Beaux and Belles of England | Page 9

even to fastidiousness, he was still the
dupe of his passions, the victim of unfortunate attachment.
Within a few days of our arrival in London we were placed for
education in a school at Chelsea. The mistress of this seminary was
perhaps one of the most extraordinary women that ever graced, or
disgraced, society; her name was Meribah Lorrington. She was the
most extensively accomplished female that I ever remember to have
met with; her mental powers were no less capable of cultivation than
superiorly cultivated. Her father, whose name was Hull, had from her
infancy been the master of an academy at Earl's Court, near Fulham;
and early after his marriage losing his wife, he resolved on giving his
daughter a masculine education. Meribah was early instructed in all the
modern accomplishments, as well as in classical knowledge. She was

mistress of the Latin, French, and Italian languages; she was said to be
a perfect arithmetician and astronomer, and possessed the art of
painting on silk to a degree of exquisite perfection. But, alas! with all
these advantages, she was addicted to one vice, which at times so
completely absorbed her faculties as to deprive her of every power,
either mental or corporeal. Thus, daily and hourly, her superior
acquirements, her enlightened understanding, yielded to the
intemperance of her ruling infatuation, and every power of reflection
seemed lost in the unfeminine propensity.
All that I ever learned I acquired from this extraordinary woman. In
those hours when her senses were not intoxicated, she would delight in
the task of instructing me. She had only five or six pupils, and it was
my lot to be her particular favourite. She always, out of school, called
me her little friend, and made no scruple of conversing with me
(sometimes half the night, for I slept in her chamber), on domestic and
confidential affairs. I felt for her a very sincere affection, and I listened
with peculiar attention to all the lessons she inculcated. Once I recollect
her mentioning the particular failing which disgraced so intelligent a
being. She pleaded, in excuse of it, the immitigable regret of a
widowed heart, and with compunction declared that she flew to
intoxication as the only refuge from the pang of prevailing sorrow. I
continued more than twelve months under the care of Mrs. Lorrington,
during which period my mother boarded in a clergyman's family at
Chelsea. I applied rigidly to study, and acquired a taste for books,
which has never, from that time, deserted me. Mrs. Lorrington
frequently read to me after school hours, and I to her. I sometimes
indulged my fancy in writing verses, or composing rebuses, and my
governess never failed to applaud the juvenile compositions I presented
to her. Some of them, which I preserved and printed in a small volume
shortly after my marriage, were written when I was between twelve and
thirteen years of age; but as love was the theme of my poetical fantasies,
I never showed them to my mother till I was about to publish them.
It was my custom, every Sunday evening, to drink tea with my mother.
During one of those visits a captain in the British navy, a friend of my
father's, became so partial to my person and manners that a proposal of
marriage shortly after followed. My mother was astonished when she
heard it, and, as soon as she recovered from her surprise, inquired of

my suitor how old he thought me; his reply was, "About sixteen." My
mother smiled, and informed him that I was then not quite thirteen. He
appeared to be skeptical on the subject, till he was again assured of the
fact, when he took his leave with evident chagrin, but not without
expressing his hopes that, on his return to England,--for he was going
on a two years' expedition,--I should be still disengaged. His ship
foundered at sea a few months after, and this amiable gallant officer
perished.
I had remained a year and two months with Mrs. Lorrington, when
pecuniary derangements obliged her to give up her school. Her father's
manners were singularly disgusting, as was his appearance; for he wore
a silvery beard which reached to his breast; and a kind of Persian robe
which gave him the external appearance of a necromancer. He was of
the Anabaptist persuasion, and so stern in his conversation that the
young pupils were exposed to perpetual terror. Added to these
circumstances, the failing of his daughter became so evident, that even
during school hours she was frequently in a state of confirmed
intoxication. These events conspired to break up the establishment, and
I was shortly after removed to a boarding-school at Battersea.
The mistress of this seminary, Mrs. Leigh, was a lively, sensible, and
accomplished woman; her daughter