665 LADY HESTER STANHOPE. LORD ROSEBERY, in his admirable Life of Pitt, thus summarises the character of the great Earl of Chatham. He was a political mystic; sometimes sublime, sometimes impossible, and sometimes insane. But he had genius.' This description may, with small modification, equally fit the Minister's grand-daughter, Lady Hester Stanhope. Mysticism appeared in her spiritual beliefs, sublimity was often evident in her aims and ideas, the position that she tried to assume in the world was impossible and doomed to miserable failure, she was eccentric to the verge, and at last possibly beyond the verge, of madness. But she undoubtedly had a great share of her family's genius, and if it had been allied to even a few solid qualities, if her ill luck had not always been conspicuous, perhaps also if she had lived in a less prosaic age, she might well have taken her place among the heroines who have influenced the world's history. She was the daughter of the third Earl Stanhope, and her mother was Lady Hester Pitt, who died when she was only four years old. The fullest record of her childhood is to be found in the conversations embodied in her memoirs written by Dr. Meryon in after years, but it cannot be relied upon as being altogether accurate, for her memory had become confused and unreliable, some of the episodes related were certainly imaginary, and there was probably slight foundation for many of the remainder. The family life at Chevening, her father's place, must have been wretchedly miserable, for Lord Stanhope's second wife had no sympathy with the poor little girls whom she there found and saw little of them-so little, indeed, that Lady Lucy said if she had met her stepmother in the streets, she would not have known her.' Lord Stanhope himself was the sternest of autocrats in his house, his temper was imperious and inflexible, and he demanded the most unquestioning obedience from everyone. All his children looked upon him with dread, and all, boys and girls, longed to escape from his constant intimidation. Lady Hester, who little knew fear, then or at any time in her life, was the only child that did not utterly quail before him, and, as perhaps might have been expected, was the only one to whom he showed any sign of regard. In his politics, probably more out of contrariety and self-advertisement than anything else, he outraged all his brother peers by taking up hotly the principles of the French Revolution, calling himself citizen Stanhope, and discarding everything connected with his title, even to the coronets on his park gates. But with all his unamiable qualities and his political eccentricity he mixed a studious disposition, a devotion to science, and an inventive genius that well gave him a claim to remembrance. He is said to have placed before the Admiralty in 1791 (twelve years before Fulton's first steamship was produced) a model of a steamship; and his proposed method of propulsion was the screw, which, though not adopted by Fulton, has now completely superseded that inventor's paddle wheels. He invented a printing-press, a calculating machine, a lightning conductor, besides many other matters, and the results of his labours were by no means ephemeral, but in several cases proved to be of great and lasting utility. Such as her father was, who can wonder at any irregularity of mind in Lady Hester Stanhope? The marvel would have been if she had grown up with even moderately conventional ideas and tendencies. She put up with the life at Chevening till she was twenty-four, when she went to live with her grandmother, Lady Chatham, at Burton Pynsent, in Somersetshire. Her two sisters had previously married and left their unhappy home. Her father was furious with her because she had facilitated the escape from parental thraldom of her half-brother Lord Mahon, who had not been allowed to go to school or college, and was retained at home, almost as a prisoner, in order that he might be compelled, on coming of age, to consent to alter the entail and give his father power to sell the family estate. To Chevening Lady Hester never returned. One of the most amiable features in her character was her constant affection for her three half-brothers and the active interest which she ever took in their welfare. Charles, the second, seems to have been rather her favourite. He went into the army and was killed at Corunna, serving as a brother-major with Charles Napier in the 50th, and, before his death, earning by his conduct the personal praise of the gallant Sir John Moore himself. Adored by his men and marked as one of the most able young officers of the army (he was only twenty-four at his death), when he entered the service six years earlier he could not spell at all, owing to his father's neglect of his education. Truly a capacity for passing examina tions may not necessarily include everything that makes a soldier. While she was at Burton Pynsent and for some years afterwards she maintained a correspondence with Mr. Jackson, in the diplomatic service and afterwards Minister at Berlin, and her letters have been preserved, but they contain little except references to family affairs. The most interesting notice of contemporary events is her opinion of the volunteers and yeomanry of the day, at least as they appeared to her in Somersetshire during the riots caused by the high price of corn. My military spirit always despised as well as opposed the Volunteer Associations: first, because they were quizzical; and secondly, because I was sure they would be useless, if not mischievous. The first, hereabouts they have completely proved. Some refused to act at all; others wished to go over to the mob, but were prevented, and their arms taken from them; this though was only a few individuals. But the worst of all was a troop of yeomanry cavalry, being called out to quell a riot obeyed very readily; but the mob surrounded the captain the moment they arrived at the place of destination, and all the rest galloped away. Even in our day we may very profitably remember that, to be of use in even the simplest emergencies, the long habit of discipline is as essential to any body of troops as the familiarity with a soldier's weapons. In another place, she says of her friend Sir Francis Burdett, what will not be denied by anyone who has read of that clever but dangerous man's political aberrations: 'I never could discover but one fault in my friend's character, compiled of a peculiar talent for making jumbles with a vast share of absence and inattention.' Lady Hester Stanhope, taking advantage of the Peace of Amiens, like other English people who had been so long confined by Continental war to their own country, was abroad with friends in 1802 and 1803. When she returned to England, it was to find herself homeless. Her grandmother had died and Burton Pynsent had passed to her uncle, Lord Chatham, best known to posterity by the epigram written on his inglorious command in the Walcheren expedition, Lord Chatham, with his sabre drawn, Stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham. And now began the really most important part of her life, though not that by which she is best remembered, the time when she possessed influence so great as nearly to approach power, when she was in the innermost diplomatic circle, and when in society she was honoured and courted. William Pitt opened his doors to her, and placed her as mistress of his household at the head of his table. And this was an act of no common kindness on the part of the great man, for he knew little of his very vivacious and headstrong niece, and to receive her into his house meant a total change in his mode of life and a breaking up of all his habits. But the result was of the happiest description. He came to love Lady Hester with all a father's affection, she regarded him when living with the devoted attachment of a daughter, and after his death cherished his memory with something like worship. When Lady Hester first was received by Mr. Pitt he was living at Walmer Castle, his official residence as Warden of the Cinque Ports, and his chief occupation was the raising and drilling of a volunteer regiment, which was to take part in the defence of Kent against the anticipated French invasion. William Pitt proved himself to be a great war minister; he was 'the Pilot who weathered the storm,' but he knew nothing of the actual business of war, the expeditions which he directed gainst various parts of France and the Low Countries were generally ill advised and ill provided, they wasted England's substance, and, except as showing determination and perseverance, were practically failures. In a small way his personal military exertions while in retirement were the shadow of his military policy when he was Prime Minister. As Lord Rosebery says, ' amid the derision of his enemies and the apprehensions of his friends, he spent his days in feverish activity, riding and reviewing along the coast committed officially to his charge. He would not even go to London unless the wind was in a quarter that prohibited a hostile invasion.' His energy and example were above all praise, but how little could the raw volunteers, whom he had hastily raised, have done against the war-hardened soldiers of Napoleon, if Nelson had not held the seas! In all his long rides from one parade to another, sometimes fifteen or twenty miles, I ady Hester Stanhope was his constant and enthusiastic companion, though even she, excellent horsewoman as she was, felt the fatiguing strain, besides in addition being consumed with anxiety lest her uncle should overdo himself and injure his health. In May 1804 William Pitt again became Prime Minister and commenced that short period of administration when, with a feeble Cabinet, he had to meet the gigantic difficulties, both abroad and at home, by which eventually his proud spirit and enfeebled constitution were mortally crushed. In the meantime, however, Lady Hester, as the mistress of the Prime Minister's establishment, was necessarily in the highest social position, and she fully and freely enjoyed it. Her joyousness and brilliancy enlivened the house, pleased and amused the usually stern and reserved states. man. And the general high spirits seem sometimes even to have taken the form of what would now be called 'bear-fighting'! Sir William Napier tells how, when he was a lad of nineteen and staying as a guest in Mr. Pitt's house, the Minister used to take delight in a romp with Lady Hester, the two young Stanhopes, and himself. On one occasion the party were trying to blacken Pitt's face with burnt cork, he vigorously defending himself with a cushion, when a servant announced that Lords Castlereagh and Liverpool desired to see him on business. 'Let them wait in the other room,' was the answer, and the fun went on. After ten minutes, when the cork had been successfully applied, a truce was called and a basin of water and towel were required to remove the traces of the fray. The two lords were ushered in, and seemed to bend 'like spaniels before the man who had just been so irreverently maltreated. His voice and manner changed at once to the utmost haughtiness. He heard what they had to say, made one or two short observations, and then dismissed his visitors with a stiff and curt bow. As soon as they were gone, he turned with a laugh, snatched up the cushion, and renewed the frolic. It was at this time that Lady Hester Stanhope's previous acquaintance with Sir John Moore ripened into intimacy, and she learned to appreciate thoroughly his greatness. The editor of Sir John Moore's diary emphatically contradicts the belief he was engaged to her, supporting his opinion by a quotation from the Life of Sir Charles Napier which records the truth as known to Moore's own family.' On the other hand Lady Hester Stanhope's own family were convinced that there was an understanding, if not an actual engagement, between her and the heroic soldier, and that both hoped that, when his campaigns were over, he would be able to come back and claim her as his bride. However the truth as to this may be, it is certain that she always looked upon Sir John Moore with the utmost admiration and ever delighted in talking about him. Her advocacy of him was sometimes emphatic even beyond the bounds of good manners. She herself told how General Phipps, calling one day, repeated something to disparage Sir John |