Miss Eden's Letters

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MISS EDEN’S LETTERS

[Illustration]


MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MADRAS
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO

[Illustration: _Pamela, Lady Campbell

from a painting by Sir William Napier_]




MISS EDEN’S LETTERS


EDITED BY

HER GREAT-NIECE

VIOLET DICKINSON


MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

1919

COPYRIGHT




PREFACE


It is difficult to express one’s gratitude. Mine I owe to my brother, R.
E. Dickinson, to Mrs. Ernest Farquhar (granddaughter of Lady Theresa
Lewis), to Sir Guy Campbell, Mrs. W. Rendel, and Sir Arthur Stanley, for
the loan of letters in this book. I also thank Mr. Claud Paget and Mr.
W. Barclay Squire for the help they have given me.

Doubtless, through want of experience, I have been guilty of leaving out
much that might have been left in, and leaving in much that might not be
of interest.

The pleasure of knowing Lady Campbell through her letters has been
doubled by the kindness I have met with from her daughters, Mrs. Ellis
and Mrs. Percy Wyndham.

Lord Cromer before his death in 1917 had been interested in reading
these letters. It is due solely to his encouragement that they are now
published, though lacking the Introduction he was good enough to offer
to write.

A friend of mine read some of the proofs. I found on three occasions
they induced sound sleep within a few minutes, which leads me to hope
perhaps other readers may find them equally soothing.

V. D.

_July 1919._




INTRODUCTION


In the autumn of 1913 a Life of Lord Clarendon[1] was published, and
among many of his letters were a few written to him by an old friend,
Miss Eden. It was thought that a further selection of Emily Eden’s
letters might be of interest.

She was a keen politician of the Whig order, clever, amusing, critical,
an excellent friend and a devoted sister. Her father, William Eden,[2]
was the third son of Sir Robert Eden, Bart., of West Auckland, Durham,
and he married in 1776 Eleanor Elliot, a sister of the 1st Earl of
Minto.[3] Two years later, Eden went as a Commissioner to America. He
was Chief Secretary in Ireland under Lord Carlisle;
Minister-Plenipotentiary in 1785 to the Court of Versailles; in 1788
Ambassador to Spain, and in the following year Ambassador to Holland; he
was given a peerage in 1789 (Baron Auckland). Mrs. Eden, from her own
account, was evidently a first-rate traveller; she took great interest
in her husband’s work, and she had a child, often amidst much
discomfort, in every country to which they were sent.

Emily was born in 1797. Her parents were settled at Eden Farm,
Beckenham, Kent, and her father now devoted his time to politics. Her
mother took great trouble to rear and educate her family of fourteen,
leaving a detailed account in her Diary of their upbringing, diseases
and marriages. Evidently her sense of humour and cheerfulness helped her
through much misery.

“Out of fourteen I suckled thirteen. Eleven of the children had smallpox
during their wanderings, also cow-pox, whooping-cough, measles and
scarlet fever.”

In 1786, Eden, who was then in Paris, wrote to his friend Lord
Sheffield: “Mrs. Eden is just returned from passing nearly a week in the
Circle and Society of the whole Court of Versailles without feeling a
moment’s discomposure. It is impossible to describe to you all the
glorious attentions with which she is honoured by the Queen of France,
not only in presents, but in what she values more, in admiration of her
children. She and the little Frenchman are both well, and we have now as
many nations in our Nursery as were assembled at the Tower of Babel.”
Another friend also wrote:

“Every report says Mrs. Eden’s Nursery is the admiration of the Court
and the Town, that they make parties to see it, that she had made
domestic life quite fashionable”; and there are constant allusions to
the Brattery, the Light Infantry, and the little Parisians.

By her contemporaries Lady Auckland was known later in life as Haughty
Nell, and the Judicious Hooker. Her eldest girl, Eleanor, was Pitt’s
only love, but for various reasons, after a long correspondence between
Pitt and Lord Auckland, the affair came to an end, and Eleanor in 1799
married Lord Hobart, who became Secretary of State for War and the
Colonies in 1801, and succeeded his father as Earl of Buckinghamshire in
1804.

Lord Auckland died suddenly at Eden Farm in 1814. Lady Auckland only
survived him four years. Six of their daughters had married, and the
remaining two, Emily and Fanny, lived with their elder brother George,
and went with him to India when he became Governor-General in 1835.

From an account given of herself in a letter to one of her friends,
Emily had profited by the education she received from her mother.