LADY SUFFOLK.

FASCINATING without being beautiful, intelligent without

being profound, cool and well-bred without being heartless, Lady Suffolk was one of those people in whom an epoch is epigrammatically expressed. She epitomized the Augustan age in England perhaps better even than Sir Philip Sidney expressed the Elizabethan, or than Dr. Johnson or Lord Halifax, the Trimmer, the ages which preceded and followed hers. These others were too great, too much themselves, too individual to stand for a summary. A Joan of Arc, a

Julius Caesar, or a Mozart, though all the great events and

great personages of an epoch batter upon them, remain themselves. Put Caesar in a wig and Mozart in a helmet and you have effected very little. But take Lady Suffolk's hooped petticoat away and put her down in the London of to-day, or set her to dress Cleopatra's instead of Queen Caro- line's hair, and everything is altered.

Henrietta Hobart came of an excellent, undistinguished family, and when she was eighteen married Charles Howard, who, writes Lord Chesterfield, was " a most unamiable man, sour, dull and sullen " :—

" How she came to love him, or how he came to love anybody, is unaccountable, unless from a certain fatality which often makes hasty marriages soon attended by long repentance and aversion. Thus they loved, thus they married, and thus they hated each other for the rest of their lives."

Worst of all they had no money. Not long after they married, probably before any disagreements broke out, they decided to go to Hanover. Living was cheaper there than in England, and besides there was the Elector, George Lewis, who most certainly when Queen Anne and his mother died would become King of England. But the Howards were so poor that when they got there and wanted to give a dinner to the Hanoverian ministers " it is said that Mrs. Howard had to

sell her beautiful hair to meet the cost." However, they got the promises they desired of posts with his son and the Princess

when George the First should come to the throne. But when thus solaced they got back to London they were again so poor that they could not afford to keep a servant, and Mrs. Howard had to do all the work for her husband and child. In this state they remained until George the First came to the throne. Mr. Melville is right when he emphasizes this financial side of things. Mrs. Howard was afterwards often blamed for the way in which she clung to her place as Woman of the Bed chamber, but after all she had as little prospect of living " upon the industry of her husband " as had Polly Peachum and the fact that her place at Court was her living accounts for a good deal.

But it was not long before the Court provided for her not only a living but a refuge. Whether, as some people believe, Mrs. Howard was a secret political agent, or whether, as others affirm (Mr. Melville has no doubt of it), she was George the Second's mistress, or whether she was both, it is certain that when George the Second came to the throne (she was about forty at the time) she became a very valuable person at Court, Her husband's ill temper and intemperateness by then had developed into something like madness. He violently insisted that his wife should leave the Court—as Mr. Melville believes, in order to extract a pension for himself. So nearly mad was he, at any rate, that Queen Caroline, who saw him alone on

the matter once, was quite alarmed and feared physical violence from him. The law gave immense power to a husband at that date, and it was only at Court, and doubtfully even there, that she could be safe from him. How bitterly she felt towards this " sour and sullen man " is poignantly expressed in her Reflections on the Married State, which Mr. Melville

prints for the first time :—

" What is the Marriage Vow ? A solemn contract where two engage. The woman promises duty, affection and obedience to the man's commands, to guard that share of his honour reposed in her keeping. What is his part t To guide, to protect, to support and govern with mildness. Have I performed my part in word and deed ? How has Charles answered his ? In no one article. How guided ? To evil. How protected or supported me ? Left destitute, wanting the common necessaries of life ; not always from misfortunes, but from choice. What (from justice as well as from humanity, nay, ever from his vows) ought to have been mine, employed to gratify his passions. How governed ? With tyranny, with cruelty, my life in danger. Then am I not free ? All other engagements cease to bind ? if

either contracting parties fail in their part. Self-preservation is Cid first law of nature. Are married women then the only part of human nature that must not follow it ? Are they expected to act upon higher .principles of religion and honour than any other part of the Creation ? '

A note of desperation is sounded here. Pope and Swift both abused her for over-caution, over-determination, over-coolness. Perhaps they never knew how much her circumstances made courage essential, how great a triumph of steady nerve was that coolness which they sometimes reprehended.

Mr. Melville's book is light reading. It is full of anecdotes and it puts a good deal of fresh material before the public, and though the author's comments and deductions are seldom remarkable, the book makes admirable light reading, and gives a good general picture of the epoch. He tells that excellent story of Mrs. Clayton. Mrs. Clayton appeared one day at a drawing room in a pair of diamond ear-rings, the price of a Court appointment :-

"'What an impudent creature to come here with her bribe in her ears,' said the Duchess of Marlborough. Madame,' said Lady Mary Wortley Montagu . . . how should people know where wine is sold unless a sign is hung out ? ' "

The account of the Maids of Honour is delightful, some of the best of the known letters and some not hitherto published being printed. Mary Bellenden, Molly Lepell (variously spelt by Mr. Melville), and the fascinating Sophia Howe, were all friends of Mrs. Howard's. There is a delightful account of Miss Howe's efforts to get away from a visit to her mother's at Farnham :-

" If my Lord Lumley does not send the coach he shall never have the least flirtation more with me,' she writes. Perhaps he may be glad of me for a summer suit next year at Richmond, when he has no other business upon his hands. Nekt Wednesday the coach must come, or I die. "The good lady (Mrs. Howe) put on her broad-girdled calico gown, and striped night-clothes" ' • that frill is a bad omen for me, for she always comes out with something dreadful when she is adorned. She no sooner entered the room but she comes out with the fa'a1 sentence, " that I might take this opportunity of staying here some time longer " ; but hang me if I do !—and if the coach is not sent, I will come away in a waggon, that I am resolved upon. . . . I have told Mamma that Lumley must send the coach a long while before the birth-day, because the men must all be in town to have new liveries made • so let somebody write me a letter that " he is very sorry it must be; so, but that it is absolutely necessary " (I am • sure to my repose) " to come next Thursday." My service to all the he and she flirts at Richmond.' "

All the " characters " of Lady Suffolk are given in the book, Swift's, Pope's and Chesterfield's, and more important still that which she herself drew in that final, mysterious, and dramatic interview with Queen Caroline.

A. WII.LIAms-ELaIS.