more astonishing in the letters contained in this book than the honest surprise of Hastings at the courage and capacity shown by his wife on more than one occasion. They had been married several years, he was in the habit, so Wraxall1 tells us, of consulting her on public affairs, he knew that she managed her own money matters with conspicuous success, and would have liked to manage his, but the fiction of her timidity and helplessness apart from him retains possession of his mind. Two or three glimpses of Mrs Hastings, some obtained in India and one in England, will show the impression she produced on other women. The first witness is Mrs Fay, a young lady married to a worthless husband, whom she had accompanied to Bengal in the hope of keeping him out of mischief. Travelling by the then little known. overland route, they fell into the hands of Haidar Ali during their voyage from Suez to Calcutta, and were only rescued after much suffering and privation. Arrived at Calcutta, one of Mrs Fay's first duties was to go out to Belvidere and pay her respects to the Governor-General's lady. "Mrs H herself," she writes, "it is easy to perceive at the first glance, is far superior to the generality of her sex; though her appearance is rather eccentric, owing to the circumstance of her beautiful auburn hair being disposed in ringlets, throwing an air of elegant, nay almost infantine simplicity over her countenance, most admirably adapted to heighten the effect intended to be produced. Her whole dress too, though studiously becoming being at variance with our present modes which are certainly not so" (the lady's punctuation is breathlessly erratic,) "perhaps for that reason, she has chosen to depart from them as a foreigner you know, she may be excused for not strictly conforming to our fashions; besides her rank in the settlement sets her above the necessity of studying anything but the whim of the moment. It is easy to per 1 Historical Memoirs.' Sir N. W. Wraxall. ceive how fully sensible she is of her own consequence. She is indeed raised to a 'giddy height' and expects to be treated with the most profound respect and deference. She received me civilly and insisted on my staying dinner, which I had no inclination to refuse, but seemed not to evince much sympathy when I slightly touched on the misfortunes which had befallen me; nay she even hinted that I had brought them on myself, by imprudently venturing on such an expedition out of mere curiosity. . . . I could not help feeling vexed at Mrs H-'s observation, to say the best of it, it was unfeeling,-but I excuse her." Despite this magnanimity, there is a distinct touch of resentment in the remark that follows: "The house . . . is a perfect bijou; most superbly fitted up with all that unbounded affluence can display; but still deficient in that simple elegance which the wealthy so seldom obtain." Here again appears the difference between the masculine and the feminine point of view, for Thompson writes of Mrs Hastings as "a wife whose singular generosity and splendid taste were guided by an enlightened system of economy, and by the utmost anxiety for the welfare of her husband." With regard to the "infantine" style of her dress, it would appear that owing to her Continental connections, her fashions were two or three years in advance of those of the British-born ladies surrounding her, for in 1783 a friend writes to her from England: "To describe the various Dresses of the Ladies, I must leave to an abler Pen than mine; it seems they breathe nothing but fashion and Elegance, and are grown so Young, as not only to appear in their Sashes, but their Shifts (a Dress called Chemise à la Reine)." But her style of hairdressing was entirely her own, and she clung to it on her return to Englandeven, according to the 'Rolliad," when she went to Court, which was almost equivalent to appearing without plumes or lappets nowadays. "Her figure furnished matter for 1 See infra, p. 397 |