The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope, vol 1 | Page 2

the beloved father, the tender grandfather, a gracious, benevolent presence. We read the romance of his daughter, that pretty, prim courtship of a bygone day; we see her home life as a young wife, the coming of another race of merry children; by and by, we follow the fortunes of graceful "little Madam" with her brilliant eyes, and see the advent of yet another lover of a later day. So the scenes shift, the figures come and go, the great things and the small of life intermingle. And as we read, by almost imperceptible stages, the Georgian has merged into the Victorian, and the young generation of one age has faded into the older generation of the next, till we are left confronted with the knowledge, albeit difficult of credence, that both have vanished into the mists of the Unknown.
Meanwhile, one aspect of this glimpse into the past requires but little insistence. Among these two generations of Stanhopes a high standard of education prevailed. This, coupled with the opportunities which they possessed of mingling with the best-known people of their day, both in England and France, makes it obvious that records written by such writers, with all the happy abandon of a complete sympathy between scribe and recipient, have a value which transcends any more laboured enumeration of historical data. The worth of their correspondence lies in the fact that it presents, artlessly and candidly, the outlook of a contemporary family, of good position and more than average intelligence, upon events ordinary and extraordinary, under four sovereigns. And while many books have been edited describing the sayings and doings of Royal personages and political leaders during that period, few have yet been published which present them in the intimate guise in which they jostle each other throughout the following pages, and fewer still which give any adequate picture of the social life as lived during these years by the less notable bulk of the community.
Yet more, the writers of these letters are no mere puppets of ancient history, who move in a world unreal to us and shadowy. Their remarks to us are instinct with the freshness--the actuality--of to-day. Whether as happy, noisy schoolboys and girls, or as men and women of the fashionable world bent on pursuit of pleasure or of learning, to us they are emphatically alive. Almost we can hear and echo the laughter of that merry home-circle; their jests are our own, differently phrased, their joys and sorrows knit our hearts to them across the century. They lived at a date so near our own that it has all the charm of similarity--with a difference; and it is just this likeness and unlikeness which lend such piquancy to their experiences.

CONTENTS
PREFACE
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
CHAPTER I.
LETTERS RELATING TO THE WORLD OF TON, 1805-1806 II. LETTERS OF AN EXILE, 1805-1810 III. ON DITS FROM LONDON, YORKSHIRE AND RAMSGATE, 1806-1807 IV. ON DITS FROM GROSVENOR SQUARE AND CANNON HALL, 1808-1810 V. ANECDOTES FROM A PRISONER OF NAPOLEON, 1810-1812 VI. LETTERS FROM AN ESCAPED PRISONER, 1812-1813 VII. LETTERS FROM ENGLAND AND FRANCE, 1811-1821

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE VISCOUNTESS ANSON Frontispiece From a miniature by Cosway
SILHOUETTES OF MRS SPENCER-STANHOPE AND HER DAUGHTERS MARIANNE AND ANNE
SILHOUETTES OF ISABELLA, FRANCES, AND MARIA SPENCER-STANHOPE
MRS TRIMMER
"THE YOUNG ROSCIUS"
CARICATURE OF SIR LUMLEY SKEFFINGTON
MADAME CATALANI
SIR FRANCIS BURDETT, BT. From a picture painted while he was a prisoner in the Tower
PASSPORT GIVEN BY NAPOLEON IST TO JOHN SPENCER-STANHOPE
EDWARD COLLINGWOOD
SIR RICHARD CARR GLYN, BT.
PRINT OF GEORGE III. WHEN MAD
THE MARCHIONESS CONYNGHAM
QUEEN CAROLINE, BY HARLOWE
WALTER SPENCER-STANHOPE, AETAT. 70 From an ivory bust

"In town what numbers into fame advance, Conscious of merit in the coxcombs' dance, The Op'ra, Almack's, park, assembly, play, Those dear destroyers of the tedious day, That wheel of fops, that saunter of the town, Call it diversion, and the pill goes down." Young

DRAMATIS PERSONAE
For the enlightenment of those readers who have not read the previous volumes of which the present is the continuation, it may be well to recapitulate briefly the material with which these dealt.
In 1565 a branch of the Stanhopes came from Lancashire into Yorkshire, and eventually settled at Horsforth, Low Hall, near Calverley Bridge, in the latter county. During the period of the Civil Wars, a branch of the family of Spencer migrated from the borders of Wales into Yorkshire, and in the reign of Charles II. one of them purchased the house and land at that date constituting the estate of Cannon Hall. In 1748 Walter Stanhope of Horsforth united the two families by his marriage with Ann Spencer of Cannon Hall, and their son Walter, eventually inheriting both properties from his respective uncles, bore the name of Spencer-Stanhope.
Walter Spencer-Stanhope was for thirty-nine years a member of the House of Commons, during which time he represented respectively Haslemere, Carlisle, and Hull. In 1787 he married Mary Winifred Pulleine,