creature as yourself. Adieu, Adieu.-The door bell rings and I must receive whoever it is.-It was Sir G. Wombwell and Lord Ch. Bellasyse.-He is a fine, dashing Genius, a true character of the Age.

God in Heaven bless you, and pray write me a line of comfort. Do remember me most kindly to Mrs. D[amer].1

The breaking off of her engagement to General O'Hara left Miss Berry a very sad woman; and when her friends, seeking to alleviate her distress, blamed her false lover, she warmly defended him. "I still believe," she wrote to one of these well-meaning souls, "that had this separation never taken place, I should never have had to complain of him, nor he to doubt me." In this opinion she never wavered, nor did she ever forget O'Hara. "This place and everything about it recall, in the most lively manner, scenes and recollections to my mind, which, though melancholy, I cannot call unpleasing," she wrote to Mrs. Damer in August 1798 from Cheltenham, where three years earlier she and O'Hara had been at the same time. "They are, thank Heaven, unembittered by reproach, and undisgraced by folly. My imagination seems to pass over everything that has happened since, and to bring me back to the calm but lively enjoyment of a society in which I delight." There are other references in the Journals to the incident. "After tea, Mr. Greathead, at my request, read to us his translation in verse of Boccaccio's Lisabetta and her Brothers," she noted in 1807, when staying at Guy's Cliff. "I had heard it once before, eleven years ago, at their house in Bryanstone Street, on an evening memorable to me, for it was that on which I had at last relieved my own 1 Add. MSS. 37727, f. 245. 2 Journals, ii. 70.

2

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mind and scruples, by confiding to my second father, Lord Orford, that in a few months, as I then thought, I was to leave him for a still dearer friend and a nearer connection, and, satisfied with having acted up to the most scrupulous, the most romantic ideas of the duties of friendship, I was indulging myself in all the rational hopes and fair prospects which seemed then to open to my still enthusiastic mind. Alas! alas! all too soon cruelly crushed, and since levelled with the dust."1 Miss Perry in her Reminiscences has stated that Miss Berry, towards the end of her life, "one evening recounted the sad story of her engagement, so long ago in time, but fresh in her memory as if it were the tale of yesterday. She described her last interview with this fine-looking soldier, in the prime of his life, with such graphic power, that his image seemed standing before us." Some years after the engagement was broken, she sealed up the correspondence. After eight-and-forty years, when she had passed the age of fourscore, she opened the packet, and inserted the following sad note:

"This parcel of letters relate to the six happiest months of my long and insignificant existence, although these six months were accompanied by fatiguing and unavoidable uncertainty, and by the absence of every thing that could constitute present enjoyment. But I looked forward to a future existence which I felt for the first time would have called out all the powers of my mind and all the warmest feelings of my heart, and should have been supported by one who but for the cruel absence which separated us, would never have for a moment doubted that we should have materially contributed to each other's happiness. These prospects

1 Journals, ii. 320.

served even to pass cheerfully a long winter of delays and uncertainty, by keeping my mind firmly riveted on their accomplishment. A concatenation of unfortunate circumstances-the political state of Europe making absence a necessity, and even frequent communication impossible; letters lost and delayed, all certainty of meeting more difficult, questions unanswered, doubts unsatisfied, all these circumstances combined in the most unlucky manner, crushed the fair fabric of my happiness, not at one fell swoop, but by the slow mining misery of loss of confidence, of unmerited complaints, of finding by degrees misunderstandings, and the firm rock of mutual confidence crumbling under my feet, while my bosom for long could not banish a hope that all might yet be set right. And so it would, had we ever met for twenty-four hours. But he remained at his government at Gibraltar till his death, in 1802. And I, forty-two years afterwards, on opening these papers which had been sealed up ever since, receive the conviction that some feelings in some minds are indelible."

SECTION V

THE BERRYS AT HOME AND ON THE CONTINENT

1797-1803

The death of Mrs. Damer's half-sister, the Duchess of Richmond-Horace Walpole's illness and death-Mary Berry's account of his last days-His will-Mary Berry edits his collected works-The Berrys and Mrs. Damer in 1798-9-The Hon. Caroline Howe-She is mentioned in Walpole's Letters-An appreciation of her by Mary Berry-At Strawberry Hill— Mrs. Damer's private theatricals-The production by amateurs of Mary Berry's comedy, Fashionable Friends-The cast—Joanna Baillie-The play well received-The author determines to secure a public representation-The second Viscount Palmerston-The Peace of Amiens-Mary Berry and Mrs. Damer visit Paris-Berthier, Cambacérès, Macdonald, Fouché, Masséna, Mme. Recamier, Mme. de Staël, &c.-Presented to Madame Buonaparte-Napoleon Buonaparte-Fashionable Friends produced at Drury Lane-The Berrys go abroad in October 1802-At Nice -The death of Caroline, Lady Aylesbury-Mme. de StarembergAmateur theatricals at The Priory-Correspondence with Lord Hartington and Mrs. Damer-The prospects of a new war-Death of the Duke of Bridgewater-His will-Reported death of "Old Q."-Sir William Hamilton's estate-Bridgewater House.

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HE older members of the Berry circle began to pass away. Conway had gone in July 1796, and in November of the following year Mrs. Damer suffered another bereavement through the death of her half-sister, the Duchess of Richmond. Horace Walpole, who had long been ailing, had now entered into the valley of the shadow of death. "Lord Orford," Mrs. Damer wrote to Lady Ossory, November 6, 1796, "was struck last Thursday night by the intense cold, which first flung him into a violent vomiting, and then gave him great pain in both legs, which turned