, and the Hon. Judith Noel,
daughter of Lord Wentworth. Her childhood was passed at Halnaby, or at
Seaham, where her father had
"a pretty villa on the cliff." In 1808 Seaham "was the most primitive
hamlet ever met with--a dozen or so of cottages, no trade, no
manufacture, no business doing that we could see; the owners were
mostly servants of Sir Ralph Milbanke's"
('Memoirs of a Highland Lady', p. 71). It was here that Blacket the poet
(see 'Letters', vol. i. p. 314, 'note' 2; p. 6, 'note' 5, of the present
volume; and 'English Bards, etc'., line 770, and Byron's 'note') died,
befriended by Miss Milbanke.
Byron (Medwin's 'Conversations with Lord Byron', pp. 44, 45) thus
describes the personal appearance of his future wife:
"There was something piquant and what we term pretty in Miss Milbanke.
Her features were small and feminine, though not regular. She had the
fairest skin imaginable. Her figure was perfect for her height; and
there was a simplicity, a retired modesty, about her, which was very
characteristic, and formed a happy contrast to the cold, artificial
formality and studied stiffness which is called fashion."
The roundness of her face suggested to Byron the pet name of "Pippin."
High-principled, guided by a strong sense of duty, imbued with deep
religious feeling, Miss Milbanke lived to impress F. W. Robertson as
"the noblest woman he ever knew" ('Diary of Crabb Robinson' (1852), vol.
iii. p. 405). She was also a clever, well-read girl, fond of
mathematics, a student of theology and of Greek, a writer of meritorious
verse, which, however, Byron only allowed to be "good by accident"
(Medwin, p.
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