WIVES OF THE PRIME MINISTERS
by Isaac Nathan. Another edition of the book, in two volumes, was published the next year in Paris.
In "A New Canto," published anonymously in 1819, she made an attempt at satire, obviously on the Byronic model. The poem describes the end of the world, and opens thus:
"I'm sick of fame—I'm gorged with it—so full
I almost could regret the happier hour
When northern oracles proclaimed me dull,
Grieving my Lord should so mistake his power—
E'en they, who now my consequence would lull,
And vaunt they hail'd and nurs'd the opening flower
Vile cheats! He knew not, impudent Reviewer,
Clear spring of Helicon from common sewer."
All Lady Caroline's works, both prose and verse, are forgotten and repose unread on the topmost shelves of old libraries. But they form an index to her mind and character, and should be studied side by side with her recorded actions. It is usual to dismiss her as mad and unaccountable for her actions. That is the easiest way, but is it the justest? Her gifts were by no means inconsiderable, but in the circle into which she was born there was, in the early nineteenth century, no outlet for the special activities and for the original turn of mind she possessed. Even her capacity for feeling degenerated into
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