The Creevey Papers
Lady Holland to Eleanor Creevey, 21 May 1816
“Holland House, 21st May, 1816.
“. . . Lord
Kinnaird carried over the singular libel published by Lady C. Lamb against her family and friends.*
It is a plaidoyer against her husband addressed to the
religious and methodistical part of the community, accusing him of having
overset her religious and moral (!) principles by teaching her doctrines of
impiety, &c. The outlines of few of her characters are portraits, but the
amplissage and traits are exact. Lady Morganet is a twofold
being—Dss. of Devonshire and her
mother: Lady Augusta Lady Jersey and Lady
Collier: Sophia Lady
Granville, who had 6 years ago a passion for working fine
embroidery, and she marks
* Lady Caroline
Ponsonby [1785-1828], only daughter of the 3rd Earl of Bessborough, married in 1805
the Hon. W. Lamb, afterwards
Viscount Melbourne and Prime Minister, but her temper was so bad that
they separated in 1813. Glenarvon, the romance referred
to in the text, was published anonymously in 1816, and reissued in 1865
under the title of The Fatal
Passion. |
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| 1815-16.] | A LADY’S LETTER. | 255 |
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most atrociously her marriage
with Lord Granville. Lady Mandeville is
Ly. Oxford: Buchanan is Sir Godfrey Webster: Glenarvon and Vivian are of course
Lord Byron. Lady Frances Webster is sketched and some others slightly.
Lady Melbourne is represented as
bigotted and vulgar. The words about Mr.
Lamb are encomiastick, but the facts are against him, as she
insidiously censures his not fighting a duel which her fictitious husband does.
The bonne-bouche I have reserved for the last—myself. Where every
ridicule, folly and infirmity (my not being able from malady to move about
much) is portrayed. The charge against more essential qualities is, I trust and
believe, a fiction; at least an uninterrupted friendship and intimacy of 25
years with herself and family might induce me to suppose it. The work is a
strange farrago, and only curious from containing some of Lord
Byron’s genuine letters—the last, in which he
rejects her love and implores an end to their connexion, directed and sealed by
Lady Oxford, is a most astonishing performance to
publish. There is not much originality, as the jokes against me for my love of
aisances and comforts she has heard laughed at by
myself and coterie at my own fireside by years. The invasion of Ireland is only
our own joke that when we were going out of Bruxelles with such a cavalcade the
inhabitants might suppose we were a part of the Irish Army rallied. The dead
poet is Mr. Ward’s joke at Rogers having cheated the coroner. I am sorry
to see the Melbourne family so miserable about it.
Lady Cowper is really frightened and
depressed far beyond what is necessary. . . . The work has a prodigious sale,
as all libellous matters have. Even General Pillet’s [?] satire upon the
English was bought for two guineas the other day by
Mr. Grenville.
“I know Lord
Kinnaird also took over the Antiquary and the new
play, otherwise I would send them to you; but if Moore’s poem is good you shall have it.
“We have been returned to our delicious old mansion
above a week. Foliage and birds are the only demonstration of a change of
season from December, as the cold, piercing easterly winds are still dreadful.
. . .”
Lady Maria Collier [née Lyon] (d. 1830)
Daughter of the physician John Lyon of Liverpool; in 1805 she married the naval officer
Sir George Ralph Collier, baronet (1774-1824).
Emily Mary Cowper, countess Cowper [née Lamb] (1787-1869)
Whig hostess, the daughter of Sir Peniston Lamb, first Viscount Melbourne; she married
(1) in 1805 Sir Peter Leopold Louis Francis Nassau Cowper, fifth Earl Cowper, and (2) in
1839, her long-time lover, Henry John Temple, third Viscount Palmerston.
Granville Leveson- Gower, first earl Granville (1773-1846)
English diplomat and ally of George Canning; he was ambassador to St Petersburg (1804-06,
1807) and ambassador to Paris (1824-1828). The Duchess of Devonshire described him as “the
Adonis of his day.”
Charles Kinnaird, eighth baron Kinnaird (1780-1826)
The son of George Kinnaird, seventh baron Kinnaird; he was Whig MP for Leominster
(1802-05) before he succeeded to the title. He was the elder brother of Byron's friend,
Douglas Kinnaird.
Lady Caroline Lamb [née Ponsonby] (1785-1828)
Daughter of the third earl of Bessborough; she married the Hon. William Lamb (1779-1848)
and fictionalized her infatuation with Lord Byron in her first novel,
Glenarvon (1816).
Elizabeth Lamb, viscountess Melbourne [née Milbanke] (1751-1818)
Whig hostess married to Peniston Lamb, first Viscount Melbourne (1744-1828); she was the
confidant of Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire, the mother of William Lamb (1779-1848), and
mother-in-law of Lady Caroline Lamb.
William Lamb, second viscount Melbourne (1779-1848)
English statesman, the son of Lady Melbourne (possibly by the third earl of Egremont) and
husband of Lady Caroline Lamb; he was a Whig MP, prime minister (1834-41), and counsellor
to Queen Victoria.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Irish poet and biographer, author of the
Irish Melodies (1807-34),
The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and
Lalla
Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.
Samuel Rogers (1763-1855)
English poet, banker, and aesthete, author of the ever-popular
Pleasures of Memory (1792),
Columbus (1810),
Jaqueline (1814), and
Italy (1822-28).
John William Ward, earl of Dudley (1781-1833)
The son of William Ward, third Viscount Dudley (d. 1823); educated at Edinburgh and
Oxford, he was an English MP, sometimes a Foxite Whig and sometimes Canningite Tory, who
suffered from insanity in his latter years.
