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“Oh Ireland, to you
I have long bid a last and a painful adieu.”
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You have always slighted, and often persecuted me, yet I worked in your cause, humbly, but earnestly. Catholic Emancipation is carried! It was an indispensable act—of what results, you fickle Irish will prove in the end. To predicate would be presumptuous, even in those who know you best. Creatures of temper and temperament, true Celts, as Cæsar found your race in Gaul, and as I leave you, after a lapse of two thousand years.
I shall meet in England the effects of the glorious Reform, after seven years’ experiments; that is the event that opens the free port of constitutional liberty, so long struggled for by the Saxon in England.
We bid our last adieu to Ireland, October 20, 1837, accompanied by my niece Josephine; we proceeded to Leamington, where Mr. and Mrs. Laurence joined us; they left us on the 25th, and José with them; we were very sad after the departure of our young people.
October 28.—Received the intelligence of poor Mr. Laurence’s sudden death! My poor Sydney! We left instantly to go to her.
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December 23.—Lord Morpeth sent us, with one of his kind notes, two tickets of admission to the body of the House of Lords to see the Queen open Parliament and return thanks to her faithful Commons, &c. I went with Lady Georgina Wortley and my dear Mrs. Dawson Damer. We were placed close to the bar of the House of Commons, being rather late. It is a gorgeous, imposing, but rather theatrical spectacle. The young Queen’s aplomb was truly wonderful; her voice clear and sonorous—whoever “taught the young girl to read,” did every justice to the development of her vocal organ, and her small person seemed to dilate under the pressure of her conscious greatness; for the Queen of England is, at this moment, certainly the greatest sovereign in the world, because she is the chief of a free people—what charmed me most, however, was her inexpressibly girlish laugh. When the House of Commons rushed in with all their rude, rough, schoolboy boisterousness, Philip Courtnay, and some of my Irish members, were so close to me, that I could not help turning to them and muttering, “My faithful Commons, why are you so vulgar?” When the royal cortège had moved off, and we paused at the head of the stairs whilst my husband was looking for our carriages, dear Lord Melbourne came up and shook me heartily by the hand, and said he was glad to see me there; Lord Brougham also joined us, and two or three other agreeable men.
Our lodging in Pimlico, 6a,
Stafford Row, is opposite a wing of Buckingham Palace, and commands a view of
its gardens. What an historical, what a charming
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I have finally given up all hopes of getting ***** ***** pretty house at Buckingham Gate; after a most capricious negotiation on his part, redeemed, however, by many charming notes and letters from a charming man, which are always worth something. I think I have found the clue of his
“Letting I dare not wait upon—I would,” |
December 25, 1837.—My birthday. London, 6,
Stafford Row, opposite the King of Buckingham’s house. I open this new
journal at the close of the year 1837, a year to me full of events of good and
ill together, to commemorate most gratefully my partial restoration to sight,
so far as to enable me to write an hour a day without pain or annoyance, and I
trust to recommence a work undertaken in the sincere spirit of philanthropy and
the inextinguishable desire to do good—Woman and her
Master. I have this day put aside the long green sheets of
paper on which I have
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December 26.—I am really beginning my regeneration and new life as a denizen of London. Everybody congratulating us: old friends are true, new ones all agreeable.
Lady Normandy has most kindly offered to present me at the Queen’s first drawing-room.
