Eliza Fenwick (1766-1840) - The Fate of the Fenwicks: Letters to Mary Hays (1798-1828)

THE FATE OF THE FENWICKS

LETTERS TO MARY HAYS

(1798-1828)

EDITED BY HER GREAT-GREAT-NIECE

A. F. WEDD

METHUEN & CO. LTD.

36 ESSEX STREET W.C.

LONDON

BY THE SAME EDITOR

THE LOVE LETTERS OF MARY HAYS
(1779-1780)

First Published in 1927

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

IN ENGLAND

1. The First School

2. Another Request

3. The School is Begun

4. Orlando Walks Alone

5. A Wetting

6. Misgivings

7. Floods and a Phenomenon

8. Flight from London

9. Another Temporary Refuge

10. An Experiment in Shop-Keeping

11. Winter in Penzance

12. The Opening op Elizas Career

13. Eliza makes Progress

14. More of Eliza

15. Reconciliation with the Lambs

16. Slavery in Skinner Street

17. Mary Hays to the Rescue

18. A Favourable Turn of Fortunes Wheel

19. Preparations

20. An Adventurous Journey

21. Lanno at Wandsworth

22. Life at the Mocattas

23. Eliza at Covent Garden

24. First Talk of Barbadoes

25. The Barbadoes Offer Accepted

26. More of Lanno

27. Mrs M. is Surprisingly Considerate

28. Brother and Sister

29. Mr F. Shows Signs of Grace

30. Written from the Lambs

31. Eliza Gone

32. Needless Alarm

33. Mr. Whitaker

34. Plans for Lanno

35. Christmas Holidays

36. Mrs F. is Misunderstood

ELIZAS VENTURE

37. Eliza to her Mother

38. The First News of Eliza

39. Elizas Success

40. Orlando and the East India Company

41. To Orlando

42. Lannos Persuasiveness

43. Concerning Lanno Again

44. Fresh Proposals from Ireland

45. Elizas Triumphs

46. First Mention of Mr Rutherford

47. Eliza Plans for Orlando

48. Mr. Honnor Introduced

IRELAND

49. An Earthly Paradise

50. Eliza Describes Strange Phenomena

51. Eliza and Mr Rutherford

52. Mrs. Fenwicks Occupations

53. Anxiety about Eliza

54. News of Elizas Sudden Marriage

55. Eliza Relates her Adventures

56. From Mr. Rutherford to Mrs. Fenwick

57. Mrs. Fenwick is Again Anxious

58. Tidings At Last

59. Mrs. F. Talks of Going to Barbadoes

60. Eliza gives her Mother a great Surprise

61. The Schoolroom at Lee Mount

62. Fresh Plans for Orlando

63. The Barbadoes Scheme Abandoned

THE WEST INDIES

64. Reunion

65. School-keeping in Barbadoes

66. Prosperity

67. After the Slave Rebellion ..

68. A Terrible Storm

69. Orlandos Death

70. A Sorrowful Letter

71. Elizas Illness

72. The Truth about Mr. Rutherford

73. Mrs. Fenwick announces her Return to England

74. The Dream Ended

75. Minor Trials

76. Further Misfortunes and a Ball

77. Another Plan Mooted

78. Last Months in Bridgetown

AMERICA

79. First Impressions

80. Losses and Gains

81. Infirmities and Disappointments

82. Atrocious Calumnies

83. Another Move

84. A Melancholy Report

85. Further Anxieties

86. The Last Enterprise

INTRODUCTION

ALL who are familiar with the Letters and Essays of Charles Lamb will remember the names of Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick. References to them both are frequent, and they appear in many other literary biographies and memoirs of the early nineteenth century as friends also of William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Holcroft and Crabb Robinson. Their later history has however up to the present time been unknown, and one of the greatest authorities on that period merely states that they went abroad, and regrets that nothing further can be ascertained about this interesting couple.

The correspondence of Mary Hays supplies the desired information in a large packet of letters from which the present volume has been compiled. Torn, mouse-eaten, and discoloured, they are closely written on large sheets of paper, some of which measure twenty inches by ten with as many as forty-six lines to the page. Some, consisting mainly of tiresome repetitions, have been altogether omitted. The remainder have been subjected to no alteration beyond the elimination of extraneous matter, division into paragraphs, and some additions in punctuation.

Mary Hays and Mrs. Fenwick were probably introduced to one another by Mary Wollstonecraft; together they ministered to her when she was dying, and they remained close friends, through a period of over thirty years.

The letters, which date from 1798 to 1828, give not only details of the chequered careers of John Fenwick and his wife, but also the whole life-history of their two children, Eliza and Orlando, a delightful pair who were the pets and protgs and often inmates of the home of Charles and Mary Lamb.

Fenwick himself seems to have been a thorough scamp, with all the charm and attractiveness of the typical neer-do-weel. His talent for borrowing was phenomenal and is immortalized by Elia in the Two Races of Men, where Fenwick is described as my old friend Ralph Bigod Esq.. When this Essay was written his creditors were apparently still complacent, but a time soon came when his utter irresponsibility with regard to money landed him in serious difficulties. As a boon companion of Charles Lamb, the first steps in his downward course must have been innocent and pleasant enough, but his naturally vicious tendencies eventually plunged him into habitual drunkenness, debt and disaster. In 1799 he fled to Dublin, and on September 28th, 1802, Lamb writes to Coleridge: Fenwick is a ruined man. He is hiding himself from his creditors and has sent his wife and children into the country. In 1806, Lamb tells Hazlitt that: Fenwick is coming to town, if no kind angel intervenes, to surrender himself to prison; and two years later, in a letter to Manning, Lamb says: Little Fenwick is in the Rules of the Fleet. Cruel conditions. Operation of iniquitous laws. Is Magna Charta then a mockery?

Mrs. Fenwick, whom these letters prove to have been warmhearted and generous, but recklessly impulsive and as unpractical as her miserable husband, tried by ever-varying means to earn or beg money for the support of herself and her family. Had she but stuck to one occupation, or known how to make the best use of such funds as came into her hands, she might have fared better. She is always moving from one lodging to another and from place to place. She tries in turn writing, school-keeping, helping in her brother-in-laws shop, translating, and colouring prints, previous to acting as resident governess in the Mocatta and Honnor families. For her to declare that any scheme has been abandoned invariably ensures the subsequent announcement of its having been put into execution. A chance piece of advice, the casual suggestion of an acquaintance, is enough to change the mind of this weather-cock woman. No sooner is she settled in one employment than she is off to another. Directly a school begins to pay she gives it up. She is sometimes penniless and sometimes comparatively affluent, but never does she succeed in making her income cover her expenses. Yet some mysterious force of character she must have possessed, for she exercised an unbounded influence over her two children, and ruled her pupils, even one whom she describes as having a devil of a temper, with calm determination.

Eliza, though meekly subservient to her mother and resembling her in many ways, had evidently a much greater amount of self-control and common-sense, added to a fund of humour which she must have inherited from her father. With her nervous dread of any public appearance it is astonishing that she should ever have consented to become an actress, but having adopted that career in deference to her mothers wishes, she had enough talent and perseverance to make it a success, and to become eventually the little idol of a West Indian audience. When only about seventeen she was acting in the private theatres in London, and in 1810 she secured an engagement at Covent Garden with the famous John Philip Kemble. Her name may be seen on many of the old play-bills now preserved in the South Kensington Museum, but Black Jacks treatment of her was not in accordance with his promises; she left Covent Garden in 1811, and not long afterwards sailed with Mr. Dykes Company for Barbadoes.