"It was then, when the gales of this troublesome world had subsided, and the breakers ceased to rage which hid from the common observer the Rock-on which my dear mother's stronghold of happiness was built, that we perceived a deep and firm reliance on her God to have been always the basis of that true fortitude and independence of mind, which had sustained her through so many difficulties, without her ever allowing them to be such.

"Sweetness, tenderness, and charity accompanied true religion and piety to the last, and were even united with that sparkle of the imagination which had attended her in youth.

"Oh! may the departure of every child she has left be happy as hers, and may we meet again in that bliss, which we cannot deserve, but must fervently pray to attain !"

SECTION IV.

Although I originally intended to close this narrative with the death of Earl James, in 1768, I could not resist the temptation of introducing you to those relatives whose names you are more immediately familiar with, as nearly as possible in the words of the sister whose writings I have so largely drawn upon in this and the preceding chapter. The sketch may be fittingly completed by a brief notice of her own character and fortunes.

During the fifteen or twenty years of her brothers' wanderings in search of wealth and fame in foreign lands, Lady Anne and Lady Margaret had resided together in London, where, in the words of their brother Lord Balcarres, their house became "the meeting-place of great and good characters, literary and political.” Among hosts of names distinguished in their day, but now comparatively forgotten, I may mention Burke,* Sheridan, Windham,

The following most touching letter from Burke is in acknowledgment of one of Lady Anne's addressed to him on the death of his only son-subsequently to her marriage with Mr. Barnard. It is addressed to her husband and herself conjointly:

"My dear Friends,

"Your constant attention to the valuable part of us which is snatched away, as well as to the miserable remains of this truly unhappy family, demands and has our most cordial and most grateful acknowledgments. We have received Lady Anne's kind

Dundas, and the Prince of Wales, as their familiar guests and friends,—and the attachment of the latter to Lady Anne ended only with his life. This pleasant period was terminated by the marriage of Lady Anne with Mr. Barnard, son of the accomplished Bishop of Limerick, and whom she accompanied, as I have already mentioned, to the Cape of Good Hope, on his appointment as Colonial Secretary under Lord Macartney. The journals of her residence there, and excursions into the interior country, illustrated with drawings and sketches of the scenes described, are preserved among the family MSS. in my father's library.* Had circumstances permitted of her return by New South Wales, Egypt, and the Greek islands, the tour she had planned with her husband,† she would have left us probably a series of letters as

and consolatory letter. Alas! it is as consolatory as anything can be. She acquits me of faults towards my son. I would to God my conscience could do the same. I could better bear the most insupportable of all calamities. On the contrary, my mind runs over a thousand improprieties, neglects, and mismanagements of every kind-all, indeed, except a fundamental want of honour, respect, and love for him. Amidst of all those failures, how could he be sensible how dearly, dearly, I prized him? But, I hope, very deep suffering and sincere penitence may some way atone for such offences. has nothing but her loss to deplore.

His mother

Mrs.

"My dear Madam and Sir, how I am afflicted to let you pass by my door! Burke is not less so. But I hope we shall be in a better plight to receive you both, in a manner more agreeable to our attachment to you both. We have thoughts of going to an house pretty retired on the sea-side.

"God Almighty preserve you long to each other and to your friends, and give you every outward means of happiness and every inward means of enjoying it. It was on a Sunday my calamity was completed. Adieu, adieu!

"Your unhappy friend,

"EDM. BURKE."

* A few extracts from these journals are printed in the third volume of these Lives.

† “I have always,” says Lady Anne, in one of her 'Scraps,' "had a strong wish to visit Botany Bay—not from a longing to commit a crime, but from a desire to rejoice with the angels over repentant sinners. If one reformed rogue gives to beatified spirits as much joy as the good conduct of ninety-nine righteous persons, what a feeling must be created by such a group! But it would appear so strange a measure to go there from choice, that I believe it would be necessary to commit some peccadillo as an apology to my relations for going at all. I have a very good precedent for an invention to effect a journey, in Rabelais, who, being very poor, and wishing much to see Paris without having a sou to pay his expenses, put up three packages with these words on them, 'Poison for the King-poison for the Dauphin-poison for the Minister,'-and sent them, in a manner to create suspicion, by the diligence. He was immediately arrested and sent in a chaise and four under a strong guard to Paris, living nobly all the way. Had it not been for the peace of 1802, I should have effected this plan, as my dear husband liked it as well as I did, and meant to have carried me back to England by a very circuitous route, taking in Egypt, &c.-but he was obliged to remain at the Cape behind me for a year to settle colonial business with the Dutch, and I proceeded to England to

graphic and amusing as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's. But 'Auld Robin Gray' must remain her monument.

After the death of Mr. Barnard,* Lady Anne and Lady Margaret again took up house together, and their streams of life, reuniting, flowed on in peace till a new interruption through the marriage of Lady Margaret to Sir James Burges in 1812. From that year forward Lady Anne resided almost uninterruptedly in

endeavour to effect a situation under government for him on his return, which I did not accomplish."

* Some time after this event Lady Anne had an engraving made from the portrait of her husband by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and forwarded an impression of it to the Prince Regent, with the following note, which I give for the sake of the reply-a reply witnessing a warmth of heart which many who knew the Prince only in his later years never gave him credit for :

"I know your goodness of heart, Sir, and I know that you will pardon this letter. It is not more to my prince that I write than to that kind friend and patron who would have stopped the fatal journey of my dear husband by an exchange of situation, had not untoward combinations defeated every hope and forced his departure. You will perceive, Sir, that it is Anne Barnard who now addresses your R. Highness, to entreat your acceptance of what accompanies this. My dear husband requested in his will that I would send testimonies of his regard to those friends I knew he honoured and esteemed. To fulfil this desire, I have had an engraving done from his picture, of which the first proof is now sent to your R. Highness. You will not be displeased at my venturing to place you, Sir, at the head of this (to me) sacred list,-so much worth, and so many estimable qualities as he had, rendered him a person whose attachment could not disgrace even your R. Highness. When you look at the print, Sir, as I hope you will do with regard for his sake, bestow a thought of pity and kindness on her who ever has been and must remain

"Your Royal Highness's

"Most faithful and affectionate servant,

"ANNE BARNARD.

"P.S. May I venture to say that I would rather your R. Highness did not reply to my letter. Your heart will lead you to it, but it will be better for me not to receive any reply on this subject."

"My dear and old Friend,

"You are right in thinking that perhaps it would be better, both for you and me, that no letter should pass between us in consequence of this recent mark of your kindest recollection and affection. But there are certain feelings which one is only individually responsible for, and that which perhaps in one instance is better for one person not to do, it is impossible for another to resist. It is not from any selfish conceit or presumption that I presume to differ from your much better reasoned and conceived opinion, but from the ingenuous and paramount impulse and feelings of a heart that you have long, long, long indeed known, which from the earliest hour of its existence has glowed with the warmest and most transcendent feelings of the most affectionate friendship for those who have and do know how to appreciate it,-and to whom can this be better applied, dearest Lady Anne, than to yourself? To tell you how much and how highly I value your present, and what (if it be possible) is much more, the affectionate remembrance you have shewn me in this instance, and the manner in which you have done it is that which I not only can never express, but can never forget. That every blessing and happiness may for ever attend you is the earnest prayer of "Your ever and most affectionate friend,

"GEORGE P.

"P.S. My heart is so full that I hope you will forgive this hasty scrawl, for I write the very instant I have received your letter. Pray tell me that you forgive me."

Berkeley Square, enjoying the occasional society of her family, and devoting her declining years to the compilation of the memoirs and the collection of the literary relics of her brothers and sisters.

It had been Earl James continue the history of his pen ceased.

6

wish that one of his children should family from the period when his own "It was a maxim of my father's," says Lady Anne, "that the person who neglects to leave some trace of his mind behind him, according to his capacity, fails not only in his duty to society, but in gratitude to the Author of his being, and may be said to have existed in vain. Every man,' said he, has felt or thought, invented or observed; a little of that genius which we receive from Nature, or a little of that experience which we buy in our walk through life, if bequeathed to the community, would ultimately become a collection to do honour to the family where such records were preserved.'-I took up my pen and wrote,-at first with a little pain. To turn back in fancy to the season of rosebuds and myrtles, and to find oneself travelling on in reality to that of snowdrops and cypresses, is a position which may naturally produce some inequality of style, the more so, as I was often tempted by the gaiety and truthfulness of my old MS. journals, to transcribe from them verbatim, while, on other occasions, I have allowed the prudence and concise pen of the old lady to lop and abridge, in a manner that, I fear, has greatly injured the spirit and originality of the work, though it has brought it into a more reasonable compass. Meanwhile, I trust to memory in giving those anecdotes, not only of events, but of the deeds and virtues of our forefathers, which it were a sin to forget, and which my father related to me with a degree of spirit and vivacity which indelibly impressed them on my heart.” *

To the "family taste," as she calls it, "of spinning from the brain in the sanctum of the closet, leaving it to posterity to value the web or not as it pleased," Lady Anne owed the chief amuse

"It is a sweet satisfaction to her," observes her brother, Lord Balcarres, "that, as she advances in years, she not only realizes the enjoyment of life in a delightful amusement, but has also the gratifying and conscious pleasure that she is obeying the earnest wish of her honoured father, who, knowing her ability and competence, urged her to continue a family record, to which he had set an example, and to which his descendants have attached a consideration so imperative as almost to ensure its continuance for ages still to come." 2 c

VOL. II.

ment of a serene, placid, and contented old age, prolonged, like that of several of her family, beyond the three-score years and ten usually allotted to human life, but enlivened to the close by the proverbial cheerfulness of the "light Lindsays," and unimpaired vigour of mind and imagination. Her stores of anecdote, on all subjects and of all persons, her rich fancy, original thought, and ever-ready wit, rendered her conversation delightful to the last; while the kindness of her heart-a very fountain of tenderness and love-always overflowing, and her sincere but unostentatious piety, divested that wit of the keenness that might have wounded,—it flashed, but it was summer lightning.*

*The following letter is from my father-in-law, Colonel Lindsay of Bal

carres:

"You ask me, my dear Lindsay, to give you some account of my dearly loved aunt,. Lady Anne Barnard, as I remember her in my early days. Would I could describe her to you as she then was, but it were no easy matter to draw the portrait of one whose charms and weaknesses were so intermingled, and where shades and sunshine chased each other so rapidly over the landscape.

"She had been the eldest of eleven children; her father died at the advanced age of seventy-eight when she was only seventeen, he was even then a hale old gentleman, thepreux chevalier' of his day; she was for several years his constant companion, and imbibed much of his chivalrous character, which became the foundation of her own.

"Having lost her father, she soon saw that the prosperity of herself and her brothers and sisters depended mainly on her own and their exertions,-for the fortune which was left by her father was not much more than enough to bring them up and educate them in a moderate way, whilst her eldest brother contributed all he could to his mother for this purpose, living for many years on his pay in the army. The feeling that she was the example, that much depended on her, roused her abilities and called forth every latent talent within her. Those talents were not trifling; a stream of genius ran sparkling through her character, and she possessed application. Women were but indifferently educated in those days; few of them knew any language but their own,—a little arithmetic, and cookery; but Lady Anne and her sister Lady Margaret were not to be so satisfied; they studied and read together, working out instruction for themselves; their example was followed in due time by the third sister, my dear aunt, Lady Hardwicke, now (1847) the last survivor of the family. I am inclined to think it was this struggle of the intellect against difficulties which drew forth the energies of the three sisters, and occasioned that originality of thought which was so captivating.

and

"My grandmother's house in Edinburgh was open to the learned and to all strangers of distinction; her rank, station, and character, as the widow of the old and respected Earl of Balcarres, placed her in this situation; thus Lady Anne became acquainted with Hume, Johnson, Mackenzie, Monboddo, and other philosophers of that day, as she did with the wits and statesmen of England at a later period when she and Lady Margaret settled in London. She was graceful, witty, and elegant, full of life and animation, her sister and herself charming musicians, and both of them peculiarly affable,-what wonder then that their fame spread far?

"The peculiar trait of Lady Anne's character was benevolence,-a readiness to share with others her purse, her tears, or her joys-an absence of all selfishness. This, with her talents, created a power of pleasing which I have never seen equalled. She had in society a power of placing herself in sympathy with those whom she addressed, of drawing forth their feelings, their talents, their acquirements, pleasing them with themselves, and consequently with their companions for the time being. I have often seen her change a dull party into an agreeable one; she could make the dullest speak, the shyest feel happy, and the witty flash fire without any apparent exertion. It were impossible