Volume II Part 17 (1/2)
The d.u.c.h.ess of Queensbury died in 1777.[104]
Two other women, who lived about the same time, possess a degree of celebrity which, though but a sound--a name--rather than a feeling or an interest, must not pa.s.s unnoticed; more particularly as they will farther ill.u.s.trate the theory we have hitherto kept in view. I allude to ”Granville's Mira,” and ”Prior's Chloe.”
For the fame of the first, a single line of Pope has done more than all the verses of Lord Lansdown: it is in the Epistle to Jervas the painter--
With Zeuxis' Helen, thy Bridgewater vie, And these be sung, till Granville's Mira die!
Now, ”Granville's Mira” would have been _dead_ long ago, had she not been preserved in some material more precious and lasting than the poetry of her n.o.ble admirer: she s.h.i.+nes, however, ”embalmed in the lucid amber” of Pope's lines; and we not only wonder how she got there, but are tempted to inquire who she was, or, if ever she was at all.
Granville's Mira was Lady Frances Brudenel, third daughter of the Earl of Cardigan. She was married very young to Livingstone, Earl of Newburgh; and Granville's first introduction to her must have taken place soon after her marriage, in 1690: he was then about twenty, already distinguished for that elegance of mind and manner, which has handed him down to us as ”Granville the polite.” He joined the crowd of Lady Newburgh's adorers; and as some praise, and some lucky lines had persuaded him that he was a poet, he chose to consecrate his verse to this fas.h.i.+onable beauty.
In all the ma.s.s of poetry, or rather rhyme, addressed to Lady Newburgh, there is not a pa.s.sage,--not a single line which can throw an interest round her character; all we can make out is, that she was extremely beautiful; that she sang well; and that she was a most finished, heartless coquette. Thus her lover has pictured her:
Lost in a labyrinth of doubts and joys, Whom now her smiles revived, her scorn destroys; She will, and she will not, she grants, denies, Consents, retracts; advances, and then flies.
Approving and rejecting in a breath, Now proffering mercy, now presenting death!
She led Granville on from year to year, till the death of her first husband, Lord Newburgh. He then presented himself among the suitors for her hand, confiding, it seems, in former encouragement or promises; but Lady Newburgh had played the same despicable game with others: she had no objection to the poetical admiration of an accomplished young man of fas.h.i.+on, who had rendered her an object of universal attention, by his determined pursuit and tuneful homage, and who was then the admired of all women. She thought, like the coquette, in one of Congreve's comedies,
If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see The heart that others bleed for--bleed for me!
But when free to choose, she rejected him and married Lord Bellew. Her coquetry with Granville had been so notorious, that this marriage caused a great sensation at the time and no little scandal.
Rumour is loud, and every voice proclaims Her violated faith and conscious flames.
The only catastrophe, however, which her falsehood occasioned, was the production of a long elegy, in imitation of Theocritus, which concludes Lord Lansdown's amatory effusions. He afterwards married Lady Anne Villiers, with whom he lived happily: after a union of more than twenty years, they died within a few days of each other, and they were buried together.
Lady Newburgh left a daughter by her first husband,[105] and a son and daughter by Lord Bellew: she lived to survive her beauty, to lose her admirers, and to be the object in her old age of the most gross and unmeasured satire; the flattery of a lover elevated her to a divinity, and the malice of a wit, whom she had ill-treated, degraded her into a fury and a hag--with about as much reason.
Prior's Chloe, the ”nut-brown maid,” was taken from the opposite extremity of society, but could scarce have been more worthless. She was a common woman of the lowest description, whose real name was, I believe, Nancy Derham,--but it is not a matter of much importance.
Prior's attachment to this woman, however unmerited, was very sincere.
For her sake he quitted the high society into which his talents and his political connexions had introduced him; and for her, he neglected, as he tells us--
Whate'er the world thinks wise and grave, Ambition, business, friends.h.i.+p, news, My useful books and serious muse,
to bury himself with her in some low tavern for weeks together. Once when they quarrelled, she ran away and carried off his plate; but even this could not shake his constancy: at his death he left her all he possessed, and she--his Chloe--at whose command and in whose honour he wrote his ”Henry and Emma,”--married a cobler![106] Such was Prior's Chloe.
Is it surprising that the works of a poet once so popular, should now be banished from a Lady's library?--a banishment from which all his sprightly wit cannot redeem him.--But because Prior's love for this woman was real, and that he was really a man of feeling and genius, though debased by low and irregular habits, there are some sweet touches scattered through his poetry, which show how strong was the illusion in his fancy:--as in ”Chloe Jealous.”
Reading thy verse, ”who cares,” said I, ”If here or there his glances flew?
O free for ever be his eye, Whose heart to me is always true!”
And in his ”Answer to Chloe Jealous.”
O when I am wearied with wandering all day, To thee, my delight, in the evening I come.
No matter what beauties I saw in my way, They were but my visits, but thou art my home!