Anne Seymour Damer. A woman of art and fashion, 1748-1828

Introduction

Anne Seymour Conway, or as she is better known, Anne Seymour Darner, has more than ordinary claims to live in History ; during her long and eventful life, she was the centre of a circle in which rank, wealth, fashion and science were all gathered together. She was not only the friend of artistic and literary people, but was a sculptor of no mean repute, and, although she has left no literary record, she was a well-read woman, a student of Herodotus, Pliny, and Virgil, and possessed one of the finest libraries in London.

Her life is a pleasant one to look back on. Irreproachable in moral character, she was of a fascinating and amiable disposition showing an exemplary patience during the short period of her unhappy married life. From the date of her husband's tragic death, her life seems to have been unclouded by any troubles except the death of her beloved parents.

vii

At a very early age she showed strong literary and artistic talent. In regard to her art she was extremely ambitious. She is one of the few women in the history of the world who has taken up the hammer and chisel, and, although her work may now appear rather rough and unfinished, in her day her success was highly praised. Whatever her rank in art may be, her position in society was excellent ; of a gay and lively disposition, she chose her friends from every class, and not so much for their rank and station, as for their talents and high character.

Although her father, General Conway (a man of strong character), was devoted to her, he and her mother were prevented from taking the personal interest in her education, which they otherwise would have taken, owing to their frequent absences from England during a great part of her childhood. She was therefore constantly left under the care of Horace Walpole, her father's devoted friend and cousin, who was responsible for the soundness of her early training, and watched over her dawning intellect with the greatest solicitude.

Mrs. Darner was a woman of strong affection, viii

INTRODUCTION

For her father, whom, with her usual enthusiasm, she was wont to magnify into a hero, she had great admiration ; to her mother, whom at her father's death she took to live with her, and upon whom she lavished much care and attention, until death broke the filial link, she was always dutiful and affectionate. Among those who claimed her friendship, besides Horace Walpole, were the Misses Berry and their father, David Hume, the historian, Sir William and Lady Hamilton, Lord Nelson, Napoleon and Josephine de Beauharnais, Queen Charlotte, the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, Charles James Fox, Georgiana, the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Garrick and his wife, the Cos ways, Mrs. Siddons, Miss Farren, who became Countess of Derby, Ceracchi and Bacon, the sculptors, from whom she took lessons, Erasmus Darwin, the poet, and Canova.

In whatever Mrs. Darner undertook, we find an amount of daring and spirit which is quite uncommon amongst ordinary women. Although she had associated with and received some instruction from David Hume, then in the height

ix of his Toryism, she was far too enthusiastic to be a Tory, and when quite young she became an ardent Whig. Conceiving that a great name and even great work may be achieved by a woman, she despised the mere distinction of noble descent ; she never lost an opportunity of warming and exercising her enthusiasm, and it was this spirit that made her so active a Whig.

Mrs. Darner lived in a period of history so full of remarkable events, that in her old age she was able to look back upon her life as an interesting drama which had been played before her eyes ; during this eventful time she had seen all the vicissitudes of war and revolution in other countries, and in her own country great social changes which she had viewed with the eyes of a most intelligent spectator.

Had she only preserved her letters and papers, how interesting might the memoir of this remarkable woman have been ! Unfortunately, she left instructions that all her papers and letters should be destroyed at her death ; it has therefore been difficult to trace the events of her interesting life. This short biographical sketch has been arranged

x

INTRODUCTION

from a few autograph letters and papers lent byconnections of Mrs. Darner's and others, and from biographies and memoirs of her contemporaries, all of whom appear to have appreciated the charm of her influence, and to have held her in great admiration. The following works have been used for reference, and in some cases extracts have been made from them : —

Horace Walpole's Letters.

Allan Cunningham's Lives of Painters.

Lady Mary Cokes Letters, edited by the Hon. J. A. Home, 1889.

Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox to Lady Susan O'Brien, by the Countess of Ilchester and Viscount Stavordale, 1902.

Queens of Society, by G. and P. Wharton.

Letters of Madame UArblay (Fanny Burney).

Letters and Diary of Miss Berry, by Lady Theresa Lewis.

The Creevey Papers, edited by Sir Herbert Maxwell.

The Diary of Mrs. Philip Lybbe-Powys, edited by Mrs. E. T. Climenson.

xi

ERRATA

„ 23. Conway House was situated at the end of Warwick Street, now called Warwick House Street, leading from Cockspur Street to Carlton House Terrace.

„ 56, line 26, for horses read hearses.

,, 77, line 19, for these read three.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTION, ........ vii

I. HER BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD, 1

Chapter II Her Father

Anne Conway inherited a good deal of her ability from her father, Henry Seymour Conway ; born in 1719, he was the second son of Francis Seymour who had assumed the name and arms of Conway, and was elevated to the peerage as Baron Conway. Henry Seymour Conway 's mother (Lord Conway's third wife) was Charlotte Shorter, a daughter of Alderman Sir John Shorter, Lord Mayor of London.

Mr. Conway was a remarkably handsome man, a skilful and gallant soldier, a clever statesman, a man of great taste, and possessed of a strong understanding.

He was educated at Eton at the same time as his brother Francis, who became the first Marquis of Hertford, and was for some time Ambassador at the Court of France and also Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. On leaving Eton, Mr. Conway travelled on the Continent with his cousin, Horace Walpole. Between them there was a life-

FIELD-MARSHAL THE HONOURABLE HENRY SEYMOUR CONWAY

From a print, engraved 179S

HER FATHER long devotion, which lasted till Conway's death. The poet Gray also accompanied them on this journey.

In 1741 he began his military career, joining the British Army in Flanders ; he was present at the battle of Fontenoy, where he was taken prisoner, but, as Horace Walpole writes at the time, 4 he distinguished himself very highly.' In several other engagements he appears to have attracted much notice for his bravery. On his release towards the end of the year 1741, he returned home to console his * fair widow/ as Horace Walpole remarks in a letter to George Montagu. The widow referred to was Lady Caroline Campbell, widow of Charles Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury, whom he married on December 19, 1741, his wife retaining her first husband's title. In 1745 he was present at the Battle of Culloden, where he was given the command of a regiment. In 1749 Mr. Conway went to Minorca, and visited Italy on his way home. Lady Ailesbury remained at home with her parents and her daughter, Anne Conway, who was only a year old.

Two years after he went to join his regiment in Ireland, and Lady Ailesbury went with him. In 1759 he became Lieutenant-General, and General in 1772, when (October 22) he was appointed Governor of the Island of Jersey. Horace Walpole, writing of this appointment, says : ' He acted in his diminutive Islet with as much virtue and popularity as Cicero in his larger Sicily ; the zeal indeed with which he entered upon the discharge of his new military duties kept pace with the ardour with which he had fulfilled his previous and more important obligations to the State.' In 1793 he became a Field-Marshal.

He was equally well known as a statesman. In 1741 he was elected M.P. for Higham Ferrars, subsequently representing Penrhyn, St. Maws, Thetford, Bury St. Edmunds, and finally Wendover in 1775. One of his earliest efforts in the House of Commons was his opposition to the Government on the question of the legality of general warrants ; for supporting this measure he was dismissed from his post as Groom of the Bedchamber to His Majesty, and also from the command of his regiment. This treatment he felt to be both harsh and unjust, but he bore it with his accustomed philosophy. Horace Walpole writes on May 14, 1764 : ' Mr. Conway is turned out of the King's Bed-chamber and out of his Regiment. His temper, patience, and resignation are beyond example. His calmness and content prove how much his mind is at ease.

HER FATHER

He would not bear his sufferings with such fortitude if his conduct had not been as pure as virtue itself.' The following lines on his dismissal appeared in the Gentleman s Magazine : —

' Should future annals the strange story tell, How honour, valour, wit and Conway fell ; Should they declare dismission was his lot (Though neither coward, traitor, rebel, Scot), With generous pride our children will disdain To feel a stigma on our Monarch's reign : So great his goodness and so just his praise, They '11 not believe 'twas done in George's days.'

At this time he appears to have been rather pressed for money, and both his brother, Lord Hertford, and his cousin, Horace Walpole, offered to assist him ; fortunately, at the psychological moment, the Duke of Devonshire died and bequeathed to him a legacy of £5000 as a testimony of his friendship and admiration. Horace Walpole, writing to Conway of this legacy, says : 1 You might despise the acquisition of £5000 simply, but when that sum is a public testimonial of your virtue, and bequeathed by a man so virtuous, it is worth a million/

The following year, on Grenville's dismissal from power, General Conway was appointed Secretary of State for the Northern Department ; and sworn a member of the Privy Council, while 'Lady Ailesbury was received at Court most benignly, a circumstance you will not dislike/ writes Horace Walpole to Lord Hertford. He resigned his office of Secretary of State in 1768.

During his Governorship of Jersey in 1775 the American War of Independence had broken out. To Conway it was reserved to point out in the House of Commons that the people of England were convinced of the folly of continuing this war. In 1782 he therefore moved an Address to the Throne, praying that the war on the Continent of North America might no longer be pursued for the impracticable purpose of reducing the inhabitants of that country to obedience. In 1766 he had foretold the mischief that Grenville's fatal Stamp Act would occasion, and ' the effect of his speech was incredible/ wrote Walpole. It proved fatal to Lord North's administration, as on this motion Lord North's majority was reduced to the extraordinary figure of one, the numbers being 194 to 193. On the decision Lord North resigned, and in November the Commissioners signed the preliminaries of peace, Great Britain reserving only Canada and Newfoundland on the American continent.

The American colonies were irrevocably gone, and the creation of the United States was a turning-point in the world's history. After this brilliant success, which Charles James Fox de-

HEB FATHER

scribed as ' saving his country/ General Conway retired altogether from public life, passing his remaining years in peaceful tranquillity, in beautifying his charming estate, Park Place, at Henley, and in cultivating science and literature.

He wrote a comedy entitled False Appearances, which was performed by a talented company of amateurs at the Duke of Richmond's house, his daughter, Mrs. Darner, speaking the epilogue 'with inimitable spirit and grace.' This play was afterwards produced at Drury Lane, where it met with some success.

He died at Park Place on July 9, 1795, having only returned from his London house (Conway House, Soho) on the preceding day ; he was deeply mourned by his widow and daughter and his large circle of friends. Writing to Miss Berry, Mrs. Darner expresses her apprehension as to how Horace Walpole would bear the bad news : ' He never seemed to apprehend it.' He did not long survive his old friend, dying in London not quite two years afterwards, on March 2, 1797.

Miss Berry sums up General Conway's character in the following words : —

' It is only those who have had the opportunity of penetrating into the most secret motives of his public career, and into the inmost recesses of his private life, who can do real justice to the unsullied purity of his character, who saw and knew him in the evening of his days, retired from the honourable activity of a soldier and of a Statesman, to the calm enjoyment of private life ; happy in the resources of his own mind and in the cultivation of useful knowledge, in the bosom of domestic peace, unenriched by pensions or places, undistinguished by titles or ribbons, unsophisticated by public life, and unwearied by retirement.'

Such was the father of Anne Conway.

BUST OF CAROLINE, COUNTESS OF AILESBURY

By Anne Seymour Damer

HER MOTHER

Chapter III Her Mother

Anne Conway's mother, Caroline, daughter of Colonel John Campbell of Mamore, afterwards fourth Duke of Argyll, and of the beautiful Mary Bellenden, born in 1721, was no less remarkable as a woman than her father was as a man. Her godmother was Caroline, Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen of George II. Her mother had been Maid-of-honour to the Princess of Wales.

At the age of eighteen Caroline Campbell married Lord Bruce, who was then fifty-seven, as his third wife. He succeeded his father as fourth Earl of Elgin and third Earl of Ailesbury. Of this marriage Mrs. Delany writes : ' Miss Campbell is to be married to Lord Bruce, her father can give her no fortune, she is very pretty, well behaved, and just eighteen, has £2000 a year jointure and £400 pin money. They say he is cross, covetous, and three score old, this unsuitable marriage is the admiration of the old, and the envy of the young.' She had lost her B 17 mother three years before, and her father was very often away from home ; hence she seems to have had no one to advise her.

She was considered a great beauty at the time of her wedding. Horace Walpole states that, ' Her face and person were charming, lively she was, almost to etourderie, and so agreeable she was that I never heard her mentioned afterwards by one of her contemporaries who did not prefer her as the most perfect creature they ever saw.'

Lady Ailesbury, who was an only daughter, had four brothers : J ohn, who succeeded his father as fifth Duke of Argyll, and married the Duchess of Hamilton, one of the beautiful Gunnings ; Henry, who was killed in 1747 ; William, who married Miss Sarah Izard of South Carolina ; and Frederick, who married the widow of the Lord Ferrers who was hanged at Tyburn for the murder of his steward. Her first husband, Lord Ailesbury, died in 1747, leaving her a very handsome jointure, and charge of their only child, Mary, who afterwards married Charles, third Duke of Richmond. Lady Ailesbury did not long remain a widow ; towards the end of the same year, she married the Honourable Henry Seymour Conway. To Horace Walpole, this marriage was no surprise ; he wrote of it in July 1747 : ' Harry Conway, whom nature always

HER MOTHER

designed for a hero of romance, and who is deplace in ordinary life, did wonders . . . but was afterwards taken prisoner, is since released on parole, and may come home to console his fair widow.'

Lady Ailesbury was very much in love with her second husband, and the marriage proved to be one of unalloyed happiness. Her charming disposition was much appreciated by her friends ; Lady Luxborough writes to the poet Shenstone : 'You, sir, have also had an agreeable lady at your house, I mean the Countess of Ailesbury ; whose charms and whose conduct have always been equally admired by those I have heard speak of her. I have been told she was a lover of retirement in her old Lord's time ; I do not know what she may be in her young Colonel's. She is, you know, daughter to General Campbell and Miss Bellenden, who was so celebrated when she was Maid-of-honour to Queen Caroline. It is no wonder then that she is pleasing.'

Horace Walpole in recommending Conway to Sir Horace Mann, at Florence, writes : ' For the Florentine ladies he is the finest person and the handsomest face I ever saw. No, I cannot say that all this will be quite for them ! he will not think any of them quite so handsome as my Lady Ailesbury. ' Years afterwards (on September

28, 1762), he wrote to Conway : 4 Your Countess is handsomer than fame ; your daughter improves every day/ and writing from Strawberry Hill : ' Strawberry Hill is grown a perfect Paphos ; it is the land of beauties ; on Wednesday Lady Ailesbury and the Duchesses of Hamilton and Richmond dined here, the two latter stayed all night. There never was so pretty a sight as to see them all sitting in the shell.1 A thousand years hence, when I begin to grow old, if that can ever be, I shall talk of that event, and tell the young people how much handsomer the women were of my time than they will be then. I shall say " women alter now." I remember Lady Ailesbury looking handsomer than her daughter, the pretty Duchess of Richmond, as they were sitting in the shell on my terrace with the Duchess of Hamilton, one of the famous Gunnings/

Lady Ailesbury was a well-read woman, who enjoyed the society of the literary men of her day. She was much interested in Rousseau, who through her and General Conway obtained his pension of £100 a year. Among her intimate friends she numbered David Hume, the historian, Gray, Thomson, and Shenstone, the

1 This shell was a carved seat designed by Mr. Bentley at Strawberry Hill.

SHELL-SEAT AT STRAWBERRY HILL

HER MOTHER

poets ; the last of whom wrote the following

lines to her : —

' But what can courts discover more Than these rude haunts have seen before,

Each fount and shady tree 1 Have not these trees and fountain seen The pride of courts, the winning mien

Of peerless Ailesbury ? '

Amongst her artistic acquaintances were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Angelica Kauffmann, Mr. and Mrs. Garrick, Miss Farren, and Mrs. Siddons.

No mean artist herself, her wonderful embroidered and worked pictures were much admired. Some of these are still in existence and remain beautiful schemes of colour. She imitated such well-known artists as Cuyp, Rosa de Tivoli, Vandyck, and Gainsborough. A writer of the time describes these worked pictures as being little inferior to the originals : ' they are worked in worsteds, with so much taste, and so happily managed in the various tints as to deceive at a small distance ; one in particular, a portrait from Vandyck, in which the colours are so artfully blended as to appear across the room a sketch of that great artist/

Lady Ailesbury was very fond of society, and, according to her cousin Lady Mary Coke's account, gambled a good deal both at her own house and when she was at the houses of her friends, and was extraordinarily lucky, for she generally won at Lou, which seems to have been the game chiefly played at this time. She befriended many of the French emigres who came to England during the Revolution, and whom she had met before on her visits to Paris.

The last entertainments that Lady Ailesbury probably attended were the marriage procession of the Prince of Wales (George iv.) and the Princess Caroline of Brunswick, and the Drawing-room held afterwards at St. James's Palace ; after the drawing-room, she and her nieces, the Ladies Maria and Louisa Stuart, had supper with Mrs. Herbert, one of the ladies of the bed-chamber, from which they did not reach home till past one o'clock. She was at this time in her seventy-fifth year, but a wonderful old lady; as Miss Berry writes : ' The picture of what an old woman ought to be and so seldom is.'

Chapter IV

Anne Conway's parents, when in London, inhabited Conway House, Warwick Street, Soho. This house, afterwards known as 1 Warwick House ' and ' Jersey House,' was at a later date the residence for a time of the Princess Charlotte. It was probably while they were living there that the following incident relating to David Hume took place. Anne Conway was at the time about seventeen years of age. The historian, who had previously been Secretary to her uncle, Lord Hertford, was then become Secretary to her father. In reference to this appointment he wrote on May 1, 1767, to the Comtesse de Boufflers : ' there has happened, dear Madam, a small change to my situation and fortune since I wrote to you. I was surprised with a letter from Lord Hertford urging me to come to London and accept of the office of Deputy- Secretary of State under his brother. I foresaw that it connected me with General

Conway, one of the best men in every respect of this country.'1 In the same year he wrote to Blake : ' My way of life here is very uniform and by no means disagreeable. I pass all the forenoon at the Secretary's house, from ten till three, where there arrive from time to time messengers that bring me all the secrets of the kingdom, and indeed of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. I am seldom hurried, but have leisure at intervals to take a book, or write a private letter, or converse with any friend who may call for me. From dinner to bed- time is all my own. If you add to this that the person (General Conway) with whom I have the chief, if not only, transaction, is the most reasonable, equal-tempered, and gentlemanlike man imaginable, and Lady Ailesbury the same, you will think I have no reason to complain, and I am far from complaining. I shall only regret when my duty is over, because to me the situation can lead to nothing, and reading and sauntering, and lounging and dozing, which I call thinking, is my supreme happiness, I mean my full contentment/

It was to Hume that Jean Jacques Rousseau was indebted for his introduction to Lady

1 From the Private Correspondence of David Hume, 1761-1776, published 1820.

Ailesbury ; he had always treated Rousseau with great delicacy and generosity, but was ill-requited by the morbid sensitiveness and suspiciousness of ' the philosopher of Geneva.'

Hume retired from his post as Deputy- Secretary in 1769 and settled in Scotland with an income of £1000 a year; nine years subsequently he published a short autobiography in which he mentions his appointment under General Conway: 'In 1767 I received from Mr. Conway, an invitation to be under-secretary, and this invitation, both the character of the person and my connexions with Lord Hertford prevented me from declining. I returned to Edinborough in 1767 very opulent (for I possessed a revenue of £1000 a year), healthy, though somewhat stricken in years, with the prospect of enjoying long my ease and of seeing the increase of my reputation. . . . My company was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary ; as I took particular pleasure in the company of modest women/

But to return to Hume's intimacy with Anne Conway during his appointment as Secretary under her father. She was still almost a child, and in her playful moods was wont to banter the historian. One day, when they were walking

I together in the London streets, they met a small Italian boy carrying on his head a large tray which contained several plaster figures. Hume stopped the lad and entered into conversation with him, asking him how he modelled his images, and praising their form. He gave the boy a shilling and dismissed him. Anne Conway seems to have been annoyed with Hume for wasting his time talking to ' this poor ignorant little boy ' as she called him. Hume remarked that the boy was far from ignorant, and that she had no right to sneer at him or the images that he had modelled with such science and art, and that she should learn to be less severe in her criticisms. ' With all your attainments now, you cannot produce such works.' This remark of Hume's seems to have fired her with the determination to take up sculpture as the main object of her life, for from that moment she set to work on sculpture, giving up the society into which she was just entering and in which she was already much admired, not so much for her good looks as for her gay and witty conversation.

This charming girl might have been content with the ordinary ambitions of other young women of her world, but with her usual impetuosity she immediately procured wax and modelling tools, and worked hard at her self-imposed

ANNE CONWAY WITH DAVID HUME

GIELHOOD task, until she was able to present Hume with a bust — a portrait of himself. She had quite hoped to astound the historian with her completed work, but instead of astonishment she was met with the remark : ' It is clever enough for a first attempt.' Nor does it seem to have deserved higher praise, though Hume was always rather sparing of encomiums. He also told her it was easy enough to work in soft material but quite another matter to handle a chisel.

Although she felt the rebuff, it incited her to further work ; having obtained a block of marble she set to work with her tools, and in a short time was able to present Hume with a rough copy of the head in marble. Surprised at her energy and the force of character she had displayed in her self-imposed task and at the talent she had acquired, he was no longer able to withhold his praise and astonishment. He considered her achievement great in a branch of art so rarely taken up by women, and which demands labour as well as skill.

Though this first attempt was nothing very remarkable, Anne Conway, having once started on her career of art, developed a taste for sculpture, in which she determined to excel.

From Horace Walpole she received high praise and great encouragement ; he saw nothing

ANNE SEYMOUB DAMER

degrading in his young cousin handling the hammer and chisel, but it was thought at the time that had he not admired his cousin's work so prodigiously it would never have acquired the success it attained.

In reference to her modelling he wrote to her father : ' Good-night to you, to her Ladyship, and to the Infanta (Miss Conway), whose progress in waxen statuary advances so fast that by next winter she may rival Rackstrow's old man. Do you know that, though apprised of what I was going to see, it deceived me, and made such an impression on my mind that, thinking on it as I came home in my chariot, and seeing a woman steadfastly at work in a window in Pall Mall, it made me start to see her move.' By this it is presumed he mistook the woman for a statue, having been so lately impressed by Anne Conway's models.

Owing to her father's position, she was able to obtain the best instructors. Her earliest lessons in handling the chisel she received from John Bacon, then a young man just coming into fashion as a sculptor ; he himself had only begun to work in marble in 1760, having invented a machine for transferring the design in plaster with mechanical accuracy to the marble. Later on, in the year 1769, Bacon first exhibited at the

Royal Academy. His chief works were monumental ; among these were the monuments of Pitt in the Guildhall and in Westminster Abbey, of Dr. Johnson, and of Howard, the philanthropist, at St. Paul's, and of Lord Cornwallis in India. Bacon died in the height of his successful career in 1799.

In anatomy Anne Conway's instructor was William Cruikshank. This artist was an eminent surgeon and anatomist; he was born in 1745 and came to London in 1771, where he studied under the celebrated Dr. Hunter. It is said that he was not without some share of personal as well as intellectual vanity, but he had a generous and sympathetic heart and literally went about doing good. It was he who attended Dr. Johnson in his last illness ; he himself died in 1800.

Another well-known sculptor from whom Anne Conway received a few lessons was Giuseppe Ceracchi, who had just settled in England. He was celebrated for his groups of ' Thetis and Jupiter/ also for his ' Castor and Pollux,' and the design for Lord Chatham's monument at St. Paul's. He it was who carved the statue of Anne Conway as Mrs. Darner representing the Muse of Sculpture, which stands in the hall of the British Museum, and in which he has so happily preserved the graceful lightness of her form.