tenderly susceptible. She resigned herself to
grief. I was then at an age to feel and to participate in her sorrows. I
often wept to see her weep; I tried all my little skill to soothe her,
but in vain; the first shock was followed by calamities of a different
nature. The scheme in which my father had embarked his fortune failed,
the Indians rose in a body, burnt his settlement, murdered many of his
people, and turned the produce of their toil adrift on the wide and
merciless ocean. The noble patrons of his plan deceived him in their
assurances of marine protection, and the island of promise presented a
scene of barbarous desolation. This misfortune was rapidly followed by
other commercial losses; and to complete the vexations which pressed
heavily on my mother, her rash husband gave a bill of sale of his whole
property, by the authority of which we were obliged to quit our home,
and to endure those accumulated vicissitudes for which there appeared
no remedy.

It was at this period of trial that my mother was enabled to prove, by
that unerring touchstone, adversity, who were her real and disinterested
friends. Many, with affected commiseration, dropped a tear--or rather
seemed to drop one--on the disappointments of our family; while others,
with a malignant triumph, condemned the expensive style in which my
father had reared his children, the studied elegance which had
characterised my mother's dress and habitation, and the hospitality,
which was now marked by the ungrateful epithet of prodigal luxuriance,
but which had evinced the open liberality of my father's heart.

At this period my brother William died. He was only six years of age,
but a promising and most lovely infant. His sudden death, in consequence
of the measles, nearly deprived my mother of her senses. She was deeply
affected; but she found, after a period of time, that consolation which,
springing from the bosom of an amiable friend, doubly solaced her
afflictions. This female was one of the most estimable of her sex; she
had been the widow of Sir Charles Erskine, and was then the wife of a
respectable medical man who resided at Bristol.

In the society of Lady Erskine my mother gradually recovered her
serenity of mind, or rather found it soften into a religious
resignation. But the event of her domestic loss by death was less
painful than that which she felt in the alienation of my father's
affections. She frequently heard that he resided in America with his
mistress, till, at the expiration of another year, she received a
summons to meet him in London.

Language would but feebly describe the varying emotions which struggled
in her bosom. At this interesting era she was preparing to encounter the
freezing scorn, or the contrite glances, of either an estranged or a
repentant husband; in either case her situation was replete with
anticipated chagrin, for she loved him too tenderly not to participate
even in the anguish of his compunction. His letter, which was coldly
civil, requested particularly that the children might be the companions
of her journey. We departed for the metropolis.

I was not then quite ten years old, though so tall and formed in my
person that I might have passed for twelve or thirteen. My brother
George was a few years younger. On our arrival in London we repaired to
my father's lodgings in Spring Gardens. He received us, after three
years' absence, with a mixture of pain and pleasure; he embraced us with
tears, and his voice was scarcely articulate. My mother's agitation was
indescribable; she received a cold embrace at their meeting--it was the
last she ever received from her alienated husband.

As soon as the first conflicts seemed to subside, my father informed my
mother that he was determined to place my brother and myself at a school
in the vicinity of London; that he purposed very shortly returning to
America, and that he would readily pay for my mother's board in any
private and respectable family. This information seemed like a
death-blow to their domestic hopes. A freezing, formal, premeditated
separation from a wife who was guiltless of any crime, who was as
innocent as an angel, seemed the very extent of decided misery. It was
in vain that my mother essayed to change his resolution, and influence
his heart in pronouncing a milder judgment: my father was held by a
fatal fascination; he was the slave of a young and artful woman, who had
availed herself of his American solitude, to undermine his affections
for his wife and the felicity of his family.

This deviation from domestic faith was the only dark shade that marked
my father's character. He possessed a soul brave, liberal, enlightened,
and ingenuous. He felt the impropriety of his conduct. Yet, though his
mind was strongly organised, though his understanding was capacious, and
his sense of honour delicate even to fastidiousness, he was still the
dupe of his passions, the victim of unfortunate attachment.

Within a few days of our arrival in London we were placed for education
in a school at Chelsea. The mistress of this seminary was perhaps one of
the most extraordinary women that ever graced, or disgraced, society;
her name was Meribah Lorrington. She was the most extensively
accomplished female that I ever remember to have met with; her mental
powers were no less capable of cultivation than superiorly cultivated.
Her father, whose name was Hull, had from her infancy been the master of
an academy at Earl's Court, near Fulham; and early after his marriage
losing his wife, he resolved on giving his daughter a masculine
education. Meribah was early instructed in all the modern
accomplishments, as well as in classical knowledge. She was mistress of
the Latin, French, and Italian languages; she was said to be a perfect
arithmetician and astronomer, and possessed the art of painting on silk
to a degree of exquisite perfection. But, alas! with all these
advantages, she was addicted to one vice, which at times so completely
absorbed her faculties as to deprive her of every power, either mental
or corporeal. Thus, daily and hourly, her superior acquirements, her
enlightened understanding, yielded to the intemperance of her ruling
infatuation, and every power of reflection seemed lost in the unfeminine
propensity.

All that I ever learned I acquired from this extraordinary woman. In
those hours when her senses were not intoxicated, she would delight in
the task of instructing me. She had only five or six pupils, and it was
my lot to be her particular favourite. She always, out of school, called
me her little friend, and made no scruple of conversing with me
(sometimes half the night, for I slept in her chamber), on domestic and
confidential affairs. I felt for her a very sincere affection, and I
listened with peculiar attention to all the lessons she inculcated. Once
I recollect her mentioning the particular failing which disgraced so
intelligent a being. She pleaded, in excuse of it, the immitigable
regret of a widowed heart, and with compunction declared that she flew
to intoxication as the only refuge from the pang of prevailing sorrow. I
continued more than twelve months under the care of Mrs. Lorrington,
during which period my mother boarded in a clergyman's family at
Chelsea. I applied rigidly to study, and acquired a taste for books,
which has never, from that time, deserted me. Mrs. Lorrington frequently
read to me after school hours, and I to her. I sometimes indulged my
fancy in writing verses, or composing rebuses, and my governess never
failed to applaud the juvenile compositions I presented to her. Some of
them, which I preserved and printed in a small volume shortly after my
marriage, were written when I was between twelve and thirteen years of
age; but as love was the theme of my poetical fantasies, I never showed
them to my mother till I was about to publish them.

It was my custom, every Sunday evening, to drink tea with my mother.
During one of those visits a captain in the British navy, a friend of my
father's, became so partial to my person and manners that a proposal of
marriage shortly after followed. My mother was astonished when she heard
it, and, as soon as she recovered from her surprise, inquired of my
suitor how old he thought me; his reply was, "About sixteen." My mother
smiled, and informed him that I was then not quite thirteen. He appeared
to be skeptical on the subject, till he was again assured of the fact,
when he took his leave with evident chagrin, but not without expressing
his hopes that, on his return to England,--for he was going on a two
years' expedition,--I should be still disengaged. His ship foundered at
sea a few months after, and this amiable gallant officer perished.

I had remained a year and two months with Mrs. Lorrington, when
pecuniary derangements obliged her to give up her school. Her father's
manners were singularly disgusting, as was his appearance; for he wore a
silvery beard which reached to his breast; and a kind of Persian robe
which gave him the external appearance of a necromancer. He was of the
Anabaptist persuasion, and so stern in his conversation that the young
pupils were exposed to perpetual terror. Added to these circumstances,
the failing of his daughter became so evident, that even during school
hours she was frequently in a state of confirmed intoxication. These
events conspired to break up the establishment, and I was shortly after
removed to a boarding-school at Battersea.

The mistress of this seminary, Mrs. Leigh, was a lively, sensible, and
accomplished woman; her daughter was only a few years older than myself,
and extremely amiable as well as lovely. Here I might have been happy,
but my father's remissness in sending pecuniary supplies, and my
mother's dread of pecuniary inconvenience, induced her to remove me; my
brother, nevertheless, still remained under the care of the Reverend Mr.
Gore, at Chelsea.

Several months elapsed, and no remittance arrived from my father. I was
now near fourteen years old, and my mother began to foresee the
vicissitudes to which my youth might be exposed, unprotected, tenderly
educated, and without the advantages of fortune. My father's
impracticable scheme had impoverished his fortune, and deprived his
children of that affluence which, in their in fancy, they had been
taught to hope for. I cannot speak of my own person, but my partial
friends were too apt to flatter me. I was naturally of a pensive and
melancholy character; my reflections on the changes of fortune
frequently gave me an air of dejection which perhaps etched an interest
beyond what might have been awakened by the vivacity or bloom of
juvenility.

I adored my mother. She was the mildest, the most unoffending of
existing mortals; her temper was cheerful, as her heart was innocent;
she beheld her children as it seemed fatherless, and she resolved, by
honourable means, to support them. For this purpose a convenient house
was hired at Little Chelsea, and furnished, for a ladies'
boarding-school. Assistants of every kind were engaged, and I was deemed
worthy of an occupation that flattered my self-love and impressed my
mind with a sort of domestic consequence. The English language was my
department in the seminary, and I was permitted to select passages both
in prose and verse for the studies of my infant pupils. It was also my
occupation to superintend their wardrobes, to see them dressed and
undressed by the servants or half-boarders, and to read sacred and moral
lessons on saints' days and Sunday evenings.

Shortly after my mother had established herself at Chelsea, on a
summer's evening, as I was sitting at the window, I heard a deep sigh,
or rather a groan of anguish, which suddenly attracted my attention. The
night was approaching rapidly, and I looked toward the gate before the
house, where I observed a woman evidently labouring under excessive
affliction; I instantly descended and approached her. She, bursting into
tears, asked whether I did not know her. Her dress was torn and filthy;
she was almost naked; and an old bonnet, which nearly hid her face, so
completely disfigured her features that I had not the smallest idea of
the person who was then almost sinking before me. I gave her a small sum
of money, and inquired the cause of her apparent agony. She took my hand
and pressed it to her lips. "Sweet girl," said she, "you are still the
angel I ever knew you!" I was astonished. She raised her bonnet--her
fine dark eyes met mine. It was Mrs. Lorrington. I led her into the
house; my mother was not at home. I took her to my chamber, and, with
the assistance of a lady who was our French teacher, I clothed and
comforted her. She refused to say how she came to be in so deplorable a
situation, and took her leave. It was in vain that I entreated, that I
conjured her to let me know where I might send to her. She refused to
give me her address, but promised that in a few days she would call on
me again. It is impossible to describe the wretched appearance of this
accomplished woman! The failing to which she had now yielded, as to a
monster that would destroy her, was evident even at the moment when she
was speaking to me. I saw no more of her; but to my infinite regret, I
was informed some years after that she had died, the martyr of a
premature decay, brought on by the indulgence of her propensity to
intoxication, in the workhouse of Chelsea!

The number of my mother's pupils in a few months amounted to ten or
twelve, and just at a period when an honourable independence promised to
cheer the days of an unexampled parent, my father unexpectedly returned
from America. The pride of his soul was deeply wounded by the step which
my mother had taken; he was offended even beyond the bounds of reason:
he considered his name as disgraced, his conjugal reputation tarnished,
by the public mode which his wife had adopted of revealing to the world
her unprotected situation. A prouder heart never palpitated in the
breast of man than that of my father: tenacious of fame, ardent in the
pursuit of visionary schemes, he could not endure the exposure of his
altered fortune; while Hope still beguiled him with her flattering
promise that time would favour his projects, and fortune, at some future
period, reward him with success.

At the expiration of eight months my mother, by my father's positive
command, broke up her establishment and returned to London. She engaged
lodgings in the neighbourhood of Marylebone. My father then resided in
Green Street, Grosvenor Square. His provision for his family was scanty,
his visits few. He had a new scheme on foot respecting the Labrador
coast, the particulars of which I do not remember, and all his zeal,
united with all his interest, was employed in promoting its
accomplishment. My mother, knowing that my father publicly resided with
his mistress, did not even hope for his returning affection. She devoted
herself to her children, and endured her sorrows with the patience of
conscious rectitude.

At this period my father frequently called upon us, and often attended
me while we walked in the fields near Marylebone. His conversation was
generally of a domestic nature, and he always lamented that fatal
attachment, which was now too strongly cemented by time and obligations
ever to be dissolved without an ample provision for Elenor, which was
the name of my father's mistress. In one of our morning walks we called
upon the Earl of Northington, my father having some commercial business
to communicate to his lordship. Lord Northington then resided in
Berkeley Square, two doors from Hill Street, in the house which is now
occupied by Lord Robert Spencer. We were received with the most marked
attention and politeness (I was presented as the goddaughter of the late
Chancellor Lord Northington), and my father was requested to dine with
his lordship a few days after. From this period I frequently saw Lord
Northington, and always experienced from him the most flattering and
gratifying civility. I was then a child, not more than fourteen years
of age.

The finishing points of my education I received at Oxford House,
Marylebone. I was at this period within a few months of fifteen years of
age, tall, and nearly such as my partial friends, the few whose
affection has followed me from childhood, remember me. My early love for
lyric harmony had led me to a fondness for the more sublime scenes of
dramatic poetry. I embraced every leisure moment to write verses; I even
fancied that I could compose a tragedy, and more than once
unsuccessfully attempted the arduous undertaking.

The dancing-master at Oxford House, Mr. Hussey, was then ballet-master
at Covent Garden Theatre. Mrs. Hervey, the governess, mentioned me to
him as possessing an extraordinary genius for dramatic exhibitions. My
figure was commanding for my age, and (my father's pecuniary
embarrassments augmenting by the failure of another American project) my
mother was consulted as to the propriety of my making the stage my
profession. Many cited examples of females who, even in that perilous
and arduous situation, preserved an unspotted fame, inclined her to
listen to the suggestion, and to allow of my consulting some master of
the art as to my capability of becoming an ornament to the theatre.

Previous to this idea my father had again quitted England. He left his
wife with assurances of good-will, his children with all the agonies of
parental regret. When he took leave of my mother, his emphatic words
were these,--I never shall forget them--"Take care that no dishonour
falls upon my daughter. If she is not safe at my return, I will
annihilate you!" My mother heard the stern injunction, and trembled
while he repeated it.

I was, in consequence of my wish to appear on the stage, introduced to
Mr. Hull,[6] of Covent Garden Theatre; he then resided in King Street,
Soho. He heard me recite some passages of the character of Jane Shore,
and seemed delighted with my attempt. I was shortly after presented by a
friend of my mother's, to Mr. Garrick;[7] Mr. Murphy,[8] the celebrated
dramatic poet, was one of the party, and we passed the evening at the
house of the British Roscius in the Adelphi. This was during the last
year that he dignified the profession by his public appearance. Mr.
Garrick's encomiums were of the most gratifying kind. He determined that
he would appear in the same play with me on the first night's trial; but
what part to choose for my début was a difficult question. I was too
young for anything beyond the girlish character, and the dignity of
tragedy afforded but few opportunities for the display of such juvenile
talents. After some hesitation my tutor fixed on the part of Cordelia.
His own Lear can never be forgotten.

It was not till the period when everything was arranged for my
appearance that the last solemn injunction, so emphatically uttered by
my father, nearly palsied my mother's resolution. She dreaded the
perils, the temptations to which an unprotected girl would be exposed in
so public a situation; while my ardent fancy was busied in contemplating
a thousand triumphs in which my vanity would be publicly gratified
without the smallest sacrifice of my private character.

While this plan was in agitation, I was one evening at Drury Lane
Theatre with my mother and a small party of her friends, when an officer
entered the box. His eyes were fixed on me, and his persevering
attention at length nearly overwhelmed me with confusion. The
entertainment being finished, we departed. The stranger followed us. At
that period my mother resided in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane,
for the protection which a venerable and respectable friend offered at a
moment when it was so necessary. This friend was the late Samuel Cox,
Esq., the intimate friend of Mr. Garrick, and an honour to those laws of
which he was a distinguished professor.

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