951. Mary Russell Mitford to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 325–328.
Three Mile Cross,
April [?30], [1842] [1]
How startling coincidences are! Sometimes how painful! Just as I had sent to you the little jar of honey from Hymettus, [2] brought from thence by Sir Robert Inglis, [3] and sent to me by a dear old friend, Lady Sidmouth, two letters arrived from her at the same time, of which, that which bore the latest date, anticipated with delightful cheerfulness our speedy meeting; and, not five minutes after dispatching that trifling token of honor to the muse, I found, in reading the paper to my father, that poor Lady Sidmouth was dead! [4] Imagine the shock! She was, you know, daughter of Lord Stowell, [5] niece of Lord Eldon, [6] and wife of Lord Sidmouth, all remarkable men in themselves, and connected with the most memorable personages of the last half-century. And fully worthy was she of such association.
I have seldom known any one more thoroughly awake and alive to all that was best worth knowing. She had an enlightened curiosity, a love of natural history, of antiquities, of literature, of art; was herself full of talent, intelligence, and gayety, and had a quick and peculiar humor; the more surprising as her physical sufferings were great and constant. For many years she had suffered under a spine complaint—suffered to such an extent that, for very many years, instead of being (as she used to be) dragged between two strong supporters round my garden, she had been carried in the arms of an old servant into the greenhouse, and there deposited until her visit was over. In the fine season she used to pass many hours of every day in her carriage or in a garden chair; but frequently her sufferings were so severe that the perspiration would pour down her face from pain, and for days and weeks together she remained unable to see her favorite friends. She had submitted to that tremendous operation, the actual cutting down either side of the spinal column (I forget the technical phrase), but without any benefit; and had tried Dr. Jephson’s system [7] equally without success. Still, such was her sweetness, that Lord Sidmouth told me that some sculptor (I think Behnes) [8] earnestly wished to be allowed to model her face for the expression, which, as he said, was more full of lively sweetness than any he ever saw. She was twenty-seven years younger than the husband who now has to mourn her loss.
The first thing she did when coming into her father’s large fortune was to portion her two step-daughters, each of whom had been for many years engaged to a man too poor to marry a poor lord’s daughter. [9] All her dealings about money were munificent in themselves and most graceful in the manner. She gave to the Berkshire Hospital six acres of land (valued at a thousand pounds an acre for building leases), standing on the finest situation of the outskirts of Reading, and told every body that it was Lord Sidmouth’s gift! And in the same way she built a new market cross in his name in the town of Devizes, of which he is high steward.
I have lost a most kind and affectionate friend, one of the very many of whom the last two or three years have deprived me. Lord Sidmouth retains his unmarried daughter, who officiated as his private secretary when he was prime minister, and is a very cultivated and excellent person; but not to me what Lady S. was. We, indeed, had many mutual ties. Her father, like mine, was of Northumberland; and we had connections and friends near Newcastle—her cousins married to cousins of mine. The most amiable of these—a young and lovely girl of remarkable talent—died last autumn. [10]
Every body that loves me does die! Oh! take care of yourself, my very dearest! Did I tell you that her father, Lord Stowell (the Sir William Scott of Dr. Johnson’s time), died at a very advanced age in a state worse than idiotcy? The old servants have told me that his expressions were awful. That must have been a great grief. Her only brother, too, killed himself by drinking. [11] At the same time that Lord Stowell was wearing out the dregs of life so painfully four miles on one side of us, Sir Henry Russell, the only other survivor of the “Literary Club,” was lingering in equal imbecility four miles on the other; a remarkable and humbling fact to the pride of intellect. [12]
At Stowell (poor Lady Sidmouth’s estate) [13] is a hazel coppice of such extent that all the fairs of the south of England are supplied from it with cob-nuts—the favorite present of a country lad to his sweetheart. Gypsies and other wanderers pitch their tents around it in the nutting season; and for three weeks the coppice is as populous as a vineyard or a hop-garden in their gathering-time. Poor dear Lady Sidmouth! how fond she was of distributing little bags of her own nuts, purchased from the licensed plunderers! You would have liked Lady Sidmouth.<***>
Text: L’Estrange (2), III, 113–116 (as 20 April 1841).
1. This letter is dated by the reference to Lady Sidmouth’s death, announced in The Times of 28 April 1842. L’Estrange’s dating of 20 April 1841 obviously resulted from a misreading of Miss Mitford’s handwriting.
2. A mountain, about two miles from Athens, famous for its bees and excellent honey.
3. Robert Harry Inglis (1786–1855), one-time private secretary to Lord Sidmouth, M.P. for Oxford University from 1829 until his retirement from political life in 1854, was an opponent of parliamentary reform and of all attempts to ease the religious and civil disabilities still suffered by Roman Catholics and Jews.
4. Marianne, Lady Sidmouth had died at Richmond on 26 April; as stated above, the notice of her death was in The Times of 28 April. She had married Thomas Townsend in 1809 and, after his death, in 1823 became the second wife of Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth (1757–1844), whose first wife, Ursula Mary (née Hammond) had died in 1811. He had been Prime Minister (1801–04) and Home Secretary (1812–22).
5. William Scott, 1st Baron Stowell (1745–1836), an intimate friend of Dr. Johnson, had been a lecturer in ancient history at Oxford, but, after inheriting his father’s estate, resigned his tutorship in 1777 and took up law, becoming in 1782 Advocate-General for the Office of Lord High Admiral. He entered Parliament in 1790, and, like his friend Inglis, was a steady opponent of reform and the relaxation of restrictions on Catholics. At his death, his daughter, Lady Sidmouth, inherited property producing £12,000 per annum, as well as considerable personal effects.
6. John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon (1751–1838), was the younger brother of Lord Stowell. He had been successively Solicitor-General, Attorney-General, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and Lord Chancellor.
7. Henry Jephson (1798–1878) practised medicine in Leamington Spa; we have not been able to establish the nature of his system.
8. William Behnes (d. 1864) achieved high repute as an artist and sculptor, making a bust of Macready, among others.
9. Her step-daughters, Charlotte and Henrietta Addington, were both thus enabled to marry in 1838, one to a clergyman, the other to an army officer.
10. Not identified.
11. William Scott had died in November 1835, his death leaving Lady Sidmouth as inheritrix. Because of Lord Stowell’s mental deterioration, he was never aware of his son’s death.
12. Henry Russell (1751–1836), of Swallowfield Park, near Three Mile Cross, had been Chief Justice of the Bengal Supreme Court. He died ten days before Lord Stowell. The Literary Club, founded in 1764 by Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds, met regularly for conversation; other members included Edmund Burke, Edward Gibbon and Oliver Goldsmith.
13. Stowell Park, in Gloucestershire, had been purchased from Lord Chedworth, although Lord Stowell lived principally at Earley Court, near Reading, and, as noted above, Lady Sidmouth died in Richmond.
___________________
