Love Romances of the Aristocracy | Page 8

statesmen rubbed shoulders with card-sharpers, Marquises with
swell mobsmen, and Countesses with courtesans, all in eager quest of
pleasure or conquest or gain. The Bath season was England's carnival,
when cares and ceremonial alike were thrown to the winds, when the
pleasure of the moment was the only ambition worth pursuing, and
when even the prudish found a fearful joy in playing hide-and-seek
with vice.
But although the fairest women in the land flocked to Bath, by common
consent not one of them all was so beautiful and bewitching as
Elizabeth Ann Linley, the girl-nightingale, whose voice entranced the
ear daily at the Assembly Rooms concerts as her loveliness feasted the
eye. She was, as all the world knew, only the daughter of Thomas
Linley, singing-master and organiser of the concerts, a man who had
plied chisel and saw at the carpenter's bench before he found the music
that was in him; but, obscure as was her birth, she reigned supreme by
virtue of a loveliness and a gift of song which none of her sex could
rival.
It is thus little wonder that Elizabeth Linley's fame had travelled far
beyond the West Country town in which she was cradled. George III.
had summoned her to sing to him in his London palace, and had been
so overcome by her gifts of beauty and melody that, with tears
streaming down his cheeks, he had stroked her hair and caressed her
hands, and declared to the blushing girl that he had never seen any one
so beautiful or heard a voice so divinely sweet.
Charles Dibdin tried to enshrine her in fitting verse, but abandoned the
effort in despair, vowing that she was indeed of that company described
by Milton:
"Who, as they sang, would take the prisoned soul And lap it in
Elysium."
The Bishop of Meath, in his unepiscopal enthusiasm, declared that she
was "the link between an angel and a woman"; while Dr Charles

Burney, supreme musician and father of the more famous Madame
d'Arblay, wrote more soberly of her:
"The tone of her voice and expression were as enchanting as her
countenance and conversation. With a mellifluous-toned voice, a
perfect shake and intonation, she was possessed of the double power of
delighting an audience equally in pathetic strains and songs of brilliant
execution, which is allowed to very few singers."
To her Horace Walpole also paid this curious tribute:
"Miss Linley's beauty is in the superlative degree. The king admires
and ogles her as much as he dares to do in so holy a place as oratorio."
Such are a few of the tributes, of which contemporary records are full,
paid to the fair "Nightingale of Bath," whom Gainsborough and
Reynolds immortalised in two of their inspired canvases--the latter as
Cecilia--her face almost superhuman in its beauty and the divine
rapture of its expression--seated at a harpsichord and pouring out her
soul in song.
It was inevitable that a girl of such charms and gifts--"superior to all
the handsome things I have heard of her," John Wilkes wrote, "and
withal the most modest, pleasing and delicate flower I have
seen"--should have lovers by the score. Every gallant who came to Bath,
sought to woo, if not to win, her. But Elizabeth Linley was no coquette;
nor was she a foolish girl whose head could be turned by a handsome
face or pretty compliments, or whose eyes could be dazzled by the
glitter of wealth and rank. She was wedded to her music, and no lover,
she vowed, should wean her from her allegiance. It was thus a shock to
the world of pleasure-seekers at Bath to learn that the beauty, who had
turned a cold shoulder to so many high-placed gallants, had promised
her hand to an elderly, unattractive wooer called Long, a man almost
old enough to be her grandfather.
That her heart had not gone with her hand we may be sure. We know
that it was only under the strong compulsion of her father that she had
given her consent; for Mr Long had a purse as elongated as his name,

and to the eyes of the poor singing-master his gold-bags were
irresistible. Her elderly wooer loaded his bride-to-be with costly
presents; he showered jewels on her, bought her a trousseau fit for a
Queen; and was on the eve of marrying her, when--without a word of
warning, it was announced that the wedding, to which all Bath had
been excitedly looking forward, would not take place!
Mr Linley was furious, and threatened the terrors of the law; but the
bridegroom that failed was adamant. It was said that, in cancelling the
engagement, Mr Long was acting a chivalrous part, in response to Miss
Linley's pleading that he would withdraw his suit, since her heart could