Savill and Edwards, London, 1861. posthumous First edition.
Cloth binding with gold titles on the front cover, small thin octavo (7.4 x 5.2 inches), viii, 97 pages plus 8 pages of publishers catalog.
Presentation copy inscribed and signed by the editor, R.C. Trench to the Earl of Hardwicke.

Melesina Trench (née Chenevix, previously St George; 22 March 1768 – 27 May 1827) was an Irish writer, poet and diarist. During her lifetime she was known more for her beauty than her writing, and it wasn't until her son, Richard Chenevix Trench, published her diaries posthumously in 1861 that her work received notice.

Biography
Melesina Chenevix was born in Dublin to Philip Chenevix and Mary Elizabeth Gervais. She was orphaned before her fourth birthday and brought up by her paternal grandfather, Richard Chenevix (1698–1779), the Anglican Bishop of Waterford. The family were of Huguenot extraction.

After the death of Richard Chenevix she went to live with her other grandfather, the Archdeacon Gervais. On 31 October 1786 she married Colonel Richard St George (d. 1790). Her husband died only four years later in Portugal [self-published source], leaving one son, Charles Manners St George, who became a diplomat.

Between 1799 and 1800, Melesina travelled around Europe, especially Germany. It was during these travels that she met Lord Nelson, Lady Hamilton and the cream of European society, including Rivarol, Lucien Bonaparte, and John Quincy Adams while living in Germany. She later recounted anecdotes of these meetings in her memoirs.

On 3 March 1803 in Paris she married again. Her second husband was Richard Trench (1774–1860), sixth son of Frederick Trench (1724–97) and brother of Lord Ashtown.

After the breakdown of the Peace of Amiens, Richard Trench was detained in France by Napoleon's armies, and in August 1805 Melesina took it upon herself to petition Napoleon in person and plead for her husband's release. Her husband was released in 1807, and the couple settled at Elm Lodge in Bursledon, Hampshire, England.

Their son Francis Chenevix Trench was born in 1805.[4] In 1807, when they were on holiday in Dublin, their son Richard Chenevix Trench was born. He went on to be the Archbishop of Dublin, renowned poet and contemporary of Tennyson. Her only daughter died a few years later, aged four.

Diaries and correspondence
She corresponded with (amongst others) Mary Leadbeater, with whom she worked to improve the lot of the peasantry at her estate at Ballybarney.

Melesina Trench's diaries and letters were compiled posthumously by Richard Chenevix Trench as The remains of the late Mrs. Richard Trench in 1861 with an engraving of her taken from a painting by George Romney. Another oil painting, The Evening Star by Sir Thomas Lawrence, had her as a subject, and she was reproduced in portrait miniatures; one in Paris by Jean-Baptiste Isabey and another by Hamilton that was copied by the engraver Francis Engleheart.

Copies of a number of her works are held at Chawton House Library.

Richard Chenevix Trench (Richard Trench until 1873; 9 September 1807 – 28 March 1886) was an Anglican archbishop and poet.

Life
He was born in Dublin, Ireland, the son of Richard Trench (1774–1860), barrister-at-law, and the Dublin writer Melesina Chenevix (1768–1827). His elder brother was Francis Chenevix Trench.[3] He went to school at Harrow, and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1829. In 1830 he visited Spain. While incumbent of Curdridge Chapel near Bishop's Waltham in Hampshire, he published (1835) The Story of Justin Martyr and Other Poems, which was favourably received, and was followed in 1838 by Sabbation, Honor Neale, and other Poems, and in 1842 by Poems from Eastern Sources. These volumes revealed the author as the most gifted of the immediate disciples of Wordsworth, with a warmer colouring and more pronounced ecclesiastical sympathies than the master, and strong affinities to Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Keble and Richard Monckton Milnes.

In 1841 he resigned his living to become curate to Samuel Wilberforce, then rector of Alverstoke, and upon Wilberforce's promotion to the deanery of Westminster Abbey in 1845 he was presented to the rectory of Itchenstoke. In 1845 and 1846 he preached the Hulsean lecture, and in the former year was made examining chaplain to Wilberforce, now Bishop of Oxford. He was shortly afterwards appointed to a theological chair at King's College London.

Trench joined the Canterbury Association on 27 March 1848, on the same day as Samuel Wilberforce and Wilberforce's brother Robert.

In 1851 he established his fame as a philologist by The Study of Words, originally delivered as lectures to the pupils of the Diocesan Training School, Winchester. His stated purpose was to demonstrate that in words, even taken singly, "there are boundless stores of moral and historic truth, and no less of passion and imagination laid up"—an argument which he supported by a number of apposite illustrations. It was followed by two little volumes of similar character—English Past and Present (1855) and A Select Glossary of English Words (1859). All have gone through numerous editions and have contributed much to promote the historical study of the English tongue. Another great service to English philology was rendered by his paper, read before the Philological Society, On some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries (1857), which gave the first impulse to the great Oxford English Dictionary. Trench envisaged a totally new dictionary that was a 'lexicon totius Anglicitatis'.[8] As one of the three founders of the dictionary, he expressed his vision thus: it would be 'an entirely new Dictionary; no patch upon old garments, but a new garment throughout'.

His advocacy of a revised translation of the New Testament (1858) helped promote another great national project. In 1856 he published a valuable essay on Calderón, with a translation of a portion of Life is a Dream in the original metre. In 1841 he had published his Notes on the Parables of our Lord, and in 1846 his Notes on the Miracles, popular works which are treasuries of erudite and acute illustration.

In 1856 Trench became Dean of Westminster Abbey, a position which suited him. Here he introduced evening nave services. In January 1864 he was advanced to the post of Archbishop of Dublin. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley had been first choice, but was rejected by the Irish Church, and, according to Bishop Wilberforce's correspondence, Trench's appointment was favoured neither by the prime minister nor the lord-lieutenant. It was, moreover, unpopular in Ireland, and a blow to English literature; yet it turned out to be fortunate. Trench could not prevent the disestablishment of the Irish Church, though he resisted with dignity. But, when the disestablished communion had to be reconstituted under the greatest difficulties, it was important that the occupant of his position should be a man of a liberal and genial spirit.

This was the work of the remainder of Trench's life; it exposed him at times to considerable abuse, but he came to be appreciated, and, when in November 1884 he resigned his archbishopric because of poor health, clergy and laity unanimously recorded their sense of his "wisdom, learning, diligence, and munificence." He had found time for Lectures on Medieval Church History (1878); his poetical works were rearranged and collected in two volumes (last edition, 1885). He died in London, after a lingering illness.

From 1872 and during his successor's incumbency the post of Dean of Christ Church, Dublin was held with the archbishopric. He died on 28 March 1886 at Eaton Square, London, and was buried at Westminster Abbey.


The book was inscribed to Charles Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke (c. 1810–1886).
Admiral Charles Philip Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke, PC (2 April 1799 – 17 September 1873) was a British naval commander and Conservative politician.

Background
Born at Sydney Lodge, in Hamble le Rice, Hardwicke was the eldest son of Admiral Sir Joseph Sydney Yorke, second son of Charles Yorke, Lord Chancellor, by his second wife, Agneta Johnson. He was a nephew of Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke. He was educated at Harrow and at the Royal Naval College, where he was awarded the second medal.

Naval career
Hardwicke entered the Royal Navy in May 1815 as midshipman on HMS Prince, the flagship at Spithead. Later, he served in the Mediterranean, on HMS Sparrowhawk (18) and HMS Leviathan (74) then subsequently HMS Queen Charlotte (100), the flagship of Lord Exmouth, by whom he was entrusted with the command of a gunboat at the bombardment of Algiers. He later joined HMS Leander (60) under the flag of Sir David Milne, on the North American station, where he was given the command of the Jane, a small vessel carrying dispatches between Halifax and Bermuda. He was then appointed acting lieutenant of HMS Grasshopper (18) and after a few months commissioned in the rank of lieutenant in August 1819. The next October, he joined the frigate HMS Phaeton on the Halifax station, until appointed to the command of HMS Alacrity in 1823 on the Mediterranean station, in this post he was employed, before and after he obtained the rank of captain in 1825, in watching the movements of the Turko-Egyptian forces and in the suppression of piracy.

Between 1828 and 1831, he took command of HMS Alligator (28), on the same station and took an active part in the naval operation in connection with the struggle between Greece and Turkey. Lastly, between 1844 and 1845, for short periods, he assumed command of the steam yacht HMS Black Eagle and HMS St Vincent (120), in which he carried the Emperor of Russia, Nicholas I, to England. He attained flag rank in 1838. In 1849, while commanding HMS Vengeance, he acted as a mediator between the Mazzinian rebel and the Kingdom of Sardinia during the rebellion in Genoa following the defeat during the First War of Independence. For this actions, he was decorated by the Sardinian King Victor Emmanuel II with a Gold Medal of Military Valour,[1] which he was authorized to accept by Queen Victoria only in 1855.[citation needed] In 1858, he retired from the active list with the rank of rear-admiral, becoming vice-admiral in the same year, and admiral in 1863. He retired from the Royal Navy in 1870.

Political career
Hardwicke represented Reigate in the House of Commons between 1831 and 1832 and Cambridgeshire between 1832 and 1834. In 1834, on the death of his uncle, he became the fourth Earl of Hardwicke, and inherited the substantial Wimpole estate in Cambridgeshire. He was a member of Lord Derby's cabinet in 1852 as Postmaster General and as Lord Privy Seal between 1858 and 1859. In 1852 he was sworn of the Privy Council.

CONDITION: Very Good-. (Covers have shelfwear, bent corners and spine ends, spotting and discoloration at fore edge of boards. The tightly bound contents are complete, clean and intact.)