Buoyancy of Lady Hester Stanhope’s spirits—Death of Miss Williams—Mrs. ——’s first visit to Lady Hester—The Author is summoned to Damascus to attend Hassan Effendi: declines going—Discussions between Lady Hester and Mrs. —— thereupon—Lady Hester’s hatred of women—She sends her maid to revile Mrs. —— —The Author resolves to return to England—Alarm from soldiers on their march—Lady Hester assists Abdallah Pasha in laying out his garden—Anecdotes of the first Lord Chatham—Fresh discourses about the Journey to Damascus—Anecdotes of Mr. Pitt—His attachment to Miss E.—His admiration of women—His indulgence towards other people’s failings—Lady Hester and the fair Ellen—Strange history—Mr. Pitt’s attention to the comfort of his guests, and of his servants—Strange rise of one of them—Lady Hester’s pathos—Paolo Perini’s expected post of artilleryman.

Her ladyship, in several conversations, took great pains in acquainting me with all the material events that had occurred during my absence in Europe, and in what relation she stood with the pashas and governors of the neighbouring towns and provinces, proceeding, in succession, from occurrences relating to the most exalted individuals, to those connected with the lowest persons that surrounded her. She talked of her debts, her illnesses, her trials and sufferings, and never finished a day without picturing to herself a brighter futurity, when her worth would be more appreciated, when the clouds that overspread her existence would be dissipated, and when the neglect in which she was left by her friends would meet with its just punishment, and her magnificent star rise again, with renewed splendour, to gladden the world, and those, more particularly, who had been faithful to her cause. This buoyancy of spirits saved her from the despondency which others, in her deserted state, must inevitably have felt. The work of years to come was chalked out in her active imagination; plans were sketched; new channels of correspondence were to be opened; her household was to be remodelled; fresh buildings were to be raised; learned researches were to be made: valuable manuscripts were to be procured. It is impossible to say what was not projected; but her faithful Miss Williams still rose uppermost in her mind, and her first care was to see the last duties, yet remaining, paid to her memory.

As that excellent person occupied an important position in Lady Hester Stanhope’s house and affairs, I will here make room for the following account of her sickness and death, as it was given me by Um Ayôob, a respectable widow of Jôon. This woman was in the habit of doing needlework at Lady Hester’s, when she would pass whole days together at the house. One day, as she and Miss W. were sitting in the same room sewing (it was on a Friday), Miss W. said to her, “Dear me, how cold I am—I am all in a shiver!” The season (it being autumn) was very sickly, and many of the servants were lying ill, one being at the very time dangerously so with continued bilious fever. The shivering, however, passed over. Um Ayôob went home at night, and the following day returned to her work. Miss W. was on her legs again. The day after she had an attack of intermittent fever. This was Sunday, and on Monday she was pretty well again. Expecting the return of the fit on Tuesday, the good widow asked Miss W. whether she should remain with her; but Miss W. said “No: your daughter has got an ague as well as myself; so go, and attend upon her—she may want you in the night; and come to me on Thursday, as to-morrow I shall not require your services, for I intend to remain quiet all the day.” So, on Wednesday, Um Ayôob did not go. On Thursday she was baking, when a servant came to her, and said, “Make haste, for God’s sake! you are wanted to attend on Miss W.” As the old lady’s bread was just baked, she thought she would take a couple of hot cakes in a clean towel, with the idea that Miss W. might like them buttered for her breakfast. “So,” said Um Ayôob, when she told me the melancholy story, “as I was hastening along the bottom which divides the village from the Dar, I was met by little Gayby, crying, ‘Oh, come, come—run, run!’—‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.—‘Oh, oh! she’s dead! she’s dead!’ sobbed Gayby.—‘Who’s dead?’ cried I, terrified out of my senses.—‘Miss Williams,’ answered she. I was struck with horror, and, quickening my pace as fast as I could, I arrived out of breath, and found the tale but too true—Miss Williams had breathed her last.”

It appeared that, on Wednesday morning, Lady Hester, who was herself ill in bed, had given orders to the little girl, Gayby, to prepare, from the medicine-chest, a dose of salts and senna, she being too ill to see to it herself. This dose, according to the assertion of Nasara, one of the maids, who waited on Miss W., produced an extraordinary effect through the day and night, and Miss W. was not free from its action until she expired. Besides the black dose, she took also three pills, but of what nature I could not learn. The persons who attended on her were Nasara, Gayby, and Fatôom, the Fatôom so often named in these pages, who was at that time eleven or twelve years old. Um Ayôob, who loved and regretted Miss Williams (as indeed did almost everybody), sat by her corpse the remainder of the day. In the course of the afternoon, she was surprised to find that the body, so far from becoming cold, retained almost its natural living heat. There happened to arrive at Lady Hester’s the preceding day a doctor of the country, who had been sent for to attend on Moosa, the man-servant, then lying dangerously ill, and who died two days after Miss W. Um Ayôob called him into the room, and begged him to feel the body, and say whether there was not yet life in it. He was equally of opinion with the widow that the appearances were very surprising, and the more especially as the cheeks retained some colour, and (according to Um Ayôob’s expression), as something kept continually bubbling inside of her like boiling water. The doctor went to Lady Hester and told her what he had seen, and asked her permission to open a vein. Lady Hester, who was overwhelmed with affliction at the loss of a person so dear to her, said, “Do what you please.” He accordingly opened a vein in the foot, and the blood spirted out, said Um Ayôob, as from a living person. After having taken what he thought a sufficient quantity, he bound up the incision; but life never returned, and on Sunday she was buried in the burying-ground of the monastery of Dayr el Mkhallas, the coffin being followed by the French vice-consul and some merchants of Sayda.

I must here observe that the letting of blood was an ill-judged expedient for restoring the living action, because it only completed the exhaustion already carried to its utmost point by the previous depletion of the bowels. The case is not the same as when, after a fall or an attack of apoplexy, the opening of a vein may give an impulse to the suspended circulation, just as a touch of the finger to the balance of a watch will set it going when it has stopped. But here the vital warmth should have been nourished and promoted by every available means, and nature should have been left to husband her internal resources until reanimation had been effected.

In company with my family, I visited Miss Williams’s grave, and could not forbear shedding tears over it; for I had known her many years. She was a creature of remarkable singleness of mind, of unstained purity, and so universally beloved that the people of the neighbourhood and the peasantry talk of her to this day as a model of virtue and goodness. The only monument raised over her grave was a rude, oval-shaped wall, topped with thorny shrubs, to keep the jackalls from scratching for her corpse.

Things, however, went on satisfactorily until the 25th of January, when a messenger came from Damascus, sent by a person of an ancient and noble family, named Ahmed Bey, beyt Admy,[41] with a letter to Lady Hester Stanhope, saying that, “her physician’s arrival from England having been reported to the Pasha, he, Ahmed Bey, had been solicited by his highness to write to her, and request she would spare the doctor, a short time, to cure a complaint with which a friend of the Pasha’s, called Hassan Effendi, Tâat ed Dyn, was afflicted in the roof of his mouth, which was peculiarly painful to him, and a source of deep regret to the faithful, in consequence of his being one of the most distinguished chanters of the Koran.”

This Ahmed Bey was a very old friend of Lady Hester Stanhope’s, and a nobleman who had honoured me with his particular notice some years before, during our stay at Damascus; she, therefore, laid great stress on my going, and wished me to prepare immediately for my departure.

As I did not think it right to leave my family for three weeks or a month alone in a cottage, where no human being could understand them, I suggested to Lady Hester the propriety of writing a polite excuse to Ahmed Bey, expressing my inability to comply with his wishes for the present. But she had my compliance so much at heart, that it was agreed she should see Mrs. —— herself, and endeavour to remove her scruples, flattering her she could contrive, with her accustomed fertility in expedients for all difficulties, some means to reconcile her to my departure, and show her the groundlessness of her fears. Mrs. —— accordingly paid a second visit to Lady Hester, who began by endeavouring to act on her pride, by telling her my reputation would be ruined among all the Pashas, if I refused to go to a great man, like Hassan Effendi, and that her own consequence would be lessened; moreover, that our ambassador at Constantinople would hear of it, and take it ill, with many arguments of the like sort. Finding this mode of reasoning had no effect, she tried to frighten her, by assuring her very gravely that there were dervises, who, interested in the well-being of holy men, and especially of a chanter of the word of the Prophet, would, by unknown charms, inflict all sorts of evils upon her, make hair grow on her face, bring out blotches on her body, &c. The reader will be surprised, when he is told that Lady Hester Stanhope affected to believe all this. Mrs. —— lent a civil but incredulous ear. Her ladyship then endeavoured to engage her consent by holding out the benefits that would accrue to me in a pecuniary light, and the shawls and brocades that I probably should bring back to her as presents from such grand folks. But the foretaste of solitude in a village during winter, which the many lonely evenings already passed there had given her, was too strongly impressed on her mind, and she respectfully but firmly answered, that, if I chose to go, of course she could not help it, but that it never could be without rendering her miserable: upon which they parted, with no good will on her ladyship’s side; and from that hour began a system of hospitality to Mrs. ——, which never ceased until our departure.

This leads me to say a word on the extraordinary hatred that Lady Hester Stanhope bore to her own sex, although from what cause I do not know: but during her travels and her residence on Mount Lebanon, in all the visits she received from persons of whatever condition, their wives, if travelling with them, seldom or never obtained access. She professed a general dislike to women, and said she had never known but three, among the hundreds she had been acquainted with, of whom she could speak with unreserved admiration. Hence it was that she considered married men as necessarily miserable, and how often did she quote Sir —— ——’s case to illustrate her views. That same evening she reproached me for yielding to the idle fears of a woman, and painted very ridiculous and amusing pictures of the henpecked husbands she had known in her time, of whom the most prominent was Lord ——, and the most suffering, the baronet alluded to above. In conclusion, she told me she should write an answer to Ahmed Bey, telling him I was governed by my wife, and could not come.

It was customary for her to send over to the village every morning a servant and horse to fetch me; but on the 26th, 27th, and 28th of January he did not come; and I very well knew that some explosion of anger would take place on her part: it being an unpardonable thing in her eyes for any living being to oppose her purposes, and much more for a woman to do so. In the evening of the 28th, her factotum, the bailiff, came with a message, requesting to know whether I had overcome Mrs. ——’s scruples, and, if not, desiring I would certify it in writing. Accordingly, I wrote a letter, in which I justified my own refusal to go to Damascus, on the ground that Mrs. —— was totally new to the country; had no soul to talk to; had, in compliance with Lady Hester’s wishes, brought no maid-servant who could understand her; and that I could not find it right to leave her, much as I regretted the disappointment and vexation that such a step caused her ladyship, and her friend and mine, Ahmed Bey.

February 3, 1831.—I heard no more of Lady Hester until this day, when the horse was sent, and, on entering her saloon, a stormy altercation took place between us, in the presence of her secretary. The final result was, that I signified my wish, as soon as I had done what I could for her, to take my family back again to Europe, regretting I had come so far to so little purpose. “I have given,” said she, “a good deal of advice to many persons in whom I have taken an interest, and you are the last of my disciples whom I thought I could make something of: but it is like cutting the hair off the legs of half-bred horses; it grows again, and you may often get a kick in the face for your pains. You know what a good opinion they had of you in this country, which I kept up; but your conduct now has spoiled all: for when a man gives his beard to a woman it is all over with him. Remember my words, and write them down.”

But she was not to be so easily foiled. She returned to the charge, and again urged me to undertake the journey to Damascus. She called my attention to the words of Ahmed Bey’s letter, describing Hassan Effendi’s malady: “His chest is without pain, and so is his throat, and the complaint seems to be in his mouth.” These expressions she interpreted as a clear indication that this great man was somebody who had a communication to make to her, which was of too much importance to be trusted to a letter, and that that was what was meant by the “complaint in the mouth.” Anxious, therefore, to know what this secret business was, she thought neither of the state of the weather (for the snow was lying deep on the upper chain of Mount Lebanon, over which the road to Damascus lay), nor of the complete loneliness in which my family would be left. It is true that, in another cottage in the village, Mr. Chasseaud and his wife lived, and they had shown every disposition in their power to enliven Mrs. ——’s solitude; but this was the rainy season, and there were days when it was impossible to get from house to house, owing to the violence of the wind and the torrents of water that fell from the heavens: and, when the rain abated, the mud, mixed with dung of cattle, so completely filled the paths, that it was impossible to walk five steps.

That there was cause for apprehension, when left alone, may be seen from what had occurred on the 24th of January. It rained heavily, and I was sitting writing in the evening, when the black slave told me that about two hundred soldiers had halted for the night in the village, on their way to join Abdallah, Pasha of Acre, who was besieging the castle of Nablôos, where the inhabitants were in a state of insurrection, brought on by the arbitrary exactions of the local government. In those days, soldiers in villages often committed many excesses. We had no bolt to our front door, nor any fastening but a hook to the window-shutters. About nine in the evening, the following note was brought me by Mr. Chasseaud’s servant:

But I had no arms, excepting my fowling-piece, which was nailed down in a case that I had not yet had time to open; so, putting my reliance on the respect which the name of Lady Hester Stanhope obtained for those belonging to her establishment, and on the heavy rains, I wrote on, not altogether free from alarm, when, sometimes, the blasts of wind shook the door and window-shutters, and made me uncertain whether the noise I heard was that of the elements or of man.

A truce seemed now to have been concluded between Lady Hester and ourselves, by a suspension of hostilities, but it was only to mature a fresh attack. Abdallah Pasha had been busied for some months in making a European garden in the environs of Acre, as a place of recreation for himself and his harým, and Lady Hester had given him many useful instructions in the laying of it out, and had from time to time sent her Italian servant, Paolo Perini, to lend a helping hand. The following day, therefore, was spent in writing a letter about the building of a pavilion, which was dictated in French, and then translated into Arabic by her Arabian secretary, Khalyl Mansôor, who, being a shopkeeper at Sayda, was sent for whenever there were Arabic letters to write. Much amusement arose about the construction of a phrase, in which pillars of the Ionic order were named. Mansôor hinted that the word Ionique had a signification in Arabic which rendered it impossible to use it. I had made a drawing of the five orders of architecture, and what was to be written was an explanation of their differences, so that a full hour was spent in getting over the difficulty.[42] Then a letter was written to Abd el Rahmàn Berber, a Turkish merchant, with a remittance of five hundred dollars, due for interest on money lent; and, as he was about setting off on his pilgrimage to Mecca, the remittance was accompanied with a supply of medicines and small stores for his journey, such as tea, chocolate, syrups, &c.

February 4.—This day was passed in writing letters of advice and bills of exchange on London, and a letter to the Emir Hyder, of Shumbalàn; also in arranging Miss W.’s papers. In addressing the bills of exchange to the house of Messrs. Coutts and Co., Lady Hester’s recollections were carried back to that opulent banker’s times. “One day,” said she, “on calling on Mr. Coutts, the old man happened to be very gay, and, on my entering his room, he addressed me thus:—‘I consider myself one of the most enviable of men: let me see—I have had the visit of one, two, three, four, five, six, and you make the seventh, of the handsomest women in London.’ The Miss Gubbinses had just been there—they went out as I entered; they were beautiful, doctor! On another occasion, old Coutts put his hands on each side of my face, and kissed me on the forehead, with an exclamation of ‘Good God! how like my old friend, your grandfather! You must forgive an old man, if he can’t refrain from almost embracing you—it is the exact sound of his voice. Ah!’ he continued, ‘I think I see him now, seated in that chair; and, after I had been explaining my views in politics, or on anything else, cutting them all up at once by something that was indisputable.’ That is, doctor, just as if a person had been going on explaining their views respecting a child, and another should say, ‘that’s all useless—the child is dead.’ My grandfather dived into futurity, as I do. Mr. Pitt, too, would often tell me how much I was like Lord Chatham, my grandfather. Sometimes, when I was speaking, he would exclaim, ‘Good God! if I were to shut my eyes, I should think it was my father! and, how odd! I heard him say almost those very words forty years ago.’ My grandfather, doctor,” said Lady Hester, going on, “had gray eyes like mine, and yet, by candlelight, from the expression that was in them, one would have thought them black. When he was angry, or speaking very much in earnest, nobody could look him in the face. His memory on things even of a common nature, and his observations, were striking. On passing a place where he had been ten years before, he would observe, that there used to be a tree, or a stone, or a something, that was gone, and on inquiry it always proved to be so; yet he travelled always with four horses, at a great rate.”

February 5.—The whole day was taken up in making a drawing to explain the nature of a forcing-pump, or engine, for watering the shrubs and flowers in Abdallah Pasha’s garden.

February 6.—From one in the afternoon until ten at night, not excepting the time we were at dinner, Lady Hester Stanhope talked of the Damascus affair, endeavouring to prove to me that my refusal would endanger my life, and embroil the government of Damascus with Mr. Farren, the new consul-general, who was expected from England; showing that, in her situation, where her consideration among the natives depended entirely on opinion, Mrs. ——’s opposition to her will, if not effectually put down, would be subversive of all her authority, and make it be supposed she was not the great personage she was held to be; inasmuch as, among Eastern nations, in all clans, communities, and separate governments, there was, and ought to be, but one will, which was that of the head. I admitted all this to be true; but told her, there seemed to be no other way of settling the affair than by our withdrawing at once to Europe. She gave me to understand we might certainly go if we liked, but that we should find it more difficult than I suspected. This was no idle threat of hers, and I knew it; for not a peasant would dare to let out his camels, mules, or asses, to one who was known to have incurred her displeasure; and to send to Sayda to hire them was equally impossible, seeing that no one would go willingly on such an errand; or, if he did, her influence extended far enough to frighten camel-drivers and muleteers from their engagement. The close of the conversation was a separation far from amicable; so that on the 8th, 9th, and 10th of February, I did not see her.

February 11, 1831.—My horse was sent over, and I remained from noon until my dinner-time. All was gentleness and urbanity. The conversation turned on Mr. Pitt, her father, and her brothers; on Tom Paine, Mr. Way, Mrs. Nash, and others. She seemed to be disposed to resort to her customary tactics, which were to make attacks at intervals, and then to wait a day or two, to see if they had taken effect. I will relate some of her anecdotes.

“Mr. Pitt loved ardently Lord A*******’s daughter,”[43] said Lady Hester Stanhope; “she was the only woman I could have wished him to marry. I had never seen her; and, as she frequented Beckenham church, I went on a visit to Mr. Grote’s, the banker, to get a sight of her. I went to church with Mr. Long’s brother, dean of somewhere, I forget now, a monstrous handsome man. As soon as we appeared in the pew, she knew who I was, and her whole body became of one deep red. A paleness followed; she drooped her head, put her hand to her face, and bent over her book, as if praying. When the service was over, I considered that the meeting with her was not a scene fit for the church-porch, but I was resolved to have a close look at her. As we approached her, she pretended to be talking in an animated manner with some of her party, but her attention was evidently turned towards me. When we saluted, I saw she was beautiful—very beautiful, doctor.

“Next day rat-tat-tat came a carriage and four to Mr. Grote’s door. ‘My dear Mr. Grote, we have long been neighbours, but I don’t know how it is, we have not seen so much of each other as we ought to have done.’ This was Lord A. and the mother. The young lady was more collected by this time, and the conversation went on very well. On the following day, Mr. Grote and I called at Lord A.’s; but, the porter not having received his instructions, we were rudely sent away. The carriage had hardly got twenty yards, when out came my lord, and a whole posse of them, with a thousand apologies for the blunders of servants; and we returned, and went in. She had been walking out, drawing, or something; and when she pushed up her bonnet, and turned her hair aside, oh, doctor, what a forehead was there!

“Poor Mr. Pitt almost broke his heart when he gave her up. But he considered that she was not a woman to be left at will when business might require it, and he sacrificed his feelings to his sense of public duty. Yet Mr. Pitt was a man just made for domestic life, who would have enjoyed retirement, digging his own garden, and doing it cleverly too. But it was God’s will it should be otherwise. I never saw her afterwards but once, when she was Lady B**************. Oh dear! how she was changed! I remember, it was at Lady Chatham’s. When I first knew her, she had a mouth no bigger than an eye. Well! on entering the room at Lady Chatham’s where she was, some years after her marriage, I recognized her no more than if I had never seen her. She saw it, and began speaking of persons with whom I was acquainted. This made me think the more who she could be; when, observing my embarrassment, she said, ‘I see, Lady Hester, you have forgotten me.’ Well, doctor, her mouth was grown quite large and ugly, and I have observed that it does, as people grow older;—I don’t know why: but look at mine, and you’ll see just the same thing.

“‘There were also other reasons,’ Mr. Pitt would say; ‘there is her mother, such a chatterer!—and then the family intrigues. I can’t keep them out of my house; and, for my king’s and country’s sake, I must remain a single man.’”[44]

Lady Hester said it was fine fun to see these match-making mothers bring their daughters down to Walmer to try to get Mr. P. into a scrape, and the extraordinary distance at which he contrived to keep them. Sometimes, if they approached him, or wanted to plant their daughters too near him, it was the fire was too warm, or the air from the window, or some excuse for removing his chair to a distance from them.

I observed, “it was not to be supposed that a man, buried in state affairs, could give a thought to the tender passion.”

“I beg your pardon,” she replied; “I have heard him talk in raptures of some women. He used to say, he considered no man ought to marry who could not give a proper share of his time to his wife; for, how would it be if he was always at the House, or in business, and she always at the opera, or whirling about in her carriage?”

“People thought Mr. Pitt did not care about women, and knew nothing about them; but they were very much mistaken. Mrs. B——s, of Devonshire, when she was Miss W——, was so pretty, that Mr. Pitt drank out of her shoe. Nobody understood shape, and beauty, and dress, better than he did; with a glance of his eye he saw it all at once. But the world was ignorant of much respecting him. Who ever thought that there was not a better judge of women in London than he? and not only of women as they present themselves to the eye, but that his knowledge was so critical that he could analyze their features and persons in a most masterly way. Not a defect, not a blemish, escaped him: he would detect a shoulder too high, a limp in the gait, where nobody else would have seen it; and his beauties were real, natural, beauties. In dress, too, his taste was equally refined. I never shall forget, when I had arranged the folds and drapery of a beautiful dress which I wore one evening, how he said to me, ‘Really, Hester, you are bent on conquest to-night: but would it be too bold in me, if I were to suggest that that particular fold’—and he pointed to a triangular fall which I had given to one part—‘were looped up so?’ and, would you believe it?—it was exactly what was wanting to complete the classical form of my dress. He was so in everything.

“Mr. Pitt used to say, when I went out in my habit and a sort of furred jacket, that women, when they rode out, generally looked such figures; but that I contrived to make a very handsome costume of it.

“He had so much urbanity, too! I recollect returning late from a ball, when he was gone to bed fatigued: there were others besides myself, and we made a good deal of noise. I said to him next morning, ‘I am afraid we disturbed you last night.’ ‘Not at all,’ he replied; ‘I was dreaming of the Mask of Comus, Hester, and, when I heard you all so gay, it seemed a pleasant reality.’

“To show you what an excellent heart Mr. Pitt had, and how full of sympathy he was for people whom others spurned, I’ll tell you what happened one day, when we were at Walmer. I said to him, ‘Who do you think is coming down to dinner to-night?’ ‘I don’t know, Hester: tell me.’ ‘Why,’ said I, ‘H**** D*****’s mistress:—oh! but I’ll pretty soon look her out of countenance.’ I was only in joke, doctor. H. D., who was by the same mother as Lord D., but born before the mother was married, had for his mistress a very excellent woman, whose meritorious conduct every body spoke of: so I thought I would have a little fun about her, and told Mr. Pitt that H. D. was going to bring her with him. ‘My dear Hester,’ cried Mr. Pitt, ‘for God’s sake, don’t distress the poor woman, if she is coming—now, pray, don’t!’ ‘Oh! yes, I will, I will,’ I replied. ‘Now, I entreat you,’ said Mr. Pitt. ‘Here she comes,’ cried I; and a post-chaise drove past us, near the drawbridge. Mr. Pitt turned his head towards me as it passed, pretending to be talking to me, ‘She is very pretty,’ said I. ‘Well,’ said Mr. Pitt, ‘I must go and give some orders about her room;’ and he was actually going to put her in the best room in the house, and to desire some other persons who were expected to be sent to the village, when I told him it was all a joke; for it was only H. D.’s post-chaise, with his man in it, come down before his master.”

Here Lady Hester Stanhope paused for a little time, as if musing; and, at length, led away by her reflections, when she resumed the conversation, she uttered certain sentiments, which, however startling in comparison with the mere conventional morality of society, I am emboldened to transcribe. “Doctor,” she said, in an impressive tone, “I saw in the newspapers an account of a poor creature found on the step of a door in some street in Westminster. She was named the Fair Ellen—a wretched outcast from society—and was in the last stage of starvation. A poor forlorn woman, like herself, found her there, took her home, sold her petticoat to relieve her, and, probably from her over-anxiety to give her something good for her weak stomach, fed her more than she was able to bear, and the Fair Ellen died. Now, doctor, let the friend of the fair Ellen come to me, and I will receive her to my bosom, and she shall be my friend; for such sentiments as hers will I honour and respect wherever I find them.” She went on: “How strange it is that immorality, in England, is met in some persons by such severity—much too great; and, in others, escapes animadversion! *   *   *   *   * The poor are spurned for errors not half so gross as what the wealthy my lords do in the open face of day, and set people at defiance to boot.”

“Lady Hamilton was brought from Wales in this manner, a fine, rosy-faced, and rather blowsy country girl. A set of virtuosoes wanted a model for a Venus, and some of them, who knew Lady H., fixed on her; but Sir W. H. took her out of their hands, and carried her to Naples. Yet how did she end?—with not money enough to bury her; and so did Mrs. Jordan.”[45]

February 12 to 18.—It rained so hard, that, for a week, we were almost confined to the house. Our good friends, Mr. and Mrs. Chasseaud, when it was possible, either came and passed the evening with us, or we went to their cottage. On awaking, on the morning of the 16th, we found the bed-room and the counterpane of our bed wet with the rain, which had penetrated the roof in every part, excepting, luckily, over the children’s bed. The bedding and carpets were obliged to be removed into another room. The day proved very stormy; and, for two or three days more, we were compelled to live and sleep in the same room, being the only one that was waterproof. The occasional squalls were so violent, that a gust of wind would whirl a large copper ewer to the distance of a yard. All the trelliscourt of our terrace was blown away, like chaff before the whirlwind.

February 21.—Nine hours were spent to-day in conversation with Lady Hester, from three in the afternoon until midnight. She spoke of Lord Stewart de Rothsay, of the Duke of Sussex, of Mr. Pitt, and many other persons. The weather was beautiful; and, although the sides of Mount Lebanon, only a few miles off, were covered with snow, we sat until sunset with the windows open. The climate of Syria is, probably, one of the most pure and balmy in the world.

Lady Hester, from one thing to another, returned to the subject of Mr. Pitt’s amiable disposition. “It is wonderful,” said she, “what a man Mr. Pitt was. Nobody would have suspected how much feeling he had for people’s comforts, who came to see him. Sometimes he would say to me, ‘Hester, you know we have got such a one coming down. I believe his wound is hardly well yet, and I heard him say, that he felt much relieved by fomentations of such an herb: perhaps you will see that he finds in his chamber all that he wants.’ Of another, he would say—‘I think he drinks ass’s milk; I should like him to have his morning’s draught.’ And I, who was born with such sensibility, that I must fidget myself about everybody, no matter whom, was always sure to exceed his wishes.

“Would you believe, doctor, that, in the last weeks of his last illness, he found time to think about his groom, in a way that nobody would have suspected in him? He had four grooms, who died of consumption, from being obliged to ride so hard after him; for they drank and caught cold, and so ruined their constitutions. This one I am speaking of, when first attacked in the lungs, was placed at Knightsbridge, and then sent to the seaside. One day, Mr. Pitt, speaking of him, said to me—‘The poor fellow, I am afraid, is very bad: I have been thinking of a way to give him a little consolation. I suspect he is in love with Mary, the housemaid; for, one morning, early, I found them talking closely together, and she was covered with blushes. Couldn’t you contrive, without hurting his feelings, to get her to attend on him in his illness?’

“Accordingly, soon after, when he was about to set off for Hastings, I went to see him. ‘Have you nobody,’ I asked him, ‘whom you would like to go to the sea-side with you?—your sister or your mother?’ ‘No, thank you, lady.’ ‘There is the still-room maid, would you like her?’ ‘Ah, my lady, she has a great deal to do, and is always wanted.’ From one to another, I, at last, mentioned Mary, and I saw I had hit on the right person; but, however, he only observed, he should like to see her before he went. Mary was, therefore, sent to him; and the result of their conversation was, that he told her he would marry her if he recovered, or leave her all he had if he died—which he did.

“Mr. Pitt once obtained a servant in a very odd way. Riding on the moors with a friend, they came to one of those flocks of geese, which, picked of their feathers, are driven about by a boy, with a bit of red rag at the end of a long stick. ‘We must ride round,’ said Mr. Pitt; ‘we shall never get through this immense flock.’ ‘Yes, but you may,’ cried a sharp-looking boy, who had heard him, ‘if you will only keep your horses quiet. Sh—sh—ee—ee—ayi—ayi!’ and the boy waved his stick here and there, and in a minute or two the flock opened, and, wheeling to the left and right in regular columns, made a passage, through which they rode. ‘That must be a clever lad,’ observed Mr. Pitt; ‘he manœuvres his little army in a wonderful manner—a general could not do it better;’ and he ordered the groom to inquire to whom he belonged. A day or two afterwards he was sent for, and put into the stables. Next, he was made an undergroom; then taken to town to wait on the upper servants, and afterwards made a footman; until, one day, Mr. Pitt, going down to Hollwood with Mr. Dundas, and three or four friends, to talk about some parliamentary business (a custom he had, when he wanted to discuss any particular plan in quiet), lo and behold! the cook fell down in an apoplectic fit, and died; and the butler, who saw it, was so affected that he was seized with a fit of the gout. This butler was also Mr. Pitt’s valet, on such occasions as when he was out of town for a day. Mr. Pitt was in a sad fidget about the dinner: but the young man in question said, ‘Don’t, sir, send off any express for a cook: if you think proper, the maid shall dress the dinner. These are all your intimate friends, and will take no notice: their servants as yet know nothing of the matter; for I thought they might be frightened to be where there is a dead man. Let me manage, and all will go well, without any alarm being spread.’ He, accordingly, dressed Mr. Pitt, saw to everything, and acquitted himself so well, that Mr. Pitt was more than satisfied with him, and soon afterwards made him his valet; but he did not live long enough to have his services recompensed. He died quite young, at twenty-seven. He was a man all fire and activity. Mr. Pitt would say to him, ‘You must go down to-day to such a place, and I shall be there the day after to-morrow.’ ‘You will excuse me, sir,’ the man would reply, ‘but I sha’n’t go; for, if I do, who will attend to you when you take your physic to-morrow? You will be busy, and put it off; and nobody knows how to give it but myself.’ ‘Well, well,’ Mr. Pitt would answer, ‘do so then;’ and would excuse him by an—‘Ah! he is very anxious about me—I must let him have his own way.’”

It was a remarkable proof of Lady Hester Stanhope’s memory, that, whatever subject she stumbled on, she had an inexhaustible fund of anecdotes ready; and, having got into the servants’ hall, she seemed as much at home there as in the drawing-room. She told me a pathetic history of a faithful servant, who, in the pecuniary distresses of his master, served him for several years with the purest disinterestedness. I was so touched by her eloquent and forcible manner of relating the story, and with the self-application that I made of it to my own tardiness in going to her in her distress, together with my present intention of leaving her, owing to our recent differences, that I burst into tears, and wept, as the expression is, bitterly. She soothed my feelings, endeavoured to calm my emotions, and disclaimed all intention of conveying any allusion to me. This led her to say, how little malice she ever entertained against any one, even towards those who had done her injury, much less against me, who had always shown my attachment to her: and she said that, even now, although she was going to lose me, still her thoughts did not run on her own situation so much as on what would become of me: and I firmly believed her.

February 23 to 26, 1831.—Another fresh trouble now harassed Lady Hester. Paolo, her Italian servant, who had been sent to Acre to assist in laying out the Pasha’s garden, made or received offers there to fill a good post in the Artillery, he having served as a soldier during Buonaparte’s campaigns. He, therefore, came back to her ladyship’s, to signify his intention of leaving his place, hoping she would, in consideration of his services, give him a character to the Pasha. There had been some shuffling in the business on Paolo’s part, so Lady Hester was determined to play him a trick, as he had tricked her. Instead, therefore, of a written good character, she put a blank sheet, undercover, to the Pasha; and, causing it to be directed with the customary titles and superscription to his highness, she gave it to Paolo, paid him his wages, and sent him off, exulting in the prospect of the lucrative post he was about to be promoted to. When he had obtained admittance to the Pasha, he presented his letter, and, the seal being broken, a blank sheet was all that the cover contained. Another letter to the Pasha, explaining what had been done, had been despatched by a special messenger, in which Lady Hester Stanhope showed Paolo’s unfitness for a gunner, and urged him not to expose his men to the chance of being blown to pieces at the cannon’s mouth by the ignorance of a man who would make a decent valet, but a very bad artilleryman. The Pasha took the hint, and sent Paolo about his business, who hastened back to Beyrout, and retreated, crestfallen, to Europe.

Nothing farther was said about the Damascus affair. A long letter, on the organization of a body of regular troops, was drawn up, and sent to Abdallah Pasha. This, with the trouble of translating it into Arabic, occupied three or four days. Letters were written to Dr. Dusap, of Cairo, relative to the purchase of some black slaves, to Lord Ebrington, and to some other persons, which filled up the time until March 7. The intervals of writing were devoted to conversations on the coming of the Murdah, or new Messiah, and Lady Hester laboured hard to make me a convert to her doctrines. She expressed her regret that the result of the fulfilment of her predictions would be for strangers, and not for her friends.