TWO NOBLE LIVES.*

LESS happily worded than the preface, in which the- eon.tents and object of the book are described in a few modest and sympathetic touches, is the title Mr. Hare has chosen for his record of two gifted and beautiful sisters, one of whom evidently inspired him in her later years with a sentiment approaching adoration. The word " noble " perhaps implies something more of heroism and self-sacrifice than can ever be demanded of ladies upon whom fortune has lavished the gifts of wealth, position, and loveliness, and to whom life, after all, brought only the troubles and sorrows which are the "stern law of every mortal lot." No one, however, can read the letters and journals of which these volumes are almost entirely composed, without perceiving in Lady Canning and Lady Waterford a combination of qualities rare enough in any station of life, of thoughtfulness and elevation of • The Story of Two Noble Lives : being Memorials of Charlotte, Cauntess Canning, and Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford. By Augustus J. O. Hare. London: George Allen.

character, of deep, but truly liberal, religions feeling, of fanworldliness of mind very remarkable in persons who so easily commanded homage and admiration. And while to the one, circumstance gave the opportunity of showing, in a high public station and in a time of danger and disaster, an -example of courage duty and devotion, which of itself lifted her life above an ordinary level, the other was able to devote herself—not, however, to the exclusion of other duties—to the cultivation of artistic gifts to which it is difficult to deny the -designation of genius. The daughters of the eccentric Sir Charles Stuart, afterwards Lord Stuart de Rothesay, they were born while their father was Ambassador in Paris, after the Bourbon Restoration. Their mother had been Lady Elizabeth Yorke, whose mother, the third Countess of Hardwicke, had a large share of wit and intelligence, and was during a very pro- longed life the centre of a devoted and brilliant family circle at Wimpole and Tyttenhanger. "'Was there ever anybody half so agreeable as Lady Elizabeth Stuart ? ' said I," writes Miss Berry," to a man of approved judgment. Nobody in the world but her mother I ' was his answer." Lady Hardwicke was a good -deal with her daughters in Paris, and the letters of both, many of which appear in the first volume, are the letters of clever, lively women of the world, and are, from the literary point of view, the best thing in the book. But we must pass on to the actual subjects of the memoir. Louisa, the younger sister, was married in 1842 to Henry, Marquis of Waterford,—a mar- riage which was a great surprise to her friends, for a more -absolute contrast in character to his wife, than the boisterous, sporting, but singularly handsome Irish nobleman, it would have been hard to discover. Perhaps the following remark from a letter written long after his sudden death in the hunt- ing field explains the riddle of this, as of other marriages of the kind :—" I find myself," Lady Waterford wrote, "in the ideal for all the poetic and intellectual, but in the real I always like the rough and manly. Ruskin is the reverse of the man I like, and yet his intellectual part is quite my ideal." Lord Waterford, in any case, through his devotion to his wife, was -greatly influenced by her in many directions, and she, for his sake, gladly gave up to a very great extent the society which he would have chosen, and spent long winters at Curragh- -more, where she devoted herself, while he hunted, to beauti- fying her home, to painting, and to the various duties of -country life.

Seven years before, Charlotte had married Charles Canning, son of the statesman, who, on his mother's death, became "Viscount Canning, a young man whose tastes and talents had already marked him out for public life. To politics, accord- ingly, he betook himself, and after serving under Peel and Aberdeen in subordinate offices, was admitted finally to 'Cabinet rank shortly before accepting in 1855 the office, which his father before him had been offered and had almost accepted, of the Governor-Generalship of India. During these years, Lady Canning led the usual life of fashionable society, broken, however, by periods of Court life ; for she had become a Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen, whom she accompanied on the famous visit to the Chateau d'Eu, and for whom she soon conceived, like all who have served her Majesty in similar -capacities, a devoted personal attachment. But she felt that this existence was not wholly satisfying, and when Lady Waterford heard of the appointment to India, she said : "It will cause a want to be supplied which will be the right thing for her."

The strong impressions of the insipidity of Anglo-Indian society, and of the dullness of her own life—(" You cannot 'imagine," she wrote, "the odd feeling it is to me to be so -entirely and completely idle ")—soon wore off as the duties of her position revealed themselves, and as she found before long great resources in the exquisite drawings of Indian flowers which she sent from time to time to her relations in England, and in the embellishment of the Government House at Barrackpore. But hardly a year passed before trouble began. On February 11th, 1857, we read in a casual sentence : The General at Barrackpore made a good little speech to the Sepoys of the regiment, who are supposed to be rather -disaffected on account of the new Minie cartridges !" From this time forward, the journal and letters home begin to be full of the Great Mutiny, and they form certainly the most interesting portion of these volumes. It is not that they give as much new material for history, but a first-hand and fully informed record from day to day of so momentous a period will always supply confirmatory and additional details as to the characters of the chief actors, and can never be without its own importance. History is quickly made, and too quickly forgotten, and the present generation may well bear to be reminded of the splendid qualities of resolution, untiring labour, and evenhanded justice of the man to whom, above all others, must be ascribed the glory of saving the Indian Empire.

One of the principal charges in the Calcutta petitions for Lord Canning's recall was that he threw too much cold water on the offer made by the English to arm in their own defence, and underrated the danger of Calcutta,—a charge to which these letters give some colour. On May 19th Lady Canning wrote :—

" The panic has become more foolish The mounted volunteers have been patrolling every night for a week, much to their own amusement and satisfaction. I am told it has a re- assuring effect on many nervous minds !"

"‘ There is now,' wrote Colonel Stuart on December 23rd, 1857, 'an European patrol every night in Government House, but it was long, and in fact not till the panic was over, before Lord Canning would allow this precaution for his safety to be taken. It cannot be denied that with the fine object of showing con- fidence, he exposed himself rashly to real danger, though Char- lotte, fully as gallant as her husband, will not allow that he did."

Lady Canning wrote on May 27th:

"C. brought me a petition (from the native officers and men of the 70th NI., at Barrackpore—to be led against the rebels at Delhi) which has delighted him C wii/ send them, and will go to Barrackpore to tell them so in a speech on parade."

And there is true wisdom in the following remark :—

"It is so. silly to imagine it possible to save India without having anything to do with the natives, without native troops, and with contempt for all national prejudices and feelings."

Such was the spirit with which the Governor-General, who was accused by the Calcutta Press in every term of violent abuse, of partiality to the natives, met the storm of fury and bloodthirstiness which had now broken out in the English community :—

"It would charm the Indian English public," wrote his wife, "to hang and blow from guns any number of people, and I believe C. is terribly unpopular because he is just and firm too. Hardly any one speaks about natives in a tone which does not drive me wild, so I hold my tongue. Anglo-Indians actually hate to hear of a good trait ; yet in every story, however horrid, one is sure to hear of one good person."

Towards the close of the Mutiny in the summer of 1858, the Proclamation to the People of Cade, followed by Lord Ellen-

borough's disloyal publication of his secret despatch cen- suring it, which led to his own discomfiture and resignation,

gave rise to a fresh storm :—

"How every one," says Lady Canning, "has changed in opinion in England, and instead of railing at clemency, is now calling out for an amnesty. I hope the time may come for it ; but it was quite impossible to proclaim an amnesty to Sepoys in arms, ranged in battle array, and still in very large bodies."

Metternich's criticism, quoted by Lady Stuart, neatly summed up the controversy when he said that he judged from the cry of too much clemency having suddenly been changed to one of too much severity, that Lord Canning had exactly seized the proper medium.

"It is very nice," writes her cousin, Mrs. Stuart,

"To see Lady Canning with all her old Generals,—they are so courteous and evidently so delighted with her ; and she unites the grande dame and the pleasant companion to perfection."

Here are her remarks upon two or three of them :— "Sir James Outram is a very dark-looking, Jewish-bearded little man, with a desponding, slow, hesitating manner, very unlike the description, or, rather, the idea raised in one's mind of his old Bombay name of the Bayard of the East,' and the new Bombay saying of A fox is a fool and a lion a coward by the side of Sir J. Outram.' He never can have done the things Sir C. Napier accuses him of, but he is not the least my idea of a hero."

"General Havelock is not in fashion [July, 1857], but all the same we believe he will do well. No doubt he is fussy and tiresome, but his little, old, stiff figure looks as active and fit for use as if he were made of steel."

"Sir Henry Lawrence is dead. He was a real hero, one

of the bravest, finest characters I ever beard of He was so magnificent in his charities, he can have saved nothing. He gave £1,000 a year to the Lawrence Asylum for Soldiers' Children. What would any one in England say to such a sub- scription from a private individual ?"

It is impossible, however, by a few meagre quotations to give an idea of this part of the book. Every page of Lady Canning's letters gives evidence of her keen interest, of her loyal affection, her boundless sympathy, her clear judgment, and her cheerful self-abnegation. "The whirlwind of trial," says Mr. Hare, towards the close, "through which she had passed, had dispersed many clouds. She found almost a reminiscence of the perfect happiness of the first years of her married life, as Lord Canning unconsciously reawakened to a sense of the true value of the noble woman by his side." But the weary anxiety of these years, and the deadly climate of Calcutta had done their work, and her sudden and unex- pected death on the eve of a return home which held out every prospect of honour and happiness, followed as it so soon was, by that of her husband, worn-out and broken-hearted, crowns the story with a note of moving pathos. Surely the Mutiny claimed no nobler victims than these !

We have lingered too long over the life which has interested us the most, to find sufficient space to speak of Lady Waterford. Yet her retired and somewhat solitary life (for like Lady Canning she was childless), at Ford Castle and Highcliffe is one of singular charm, filled as it was with artistic production, and intellectual interests, enthusiasm, as Mr. Hare tells us, for all things good and beautiful. The char- acters of the two chief figures depicted in these delightful volumes give them a serious value ; but there is much besides to attract the large circle of readers who turn with pleasure in a biography of this kind to descriptions of, or allusions to, persons and places and incidents familiar to them, either through books or through personal acquaintance. But while we are most grateful to Mr. Hare for placing these re- cords within our reach, we cannot refrain from a word or two of criticism. He appears to us to have erred on the side of modest self-effacement, and to have carried to excess the modern and somewhat slovenly fashion of allowing his characters to tell their own story. Few of the letters have any pretension to literary style, many of them are mere repetitions of each other, and many, especially in the third volume, are of the most trivial character ; and we cannot but think that an editor of Mr. Hare's taste and skill should have considerably reduced the bulk of these three long volumes without impairing the completeness of his delineation.

We fail to see, for instance, the advantage of printing pages of this sort :-

"April 16. W. Hunting with Lord Drogheda. The Donough- mores, Miss Steele, Lord James Butler, and Denys Parke came.— May 2. Crossed to Holyhead. London by eleven o'clock. Found Mama at Char's.—May 3. Saw Dr. P., who saw Mama and Char afterwards. Jane Ellice and Sarah Lindsay.—May 14-24. To Tyttenhanger with Mama.—Tune 10-14. Tyttenhanger again.—June 24-29. At Highcliffe with Mama. Jane and Bell there.—Tune 29- July 2. With Mama at Tyttenhanger.—July 6. Reached Curragh- more."

It is, however, a sorry task to find fault with a book in which we have found an almost inexplicable fascination. For the illustrations, at all events, which give life to its pages, there can be nothing but praise. Where all are either appropriate or artistically good, it is difficult to select, but we may specially mention some of Lady Waterford's drawings, such as those of Lord Waterford and his brother having supper after hunting, and of her grandmother, Lady Hardwicke. Mr. Hare's own charming vignettes of views, terraces, and interiors at Ford and Highcliffe, and the reproduction of an engraving of Thorburn's miniature of the two lovely sisters, which forms the frontispiece of the first volume.