Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/20

INTRODUCTION daughter of the first Marquis of Abercorn. She was a beautiful girl, and worshipped him as much as he worshipped her. They were married on 28th July 1805. Their domestic life was so happy that Lord Aberdeen cared little for public affairs. He considered his wife to be "the most perfect creature ever formed by the power and wisdom of God." Three daughters were born in 1807, 1808, and 1809. A son, born in 1810, died soon after his birth. From that time Lady Aberdeen's health, never robust, drooped, and she died on 29th February 1812. Her husband, who survived her for nearly fifty years, married secondly, in 1815, Harriet Douglas, the widow of Viscount Hamilton. Lord Abercorn seeing his granddaughters on the one hand, the children of his daughter, deprived of their mother, and on the other his grandsons, the children of his son, deprived of their father, thought it would be an admirable arrangement to marry the widower to the widow. Although Lord Aberdeen never forgot his first wife, he had a strong affection for his second, and his letters to her are full of loving tenderness. Unhappily his daughters all died young, and xvi