January 1836.—What a melancholy winding-up of the year 1835, and commencement of the year 1836. I went ill to Malahide Castle for Christmas-day—tried to bully a sore throat and head-ache, but finally knocked down and took to my bed, which I only left at the end of eight days, to be wrapped in hot blankets and conveyed to my own bed in Kildare Street. The united skill and hourly attendance of my dear husband and good Doctor O’Grady, shirked old death, and saved me from a delirious fever. How my head worked! what books I wrote! what plans I laid for the good of those I loved! what regrets that I had not settled my worldly affairs as I wished! But did I recant one opinion? Not one! I thought I should die, and yet I repeatedly said to myself, had I the sorry battle of life to fight over again, I should just take my old ground!
January 20.—The Registration Society is going on
famously, all the young liberals of the highest rank
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January 30.—I have met with a loss that breaks my heart; I have lost the locket with lord Byron’s hair, sent me by Countess Guiccioli, enclosed in a curious reliquary. The small gold chain which I wore round my neck, and from which it hung, broke; I must have dropped it walking down Kildare Street this morning, to warm myself after a cold drive. I am the most unlucky woman in England.
February 1.—The Tories, at last, have placed O’Connell at the head of ascendancy in England; of this, his speech at Birmingham the other day, is a proof. It represents the spirit and opinion of England.
O’Connell is one of the instances of men who have been the offspring of events. From event to event he has climbed. He has grasped his opportunities; where will he end?
February 5.—Read last night Mrs. Lee’s Life of Cuvier. It gives me no just idea of the man, and still less of his reputation in France—where he was considered a great naturalist and bad philosopher. He was a man of the highest scientific genius and of the highest personal character; but vain, ambitious, tergiversating, serving all the powers that could serve him; equally subservient to Louis XVIII. as to Napoleon; and prouder of his station, honours, and title, than of his immortal scientific reputation.
March 20.—Death of my old friend Sir William Gell. Poor
Gell! it seems but yesterday that I saw
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April 1.—Busy to-day with my Woman and her Master, making extracts for it.
April 2.—I have been reading Von Raumer’s Letters on England. Clever, but German; a laborious but inconclusive book—full of brilliant incoherences. The product of a bold mind grappling with strong truths; but not following them to their consequences.
A letter to-day from Lady Cork, announcing the death of her macaw, the original of my article in the Book of the Boudoir.
Your old friend departed this life a few
days ago; he is buried in my garden, and his merits well deserve an
epitaph from your pen. He committed but one crime, and only made a
bit of an assault on George the
Fourth’s stocking. That was an offence merely,
the crime was running away with a piece out of Lady Darlington’s leg. I have
been ill with the tic, but am
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A charming note from Lord Morpeth.
How am I to thank you enough for your most amiable letter, which has just come to divert the not-unoccupied repose of my holidays?
“In vain to deserts my retreat is made, The tithes attend me to the
silent shade.” |
“Whose gloomy presence saddens all the scene, Shades every flower, and darkens every green.”
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I cannot but be glad that Sir Charles has worked so hard for the lobster and anchovy sauces; I wish that his country might continue to appropriate some still more persevering labour from him. I shall feel the grey towers of Malahide a great and real loss. But we will have a look and luncheon there some morning.
April 11.—Working all day and all night; spirits at a low ebb.
April 13.—Another, too, gone! Poor Godwin died on the 7th, at the Exchequer Office, Whitehall Yard, aged eighty-one. I saw the last of him in his den at the Star Chamber, last year.
April 18.—I am getting down my old harp, which I had exiled to a lumber-room, and will have it put in order. I will then get up a song or two.
April 24.—Unable to use my eyes, in any way, since
the 19th. I write these few lines unknown to Morgan. Indebted all this time to the charity of strangers for
the distraction of a little conversation, all other resources bereft me.
Lady Beecher has been very kind in
coming to me; the once celebrated Miss
O’Neil—the “Juliet” of admiring thousands. When she was a poor,
obscure young actress, I saw her by chance as Belinda, in “All in the Wrong” and
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May 20, London.—Arrived in London quite safely, and we settled in pleasant lodgings in Stafford Row, Buckingham Gate.
Poor Lady Glengall died on Monday, seventy years of age. She was the daughter of the celebrated Mrs. Jeffries (Groves of Blarney) of county Cork. She was the Lady Cahir of my youth.
May 22.—We are charmingly lodged, and in a quarter I like above all others. Yesterday, dined with some of my literary friends at Mr. Dilke’s. Kind, gay, and pleasant. After dinner, I got up and danced a reel with the grave editor, “to my girls playing,” and then we walked home, and sauntered till midnight, and by moonlight, under the trees of my pretty Grosvenor Place; how pleased I am with it, what true delight to live with trees!
May 27.—Got a cheerful letter from my beloved Sydney, so up early and at work for Woman and her Master.
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I have made acquaintance with the Lockharts, he editor of the Quarterly, and she Sir W. Scott’s daughter; we were mutually charmed with each other, and have sworn an eternal friendship.
Ambition, and vanity, and social tastes, have led me much into that chaos of folly and insincerity called the world; but domestic life is my vocation—unfortunately, my high organisation, and my husband’s character of mind, our love of art, and all that is best worth knowing, renders la vie domestique impossible. Yesterday, I went with Lady Dudley Stuart, and Urquhart (the Turkish traveller) to visit Wilkie, and see his pictures—a charming Flemish painted-like house, Knightsbridge, in a garden, and a pretty, “neat-handed Phillis,” opened the door. The great picture was the “Columbus in the Convent,” which is to be removed to-day to Somerset House. Fine heads for expression, and a fine conception; but in execution slap-dash—no finish, but good effect at a distance. A picture of the Duke of Wellington, much flattered; Lady Salisbury who was standing before it, remarked, “he is much changed now,” (the tiresome Liberals would change everything.)
Wilkie is simple and enthusiastic—he is the Teniers of England—domestic interiors. He told us an amusing story of the Turkish ambassador sending him, on his arrival, a cake for his breakfast, à la Turque.
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