JAMES, first Earl Stanhope, distinguished himself during the reigns of William III. Anne, and George I. as a soldier, statesman, and diplomatist. His son, Philip, who succeeded him, was a man equally remarkable for his mathematical attainments and his liberal political opinions. His son, again, Charles -third earl-had more genius than the other two put together, though it was accompanied by an extraordinary eccentricity of character. His mechanical inventions were numerous. Among them were a form of printing press, which still bears his name, an improved lock-system for canals, and two curious. calculating machines, one of which performed addition and subtraction, the other multiplication and division. In politics he was an ardent Republican, and wrote a reply-able enough from his point of view-to Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution. He married a daughter of the great Lord Chatham, and a sister of the, perhaps, no less great William Pitt.

Hester Stanhope was the first child born of this marriage. She came into the world in 1776. Four years later, she and her two younger sisters, Griselda and Lucy, lost their mother. Their father, in the following year, married a second By his second wife he had three sons.

Little Hester and her sisters, during their early childhood, were left much to the management of governesses and maidservants. Their stepmother was devoted to the world and its pleasures. It would seem that, when in London, she rose at ten, and spent the morning in having her hair dressed by a French coiffeur, visits, dinner, the opera, and card parties occupying the remainder of the day. Their father was absorbed in his scientific pursuits, and took but little notice of them.

As for her Swiss governesses, Lady Hester found their rule intolerable, and, in after years, denounced their system of training in no measured language. They subjected her to torture with the back-board, squeezed in her waist to what appeared to them a proper degree of slimness, and, worst of all, endeavored to flatten her foot by pressure—that foot

the instep of which was so high that "a kitten could walk under the sole of it !'' Like all precocious children, she was constantly asking embarrassing questions, and as constantly being told that, on the topics she had chosen for inquiry, she must remain uninformed till she grew older. In spite of these checks to perfect knowledge, which irritated her considerably, she managed to lead a happy life enough. Her lessons were no trouble to her. She passed her leisure hours in riding or roaming about the delightful grounds of Chevening, and in building castles in the air. She grew up handsome.

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ing over old times, 'At twenty," she said of herself when talkmy complexion was like alabaster, and at five paces distance the sharpest eye could not distinguish my pearl necklace from my skin; my lips were of such a beautiful carnation that, without vanity, I can affirm that very few women had the like. A dark blue shade under the eyes, and the blue veins that were observable through the transparent skin, heightened the brilliancy of my features. Nor were the roses wanting in my cheeks; and to all this was added a permanency in my looks that fatigue of no sort could impair."

Her powers of conversation were to match, and she had as high an opinion of them as of her personal attractions. "In my language, she declared, "there was something striking and original that caught everybody's attention."

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Her father's republican mania advanced apace. It had already driven him to the commission of strange actions. He had put down his carriage and horses, had caused his arms and coronet to be removed from his plate, and had consigned to a garret some splendid Spanish tapestry, with which one of the rooms at Chevening was hung, on the ground that such furniture was aristocratical." He resolved to have his two younger sons, now growing up, apprenticed to trades. His two younger daughters escaped from his control by marrying; but Lady Hester, who remained beneath his roof until she was twenty-four, at length received such harsh treatment at his hands that she quitted Chevening for good in 1800, and went to live with her maternal grand

*

mother, the Dowager Lady Chatham, at Burton Pynsent, in Somersetshire. Here she found a comfortable home, with sober, staid, yet kind companionship, and what she valued perhaps more than all-unrestricted liberty. Her frank, fearless disposition made her a favorite among the neighbors. She was a daring horsewoman, and thought nothing of breaking in young animals which nobody else would venture to mount. She went up occasionally to town, and was there introduced to her kinsman Lord Camelford, who, being a notorious bully, and a skilful marksman, was the terror of the milder portion of male society. This strange man seems to have had a power of fascinating those with whom he sympathized. Lady Hester took a fancy to him, and he to her; and old Lady Chatham, knowing his evil reputation, was in alarm lest the cousins should make a match of it. However, they never did. His crack-brained lordship drove the dashing Lady Hester about in his curricle, and on one occasion nearly strangled before her eyes a turnpike gateman who had tendered him some false coppers in change. Another day, when she dined with a party of friends at Richmond, he placed several of his carriages at her disposal; and she, writing afterward to Mrs. Stapleton, the friend and companion of her grandmother, to record the event, says:

After a most pleasant dinner, which was made particularly so by some of the prince's regiment joining us at Richmond, I drove Lord Camelford's curricle back to town, with a smart man and two beaux in his gig, a German wagon and four, and two or three more open carriages. I took the lead, and arrived in town

about eleven at night, took up Lord Camelford in Bond Street, and went on to supper at Mrs. Egerton's."t

In March, 1801, William Pitt, who for seventeen years had been Prime Minister, resigned on the question of Catholic Emancipation, and gave place to Mr. Addington. Freed thus, for a space, from the cares of office, he retired to Walmer Castle, his residence as

Lord Camelford was killed by Mr. Best, in a duel of his own seeking, four years afterward.

The letter from which this is an extract will be found in the Appendix to the 44 Memoirs" of the late Lord Combermere.

Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and spent his time in farming and other country pursuits. He was visited from time to time by a few chosen friends; but in the autumn of 1802 a new sort of guest appeared, in the person of his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope, who took Walmer on her road to Dover, where she was to embark for a tour abroad with her Cheshire friends the Egertons. The visit, though brief, was a success in every way. A day or two before leaving the castle, again addressing Mrs. Stapleton, she expresses herself thus :

"I have so many letters to write in Mr. Pitt's absence that I will not enter upon his praises, which neither my heart nor my pen could do justice to. To tell you how happy I am here pliment to the powers of your imagination. I in his society would be paying a very bad comhave not seen a female face since I arrived, only just that society I should always like to live in-delightful Mr. Long, Mr. Steele, and Mr. Canning. I love the friends of great men as much as I hate the company of toadeaters."

*

Lady Hester and the Egertons spent several months abroad. During her absence her grandmother died. On her return, therefore, to this country, she had no home to which to go. Being long since estranged from her father, she could not repair to Chevening.

"Of her two uncles," writes the late Lord

Stanhope, "Lord Chatham, since the death of the Dowager Countess, had taken the charge of another and an orphan niece, Miss Eliot. There remained to Lady Hester only the hope of Mr. Pitt. But the hope founded on his generous temper was at once fulfilled. He welcomed his niece to his house as her permanent abode."t

A man cannot change his mode of life suddenly without a wrench. A confirmed bachelor, calm and self-contained, Pitt had found solitude quite tolerable for many years, and no doubt would have continued to find it so had not his really kind heart prompted him to befriend his sister's child. As for Lady Hester, the new sphere on which

she now entered was one in which she was fairly calculated to make a figure. Her position as niece and constant companion of so great a statesman (even when in retreat) was a prominent one; but when, a year later, he again became Prime Minister, an exciting period in her

* "Combermere Memoirs"-Appendix.
Life of William Pitt," vol. iv. p. 85.

life began. Acting as assistant private secretary to her uncle, she was well informed as to the plans and proceedings of the cabinet. Expectant peers, and hunters after places and distinctions, fawned on her, in the hope of reaching Pitt's ear through her. It is not surprising that she made, as she certainly did, many enemies while her reign lasted. She had a keen sense of the ridiculous, and was naturally inclined to satire. Besides, she prided herself on her blunt way of saying whatever she thought. Her sharp observations and repartees, as related by herself, are oftener remarkable for rudeness than for wit.

But this state of things came to an end. Pitt, whose health had been breaking up for some time, received his death-blow in the news of Napoleon's triumph at Austerlitz. He died in the following month. There can be little doubt that he was both fond and proud of his niece, while she in return loved him with a firm affection The loss of him overwhelmed her. It was not till a month of tearless grief had passed that a burst of weeping relieved her.

She now removed to Montagu Square, where she kept house for her halfbrothers Charles and James, both of whom had entered the army. A government pension of £1200 a year, which had been conferred on her in compliance with her uncle's dying request, placed her in easy circumstances. The change, however, from Downing Street and Walmer to Montagu Square, from a conspicuous to a comparatively obscure. position, was sorely felt. What was even more vexing to one of her pride and spirit were the studied slights she had to encounter at the hands of the many whom she had offended in her influential days. Among these was the Prince Regent (afterward George IV.), who, by her account, turned his royal back on her, and cut her, on the first occasion of her appearing at court after Pitt's death.

While at Walmer in 1803, at the moment that a French invasion of this country from Boulogne was expected, Lady Hester had met General Sir John Moore, then stationed at Sandgate. The general was not only foremost in his profession, but handsome in person, and

winning in manner. The two met constantly at reviews held on the Kentish coast, and the friendship thus begun seems to have ripened into a warmer feeling on both sides. Her official life, with its various excitements, being over, all Lady Hester's interest, next to the welfare of her brothers, was centred in the career of Moore, who, at the commencement of the Peninsular War, was appointed to a command in Spain. An interesting letter which he wrote her from Salamanca in November, 1808, has been preserved. In it he speaks in the following desponding tone of his prospects against the French, who vastly outnumbered the English forces, and their Spanish allies :

"We are in a scrape; but I hope we shall have spirit to get out of it. You must, however, be prepared to hear very bad news. The troops are in as good spirits as if things were better; their appearance and good conduct surprise the green Spaniards, who have never before seen any but their own or French soldiers. Farewell my dear Lady Hester. If I extricate myself, and those with me, from our present difficulties, and if I can beat the French, I shall return to you with satisfaction; but if not, it will be better that I should never quit Spain."*

On the 16th of the following January he fell covered with glory at Corunna. To Charles Stanhope, who was serving on his staff, and was standing by him as he expired, he uttered the words, "Stanhope, remember me to your sister." But before the day was over Stanhope himself had fallen.

Her existence in town had been growing more and more distasteful to Lady Hester; but now, with a load of sorrow at her heart, she longed for change of any sort. She took a cottage near the little town of Builth, in South Wales, and hastening thither, endeavored to forget the world. She busied herself in doctoring the poor and in attending to her garden and dairy. But the novelty of rural retirement quickly wore off. She was not made for inaction. Her next desire was to travel. With the intention of making a tour in Sicily, she quitted England early in 1810-never, as it turned out, to return. Her brother James accompained her; but, on reaching Gibraltar, he received orders to join his regiment at Cadiz. Accordingly, she

"Lord Stanhope's Miscellanies."

took what proved to be a final farewell of him, and continued her journey to Malta. Here she was received with the utmost distinction. Dinners and fêtes were given in her honor by the governor, General Oakes, who lent her the palace of St. Antonio as a residence. She was induced to abandon her intention of visiting Sicily, owing to the threatened descent there of the Neapolitan troops under Murat. Bending her course therefore eastward, she visited in succession Corfu, Zante, Corinth, and Athens. It was from Constantinople, whither she next proceeded, that she addressed to the French government an application for permission to settle in the south of France. However, in consequence of the bitter feeling then existing between that country and England, her application was refused. With Turkey and the Turks she was favorably impressed, and among them she passed altogether eleven months. Wishing, on one occasion, to visit a Turkish manof-war, she overruled the captain's objection to receiving a woman on board his ship by presenting herself in "a pair of overalls, a military great-coat, and cocked hat."

We next find her on board a Greek vessel, bound for Alexandria. In her train were a doctor, a maid, a cook, and several other attendants. She carried with her a load of valuable presents, intended for the pashas in Syria, where she seems to have already contemplated settling. Scio and Rhodes were touched at in turn. Shortly after leaving the latter island the ship, beaten back by a violent southerly gale, sprang a leak. All hands were ordered to the pump; but the pump would not work. Buckets were plied unceasingly to bale out the water fast collecting in the hold. In the midst of this scene of confusion Lady Hester retained all her presence of mind. She tapped a cask of wine and distributed its contents in small quantities among the sailors, to cheer them at their toil. About three o'clock in the afternoon, when the gale was at its worst, the south-west point of Rhodes was sighted, two miles off. An attempt was made to steer the ship in that direction, but she would not answer to her helm. She was now, too, so waterlogged that she seemed in instant danger of sinking.

The long-boat was therefore launched, and the vessel abandoned. With her compact freight of twenty-five people the boat was rowed toward a rocky islet less distant than the mainland. The waves that broke over her at frequent intervals threatened to swamp her. At length a little creek was entered, and the party managed to land. But what a position was theirs! As all their provisions had been left behind in the sinking ship, they were without food, and of fresh water there was none. Hungry and exhausted they lay down to sleep. Lady Hester and her maid in a cave, which afforded protection from the drenching spray, the rest outside. the night wore on the fury of the wind abated somewhat. Upon this, the master of the vessel, a surly Greek, announced his intention of endeavoring to reach the mainland with his crew, declaring that it was better to perish in that attempt than to remain on a rock to starve. He refused to take the travellers with him, as their number, he said, would overweight the boat. He promised, though, to light a signal fire on reaching land, and to send back the boat to fetch them. He and the crew then set out. Presently a bright blaze on the beach showed that they had landed.

The day dawned, but there were no signs of the returning boat. The famished, shivering people on the rock were beginning to think that the Greeks had abandoned them to their fate, when, about sunset, a dark object was seen approaching. It was the long-boat, manned by some of the sailors, who, having obtained liquor on shore, were more than half drunk. They brought with them food, and thus Lady Hester and her companions were enabled to break a fast which had lasted thirty hours. The mainland was reached not without peril. As the boat grounded a giant wave swept her from stern to prow, and her dripping occupants were with difficulty dragged ashore. It was raining in torrents. Lady Hester and her maid, Mrs. Fry, took refuge in a windmill; but Mrs. Fry, perceiving rats running up and down the mill ropes, fled from the place in terror, and refused to return. In the morning the weather cleared. A blazing sunshine quickly

dried the clothes of the shipwrecked travellers, and put some heart into them. After a scramble of eight hours, partly on mule-back, partly on foot, they reached the village of Lindo, where Lady Hester was overtaken by a feverish cold and laid up for a fortnight.

Her loss by the shipwreck had been serious. "My locket," she writes, she writes, "and the valuable snuff-box Lord Sligo gave me, and two pelisses, are all I have saved; all the travelling equipage for Syria etc., all gone; the servants naked and unarmed: but the great loss of all is the medicine chest." Further on she continues," Yet do not fancy us dull, for we danced the Pyrrhic dance with the peasants in the villages on our way hither."

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Meantime, her doctor was dispatched to the town of Rhodes, and afterward to Smyrna, to procure money and clothes. It was at this period that Lady Hester decided on adopting the male costume of Asiatic Turkey. The notion was a sensible one, though it shocked the prejudices of her friends at home. "I can assure you," remarks she to a correspondent, "that if I ever looked well in anything it is in the Asiatic dress, quite different from the European Turks. From Rhodes she was fortunate enough to obtain a passage in an English frigate to Alexandria, whence, having replenished her purse, and completed her outfit, she went on to Cairo. Her arrival at the Egyptian capital made a great sensation. Arrayed in a costume of purple velvet embroidered in gold, she visited the Pasha Mehemet Ali, who received her with due honor, reviewed his troops in her presence, and presented her with "a charger magnificently caparisoned." This animal she sent to England as a present to H.R.H. the Duke of York. An Egyptian groom took charge of the horse, and remained for some time in the duke's service at Oatlands. On his return to his own country he was asked what had struck him most in England, his reply being, "The absence of fleas, and the small number of people who told lies."

* She omits to mention a sum of forty guineas given her by her brother James when they parted at Gibraltar. This money she kept by her for many years; but at last, when pressed by debt in Syria, she was compelled to part with it for what its weight would fetch.

But Lady Hester was now impatient to be in Syria. She took ship, therefore, at Damietta, and, after a prosperous voyage of five days, landed safely at Jaffa.

In her youth she had been told by a fortune-teller that she was destined to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and to become Queen of the Jews. As she journeyed toward the Holy City she alluded to this prophecy half in a joke; but it would seem that she really attached importance thereto, and saw in the country around her the scene of her future sovereignty. After Jerusalem, she visited Acre; then Saida, where she was entertained for several days by the Emir Beshyr, Prince of the Druzes. By this time a report had got about that an English princess of unbounded wealth, scattering money in all directions, was travelling through the country, and the cupidity of the Turkish population was duly aroused. Her ladyship probably set the report going herself, for she was now bound for Damascus, a city where foreigners generally, and Christians in particular, were held in detestation. As she drew near the city she was advised by her native escort to veil her face in conformity with Turkish usage, since, in spite of her masculine attire, it was known that she was a woman. But our heroine had no intention of deferring to prejudice. So she made her entry unveiled amid a throng of spectators. A residence had been secured for her in the Christian quarter; but this she only occupied for a day or so. She removed thence to the Turkish quarter, being determined, says her doctor, "by a strong measure, at once to give herself a title to consequence beyond any other European who had before visited Damascus. She took daily rides through the most most frequented streets; but so far from receiving insults (as some imagined she might), her appearance was greeted with acclamations, and libations of coffee were poured on the ground before her horse. It was rumored that she was of Ottoman descent, the natural whiteness of her face being attributed to the use of paint. This enthusiasm, which lasted throughout her stay, was doubtless kept alive by a liberal diffusion of coin.

Meantime she was laying plans for a