The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-01-05

n of the bridesmaids. On this occasion
an old nobleman, who had not been in
court since the accession of the house of
Hanover, paid his respects to the king. He
was very old, and almost blind: but, struck
by the beauty of Lady Sarah, and mistak-
his honest old Jacobite knees to kiss her
hand! Lady Sarah, very much confused,
babe him rise, saying, II am not the queen,
sir.''
Two of the remarkable men of the last
century were unfortunate in their love af-
fairs. Gen. Wolfe was rejected in his first
love affair. and, as everyone knows, he was
killed before he married Miss Lowther, to
whom he was engaged, who subsequently
married some one elsa.
Lord CORVALLIS made a love match, but
! his wife was SO much attached to him, and
so Qrief-stricken at his absence during
such long periods, that she fell into q iaun-
dice n died a few weeks after her hus-
band had flung up his command and come
home to see her. She directed that a thorn
tree should be planted over her grave, and
that her name should not be craven upon
the headstone. 1t was after her death that
Lord CORVALLIS returned to service in
America, the end of which was also, for
him, melancholy enough.
We read. with a good deal of amuse-
ment, of the romantic and passionate at
tachment of young Grote, afterward the
historian of Greece, for Harriet Levin, who
is described in his letters as being, Of
course, very lovely, but, in after days at
least, was eccentric, strong featured and
masculine.
Among the runaway matches mentioned
is that Of Henry Fox, the first Lord Holland.
He fell in love with Lady Charlotte Lannox,
and, being refused by the family, ran away
with the lady. But his subsequent career
fully justified the rashness of his action,
for he certainly showed that he knew bow
to make money and to keep it. till Charles
Fox, his son, cultivated in him the faculty
of giving it away.
John Scott. afterward Lord Eldon, also
ran ava with his wife ut an early age,
The window from which Bessie Surtees de-
scended into her lover arms ls Still pointed
out to every visitor to Newcastle as he
| pauses before the Did house-the home of
the wealthy banker, her father-ln SandhilI,
not 800 yards from the great bridge which
spans the Tyne. In his old age Lord Eldon
used to tell how piteous was their condition.
% the third morning after the union our
funds were exhausted; we had not a home
to go to, and We knew not whether
our friends would ever speak to us
again. Ihe scanty means of the young
people had one unpleasant effect. They
developed iii the young bride habits of
thrift which hardened into extreme parsi-
mony. She was also very averse to society,
Tor the runaway marriage made her deli
cateiy sensitive about society in the begin
ming, and at last it became distasteful to
her. Curiously enough, their eldest daughter
married without the consent of her parents.
The story of Southev;s love and marriage
can never be absent from such a comp1la-
ton of this sort. No man ever had less
right to get married than Southey. He had
no money, no profession, no reputation. no
place in the world, and, more than this. he
was dependent on his friend Cottle, who
had been supplying him with money. Cot
tie mad to supply him even with the ring
and the money for the wedding. After
that beginning he lived n long life of anx-
lous, earnest literary labor, earning not
much. winning no great fame, but leaving
behind him a memory rich in every sort of
private virtue and worth. No doubt his
wife both as a bride and during all her life,
nad niuch the heavier art of the daily bur
den to bear. She bore it nobly, and died,
indeed, a MARTYR to duty toward her nus
band and children, her last days being
clouded by mental troubles which caused
her to be secluded. Forty wars had they
been married when Edith died. Southey's
own life was not to be long, and his latest
days were also passed in n gentle mental
alienation which continued until he died.
The list of '~'nnhappily married. is large
ana brilliant. 1t includes William Beck
ford, the author of 'Nathek,'' who, how
ever, does not seem to have deserved a
happy life, whose enormous fortune and
great talents were alike wasted: Lady Bles-
sington, who. from being the widow of a
pennlless officer, blaZed as Lady BLESSING
ton over London society, fizzled ont again
AFTER Lord BiessinQton's death. had n fitfut
| splendof once more as a leader of the uuasi
literary %coterie, and finally smashed IN and
! went away to Paris, where she died sudden