Before and after Waterloo Part 1

Before and after Waterloo.

by Edward Stanley.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF EDWARD STANLEY

The letters which are collected in this volume were written from abroad during the opening years of the nineteenth century, at three different periods: after the Peace of Amiens in 1802 and 1803, after the Peace of Paris in 1814, and in the year following Waterloo, June, 1816.

The writer, Edward Stanley, was for thirty-three years an active country clergyman, and for twelve years more a no less active bishop, at a time when such activity was uncommon, though not so rare as is sometimes now supposed.

Although a member of one of the oldest Cheshire families, he did not share the opinions of his county neighbours on public questions, and his voice was fearlessly raised on behalf of causes which are now triumphant, and against abuses which are now forgotten, but which acutely needed champions and reformers a hundred years ago.

His foreign journeys, and more especially the first of them, had a large share in determining the opinions which he afterwards maintained against great opposition from many of his own cla.s.s and profession. The sight of France still smarting under the effects of the Reign of Terror, and of other countries still sunk in Mediaevalism, helped to make him a Liberal with "a pa.s.sion for reform and improvement, but without a pa.s.sion for destruction."

He was born in 1779, the second son and youngest child of Sir John Stanley, the Squire of Alderley in Cheshire, and of his wife Margaret Owen (the Welsh heiress of Penrhos in Holyhead Island), who was one of the "seven lovely Peggies," well known in Anglesey society in the middle of the eighteenth century.

The pictures of Edward Stanley and his mother, which still hang on the walls of her Anglesey home, show that he inherited the brilliant Welsh colouring, marked eyebrows and flashing dark eyes that gave force as well as beauty to her face. From her, too, came the romantic Celtic imagination and fiery energy which enabled him to find interests everywhere, and to make his mark in a career which was not the one he would have chosen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Margaret Owen, Lady Stanley.

n. 1742 ob. 1816._]

"In early years" (so his son the Dean of Westminster records) "he had acquired a pa.s.sion for the sea, which he cherished down to the time of his entrance at college, and which never left him through life. It first originated, as he believed, in the delight which he experienced, when between three and four years of age, on a visit to the seaport of Weymouth; and long afterwards he retained a vivid recollection of the point where he caught the first sight of a ship, and shed tears because he was not allowed to go on board. So strongly was he possessed by the feeling thus acquired, that as a child he used to leave his bed and sleep on the shelf of a wardrobe, for the pleasure of imagining himself in a berth on board a man-of-war.... The pa.s.sion was overruled by circ.u.mstances beyond his control, but it gave a colour to his whole after-life. He never ceased to retain a keen interest in everything relating to the navy.... He seemed instinctively to know the history, character, and state of every ship and every officer in the service. Old naval captains were often astonished at finding in him a more accurate knowledge than their own of when, where, how, and under whom, such and such vessels had been employed. The stories of begging impostors professing to be shipwrecked seamen were detected at once by his cross-examinations. The sight of a ship, the society of sailors, the embarkation on a voyage, were always sufficient to inspirit and delight him wherever he might be."

His life, when at his mother's home on the Welsh coast, only increased this liking, and till he went to Cambridge in 1798 his education had not been calculated to prepare him for a clerical life. He never received any instruction in cla.s.sics; of Greek and Latin and mathematics he knew nothing, and owing to his schools and tutors being constantly changed, his general knowledge was of a desultory sort.

His force of character, great perseverance and ambition to excel are shown in the strenuous manner in which he overcame all these obstacles, and at the close of his college career at St. John's, Cambridge, became a wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos of 1802.

After a year pa.s.sed in foreign travel Edward Stanley returned home at his brother's request, and took command of the Alderley Volunteers--a corps of defence raised by him on the family estate in expectation of a French invasion.

In 1803 he was ordained and became curate of Windlesham, in Surrey.

There he remained until he was presented by his father in 1805 to the living of Alderley, where he threw himself enthusiastically into his work.

Alderley parish had long been neglected, and there was plenty of scope for the young Rector.

Before he came, the clerk used to go to the churchyard stile to see whether there were any more coming to church, for there were seldom enough to make a congregation, but before Edward Stanley left, his parish was one of the best organised of the day. He set on foot schemes of education throughout the county as well as at Alderley, and was foremost in all reforms.

The Chancellor of the diocese wrote of him: "He inherited from his family strong Whig principles, which he always retained, and he never shrank from advocating those maxims of toleration which at that time formed the chief watchwords of the Whig party."

He was the first who distinctly saw and boldly advocated the advantages of general education for the people, and set the example of the extent to which general knowledge might be communicated in a parochial school.

"To a.n.a.lyse the actual effects of his ministrations on the people would be difficult, ... but the general result was what might have been expected. Dissent was all but extinguished. The church was filled, the communicants many."

He helped to found a Clerical Society, which promoted friendly intercourse with clergy holding various views, and was never afraid of avowing his opinions on subjects he thought vital, lest he should in consequence become unpopular.

He grudged no trouble about anything he undertook, and the people rejoiced when they heard "the short, quick tramp of his horse's feet as he went galloping up their lanes." The sick were visited and cheered, and the children kindly cared for in and out of school.

It was said of him that "whenever there was a drunken fight in the village and he knew of it, he would always come out to stop it--there was such a spirit in him."

Tidings were once brought to him of a riotous crowd, which had a.s.sembled to witness a desperate prize fight, adjourned to the outskirts of his parish, and which the respectable inhabitants were unable to disperse.

"The whole field" (so one of the humbler neighbours represented it) "was filled and all the trees round about, when in about a quarter of an hour I saw the Rector coming up the road on his little black horse as quick as lightning, and I trembled for fear they should harm him. He rode into the field and just looked round as if he thought the same, to see who there was that would be on his side. But it was not needed; he rode into the midst of the crowd and in one moment it was all over. There was a great calm; the blows stopped; it was as if they would all have wished to cover themselves up in the earth. All from the trees they dropped down directly. No one said a word and all went away humbled."

The next day the Rector sent for the two men, not to scold them, but to speak to them, and sent them each away with a Bible. The effect on the neighbourhood was very great, and put a stop to the practice which had been for some time prevalent in the adjacent districts.

His influence was increased by his early knowledge of the people, and by the long connection of his family with the place.

Two years after Edward had accepted the inc.u.mbency, his father died in London, but he had long before given up living in Cheshire, and Alderley Park had been occupied at his desire by his eldest son, afterwards Sir John, who had made his home there since his marriage in 1796.

Both the Stanley brothers married remarkable women. Lady Maria Josepha Holroyd, Sir John's wife, was the elder daughter of the first Lord Sheffield, the friend and biographer of Gibbon, and her strong personality impressed every one who met her.

Catherine, wife of the Rector, was the daughter of the Rev. Oswald Leycester, of Stoke Rectory, in Shropshire. Her father was one of the Leycesters of Toft House, only a few miles from Alderley, and at Toft most of Catherine's early years were spent. She was engaged to Edward Stanley before she was seventeen, but did not marry him till nearly two years later, in 1810.

During the interval she spent some time in London with Sir John and Lady Maria Stanley, and in the literary society of the opening years of the nineteenth century she was much sought after for her charm and appreciativeness, and for what Sydney Smith called her "porcelain understanding." The wits and lions of the Miss Berrys' parties vied with each other in making much of her; Rogers and Scott delighted in her conversation--in short, every one agreed, as her sister-in-law Maria wrote, that "in Kitty Leycester Edward will indeed have a treasure."

After her marriage she kept up with her friends by active correspondence and by annual visits to London. Still, "to the outside world she was comparatively unknown; but there was a quiet wisdom, a rare unselfishness, a calm discrimination, a firm decision which made her judgment and her influence felt through the whole circle in which she lived." Her power and charm, coupled with her husband's, made Alderley Rectory an inspiring home to their children, several of whom inherited talent to a remarkable degree.

Her sister Maria[1] writes from Hodnet, the home of the poet Heber: "I want to know all you have been doing since the day that bore me away from happy Alderley. Oh! the charm of a rectory inhabited by a Reginald Heber or an Edward Stanley!"

That Rectory and its surroundings have been perfectly described in the words of the author of "Memorials of a Quiet Life"[2]: "A low house, with a verandah forming a wide balcony for the upper storey, where bird-cages hung among the roses; its rooms and pa.s.sages filled with pictures, books, and old carved oak furniture. In a country where the flat pasture lands of Cheshire rise suddenly to the rocky ridge of Alderley Edge, with the Holy Well under an overhanging cliff; its gnarled pine-trees, its storm-beaten beacon tower ready to give notice of an invasion, and looking far over the green plain to the smoke which indicates in the horizon the presence of the great manufacturing towns."

There was constant intercourse between the Park and the Rectory, and the two families with a large circle of friends led most interesting and busy lives. The Rector took delight in helping his seven nieces with their Italian and Spanish studies, in fostering their love of poetry and natural history, and in developing the minds of his own young children.

He wrote plays for them to act and birthday odes for them to recite.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FLIGHT OF INTELLECT

Skit on the recent discovery of the motive power of steam.--E. Stanley.

_To face p. 17._]

Legends of the countryside, domestic tragedies and comedies were turned into verse, whether it were the Cheshire legend of the Iron Gates or the fall of Sir John Stanley and his spectacles into the Alderley mere, the discovery of a b.u.t.terfly or the loss of "a superfine piece of Bala flannel."

His caricatures ill.u.s.trated his droll ideas, as in his sketches of the six "Ologies from Entomology to Apology." His witty and graceful "Bustle's Banquet" or the "Dinner of the Dogs" made a trio with the popular poems then recently published of the "b.u.t.terfly's Ball" and "The Peac.o.c.k at Home."

"And since Insects give b.a.l.l.s and Birds are so gay, 'Tis high time to prove that we Dogs have our day."

He wrote a "Familiar History of Birds," ill.u.s.trated by many personal observations, for throughout his life he never lost a chance of watching wild bird life. In his early days he had had special opportunities of doing so among the rocks and caverns of Holyhead Island. He tells of the myriads of sea-birds who used to haunt the South Stack Rock there, in the days when it was almost inaccessible; and of their dispersal by the building of the first lighthouse there in 1808, when for a time they deserted it and never returned in such numbers.

His own family at Alderley Rectory consisted of three sons and two daughters.

The eldest son, Owen, had his father's pa.s.sion for the sea, and was allowed to follow his bent. His scientific tastes led him to adopt the surveying branch of his profession, and in 1836, when appointed to the _Terror_ on her expedition to the North Seas, he had charge of the astronomical and magnetic operations.

When in command of the _Britomart_, in 1840, he secured the North Island of New Zealand to the English by landing and hoisting the British flag, having heard that a party of French emigrants intended to land that day.

They did so, but under the protection of the Union Jack.

In 1846 Owen Stanley commanded the _Rattlesnake_ in an important and responsible expedition to survey the unknown coast of New Guinea; this lasted four years and was very successful, but the great strain and the shock of his brother Charles' death at Hobart Town, at this time, were too much for him. He died suddenly on board his ship at Sydney in 1850, "after thirty-three years' arduous service in every clime."

Professor Huxley, in whose arms he breathed his last, was surgeon to this expedition, and his first published composition was an article describing it. He speaks of Owen Stanley thus: "Of all those who were actively engaged upon the survey, the young commander alone was destined to be robbed of his just rewards; he has raised an enduring monument in his works, and his epitaph shall be the grateful thanks of many a mariner threading his way among the mazes of the Coral Seas."