Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1879 — Tho True Story of “Bobin Adair.” [ARTICLE]

Tho True Story of “Bobin Adair.”

Newcastle Couraut. The hero of “Robin Adair” was well known in the London fashionable circles of the last century by the sobriquet of the “Fortunate Irishman but his parentage and the exact place of his birth are unknown. He was brought up.as a surgeon, but “his detection in an early amour drove him precipitately from Dublin,” to push his fortunes in England. Hcarcely had he crossed the Channel when the chain of lucky events that ultimately led him to fame and fortune commenced. Near Holyhead, perceiving a carriage overturned. he ran to render assistance. The sole occupant of the vehicle was a “lady of fashioh, well known in polite circles.” who received Adair’s attentions with thanks, and. being lightly hurt, and hearing that be was a surgeon, requested him to travel with her iu her carriage to London. On their arrival in the metropolis she presented him with a fee of 100 guineas, and gave him a general invitation to her house. In after life Adair used to say that it was notjKSo much the amount of this fee, but Che time it was given, that was of service to him, as he was then almost destitute. But the invitation to her house was a still greater service, for there he met the person who decided his bite in life. This was lady Caroline Keppel, daughter of the second Karl of Albemarle and of Lady Ann Lennox, daughter of the first Duke of Richmond. Forgetting her high lineage, Lady Caroline, at the first sight of the Irish surgeon, fell desperately in love with him and her emotions w*cre so sudden and so violent as to attract the general attention of the company. Adair, seeing his ad vantage, lost no time in pursuing it; while the Albemarle and Richmond families were dismayed at the prospect of such a terrible mesalliance. Every means were tried to induce the young ladhv to alter her mind, but without effect. Adair’s biographer tells us that “amusements,” a long journey, an advantageous offer, and other common modes of shaking off what was considered by the family as an improper match, were already tried, but iu vain. The health of Lady Caroline was evidently impaired, and the family at last confessed, with a good sense that reflects honor on their understanding as well as their hearts, that it was possible to prevent, but never to disolve, an attachment; and that marriage was the honorable and, indeed, the only alternative that could secure her happiness and life. When Lady Caroline was taken bv her friends from London to Bath, that she might be separated from her lover, she wrote, it is said, the song of “Robin Adair” and set it to a plaintive Irish tune that she had heard him sing. Whether written by Lady Caroline or not, the song is simply expressive of her feelings at the time; and as it completely corroborates the circumstance just related, which were the town talk of the period, though now little more than family tradition, there can be no doubt that they were the origin of the song.