The finest feature of her character was her devotion to her husband. Although she declares herself to have been devoid of any “passion,” or “amourous love,” a study of her biography of Newcastle inclines one to think that on this point she deceived herself; unless, as is possible, the place of passionate love was supplied by unqualified hero-worship. She had a profound admiration for his talents. Exaggerated as is her praise in the following lines, it at least shows an affectionate devotion. They occur at the end of her book of poems:—
A Poet I am neither born nor bred, But to a witty poet married, Whose brain is fresh, and pleasant as the Spring, Where fancies grow, and where the Muses sing; There oft I lean my head, and listening hark, T’observe his words, and all his fancies mark, And from that garden flowers of fancy take, Whereof a posy up in verse I make: Thus I that have no garden of my own There gather flowers, that are newly blown.
And she did indeed “there gather flowers,” if there is any truth in the pretty general idea that the best lines in her poems were the work of her husband.
Her expedition to England to try to wrest something for Newcastle from his worst enemies was a noble action, and her murmurless endurance of the pawn-shop, where her husband left her when he returned to his own country, was a splendid example of self-sacrifice and patience.
Her lengthy and carefully drawn up statements of her husband’s financial affairs testify to her capacity for business, and suggest the probability that she was of great help in restoring his fortunes. Indeed it may be that her talents were more suited for the high-stool of a clerk than for the arm-chair of a poet.
Walpole’s notice of the later years of the Newcastles’ life is severe. “What a picture of foolish nobility was this stately poetic couple, retired to their own little domain, and intoxicating one another with circumstantial flattery on what was of consequence to no mortal but themselves.” In all this there is a measure of truth; but unless they had retired to their own domain, which, by the way, was not “little,” and unless they had lived there economically, they could never have restored the fortunes of their family. Surely the atmosphere of Welbeck Abbey was more wholesome than that of the vicious and intriguing Court of Charles II; and, if they chose to amuse themselves with pens and paper, it can truly be said of them that how much soever they may have injured their own literary reputations by a rather injudicious use of those dangerous instruments, they did not injure those of other people, which is more than can be said of many other writers, both ancient and modern.