Trench Biography KS

— The Corvey Poets Project at the University of Nebraska —

British Poetry of the later Eighteenth and Earlier Nineteenth Centuries

Bibliographical and Contextual Apparatus

[Melesina C. Trench]

Campaspe: an Historical Tale; and Other Poems. By Mrs. Trench. [Southampton: Baker], 1815. Pp. 40.

Biographical Information

Melesina C. Trench was born in Dublin, Ireland on March 22, 1768 to Philip Chenevix and his wife Mary Elizabeth, who was the daughter of Archdeacon Gervais and granddaughter to Richard Chenevix, who was bishop of Waterford. Melesina's grandfather Chenevix owed his see to the cordial liking of the famous Lord Chesterfield, who was the lord-lieutenant of Ireland from 1745 to 1746 (Dictionary of National Biography, 1917).

After the death of her parents, Melesina was brought up by her grandfather, the Bishop Richard Chenevix, who was very old, and her kinswoman, Lady Lifford, who was a very harsh governess (Blain, Clements, & Grundy, 1990). Then, after the death of her grandfather Chenevix in 1779, she went to live with her maternal grandfather, the Archdeacon Gervais. Melesina used to wander through the Archdeacon Gervais' massive library, and, with her precocious taste and intelligence, she selected some of her favorite authors, including Shakespeare, Moliere, and Sterne (DNB, 1917).

Melesina developed a great personal beauty, and because of this, on October 31, 1786 she married Colonel Richard St. George of Carrick-on-Shannon and Hatley Manor. This "pleasing dream" turned into a nightmare as a result of Richard's illness (Blain, Clements, & Grundy 1990). Melesina, only two years after they had been married, shipped her husband's corpse from Portugal to Ireland on her twenty-second birthday (DNB, 1917). The journals that Melesina wrote during these years, which were written irregularly on loose sheets of paper, are skimpy, but her comments on fashionable London (which she hated), become fuller from 1799 on (Blain, Clements, & Grundy, 1990).

After the death of her husband, Richard St. George, Melesina spent ten years living in great seclusion with her child, and it is not until 1798 that her deeply interesting journal originates. During 1799 and 1800, Melesina traveled around Germany, mingling with the very best of society, and noting many items of historical interest. After visiting Berlin and Dresden, Melesina proceeded to Vienna to participate in that society; her journal relates some curious anecdotes about her experiences there. At Dresden, on her return journey, she met Nelson and Lady Hamilton, of whose lack of refinement some unpleasant instances are afforded. Also, while her stay in Germany, Melesina met Rivarol, Lucien Bonaparte, and John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, which indicates the level of society in which she moved (DNB, 1917).

In July of 1802, after a short stay in England, Mrs. St. George landed from Dover at Calais, on what proved a five years' stop in France. In 1802, Melesina began exchanging letters with Mary (Shackleton) Leadbeater that were full of critical comment on books, many of them by women, as well as some poems and essays. She also wrote to the ladies of Llangollen and later to E.D. Tuite (Blain, Clements, & Grundy). While in Paris, on March 3, 1803, she married Richard Trench (1774-1860), the sixth son of Frederick Trench of Moate and Mary Sadleir (Mosley, 1999). Her husband's brother, Frederic, was made Lord Ashtown in 1800. From his ancestor, Frederick Trench of Garbally, Richard Le Poer Trench, second earl of Clancarty, also descended. Both the Chenevixes and Trenches were of Huguenot origin (DNB, 1917).

Henceforth, in the record of her life the place of the journal is supplied by the charming letters to her husband and to her old friends in England and Ireland. After the failure of the brief peace of Amiens, her husband was detained in France by Napolean, and was confined to the Loire district. Melesina made repeated visits to Paris to urge his release, and in August of 1805 she delivered in person a petition to Napoleon for a passport for her husband. However, it was not until 1807 that the necessary document was obtained and the Trenches were enabled to make their way to Rotterdam, from which, after a stormy voyage, they reached England. At Dublin, in November, she met her old friend and correspondent, Mrs. Leadbeater, whom she had employed as almoner, or a giver of charity to the poor, among her husband's tenants in Ireland. Melesina's beauty and simplicity won the hearts of the people. During a summer visit to the Leadbeaters, she is said to have been discovered in the scullery surrounded by a small class of peasant children. That same charm made Melesina much sought after in society, but the unsuitable behavior of a modish' life became more and more repulsive to her; and her letters represent more and more exclusively `la vie interieure' (DNB, 1917).

The absence of external facts and detail certainly detracts, to some extent, from the interest of her correspondence. There are some interesting touches respecting Wellington, Jekyll, Mrs. Piozzi, Mrs. Fry, and Lord John Russell, but the references to the political society with which Melesina mixed while in Paris under the first empire are enticingly brief. No mean judge of such matters, Edward Fitzgerald, to whom her son Richard submitted her letters and papers in manuscript, places her letters and papers with those of Walpole and Southey, praising them especially for their `natural taste and good breeding' (DNB, 1917).

Melesina C. Trench died at Malvern on May 27, 1827. Her husband survived for many years, finally passing at Botley Hill, Hampshire, aged 86, on April 16, 1860. At this date, three of their children were surviving: Francis Chenevix Trench; Richard Chenevix Trench, who later became Archbishop of Dublin; and Philip Charles of Botley (DNB, 1917). In all, Melesina bore eight sons and one daughter (Blain, Clements, & Grundy, 1990).

SOURCES

Blain, Clements, and Isobel Grundy. The Feminist companion to literature in English: women writers from the Middle Ages to the present. New Haven: Yale, 1990
Mosley, Charles. "Melesina Chenevix." Burke's Peerage and Baronetage. 106th ed. 2 Vol. (1999): pp. 124
"Trench." Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. XIX. 1917