Beaux and Belles of England | Page 4

her beauty, and delighted in receiving
her friends and learning from them news of the world in which she
could no longer move. Reclining on her sofa in the little drawing-room
of her house in St. James's Place, she was the centre of a circle which
comprised many of those who had surrounded her in the days of her
brilliancy, amongst them being the Prince of Wales and his brother the
Duke of York.
Possibly, for the former, memory lent her a charm which years had not
utterly failed to dispel.
J. Fitzgerald Molloy.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Attempted Abduction
Lady Lyttleton
William Brereton in The Character Of Douglas
The First Meeting of Mrs. Robinson and the Prince of Wales
Mrs. Robinson
The Prince of Wales
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

MRS. MARY ROBINSON
At the period when the ancient city of Bristol was besieged by Fairfax's
army, the troops being stationed on a rising ground in the vicinity of the
suburbs, a great part of the venerable minster was destroyed by the
cannonading before Prince Rupert surrendered to the enemy; and the
beautiful Gothic structure, which at this moment fills the contemplative
mind with melancholy awe, was reduced to but little more than
one-half of the original fabric. Adjoining to the consecrated hill, whose
antique tower resists the ravages of time, once stood a monastery of
monks of the order of St. Augustine. This building formed a part of the
spacious boundaries which fell before the attacks of the enemy, and
became a part of the ruin, which never was repaired or re-raised to its
former Gothic splendours.
On this spot was built a private house, partly of simple, and partly of
modern architecture. The front faced a small garden, the gates of which
opened to the Minster Green (now called the College Green); the west
side was bounded by the cathedral, and the back was supported by the
ancient cloisters of St. Augustine's monastery. A spot more calculated
to inspire the soul with mournful meditation can scarcely be found
amidst the monuments of antiquity.
In this venerable mansion there was one chamber whose dismal and
singular constructure left no doubt of its having been a part of the
original monastery. It was supported by the mouldering arches of the
cloisters, dark, Gothic, and opening on the minster sanctuary, not only
by casement windows that shed a dim midday gloom, but by a narrow
winding staircase, at the foot of which an iron-spiked door led to the

long gloomy path of cloistered solitude. This place remained in the
situation in which I describe it in the year 1776, and probably may, in a
more ruined state, continue so to this hour.
In this awe-inspiring habitation, which I shall henceforth denominate
the Minster House, during a tempestuous night, on the 27th of
November, 1758, I first opened my eyes to this world of duplicity and
sorrow. I have often heard my mother say that a mare stormy hour she
never remembered. The wind whistled round the dark pinnacles of the
minster tower, and the rain beat in torrents against the casements of her
chamber. Through life the tempest has followed my footsteps, and I
have in vain looked for a short interval of repose from the perseverance
of sorrow.
In the male line I am descended from a respectable family in Ireland,
the original name of which was MacDermott. From an Irish estate, my
great-grandfather changed it to that of Darby. My father, who was born
in America, was a man of strong mind, high spirit, and great personal
intrepidity. Many anecdotes, well authenticated, and which, being
irrefragable, are recorded as just tributes to his fame and memory, shall,
in the course of these memoirs, confirm this assertion.
My mother was the grandchild of Catherine Seys, one of the daughters
and co-heiresses of Richard Sey's, Esq., of Boverton Castle, in
Glamorganshire. The sister of my great-grandmother, named Anne,
married Peter, Lord King, who was nephew, in the female line, to the
learned and truly illustrious John Locke--a name that has acquired
celebrity which admits of no augmented panegyric.
Catherine Seys was a woman of great piety and virtue--a character
which she transferred to her daughter, and which has also been
acknowledged as justly due to her sister, Lady King.[1] She quitted this
life when my grandmother was yet a child, leaving an only daughter,
whose father also died while she was in her infancy. By this privation
of paternal care my grandmother became the _élève_ of her mother's
father, and passed the early part of her life at the family castle in
Glamorganshire. From this period till the marriage of my mother, I can
give but a brief account. All I know is, that my grandmother, though
wedded unhappily, to the latest