The expedition was fruitful in several ways. The young Stanley wrote Accounts of the Hot Springs near Rykum and Haukadal in Letters to Dr. Black.[1] These were printed in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (vol. III), and separately in 1791. By reason of them Stanley became a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.[2] He also presented the seeds and plants he had gathered in Iceland to Sir Joseph Banks, eminent scientist and president of the English Royal Society, who had himself visited the Hot Springs of Iceland in 1772.[3] This led to Stanley's being elected fellow of the Royal Society of London, and to intimate acquaintance with the learned of the capital. In 1790 Mr. Stanley was chosen member of parliament for Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, and in June of that year became a member of Lord Auckland's embassy at the Hague. Two years later, June, 1792, he was plunged in grief by the death of his betrothed, an Irish heiress, and to gain seclusion from public life for a time he joined the Cheshire militia. In 1794, as major of the Cheshire regiment, he was stationed at Bexhill, Sussex, near Sheffield Place, where he met and wooed the Maria Holroyd of the letters already quoted, a daughter of John Baker Holroyd, Lord Sheffield.[4]
We have less definite information than we might wish as to when Mr. Stanley made his translation of Lenore. The account of
- ↑ R. Watt, in Bibliotheca Britannica, says also Voyage to the Orkneys, 1789, but of this I find no other mention; it is not in the British Museum catalogue, nor is it mentioned by Miss Adeane in her books.
- ↑ They were noticed with large extracts and high praise in the Monthly Review of April, 1796, N. S. XIX, 422.
- ↑ A special purpose of Stanley's visit to Iceland was to add to Sir Joseph's observations. The latter had brought back specimens of the incrustations about the Springs. Dr. Black of Edinburgh wished to examine the water itself, "and learn by what means this salicious matter was dissolved in it." Stanley brought back samples of the water, and the analysis of them by Dr. Black appeared with Stanley's papers.—Early Married Life, p. 85.
- ↑ John Baker Holroyd (b. 1735) was a captain of the Royal Foresters from 1760 to 1763, and soon after, in his continental travels, met Gibbon at Lausanne, forming a lasting friendship. In the Lord Gordon riots of 1780 he was conspicuous in quelling the rioters, and early in 1781 was rewarded by being made Baron Sheffield. Gibbon made him his executor and, with the assistance of his daughter Maria, he prepared the original edition of Gibbon's Memoirs (1796).
Maria Josepha was a vivacious girl from whom the historian of the Roman empire delighted to receive letters; see Gibbon's Letters by Prothero. The first record of Mr. Stanley's being at Sheffield Place, Lord Sheffield's estate, is of Sept. 22, 1795. The marriage was on Oct. 12, 1796. To a girl friend Maria Josepha drew this portrait of her future husband (Girlhood, p. 384): "He is the eldest son of Sir John Stanley, Bart., of Cheshire, has been in Iceland, published an account thereof, has translated a Poem from the German called Leonora—with considerable additions of his own, is, for anything I know to the contrary, an F. R. S., and what is more, has the most amiable feeling heart I believe a Man can be possessed of, and what is still more, if faith is to be put in Words, Actions and Looks—loves me with the most perfect Love. . . . As to description of the outside of the Man you perhaps would not be enchanted with his first appearance. He is very dark, black eyebrows that meet, and very near-sighted, but he has a sensible and good humoured countenance, at least I think so because I know he is both."
The marriage was a happy one. Maria Josepha was the mother of several children, among them Edward John Stanley, during many years in the second third of the nineteenth century principal whip of the Whig party. Later he was offered a seat in Mr. Gladstone's first cabinet, but declined and soon retired from political life. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, the famous Dean of Westminster was a son of J. T. Stanley's brother Edward.
