Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Catherine Grace Frances Gore to Lady Morgan, 9 January [1852]
Hamble Cliff, Southampton,
January 9.
My dear Lady Morgan,
I do not often bore you with letters, because I know it
troubles you to read and answer them; but I cannot resist my inclination to
write and ask you a question or two about poor Eliot Warburton, who, I remember was a friend of yours. I am
happy to say I never even saw him; or a double pang would be added to my grief
for the poor Amazon. I had watched all her
experimental cruises, with much interest, and saluted her as she passed my lawn
in triumphant beauty this day week! On the evening we received the news of her
disaster, I sent off an express, nine miles, to get a second edition of the
Times for the
names of the passengers, and while my messenger was gone, solaced myself by
reading Darien. I had just reached the chapter (at one in the
morning) of which the motto is from Shelley,
The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs, His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon, His death-pang rent my heart! |
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when the groom returned with the sad list containing poor Eliot
Warburton’s fated name!
I cannot tell you how deeply I was shocked. What I want
you to tell me is, whether he has left a wife and children (as well as talented
brothers), and whether there was any occasion for him to
cross the sea? ![]()
| LADY MORGAN AND CARDINAL WISEMAN. | 515 |
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which is, at this moment, looking as
bright and beautiful under my windows as in one of Stanfield’s pictures, and as if incapable of mischief. My
house has been full of juvenile visitors for the Christmas holidays. My son and
daughter hunt three days a week—the latter you may infer to be well and
happy, for she is often ten hours a day in the saddle, which is the home her
soul delights in. I am afraid you are not as much delighted as myself that one
is no longer obliged to travel so far as Persia to witness a perfect
despotism—the best of all possible governments; the only one where
one’s head feels quite safe on its shoulders,—till the day on which
it is struck off. How I should like to see the press in England equally gagged:
The Times sent
to the Stone-Jug, and little Hayward to
Cayenne! I am expecting Mr. Roebuck here
to day, and feel it necessary to let my Toryism explode before he arrives. I am
also much rejoiced to see the mouldy old Whig cabinet crumbling away like a
stale cake. It has done so little to advance the cause of civilisation, that I
am fain to believe we should be better off under the most stringent of
conservatisms, provided they do not employ Dizzy, who is a radical at heart. I am very much disappointed
in his memoirs of Lord
George. I expected the book would amuse one by a world of
absurdities; instead of which, it is as full of common sense and dulness as his
best friends could wish.
A propos of friends, have you seen
anything of Mr. Hope? Baillie Cochrane was here lately, who told me he
had paid him a visit in the new house; that Mrs.
Hope did the honours in the most ladylike manner, ![]()
| 516 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. | |
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and was covered to the chin in crape for Lady Beresford. She spoke very pretty broken
English, and has quite forgotten she was ever a French
woman. The little daughter will be one of the richest heiresses in England, and
I dare say we shall live to see her marry a duke.
Do not take the trouble of answering me yourself; let
one of your servants be your amanuensis, I have no doubt they all write quite
as well as our Hampshire squires. My children are out with the Hambledon
hounds, or they would place themselves at your feet, as well, dear Lady Morgan,
Yours sincerely,
Alexander Dundas Ross Wishart Cochrane-Baillie, first baron Lamington (1816-1890)
The son of Admiral Sir Thomas John Cochrane; he was educated at Eton College and at
Trinity College, Cambridge and was Conservative MP for Bridport (1841-52), Lanarkshire
(1857), Honiton (1859-68), and Isle of Wight (1870-80); he was raised to the peerage in
1880.
Catherine Grace Frances Gore [née Moody] (1799-1861)
English novelist, the daughter of Charles Moody; she married Charles Arthur Gore in 1823
and wrote a series of best-selling ‘silver-fork’ fictions.
Abraham Hayward (1801-1884)
English barrister and essayist who contributed to the
Quarterly
Review and wrote
The Art of Dining (1852); his translation
of Goethe's
Faust was published in 1833.
Henry Thomas Hope (1808-1862)
The eldest son of Thomas Hope, author of
Anastasius (1819). He was
an art collector and MP allied with Benjamin Disraeli, who began
Coningsby at Deepdene.
Hon. Louisa Hope [née Beresford] (d. 1851)
Society hostess; she was the daughter of William Beresford, first baron Decies; in 1806
she married the art collector and novelist Thomas Hope; in 1832 she married her cousin,
William Carr Beresford, viscount Beresford.
John Arthur Roebuck (1801-1879)
English MP for Bath (1832) born at Madras and educated in Canada; he was a member of the
Reform Club (1836-64) who published in
Westminster Review and
Edinburgh Review.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
English poet, with Byron in Switzerland in 1816; author of
Queen
Mab (1813),
The Revolt of Islam (1817),
The Cenci and
Prometheus Unbound (1820), and
Adonais (1821).
Clarkson Stanfield (1793-1867)
After service in the Navy he became a scene-painter for Drury Lane and was afterwards a
marine and landscape painter and Royal Academician (1835).
The Times. (1785-). Founded by John Walter, The Times was edited by Thomas Barnes from 1817 to 1841. In the
romantic era it published much less literary material than its rival dailies, the
Morning Chronicle and the
Morning
Post.
