THE marriage between William Lamb and Caroline Ponsonby was one of
the most extraordinary unions of the whole nineteenth century. It was a cat-
astrophe for both parties. It generated so much heat and noise that it became
the stock-in trade of novelists. Benjamin Disraeli, Mrs Humphry Ward,
Bulwer Lytton and his wife, and Thomas Lister were just a few of the writ-
ers, who allegedly drew on the Lamb marriage for copy. ¹ Notoriously, Lady
Caroline Lamb did the same thing. The pain of this marriage was never
private, therefore. Over and over again, Melbourne was confronted by its
failure. Newspaper owners and booksellers ensured that his marriage was
always in the public eye. For a man of fastidious sensitivities, such publicity
was odious. In response to it, his instinct was to retire from public view. Any
thought of a career in politics had to be abandoned. Lamb simply withdrew
into himself. When he once again became a public figure, after Caroline's
death, he was a changed man. A carapace of cynicism shielded him from any
further emotional commitments. He was in many ways damaged beyond
repair.

As a young man, Lamb filled his commonplace book with fashionable
doubts about marriage. There was the problem that 'two minds, however
congenial they may be, or however submissive the one may be to the other,
can never act as one'. It put intolerable restraints on personal inclinations:
'By taking a wife a man certainly adds one to the list of those who have a
right to interfere with and advise him, and he runs the risk of putting in his
own way another very strong and perhaps insuperable obstacle to his acting
according to his own opinions and inclinations.' Above all, women were dif-
ficult to cope with: 'A woman is exactly like a mare; very good to ride, but
apt to kick in harness.' ² Drawing-room witticisms have their place, but prob-
ably a more reliable guide to Melbourne's views is provided by student lec-
ture notes, when an altogether different tone is struck. Marriage is here
regarded with total seriousness: 'Marriage is dissolved either by Death, or by
Divorce -- with regard to the latter, small discords will scarcely be reckoned

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