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Gentleman's Magazine 1840 part 2 p.278
(who is the soul of the house) turn to carcases, ready to be dissolved, fall to ruine and dust; but she resolved by her presence to animate the houses which she had built, and the places where she lived; to dispense and disperse the influences of her hospitality and charity in all the places where her patrimony lay, that many might be made partakers of her comforts and kindness.
"In her frequent removals, both going and coming, she strewed her bounty all the way. And for this end it was (as may be charitably conjectured) that she so often removed; and that not only in the winter season (less fit for travelling), but also that she chose to pass those uncouth and untrodden, those mountainous and almost impassable ways, that she might make the poor people and labourers her pioneers, who were always well rewarded for their pains. Let the season be never so bad, the places never so barren, yet we may say it by way of allusion, Psalm. 65. II. She crowned the Season with her goodness, and her paths dropped fatness, even upon the pasture of the wilderness, the barren mountains. If she found not mines in these mountains, I am sure the poor found money in good plenty, whenever she passed over them." (p.46.)
The Bishop then proceeds to detail at length as "an instance of her constancy" of purpose, "a known story in these parts," that about three years before her death, during a misty frost in January, she had appointed to remove from Appleby to Brougham Castle. Just before her departure, she turned into the chapel, as was her practice, to offer her private prayers, and there fell into a swoon. When recovered she could not be persuaded to forego the journey, "having before fixed on that day, and so much company being come purposely to wait on her;" nor yet when she had been seized with another fit, when she first came to her horse litter. And no sooner was she came to her journey's end (nine miles) but a swooning seized on her again; still she would not allow that she ought not to have undertaken the journey. "She replied she knew she must die, and it was the same thing to her to die in the way, as in her house; in her litter as in her bed; declaring a courage no less than the great Roman general, Necesse est ut eam, non ut vitam: She would not acknowledge any necessity why she should live, but believed it becessary to keep firm to her resolution."
"Of a humour pleasing to all, yet like to none; her dress not disliked by any, yet imitated by none. Those who fed by her, might be full; if with her, starved, to eat by the measures she took to herself. She was absolute mistress of herself, her resolutions, actions and time; and yet allowed a time for every purpose, for all addresses, for any persons; none had access to her but by her leave, when she called; but none were rejected: none must stay longer than she would, yet none departed unsatisfied. Like him at the stern, she seemed to do little or nothing, but indeed turned and steered the whole course of her affairs." (p.51.)
Such was this energetic and masculine woman, the Elizabeth of the peerage. The extracts now given will be sufficient to justify us in tendering the public thanks to Mr. Jefferson for this interesting reprint:* but we wish he would exert himself to procure for us a fuller copy of his heroine's DIARY, of which some very curious passages were first published in Seward's Anecdotes. We believe it was a different MS. to "the private memoirs of the Countess, written by herself,"† which occupy a large portion of one of the three
* In the preface, p.ix. is a slight mistake respecting Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, that "her epitaph in Salisbury Cathedral, which is so much admired records her as Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother." The epitaph was never placed in Salisbury Cathedral, but only in the works of Ben Jonson, whence the copies of it have been derived.
† The Diary was evidently made as events arose; and afterwards "some parts of these Diaries were summed into Annals." (Bishop Rainbow's Sermon, p.50.) Of the folio memoir the full title will be found, together with some extracts, in the last edition of the Biographia Britannica, vol.ii p.640, whence the more recent writers have derived them. A transcript of the narrative was communicated to Dr. Kippis by Mr. Baynes; and its contents are described by the former as a "few things which relate to the general events of the times," and "every incident, how trifling soever, which happened to herself or any of her family. The different places of her residence, the time she staid in them, the repairs of her houses, her journeys from one castle to another, the marriages of her daughters, the births of her grand-children and great-grand-children, the deaths of the great persons she was connected with, the visits she received from her noble relations, the way by which they came and returned, the number of nights they lodged with her, the rooms in which they lay, her repeated entertainment of the Judges of Assize, and many other particulars of the like nature, are recorded with the most circumstantial exactness;" and, though too minute and full of repetitions to be available to Dr. Kippis, we cannot imagine a more interesting record of ancient manners, (now rendered more remote by the lapse of nearly sixty years since Dr. Kippis wrote,) or one better deserving the attention of either the Surtees or the Camden Society.
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