“I must tell you I am perfectly enamoured of my
present residence, and am determined on writing a
| FAREWELL TO IRELAND—1837. | 421 |
| 422 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
Tilney House is full of reminiscences of its celebrated but, I suspect, unhappy late mistress—the true, legal wife of that type of heartless roués, George IV. Mrs. Dawson Damer said she had got up a table expressly for me—it was covered with beautiful relics. In a coffer filled with pledges of love and gallantry from the Prince in the hey-day of his passion—a Pandora’s box without Hope at the bottom! The most precious were a number of their own portraits, set in all sorts of sizes and costumes, and oh what costumes! Toupées, chinons, flottans, tippy-bobby hats, balloon handkerchiefs, and relics of all the atrocious bad taste of succeeding years, from the days of Florizel and Perditta, to the ‘fat, fair and fifty’ of the neglected favourite, a series of disfigurements rendering their personal beauty absurd. The Prince’s face was insignificant, through all his ages and disguises, a fair, fat, flashy young gentleman, his mother’s snubby features spoiling his pleasant smile; in short, he was the old queen bleached white! By-the-bye, the last time I saw him was in a doorway at Lady Cork’s which he filled, to the utter annoyance of Lady Cork, who was obliged to open another doorway, contrary to her arrangements. The pictures of the Prince and Mrs. Fitzgerald were all splendidly set in brilliants, with hearts and ciphers, crowned with royal coronets and true lovers’ knots, The initials G. P. were never omitted.
There were two lockets of very curious description,
minutely small portraits of the Prince and the lady; they were each covered
with a crystal, and this crystal was a diamond cut in two! They were less than
the
| FAREWELL TO IRELAND—1837. | 423 |
On the death of George IV., Mrs. Fitzherbert sent to William IV., to request back some of her pictures, gems, and letters, left in the late King’s hands.
William IV., always the kind and constant friend of Mrs. Fitzherbert, sent her everything that he could find in the cabinet of his brother, and a beautiful picture in oil of Mrs. Fitzherbert; but the diamond-enshrined miniature was not forthcoming. After some time, however, she received a letter from the Duke of Wellington, who wrote to say, having heard that such a locket had been enquired for, he would be happy to place it in her hands, as it was in his possession. He added, that in his quality of the King’s executor, he had gone into his room immediately after his decease, and perceiving a red cord round his neck, under his shirt, discovered the locket containing the miniature.
The correspondence of the Prince and Mrs.
Fitzherbert, most voluminous, and doubtless full of interesting
political and social incidents, which have escaped history, were burned by
Mrs. Fitzherbert’s trustees—one of these
was Sir C. Seymour, Mrs. Dawson Damer’s brother; the other
was Colonel Gurwood, who was one of her
best and most intimate friends. I think she added that the Duke of Wellington and Lord Albemarle were present, and that the room where this
auto-da-fé took place,
smelled of burnt sealing-wax for weeks afterwards! Mrs.
Fitzherbert had labelled all the letters she wished to be
destroyed—a few, how-
| 424 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
Mrs. Fitzherbert was never in love with
the Prince, and much of her virtuous
resistance may be ascribed to her indifference. The Dowager Lady Jersey was the true object of his passion, or if
not the object, at least the disport of his weak mind, and certainly the cause
of his infidelity to his mistress and his cruelty to his wife. When that most
fashionable of French novels, Les Liaisons Dangereux, came out, it
became the subject of much fashionable criticism, and one evening, in the
circle at Devonshire House, it was disputed whether the character of Madame la Presidente was not an outrage upon
probability and female humanity. The late Duke of
Devonshire observed, that he thought he knew one such woman; but refused to name her. The next moment every one
present confessed they had known one such woman, also; but refused to denounce
their fair friend. Curiosity became vehement, and Lord John Townsend proposed that each person present should
write their secret on a slip of paper, and throw the slips into a veiled vase,
and he would draw them out slip by slip, and read them for the benefit of the
society present, under the solemn seal of silence,—when, to the surprise
and amusement of the distinguished society, every little rouleau, as its
contents were announced, bore the inscription of ‘the Countess
of Jersey!’ When the anecdote was told to the author, he
exclaimed, ‘Heureux pays! où
l’on ne peut trouver qu’une seule
Presidente!’ I saw the lust picture of poor
Mrs.
| FAREWELL TO IRELAND—1837. | 425 |
Mrs. Fitzherbert died in the beginning of 1837, and Mrs. Dawson Damer’s expressive countenance changed often as she spoke, and tears fell from her eyes as she deposited the relics of her adopted mother in the casket whence she had drawn them. She was still in mourning for her.
We had a very amusing, and to me, very interesting
dinner at Lord Adolphus
Fitzclarence’s, in the old St. James’s Palace,
comprising the Marquis of Belfast,
Sir George and Lady Wombwell, the handsome Mr.
Stanley (alias Cupid), Josephine, and ourselves,—a round table dinner.
Lord Adolphus took me into his boudoir in the evening;
we were alone, and he showed me a miniature set in brilliants. ‘The
king!’ I said.
‘Yes, my father,’ said he, taking another
picture out of the casket, ‘and,’ added he, with emotion,
‘this was—my
mother.’ After a pause, I said, ‘It is a
great likeness, as I last saw her.’ ‘Where was
that?’ ‘In Dublin.’ ‘On the
stage?’ ‘Yes, in the Country
Girl, the most wondrous representation of life and nature I
ever beheld! I saw her, also,
| 426 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
We found Chantrey, as frank, simple, and cordial, as when some seventeen years back, we trotted en groupe with Moore, Playfair, and Lord John Russell through the streets of Florence, and paused to worship the memory of Jean de Bologne, the key note of our conversation whenever we met. Well, the Gordon monument is a beautiful work of art, I had almost said of nature; but no time to write more. I have to dress the carriage, and Morgan roaring like a bull.”
