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Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Countess of Charleville to Lady Morgan, 18 February 1820
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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Preface
Vol. I Contents.
Prefatory Address
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Vol. I Index
Vol. II Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter IV
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XL
Vol. II Index
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Brighton,
18th February, 1820.

A long and severe attack of my spasmodic affection, dearest Lady Morgan, must excuse and account for my silence. I am now as well nearly as before it happened; and I delay not to thank you for your very kind letter from Florence, which I received here in January. Let me assure you of the unwearied solicitude I feel that your progress through Italy, nay, let me say conclusively, through life, may be as successful and as well spent as its commencement. You know me too well to take pleasure in fulsome compli-
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ment, if I knew how to address it you; but I shall not doubt that you know I value the feelings that fill your heart—its tenderness—its fulfilment of close domestic duties—and also its deep sense of all Ireland has had to suffer, though we may differ in the causes; in short, that I admire the natural patriotism and love of liberty which inspires your lively imagination and throbs at your heart, and without which your writings had never attained their just celebrity. I understand and like you the better even when the scale and compass may not strictly bear you out; and in full sincerity I will always speak when I think they do not, because however ungifted I am, yet I am true and unprejudiced, which is the best light to common minds. I suppose you at Rome are steeped in classic lore; and I fain would know whether the remains of the glorious dead do not fill you with something more than contempt for our moderns? This and other absurd questions I would ask you, but that I am sure you would rather hear what we are about here. Well, we are going on dully enough, our Regent in love like a boy of sixteen, and the marchesa, after eight years’ attempts on his person, I believe in full enjoyment of her base ambition. We dined twice, by royal command, and were several evenings in a party of about twenty, where she was awkwardly enough situated, and certainly without tact or talent to get out of the dilemma. His royal highness had very cleverly left the pavilion unfit to enter, and therefore stuffed into a common lodging-house in Marlborough Row, with his one sitting-room about twenty-four by
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eighteen, his suite next door; and no party of the Lord Chamberlain Hertford, or Cholmondley, &c; thus he escaped at once from the societies of eighty and their sposas to those of his own age, and twenty years difference, se compte pour quelque chose. So there we were singing, and he as gay and as happy singing second, à gorge déployée to the musical misses, and making love, tout son saoul, when his brother’s death struck him to the heart;—for a heart he has depend upon it, and a generous one too. The Duke of Kent had behaved to him basely, yet he wrote tenderly to him, and forgave him. It is strange to say how much he felt the death of his father, always unkind to him; and a fact it is that he was thrown into fever by these events, and a cold brought on inflammation of the chest. Tierney saved his life by courage. One hundred and thirty-six ounces of blood were taken from him at four bleedings, and he is safe and well now. As soon as he was out of danger, he sent for the Duke of Sussex, and said, “My father and brother dead, warns his family to unite and live as they should do. I can forget everything!” The duke wept much, and the world is pleased with the king, and does him justice. Again, the late king’s Will is unsigned, and consequently all his money-wealth goes by law to the Crown. When the Chancellor told him so, his reply was, “No, my lord, I am here to fulfil my father’s wishes, not to take advantage of such a circumstance; therefore the Will will be executed as if it had been signed.” Of another amiable trait you will think as I do. Walker, apothecary and surgeon, who has attended him since his
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childhood, failed to open the vein; and as Sir Matthew Tierney had been a surgeon, and the danger of an hour’s delay was great, he took the lancet, and failed also; upon which His Majesty said, “Demm it, I’m glad you fail, for it would have vexed Walker,” and turning to whom, he said, “Come man, tie up the other arm.”

Observe, if you please, the excellent feeling which, with his life dependant on the operation, animated him to forget himself for the old man who had often sat up in his nursery, and you will allow it was very fine. The report of all travellers who have had any knowledge of the Princess of Wales, renders it imperative that such a woman should not preside in Great Britain over its honest and virtuous daughters, and something is to be done to prevent it. The king’s wish is, that she should be handsomely provided for; and he fain would divorce her, but the Chancellor and others wish only to save England from the disgrace of such a queen, and themselves the unpleasant work of unsaying their rash acquittal. There are only foreigners to witness her dreadful life on the continent; and John Bull thinks a foreigner would lie for sixpence, so a middle line will be pursued, I imagine, on the opening of the new parliament in May.

February 18th.

The Duc de Berri’s murder; I have had such an account of it from the Col. de Case himself to his nephew. All parties, of course, abhor the act; but it is feared by all wise people it will be made use of as a plea to deprive the people of the benefit
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of some law resembling our Habeas Corpus! All this you will hear of better than my defective information can apprise you. In the way of literature, we have been all busied with Mr. Hope’s Anastatius; or, Memoirs of a Greek, which certainly has a great deal of excellent matter in it; but, upon the whole, it is a heavy book, and one which bespeaks a most unhappy feeling in its author. Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, with his Jewess Rebecca is worth a world of Christian damsels. He has got nine thousand pounds for that, and his novel not published. Mr. Chamboulan’s book is read and admired, and Murray has given him one thousand two hundred pounds for it. He has nobly fulfilled his duty to Napoleon. Napoleon’s own work is only worth much as a military notice upon the battle of Waterloo. The writing I doubt being his own, because the extreme vanity of epithet is entirely unworthy of so great a man. Yet there is something fine in the avoidance of complaint against the party who betrayed him in that senate which owed its existence to him, &c., &c. Farewell; I hope Sir Charles Morgan is quite well; and tell him from me not to expose himself to visit the catacombs, where malaria prevails at all seasons.

Mr. Becher has married Miss O’Neil, and she has nobly provided for her whole family out of thirty thousand pounds she had accumulated.

February 25.

It is now known that Leach, Vice Chancellor, persuaded the Regent there could be no difficulty
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in the divorce of his wife; but that upon proposing it to Lord Howe, he persisted that two ocular witnesses of English birth would be required by John Bull to divorce an English queen; and that fifty foreigners would not suffice to satisfy the country. The point is, therefore, given up, and a legal separation only resolved on. Her life might be taken for forgery; but I understand she is to be let off cheaply, and her income of fifty thousand pounds given her. Farewell. I wish you a most happy year, and as many as may smile upon you.

C. M. Charleville.