MISS EDEN’S LETTERS

INTRODUCTION


In the autumn of 1913 a Life of Lord Clarendon[1] was published, and
among many of his letters were a few written to him by an old friend,
Miss Eden. It was thought that a further selection of Emily Eden’s
letters might be of interest.

She was a keen politician of the Whig order, clever, amusing, critical,
an excellent friend and a devoted sister. Her father, William Eden,[2]
was the third son of Sir Robert Eden, Bart., of West Auckland, Durham,
and he married in 1776 Eleanor Elliot, a sister of the 1st Earl of
Minto.[3] Two years later, Eden went as a Commissioner to America. He
was Chief Secretary in Ireland under Lord Carlisle;
Minister-Plenipotentiary in 1785 to the Court of Versailles; in 1788
Ambassador to Spain, and in the following year Ambassador to Holland; he
was given a peerage in 1789 (Baron Auckland). Mrs. Eden, from her own
account, was evidently a first-rate traveller; she took great interest
in her husband’s work, and she had a child, often amidst much
discomfort, in every country to which they were sent.

Emily was born in 1797. Her parents were settled at Eden Farm,
Beckenham, Kent, and her father now devoted his time to politics. Her
mother took great trouble to rear and educate her family of fourteen,
leaving a detailed account in her Diary of their upbringing, diseases
and marriages. Evidently her sense of humour and cheerfulness helped her
through much misery.

“Out of fourteen I suckled thirteen. Eleven of the children had smallpox
during their wanderings, also cow-pox, whooping-cough, measles and
scarlet fever.”

In 1786, Eden, who was then in Paris, wrote to his friend Lord
Sheffield: “Mrs. Eden is just returned from passing nearly a week in the
Circle and Society of the whole Court of Versailles without feeling a
moment’s discomposure. It is impossible to describe to you all the
glorious attentions with which she is honoured by the Queen of France,
not only in presents, but in what she values more, in admiration of her
children. She and the little Frenchman are both well, and we have now as
many nations in our Nursery as were assembled at the Tower of Babel.”
Another friend also wrote:

“Every report says Mrs. Eden’s Nursery is the admiration of the Court
and the Town, that they make parties to see it, that she had made
domestic life quite fashionable”; and there are constant allusions to
the Brattery, the Light Infantry, and the little Parisians.

By her contemporaries Lady Auckland was known later in life as Haughty
Nell, and the Judicious Hooker. Her eldest girl, Eleanor, was Pitt’s
only love, but for various reasons, after a long correspondence between
Pitt and Lord Auckland, the affair came to an end, and Eleanor in 1799
married Lord Hobart, who became Secretary of State for War and the
Colonies in 1801, and succeeded his father as Earl of Buckinghamshire in
1804.

Lord Auckland died suddenly at Eden Farm in 1814. Lady Auckland only
survived him four years. Six of their daughters had married, and the
remaining two, Emily and Fanny, lived with their elder brother George,
and went with him to India when he became Governor-General in 1835.

From an account given of herself in a letter to one of her friends,
Emily had profited by the education she received from her mother. She
had read Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_, the _Memoires du Cardinal de
Retz_, Shakespeare, and knew a great part of the Bible almost by heart
before she was eleven.

She took a strong interest in politics, but she was never happier than
when living quietly at Greenwich with her brother, sketching, reading
and gardening, and in 1835 the prospect of a five months’ sea journey to
India, and being obliged to leave her sisters, friends, and interests,
depressed and worried her.

On her return to England in 1842 she published her _Portraits of the
People and Princes of India_. She also wrote _Up the Country; Letters
from India_, edited by her niece; and two novels, _The Semi-Detached
House_ and _The Semi-Attached Couple_.

Three large volumes of her Water-colour Sketches were sold at Christie’s
in 1907 and are now in the Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta.

The year 1849 proved to be one of the greatest sorrow to Miss Eden. Her
brother, Lord Auckland, died quite suddenly in January, and three
months later she lost her sister Fanny. For the next twenty years she
divided her time between Eden Lodge, Kensington Gore, and a little
cottage at Broadstairs, writing her books, and seeing many of her
friends.