Some of our more fashionable friends in London complained of Somerset House “being a long way off,” that ambiguous term which, I suppose in those days, meant a long way from exclusive Mayfair. So indeed it was, but it was not far from the theatres, which, in my estimation, represented Elysium. We had two cousins, both influential in regard to position and fortune, but whose grandeur came home to me as being part proprietors of Drury Lane and the Lyceum. My father was a great lover of the drama, and would often apply for one or other of our kinsmen’s boxes. I can still recall the thrill of joy with which I used to see, on our return from a walk or drive, the large silver ticket, looking more like some official badge, which the Duke of Devonshire had sent us, lying on the hall table, promising a night of rapture—for my father generally stipulated that little Mary should be of the party. I well believe that if I gave myself a little trouble I could bring back to my mind the names of almost every play, and every actor and actress I ever saw in those schoolroom days. One piece in particular captivated my girlish fancy: it was called The Cornish Miners, and it is worth my while to remember it, for in that play I first saw those matchless artistes, the Keeleys (hear it, ye gods!) before their marriage. Yes, Mrs Keeley, I venture to hope you will honour this poor tribute with a perusal. It was there I saw Miss Howard, as the boy hero who volunteered to go down the shaft and rescue his comrades, from what peril, and in what manner, I cannot say. My father predicted the future success of the charming young actress, and I can recall even now the delightful comedian who ere long became her husband, with his laughter-provoking face, and lackadaisical air, carrying a lighted candle in the band of his miner’s cap.

Of how many years of entertainment and genial amusement to me was that night the forerunner. I can also remember one of the first performances of the FreischÜtz, or, as it was then popularly called, the Der FreischÜtz, in London. Likewise some kind of musical burlesque, in which Madame Vestris sang all the favourite airs of that charming opera, showing how the nurse lulled her bantling to sleep, how the footman blacked the shoes, and how the housemaid trundled the mop, to the soft strains of the various choruses of Weber’s beautiful masterpiece. In those far-off days there was no elaborately-painted drop to give a cheerful termination to the end of the entertainment, but a gloomy, dark-green baize curtain, with which my spirits fell at the same moment, betokening a termination to that night’s joy; and who could tell when the delight-giving cousin would be again propitious. I amused my friend Mr Irving^[10] by telling him one day that I had been brought up in the stage-box at his theatre, which was then the property of our cousin, Lord Exeter. Yes, it was there I first saw dear Charles Young in The Stranger, and cried so bitterly that my red and swollen eyes prevented my appearing at the ball to which I had been looking forward for weeks; it was then that I made acquaintance with Power, one of the best Irishmen that ever trod or tripped the stage. I say this, not excepting the inimitable Boucicault himself, or my true friend and fellow-actor, Charles Lever. But I must pull up, or my dramatic hobby will take the bit in his mouth, and convert every theatre into Astley’s. Adorable Astley’s!—what a treat you were to me, and how I loved Mazeppa and his horse, the friends of so many years, who continued to urge on his wild career far beyond the allotted span of an equine life; how often have I watched the dear old beast swimming across the mighty rushing river after the tempting bin of corn, visible to my eyes from a side-box.

I am perhaps a little more fastidious now, but the dramatic passion exists in all its fervour, and will till the curtain drops and the lights are extinguished.

But to turn once more to real life. The neighbourhood of Somerset House had other advantages beside those of the theatres, for the Royal Academy still existed under its roof, and almost every Monday morning during the Exhibition, we young ones used to go with our governess to pay the pictures a visit immediately on the opening of the doors, when the rooms were empty, swept and garnished, before the crowd and its accompanying dust had arrived. Then there was a walk with father in the early morning to Covent Garden, when the alleys were all watered, the flowers all fresh and fragrant, and the market uncrowded.

Cavendish and I had several governesses before the Miss Richardson of whom I have spoken elsewhere, but the sad time arrived when my darling companion was to betake himself to the Charterhouse, which our brother Charles had lately left in the proud character of orator, a dignity which was afterwards reached in the next generation by another member^[11] of our family. On the night ordained for Cavendish’s departure, an upper boy came to our house, who was to be his master at school. At that moment I half disliked good John Horner, because he carried off my beloved brother; but the transient dislike soon changed into a tender friendship, which lasted many years. To break the fall, as it were, my father allowed me to accompany him and the two boys to the old Carthusian edifice, and I proceeded thither with the heaviest of hearts, my position rendered all the more cruel, because I had been forbidden to shed one tear, and was desired to sit far back in the carriage and not show myself. For the school-boy that was to be, assured me that the fellows always chaffed a new arrival about his sister. This was a terrible wound, but in the course of time I became a frequent visitor at Charterhouse, was allowed to go on the green (cruel misnomer for the black patch where they played cricket), and, if the truth be told, made close friendships with some of the “fellows.” Alfred Montgomery, Frank Sheridan, and John Horner often came to our house with Cavendish from Saturday till Sunday night, to my inexpressible delight! There are none left now to talk over old Charterhouse days with me!

As I have said in my preface, I have not a good head for dates, and I may as well make a clean breast of it at once, and add, for figures of any kind. It may be from want of practice, as far as pounds, shillings, and pence are concerned, for I have never had much experience in counting up thousands on my own account. In respect of dates, then (which, I hope the reader will agree with me, are not of much importance in a narrative of this kind), I do not pretend to the strict order of succession, but I know it was in the year 1821 that George IV. was crowned, and I can well remember the excitement I experienced in seeing my father, mother and sister set off for the coronation. I looked from the window with longing eyes, deeply regretting I was not allowed to be of the party. My father was the most punctual of men—indeed he would have come under the category of those who overdid the virtue. The Duke of Wellington, it will be remembered, upon the Queen saying to him: “You see how punctual I am, Duke, I am even before my time,” replied with blunt veracity, “That, Your Majesty, is not punctuality.” My sister did not inherit this trait in her father’s character. She was late, and in answer to his vociferous summons from the carriage, ran downstairs, in her hurry, without her white satin shoes, which were thrown after her from the window. My father’s extreme anxiety to be early on the scene may, however, be accounted for by the fact that he was to form part of the procession, as train-bearer, or page of the coronation robes of his brother, Lord Cork. His dress was not picturesque, being a scarlet and gold frock-coat, or tunic, bound round the waist with a blue silk sash, and I am free to confess that I did not consider his age, stature, or costume in any way calculated to fulfil my ideal of a page; but then the page of my imagination was naturally of a dramatic sort. I do not know that I have yet recovered from the sorrow caused by my missing that magnificent sight. It is true that I have assisted since, at two other coronations, but in both of these there was no banquet, and worse than all, no Champion! The rest of the pageant was doubtless splendid in every sense of the word, but the idea of the Champion was so historical, so romantic, and was I not the most romantic of small human beings? Besides the description of the challenger, who flung down his gauntlet in Westminster Hall, and dared any one to hazard a doubt on the claim of the Sovereign to the throne, was there not a description, I say, of this remnant of chivalry in the pages of Walter Scott’s “Red Gauntlet?” Walter Scott! the god of my literary idolatry, with whose heroes I had fallen in love, in succession—whose heroines I had envied and admired one after another, encouraged thereto by our governess, who judged rightly that children could scarcely be too young to appreciate the beauties of that incomparable novelist. I must confess that several alleviations were offered to my regret at not witnessing that coronation. I had a beautiful toy given me of a kind which is now, I believe, obsolete—a small wooden case containing a roll of a coloured representation of the procession, several yards long, and commencing with the figures of Miss “Herb Strewer Fellowes”—for so the lady was designated on her visiting-card—and her maidens, and ending, as Royal processions do, with the most exalted Personage. This was my delight, and I was never tired of drawing it out and gazing at it; but better than all, I went to the theatre with my father, and saw as near a resemblance as could be produced on the stage, to the glories of that day. I can perfectly recall the bow with which Elliston the actor gave the very facsimile of that of His Majesty George IV., which was universally upheld for its surpassing grace. Then, oh joy! There was the Champion in complete armour, on a horse richly caparisoned, whose hoofs sounded on the wooden floor of the stage with a hollow, almost terrible, reverberation, as he backed—backed, and piaffed and caracoled and curvetted, according to all the strict regulations of the haute École.

Dear reader, it was no idle boast about royal residences, for when it came to pass that my father left his post at Somerset House, and, preferring to live in London, took up his abode in Upper Berkeley Street, where we often visited him, my mother and the rest of the family settled at Hampton Court. This proved to be the home of the longest standing I can remember, as with occasional, I may say frequent, flittings, we remained there till 1840. The grant of apartments in those days was in the gift of the Lord Chamberlain, and Lord John Thynne (afterwards Lord Carteret) had bestowed a set of rooms, some years before, on his friend and connection, Mrs Courtenay Boyle. Things altogether were at that time on a very different footing to what they are now, for the palace had gained the name of the Quality Alms House, and, as regarded the quality part of the title, it was well named, seeing that the inhabitants counted Seymours, Montagus, Pagets, Walpoles, Ponsonbys, and other names connected with the Upper House, many of them far from being bedesmen and bedeswomen, and for the most part better off than the present inmates of the palace. Then, too, such a minor detail as a husband did not disqualify a lady from being an occupant. Things are entirely on a different footing now. Now the grant of rooms is solely in the hands of the sovereign, and our beloved Queen,^[12] who cares for the fatherless, and befriends the cause of the widow, takes more into consideration the needs of the candidates, and the services and merits of the husband or relative they survive, than any recommendation of family or of rank.