Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope/Volume 2/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs—The three duchesses—Anecdote of Mr. Rice—How Prime Ministers are employed on first taking office—The Grenville make—P———of W———at Stowe—Mr. Pitt and Mr. Sheridan—Duke of H————Mr. Pitt’s disinterestedness exemplified—His life wasted in the service of his country—Mr. Rose—Mr. Long—Mr.————Grounds at Walmer laid out by Lady Hester—Mr. Pitt’s deportment in retirement—His physiognomy—How he got into debt—Lord Carrington; why made a peer—Extent of Mr. Dundas’s influence over Mr. Pitt—Mr. Pitt averse to ceremony—Mr. Pitt and his sister Harriet—His dislike to the Bourbons—Lady Hester’s activity at Walmer—Lord Chatham’s indolence—Mr. Pitt's opinion of Sir Arthur Wellesley.
On leaving Marseilles, in 1837, I ordered Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs to be sent after me to Syria, thinking that, as relating to Mr. Pitt’s times, and to people and politics with whom and in which both he and she had mixed so largely, these memoirs could not fail to amuse her. I received them soon after my arrival at Jôon, and many rainy days were passed in reading them. They served to beguile the melancholy hours of her sickness, and recalled the agreeable recollections of her more splendid, if not more happy, hours. She would say on such occasions, "Doctor, read a little of your book to me." This was always her expression, when I had brought any publication to her: and, ordering a pipe, lying at her length in bed, and smoking whilst I read, she would make her comments as I went on.
"Let me hear about the duchesses," she would say. After a page or two she interrupted me. "See what the Duchess of Rutland and the Duchess of Gordon were: look at the difference. I acknowledge it proceeds all from temperament, just as your dull disposition does, which to me is as bad as a heavy weight or a nightmare. I never knew, among the whole of my acquaintance in England, any one like you but Mr. Polhill of Crofton" (or some such place): "he was always mopish, just as you are. I remember too what a heavy, dull business the Duchess of R.'s parties were—the room so stuffed with people that one could not move, and all so heavy—a great deal of high breeding and bon ton; but there was, somehow, nothing to enliven you. Now and then some incident would turn up to break the spell. One evening, I recollect very well, everybody was suffering with the heat: there we were, with nothing but heads to be seen like bottles in a basket. I got out of the room, upon the landing-place. There I found Lady Sefton, Lady Heathcote, and some of your high-flyers, and somebody was saying to me, 'Lady Hester something,' when, half way up the staircase, the Duke of Cumberland was trying to make his way. He cried out, 'Where's Lady Hester? where's my aide-de-camp? Come and help me; for I am so blind I can't get on alone. Why, this is h—l and d———n!'— 'Here I am, sir.'—'Give me your hand, there's a good little soul. Do help me into this h—l; for it's quite as hot.' Then came Bradford; and, whilst he was speaking to me, and complaining of the intolerable heat and crush, out roared the Duke of Cumberland, 'Where is she gone to?'—and up went his glass, peeping about to the right and left—'where is she gone to?' There was some life in him, doctor.
"Now, at the Duchess of Gordons, there were people of the same fashion, and the crowd was just as great; but then she was so lively, and everybody was so animated, and seemed to know so well what they were about—quite another thing.
"As for the Duchess of D.'s, there they were—all that set—all yawning, and wanting the evening to be spent, that they might be getting to the business they were after."
It may be mentioned that Lady Hester was always very severe on the Duchess of D. and her friends, whenever her name or theirs was mentioned. She said she was full of affected sensibility, but that there was always a great deal of wickedness about her eyes.
The mention of the Duchess of Rutland's name also led to an amusing anecdote. Lady Hester was speaking of the grand fête given by the duchess when her son came of age. The arrangements were entrusted to a person named Rice, and to some great confectioner. Mr. Rice had been maître d'hôtel, or in some such capacity, in Mr. Pitt's family.
"Rice told me," said Lady Hester, "that when he and the other man were preparing for the fête, he never lay down for ten nights, but got what sleep he could in an arm-chair. The duchess gave him three hundred guineas. One day she looked at him over her shoulder; and when one of the beaux about her said, 'What are you looking after, duchess? You have forgotten something in the drawing-room?'—'No, no,' said she, pointing to Rice, 'I was only thinking that those eyes are too good for a kitchen.' And then one talked of the eyes, and the eyes, and another of the eyes and the eyes, until poor Rice quite blushed. He had very pretty eyes, doctor."
But the anecdote I was going to relate was this. Most simple persons, like myself, imagine that prime ministers of such a country as England, when promoted to so elevated a station, are only moved by the noble ambition of their country's good, and, from the first moment to the last, are ever pondering on the important measures that may best promote it. No such thing. Let us hear what Lady Hester Stanhope herself had to say on this subject.
"The very first thing Mr. Pitt did," said she, "after coming into office the second time, was to provide for Mr. Rice. We were just got to Downing Street, and everything was in disorder. I was in the drawing-room: Mr. Pitt, I believe, had dined out. When he came home, 'Hester,' said he, 'we must think of our dear, good friend Rice. I have desired the list to be brought to me to-morrow morning, and we will see what suits him.'—'I think we had better see now,' I replied. 'Oh, no! it is too late now.'—'Not at all,' I rejoined; and I rang the bell, and desired the servant to go to the Treasury, and bring me the list.
"On examining it, I found three places for which he was eligible. I then sent for Rice. 'Rice,' said I, 'here are three places to be filled up. One is a place in the Treasury, where you may fag on, and, by the time you are forty-five or fifty, you may be master of twenty or twenty-five thousand pounds. There is another will bring you into contact with poor younger sons of nobility: you will be invited out, get tickets for the Opera, and may make yourself a fine gentleman. The third is in the Customs: there you must fag a great deal, but you will make a great deal of money: it is a searcher's place.'
"Rice, after considering awhile, said—'As for the Treasury, that will not suit me, my lady; for I must go on plodding to the end of my life. The second place your ladyship mentioned will throw me out of my sphere: I am not fit for fine folks; and, if you please, I had rather take the third.' So, the very next morning, I got all his papers signed by everybody except Mr. Long, and they made some excuses that he was not come, or was gone, or something; but I would hear of no delay, and desired them to find him.
"Rice went on swimmingly, doctor, for a long time, and made one morning a seizure that brought for his share £500. But I had given him some very long instructions, and he was not like you, for he listened to my advice. Sometimes, when I was teaching him how he was to act, he would say, 'My lady, I believe that is enough for this time: I don't think my poor head will contain more; but I'll come again.' I told him he was to learn the specific gravity of bodies, that when they told him (for example) it was pepper, he might know by the volume that it was not gunpowder or cochineal.
"When the Grenville administration wanted to introduce new regulations into the Customs, and diminish their profits, I wrote such a petition for them, that Lord Grenville read it over and over, and cried out—'There is only one person could write this, and we must give up the point.' He sent the Duke of Buckingham to me to find out if it was I, and the duke said, to smooth the matter—'Lady Hester, you know, if you want any favour, you have only to ask for it.'—'Indeed,' said I, 'I shall ask no favour of your broad-bottomed gentry; what I want I shall take by force.'—'Now, Hester,' cried the duke, 'you are too bad; you are almost indelicate.'
"Oh, I made a man laugh so once when speaking of an officer, who, I said, would not do for an hussar, as he wanted a little more of the Grenville make about him."
After a pause, as if reflecting, Lady Hester resumed—"Is there nothing in the book about the G********'s getting the Prince down to Stowe? They received him with extraordinary magnificence, and the most noble treatment possible: they fancied they were going to do wonders. But I said to them—'Do you think all this makes the impression you wish in the Prince's breast? You suppose, no doubt, that you gratify him highly with such a splendid reception: you are much mistaken. From this time forward he will be jealous of you, and will hate you as long as he thinks you can rival him.' The event proved how justly I knew his character.
"There they were, shut up: and when they told me they had got their conditions in black and white, I told them how it would be. I said he would take them in; for what was a paper to a man like him? I wrote them such a letter, doctor, that they all thought it was Mr. Pitt's—Mr. Pitt's best style, too—until I swore he never knew a word about it. They fancied they had got all the loaves and fishes. One was to be Prime Minister, one First Lord of the Admiralty, and so on: but their ambition destroyed them. What have they been since Mr. Pitt's death? Nothing at all. Who ever hears now of the Duke of B*********?"[1]
I turned over the pages, and next read Wraxall's account of Mr. Sheridan, which Lady Hester said was very much to the purpose. "Mr. Pitt," she added, "always thought well of him, and never disliked my talking with him. Oh! how Sheridan used to make me laugh, when he pretended to marry Mr. Pitt to different women!"
I came to the passage where Sir Nathaniel finds fault with Mr. Pitt's having refused Sheridan's generous offer of co-operating with him in suppressing the mutiny at the Nore. "Why," interrupted Lady Hester, "what could Mr. Pitt do? He was afraid, doctor; he did not know how sincere such people might be in their offers: they might be only coming over to his side to get the secrets of the cabinet, and then turn king's evidence. It required a great deal of caution to know how to deal with such clever men."
Where Sir Nathaniel relates the history of the Burrell family, she spoke highly of all the daughters, but especially of Mrs. Bennett, and considered that the author was wrong in saying that all but Mrs. Bennett were not handsome.
Of the D. of H. she observed, that he never lived with the duchess. He was in love with Lady———, and used to disguise himself as a one-legged soldier—as a beggar—assuming a hundred masquerades, sleeping in outhouses, &c. He would have married her, but he could not, for he had got one wife already. That was the woman F. M**** married. Oh, doctor, there was a man!" (meaning the Duke of H———) "perfect from top to toe, with not a single flaw in his person."
Lady Hester was so delighted with Sir Nathaniel's Memoirs that she said, more than once, "How I wish I had known that man! I would have made him a duke. What an excellent judgment he has, and how well he knew everybody! But how was I to find out all those people, when the stupid interest set that surrounded Mr. Pitt kept them all in the background?"
November 11.—This evening I remained with Lady Hester about three hours. She was better, but complained of great pain in the left hypochondrium, and could not lie easy on either side, or on her back. Yet, notwithstanding her ailments, talking was necessary for her; and from the incidental mention of Mr. Pitt's name, she went on about him for some time.
"Nobody ever knew or estimated Mr. Pitt's character rightly. His views were abused and confounded with the narrow projects of men who never could comprehend them; his fidelity to his master was never understood. Never was there such a disinterested man; he invariably refused every bribe, and declined every present that was offered to him. Those which came to him from abroad he left to rot in the Custom House; and some of his servants, after quitting his service, knowing he never inquired about them any more, went and claimed things of this sort: for Mr. Pitt would read the letter, and think no more about it. I could name those, who have pictures hanging in their rooms—pictures by Flemish masters, of great value—procured in this way.
"Mr. Pitt used to say of Lord Carrington, when he saw him unable to eat his dinner in comfort, because he had a letter to write to his steward about some estate or another—'voilà l'embarras de richesses:' but when he heard of some generous action done by a wealthy man—'There’s the pleasure of being rich,’ he would cry. He did not pretend to despise wealth, but he was not a slave to it, as will be seen by the following anecdotes:—
“At one time a person was empowered by his city friends to settle on him £10,000 a year, in order to render him independent of the favour of the king and of everybody, upon condition (as they expressed it) that he would stand forth to save his country. The offer was made through me, and I said I would deliver the message, but was afraid the answer would not be such as they wished. Mr. Pitt in fact refused it, saying he was much flattered by their approval of his conduct, but that he could accept nothing of the sort.
"Yet these people," added Lady Hester, "were not, as you might at first suppose, disinterested in their offer: I judged them to be otherwise. For if it had been to the man, and not to some hopes of gain they had by him, would they not, after his death, have searched out those he esteemed as angels, and have honoured his memory by enriching those he loved so much? (alluding to herself and brothers.) But no—they thought if Mr. Pitt retired from public affairs, the country and its commerce would go to ruin, and they, as great city men, would be the losers; whereas, by a few thousand pounds given away handsomely, if they got him to take an active part in the government, they would in turn put vast riches into their own purses, and make a handsome profit out of their patriotism." She added, "There are no public philanthropists in the city."
"I recollect once a hackney-coach drawing up to the door, out of which got four men: doctor, they had a gold box with them as big as that" (and she held her hands nearly a foot apart to show the size of it), "containing £100,000 in bank-notes. They had found out the time when he was alone, and made him an offer of it. It was all interest that guided them, but they pretended it was patriotism:—rich merchants, who were to get a pretty penny by the job. He very politely thanked them, and returned the present.
"I was once in the city at an Irish linen warehouse—very rich people, but such a nasty place—so dark! You know those narrow streets. They offered to buy Hollwood for him, pay his debts, and make him independent of the king, if he would contrive to take office; for he was out at the time. I mentioned it to him, as I thought it my duty to do so; but he would not listen to any such proposal.
"When I think of the ingratitude of the English nation to Mr. Pitt, for all his personal sacrifices and disinterestedness, for his life wasted in the service of his country!"—Here Lady Hester's emotions got the better of her, and she burst into tears: she sobbed as she spoke. "People little knew what he had to do. Up at eight in the morning, with people enough to see for a week, obliged to talk all the time he was at breakfast, and receiving first one, then another, until four o'clock; then eating a mutton-chop, hurrying off to the House, and there badgered and compelled to speak and waste his lungs until two or three in the morning!—who could stand it? After this, heated as he was, and having eaten nothing, in a manner of speaking, all day, he would sup with Dundas, Huskisson, Rose, Mr. Long, and such persons, and then go to bed to get three or four hours' sleep, and to renew the same thing the next day, and the next, and the next.
"Poor old Rose! he had a good heart. I am afraid he took it ill that I did not write to him. Mr. Long used to slide in and slide out, and slide here and slide there—nobody knew when he went or when he came—so quiet."
I here interrupted Lady Hester: "It was a lamentable end, that of Mr. ," said I.[2] "So much the better," answered Lady Hester. I thought she had not heard me well. "It was a lamentable end, that of Mr.———," I repeated with a louder tone. "So much the better," said she again; "it could not be too bad for him. He died in bodily torment, and C——— had the torment of a bad conscience for his falsehoods, and W——— lived in mental torment. They all three deserved it."
Lady Hester resumed. "When Mr. Pitt was at Walmer, he recovered his health prodigiously. He used to go to a farm near Walmer, where hay and corn were kept for the horses. He had a room fitted up there with a table and two or three chairs, where he used to write sometimes, and a tidy woman to dress him something to eat. Oh! what slices of bread and butter I have seen him eat there, and hunches of bread and cheese big enough for a ploughman! He used to say that, whenever he could retire from public life, he would have a good English woman cook. Sometimes, after a grand dinner, he would say, 'I want something—I am hungry:' and when I remarked, 'Well, but you are just got up from dinner,' he would add, 'Yes; but I looked round the table, and there was nothing I could eat—all the dishes were so made up, and so unnatural.' Ah, doctor! in town, during the sitting of parliament, what a life was his! Roused from his sleep (for he was a good sleeper) with a despatch from Lord Melville;—then down to Windsor; then, if he had half an hour to spare, trying to swallow something:—Mr. Adams with a paper, Mr. Long with another; then Mr. Rose: then, with a little bottle of cordial confection in his pocket, off to the House until three or four in the morning; then home to a hot supper for two or three hours more, to talk over what was to be done next day:—and wine, and wine!—Scarcely up next morning, when tat-tat-tat—twenty or thirty people, one after another, and the horses walking before the door from two till sunset, waiting for him. It was enough to kill a man—it was murder!"
Lady Hester reverted to Walmer, and went on, after musing a little thus—"I remember once what an improvement I made at Walmer, which arose from a conversation with some friends, in which Mr. Pitt agreed with them that Walmer was not certainly a beautiful residence, but that it only wanted trees to make it so. I was present, but did not seem to hear what was passing.
"Mr. Pitt soon after went to town. Mindful of what he had let drop, I immediately resolved to set about executing the improvements which he seemed to imply as wanting. I got (I know not how) all the regiments that were in quarters at Dover, and employed them in levelling, fetching turf, transplanting shrubs, flowers, &c. As I possess, in some degree, the art of ingratiating myself where I want to do it, I would go out of an evening among the workmen, and say to one, 'You are a Warwickshire man, I know by your face' (although I had known it by his brogue). 'How much I esteem Lord Warwick; he is my best friend.'—'Were you in Holland, my good fellow?' to another. 'Yes, my lady, in the Blues.'—'A fine regiment; there is not a better soldier in the army than colonel so-and-so.'—'He was my colonel, my lady.' Thus a few civil words, and occasionally a present, made the work go on rapidly, and it was finished before Mr. Pitt's return.
"When Mr. Pitt came down, he dismounted from his horse, and, ascending the staircase, saw through a window, which commanded a view of the grounds, the improvements that had been made. 'Dear me, Hester, why, this is a miracle! I know 'tis you, so do not deny it: well, I declare, it is quite admirable; I could not have done it half so well myself.' And, though it was just dinner-time, he would go out, and examine it all over, and then was so profuse in his praises!—which were the more delightful, because they applauded the correctness of my taste. Above all, he was charmed that I had not fallen into an error (which most persons would have done) of making what is called an English garden, but rather had kept to the old manner of avenues, alleys, and the like, as being more adapted to an ancient castle. Such was the amiable politeness of Mr. Pitt.
"When Mr. Pitt retired from office, and sold Hollwood, his favourite child, he laid down his carriages and horses, diminished his equipage, and paid off as many debts as he could. Yet, notwithstanding this complete revolution, his noble manners, his agreeable, condescending air, never forsook him for a moment. To see him at table with vulgar sea captains, and ignorant militia colonels, with two or three servants in attendance—he, who had been accustomed to a servant behind each chair, to all that was great and distinguished in Europe—one might have supposed disgust would have worked some change in him. But in either case it was the same—always the admiration of all around him. He was ever careful to cheer the modest and diffident; but if some forward young fellow exhibited any pertness, by a short speech, or by asking some puzzling question, he would give him such a set down that he could not get over it all the evening."
In answer to a question I put, "By whom and how ministers effected their purposes in the city," she told me that they got hold of one of the great squads, as Lloyd's, the Angersteins, the Merchant Tailors, and so on; and by means of one body set the rest to work.
Lady Hester was saying of herself that she was very fit for a diplomatic character. "Nobody can ever observe in me any changes in my countenance; and when I am sitting still under a tree, nobody that passes and sees me, I will venture to say, would ever suppose what was in me, or say that's a person of talent. Mr. Pitt's face was somewhat the same. In regarding him, I should have said that he had a sort of slovenly or negligent look: and the same when he was in a passion. His passion did not show itself by knitting his brows or pouting his mouth, nor were his words very sharp: but his eyes lighted up in a manner quite surprising. It was something that seemed to dart from within his head, and you might see sparks coming from them. At another time, his eyes had no colour at all.
"That Mr. Pitt got into debt is no wonder. How could a man, so circumstanced, find time to look into his affairs? And of course there were many things I could not attend to, whatever disposition I might have had to do so. The bills that were given in by the cook, by the valet, and such people, I looked over. Merely the post-chaises and four were enough to run away with a moderate income. Every now and then I fixed on some glaring overcharge, and made some inquiry about it, just to put a check upon them; and on such occasions I would say, 'Take care that does not happen again:' but, what with great dinners, and one thing and another, it was impossible to do any good. As for your talking about English servants being more honest than those of other countries, I don't know what to say about it.
"Where Wraxall, in his book, insinuates that Mr. Pitt gave Mr. Smith a title, and made him Lord Carrington, merely to discharge a debt for money supplied in his emergencies, he is wrong, doctor. Mr. Pitt once borrowed a sum of money of six persons, but Lord Carrington was not of the number, and the title bestowed on him was for quite another reason: it was to recompense the zeal he had shown in raising a volunteer corps at his own expense at Nottingham, and in furnishing government with a sufficient sum to raise another. Mr. Pitt had also found Mr. Smith a useful man in affording him information about bankers' business, which he often stood in need of, and in making dinner parties, to enable Mr. Pitt to get rid of troublesome people, whom he otherwise would have been obliged to entertain at his own table. But Mr. Pitt never knew what I heard after his death, by mere accident, that the principal part of the loan, which Mr. S. presented to government in his own name, was in reality the gift of an old miser at Nottingham; who, being unable or unwilling to go to town to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer in person, and to be put to the trouble of addressing the crown, got Mr. S., who was an active man, to do it for him. It suited Mr. Pitt very well, in making Lord Carrington governor of Deal castle, to have sombody near at hand who could take off the bore, and the expense too, of entertaining people from London."
"Sir Nathaniel Wraxall speaks of Mr. Pitt's supposed inclination for one of the Duke of Richmond's daughters, and goes on to say that he showed one of them great attention." Lady Hester Stanhope interrupted me at that passage, and said, "So he did to all."
She denied that Mr. Dundas had any direct influence over Mr. Pitt, as Wraxall avers. Her words were, "Because Mr. Dundas was a man of sense, and Mr. Pitt approved of his ideas on many subjects, it does not follow, therefore, that he was influenced by him." With the exception of Mr. Dundas, Lord——— and another that she named, "all the rest," said Lady Hester, "were a rabble—a rabble. It was necessary to have some one at their head to lead them, or else they were always going out of the right road, just as, you know, a mule with a good star must go before a caravan of mules, to show them the way. Look at a flight of geese in the air: there must always be one to lead them, or else they would not know in what direction to fly.
"Mr. Pitt's consideration for age was very marked. He had, exclusive of Walmer, a house in the village, for the reception of those whom the castle could not hold. If a respectable commoner, advanced in years, and a young duke arrived at the same time, and there happened to be but one room vacant in the Castle, he would be sure to assign it to the senior; for it is better (he would say) that these young lords should walk home on a rainy night, than old men: they can bear it more easily.
"Mr. Pitt was accustomed to say that he always conceived more favourably of that man's understanding who talked agreeable nonsense, than of his who talked sensibly only; for the latter might come from books and study, while the former could only be the natural fruit of imagination.
"Mr. Pitt was never inattentive to what was passing around him, though he often thought proper to appear so. On one occasion, Sir Ed. K. took him to the Ashford ball to show him off to the yeomen and their wives. Though sitting in the room in all his senatorial seriousness, he contrived to observe everything; and nobody" (Lady Hester said) "could give a more lively account of a ball than he. He told who was rather fond of a certain captain; how Mrs. K. was dressed; how Miss Jones, Miss Johnson, or Miss Anybody, danced; and had all the minutiæ of the night as if he had been no more than an idle looker-on.
"He was not fond of the applause of a mob. One day, in going down to Weymouth, he was recognized in some town, and, whilst the carriage stopped to change horses, a vast number of people gathered round us: they insisted on dragging the carriage, and would do so for some time, all he could say. Oh, doctor! what a fright I was in!
"Mr. Pitt bore with ceremony as a thing necessary. On some occasions, I was obliged to pinch his arm to make him not appear uncivil to people: 'There's a baronet,' I would say; or, 'that's Mr. So-and-so.'
"I never saw Mr. Pitt shed tears but twice. I never heard him speak of his sister Har-yet" (so Lady Hester pronounced it) "but once. One day his niece, Harriet Elliott, dined with us, and, after she was gone, Mr. Pitt said, 'Well, I am glad Harriet fell to my brother's lot, and you to mine, for I never should have agreed with her.'—'But,' observed I, 'she is a good girl, and handsome.'—'She ought to be so,' said Mr. Pitt, 'for her mother was so.'"
Lady Hester said, that those who asserted that Mr. Pitt wanted to put the Bourbons on the throne, and that they followed his principles, lied; and, if she had been in parliament, she would have told them so. "I once heard a great person," added she, "in conversation with him on the subject, and Mr. Pitt's reply was, 'Whenever I can make peace,[3] whether with a consul, or with whosoever it is at the head of the French government, provided I can have any dependance on him, I will do it.' Mr. Pitt had a sovereign contempt for the Bourbons, and the only merit that he allowed to any one of them was to him who was afterwards Charles X., whose gentlemanly manners and mild demeanour he could not be otherwise than pleased with. Mr. Pitt never would consent to their going to court, because it would have been a recognition of Louis XVIII.
"Latterly, Mr. Pitt used to suffer a great deal from the cold in the House of Commons; for he complained that the wind cut through his silk stockings. I remember, one day, I had on a large tippet and muff of very fine fur: the tippet covered my shoulders, and came down in a point behind. 'What is this, Hester?' said Mr. Pitt; 'something Siberian? Can't you command some of your slaves—for you must recollect, Griselda, Hester has slaves without number, who implicitly obey her orders' (this was addressed to Griselda and Mr. Tickell, who were present)—'can't you command some of your slaves to introduce the fashion of wearing muffs and tippets into the House of Commons! I could then put my feet on the muff and throw the tippet over my knees and round my legs.'
"When we were at Walmer, it is incredible what a deal I got through in the day. Mr. Pitt was pleased to have somebody who would take trouble off his hands. Every week he had to review the volunteers, and would ride home in such showers of rain—I have been so drenched, that, as I stood, my boots made two spouting fountains above my knees. Then there was dinner; and, if I happened to be alone, when I went to the drawing-room, I had to give the secret word for spies, to see the sergeant of the guard, and then the gentlemen would come in from the dining-room. But, if they were late, oh, how sleepy I got, and would have given the world to go to bed!
"One day, Lord Chatham had to review the artillery, and he kept them under arms from daylight until three o'clock. Bradford went to him several times to know if he was ready. 'I shall come in about half an hour,' was the constant reply; until, at last, seeing no chance of his appearance, I agreed with the aide-de-camps to go off together and settle matters as well as we could: so, getting Lord Chatham's leave, off we went. Colonel Ford, the commanding-officer, was a cross man; and that day he had enough to make him so. But I managed it all very well: I told him that pressing business detained Lord C.; that he had commissioned us to apologize; and that I should have pleasure in saying the men looked admirably: then I added that Mr. Pitt hoped to see him in the course of a few days at the Castle, and so on. The colonel looked dreadfully out of temper, however, and Bradford and I rode back at a furious rate. It was one of those dark, wet days that are so peculiar to England. A day or two after, the colonel and some of the officers were invited to Walmer, and I behaved very civilly to them; so that Lord Chatham's laziness was forgotten.
"Lord Chatham never travelled without a mistress. He was a man of no merit, but of great sâad (luck): he used to keep people waiting and waiting whilst he was talking and breakfasting with her. He would keep his aide-de-camps till two or three in the morning. How often would the servant come in, and say supper was ready, and he would answer, 'Ah! well, in half an hour.' Then the servant would say, 'Supper is on the table;' and then it would be, 'Ah? well, in a quarter of an hour.' An aide-de-camp would come in with a paper to sign, and perhaps Lord Chatham would say—'Oh, dear! that's too long: I can't possibly look at it now: you must bring it to-morrow.' The aide-de-camp would present it next day, and he would cry, 'Good God! how can you think of bringing it now? don't you know there's a review to-day?' Then, the day after, he was going to Woolwich. 'Well, never mind,' he would say; 'have you got a short one?—well, bring that.'
"Doctor, I once changed the dress of a whole regiment—the Berkshire militia. Somebody asked me, before a great many officers, what I thought of them, and I said they looked like so many tinned harlequins. One day, soon after, I was riding through Walmer village, when who should pop out upon me but the colonel, dressed in entirely new regimentals, with different facings, and more like a regiment of the line. 'Pray, pardon me, Lady Hester'—so I stopped, as he addressed me—'pray, pardon me,' said the colonel, 'but I wish to know if you approve of our new uniform.' Of course I made him turn about, till I inspected him round and round—pointed with my whip, as I sat on horseback, first here and then there—told him the waist was too short, and wanted half a button more—the collar was a little too high—and so on; and, in a short time, the whole regiment turned out with new clothes. The Duke of York was very generous, and not at all stingy in useful things.
"I recollect once at Ramsgate, five of the Blues, half drunk, not knowing who I was, walked after me, and pursued me to my door. They had the impertinence to follow me up-stairs, and one of them took hold of my gown. The maid came out, frightened out of her senses; but, just at the moment, with my arm I gave the foremost of them such a push, that I sent him rolling over the others down stairs, with their swords rattling against the balusters. Next day, he appeared with a black patch as big as a saucer over his face; and, when I went out, there were the glasses looking at me, and the footmen pointing me out—quite a sensation!"
During these conversations respecting Mr. Pitt's times, Sir Nathaniel's Memoirs were generally in my hand, and when there was a pause I resumed my reading. In giving Sir Walter Farquhar's private conversation respecting Mr. Pitt's death, the author says—"Mr. Pitt mounted the staircase with alacrity." Here Lady Hester stopped me, with the exclamation of—"What a falsehood, doctor! Just hear how it was. You know, when the carriage came to the door, he was announced, and I went up to the top of the stairs to receive him. The first thing I heard was a voice so changed, that I said to myself, 'It is all over with him.' He was supported by the arms of two people, and had a stick, or two sticks, in his hands, and as he came up, panting for breath—ugh! ugh! I retreated little by little, not to put him to the pain of making a bow to me, or of speaking:—so much for his alacrity!
"After Mr. Pitt's death, I could not cry for a whole month and more. I never shed a tear, until one day Lord Melville came to see me; and the sight of his eyebrows turned grey, and his changed face, made me burst into tears. I felt much better for it after it was over.
"Mr. Pitt's bust was taken after his death by an Italian, named, I think, Tomino—an obscure artist, whom I had rummaged out. This man had offered me at one time a bust worth a hundred guineas, and prayed me to accept it, in order, as he said, to make his name known: I refused it, but recollected him afterwards. The bust turned out a very indifferent resemblance: so, with my own hand, I corrected the defects, and it eventually proved a strong likeness. The D. of C. happening to call when the artist was at work in my room, was so pleased, that he ordered one of a hundred guineas for himself, and another to be sent to Windsor. There was one by this Tomino put into the Exhibition.
"A fine picture in Mr. Pitt's possession represented Diogenes with a lantern searching by day for an honest man. A person cut out a part of the blank canvas, and put in Mr. Pitt's portrait.
"When Mr. Pitt was going to Bath, previous to his last illness, I told him I insisted on his taking my eider-down quilt with him. 'You will go about,' said I, 'much more comfortably; and, instead of being too hot one day under a thick counterpane, and the next day shivering under a thin one, you will have an equable warmth, always leaving one blanket with this quilt. Charles and James were present, and could not help ridiculing the idea of a man's carrying about with him such a bundling, effeminate thing. 'Why,' interrupted I, 'it is much more convenient than you all imagine: big as it looks, you may put it into a pocket-handkerchief.'—'I can't believe that,' cried Charles and James. 'Do you doubt my word?' said I, in a passion: 'nobody shall doubt it with impunity:' and my face assumed that picture of anger, which you can't deny, doctor, is in me pretty formidable; so I desired the quilt to be brought. Why, my dear Lady Hester,' said Mr. Pitt, 'I am sure the boys do not mean to say you tell falsehoods: they suppose you said it would go into a handkerchief merely as a façon de parler.'"
Lady Hester, when she told me this story, here interrupted herself—"And upon my word, doctor, if you had seen the footman bringing it over his shoulder, he himself almost covered up by it, you would have thought indeed it was only a façon de parler."
She continued. "I turned myself to James. 'Now, sir, take and tie it up directly in this pocket-handkerchief. There! does it, or does it not go into it!'
"This," concluded Lady Hester, "was the only quarrel I ever had with Charles and James. James often used to look very black, but he never said anything.
"When Mr. Pitt was going to Bath, in his last illness, he told me he had just seen Arthur Wellesley. He spoke of him with the greatest commendation, and said the more he saw of him, the more he admired him. 'Yes,' he added, 'the more I hear of his exploits in India, the more I admire the modesty with which he receives the praises he merits from them. He is the only man I ever saw that was not vain of what he had done, and had so much reason to be so.'
"This eulogium," Lady Hester said, "Mr. Pitt pronounced in his fine mellow tone of voice, and this was the last speech I heard him make in that voice; for, on his return from Bath, it was cracked for ever." Then she observed, "My own opinion of the duke is, that he is a blunt soldier, who pleases women because he is gallant and has some remains of beauty: but," she added, "he has none of the dignity of courts about him."
- ↑ This of course refers to the late Duke.
- ↑ "I dislike———, both as to his principles and the turn of his understanding: he wants to make money by this peace."—Diaries and Correspondence, &c.
- ↑ "Mr. Pitt has always been held up to the present generation as fond of war; but the Harris papers could furnish the most continued and certain evidence of the contrary, and that he often suffered all the agony of a pious man who is forced to fight a duel. The cold and haughty temper of Lord Grenville was less sensitive. Our overtures to France were synonymous with degradation, and he could not brook the delays of the directory."—Diaries and Correspondence, v. iii., p. 516.