The Romance of Biography Volume II Part 2

E. WALLER."

Lady Sunderland had been married about three years; she and her youthful husband lived in the tenderest union, and she was already the happy mother of two fair infants, a son and a daughter,--when the civil wars broke out, and Lord Sunderland followed the King to the field. In the Sydney papers are some beautiful letters to his wife, written from the camp before Oxford. The last of these, which is in a strain of playful and affectionate gaiety, thus concludes,--"Pray bless Poppet for me![7] and tell her I would have wrote to her, but that, upon mature deliberation, I found it uncivil to return an answer to a lady in another character than her own, which I am not yet learned enough to do.--I beseech you to present his service to my Lady,[8] who is most pa.s.sionately and perfectly yours, &c.

"SUNDERLAND."

Three days afterwards this tender and gallant heart had ceased to beat: he was killed in the battle of Newbury, at the age of three-and-twenty.

His unhappy wife, on hearing the news of his death, was prematurely taken ill, and delivered of an infant, which died almost immediately after its birth. She recovered, however, from a dangerous and protracted illness, through the affectionate and unceasing attentions of her mother, Lady Leicester, who never quitted her for several months. Her father wrote her a letter of condolence, which would serve as a model for all letters on similar occasions. "I know," he says, "that it is to no purpose to advise you not to grieve; that is not my intention: for such a loss as yours, cannot be received indifferently by a nature so tender and sensible as yours," &c. After touching lightly and delicately on the obvious sources of consolation, he reminds her, that her duty to the dead requires her to be careful of herself, and not hazard her very existence by the indulgence of grief. "You offend him whom you loved, if you hurt that person whom he loved; remember how apprehensive he was of your danger, how grieved for any thing that troubled you! I know you lived happily together, so as n.o.body but yourself could measure the contentment of it. I rejoiced at it, and did thank G.o.d for making me one of the means to procure it for you," &c.[9]

Those who have known deep sorrow, and felt what it is to shrink with shattered nerves and a wounded spirit from the busy hand of consolation, fretting where it cannot heal, will appreciate such a letter as this.

Lady Sunderland, on her recovery, retired from the world, and centering all her affections in her children, seemed to live only for them. She resided, after her widowhood, at Althorpe, where she occupied herself with improving the house and gardens. The fine hall and staircase of that n.o.ble seat, which are deservedly admired for their architectural beauty, were planned and erected by her. After the lapse of about thirteen years, her father, Lord Leicester, prevailed on her to choose one from among the numerous suitors who sought her hand: he dreaded, lest on his death, she should be left unprotected, with her infant children, in those evil times; and she married, in obedience to his wish, Sir Robert Smythe, of Sutton, who was her second cousin, and had long been attached to her. She lived to see her eldest son, the second Earl of Sunderland, a man of transcendant talents, but versatile principles, at the head of the government, and had the happiness to close her eyes before he had abused his admirable abilities, to the vilest purposes of party and court intrigue. The Earl was appointed princ.i.p.al Secretary of State in 1682: his mother died in 1683.

There is a fine portrait of Sacharissa at Blenheim, of which there are many engravings. It must have been painted by Vand.y.k.e, shortly after her marriage, and before the death of her husband. If the withered branch, to which she is pointing, be supposed to allude to her widowhood, it must have been added afterwards, as Vand.y.k.e died in 1641, and Lord Sunderland in 1643. In the gallery at Althorpe, there are three pictures of this celebrated woman. One represents her in a hat, and at the age of fifteen or sixteen, gay, girlish, and blooming: the second, far more interesting, was painted about the time of her first marriage: it is exceedingly sweet and lady-like. The features are delicate, with redundant light brown air, and eyes and eyebrows of a darker hue; the bust and hands very exquisite: on the whole, however, the high breeding of the face and air is more conspicuous than the beauty of the person.

These two portraits are by Vand.y.k.e; nor ought I to forget to mention that the painter himself was supposed to have indulged a respectful but ardent pa.s.sion for Lady Sunderland, and to have painted her portrait literally _con amore_.[10]

A third picture represents her about the time of her second marriage: the expression wholly changed,--cold, faded, sad, but still sweet-looking and delicate. One might fancy her contemplating with a sick heart, the portrait of Lord Sunderland, the lover and husband of her early youth, and that of her unfortunate but celebrated brother, Algernon Sydney; both which hang on the opposite side of the gallery.

The present Duke of Marlborough, and the present Earl Spencer, are the lineal descendants of Waller's Sacharissa.

One little incident, somewhat prosaic indeed, proves how little heart there was in Waller's poetical attachment to this beautiful and admirable woman. When Lady Sunderland, after a retirement of thirty years, re-appeared in the court she had once adorned, she met Waller at Lady Wharton's, and addressing him with a smiling courtesy, she reminded him of their youthful days:--"When," said she, "will you write such fine verses on me again?"--"Madam," replied Waller, "when your Ladyship is young and handsome again." This was contemptible and coa.r.s.e,--the sentiment was not that of a well-bred or a feeling man, far less that of a lover or a poet,--no!

Love is not love, That alters where it alteration finds.

One would think that the sight of a woman, whom he had last seen in the full bloom of youth and glow of happiness,--who had endured, since they parted, such extremity of affliction, as far more than avenged his wounded vanity, might have awakened some tender thoughts, and called forth a gentler reply. When some one expressed surprise to Petrarch, that Laura, no longer young, had still power to charm and inspire him, he answered, "Piaga per allentar d'arco non sana,"--"The wound is not healed though the bow be unbent." This was in a finer spirit.

Something in the same character, as his reply to Lady Sunderland, was Waller's famous repartee, when Charles the Second told him that his lines on Oliver Cromwell were better than those written on his royal self. "Please your Majesty, we poets succeed better in fiction than in truth." Nothing could be more admirably _apropos_, more witty, more courtier-like: it was only _false_, and in a poor, time-serving spirit.

It showed as much meanness of soul as presence of mind. What true poet, who felt as a poet, would have said this?

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Alluding to the two heroines of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia; Sacharissa was the grandniece of that _preux chevalier_, and hence the frequent allusions to his name and fame.

[4] Alluding to Sir Philip Sydney.

[5] Lines on her picture.

[6] Sacharissa, the poetical name Waller himself gave her, signifies _sweetness_.

[7] His infant daughter, then about two years old, afterwards Marchioness of Halifax.

[8] The Countess's mother, Lady Leicester, who was then with her at Althorpe.

[9] Sydney's Memorials, vol. ii. p. 271.

[10] See State Poems, vol. iii. p. 396.

CHAPTER III.

BEAUTIES AND POETS.

Nearly contemporary with Waller's Sacharissa lived several women of high rank, distinguished as munificent patronesses of poetry, and favourite themes of poets, for the time being. There was the Countess of Pembroke, celebrated by Ben Jonson,

The subject of all verse, Sydney's sister, Pembroke's mother.

There was the famous Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle, very clever, and very fantastic, who aspired to be the Aspasia, the De Rambouillet of her day, and did not quite succeed. She was celebrated by almost all the contemporary poets, and even in French, by Voiture. There was Lucy Harrington, Countess of Bedford, who, notwithstanding the accusation of vanity and extravagance which has been brought against her, was an amiable woman, and munificently rewarded, in presents and pensions, the incense of the poets around her. I know not what her Ladyship may have paid for the following exquisite lines by Ben Jonson; but the reader will agree with me, that it could not have been _too_ much.

ON LUCY COUNTESS OF BEDFORD.

This morning, timely rapt with holy fire, I thought to form unto my zealous muse What kind of creature I could most desire To honour, serve, and love; as poets use: I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise, Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great.

I meant the day-star should not brighter rise, Nor lend like influence from his ancient seat.

I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet, Hating that solemn vice of greatness, _pride_; I meant each softest virtue there should meet, Fit in that softer bosom to reside.

Only a learned, and a manly soul I purpos'd her; that should, with even powers, The rock, the spindle, and the sheers controul Of destiny, and spin her own free hours.

Such when I meant to feign, and wished to see, My muse bade Bedford write,--and that was she.

There was also the "beautiful and every way excellent" Lady Anne Rich,[11] the daughter-in-law of her who was so loved by Sir Philip Sydney; and the memorable and magnificent--but somewhat masculine--Anne Clifford, Countess of c.u.mberland, Pembroke, and Dorset, who erected monuments to Spenser, Drayton, and Daniel; and above them all, though living a little later, the Queen herself, Henrietta Maria, whose feminine caprices, French graces, and brilliant eyes, rendered her a very splendid and fruitful theme for the poets of the time.[12]

There was at this time a kind of traffic between rich beauties and poor poets. The ladies who, in earlier ages, were proud in proportion to the quant.i.ty of blood spilt in honour of their charms, were now seized with a pa.s.sion for being berhymed. Surrey, and his Geraldine, began this taste in England by introducing the school of Petrarch: and Sir Philip Sydney had entreated women to listen to those poets who promised them immortality,--"For thus doing, ye shall be most fair, most wise, most rich, most every thing!--ye shall dwell upon superlatives:"[13] and women believed accordingly. In spite of the satirist, I do maintain, that the love of praise and the love of pleasing are paramount in our s.e.x, both to the love of pleasure and the love of sway.

This connection between the high-born beauties and the poets was at first delightful, and honourable to both: but, in time, it became degraded and abused. The fees paid for dedications, odes, and sonnets, were any thing but sentimental:--can we wonder if, under such circ.u.mstances, the profession of a poet "was connected with personal abas.e.m.e.nt, which made it disreputable?"[14] or, that women, while they required the tribute, despised those who paid it,--and were paid for it?--not in sweet looks, soft smiles, and kind wishes, but with silver and gold, a cover at her ladyship's table "below the salt," or a bottle of sack from my lord's cellar. It followed, as a thing of course, that our amatory and lyric poetry declined, and instead of the genuine rapture of tenderness, the glow of imagination, and all "the purple light of love," we have too often only a heap of glittering and empty compliment and metaphysical conceits.--It was a miserable state of things.

It must be confessed that the aspiring loves of some of our poets have not proved auspicious even when successful. Dryden married Lady Elizabeth Howard, the daughter of the Earl of Berkshire: but not "all the blood of all the Howards" could make her either wise or amiable: he had better have married a milkmaid. She was weak in intellect, and violent in temper. Sir Walter Scott observes, very feelingly, that "The wife of one who is to gain his livelihood by poetry, or by any labour (if any there be,) equally exhausting, must either have taste enough to relish her husband's performances, or good nature sufficient to pardon his infirmities." It was Dryden's misfortune, that Lady Elizabeth had neither one nor the other.

Of all our really great poets, Dryden is the one least indebted to woman, and to whom, in return, women are least indebted: he is almost devoid of _sentiment_ in the true meaning of the word.--"His idea of the female character was low;" his homage to beauty was not of that kind which beauty should be proud to receive.[15] When he attempted the praise of women, it was in a strain of fulsome, far-fetched, laboured adulation, which betrayed his insincerity; but his genius was at home when we were the subject of licentious tales and coa.r.s.e satire.

It was through this inherent want of refinement and true respect for our s.e.x, that he deformed Boccaccio's lovely tale of Gismunda; and as the Italian novelist has sins enough of his own to answer for, Dryden might have left him the beauties of this tender story, unsullied by the profane coa.r.s.eness of his own taste. In his tragedies, his heroines on stilts, and his drawcansir heroes, whine, rant, strut and rage, and tear pa.s.sion to tatters--to very rags; but love, such as it exists in gentle, pure, unselfish bosoms--love, such as it glows in the pages of Shakspeare and Spenser, Petrarch and Ta.s.so,--such love

As doth become mortality Glancing at heaven,

he could not imagine or appreciate, far less express or describe. He could pourtray a Cleopatra; but he could not conceive a Juliet. His ideas of our s.e.x seem to have been formed from a profligate actress,[16]

and a silly, wayward, provoking wife; and we have avenged ourselves,--for Dryden is not the poet of women; and, of all our English cla.s.sics, is the least honoured in a lady's library.

Dryden was the original of the famous repartee to be found, I believe, in every jest book: shortly after his marriage, Lady Elizabeth, being rather annoyed at her husband's very studious habits, wished herself _a book_, that she might have a little more of his attention.--"Yes, my dear," replied Dryden, "an almanack."--"Why an almanack?" asked the wife innocently.--"Because then, my dear, I should change you once a year."

The laugh, of course, is on the side of the wit; but Lady Elizabeth was a young spoiled beauty of rank, married to a man she loved; and her wish, methinks, was very feminine and natural: if it was spoken with petulance and bitterness, it deserved the repartee; if with tenderness and playfulness, the wit of the reply can scarcely excuse its ill-nature.

Addison married the Countess of Warwick. Poor man! I believe his patrician bride did every thing but beat him. His courtship had been long, timid, and anxious; and at length, the lady was persuaded to marry him, on terms much like those on which a Turkish Princess is espoused, to whom the Sultan is reported to p.r.o.nounce, "Daughter, I give thee this man to be thy slave."[17] They were only three years married, and those were years of bitterness.

Young, the author of the Night Thoughts, married Lady Elizabeth Lee, the daughter of the Earl of Litchfield, and grand-daughter of the too famous, or more properly, infamous d.u.c.h.ess of Cleveland:--the marriage was not a happy one. I think, however, in the two last instances, the ladies were not entirely to blame.

But these, it will be said, are the wives of poets, not the loves of the poets; and the phrases are not synonymus,--_au contraire_. This is a question to be asked and examined; and I proceed to examine it accordingly. But as I am about to take the field on new ground, it will require a new chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Daughter of the first Earl of Devonshire, of the Cavendish family.

She was celebrated by Sidney G.o.dolphin in some very sweet lines, which contain a lovely female portrait. Waller's verses on her sudden death are remarkable for a signal instance of the Bathos,