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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Some Old Time Beauties, by Thomson Willing
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
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+
+Title: Some Old Time Beauties
+       After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment
+
+
+Author: Thomson Willing
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 16, 2005  [eBook #16079]
+
+Language: en
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME OLD TIME BEAUTIES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Afra Ullah, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
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+
+
+
+
+
+SOME OLD TIME BEAUTIES
+
+After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment
+
+by
+
+THOMSON WILLING
+
+Boston
+Joseph Knight Company
+
+MDCCCXCV
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE
+   Portrait by Thomas Gainsborough
+
+   MARY, HONORABLE MRS. GRAHAM
+   Portrait by Thomas Gainsborough.
+
+   EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
+   Portrait by George Romney.
+
+   MRS. SHERIDAN
+   Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
+
+   MARGUERITE, COUNTESS BLESSINGTON
+   Portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence.
+
+   MARY ISABELLA, DUCHESS OF RUTLAND
+   Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
+
+   LAVINIA, COUNTESS SPENCER
+   Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
+
+   ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON
+   Portrait by Catharine Read.
+
+   MARIA, COUNTESS OF COVENTRY
+   Portrait by Gavin Hamilton.
+
+   ELIZABETH, COUNTESS GROSVENOR
+   Portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE by GAINSBOROUGH]
+
+
+HER GRACE OF DEVONSHIRE
+
+
+The Dashing Duchess,--the impulsive, ebullient beauty whose smile
+swayed ministers, and for whose favor princes were beggars! A
+loveliness of manner, as of feature, such seductive color,--glowing
+carnations,--and such golden-brown hair, with a fine figure, made up
+an opulent personality, than which no more consummate type of beauty
+has been preserved to us by painter or poet.
+
+Georgiana Spencer was the daughter of Lord Spencer, afterwards first
+Earl Spencer; but her impulsiveness, her waywardness, and improvidence
+were a legacy from her grandfather, "Jack" Spencer, the grandson and
+special favorite of the beautiful Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. Her
+"Torismond," she called him. His was a career of profligacy, a course
+of error and extravagance. His mother was Lady Sunderland, known in
+society as "the little Whig," from her small stature and her
+persistent politics. Her party badge was always worn,--the black patch
+on the left side of the face, as distinguished from the Tory fashion
+of wearing it on the right side. So Georgiana came legitimately by her
+beauty, her Whiggish politics, and her versatile vivacity of manner,
+as well as her improvidence and indiscretion.
+
+But her mother's strong character was a potent influence. She was the
+daughter of the Right Honorable Stephen Poyntz, and was of high repute
+for generosity, for sensibility, for charity, and for courteous
+dignity of demeanor. We hear of Georgiana being a beautiful child; and
+Reynolds as well as Gainsborough, both made painted record of that
+childish beauty. Her brightness of mind gave her an interest in art,
+in music, and in literature; and, though not proficient in the
+practice of either, she had more than the society woman's knowledge of
+them. At seventeen, she married William, fifth Duke of Devonshire,
+ten years her senior. His was a temperament antipathetic to
+hers,--unsympathetic, unimpressionable, and taciturn, yet withal of
+the Cavendish characteristic persistency of purpose and honest intent.
+
+The Duchess at once became a queen of society in the Carlton House
+Court. Devonshire House was an assembly place for the Whigs; and its
+lovely mistress was the hostess of many a statesman exalted by his
+wit, as of many a politician with following by virtue of his station.
+Like all radical companies, it was a motley mixture that found welcome
+there. The Prince of Wales was a devotee. The then shining Sheridan
+was a frequenter; but with the name of Fox has that of the Duchess
+been more associated than of aught other. Her supremacy among these
+companions was not in the manner of the French Salon leaders,--while
+wit, knowledge, and tact were hers, she lived not by learning, but by
+her liveliness and jollity. She was not the scholar in politics, but
+the politician among scholars out of school.
+
+It was a roystering, revelling company; and political as well as
+personal penury became the portion of many as the result of these
+improvident and profligate days. The episode of the Duchess's career
+which is most known, is her purchase, by a kiss, of a vote for Fox
+when she was championing his cause in an election, and canvassing for
+votes in company with her sister, Lady Duncannon. It was said, "never
+before had two such lovely portraits appeared on a canvass." A butcher
+bargained for his vote by asking a kiss from the lovely lips of the
+seductive Duchess. The price was paid, amid the plaudits of the crowd.
+An Irish elector, impressed by the fair appellant's vivacity,
+exclaimed: "I could light my pipe at her eyes."
+
+Fox was elected for the Tory borough of Westminster, and great was the
+rejoicing at Carlton House. A _fête_ was given on the grounds the day
+following, and the ordinarily well-apparelled Prince appeared in a
+superb costume of the radical colors, blue and buff. This was the
+period of the Duchess's greatest glory, as well as of her most superb
+charm of personality; and it was about this period that Gainsborough
+painted his perennially delightful presentment of her. She was then
+twenty-seven years of age, and had been married ten years. Wraxall
+wrote what is probably the best contemporary description of her: "The
+personal charms of the Duchess of Devonshire constituted her smallest
+pretensions to universal admiration; nor did her beauty consist, like
+that of the Gunnings, in regularity of features, and faultless
+formation of limbs and shape; it lay in the amenity and graces of her
+deportment, in her irresistible manners, and the seduction of her
+society. Her hair was not without a tinge of red; and her face, though
+pleasing, yet, had it not been illuminated by her mind, might have
+been considered an ordinary countenance."
+
+It is said of Gainsborough that, while painting the Duchess, "he drew
+his wet pencil across a mouth all thought exquisitely lovely, saying,
+'Her Grace is too hard for me.'"
+
+The lady later knew the cuts of comment, and the keen pain of
+justifiable jealousy. The rival in her husband's attentions was Lady
+Elizabeth Foster, daughter of the Earl of Bristol, a brunette of
+handsome presence, and at the death of Georgiana, in 1806, she became
+the second wife of the Duke. There was an apparent friendship between
+the ladies, and Lady Elizabeth for a time lived under the same roof as
+the Duchess.
+
+Madame d'Arblay, in 1791, visited her at Bath, and made record then of
+her introduction to the Duchess, and indicated the premonition of
+trouble in this wise. "Presently followed two ladies; Lady Spencer,
+with a look and manner warmly announcing pleasure in what she was
+doing, then introduced me to the first of them, saying, 'Duchess of
+Devonshire, Miss Burney.' She made me a very civil compliment upon
+hoping my health was recovering; and Lady Spencer then, slightly, and
+as if unavoidably, said, 'Lady Elizabeth Foster.'" Gibbon said of the
+latter, that, "No man could withstand her; and that if she chose to
+beckon the Lord Chancellor from his woolsack, in full sight of the
+world, he could not resist obedience." Reynolds painted a portrait of
+her, showing a bright-eyed, smiling lady, with close-curled hair, of
+girlish appearance. In Samuel Rogers's "Table Talk" are several
+mentions of the famous Georgiana, and especially one which tells of
+her love for gambling. "Gaming was the rage during her day; she
+indulged in it, and was made miserable by her debts. A faro-table was
+kept by Martindale, at which the Duchess and other high fashionables
+used to play. Sheridan said that the Duchess and Martindale had agreed
+that whatever they two won from each other should be sometimes
+_double_, sometimes _treble_, what it was called. And Sheridan assured
+me that he had handed the Duchess into her carriage when she was
+literally sobbing at her losses, she having lost fifteen hundred
+pounds, when it was supposed to be only five hundred pounds." A life
+such as she then led surely affected her appearance. In 1783, Walpole
+wrote: "The Duchess of Devonshire, the empress of fashion, is no
+beauty at all. She was a very fine woman, with all the freshness of
+youth and health, but verges fast to a coarseness."
+
+The offspring of the Duchess Georgiana were: Georgiana Dorothy,
+afterwards Countess Carlisle, whose letters were lately published, and
+exhibit an original observation and a terse style of record; Henrietta
+Elizabeth, later Countess Granville; and a son, who succeeded to the
+Dukedom. About the latter's birth was some mystery; insinuation was
+active. The Duchess had little liking for domestic life, so normal
+neglect of child may have been construed into an unnatural dislike.
+Her son never married. Through the stress of the home infelicity, her
+beauty waned; but her bearing and breeding kept her paramount in her
+set. She is known to this later generation only as a superb beauty who
+stands with such opulent charm of costume, and of fine hauteur of
+manner, amid the noble groves of Chatsworth--as the once potential
+original of Gainsborough's greatest portrait. "The bust outlasts the
+throne, the coin Tiberius."
+
+A most pathetic tribute to the beauty of the Duchess was paid by
+"Peter Pindar" (Dr. Wolcot), who addressed "A Petition to Time in
+favor of the Duchess of Devonshire," and implored the Inexorable
+thus:--
+
+   "Hurt not the form that all admire.
+   Oh, never with white hairs her temple sprinkle!
+   Oh, sacred be her cheek, her lip, her bloom!
+   And do not, in a lovely dimple's room,
+   Place a hard mortifying wrinkle.
+
+   "Know shouldst thou bid the beauteous duchess fade,
+   Thou, therefore, must thy own delights invade;
+   And know, 't will be a long, long while
+   Before thou givest her equal to our isle.
+   Then do not with this sweet _chef-d'oeuvre_ part,
+   But keep to show the triumph of thy art."
+
+A dramatic fate has befallen the original canvas. In 1875, it was sold
+at auction, and was bought by a firm of dealers for the then highest
+price paid for a single picture in England. The publicity gained by
+this was taken advantage of by the purchasers to exhibit the picture.
+One morning when the gallery was opened, the frame only was there; the
+picture had vanished. The canvas is lost.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MARY, THE HONORABLE MRS GRAHAM by GAINSBOROUGH]
+
+
+LOVELY MARY CATHCART
+
+
+Like the happiest countries that have no history, the tranquil life of
+joyous content leaves little to chronicle. Only in the nobility of
+character of a husband who grieved her loss for years, and in his
+strong dignity, and devotion to her memory, do we get a hint of the
+gracious and good lady whom Gainsborough has made immortal for us.
+
+And in that phrase of her lifetime, "lovely Mary Cathcart," is a whole
+biography of benignity and beauty. She came of one of the most ancient
+and noble families in Scotland, and was the daughter of the ninth
+Baron Cathcart, called "Cathcart of Fontenoy." Her brother William
+became the tenth Baron, and afterwards the first Earl Cathcart. He had
+studied law, but abandoned it for the army, and had a gallant career
+therein; becoming a lieutenant-general in 1801, and commander-in-chief
+of the expedition to Copenhagen in 1807; afterwards acquiring
+reputation as ambassador for several years at St. Petersburg. He was
+perhaps the earliest of British noblemen to marry American beauties;
+having wedded the daughter of Andrew Elliott of New York, in 1779.
+
+In November, 1774, there was rejoicing among the retainers of the
+House of Cathcart, for there was to be a double wedding. The eldest
+daughter, "Jenny," was married to the Duke of Athole, that same Duke
+who became a friendly patron of Burns, and in reference to whom the
+poet writes, when addressing some verses to him: "It eases my heart a
+good deal, as rhyme is the coin with which a poet pays his debts of
+honor and gratitude. What I owe to the noble family of Athole, of the
+first kind, I shall ever proudly boast; what I owe of the last, so
+help me God, in my hour of need I shall never forget."
+
+The second sister, the Hon. Mary, was married to Sir Thomas Graham of
+Balgowan, a descendant of the Marquis of Montrose and of Graham of
+Claverhouse. The youngest sister, Louisa, later became Countess of
+Mansfield, and her portrait, by Romney,--a seated profile figure with
+flowing draperies,--is that artist's most masterly work.
+
+After eighteen years of happy married life, she died childless; one of
+those good women that were--
+
+   "True in loving all their lives,"--
+
+"a surpassing spirit whose light adorned the world around it." Her
+husband grieved greatly. He was ordered to travel to divert his
+despair. He visited Gibraltar, and there the dormant martial spirit of
+his ancestors was aroused by his environment. Though then forty-three
+years of age, he immediately entered the army as a volunteer. He
+rapidly rose in his profession, and had an especially brilliant career
+in the Peninsular War. In 1811, he became the hero of Barossa, and in
+the same year was made second in command to the Duke of Wellington. He
+was created Lord Lynedoch of Balgowan, Perthshire, and frequently was
+thanked by Parliament for his services. Sheridan said, "Never was
+there a loftier spirit in a braver heart." And alluding to his
+services during the retreat to Corunna, he said, "Graham was their
+best adviser in the hour of peril; and in the hour of disaster, their
+surest consolation." Scott eulogizes him in the poem, "The Vision of
+Don Roderick," in the lines,--
+
+   "Nor be his praise o'erpast who strove to hide
+   Beneath the warrior's vest affection's wound,
+   Whose wish Heaven for his country's weal denied;
+   Danger and fate, he sought, but glory found.
+
+   "From clime to clime, wher'e'r war's trumpets sound,
+   The wanderer went; yet, Caledonia, still
+   Thine was his thought in march and tented ground;
+   He dreamed mid Alpine cliffs of Athole's hill,
+   And heard in Ebro's roar his Lynedoch's lovely rill.
+
+   "O hero of a race renowned of old,
+   Whose war-cry oft has waked the battle swell!"
+
+Old Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, wrote of a late Duke of Athole:
+"Courage, endurance, stanchness, fidelity, and warmth of heart,
+simplicity, and downrightness, were his staples." They are ever the
+staples of the Scotch character, and they were all pre-eminent in Sir
+Thomas. His life was noble, and his affection was faithful to its
+early troth.
+
+A pathetic history attaches to this picture of Mrs. Graham: When its
+subject died, the sorrowing husband had it bricked up where it hung,
+and it was only by an accident that it was discovered at his death, in
+1843. It now hangs in the National Gallery of Scotland at Edinburgh.
+The present reproduction shows but a part of the picture, the figure
+being full length. It has been excellently reproduced in etching by
+both Flameng and Waltner.
+
+In 1885, a most comprehensive exhibition of Gainsborough's works was
+made at the Grosvenor Gallery in London. At it was noted the important
+part this painter had played in perpetuating the lineaments, bearing,
+graces, and gownings of the great persons of the latter half of the
+eighteenth century.
+
+   "The lips that laughed an age agone,
+   The fops, the dukes, the beauties all,
+   Le Brun that sang and Carr that shone."
+
+There was seen The Hon. Miss Georgiana Spencer, at the age of six, and
+again a later portrait of her as the Duchess of Devonshire,--she of
+the then irresistibly seductive manners,--and her mother, Countess
+Spencer, of whom Walpole wrote as being one of the beauties present at
+the coronation of George III., in 1761. There, too, was Anne Luttrell,
+daughter of Simon Luttrell, Baron Irnham, who married, first,
+Christopher Horton, and, secondly, the Duke of Cumberland, brother of
+the king. Of her Walpole wrote: "There was something so bewitching in
+her languishing eyes, which she could animate to enchantment if she
+pleased, and her coquetry was so active, so varied, and yet so
+habitual that it was difficult not to see through it, and yet as
+difficult to resist it." And here was another widow who captivated
+royalty, Mrs. Fitzherbert, who was a daughter of Walter Smythe of
+Bambridge, Hampshire, and married, first, Edward Weld, secondly,
+Thomas Fitzherbert of Synnerton, Staffordshire (who died in 1781), and
+was said to have been married to the Prince of Wales (George IV.) in
+1785. And there also was a more notorious beauty, Miss Grace
+Dalrymple, afterwards Mrs. Elliott,--though divorced later, and
+becoming the mistress of various aristocrats, notably the Duke of
+Orleans.
+
+The Duchess of Montagu, granddaughter of the great Duke of Marlborough
+(one of the Churchills,--a family prolific of beauties), was there
+seen. Several pictures of the painter's wife (who was a Miss Margaret
+Burr), of his youngest daughter, Mary, afterwards Mrs. Fischer, and
+one of his friend, Miss Linley, went to augment this superb
+congregation of beauties shown. Portraits of Garrick,--that intensely
+interesting Stratford portrait,--Earl Spencer, Pitt, Earl Stanhope,
+Colonel St. Leger, George IV., Duke of Cumberland, George III., Earl
+Cathcart, Canning, Dr. Johnson, Fox, and several showings of himself,
+made up a body of work unsurpassed in importance by that of the
+president of the Academy himself.
+
+Gainsborough was born in 1727; he moved to Bath, in its most brilliant
+period, in 1760. He died in 1788, but had ceased contributing to the
+Academy four years before, because of a disagreement with the hanging
+committee. His portraits of ladies were always picturesque and
+individual, each differentiated from each of his own works as well as
+from that of other painters.
+
+This portrait of the Hon. Mrs. Graham is delicate in color, yellowed
+somewhat by its long seclusion from the light,--and will remain one of
+the most delightful and _spirituel_ creations of the old-English
+school.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: EMMA, LADY HAMILTON by ROMNEY]
+
+
+Lady Hamilton
+
+
+With the name of Lady Hamilton is ever associated the names of
+England's most famous sailor and of one of her most famous painters.
+Hers was a life redolent of ill-repute. Though her beauty was great,
+it served her for ill purposes; but she came by her lack of character
+by heredity. She was born in 1761, the daughter of a female servant
+named Harte, and at the age of thirteen was put to service as a nurse
+in the house of a Mr. Thomas of Hawarden, Flintshire. She found
+tending children a tedious task, and forsook it. At sixteen, she went
+to London, and became a lady's maid there. Her leisure time was spent
+in reading novels and plays, which inspired a love for the drama. She
+early developed a rare ability for pantomimic representation; and
+this became a favorite form of entertainment in drawing-rooms and
+studios. Her duties as a domestic agreed not with the drama, so her
+next position was as barmaid in a tavern much frequented by actors and
+artists. She formed the acquaintance of a Welsh youth, on whose being
+impressed into the navy, she went to the captain to intercede for him.
+The boy was liberated, but the comely intercessor was impressed into
+the service of the captain. From him she went to live with a man of
+wealth; but her extravagance and wilfulness induced him to forego her
+company. Then followed a period of the lowest street degradation. From
+this state she was taken by a Dr. Graham, who was a lecturer upon
+health, and exhibited the finely-formed Emma as a perfect specimen of
+female symmetry. She became the topic of the town. Painters,
+sculptors, and others came to admire the shapely limbs shown under but
+a thin veil of gauze. The young bloods of the time worshipped,--some
+not afar off; and one of them, Charles Greville, of the Warwick
+family, who had essayed to educate her to become a fit companion for
+his elevated existence, maintained her for about four years. It is
+recorded, that when he took her to Ranelagh's the sensation was
+greater than had ever been produced by any other beauty there. Not the
+winsome and witty Mrs. Crewe, nor her friend Mrs. Bouverie; not that
+first flame of the amorous Prince of Wales, Mrs. Robinson, nor Anne
+Luttrell, also beloved of royalty; not the Marchioness of Tavistock,
+whose loveliness has been preserved to us by Sir Joshua, nor the
+delightful Duchess of Buccleugh; not Lady Cadogan, and not even the
+dashing Duchess of Devonshire herself,--caused the comment and
+admiration this low-born unprincipled young woman now excited. Mr.
+Greville would have married her had not his uncle, Sir William
+Hamilton, interfered. It is variously stated that Sir William agreed
+to pay his nephew's debts if he would yield up his mistress; and also
+that, in endeavoring to free the young man, the old gentleman himself
+fell into the snare of her charms. "She is better than anything in
+Nature. In her own particular way she is finer than anything that is
+to be found in Greek art," exclaimed this _savant_ on first seeing
+her. She was a most enchanting deceiver, and a finished actress in the
+parts of candor and simplicity, so succeeded in marrying Sir William,
+in 1791. He was over sixty years of age, a man of much classical and
+scientific erudition, and had been for many years ambassador at the
+court of Naples, to which place he was soon accompanied by his bride.
+She became a favorite with the queen, and a frequent visitor at the
+palace, also somewhat of a social success among the British residents.
+She sang well, and made a specialty of showing herself in "attitudes,"
+or what we term now "living pictures," for the delectation of her
+guests. "You never saw anything so charming as Lady Hamilton's
+attitudes," wrote the Countess of Malmesbury to her sister, Lady
+Elliot; "the most graceful statues or pictures do not give you an idea
+of them. Her dancing the Tarantella is beautiful to a degree." It was
+here began that intimacy with Nelson which became the great blot on
+his fair fame. He was then commanding the Agamemnon, and she became
+his constant companion, and was sometimes useful to him as a political
+agent. After the victory of Aboukir Bay, when Naples went wild in its
+enthusiastic reception of the naval hero, Lady Hamilton shared the
+honors of the pageant. She accompanied him in a tour through Germany;
+and most reprehensible was their conduct, at times, in defying the
+decencies of polite life. After the Treaty of Amiens, Nelson,
+accompanied by Sir William and Lady Hamilton, retired to his seat at
+Merton, in Surrey, and on the death of the ambassador, in 1803, he
+vainly endeavored to procure an allowance from the government for the
+widow, on the pretext of the services she had rendered the fleet in
+Sicily. Failing this, he himself granted her an annuity of twelve
+hundred pounds. We all know how at Trafalgar, when the hero was dying,
+he spoke of "dear Lady Hamilton, his guardian angel," and left to her
+all his belongings, and recommended her to the grateful care of his
+country. Notwithstanding this, she died almost in poverty, in 1815.
+In 1813 she had been imprisoned for debt, and when out on bail she
+fled to Calais, and there the career was closed. It was extraordinary
+that this woman should subjugate and hold in thrall men of great force
+of character. She had great loveliness of person; but physical beauty
+alone is ineffectual to charm such as these. Though not regularly
+educated, she acquired much general knowledge, and was tactful in the
+display and use of it.
+
+It was during the period of her posing for Dr. Graham, that Romney
+became enamoured of her beauty, and painted for us more than a dozen
+important pictures of her. Those were the days when ladies of rank and
+beauty were deified; and, following this fashion, Romney rendered
+"Fair Emma" in many guises. Her ability in acting made her a most
+useful model. Her features had much mobility, and were capable of
+expressing, with facility, all gradations of passion and niceties of
+feeling. Emma took pride and pleasure in serving Romney. He repeated
+to his friend, the poet Hayley, her request, that in the biography of
+the painter, Hayley would have much to say of her. One of his earliest
+classical conceptions painted from her, was a full length of Circe
+with her wand. Following this was a "Sensibility," which became the
+property of Hayley. Though we remember Romney chiefly in connection
+with his Lady Hamiltons, yet he had acquired his reputation and much
+fortune ere he met her. The great bulk of his portrayals of the
+nobility preceded his classical subjects, which took form from his
+superb model. She was Cassandra; she was Iphigenia, St. Cæcilia,
+Bacchante, Calope, The Spinstress, Joan of Arc, The Pythian Princess
+Calypso, and Magdalene,--the two latter subjects painted to order for
+the then Prince of Wales.
+
+Allan Cunningham has this to say in his sketch of Romney's life: "A
+lady in the character of a saint. This sort of flattery, once so
+prevalent with painters, is now nearly worn out: we have now no Lady
+Betty's enacting the part of Diana; no Lady Jane's tripping it
+barefoot among the thorns and brambles of this weary world, in the
+character of Hebe. We have none now who either 'sinner it or saint it'
+on canvas; the flattery which the painter has to pay is of a more
+scientific kind,--he has to trust alone to the truth of his drawing
+and the harmony of his colors."
+
+Romney was a transgressor in this way at times; but Lady Hamilton's
+form was used to impart correct form to the conceptions of the
+painter,--not the theme used merely to exploit the beauty of the lady.
+In the exhibition of fair women in the Grafton Gallery in London this
+summer, she greeted us in the guise of Ariadne. In this the painter's
+use of the title was apt and justifiable. Here is the lady wholly
+clothed in the dress of the time,--a dress superb in its simplicity;
+but her pose and mien is indicative of the forsaken, the forlorn,
+despairing woman abandoned by her lover,--the fate of which the old
+story of the Greeks is the eternal epitome. The pathos of the pose, it
+may have been, as well as the classic face, allured the wanderer in
+the galleries, and anchored him before this canvas.
+
+The fame of Romney has steadily risen in the several generations from
+the beginning to the end of the century. Though the painter of many
+men of fame and ladies of fashion, his work was not held in the
+greatest regard in his lifetime. Though often spoken of as the rival
+of Reynolds, he had not the president's grasp of character or his
+ability in giving classic grace to the dress of the period, and he was
+never admitted as a member to the Academy.
+
+When Lady Hamilton commenced posing for him, he, perhaps wisely for
+his fame, reduced the number of his ordinary sitters, receiving none
+until afternoon. The picturing of what he termed "her divine beauty"
+became a passion with him; and the enthusiasm of the sitter was nearly
+as great as that of the painter, and she enacted his classic
+conceptions. The result is a superb series of pictures of faultless
+female form, and loveliness of feature. Of the model's immoral career
+we have naught now to do. Here is perpetual beauty, and it is ours to
+enjoy.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MRS SHERIDAN by REYNOLDS]
+
+
+ST. CÆCILIA
+
+
+There are few names more associated with the brilliant days of Bath,
+the days of its social and artistic prominence, than those of Thomas
+Linley, the composer, and of his daughter, Eliza Anne, known abroad as
+"the Fair Maid of Bath." Linley was born there, in 1735; and after his
+studies in music on the Continent, under Paradies, he returned to the
+then fashionable city on the Avon. He conducted oratorios and concerts
+there, and became a power in the community. Delicacy, tenderness,
+simplicity, and taste were the characteristics of his compositions. It
+was said of him, that as Garrick had restored Shakspeare, so Linley
+has restored the sublime music of Handel. He trained his family to
+take part in the performances. His son Thomas, born in 1756,
+developed a marvellous ability in music,--playing the violin with
+great brilliancy and expression. He was the friend of Mozart, and took
+at times his father's place as conductor of the oratorios. His career
+was cut short by drowning, in 1778.
+
+But it was his beautiful daughter Eliza, born in 1754, who made the
+sensation of the time, when she sang with her sister, afterwards Mrs.
+Tickell. "A nest of nightingales," the family was termed. Walpole
+writes, in 1773: "I was not at the ball last night, and have only been
+to the opera, where I was infinitely struck with the Carrara, who is
+the prettiest creature upon earth. Mrs. Hartley I own to still find
+handsomer, and Miss Linley, to be the superlative degree. The king
+admires the last, and ogles her as much as he dares to do in so holy a
+place as an oratorio, and at so devout a service as 'Alexander's
+Feast.'" Musical prominence and personal beauty in this maid of but
+twenty made her an attractive flower in bloom to others than the king.
+The wits and gallants of the gay city sought and courted her. The
+family of Tom Sheridan, the Irish actor, and then a teacher of
+elocution in Bath, was intimate with the Linley family. Richard, who
+was born in Dublin in 1751, his elder brother Charles, and Nathaniel
+Halhed, a companion and literary partner with Richard, all admired the
+daughter Eliza. Halhed went to India,--afterwards becoming a judge
+there,--and Charles Sheridan retired from the race, and left the
+literary youth to win as pure a heart as ever cheered incipient genius
+to works of worth. She was lauded in verse by her young Irish suitor,
+and championed in deed. He asserts his constancy in a poem, of which
+the first stanza is--
+
+   "Dry that tear, my gentlest love;
+   Be hushed that struggling sigh;
+   Nor seasons, day, nor fate shall prove
+   More fixed, more true than I.
+   Hushed be that sigh, be dry that tear;
+   Cease boding doubt, cease anxious fear;
+      Dry be that tear."
+
+He proves his devotion by his action when appealed to by his
+divinity.
+
+A certain Captain Matthews, one of a numerous breed in Bath in those
+days,--that is, a fashionable scoundrel and a married man,--made
+himself obnoxious to Miss Linley by improper addresses. He annoyed and
+harassed her, threatening to destroy himself unless she gratified him,
+and later attempted to sully her reputation by calumnies. This brought
+about the culmination of her attachment to Sheridan. She fled her
+father's house and sought the protection of her lover. Accompanied by
+a chaperon, they left for France. After some romantic adventures, they
+were married in March, 1772, at a little village near Calais; but it
+was a wedding without the wherewithal to maintain a home, so the bride
+entered a convent, and, later, the house of an English physician,
+until literature should be remunerative. The eloping lady's father
+sought the runaways; and, after some explanations, they returned with
+him to England. It was shortly after this that Sheridan fought two
+duels with Matthews, being wounded in the later one to such an extent
+that his recovery was doubtful. "Sweet Betsy" claimed the right of a
+wife to tend her hurt husband, and so revealed the fact of the
+marriage in France. The old actor rejected his impulsive son, but
+Linley's aversion to the union of his daughter being at last set
+aside, the pair were re-married in England in April, 1773.
+
+The sweet singer had been admired by another, an elderly suitor of
+much fortune, whom her father had approved, but to whom she was
+averse. This gentleman now became the benefactor of the pair. He
+settled a moiety of three thousand pounds on the bride. Her father
+retained half of this as compensation for the loss of the services of
+his daughter. On the balance, the youthful couple lived. Sheridan had
+entered himself a student of the Middle Temple shortly before his
+marriage. Though their income was small, he would not allow his wife
+to accept several proffered professional engagements; he did not wish
+his helpmeet to become a servant of the public. This action incited
+some discussion, and much acrimonious comment, in her family and among
+their friends. Johnson upheld his course. Sheridan, in this instance,
+understood himself and understood the times. He knew of the flippant
+attitude of the young blades of the town toward all public performers;
+so he sought to save her, who was so sacred to him, from such insult,
+insincere adulation, and insinuation as she had heretofore suffered
+from. They retired to a cottage at East Burnham; and there she, who
+had received the plaudits of the public as a vocalist, won as noble a
+name in the character of the ideal wife, one in whom were united all
+the attributes of loveliness,--temper, manners, virtues, and
+surpassing beauty. What the then public lost, later generations have
+gained in the picture of that lovable woman, making a golden age of
+happiness for her greatly-gifted husband in the little cottage at East
+Burnham.
+
+Fanny Burney records her pleasant impressions of the bride,--"I was
+absolutely charmed at the sight of her. I think her quite as beautiful
+as ever, and even more captivating; for she has now a look of ease and
+happiness that animates her whole face. Miss Linley was with her; she
+is very handsome, but nothing near her sister; the elegance of Mrs.
+Sheridan's beauty is unequalled by any I ever saw, except Mrs. Crewe.
+I was pleased with her in all respects. She is much more lively and
+agreeable than I had any idea of finding her; she was very gay, and
+very unaffected, and totally free from airs of any kind."
+
+In 1775, the husband's genius was acknowledged by the town; for in
+January, that year, was first presented "The Rivals." In that play he
+draws from the material displayed by the superficial, flashing, and
+piquant society of the day at Bath, and from his own experience the
+inimitable duel scene therein.
+
+Much success followed for the dramatist. In the following year, in
+conjunction with his father-in-law, he purchased from Garrick the
+Drury Lane Theatre. They brought out several operas together; Linley's
+music in "The Duenna" and "The Beggar's Opera," being especially fine.
+Hazlitt speaks of the songs in them as having a joyous spirit of
+intoxication, and strains of the most melting tenderness.
+
+In 1777, appeared "The School for Scandal," a theme also suggested by
+scandal-mongering Bath. His fond and faithful wife lived not to see
+the dimming of the genius that produced these classics; she died of a
+decline, at Bristol, in 1792. Her daughter, too, died within the same
+year. Two of her accomplished descendants, through her son, have
+displayed some of her romantic taste and charm of manner to a
+generation just preceding our own,--her granddaughters, Lady Dufferin,
+mother of the English ambassador to France, and Hon. Caroline Norton,
+author of "Love not, love not, ye hapless sons of men."
+
+Though she whom he had adored was but three years dead, Sheridan
+married, in 1795, Esther Jane Ogle, daughter of the Dean of
+Winchester. With her he obtained some money and this, added to his
+own, purchased the estate of Polesdon, in Surrey. His wife was, at
+that time, spoken of as young, amiable, and devoted to him. She died
+at about the same time as he, in 1816.
+
+In the first flush of those romantic wedded days of their youth how
+impressive must have been the appearance of that markedly clever young
+man, eager in the fight for fame, and of his beauteous bride from
+Bath. Reynolds painted, in 1779, the standard presentment of Sheridan.
+Walpole's comment on it was: "Praise cannot overstate the merits of
+this portrait. It is not canvas and color, it is animated nature--all
+the unaffected manner and character of the great original." The artist
+said that among all his sitters none had such large pupils of the
+eyes. With the brilliance of that mind informing the face, his
+features, though not regular, were handsome. Of all the portraits of
+Miss Linley, perhaps the one by Gainsborough, in which she is
+portrayed with her young brother, gives the best idea of the special
+character of her type of beauty. Here are the large lustrous eyes and
+the very delicately modelled, sensitive, refined features; here, the
+luxuriant hair, the slender neck, and the sloping shoulders; and here,
+the superb poise of head and of mind. There is another fine picture of
+her by Gainsborough, for this painter was one of the brilliant men
+who frequented her father's house at Bath. A musician he was, too,
+and an excellent performer on the violin, so was congenial company in
+that musical family. He admired the daughter, and wrought for us the
+delightful records of her beauty. His change of residence, from Bath
+to London, coincided in date with that of the Sheridans. Opie, too,
+painted her portrait; not an ideal one, but good in respect to her
+eyes. And Romney has given us good pictures both of her and Mrs.
+Tickell. Reynolds's portrayal is supreme in indicating the exaltation
+of spirit, by the poise of head and perfection of profile. This
+picture of her as the patron saint of song was exhibited at the
+Academy, in 1775, just about the time its subject had abandoned public
+singing. It has been most beautifully engraved by Bartolozzi, and
+ranks as one of his best plates. When the days of sorrow came to
+Sheridan,--when his weaknesses of character brought him to a low
+estate; when poverty became his portion, and the long lost days of
+romantic love became but a memory; when treasure after treasure,
+manuscripts, and sumptuous books were disposed of, and presentation
+pictures were pawned,--this picture of St. Cæcilia, a reminder of the
+days that had vanished, was the last valued possession to be parted
+with.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MARGUERITE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON by LAWRENCE]
+
+
+LADY BLESSINGTON
+
+
+The brilliant Blessington,--brilliant in beauty and in intellect!
+Throughout her life of romance she was fortunate in her literary
+friendships, through whom a knowledge of her abilities has grown to
+tradition, but most fortunate in the portrayer of her beauty. Lawrence
+has painted a picture which it is a perpetual pleasure to behold,--the
+superb arms and shoulders, the serene, steadfast gaze of the eyes, and
+the conscious, yet confident, poise of the head forming a record to
+justify the tradition of great personal beauty and alertness of mind.
+
+Marguerite Blessington's youth was ill-regulated and penurious. She
+was born in 1789, the second daughter of Edmund Power, of Knockbrit,
+near Clonmel, in the county of Tipperary. Her father came of a good
+family, as did also her mother, who spoke unduly often of her
+ancestors, the Desmonds. Marguerite was not comely in her early
+girlhood, though her sister Ellen and her brother Robert were handsome
+children. As a child, she was sensitive and sentimental, and her
+delight was to browse in a library,--and it was this taste that
+equipped her for her later friendships. Her power of imagination was
+uncommonly strong, and she became the entertainer of her
+children-companions with stories of her own imagining, as well as by
+her recitals of legends and romance learned in the library. Her father
+removed to Clonmel, and became editor of a paper there. He was not
+prosperous, and was a man of perverse temper, which grew with
+adversity. Marguerite and her sister were fancied by some wealthy
+maiden-lady relatives, and were taken by them to a home of comfort. On
+their return to Clonmel,--beautiful, and with the distinction of
+knowledge and a clever use of it,--they were a contrast to the
+ordinary Irish country girl, whose whole equipment of dress and
+accomplishments was "two washing gowns and a tune on the piano." The
+girls took part in all the gayeties of the town, and, besides the
+charm of their conversation, were graceful dancers; and though
+Marguerite was less beautiful, she was most tasteful in dress, and
+this became always a noted characteristic of hers. They became the
+attraction of an English regiment recently stationed in the town, and
+Marguerite was soon married, through the insistence of her father, to
+a Captain Farmer, when less than fifteen years of age. This was the
+great misfortune of her life.
+
+Her husband was subject to fits of insanity, and her whole feeling
+towards him was that of aversion. Cruelty and caprice were the chief
+components of his character. From his tyranny she fled,--first to her
+father's house, but was denied solace there, so sought it elsewhere.
+She led a somewhat vagabond existence for about nine years, living
+first with one friend, then with another; thankful for any home, and
+accommodating herself to any companions. Of this period of her life
+not much is recorded, save her beauty, for it was shortly after this
+that her peerless portrait was painted, ere her sorrow and suffering
+had time to efface the vivacity of youth, but only to give depth to
+the eyes and interest to the face. She lived in London with her
+brother Robert until in 1817, when her husband's death occurred by his
+falling out of a window when in a state of drunken frenzy. Four months
+after this she became the second wife of an Irish nobleman of a
+dashing person and little brains, Charles John Gardiner, second Earl
+of Blessington, when she was twenty-eight and he was thirty-five years
+of age. With this marriage came a reversal of her misfortunes. Her
+generosity, sympathy, and good heart soon prompted the improvement of
+the conditions of her own family, and in this gave emphatic evidence
+of that devotedness to duty and friends which became her strongest
+trait. Her youngest sister, Marianne, was adopted and educated by her,
+and became her travelling companion, and long afterwards her modest
+biographer. Her sister Ellen married first, Mr. Home Purves, and
+afterwards, Viscount Canterbury, speaker of the House of Commons.
+
+Lord Blessington's income was great, but his tastes were extravagant
+as were also his wife's, and luxurious was their home in St. James's
+Square, and magnificent the manner in which they entertained the
+brilliant society gathered there; and for three years their brilliant
+companies of beauty and intellect outshone the congregations at
+Holland House. In 1822, Count D'Orsay, a polished and accomplished
+young Frenchman, visited London, and was made most welcome by the
+Blessingtons. In August of that year they started for a leisurely tour
+of the Continent. The Countess kept a diary during this journeying,
+which was published in 1839, under the title of "The Idler in Italy,"
+revealing a keen observation and a capacity for entertaining comment.
+
+Her ladyship was ever ambitious of literary eminence. Possessed of
+great beauty, and after a time high station and wealth, she yet
+yearned for the recognition by great writers of her position as one of
+them. She had published, previous to her continental trip, two
+volumes,--one called "The Magic Lantern," the other, "Sketches and
+Fragments," both being accounts of and comments upon London society;
+both were unsuccessful. Her one book which will remain in literature
+was consequent upon her meeting with Lord Byron in Genoa, in 1823, and
+is a record of her conversations with the poet. She who aspired to
+make her mark in literature has made it, but as the chronicler of the
+sentiments, vanities, whims, and oddities of another. But it was no
+ordinary ability that was competent to persuade the great poet,
+usually unapproachable, to avow, in picturesque language, his opinions
+on men, women, and manners,--to provide for later times the data from
+which to gauge his strange personality.
+
+She has written much of herself into her records; and calumny urged,
+at the time of publication, that she insinuated in her writings a far
+greater degree of friendship on the poet's part than really existed.
+Yet, in refutation of this is Byron's letter to Moore:--
+
+"I have just seen some friends of yours, who paid me a visit
+yesterday, which, in honor of them and of yours, I returned to-day, as
+I reserve my bear-skin and teeth and paws and claws for our enemies.
+
+"Your allies, whom I found very agreeable personages, are Milor
+Blessington and _épouse_, travelling with a very handsome companion,
+in the shape of a 'French count' (to use Farquhar's phrase in the
+'Beau's Stratagem'), who has all the air of a _cupidor déchaîné_.
+Milady seems highly literary; to which, and your honor's acquaintance
+with the family, I attribute the pleasure of having seen them. She is
+also very pretty, even in a morning; a species of beauty on which the
+sun of Italy does not shine so frequently as the chandelier."
+
+The Countess Guiccioli was among those who depreciated the
+Blessingtons' accounts of the conversations; but then, perchance,
+there may have been some jealousy of the attractive English woman's
+influence over the poet. The Blessingtons left Genoa in June of 1823,
+and continued their journeyings throughout Italy until 1828. In the
+preceding year, Count D'Orsay had become the husband of the Earl of
+Blessington's daughter, Lady Harriet Frances Gardiner, when she was
+but little over fifteen years of age; but they lived together but
+three years. In 1829, the Earl died in Paris; and the Countess
+continued there until after the Revolution of 1830, when she returned
+to England. Her journal of the trip from Naples to Paris, and her stay
+in that city, was published in 1841, under the title of "The Idler in
+France." In England she took a house in Seamore Place, Mayfair, and
+later removed to Gore House, Kensington, with which place is
+associated the traditions of her elegant entertainings and her
+intercourse with many men of eminence, but also with a course of
+living which compromised her reputation in society. Her son-in-law,
+the Count, continued to form one of her household, though separated
+from his wife, the Lady Harriet. Though not received in general
+society, the Countess surrounded herself with celebrities of all
+nations; and it was at her house that Louis Napoleon was a cherished
+guest in his years of exile, and from whence he proceeded to head the
+government of France. Here Bulwer came as perhaps her most intimate
+friend; here Thackeray was made most welcome, and Lord John Russell
+and Lord Palmerston, Canning and Castlereagh were frequent guests.
+Dickens,--then a dandy like unto D'Orsay, who seemed to be his
+model,--"Rejected Addresses" Smith, the banker-poet Rogers, Kemble,
+Wilkie, and Dr. Parr engaged in sparkling converse with their hostess,
+who sat in a deep arm-chair while Tom Moore was privileged to perch
+himself on a footstool at her feet; and by all these men she was
+held in unqualified respect. Her income became impaired and unequal to
+the expense of entertaining. She resorted to literature to add to her
+resources. She was engaged by Heath, the engraver, to edit a certain
+class of annuals popular in those days. For some years her income from
+"The Keepsake" and "The Book of Beauty" exceeded one thousand pounds a
+year. Her novels, too, were a source of some profit. For "Strathern"
+she received about three thousand dollars. These romances were weak in
+character and plot, but were fair pictures of society portrayed with
+much piquancy. In one, "Grace Cassidy," she describes interestingly
+scenes of her youth in Ireland. But interest in her work waned, and as
+she seems not to have thought of retrenchment of her expenditure,
+disaster rapidly descended. In 1849, she had perforce to sell out, and
+then moved to Paris, where she died in the same year. She was buried
+at Chambourcy, near St. Germain-en-Laye, the residence of the Duc and
+Duchesse de Grammont, the sister and brother-in-law of Count D'Orsay.
+
+She was a woman of great tact, of a sweet delicacy of manner, and of a
+chivalrous devotedness to friendship. Her friends were carefully
+chosen, and never deserted. Perhaps no woman of the century has had so
+many men of mark as her friends and admirers. She had charity towards
+others' failings. She gave pleasure where she could. She was elegant
+and dignified in her bearing, though possessed of Irish wit withal.
+She was very beautiful.
+
+Lord Byron was induced to sing the praise of her picture here
+given:--
+
+   "Were I now as I was, I had sung
+   What Lawrence has painted so well;
+   But the strain would expire on my tongue,
+   And the theme is too soft for my shell.
+
+   "I am ashes where once I was fire,
+   And the bard in my bosom is dead:
+   What I loved I now merely admire,
+   And my heart is as gray as my head.
+
+   "Let the young and the brilliant aspire
+   To sing what I gaze on in vain,
+   For sorrow has torn from my lyre
+   The string which was worthy the strain."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MARY ISABELLA DUCHESS OF RUTLAND by REYNOLDS]
+
+
+HER GRACE OF RUTLAND
+
+
+Rowlandson, the caricaturist, once published a cartoon entitled "Juno
+Devon, All Sublime." The rival goddesses in competition with her
+before that modern Paris, the Prince of Wales, being their Graces of
+Gordon and Rutland. Beyond the various written records of the opposing
+beauty of those aristocratic dames who dominated society in their day,
+we have ample painted evidence of their loveliness. Of her Grace of
+Devonshire, we have, first, the engraved renderings of "the lost
+Gainsborough." There are other Gainsboroughs, too,--Georgiana as a
+child, and a full-length of her standing at the edge of a lawn, her
+face looking down, wearing a white dress, her right elbow on the base
+of a column, a scarf in both hands, her hair piled high, but without
+the hat, as in the more famous picture. There are then several by Sir
+Joshua. The first, where she stands as a child beside her mother;
+then, she as a mother with her own child,--a very charming profile,
+and a picture that insinuates the vivacity of demeanor and the abandon
+so characteristic of her.
+
+Walpole wrote of this as "Little like and not good." Yet, as to
+goodness, a modern authority has said: "It is a superb work; and, in
+motive, color, and composition, it ranks as a triumph alike of nature
+and art." Again, there is a whole-length showing her about to descend
+some steps to a lawn, her superb shoulders and neck bare, and her hair
+highly bedecked with feathers. Walpole writes of another portrait,
+drawn by Lady Di Beauclerck, and engraved by Bartolozzi: "A Castilian
+nymph conceived by Sappho and executed by Myron, would not have had
+more grace and simplicity. The likeness is perfectly preserved, except
+that the paintress has lent her own expression to the Duchess, which
+you will allow is very agreeable flattering." In the Royal collection
+of miniatures at Windsor, are three charmingly executed ivories of her
+by Cosway. Lawrence, too, made a chalk drawing of her, which now hangs
+at Chiswick House, in the room in which Charles Fox died. This is an
+interesting work from being a very early effort of the after-time
+President of the Academy, and showing that then he had not attained
+the trick of flattering his sitters, even when they were noted
+beauties. Angelica Kauffman painted her, and John Downman also made a
+portrait replete with elegance and picturesqueness. In fact, the
+comely Duchess pervaded the art of the period. Of her Grace of Gordon,
+we have, as our ideal presentment of her, the portrait by Sir Joshua.
+In it her hair is done up high, and two rows of pearls are intertwined
+therein. The dress is of the Charles the First period, and shows the
+sweetly modulated shoulders leading up to--
+
+   "The pillared throat, clear chiselled cheek,
+   High arching brows, nose purely Greek,
+   Set lips,--too firm for a coquette."
+
+We have also an interesting portrait of her by Romney.
+
+Of her Grace of Rutland, we have also several pictures by Sir Joshua.
+There is a whole-length with a decorative head-dress, and a landscape
+background. The original of this was destroyed by fire at Belvoir
+Castle. Another, a half-length, in the same costume, and a
+three-quarter face, is mostly pervaded by a serene sense of pride.
+There is a drawing of her done by the Hon. Mrs. O'Neil, which is
+interesting from the picturesque head-dress shown. Her Grace of
+Gordon was as great a power in the political world as she of
+Devonshire,--probably greater, for her alliance and principles were
+with the ruling power. This lady was to Pitt's party what Fair Devon
+was to Fox's. In fact, it was asserted she endeavored to marry her
+daughter, Lady Charlotte, afterwards Duchess of Richmond, to the
+premier. When Georgiana made her famous canvass in favor of Fox, the
+Tories opposed to her the Scotch Duchess.
+
+She lived and entertained then in a splendid mansion in Pall Mall; and
+there assembled the adherents of the Administration.
+
+Jane was the daughter of Sir William Maxwell, of Monreith, and in her
+youth, even, was noted for beauty. A ballad, "Jenny of Monreith,"
+written in her honor, was often chivalrously sung by her son George,
+the last Duke of Gordon. "Jenny" married the fourth Duke, Alexander,
+in 1767. The career of the Duke's youngest brother George, identified
+with the "Gordon Riot," caused the family much embarrassment, and even
+threatened to derogate from the Duchess's dominance with the ruling
+party.
+
+Her Grace was of somewhat stronger fibre than she of Devon; more
+masculinity, ay, even more principle, characterized her. Thrift was a
+visible virtue, in contrast to Georgiana's improvidence. Command,
+rather than cajolery, was her political method. Her later life was
+devoted to securing sons-in-law; three dukes, a marquis, and a knight
+were of her garnering. She was on good terms with the Regent, and
+endeavored to aid him in his differences with his Princess Caroline.
+She is remembered, too, as a patron and friend of Dr. Beattie, the
+poet, who has eulogized her in these lines "To a Pen":--
+
+   "Go, and be guided by the brightest eyes,
+   And to the softest hand thine aid impart;
+   To trace the fair ideas as they arise,
+   Warm from the purest, gentlest, noblest heart."
+
+The third in that group of goddesses was surely the fairest of them
+all, of more perfect form, more noble bearing, having that ultimate
+element of the greatest beauty,--distinction. She came of a longer
+lineage, and was the consummate flower of beauty wrought by the sun
+and summers through many generations of patrician life,--life amid the
+palatial parks, the superb scenery, and majestic castles of England.
+Such living weaves its sweetest elements into the tissues of the being
+and works a spell of loveliness such as Lady Mary Somerset. She was
+the youngest daughter of Charles, fourth Duke of Beaufort, a
+descendant of the Plantagenets. In 1775, she was married to Lord
+Charles Manners, eldest son (born in 1754) of John,--that Marquis of
+Granby whom Junius attacked, who was associated in the government, in
+George the Second's time, with the Earl of Chatham. The Marquis was a
+man of much force, and a most hospitable entertainer. He died before
+his father, the third Duke of Rutland.
+
+Lord Charles succeeded to the dukedom in 1779. He had formed a
+friendship at Cambridge with Pitt, the son of his father's colleague,
+and through his influence Pitt entered Parliament. In 1784, he was
+induced by the young premier to accept the Lord-Lieutenancy of
+Ireland, and it is with the lavish entertainment and high revelries at
+Dublin Castle that his name and that of his beautiful Duchess is
+connected.
+
+High living soon told its tale, for the Duke died in 1787, at the
+early age of thirty-three. Though having the most beautiful wife in
+England, his affections wandered, and tales are told of his attachment
+to that siren singer, Mrs. Billington. The Duchess's manner had
+somewhat of levity and much coquetry in it, though she could not be
+classed with that company who have not time to be virtuous. At the
+time of her lord's death, she was living with her mother, the Dowager
+Duchess of Beaufort, in Berkeley Square, London, having been partially
+estranged from her husband. On hearing of his illness, she started to
+set out for Dublin; but a message of his death came fast upon the
+trail of the first news. Perchance it was this estrangement at death,
+this having parted in anger without the chance of reconciliation in
+life, that affected her so deeply that, though sought by many suitors,
+the widow was true to the memory of her late lord. Her son, John
+Henry, succeeded to the title; and his bride, a daughter of the Earl
+of Carlisle, was also known as a beauty, and her portrait was painted
+by Hoppner, in 1798. It was she of whom Greville wrote in his Memoirs,
+and commented on her lack of taste in spoiling the magnificent Castle
+of Belvoir, the pride and glory of the Eastern Midlands.
+
+The beauty of the Duchess Mary Isabella was statuesque, classical; her
+features were noble. She received admiration as her right, but gave
+not largesse of smiles and wit in return. She was not as the Devonian
+divinity, "The woman in whose golden smile all life seems enchanted."
+
+Wraxall writes of a lady telling of witnessing a prenuptial display of
+her person, and being entranced by lithe limb, by the fine and
+faultless form. Reynolds has hinted at the beauteous body, and the
+hint ensnares us. Verily, "the visible fair form of a woman is
+hereditary queen of us." Wraxall also likens the Duchess to an
+older-time beauty, Diane de Poitiers,--that famous lady of France, the
+favorite of François I. and Henri II. Of that lady's beauty, it was
+written, that it was of the form and feature rather than the radiance
+of the mind and manner transforming them; and like her, too, our
+Duchess retained her beauty to an advanced age. She died in 1821. To
+the last, she impressed one with her dignity, her nobility, her
+loveliness.
+
+   "And they who saw her snow-white hair.
+   And dark, sad eyes, so deep with feeling,
+   Breathed all at once the chancel air,
+   And seemed to hear the organ pealing."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: LAVINIA COUNTESS SPENCER by REYNOLDS]
+
+
+LAVINIA
+
+
+In March, 1781, Walpole writes to a friend: "As your lordship has
+honored all the productions of my press with your acceptance, I
+venture to inclose the last, which I printed to oblige the Lucans.
+There are many beautiful and poetic expressions in it. A wedding, to
+be sure, is neither a new nor a promising subject, nor will outlast
+the favors; still, I think Mr. Jones's ode is uncommonly good for the
+occasion." The ode was "The Muse Recalled," and the occasion the
+nuptials of Lord Viscount Althorp and Miss Lavinia Bingham, eldest
+daughter of Sir Charles Bingham, created, in 1776, Baron Lucan of
+Castlebar. Sir Charles was a man of culture, who was intimate with
+Johnson, Goldsmith, Gibbon, Reynolds, and Burke. He is frequently
+pleasantly mentioned by Boswell. He had married, in 1760, Margaret,
+daughter of James Smith, M.P., a lady of great good sense and rare
+accomplishments, and three lovely daughters were the issue from this
+union. Reynolds found in them most pleasing subjects for his pencil.
+Their pictures appeared at the Academy, in 1786. Lavinia was portrayed
+as shown in the picture here given, and again in quite as lovely a
+fashion,--standing out doors and wearing a wide-brimmed hat which
+casts a broad shade across the face; the wavy curls of hair fall upon
+the shoulder; in the background is a landscape. The naïvete of the
+face is exquisitely delightful. The old-time flavor of the whole
+causes one to recall Locker's lines on the picture of his
+grandmother:--
+
+   "Beneath a summer tree.
+   Her maiden reverie
+     Has a charm;
+   Her ringlets are in taste;
+   What an arm! ... what a waist
+     For an arm!"
+
+In the picture of her youngest sister, Anne, is a broad hat, too; she
+sits full-face, but in her features there is lacking just a little of
+the quiet dignity of the eldest. All of these portraits have been made
+familiar to us by the most meritorious mezzotints of them by Cousins.
+In Lavinia's face there lingers all the enchanting grace of
+girlhood,--a face yet full of that early beauty--
+
+   "Which, like the morning's glow
+   Hints a full day below."
+
+A later president of the Academy, Sir Martin Shee, has shown us that
+face in the noonday of its matronly beauty, and the gentle character
+and sweet sensibility yet outshine through the mask of the flesh as in
+the earlier pictures.
+
+Lady Bingham was careful of the education and company of her
+daughters. The girls were musical, and Lavinia excelled in painting as
+well. Walpole writes of her being in Italy, in 1785, with Mrs. Damer,
+his sculptor friend, and of her drawing with very great expression. He
+was not so complimentary of her music some years before, when he tells
+of being invited to Lady Lucan's to hear her daughters sing Jomelli's
+"Miserere," set for two voices: "It lasted for two hours, and instead
+of being pathetic was eminently dull, until at last I rejoiced when
+'_the two women had left the sepulchre_.'"
+
+Shortly after this he tells of rumors of the attachment of George
+John, Lord Althorp, brother of Georgiana of Devonshire, to "that sweet
+creature" Lavinia. At dinner at Lord Lucan's, Lord Althorp sat at a
+side table with the girls and a Miss Shipley. "Pray, Lady Spencer,"
+said Walpole, "is it owned that Lord Althorp is to marry--Miss
+Shipley?" His next reference to the Lucans is in regard to the wedding
+ode printed on the Strawberry Hill press. The poet therein invokes
+blessings in this wise:--
+
+   "Shine forth, ye silver eyes of night,
+   And gaze on virtues crowned with treasures of delight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+   "Flow smoothly, circling hours,--
+   And o'er their heads unblended pleasure pour;
+   Nor let your fleeting round
+   Their mortal transports bound,
+   But fill their cup of bliss, eternal powers,
+   Till time himself shall cease, and suns shall blaze no more."
+
+He essays to eulogize the bride:--
+
+   "Each morn reclined on many a rose,
+   Lavinia's pencil shall disclose
+   New forms of dignity and grace,
+   The expressive air, the impassioned face,
+   The curled smile, the bubbling tear,
+   The bloom of hope, the snow of fear,
+   To some poetic tale fresh beauty give,
+   And bid the starting tablet rise and live;
+   Or with swift fingers shall she touch the strings,
+   Notes of such wondrous texture weave
+   As lifts the soul on seraph wings."
+
+He then proceeds to encourage Althorp to lead a strong, noble life,
+devoting his great abilities to the state, though he laments the small
+chances for genuine sterling worth to achieve eminence.
+
+   "In this voluptuous, this abandoned age,"
+
+when the leaders of the country are
+
+   "Slaves of vice and slaves of gold."
+
+There was much fitness in this poet essaying a homily for the groom's
+benefit, for he had been the young man's tutor some years before. When
+the first Earl--a man of most fascinating manners--placed his son in
+the tutor's charge, he said, "Make him, if you can, like yourself and
+I shall be satisfied." Johnson said of Sir William Jones, "The most
+enlightened of the sons of men." He became a great Indian and Persian
+scholar, and was ever an honored friend of his former pupil.
+
+Previous to his marriage, Lord Althorp had entered Parliament, and, as
+a Whig, was opposing Lord North. When the Marquess of Rockingham came
+to power, he was made a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury. In 1783, he
+succeeded to his father's earldom. The Dowager Countess lived on until
+1814. Her character has been variously described. Mrs. Delany calls
+her "an agreeable person, with a sensible, generous, and delicate
+mind." She was termed vain. What woman would not be who was mother to
+such beauties as Devonshire, Duncannon, and Lavinia. In an
+autobiography by the third Earl, he naïvely remarks that his mother
+never liked his grandmother. The pleasing picture of "Ruth and Naomi"
+is the exception in families.
+
+On the breaking out of the French Revolution, Earl Spencer gave his
+support to Pitt, by whom he was appointed first lord of the admiralty,
+in 1794. It was during the period of her husband's brilliant career in
+this office that the Countess made her greatest success as a hostess
+in ministerial society. She was a good conversationalist, and
+especially attractive to men of individuality who admired her
+sagacious, picturesque pungency of expression. The great naval
+commanders, who frequented the admiralty, were impressed with the
+frankness and force of her superior mind, Nelson and Collingwood
+particularly. She is frequently mentioned in their letters as being
+sure to have much sympathy in their work. A late biographer of the
+Earl wrote: "She had the penetration to appreciate Nelson through the
+cloud of personal vanity and silly conceit which caused him to be
+lightly esteemed in London society." Her "bull-dog" she used playfully
+to call him. She visited Gibbon at Lausanne, in 1795, and he writes:
+"She is a charming woman who, with sense and spirit, has the
+playfulness and simplicity of a child." By some she was accounted
+haughty and exclusive. Perchance she was to those who were without the
+breeding or the brains to commend them to her. Dignified she certainly
+was, and her influence was wholly for good in the uplifting of
+politics and the purifying of society. "I would not advise any one to
+utter a word against any one she was attached to," once said her
+father. She became the wise coadjutor of her husband in forming the
+magnificent Althorp Library.
+
+When the earl retired from the admiralty, in 1800, his entertaining
+became less general. His hospitalities at Spencer House were
+restricted to his more intimate friends. Here came Lord Grenville,
+Earl Grey, chief of the Whigs, Brougham, Horner, and Lord John
+Russell; the younger men to hold converse with her who had known
+Burke, Pitt, Fox, and all the older time orators and statesmen.
+
+In a series of boyish letters sent by the heir to the earldom to his
+father the ending of all is in this quaint phrase: "My duty to Mama."
+The youth did his duty by his mother. She directed his tastes and
+studies, and when he was at college incited him to try for high
+honors, and urged, again and yet again, application to study; and
+through her persuasion he became a reading man. He entered Parliament
+when of age, in 1803. During the Fox and Grenville administration he
+held office as a lord of the treasury. When his mother was
+congratulated on his appointment, she said: "Jack was always skilful
+in figures, and his work is so much to his taste that I am sure he
+will do himself credit." He did himself great credit. His career was
+consistently courageous, honorable, and beneficent. He had character!
+This is his mother's best eulogy. She died in 1831, shortly after her
+son had become Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which office he earned
+his greatest repute as a statesman.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON by READ]
+
+
+ELIZABETH GUNNING
+
+
+The story of the Gunnings is as romantic as any ever wrought into
+imaginative narrative or incorporated in epic poem. The notorious
+damsels were daughters of John Gunning of Castle Coote, County
+Roscommon, Ireland, by the Hon. Bridget Bourke, daughter of Theobald,
+sixth Viscount Bourke of Mayo, whom he married in 1731. The family was
+wofully impecunious; so when the daughters, Maria and Elizabeth, grew
+into marvellously comely maidens, their mother urged their going on
+the stage to augment the faulty fortune. They went to Dublin, and
+there were kindly received by Peg Woffington, then in her glory as
+_Sir Harry Wildair_, and by Tom Sheridan, manager of Dublin Theatre.
+The stage had not then become the stepping-stone to the ranks of the
+nobility, so the girls were advised to adventure socially, with their
+faces for their fortunes. They had not the dresses to be presented in
+at Dublin Castle, but Sheridan supplied these from the resources of
+the green-room wardrobe. Attired as _Lady Macbeth_ and as _Juliet_
+they made their curtsies to the Earl of Harrington, the then
+Lord-Lieutenant.
+
+The hostess of the evening was the handsome Lady Caroline Petersham,
+bride of the Earl's eldest son. Lady Caroline had been one of the
+"Beauty Fitzroys," and had been a favorite belle in town before her
+marriage.
+
+   "When Fitzroy moves, resplendent, fair.
+   So warm her bloom, sublime her air,
+   Her ebon tresses formed to grace
+   And heighten while they shade her face."
+
+Walpole wrote of her in his poem on "The Beauties." The raw Connaught
+girls outshone this dazzling hostess.
+
+Their "first night" was an auspicious success. The début was
+applauded, and the players praised. They were adjudged fitted to star
+the social capital, so to London they went, in June, 1751. Their
+reception was magical. The West End went almost mad over them. When
+they appeared at Court, the aristocracy present was indecorous in its
+efforts to view the dominant beauties. Lords and ladies clambered on
+any eminence to gaze. The crowd surged upon them, and it was with
+difficulty they entered their chairs because of the mob outside. The
+gayety of Vauxhall Gardens was incomplete without them.
+
+Their campaign was a short and eminently active one; Elizabeth
+triumphed first. At a masquerade at Lord Chesterfield's, in February,
+1752, James, the sixth Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, who was enamoured
+of the younger Irish girl, wished to marry her at once. A clergyman
+was asked to perform the ceremony then and there. He objected to the
+time and place and the absence of a ring. The Duke threatened to send
+for the Archbishop. With the ring of a bed-curtain, at half an hour
+past midnight, the wedding took place in Mayfair Chapel. The Scotch
+were enraged at the alliance, which became an unhappy one. The Duke
+was vulgar, debauched, extravagant, and "damaged in person and
+fortune," yet, withal, insolently proud. He betook himself off within
+six years, and his two sons by the Duchess became, successively,
+seventh and eighth Dukes of Hamilton; and a daughter married Edward,
+twelfth Earl of Derby.
+
+The dowager was less than a year in widow's weeds when she exchanged
+them for more strawberry leaves. She had two ducal offers, from their
+graces of Bridgewater and of Argyll; she accepted the latter. In
+March, 1759, she married John, the fifth Duke of that name. Walpole's
+comment on this was: "Who could have believed a Gunning would unite
+the two great houses of Campbell and Hamilton? For my part I expect to
+see Lady Coventry Queen of Prussia. I would not venture to marry
+either of them these thirty years, for fear of being shuffled out of
+the world prematurely, to make room for the rest of their adventurers.
+The first time Jack Campbell carries the Duchess into the Highlands, I
+am persuaded that some of his second-sighted subjects will see him in
+a winding-sheet with a train of kings behind him as long as those in
+Macbeth." And again: "A match that would not disgrace Arcadia ... as
+she is not quite so charming as her sister, I do not know whether it
+is not better than to retain a title which puts one in mind of her
+beauty."
+
+The Dukes of Argyll--Lords of the Isles--have always shown a
+partiality for beauties as brides. This Duke's father married the
+beautiful Mary Bellenden, daughter of John, Lord Bellenden,--
+
+     "Smiling Mary, soft and fair as down."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She is mentioned otherwise as by Gay:--
+
+   "Bellenden we needs must praise,
+   Who, as down the stairs she jumps,
+   Sings 'Over the hills and far away,'
+   Despising doleful dumps."
+
+Walpole says she was never mentioned by her contemporaries but as the
+_most perfect creature_ they had ever known. The present Duke wedded
+that charming child, Lady Elizabeth Leveson Gower, who sits on her
+mother's knee in that surpassingly fine picture by Lawrence, called
+"Lady Gower and Child." And his son is allied to the Princess Louise,
+the most comely of Victoria's daughters.
+
+After her sister's death, in 1760, her Grace of Argyll suffered a
+decline in health. She was ordered abroad for change. She was
+appointed to accompany the Princess Sophia Charlotte on her journey to
+England to be married to the King. As they neared the ceremony in
+London, the Princess became nervous. Her Grace essayed to quiet her
+fears. "Ah, my dear Duchess, _you_ may laugh at me, but _you_ have
+been married twice," said the Princess. The Duchess became one of the
+ladies of the bedchamber, and was in much favor with the Queen.
+
+In 1767, her father died at Somerset House, and her mother, the Hon.
+Mrs. Gunning, in 1770. There were three sisters in the family besides
+our heroines: Sophia Gunning died, an infant, in 1737; Lissy, who died
+in 1752, aged eight years; and Catherine, who was married, in 1769, to
+Robert Travis an Irish squire in her own rank of life. She died, too,
+at Somerset House, in 1773, where she was an upper housekeeper. A
+brother entered the army, fought at Bunker Hill, and became a
+major-general in 1787. He was much of a ladies' man. He married a Miss
+Minfie, author of some novels, and they had a daughter who aspired to
+repeat the successes of her famous aunts. She managed to marry the
+Hon. Stephen Digby, who had lost his first wife, a daughter of Lord
+Ilchester, in 1787. The Duchess of Argyll was created, in 1776, a
+peeress of England as Baroness Hamilton of Hambledon County,
+Leicester, and died in December, 1790. By her second marriage she had
+two sons, successively Dukes of Argyll, and two daughters, one of
+whom, Lady Charlotte Campbell, attained some fame as a novelist as
+Lady Charlotte Bury, she having married Colonel John Campbell and
+secondly Rev. Edward Bury.
+
+We have no evidence of the possession of bright Irish wit by the
+double-duchessed beauty. Ingenuous enthusiasm, perfect simplicity, and
+unfailing good humor ever marked her manner, and were a captivating
+adjunct to her great facial charm. Walpole writes of a pretty sight
+when their Graces of Hamilton and of Richmond with Lady Ailesbury
+sitting in a boat together, and proceeds to tell of the suspected
+jealousy by she of Hamilton of the beauty of his niece, daughter of
+Sir Edward Walpole, who became the bride of Earl Waldegrave, and later
+married the Duke of Gloucester, the King's youngest brother. At
+another time, when a lady wrote telling him of the advent of a beauty
+who was expected to outvie the Gunnings, he replies: "There was to
+have been a handsomer every summer these seven years, but when the
+seasons come they all seem to have been addled by the winter."
+
+One day the housekeeper of Hampton Court was showing the palace to
+visitors when the sisters were there. She threw open the door where
+they were sitting, saying, "This is our beauty-room." The pictures and
+galleries were forgotten by the crowd, which gazed on the beauties
+instead.
+
+For a decade their beauty was regnant in London. They were not
+politicians as were their Graces of Gordon and Devonshire, nor had
+they the ability to become such. Neither were they the associates of
+brilliant, intellectual men, but participants in the gay, vacuous,
+showy society of the rapid set of the aristocracy. The elder sister
+gained the coronet of Coventry, but her vanity caused her own undoing;
+the younger was a part of the exhibition of "Beauty and the Beast." A
+high price was paid for her position by the endurance of a period of
+tyranny and terror.
+
+Some praise must be accorded the beauties, for at a time of much
+licentiousness of a profligate society and tolerated coarsenesses, the
+sisters determinedly kept their names free from ignoble soil and
+scandal.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MARIA COUNTESS OF COVENTRY by HAMILTON]
+
+
+MARIA GUNNING
+
+
+"Two Irish girls of no fortune, who make more noise than any of their
+predecessors since the days of Helen, and who are declared the
+handsomest women alive." So wrote Walpole, in June, 1751. If we were
+to judge of their beauty by the pictured presentments of it, we would
+certainly agree with "our Horace" when he says he has seen much
+handsomer women than either. We have no adequate image of their
+surpassing loveliness, the beholding of which would cause us to feel
+how merited was their meed of praise, how fair the contemporary
+comment on their comeliness, and how just the wide fame of a beauty
+which tradition has epitomized for us in the phrase, "The Fair
+Gunnings." Though the print publishers of the time actively issued
+portraits, we feel that none of them picture such a person as would
+set society and the whole city of London astir by her blazing beauty.
+
+The best-known likenesses are the various pictures by Francis Cotes,
+one of the founders of the Royal Academy, a painter of considerable
+merit, who was born about 1725, and died in 1770. It is said that
+Hogarth preferred him as a portrait painter to Reynolds. His studio
+was in Cavendish Square, and at his death was taken by Romney; and it
+was while he worked there that Sir Joshua referred to his rival as
+"the man in Cavendish Square." The studio was later occupied by Sir
+Martin Shee.
+
+Cotes's picture of Maria is a half length of a modestly dignified
+lady, having no tendency at all to that silliness that Walpole
+insinuates was characteristic of her. The face is oval, the eyebrows
+well apart and distinctly arched, and the hair brushed back from the
+forehead and falling on the very graceful neck. The dress is cut low,
+showing a delicately-moulded bosom. This picture was mezzo-tinted by
+McArdell; and there is another, somewhat similar, reproduced superbly
+by Spooner. His principal picture of Elizabeth is not so attractive
+as the picture of her sister; the body is too constrained and
+symmetrically formal; the dress is very low and edged with lace, some
+flowers resting on her bosom. The neck and breast have not the suave
+grace of the sister's. This has been engraved in mezzo-tint by
+Houston. Another portrait by Cotes shows her with fur on the dress. He
+also painted a portrait of Kitty in a low dress sprigged with flowers,
+with a sash, and ribbons at the back of the head. This has a wooded
+landscape background. Below the print of this picture is engraved
+these lines:--
+
+   "This youngest of the Graces here we view
+   So like in Beauty to the other two
+   Whoe'er compares their Features and their Frame
+   Will know at once that Gunning is her name."
+
+There is an engraved picture of the two sisters together--based on
+Cotes's portrayals--called "The Hibernian Sisters." Maria is sitting
+on the left, looking toward the right, with a dog on her lap; the
+younger is on the right, looking to the front, and holds a fan in her
+hand. In the background is a garden wall. Cupids surmount the
+picture. The inscription is in this fashion:--
+
+   "Hibernia long with spleen beheld
+   Her Favorite Toasts by ours excelled.
+   Resolved to outvie Britannia's Fair
+   By her own Beauties,--sent a pair."
+
+Reynolds painted them both, in 1753; but he failed to give them the
+charm we would expect. Unless Sir Joshua's engravers belie him, he did
+not make Maria even ordinarily fair to look upon. These pictures are
+not classed among his masterpieces. There is a picture of Maria by B.
+Wilson the engraver, made before she left Ireland. In it the features
+are handsome and the figure graceful, though over-dressed, and the
+whole impression is of a matron in her thirties rather than a maid in
+her teens. The picture we give of her is from a whole-length by Gavin
+Hamilton, a Scotch artist, a friend of Burns, born in Lanark about
+1730. He must have been a precocious genius, for this picture was
+engraved by McArdell, and published in 1754. Hamilton passed the
+greater part of his life in Rome, painting classical subjects and
+pursuing archaeological investigations. He died there, in 1797.
+Portraiture was probably a pecuniary pursuit before the classics
+claimed him. His portraits savor somewhat of the affectations of the
+"curtain and column" school. His canvas of Elizabeth shows her
+standing on a terrace with a low dress and long hair, a veil loosely
+tied across her chest. Her left hand rests on the head of a greyhound.
+There is a seat to the left and trees in the background.
+
+Houston engraved a portrait of Maria after a drawing by J. St.
+Liotard. This is a three-quarter length figure. Her hair is in large
+plaits twined with a muslin veil on her head. The dress is open at the
+throat, showing a necklace. There is a wide belt with large clasps.
+Her left elbow rests on her knee. Perhaps the most satisfactory
+pictures of the Beauties are those by Catharine Read, who died, in
+1786; and who is chiefly known by her winsome delineations of the
+graces of the Gunning girls. We could readily judge from these that
+the girls were attractive. There is a genial graciousness in the face
+of she of Coventry, while the Scotch duchess is possessed of a
+persuasive sweetness of mien. The mob-cap frames a face almost
+faultless in the regularity of its features. For all the pleasant
+flavor of these facial charms, there is absent that peerless, regal
+loveliness, that compelling magnificence of presence, that hauteur
+which dazzles and enthrals.
+
+The originals of these various portraits have been retained at Croome
+Court, near Worcester; the seat of the Coventry family, at Inverary
+Castle, Argyllshire; and at Hamilton Palace.
+
+Three weeks after the romantic marriage of her younger sister, Maria
+Gunning was married to George William, who was Lord Deerhurst--"that
+grave young Lord," Walpole calls him--until 1750, when he succeeded to
+the Earldom of Coventry. He had been dangling about her for some time,
+and seemed nerved to the wedding by his Grace of Hamilton's
+precipitate action. The Earl took her for a trip on the Continent in
+company with Lady Caroline Petersham, that other great beauty. Neither
+caused much comment abroad, and Paris did not ratify the repute of
+London. My Lady was at a disadvantage from her ignorance of the French
+language. She complained, too, of the arbitrary rule of her husband in
+not allowing her red nor powder, so much in vogue with the Parisian
+beauties. It is told how he saw her appear at a dinner with some on,
+and took out his handkerchief, and there tried to rub it off. But her
+fame abated not in England. Crowds continued to mob her whenever she
+appeared on the street. The King was pleased to order that whenever my
+Lady Coventry walked abroad she should be attended by a guard of
+soldiers. Shortly after this she simulated great fright at the
+curiosity of the mob, and asked for escort. She then paraded in the
+park, accompanied by her husband and Lord Pembroke, preceded by two
+sergeants, and followed by twelve soldiers. Surely this outdoes the
+advertising genius of any latter-day American actress! A shoemaker at
+Worcester gained two guineas and a half by exhibiting at a penny a
+head a shoe he had made for the Countess. She was in much favor at
+Court, and always circulated in an atmosphere of adulation and
+sensation. The Duke of Cumberland was an admirer, as was also, more
+emphatically, Fred St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke,--"Billy and Bully"
+these two blades were termed. There was rumor, at one time, of the
+Earl seriously resenting the attentions of Bolingbroke. The old King,
+too, showed her some courtesies; and the most oft-told anecdote of her
+is about His Majesty asking if she were not sorry the masquerades were
+over. She assured him she was surfeited with pageants,--there was but
+one she wished yet to see, and that was a coronation. She saw it not,
+for the King outlived her by a fortnight. Had she but abstained from
+the use of paint and powder, her career would not have ended at the
+early age of twenty-seven. Blood-poisoning came from the use of it.
+Her beauty paled rapidly. My lady lay on a couch, a pocket-glass
+constantly in hand, grieving at the gradual decay. The room was
+darkened, that others might not discern that which so chagrined her.
+Then the curtains of the bed were drawn to guard her from pitying
+gaze; and then, on a September day, in 1760, the pathetic end came.
+Over ten thousand people viewed her coffin. Sensationalism even after
+the drop of the curtain! The Countess left four children, two sons and
+two daughters. Of these, Anne, four years old at her mother's death,
+was one of the children whom George Selwyn showed much kindness to.
+The Earl married again, the second Countess being Barbara, daughter of
+Lord St. John of Bletsoe. George William, the son of Maria, came to
+the earldom in 1809.
+
+In an ode on the death of Maria the poet Mason wrote:--
+
+   "For she was fair beyond your brightest bloom
+     (This Envy owns, since now her bloom is fled):
+   Fair as the Forms that wove in Fancy's loom,
+     Float in light vision round the Poet's head.
+   Whene'er with soft serenity she smiled,
+     Or caught the orient blush of quick surprise,
+   How sweetly mutable, how brightly wild.
+     The liquid lustre darted from her eyes!
+   Each look, each motion, waked a new-born grace
+     That o'er her form its transient glory cast:
+   Some lovelier wonder soon usurped the place,
+     Chased by a charm still lovelier than the last."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ELIZABETH COUNTESS GROSVENOR by LAWRENCE]
+
+
+LADY ELIZABETH
+
+
+In these latter days can we imagine a lawsuit, costing contestants
+thousands of pounds, over the right to a certain heraldic charge? In
+the fourteenth century Sir Robert Grosvenor was the defendant in such
+a suit, and we read of Chaucer, John of Gaunt, Owen Glendower, and
+Hotspur being witnesses before the High Court of Chivalry. Sir Robert
+established his defence, and since those days the Grosvenors have ever
+held a high rank in the nobility of England. Quite as proud a
+patrician position was held through the centuries by the family of
+Gower. In the early part of this century, the heir of the Grosvenors
+espoused the most beautiful daughter of the House of Gower,--Lady
+Elizabeth Mary Leveson Gower. This lady was the youngest daughter of
+George, the second Marquis of Stafford, who married, in 1785,
+Elizabeth, who was Countess of Sutherland and Baroness Strathnaver in
+her own right. The Marquis was created Duke of Sutherland in 1833.
+
+The Lady Elizabeth Mary was born in 1797, and married, in 1819,
+Robert, Viscount Belgrave, eldest son of the second Earl of Grosvenor.
+The portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence was painted in the year preceding
+her marriage.
+
+The Marquisate of Westminster had been created in 1831, and in 1845,
+when the Viscount's father died, he succeeded to the title. He had
+entered Parliament in 1818 as member for Chester. He spoke but rarely
+in the House, although a hard worker on committees. He greatly
+improved his vast London property, and had the credit of administering
+his estate with a combination of intelligence and generosity seldom
+seen. Of reserved habits and inexpensive tastes, he was averse to
+ostentation and extravagance. He died in 1869. His successor was his
+son (born in 1825) the present Duke, who was elevated to a dukedom in
+1874. He is one of the wealthiest peers in the kingdom, is a man of
+great taste, and has patronized the arts with almost a Medician
+munificence.
+
+The seat of the family is the renowned Eaton Hall, near Chester; that
+stately mansion set in the centre of a country rich in pastoral
+beauty. Its enlargement and beautification was begun by the second
+Earl in 1802, and has been carried on by its present lord until it is
+now the most magnificent of all the modern mansions of the nobility.
+G.F. Watts's heroic equestrian statue of Hugh Lupus, the founder of
+the family and a nephew of William the Conqueror, challenges
+admiration as one enters the grounds. There is no great picture
+gallery in the Hall, for that is at Grosvenor House in London, but the
+family portraits are here. Let into panels of the dining-room are
+portraits from the time of the first Earl, who was painted by
+Gainsborough. The Viscount Belgrave and his lady were painted by
+Pickersgill, in 1825,--this picture of the latter being much inferior
+to Lawrence's,--while the present generation was painted almost wholly
+by Millais,--that of Constance, the Duke's first wife, being
+especially fine. Leslie, in 1833, executed a group of the Grosvenor
+family.
+
+Lawrence and Hoppner were to the regency what Reynolds, Gainsborough,
+and Romney were to the early days of the reign of George III., as
+painters of the patrician beauties. What a marvellous mass of records
+of fair women these five have left us!--Reynolds, supreme in style,
+painting the character as seen through the fair mask of the flesh;
+Gainsborough, superbly picturesque, and a faithful limner withal;
+Romney, impressively picturesque, too, a fine colorist, imaginative,
+and but now, a century later, coming into his proper meed of praise;
+Lawrence, elegant, charming,--a courtier indeed; Hoppner, through many
+years a close rival of Lawrence. To Hoppner we are indebted for the
+visible evidence of the beauty of many who had repute as fair women.
+There is that piquant Jane Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford, who greets
+us in the National Gallery. Then that dark-eyed and winsome Lady
+Kenyon, who was one of the reigning belles, on canvas, at the Grafton
+Gallery show in London this year. In this exhibit, too, was his
+"Mademoiselle Hillsberg,"--a tall and dark dancing woman, which he
+regarded as his best work. Then there is that group of noble dames by
+him, which were engraved by Charles Wilkin and published under the
+title "Bygone Beauties,"--Lady Charlotte Duncombe; Viscountess St.
+Asaph; Lady Charlotte Campbell, daughter of Elizabeth Gunning;
+Viscountess Andover; Lady Langham; the Countess of Euston, one of the
+three beautiful Ladies Waldegrave, painted by Reynolds; the Duchess of
+Rutland. These are indeed "a select series of ladies of rank and
+fashion." And with these must be classed that sweet ideal face of Mrs,
+Arbuthnot, known as "Marcia." At this late date it gives us greeting
+from how many a parlor wall! Its tender charm makes perpetual appeal
+to the passer-by from how many a print-shop window!
+
+There seems to have been bitter feeling between Hoppner, who was an
+intense Whig, and Lawrence, who knew no politics, but was all things
+to all men. "The ladies of Lawrence show a gaudy dissoluteness of
+taste, and sometimes trespass on moral as well as professional
+chastity," and "Lawrence shall paint my mistress and Phillips my
+wife," were the two rapier phrases Hoppner thrust at his rival. But it
+is recorded that thenceforth Lawrence's commissions from fair sitters
+multiplied.
+
+Sir Thomas was a finished flatterer. No man ever knew better, except
+it was Lely, how to pay the compliment of the brush. This form is the
+substantial, the lasting compliment for which golden guineas are
+gladly paid. Grace and elegance are the hall-mark of his every
+picture. But the artist was a courtier in speech and manners as well,
+and this got him into trouble once. He was attentive to the ill-used
+Princess Caroline,--markedly attentive! A royal commission inquired
+into his conduct, but absolved him from the charges of wrongdoing.
+When Lady Grosvenor, who had become Marchioness of Westminster, was an
+old lady, in 1881, she wrote in a letter to Lord Leveson Gower her
+recollections of the painter: "His manners were what is called
+extremely 'polished' (not the fault of the present times). He wore a
+large cravat, and had a tinge about him of the time of George IV.,
+pervading his general demeanor.... I should not say he was amusing,
+but what struck me most, during my two hours sitting in Russell
+Square, was the perfection of the drawing of his portraits. Before any
+color was put on, the drawing itself was so perfectly beautiful that
+it seemed almost a sin to add any color." This portrait of her, which
+was painted at this one sitting, is considered the very best Lawrence
+ever painted. The head has distinction and hauteur, albeit the face is
+sweetly ingenuous. And the eyes! Well, Sir Thomas always excelled
+here! Never, since Titian, has painter given us such "strange sweet
+maddening eyes,"--
+
+   "Fathomless dusk by night, the day lets in
+   Glimmer of emerald,--thus those eyes of hers!"
+
+This picture now hangs in the gallery of Stafford House, and was
+mezzotinted by Cousins, in 1844, and included in the published
+collection of the artist's works. This volume is representative of the
+artist. It opens with that perennially delightful picture of the
+"Calmady Children," called "Nature,"--one of the very best and
+sweetest representations of child life ever made. Here is the
+elemental artlessness of nature, and here the beatitude of innocence.
+Another child-picture is the portrait of Lady Emily Cowper, afterwards
+Lady Ashley, called "The Rosebud." Among the ladies shown are Lady
+Leicester, Lady Lyndhurst, and Lady Georgiana Agar Ellis, the picture
+of the latter being surpassing in its elegance. That majestically
+maternal picture is here of Lady Gower and Lady Elizabeth Leveson
+Gower,--not our Elizabeth Mary, but she who became Duchess of Argyll.
+
+The Countess of Grosvenor was a lady of high character and most
+affable manners, and held her exalted position with a dignity of
+demeanor and a bearing worthy of a descent from the noble Gowers,
+lords of Sittenham. Her residence latterly was Motcombe House, near
+Shaftesbury, Dorsetshire. She lived on until our own day, dying at the
+age of ninety-four.
+
+In 1840-41 she accompanied her husband on a yacht voyage in the
+Mediterranean, an entertaining account of which she published in two
+volumes. She was a keen politician, as so many ladies of rank are in
+England. In 1873 Lady Westminster's son, then Lord Robert Grosvenor,
+spoke in favor of the Liberal candidate for Shaftesbury. The candidate
+told her tenants that he believed her ladyship was not averse to his
+candidature. It was putting his fingers into the den of the apparently
+sleeping lioness. She wrote sharply: "I beg to undeceive you. I am
+most anxious for the success of the conservative cause, connected as
+it is with the preservation of our religion and our loyalty to our
+Queen."
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME OLD TIME BEAUTIES***
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Some Old Time Beauties, by Thomson Willing</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Some Old Time Beauties</p>
+<p>       After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment</p>
+<p>Author: Thomson Willing</p>
+<p>Release Date: June 16, 2005  [eBook #16079]</p>
+<p>Language: en</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME OLD TIME BEAUTIES***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Afra Ullah, Sankar Viswanathan,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (https://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p>
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image_01.jpg" alt="Cover" width="400" height="518"  /></div>
+<h1>
+
+SOME<br />
+OLD TIME<br />
+BEAUTIES<br /></h1>
+
+<h2>AFTER PORTRAITS BY THE<br />
+ENGLISH MASTERS, WITH<br />
+EMBELLISHMENT AND COMMENT<br />
+
+BY THOMSON WILLING<br /></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>BOSTON<br />
+JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY<br />
+MDCCCXCV<br /></h3>
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image_41.jpg" alt="Contents" width="400" height="151" /></div>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<ul class="TOC">
+<li>
+<span class="ralign">PAGE</span></li>
+<li><br /></li>
+<li><br /></li>
+<li>
+<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></span>
+GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE</li>
+<li>Portrait by Thomas Gainsborough</li>
+<li><br /></li>
+<li><span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></span>
+MARY, HONORABLE MRS. GRAHAM</li>
+<li>Portrait by Thomas Gainsborough.</li>
+<li><br /></li>
+<li>
+<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_25"> 25</a></span>
+EMMA, LADY HAMILTON</li>
+<li>Portrait by George Romney.</li>
+<li><br /></li>
+<li>
+<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></span>
+MRS. SHERIDAN</li>
+<li>Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.</li>
+<li><br /></li>
+<li>
+<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></span>
+MARGUERITE, COUNTESS BLESSINGTON</li>
+<li>Portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence.</li>
+<li><br /></li>
+<li>
+<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></span>
+MARY ISABELLA, DUCHESS OF RUTLAND</li>
+<li>Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.</li>
+<li><br /></li>
+<li>
+<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></span>
+LAVINIA, COUNTESS SPENCER</li>
+<li>Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.</li>
+<li><br /></li>
+<li>
+<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></span>
+ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON</li>
+<li>Portrait by Catharine Read.</li>
+<li><br /></li>
+<li>
+<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></span>
+MARIA, COUNTESS OF COVENTRY</li>
+<li>Portrait by Gavin Hamilton.</li>
+<li><br /></li>
+<li>
+<span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_113">113</a></span>
+ELIZABETH, COUNTESS GROSVENOR</li>
+<li>Portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence.</li>
+<li><br /></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image_02.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="142" height="88" /></div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span></p>
+<div class="center"><a href="images/image_39.jpg"><img src="images/image_03.jpg" alt="GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE" width="400" height="509" /></a><br />
+<span class="caption">GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE<br />
+GAINSBOROUGH</span></div>
+
+<p>
+<img src="images/image_04.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="400" height="165" />
+ <img src="images/image_05.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="123" height="306" class="floatl" /></p>
+
+
+<p>The Dashing Duchess,&mdash;the impulsive, ebullient beauty whose smile
+swayed ministers, and for whose favor princes were beggars! A
+loveliness of manner, as of feature, such seductive color,&mdash;glowing
+carnations,&mdash;and such golden-brown hair, with a fine figure, made up
+an opulent personality, than which no more consummate type of beauty
+has been preserved to us by painter or poet.</p>
+
+<p>Georgiana Spencer was the daughter of Lord Spencer, afterwards first
+Earl Spencer; but her impulsiveness, her waywardness, and improvidence
+were a legacy from her grandfather, "Jack" Spencer, the grandson and
+special favorite of the beautiful Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. Her
+"Torismond," she called him. His was a career of profligacy, a course
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span>
+of error and extravagance. His mother was Lady Sunderland, known in
+society as "the little Whig," from her small stature and her
+persistent politics. Her party badge was always worn,&mdash;the black patch
+on the left side of the face, as distinguished from the Tory fashion
+of wearing it on the right side. So Georgiana came legitimately by her
+beauty, her Whiggish politics, and her versatile vivacity of manner,
+as well as her improvidence and indiscretion.</p>
+
+<p>But her mother's strong character was a potent influence. She was the
+daughter of the Right Honorable Stephen Poyntz, and was of high repute
+for generosity, for sensibility, for charity, and for courteous
+dignity of demeanor. We hear of Georgiana being a beautiful child; and
+Reynolds as well as Gainsborough, both made painted record of that
+childish beauty. Her brightness of mind gave her an interest in art,
+in music, and in literature; and, though not proficient in the
+practice of either, she had more than the society woman's knowledge of
+them. At seventeen, she married William, fifth Duke of Devonshire,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span>
+ten years her senior. His was a temperament antipathetic to
+hers,&mdash;unsympathetic, unimpressionable, and taciturn, yet withal of
+the Cavendish characteristic persistency of purpose and honest intent.</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess at once became a queen of society in the Carlton House
+Court. Devonshire House was an assembly place for the Whigs; and its
+lovely mistress was the hostess of many a statesman exalted by his
+wit, as of many a politician with following by virtue of his station.
+Like all radical companies, it was a motley mixture that found welcome
+there. The Prince of Wales was a devotee. The then shining Sheridan
+was a frequenter; but with the name of Fox has that of the Duchess
+been more associated than of aught other. Her supremacy among these
+companions was not in the manner of the French Salon leaders,&mdash;while
+wit, knowledge, and tact were hers, she lived not by learning, but by
+her liveliness and jollity. She was not the scholar in politics, but
+the politician among scholars out of school.</p><p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span></p>
+
+<p>It was a roystering, revelling company; and political as well as
+personal penury became the portion of many as the result of these
+improvident and profligate days. The episode of the Duchess's career
+which is most known, is her purchase, by a kiss, of a vote for Fox
+when she was championing his cause in an election, and canvassing for
+votes in company with her sister, Lady Duncannon. It was said, "never
+before had two such lovely portraits appeared on a canvass." A butcher
+bargained for his vote by asking a kiss from the lovely lips of the
+seductive Duchess. The price was paid, amid the plaudits of the crowd.
+An Irish elector, impressed by the fair appellant's vivacity,
+exclaimed: "I could light my pipe at her eyes."</p>
+
+<p>Fox was elected for the Tory borough of Westminster, and great was the
+rejoicing at Carlton House. A <i>f&ecirc;te</i> was given on the grounds the day
+following, and the ordinarily well-apparelled Prince appeared in a
+superb costume of the radical colors, blue and buff. This was the
+period of the Duchess's greatest glory, as well as of her most superb
+charm of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span>personality; and it was about this period that Gainsborough
+painted his perennially delightful presentment of her. She was then
+twenty-seven years of age, and had been married ten years. Wraxall
+wrote what is probably the best contemporary description of her: "The
+personal charms of the Duchess of Devonshire constituted her smallest
+pretensions to universal admiration; nor did her beauty consist, like
+that of the Gunnings, in regularity of features, and faultless
+formation of limbs and shape; it lay in the amenity and graces of her
+deportment, in her irresistible manners, and the seduction of her
+society. Her hair was not without a tinge of red; and her face, though
+pleasing, yet, had it not been illuminated by her mind, might have
+been considered an ordinary countenance."</p>
+
+<p>It is said of Gainsborough that, while painting the Duchess, "he drew
+his wet pencil across a mouth all thought exquisitely lovely, saying,
+'Her Grace is too hard for me.'"</p>
+
+<p>The lady later knew the cuts of comment, and the keen pain of
+justifiable jealousy. The rival in her husband's attentions was Lady
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span>Elizabeth Foster, daughter of the Earl of Bristol, a brunette of
+handsome presence, and at the death of Georgiana, in 1806, she became
+the second wife of the Duke. There was an apparent friendship between
+the ladies, and Lady Elizabeth for a time lived under the same roof as
+the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>Madame d'Arblay, in 1791, visited her at Bath, and made record then of
+her introduction to the Duchess, and indicated the premonition of
+trouble in this wise. "Presently followed two ladies; Lady Spencer,
+with a look and manner warmly announcing pleasure in what she was
+doing, then introduced me to the first of them, saying, 'Duchess of
+Devonshire, Miss Burney.' She made me a very civil compliment upon
+hoping my health was recovering; and Lady Spencer then, slightly, and
+as if unavoidably, said, 'Lady Elizabeth Foster.'" Gibbon said of the
+latter, that, "No man could withstand her; and that if she chose to
+beckon the Lord Chancellor from his woolsack, in full sight of the
+world, he could not resist obedience." Reynolds painted a portrait of
+her, showing a bright-eyed, smiling <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span>lady, with close-curled hair, of
+girlish appearance. In Samuel Rogers's "Table Talk" are several
+mentions of the famous Georgiana, and especially one which tells of
+her love for gambling. "Gaming was the rage during her day; she
+indulged in it, and was made miserable by her debts. A faro-table was
+kept by Martindale, at which the Duchess and other high fashionables
+used to play. Sheridan said that the Duchess and Martindale had agreed
+that whatever they two won from each other should be sometimes
+<i>double</i>, sometimes <i>treble</i>, what it was called. And Sheridan assured
+me that he had handed the Duchess into her carriage when she was
+literally sobbing at her losses, she having lost fifteen hundred
+pounds, when it was supposed to be only five hundred pounds." A life
+such as she then led surely affected her appearance. In 1783, Walpole
+wrote: "The Duchess of Devonshire, the empress of fashion, is no
+beauty at all. She was a very fine woman, with all the freshness of
+youth and health, but verges fast to a coarseness.</p>
+
+<p>The offspring of the Duchess Georgiana were: <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span>Georgiana Dorothy,
+afterwards Countess Carlisle, whose letters were lately published, and
+exhibit an original observation and a terse style of record; Henrietta
+Elizabeth, later Countess Granville; and a son, who succeeded to the
+Dukedom. About the latter's birth was some mystery; insinuation was
+active. The Duchess had little liking for domestic life, so normal
+neglect of child may have been construed into an unnatural dislike.
+Her son never married. Through the stress of the home infelicity, her
+beauty waned; but her bearing and breeding kept her paramount in her
+set. She is known to this later generation only as a superb beauty who
+stands with such opulent charm of costume, and of fine hauteur of
+manner, amid the noble groves of Chatsworth&mdash;as the once potential
+original of Gainsborough's greatest portrait. "The bust outlasts the
+throne, the coin Tiberius."</p>
+
+<p>A most pathetic tribute to the beauty of the Duchess was paid by
+"Peter Pindar" (Dr. Wolcot), who addressed "A Petition to Time in
+favor of the Duchess of Devonshire," and implored the Inexorable
+thus:&mdash;</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="poem">
+ <span class="i2">"Hurt not the form that all admire.</span>
+  <span class="i2">Oh, never with white hairs her temple sprinkle!</span>
+  <span class="i2">Oh, sacred be her cheek, her lip, her bloom!</span>
+  <span class="i2">And do not, in a lovely dimple's room,</span>
+  <span class="i2">Place a hard mortifying wrinkle.</span>
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"Know shouldst thou bid the beauteous duchess fade,</span>
+  <span class="i2">Thou, therefore, must thy own delights invade;</span>
+  <span class="i2">And know, 't will be a long, long while</span>
+  <span class="i2">Before thou givest her equal to our isle.</span>
+  <span class="i2">Then do not with this sweet <i>chef-d'oeuvre</i> part,</span>
+  <span class="i2">But keep to show the triumph of thy art."</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>A dramatic fate has befallen the original canvas. In 1875, it was sold
+at auction, and was bought by a firm of dealers for the then highest
+price paid for a single picture in England. The publicity gained by
+this was taken advantage of by the purchasers to exhibit the picture.
+One morning when the gallery was opened, the frame only was there; the
+picture had vanished. The canvas is lost.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span></p>
+<div class="center"><a href="images/image_40.jpg"><img src="images/image_06.jpg" alt="MARY, THE HONORABLE MRS GRAHAM" width="400" height="532" /></a><br />
+<span class="caption">MARY, THE HONORABLE MRS GRAHAM
+<br />
+GAINSBOROUGH
+</span>
+</div>
+<p><img src="images/image_07.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="400" height="186" />
+<img src="images/image_08.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="209" height="277" class="floatl" /></p>
+<p>Like the happiest countries that have no history, the tranquil life of
+joyous content leaves little to chronicle. Only in the nobility of
+character of a husband who grieved her loss for years, and in his
+strong dignity, and devotion to her memory, do we get a hint of the
+gracious and good lady whom Gainsborough has made immortal for us.</p>
+
+<p>And in that phrase of her lifetime, "lovely Mary Cathcart," is a whole
+biography of benignity and beauty. She came of one of the most ancient
+and noble families in Scotland, and was the daughter of the ninth
+Baron Cathcart, called "Cathcart of Fontenoy." Her brother William
+became the tenth Baron, and afterwards the first Earl Cathcart. He had
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span>studied law, but abandoned it for the army, and had a gallant career
+therein; becoming a lieutenant-general in 1801, and commander-in-chief
+of the expedition to Copenhagen in 1807; afterwards acquiring
+reputation as ambassador for several years at St. Petersburg. He was
+perhaps the earliest of British noblemen to marry American beauties;
+having wedded the daughter of Andrew Elliott of New York, in 1779.</p>
+
+<p>In November, 1774, there was rejoicing among the retainers of the
+House of Cathcart, for there was to be a double wedding. The eldest
+daughter, "Jenny," was married to the Duke of Athole, that same Duke
+who became a friendly patron of Burns, and in reference to whom the
+poet writes, when addressing some verses to him: "It eases my heart a
+good deal, as rhyme is the coin with which a poet pays his debts of
+honor and gratitude. What I owe to the noble family of Athole, of the
+first kind, I shall ever proudly boast; what I owe of the last, so
+help me God, in my hour of need I shall never forget."</p>
+
+<p>The second sister, the Hon. Mary, was married to Sir Thomas Graham of
+Balgowan, a descendant <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span>of the Marquis of Montrose and of Graham of
+Claverhouse. The youngest sister, Louisa, later became Countess of
+Mansfield, and her portrait, by Romney,&mdash;a seated profile figure with
+flowing draperies,&mdash;is that artist's most masterly work.</p>
+
+<p>After eighteen years of happy married life, she died childless; one of
+those good women that were&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"True in loving all their lives,"&mdash;</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"a surpassing spirit whose light adorned the world around it." Her
+husband grieved greatly. He was ordered to travel to divert his
+despair. He visited Gibraltar, and there the dormant martial spirit of
+his ancestors was aroused by his environment. Though then forty-three
+years of age, he immediately entered the army as a volunteer. He
+rapidly rose in his profession, and had an especially brilliant career
+in the Peninsular War. In 1811, he became the hero of Barossa, and in
+the same year was made second in command to the Duke of Wellington. He
+was created Lord Lynedoch of Balgowan, Perthshire, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span>and frequently was
+thanked by Parliament for his services. Sheridan said, "Never was
+there a loftier spirit in a braver heart." And alluding to his
+services during the retreat to Corunna, he said, "Graham was their
+best adviser in the hour of peril; and in the hour of disaster, their
+surest consolation." Scott eulogizes him in the poem, "The Vision of
+Don Roderick," in the lines,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+  <p><span class="i2">"Nor be his praise o'erpast who strove to hide</span>
+      <span class="i2">Beneath the warrior's vest affection's wound,</span>
+      <span class="i2">Whose wish Heaven for his country's weal denied;</span>
+      <span class="i2">Danger and fate, he sought, but glory found.</span>
+  </p>
+  <p>
+    <span class="i2">"From clime to clime, wher'e'r war's trumpets sound,</span>
+    <span class="i2">The wanderer went; yet, Caledonia, still</span>
+    <span class="i2">Thine was his thought in march and tented ground;</span>
+    <span class="i2">He dreamed mid Alpine cliffs of Athole's hill,</span>
+  <span class="i2">And heard in Ebro's roar his Lynedoch's lovely rill.</span></p>
+  <p>
+
+    <span class="i2">"O hero of a race renowned of old,</span>
+    <span class="i2">Whose war-cry oft has waked the battle swell!"</span>
+  </p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Old Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, wrote of a late Duke of Athole:
+"Courage, endurance, stanchness, fidelity, and warmth of heart,
+simplicity, and downrightness, were his staples." <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span>They are ever the
+staples of the Scotch character, and they were all pre-eminent in Sir
+Thomas. His life was noble, and his affection was faithful to its
+early troth.</p>
+
+<p>A pathetic history attaches to this picture of Mrs. Graham: When its
+subject died, the sorrowing husband had it bricked up where it hung,
+and it was only by an accident that it was discovered at his death, in
+1843. It now hangs in the National Gallery of Scotland at Edinburgh.
+The present reproduction shows but a part of the picture, the figure
+being full length. It has been excellently reproduced in etching by
+both Flameng and Waltner.</p>
+
+<p>In 1885, a most comprehensive exhibition of Gainsborough's works was
+made at the Grosvenor Gallery in London. At it was noted the important
+part this painter had played in perpetuating the lineaments, bearing,
+graces, and gownings of the great persons of the latter half of the
+eighteenth century.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"The lips that laughed an age agone,</span>
+<span class="i2">The fops, the dukes, the beauties all,</span>
+<span class="i2">Le Brun that sang and Carr that shone."</span>
+</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span></p>
+
+<p>There was seen The Hon. Miss Georgiana Spencer, at the age of six, and
+again a later portrait of her as the Duchess of Devonshire,&mdash;she of
+the then irresistibly seductive manners,&mdash;and her mother, Countess
+Spencer, of whom Walpole wrote as being one of the beauties present at
+the coronation of George III., in 1761. There, too, was Anne Luttrell,
+daughter of Simon Luttrell, Baron Irnham, who married, first,
+Christopher Horton, and, secondly, the Duke of Cumberland, brother of
+the king. Of her Walpole wrote: "There was something so bewitching in
+her languishing eyes, which she could animate to enchantment if she
+pleased, and her coquetry was so active, so varied, and yet so
+habitual that it was difficult not to see through it, and yet as
+difficult to resist it." And here was another widow who captivated
+royalty, Mrs. Fitzherbert, who was a daughter of Walter Smythe of
+Bambridge, Hampshire, and married, first, Edward Weld, secondly,
+Thomas Fitzherbert of Synnerton, Staffordshire (who died in 1781), and
+was said to have been married to the Prince of Wales (George IV.) in
+1785. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span>And there also was a more notorious beauty, Miss Grace
+Dalrymple, afterwards Mrs. Elliott,&mdash;though divorced later, and
+becoming the mistress of various aristocrats, notably the Duke of
+Orleans.</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess of Montagu, granddaughter of the great Duke of Marlborough
+(one of the Churchills,&mdash;a family prolific of beauties), was there
+seen. Several pictures of the painter's wife (who was a Miss Margaret
+Burr), of his youngest daughter, Mary, afterwards Mrs. Fischer, and
+one of his friend, Miss Linley, went to augment this superb
+congregation of beauties shown. Portraits of Garrick,&mdash;that intensely
+interesting Stratford portrait,&mdash;Earl Spencer, Pitt, Earl Stanhope,
+Colonel St. Leger, George IV., Duke of Cumberland, George III., Earl
+Cathcart, Canning, Dr. Johnson, Fox, and several showings of himself,
+made up a body of work unsurpassed in importance by that of the
+president of the Academy himself.</p>
+
+<p>Gainsborough was born in 1727; he moved to Bath, in its most brilliant
+period, in 1760. He died in 1788, but had ceased contributing <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span>to the
+Academy four years before, because of a disagreement with the hanging
+committee. His portraits of ladies were always picturesque and
+individual, each differentiated from each of his own works as well as
+from that of other painters.</p>
+
+<p>This portrait of the Hon. Mrs. Graham is delicate in color, yellowed
+somewhat by its long seclusion from the light,&mdash;and will remain one of
+the most delightful and <i>spirituel</i> creations of the old-English
+school.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span></p>
+<div class="center"><a href="images/image_10.jpg"><img src="images/image_09.jpg" alt="EMMA, LADY HAMILTON" width="400" height="500"  /></a><br />
+<span class="caption">EMMA, LADY HAMILTON<br />
+ROMNEY</span>
+</div>
+<p><img src="images/image_11.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="152" />
+<img src="images/image_12.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="146" height="352" class="floatl" /></p>
+
+
+<p>With the name of Lady Hamilton is ever associated the names of
+England's most famous sailor and of one of her most famous painters.
+Hers was a life redolent of ill-repute. Though her beauty was great,
+it served her for ill purposes; but she came by her lack of character
+by heredity. She was born in 1761, the daughter of a female servant
+named Harte, and at the age of thirteen was put to service as a nurse
+in the house of a Mr. Thomas of Hawarden, Flintshire. She found
+tending children a tedious task, and forsook it. At sixteen, she went
+to London, and became a lady's maid there. Her leisure time was spent
+in reading novels and plays, which inspired a love for the drama. She
+early <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span>developed a rare ability for pantomimic representation; and
+this became a favorite form of entertainment in drawing-rooms and
+studios. Her duties as a domestic agreed not with the drama, so her
+next position was as barmaid in a tavern much frequented by actors and
+artists. She formed the acquaintance of a Welsh youth, on whose being
+impressed into the navy, she went to the captain to intercede for him.
+The boy was liberated, but the comely intercessor was impressed into
+the service of the captain. From him she went to live with a man of
+wealth; but her extravagance and wilfulness induced him to forego her
+company. Then followed a period of the lowest street degradation. From
+this state she was taken by a Dr. Graham, who was a lecturer upon
+health, and exhibited the finely-formed Emma as a perfect specimen of
+female symmetry. She became the topic of the town. Painters,
+sculptors, and others came to admire the shapely limbs shown under but
+a thin veil of gauze. The young bloods of the time worshipped,&mdash;some
+not afar off; and one of them, Charles <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span>Greville, of the Warwick
+family, who had essayed to educate her to become a fit companion for
+his elevated existence, maintained her for about four years. It is
+recorded, that when he took her to Ranelagh's the sensation was
+greater than had ever been produced by any other beauty there. Not the
+winsome and witty Mrs. Crewe, nor her friend Mrs. Bouverie; not that
+first flame of the amorous Prince of Wales, Mrs. Robinson, nor Anne
+Luttrell, also beloved of royalty; not the Marchioness of Tavistock,
+whose loveliness has been preserved to us by Sir Joshua, nor the
+delightful Duchess of Buccleugh; not Lady Cadogan, and not even the
+dashing Duchess of Devonshire herself,&mdash;caused the comment and
+admiration this low-born unprincipled young woman now excited. Mr.
+Greville would have married her had not his uncle, Sir William
+Hamilton, interfered. It is variously stated that Sir William agreed
+to pay his nephew's debts if he would yield up his mistress; and also
+that, in endeavoring to free the young man, the old gentleman himself
+fell into the snare of her charms. "She is better than anything <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span>in
+Nature. In her own particular way she is finer than anything that is
+to be found in Greek art," exclaimed this <i>savant</i> on first seeing
+her. She was a most enchanting deceiver, and a finished actress in the
+parts of candor and simplicity, so succeeded in marrying Sir William,
+in 1791. He was over sixty years of age, a man of much classical and
+scientific erudition, and had been for many years ambassador at the
+court of Naples, to which place he was soon accompanied by his bride.
+She became a favorite with the queen, and a frequent visitor at the
+palace, also somewhat of a social success among the British residents.
+She sang well, and made a specialty of showing herself in "attitudes,"
+or what we term now "living pictures," for the delectation of her
+guests. "You never saw anything so charming as Lady Hamilton's
+attitudes," wrote the Countess of Malmesbury to her sister, Lady
+Elliot; "the most graceful statues or pictures do not give you an idea
+of them. Her dancing the Tarantella is beautiful to a degree." It was
+here began that intimacy with Nelson which became the great <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span>blot on
+his fair fame. He was then commanding the Agamemnon, and she became
+his constant companion, and was sometimes useful to him as a political
+agent. After the victory of Aboukir Bay, when Naples went wild in its
+enthusiastic reception of the naval hero, Lady Hamilton shared the
+honors of the pageant. She accompanied him in a tour through Germany;
+and most reprehensible was their conduct, at times, in defying the
+decencies of polite life. After the Treaty of Amiens, Nelson,
+accompanied by Sir William and Lady Hamilton, retired to his seat at
+Merton, in Surrey, and on the death of the ambassador, in 1803, he
+vainly endeavored to procure an allowance from the government for the
+widow, on the pretext of the services she had rendered the fleet in
+Sicily. Failing this, he himself granted her an annuity of twelve
+hundred pounds. We all know how at Trafalgar, when the hero was dying,
+he spoke of "dear Lady Hamilton, his guardian angel," and left to her
+all his belongings, and recommended her to the grateful care of his
+country. Notwithstanding this, she died <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span>almost in poverty, in 1815.
+In 1813 she had been imprisoned for debt, and when out on bail she
+fled to Calais, and there the career was closed. It was extraordinary
+that this woman should subjugate and hold in thrall men of great force
+of character. She had great loveliness of person; but physical beauty
+alone is ineffectual to charm such as these. Though not regularly
+educated, she acquired much general knowledge, and was tactful in the
+display and use of it.</p>
+
+<p>It was during the period of her posing for Dr. Graham, that Romney
+became enamoured of her beauty, and painted for us more than a dozen
+important pictures of her. Those were the days when ladies of rank and
+beauty were deified; and, following this fashion, Romney rendered
+"Fair Emma" in many guises. Her ability in acting made her a most
+useful model. Her features had much mobility, and were capable of
+expressing, with facility, all gradations of passion and niceties of
+feeling. Emma took pride and pleasure in serving Romney. He repeated
+to his friend, the poet Hayley, her <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span>request, that in the biography of
+the painter, Hayley would have much to say of her. One of his earliest
+classical conceptions painted from her, was a full length of Circe
+with her wand. Following this was a "Sensibility," which became the
+property of Hayley. Though we remember Romney chiefly in connection
+with his Lady Hamiltons, yet he had acquired his reputation and much
+fortune ere he met her. The great bulk of his portrayals of the
+nobility preceded his classical subjects, which took form from his
+superb model. She was Cassandra; she was Iphigenia, St. C&aelig;cilia,
+Bacchante, Calope, The Spinstress, Joan of Arc, The Pythian Princess
+Calypso, and Magdalene,&mdash;the two latter subjects painted to order for
+the then Prince of Wales.</p>
+
+<p>Allan Cunningham has this to say in his sketch of Romney's life: "A
+lady in the character of a saint. This sort of flattery, once so
+prevalent with painters, is now nearly worn out: we have now no Lady
+Betty's enacting the part of Diana; no Lady Jane's tripping it
+barefoot among the thorns and brambles of this weary <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span>world, in the
+character of Hebe. We have none now who either 'sinner it or saint it'
+on canvas; the flattery which the painter has to pay is of a more
+scientific kind,&mdash;he has to trust alone to the truth of his drawing
+and the harmony of his colors."</p>
+
+<p>Romney was a transgressor in this way at times; but Lady Hamilton's
+form was used to impart correct form to the conceptions of the
+painter,&mdash;not the theme used merely to exploit the beauty of the lady.
+In the exhibition of fair women in the Grafton Gallery in London this
+summer, she greeted us in the guise of Ariadne. In this the painter's
+use of the title was apt and justifiable. Here is the lady wholly
+clothed in the dress of the time,&mdash;a dress superb in its simplicity;
+but her pose and mien is indicative of the forsaken, the forlorn,
+despairing woman abandoned by her lover,&mdash;the fate of which the old
+story of the Greeks is the eternal epitome. The pathos of the pose, it
+may have been, as well as the classic face, allured the wanderer in
+the galleries, and anchored him before this canvas.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span></p>
+
+<p>The fame of Romney has steadily risen in the several generations from
+the beginning to the end of the century. Though the painter of many
+men of fame and ladies of fashion, his work was not held in the
+greatest regard in his lifetime. Though often spoken of as the rival
+of Reynolds, he had not the president's grasp of character or his
+ability in giving classic grace to the dress of the period, and he was
+never admitted as a member to the Academy.</p>
+
+<p>When Lady Hamilton commenced posing for him, he, perhaps wisely for
+his fame, reduced the number of his ordinary sitters, receiving none
+until afternoon. The picturing of what he termed "her divine beauty"
+became a passion with him; and the enthusiasm of the sitter was nearly
+as great as that of the painter, and she enacted his classic
+conceptions. The result is a superb series of pictures of faultless
+female form, and loveliness of feature. Of the model's immoral career
+we have naught now to do. Here is perpetual beauty, and it is ours to
+enjoy.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span></p>
+<div class="center"><a href="images/image_14.jpg"><img src="images/image_13.jpg" alt="MRS. SHERIDAN" width="400" height="529" /></a><br />
+<span class="caption">MRS. SHERIDAN<br />
+REYNOLDS</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_15.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="400" height="144" class="center" /></p>
+
+
+<p>There are few names more associated with the brilliant days of Bath,
+the days of its social and artistic prominence, than those of Thomas
+Linley, the composer, and of his daughter, Eliza Anne, known abroad as
+"the Fair Maid of Bath." Linley was born there, in 1735; and after his
+studies in music on the Continent, under Paradies, he returned to the
+then fashionable city on the Avon. He conducted oratorios and concerts
+there, and became a power in the community. Delicacy, tenderness,
+simplicity, and taste were the characteristics of his compositions. It
+was said of him, that as Garrick had restored Shakspeare, so Linley
+has restored the sublime music of Handel. He trained his family to
+take part in the performances. His <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span>son Thomas, born in 1756,
+developed a marvellous ability in music,&mdash;playing the violin with
+great brilliancy and expression. He was the friend of Mozart, and took
+at times his father's place as conductor of the oratorios. His career
+was cut short by drowning, in 1778.</p>
+
+<p>But it was his beautiful daughter Eliza, born in 1754, who made the
+sensation of the time, when she sang with her sister, afterwards Mrs.
+Tickell. "A nest of nightingales," the family was termed. Walpole
+writes, in 1773: "I was not at the ball last night, and have only been
+to the opera, where I was infinitely struck with the Carrara, who is
+the prettiest creature upon earth. Mrs. Hartley I own to still find
+handsomer, and Miss Linley, to be the superlative degree. The king
+admires the last, and ogles her as much as he dares to do in so holy a
+place as an oratorio, and at so devout a service as 'Alexander's
+Feast.'" Musical prominence and personal beauty in this maid of but
+twenty made her an attractive flower in bloom to others than the king.
+The wits and gallants of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span>gay city sought and courted her. The
+family of Tom Sheridan, the Irish actor, and then a teacher of
+elocution in Bath, was intimate with the Linley family. Richard, who
+was born in Dublin in 1751, his elder brother Charles, and Nathaniel
+Halhed, a companion and literary partner with Richard, all admired the
+daughter Eliza. Halhed went to India,&mdash;afterwards becoming a judge
+there,&mdash;and Charles Sheridan retired from the race, and left the
+literary youth to win as pure a heart as ever cheered incipient genius
+to works of worth. She was lauded in verse by her young Irish suitor,
+and championed in deed. He asserts his constancy in a poem, of which
+the first stanza is&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"Dry that tear, my gentlest love;</span>
+<span class="i2">Be hushed that struggling sigh;</span>
+<span class="i2">Nor seasons, day, nor fate shall prove</span>
+<span class="i2">More fixed, more true than I.</span>
+<span class="i2">Hushed be that sigh, be dry that tear;</span>
+<span class="i2">Cease boding doubt, cease anxious fear;</span>
+<span class="i4">Dry be that tear."</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>He proves his devotion by his action when appealed to by his
+divinity.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span></p>
+
+<p>A certain Captain Matthews, one of a numerous breed in Bath in those
+days,&mdash;that is, a fashionable scoundrel and a married man,&mdash;made
+himself obnoxious to Miss Linley by improper addresses. He annoyed and
+harassed her, threatening to destroy himself unless she gratified him,
+and later attempted to sully her reputation by calumnies. This brought
+about the culmination of her attachment to Sheridan. She fled her
+father's house and sought the protection of her lover. Accompanied by
+a chaperon, they left for France. After some romantic adventures, they
+were married in March, 1772, at a little village near Calais; but it
+was a wedding without the wherewithal to maintain a home, so the bride
+entered a convent, and, later, the house of an English physician,
+until literature should be remunerative. The eloping lady's father
+sought the runaways; and, after some explanations, they returned with
+him to England. It was shortly after this that Sheridan fought two
+duels with Matthews, being wounded in the later one to such an extent
+that his recovery was doubtful. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span>"Sweet Betsy" claimed the right of a
+wife to tend her hurt husband, and so revealed the fact of the
+marriage in France. The old actor rejected his impulsive son, but
+Linley's aversion to the union of his daughter being at last set
+aside, the pair were re-married in England in April, 1773.</p>
+
+<p>The sweet singer had been admired by another, an elderly suitor of
+much fortune, whom her father had approved, but to whom she was
+averse. This gentleman now became the benefactor of the pair. He
+settled a moiety of three thousand pounds on the bride. Her father
+retained half of this as compensation for the loss of the services of
+his daughter. On the balance, the youthful couple lived. Sheridan had
+entered himself a student of the Middle Temple shortly before his
+marriage. Though their income was small, he would not allow his wife
+to accept several proffered professional engagements; he did not wish
+his helpmeet to become a servant of the public. This action incited
+some discussion, and much acrimonious comment, in her family and among
+their friends. Johnson upheld <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span>his course. Sheridan, in this instance,
+understood himself and understood the times. He knew of the flippant
+attitude of the young blades of the town toward all public performers;
+so he sought to save her, who was so sacred to him, from such insult,
+insincere adulation, and insinuation as she had heretofore suffered
+from. They retired to a cottage at East Burnham; and there she, who
+had received the plaudits of the public as a vocalist, won as noble a
+name in the character of the ideal wife, one in whom were united all
+the attributes of loveliness,&mdash;temper, manners, virtues, and
+surpassing beauty. What the then public lost, later generations have
+gained in the picture of that lovable woman, making a golden age of
+happiness for her greatly-gifted husband in the little cottage at East
+Burnham.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny Burney records her pleasant impressions of the bride,&mdash;"I was
+absolutely charmed at the sight of her. I think her quite as beautiful
+as ever, and even more captivating; for she has now a look of ease and
+happiness that animates her whole face. Miss Linley was with <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span>her; she
+is very handsome, but nothing near her sister; the elegance of Mrs.
+Sheridan's beauty is unequalled by any I ever saw, except Mrs. Crewe.
+I was pleased with her in all respects. She is much more lively and
+agreeable than I had any idea of finding her; she was very gay, and
+very unaffected, and totally free from airs of any kind."</p>
+
+<p>In 1775, the husband's genius was acknowledged by the town; for in
+January, that year, was first presented "The Rivals." In that play he
+draws from the material displayed by the superficial, flashing, and
+piquant society of the day at Bath, and from his own experience the
+inimitable duel scene therein.</p>
+
+<p>Much success followed for the dramatist. In the following year, in
+conjunction with his father-in-law, he purchased from Garrick the
+Drury Lane Theatre. They brought out several operas together; Linley's
+music in "The Duenna" and "The Beggar's Opera," being especially fine.
+Hazlitt speaks of the songs in them as having a joyous spirit of
+intoxication, and strains of the most melting tenderness.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span></p>
+
+<p>In 1777, appeared "The School for Scandal," a theme also suggested by
+scandal-mongering Bath. His fond and faithful wife lived not to see
+the dimming of the genius that produced these classics; she died of a
+decline, at Bristol, in 1792. Her daughter, too, died within the same
+year. Two of her accomplished descendants, through her son, have
+displayed some of her romantic taste and charm of manner to a
+generation just preceding our own,&mdash;her granddaughters, Lady Dufferin,
+mother of the English ambassador to France, and Hon. Caroline Norton,
+author of "Love not, love not, ye hapless sons of men."</p>
+
+<p>Though she whom he had adored was but three years dead, Sheridan
+married, in 1795, Esther Jane Ogle, daughter of the Dean of
+Winchester. With her he obtained some money and this, added to his
+own, purchased the estate of Polesdon, in Surrey. His wife was, at
+that time, spoken of as young, amiable, and devoted to him. She died
+at about the same time as he, in 1816.</p>
+
+<p>In the first flush of those romantic wedded <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span>days of their youth how
+impressive must have been the appearance of that markedly clever young
+man, eager in the fight for fame, and of his beauteous bride from
+Bath. Reynolds painted, in 1779, the standard presentment of Sheridan.
+Walpole's comment on it was: "Praise cannot overstate the merits of
+this portrait. It is not canvas and color, it is animated nature&mdash;all
+the unaffected manner and character of the great original." The artist
+said that among all his sitters none had such large pupils of the
+eyes. With the brilliance of that mind informing the face, his
+features, though not regular, were handsome. Of all the portraits of
+Miss Linley, perhaps the one by Gainsborough, in which she is
+portrayed with her young brother, gives the best idea of the special
+character of her type of beauty. Here are the large lustrous eyes and
+the very delicately modelled, sensitive, refined features; here, the
+luxuriant hair, the slender neck, and the sloping shoulders; and here,
+the superb poise of head and of mind. There is another fine picture of
+her by Gainsborough, for this painter was one of the brilliant men
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span>who frequented her father's house at Bath. A musician he was, too,
+and an excellent performer on the violin, so was congenial company in
+that musical family. He admired the daughter, and wrought for us the
+delightful records of her beauty. His change of residence, from Bath
+to London, coincided in date with that of the Sheridans. Opie, too,
+painted her portrait; not an ideal one, but good in respect to her
+eyes. And Romney has given us good pictures both of her and Mrs.
+Tickell. Reynolds's portrayal is supreme in indicating the exaltation
+of spirit, by the poise of head and perfection of profile. This
+picture of her as the patron saint of song was exhibited at the
+Academy, in 1775, just about the time its subject had abandoned public
+singing. It has been most beautifully engraved by Bartolozzi, and
+ranks as one of his best plates. When the days of sorrow came to
+Sheridan,&mdash;when his weaknesses of character brought him to a low
+estate; when poverty became his portion, and the long lost days of
+romantic love became but a memory; when treasure after treasure,
+manuscripts, and sumptuous <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span>books were disposed of, and presentation
+pictures were pawned,&mdash;this picture of St. C&aelig;cilia, a reminder of the
+days that had vanished, was the last valued possession to be parted
+with.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image_16.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="150" height="71" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span></p>
+<div class="center"><a href="images/image_18.jpg"><img src="images/image_17.jpg" alt="MARGUERITE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON" width="400" height="533" /></a><br />
+<span class="caption">MARGUERITE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON<br />
+LAWRENCE</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p><img src="images/image_19.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="400" height="142" /><img src="images/image_20.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="147" height="294" class="floatl" /></p>
+
+
+<p>The brilliant Blessington,&mdash;brilliant in beauty and in intellect!
+Throughout her life of romance she was fortunate in her literary
+friendships, through whom a knowledge of her abilities has grown to
+tradition, but most fortunate in the portrayer of her beauty. Lawrence
+has painted a picture which it is a perpetual pleasure to behold,&mdash;the
+superb arms and shoulders, the serene, steadfast gaze of the eyes, and
+the conscious, yet confident, poise of the head forming a record to
+justify the tradition of great personal beauty and alertness of mind.</p>
+
+<p>Marguerite Blessington's youth was ill-regulated and penurious. She
+was born in 1789, the second daughter of Edmund Power, of Knockbrit,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span>near Clonmel, in the county of Tipperary. Her father came of a good
+family, as did also her mother, who spoke unduly often of her
+ancestors, the Desmonds. Marguerite was not comely in her early
+girlhood, though her sister Ellen and her brother Robert were handsome
+children. As a child, she was sensitive and sentimental, and her
+delight was to browse in a library,&mdash;and it was this taste that
+equipped her for her later friendships. Her power of imagination was
+uncommonly strong, and she became the entertainer of her
+children-companions with stories of her own imagining, as well as by
+her recitals of legends and romance learned in the library. Her father
+removed to Clonmel, and became editor of a paper there. He was not
+prosperous, and was a man of perverse temper, which grew with
+adversity. Marguerite and her sister were fancied by some wealthy
+maiden-lady relatives, and were taken by them to a home of comfort. On
+their return to Clonmel,&mdash;beautiful, and with the distinction of
+knowledge and a clever use of it,&mdash;they were a contrast to the
+ordinary Irish country girl, whose whole equipment of dress and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span>accomplishments was "two washing gowns and a tune on the piano." The
+girls took part in all the gayeties of the town, and, besides the
+charm of their conversation, were graceful dancers; and though
+Marguerite was less beautiful, she was most tasteful in dress, and
+this became always a noted characteristic of hers. They became the
+attraction of an English regiment recently stationed in the town, and
+Marguerite was soon married, through the insistence of her father, to
+a Captain Farmer, when less than fifteen years of age. This was the
+great misfortune of her life.</p>
+
+<p>Her husband was subject to fits of insanity, and her whole feeling
+towards him was that of aversion. Cruelty and caprice were the chief
+components of his character. From his tyranny she fled,&mdash;first to her
+father's house, but was denied solace there, so sought it elsewhere.
+She led a somewhat vagabond existence for about nine years, living
+first with one friend, then with another; thankful for any home, and
+accommodating herself to any companions. Of this period of her life
+not much is recorded, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span>save her beauty, for it was shortly after this
+that her peerless portrait was painted, ere her sorrow and suffering
+had time to efface the vivacity of youth, but only to give depth to
+the eyes and interest to the face. She lived in London with her
+brother Robert until in 1817, when her husband's death occurred by his
+falling out of a window when in a state of drunken frenzy. Four months
+after this she became the second wife of an Irish nobleman of a
+dashing person and little brains, Charles John Gardiner, second Earl
+of Blessington, when she was twenty-eight and he was thirty-five years
+of age. With this marriage came a reversal of her misfortunes. Her
+generosity, sympathy, and good heart soon prompted the improvement of
+the conditions of her own family, and in this gave emphatic evidence
+of that devotedness to duty and friends which became her strongest
+trait. Her youngest sister, Marianne, was adopted and educated by her,
+and became her travelling companion, and long afterwards her modest
+biographer. Her sister Ellen married first, Mr. Home Purves, and
+afterwards, Viscount Canterbury, speaker of the House of Commons.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span></p>
+
+<p>Lord Blessington's income was great, but his tastes were extravagant
+as were also his wife's, and luxurious was their home in St. James's
+Square, and magnificent the manner in which they entertained the
+brilliant society gathered there; and for three years their brilliant
+companies of beauty and intellect outshone the congregations at
+Holland House. In 1822, Count D'Orsay, a polished and accomplished
+young Frenchman, visited London, and was made most welcome by the
+Blessingtons. In August of that year they started for a leisurely tour
+of the Continent. The Countess kept a diary during this journeying,
+which was published in 1839, under the title of "The Idler in Italy,"
+revealing a keen observation and a capacity for entertaining comment.</p>
+
+<p>Her ladyship was ever ambitious of literary eminence. Possessed of
+great beauty, and after a time high station and wealth, she yet
+yearned for the recognition by great writers of her position as one of
+them. She had published, previous to her continental trip, two
+volumes,&mdash;one called "The Magic Lantern," the other, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span>"Sketches and
+Fragments," both being accounts of and comments upon London society;
+both were unsuccessful. Her one book which will remain in literature
+was consequent upon her meeting with Lord Byron in Genoa, in 1823, and
+is a record of her conversations with the poet. She who aspired to
+make her mark in literature has made it, but as the chronicler of the
+sentiments, vanities, whims, and oddities of another. But it was no
+ordinary ability that was competent to persuade the great poet,
+usually unapproachable, to avow, in picturesque language, his opinions
+on men, women, and manners,&mdash;to provide for later times the data from
+which to gauge his strange personality.</p>
+
+<p>She has written much of herself into her records; and calumny urged,
+at the time of publication, that she insinuated in her writings a far
+greater degree of friendship on the poet's part than really existed.
+Yet, in refutation of this is Byron's letter to Moore:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have just seen some friends of yours, who paid me a visit
+yesterday, which, in honor of them and of yours, I returned to-day, as
+I reserve <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span>my bear-skin and teeth and paws and claws for our enemies.</p>
+
+<p>"Your allies, whom I found very agreeable personages, are Milor
+Blessington and <i>&eacute;pouse</i>, travelling with a very handsome companion,
+in the shape of a 'French count' (to use Farquhar's phrase in the
+'Beau's Stratagem'), who has all the air of a <i>cupidor d&eacute;cha&icirc;n&eacute;</i>.
+Milady seems highly literary; to which, and your honor's acquaintance
+with the family, I attribute the pleasure of having seen them. She is
+also very pretty, even in a morning; a species of beauty on which the
+sun of Italy does not shine so frequently as the chandelier."</p>
+
+<p>The Countess Guiccioli was among those who depreciated the
+Blessingtons' accounts of the conversations; but then, perchance,
+there may have been some jealousy of the attractive English woman's
+influence over the poet. The Blessingtons left Genoa in June of 1823,
+and continued their journeyings throughout Italy until 1828. In the
+preceding year, Count D'Orsay had become the husband of the Earl of
+Blessington's daughter, Lady Harriet Frances <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span>Gardiner, when she was
+but little over fifteen years of age; but they lived together but
+three years. In 1829, the Earl died in Paris; and the Countess
+continued there until after the Revolution of 1830, when she returned
+to England. Her journal of the trip from Naples to Paris, and her stay
+in that city, was published in 1841, under the title of "The Idler in
+France." In England she took a house in Seamore Place, Mayfair, and
+later removed to Gore House, Kensington, with which place is
+associated the traditions of her elegant entertainings and her
+intercourse with many men of eminence, but also with a course of
+living which compromised her reputation in society. Her son-in-law,
+the Count, continued to form one of her household, though separated
+from his wife, the Lady Harriet. Though not received in general
+society, the Countess surrounded herself with celebrities of all
+nations; and it was at her house that Louis Napoleon was a cherished
+guest in his years of exile, and from whence he proceeded to head the
+government of France. Here Bulwer came as perhaps her most intimate
+friend; here Thackeray <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span>was made most welcome, and Lord John Russell
+and Lord Palmerston, Canning and Castlereagh were frequent guests.
+Dickens,&mdash;then a dandy like unto D'Orsay, who seemed to be his
+model,&mdash;"Rejected Addresses" Smith, the banker-poet Rogers, Kemble,
+Wilkie, and Dr. Parr engaged in sparkling converse with their hostess,
+who sat in a deep arm-chair while Tom Moore was privileged to perch
+himself on a foot-*stool at her feet; and by all these men she was
+held in unqualified respect. Her income became impaired and unequal to
+the expense of entertaining. She resorted to literature to add to her
+resources. She was engaged by Heath, the engraver, to edit a certain
+class of annuals popular in those days. For some years her income from
+"The Keepsake" and "The Book of Beauty" exceeded one thousand pounds a
+year. Her novels, too, were a source of some profit. For "Strathern"
+she received about three thousand dollars. These romances were weak in
+character and plot, but were fair pictures of society portrayed with
+much piquancy. In <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span>one, "Grace Cassidy," she describes interestingly
+scenes of her youth in Ireland. But interest in her work waned, and as
+she seems not to have thought of retrenchment of her expenditure,
+disaster rapidly descended. In 1849, she had perforce to sell out, and
+then moved to Paris, where she died in the same year. She was buried
+at Chambourcy, near St. Germain-en-Laye, the residence of the Duc and
+Duchesse de Grammont, the sister and brother-in-law of Count D'Orsay.</p>
+
+<p>She was a woman of great tact, of a sweet delicacy of manner, and of a
+chivalrous devotedness to friendship. Her friends were carefully
+chosen, and never deserted. Perhaps no woman of the century has had so
+many men of mark as her friends and admirers. She had charity towards
+others' failings. She gave pleasure where she could. She was elegant
+and dignified in her bearing, though possessed of Irish wit withal.
+She was very beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Byron was induced to sing the praise of her picture here
+given:&mdash;</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span></p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"Were I now as I was, I had sung</span>
+<span class="i2">What Lawrence has painted so well;</span>
+<span class="i2">But the strain would expire on my tongue,</span>
+<span class="i2">And the theme is too soft for my shell.</span></p>
+<p class="poem">  <span class="i2">"I am ashes where once I was fire,</span><br />
+  <span class="i2">And the bard in my bosom is dead:</span><br />
+  <span class="i2">What I loved I now merely admire,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">And my heart is as gray as my head.</span></p>
+<p class="poem"><br />
+  <br />
+  <span class="i2">"Let the young and the brilliant aspire</span><br />
+  <span class="i2">To sing what I gaze on in vain,</span><br />
+  <span class="i2">For sorrow has torn from my lyre</span><br />
+  <span class="i2">The string which was worthy the strain."</span><br />
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span></p>
+<div class="center"><a href="images/image_22.jpg"><img src="images/image_21.jpg" alt="Her Grace of Rutland. " width="400" height="589" /></a><br />
+<span class="caption">MARY ISABELLA<br />
+REYNOLDS</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<p><img src="images/image_23.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="400" height="102" /><img src="images/image_24.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="146" height="393" class="floatl" /></p>
+
+
+<p>Rowlandson, the caricaturist, once published a cartoon entitled "Juno
+Devon, All Sublime." The rival goddesses in competition with her
+before that modern Paris, the Prince of Wales, being their Graces of
+Gordon and Rutland. Beyond the various written records of the opposing
+beauty of those aristocratic dames who dominated society in their day,
+we have ample painted evidence of their loveliness. Of her Grace of
+Devonshire, we have, first, the engraved renderings of "the lost
+Gainsborough." There are other Gainsboroughs, too,&mdash;Georgiana as a
+child, and a full-length of her standing at the edge of a lawn, her
+face looking down, wearing a white dress, her right elbow on the base
+of a column, a scarf <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span>in both hands, her hair piled high, but without
+the hat, as in the more famous picture. There are then several by Sir
+Joshua. The first, where she stands as a child beside her mother;
+then, she as a mother with her own child,&mdash;a very charming profile,
+and a picture that insinuates the vivacity of demeanor and the abandon
+so characteristic of her.</p>
+
+<p>Walpole wrote of this as "Little like and not good." Yet, as to
+goodness, a modern authority has said: "It is a superb work; and, in
+motive, color, and composition, it ranks as a triumph alike of nature
+and art." Again, there is a whole-length showing her about to descend
+some steps to a lawn, her superb shoulders and neck bare, and her hair
+highly bedecked with feathers. Walpole writes of another portrait,
+drawn by Lady Di Beauclerck, and engraved by Bartolozzi: "A Castilian
+nymph conceived by Sappho and executed by Myron, would not have had
+more grace and simplicity. The likeness is perfectly preserved, except
+that the paintress has lent her own expression to the Duchess, which
+you will allow is very agreeable flattering." In the Royal <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span>collection
+of miniatures at Windsor, are three charmingly executed ivories of her
+by Cosway. Lawrence, too, made a chalk drawing of her, which now hangs
+at Chiswick House, in the room in which Charles Fox died. This is an
+interesting work from being a very early effort of the after-time
+President of the Academy, and showing that then he had not attained
+the trick of flattering his sitters, even when they were noted
+beauties. Angelica Kauffman painted her, and John Downman also made a
+portrait replete with elegance and picturesqueness. In fact, the
+comely Duchess pervaded the art of the period. Of her Grace of Gordon,
+we have, as our ideal presentment of her, the portrait by Sir Joshua.
+In it her hair is done up high, and two rows of pearls are intertwined
+therein. The dress is of the Charles the First period, and shows the
+sweetly modulated shoulders leading up to&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"The pillared throat, clear chiselled cheek,</span>
+<span class="i2">High arching brows, nose purely Greek,</span>
+<span class="i2">Set lips,&mdash;too firm for a coquette."</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>We have also an interesting portrait of her by Romney.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span></p>
+
+<p>Of her Grace
+of Rutland, we have also several pictures by Sir Joshua. There is a
+whole-length with a decorative head-dress, and a landscape background.
+The original of this was destroyed by fire at Belvoir Castle. Another,
+a half-length, in the same costume, and a three-quarter face, is
+mostly pervaded by a serene sense of pride. There is a drawing of her
+done by the Hon. Mrs. O'Neil, which is interesting from the
+picturesque head-dress shown. Her Grace of Gordon was as great a power
+in the political world as she of Devonshire,&mdash;probably greater, for
+her alliance and principles were with the ruling power. This lady was
+to Pitt's party what Fair Devon was to Fox's. In fact, it was asserted
+she endeavored to marry her daughter, Lady Charlotte, afterwards
+Duchess of Richmond, to the premier. When Georgiana made her famous
+canvass in favor of Fox, the Tories opposed to her the Scotch Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>She lived and entertained then in a splendid mansion in Pall Mall; and
+there assembled the adherents of the Administration.</p>
+
+<p>Jane was the daughter of Sir William Maxwell, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span>of Monreith, and in her
+youth, even, was noted for beauty. A ballad, "Jenny of Monreith,"
+written in her honor, was often chivalrously sung by her son George,
+the last Duke of Gordon. "Jenny" married the fourth Duke, Alexander,
+in 1767. The career of the Duke's youngest brother George, identified
+with the "Gordon Riot," caused the family much embarrassment, and even
+threatened to derogate from the Duchess's dominance with the ruling
+party.</p>
+
+<p>Her Grace was of somewhat stronger fibre than she of Devon; more
+masculinity, ay, even more principle, characterized her. Thrift was a
+visible virtue, in contrast to Georgiana's improvidence. Command,
+rather than cajolery, was her political method. Her later life was
+devoted to securing sons-in-law; three dukes, a marquis, and a knight
+were of her garnering. She was on good terms with the Regent, and
+endeavored to aid him in his differences with his Princess Caroline.
+She is remembered, too, as a patron and friend of Dr. Beattie, the
+poet, who has eulogized her in these lines "To a Pen":&mdash;</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span></p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"Go, and be guided by the brightest eyes,</span>
+<span class="i2">And to the softest hand thine aid impart;</span>
+<span class="i2">To trace the fair ideas as they arise,</span>
+<span class="i2">Warm from the purest, gentlest, noblest heart."</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>The third in that group of goddesses was surely the fairest of them
+all, of more perfect form, more noble bearing, having that ultimate
+element of the greatest beauty,&mdash;distinction. She came of a longer
+lineage, and was the consummate flower of beauty wrought by the sun
+and summers through many generations of patrician life,&mdash;life amid the
+palatial parks, the superb scenery, and majestic castles of England.
+Such living weaves its sweetest elements into the tissues of the being
+and works a spell of loveliness such as Lady Mary Somerset. She was
+the youngest daughter of Charles, fourth Duke of Beaufort, a
+descendant of the Plantagenets. In 1775, she was married to Lord
+Charles Manners, eldest son (born in 1754) of John,&mdash;that Marquis of
+Granby whom Junius attacked, who was associated in the government, in
+George the Second's time, with the Earl of Chatham. The Marquis was a
+man of much force, and a most <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span>hospitable entertainer. He died before
+his father, the third Duke of Rutland.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Charles succeeded to the dukedom in 1779. He had formed a
+friendship at Cambridge with Pitt, the son of his father's colleague,
+and through his influence Pitt entered Parliament. In 1784, he was
+induced by the young premier to accept the Lord-Lieutenancy of
+Ireland, and it is with the lavish entertainment and high revelries at
+Dublin Castle that his name and that of his beautiful Duchess is
+connected.</p>
+
+<p>High living soon told its tale, for the Duke died in 1787, at the
+early age of thirty-three. Though having the most beautiful wife in
+England, his affections wandered, and tales are told of his attachment
+to that siren singer, Mrs. Billington. The Duchess's manner had
+somewhat of levity and much coquetry in it, though she could not be
+classed with that company who have not time to be virtuous. At the
+time of her lord's death, she was living with her mother, the Dowager
+Duchess of Beaufort, in Berkeley Square, London, having been partially
+estranged from her husband. On hearing of his illness, she <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span>started to
+set out for Dublin; but a message of his death came fast upon the
+trail of the first news. Perchance it was this estrangement at death,
+this having parted in anger without the chance of reconciliation in
+life, that affected her so deeply that, though sought by many suitors,
+the widow was true to the memory of her late lord. Her son, John
+Henry, succeeded to the title; and his bride, a daughter of the Earl
+of Carlisle, was also known as a beauty, and her portrait was painted
+by Hoppner, in 1798. It was she of whom Greville wrote in his Memoirs,
+and commented on her lack of taste in spoiling the magnificent Castle
+of Belvoir, the pride and glory of the Eastern Midlands.</p>
+
+<p>The beauty of the Duchess Mary Isabella was statuesque, classical; her
+features were noble. She received admiration as her right, but gave
+not largesse of smiles and wit in return. She was not as the Devonian
+divinity, "The woman in whose golden smile all life seems enchanted."</p>
+
+<p>Wraxall writes of a lady telling of witnessing a prenuptial display of
+her person, and being entranced by lithe limb, by the fine and
+faultless <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span>form. Reynolds has hinted at the beauteous body, and the
+hint ensnares us. Verily, "the visible fair form of a woman is
+hereditary queen of us." Wraxall also likens the Duchess to an
+older-time beauty, Diane de Poitiers,&mdash;that famous lady of France, the
+favorite of Fran&ccedil;ois I. and Henri II. Of that lady's beauty, it was
+written, that it was of the form and feature rather than the radiance
+of the mind and manner transforming them; and like her, too, our
+Duchess retained her beauty to an advanced age. She died in 1821. To
+the last, she impressed one with her dignity, her nobility, her
+loveliness.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"And they who saw her snow-white hair.</span>
+<span class="i2">And dark, sad eyes, so deep with feeling,</span>
+<span class="i2">Breathed all at once the chancel air,</span>
+<span class="i2">And seemed to hear the organ pealing."</span>
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span></p>
+<div class="center"><a href="images/image_26.jpg"><img src="images/image_25.jpg" alt="LAVINIA COUNTESS SPENCER" width="400" height="500" /></a><br />
+<span class="caption">LAVINIA COUNTESS SPENCER<br />
+REYNOLDS</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_27.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="400" height="196" /></p>
+
+
+<p>In March, 1781, Walpole writes to a friend: "As your lordship has
+honored all the productions of my press with your acceptance, I
+venture to inclose the last, which I printed to oblige the Lucans.
+There are many beautiful and poetic expressions in it. A wedding, to
+be sure, is neither a new nor a promising subject, nor will outlast
+the favors; still, I think Mr. Jones's ode is uncommonly good for the
+occasion." The ode was "The Muse Recalled," and the occasion the
+nuptials of Lord Viscount Althorp and Miss Lavinia Bingham, eldest
+daughter of Sir Charles Bingham, created, in 1776, Baron Lucan of
+Castlebar. Sir Charles was a man of culture, who was intimate with
+Johnson, Goldsmith, Gibbon, Reynolds, and Burke. He is frequently
+pleasantly mentioned by Boswell. He <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span>had married, in 1760, Margaret,
+daughter of James Smith, M.P., a lady of great good sense and rare
+accomplishments, and three lovely daughters were the issue from this
+union. Reynolds found in them most pleasing subjects for his pencil.
+Their pictures appeared at the Academy, in 1786. Lavinia was portrayed
+as shown in the picture here given, and again in quite as lovely a
+fashion,&mdash;standing out doors and wearing a wide-brimmed hat which
+casts a broad shade across the face; the wavy curls of hair fall upon
+the shoulder; in the background is a landscape. The na&iuml;vete of the
+face is exquisitely delightful. The old-time flavor of the whole
+causes one to recall Locker's lines on the picture of his
+grandmother:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"Beneath a summer tree.</span>
+<span class="i2">Her maiden reverie</span>
+<span class="i4">Has a charm;</span>
+<span class="i2">Her ringlets are in taste;</span>
+<span class="i2">What an arm! ... what a waist</span>
+<span class="i4">For an arm!"</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>In the picture of her youngest sister, Anne, is a broad hat, too; she
+sits full-face, but in her <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span>features there is lacking just a little of
+the quiet dignity of the eldest. All of these portraits have been made
+familiar to us by the most meritorious mezzotints of them by Cousins.
+In Lavinia's face there lingers all the enchanting grace of
+girlhood,&mdash;a face yet full of that early beauty&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"Which, like the morning's glow</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Hints a full day below."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>A later president of the Academy, Sir Martin Shee, has shown us that
+face in the noonday of its matronly beauty, and the gentle character
+and sweet sensibility yet outshine through the mask of the flesh as in
+the earlier pictures.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Bingham was careful of the education and company of her
+daughters. The girls were musical, and Lavinia excelled in painting as
+well. Walpole writes of her being in Italy, in 1785, with Mrs. Damer,
+his sculptor friend, and of her drawing with very great expression. He
+was not so complimentary of her music some years before, when he tells
+of being invited to Lady Lucan's to hear her daughters sing Jomelli's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span>"Miserere," set for two voices: "It lasted for two hours, and instead
+of being pathetic was eminently dull, until at last I rejoiced when
+'<i>the two women had left the sepulchre</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after this he tells of rumors of the attachment of George
+John, Lord Althorp, brother of Georgiana of Devonshire, to "that sweet
+creature" Lavinia. At dinner at Lord Lucan's, Lord Althorp sat at a
+side table with the girls and a Miss Shipley. "Pray, Lady Spencer,"
+said Walpole, "is it owned that Lord Althorp is to marry&mdash;Miss
+Shipley?" His next reference to the Lucans is in regard to the wedding
+ode printed on the Strawberry Hill press. The poet therein invokes
+blessings in this wise:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"Shine forth, ye silver eyes of night,</span>
+<span class="i2">And gaze on virtues crowned with treasures of delight.</span></p>
+<p class="poem">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; . </p>
+<p class="poem">
+  <span class="i2">"Flow smoothly, circling hours,&mdash;</span>
+  <span class="i2">And o'er their heads unblended pleasure pour;</span>
+  <span class="i2">Nor let your fleeting round</span>
+  <span class="i2">Their mortal transports bound,</span>
+  <span class="i2">But fill their cup of bliss, eternal powers,</span>
+  <span class="i2">Till time himself shall cease, and suns shall blaze no more."</span>
+</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span></p>
+<p>He essays to eulogize the bride:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"Each morn reclined on many a rose,</span>
+<span class="i2">Lavinia's pencil shall disclose</span>
+<span class="i2">New forms of dignity and grace,</span>
+<span class="i2">The expressive air, the impassioned face,</span>
+<span class="i2">The curled smile, the bubbling tear,</span>
+<span class="i2">The bloom of hope, the snow of fear,</span>
+<span class="i2">To some poetic tale fresh beauty give,</span>
+<span class="i2">And bid the starting tablet rise and live;</span>
+<span class="i2">Or with swift fingers shall she touch the strings,</span>
+<span class="i2">Notes of such wondrous texture weave</span>
+<span class="i2">As lifts the soul on seraph wings."</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>He then proceeds to encourage Althorp to lead a strong, noble life,
+devoting his great abilities to the state, though he laments the small
+chances for genuine sterling worth to achieve eminence.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"In this voluptuous, this abandoned age,"</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>when the leaders of the country are</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"Slaves of vice and slaves of gold."</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>There was much fitness in this poet essaying a homily for the groom's
+benefit, for he had been the young man's tutor some years before. When
+the first Earl&mdash;a man of most fascinating <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span>manners&mdash;placed his son in
+the tutor's charge, he said, "Make him, if you can, like yourself and
+I shall be satisfied." Johnson said of Sir William Jones, "The most
+enlightened of the sons of men." He became a great Indian and Persian
+scholar, and was ever an honored friend of his former pupil.</p>
+
+<p>Previous to his marriage, Lord Althorp had entered Parliament, and, as
+a Whig, was opposing Lord North. When the Marquess of Rockingham came
+to power, he was made a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury. In 1783, he
+succeeded to his father's earldom. The Dowager Countess lived on until
+1814. Her character has been variously described. Mrs. Delany calls
+her "an agreeable person, with a sensible, generous, and delicate
+mind." She was termed vain. What woman would not be who was mother to
+such beauties as Devonshire, Duncannon, and Lavinia. In an
+autobiography by the third Earl, he na&iuml;vely remarks that his mother
+never liked his grandmother. The pleasing picture of "Ruth and Naomi"
+is the exception in families.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span></p>
+
+
+<p>On the breaking out of the French Revolution, Earl Spencer gave his
+support to Pitt, by whom he was appointed first lord of the admiralty,
+in 1794. It was during the period of her husband's brilliant career in
+this office that the Countess made her greatest success as a hostess
+in ministerial society. She was a good conversationalist, and
+especially attractive to men of individuality who admired her
+sagacious, picturesque pungency of expression. The great naval
+commanders, who frequented the admiralty, were impressed with the
+frankness and force of her superior mind, Nelson and Collingwood
+particularly. She is frequently mentioned in their letters as being
+sure to have much sympathy in their work. A late biographer of the
+Earl wrote: "She had the penetration to appreciate Nelson through the
+cloud of personal vanity and silly conceit which caused him to be
+lightly esteemed in London society." Her "bull-dog" she used playfully
+to call him. She visited Gibbon at Lausanne, in 1795, and he writes:
+"She is a charming woman who, with sense and spirit, has the
+playfulness and simplicity of a child." By <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span>some she was accounted
+haughty and exclusive. Perchance she was to those who were without the
+breeding or the brains to commend them to her. Dignified she certainly
+was, and her influence was wholly for good in the uplifting of
+politics and the purifying of society. "I would not advise any one to
+utter a word against any one she was attached to," once said her
+father. She became the wise coadjutor of her husband in forming the
+magnificent Althorp Library.</p>
+
+<p>When the earl retired from the admiralty, in 1800, his entertaining
+became less general. His hospitalities at Spencer House were
+restricted to his more intimate friends. Here came Lord Grenville,
+Earl Grey, chief of the Whigs, Brougham, Horner, and Lord John
+Russell; the younger men to hold converse with her who had known
+Burke, Pitt, Fox, and all the older time orators and statesmen.</p>
+
+<p>In a series of boyish letters sent by the heir to the earldom to his
+father the ending of all is in this quaint phrase: "My duty to Mama."
+The youth did his duty by his mother. She directed his tastes and
+studies, and when he was at college <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span>incited him to try for high
+honors, and urged, again and yet again, application to study; and
+through her persuasion he became a reading man. He entered Parliament
+when of age, in 1803. During the Fox and Grenville administration he
+held office as a lord of the treasury. When his mother was
+congratulated on his appointment, she said: "Jack was always skilful
+in figures, and his work is so much to his taste that I am sure he
+will do himself credit." He did himself great credit. His career was
+consistently courageous, honorable, and beneficent. He had character!
+This is his mother's best eulogy. She died in 1831, shortly after her
+son had become Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which office he earned
+his greatest repute as a statesman.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span></p>
+<div class="center"><a href="images/image_29.jpg"><img src="images/image_28.jpg" alt="ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON" width="400" height="477" /></a><br />
+<span class="caption">ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON<br />
+READ</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_30.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="400" height="145" /></p>
+
+
+<p>The story of the Gunnings is as romantic as any ever wrought into
+imaginative narrative or incorporated in epic poem. The notorious
+damsels were daughters of John Gunning of Castle Coote, County
+Roscommon, Ireland, by the Hon. Bridget Bourke, daughter of Theobald,
+sixth Viscount Bourke of Mayo, whom he married in 1731. The family was
+wofully impecunious; so when the daughters, Maria and Elizabeth, grew
+into marvellously comely maidens, their mother urged their going on
+the stage to augment the faulty fortune. They went to Dublin, and
+there were kindly received by Peg Woffington, then in her glory as
+<i>Sir Harry Wildair</i>, and by Tom Sheridan, manager of Dublin Theatre.
+The stage had not then become the stepping-stone to the ranks of the
+nobility, so the girls were advised to adventure socially, with <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span>their
+faces for their fortunes. They had not the dresses to be presented in
+at Dublin Castle, but Sheridan supplied these from the resources of
+the green-room wardrobe. Attired as <i>Lady Macbeth</i> and as <i>Juliet</i>
+they made their curtsies to the Earl of Harrington, the then
+Lord-Lieutenant.</p>
+
+<p>The hostess of the evening was the handsome Lady Caroline Petersham,
+bride of the Earl's eldest son. Lady Caroline had been one of the
+"Beauty Fitzroys," and had been a favorite belle in town before her
+marriage.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"When Fitzroy moves, resplendent, fair.</span>
+<span class="i2">So warm her bloom, sublime her air,</span>
+<span class="i2">Her ebon tresses formed to grace</span>
+<span class="i2">And heighten while they shade her face."</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>Walpole wrote of her in his poem on "The Beauties." The raw Connaught
+girls outshone this dazzling hostess.</p>
+
+<p>Their "first night" was an auspicious success. The d&eacute;but was
+applauded, and the players praised. They were adjudged fitted to star
+the social capital, so to London they went, in <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span>June, 1751. Their
+reception was magical. The West End went almost mad over them. When
+they appeared at Court, the aristocracy present was indecorous in its
+efforts to view the dominant beauties. Lords and ladies clambered on
+any eminence to gaze. The crowd surged upon them, and it was with
+difficulty they entered their chairs because of the mob outside. The
+gayety of Vauxhall Gardens was incomplete without them.</p>
+
+<p>Their campaign was a short and eminently active one; Elizabeth
+triumphed first. At a masquerade at Lord Chesterfield's, in February,
+1752, James, the sixth Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, who was enamoured
+of the younger Irish girl, wished to marry her at once. A clergyman
+was asked to perform the ceremony then and there. He objected to the
+time and place and the absence of a ring. The Duke threatened to send
+for the Archbishop. With the ring of a bed-curtain, at half an hour
+past midnight, the wedding took place in Mayfair Chapel. The Scotch
+were enraged at the alliance, which became an unhappy one. The <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span>Duke
+was vulgar, debauched, extravagant, and "damaged in person and
+fortune," yet, withal, insolently proud. He betook himself off within
+six years, and his two sons by the Duchess became, successively,
+seventh and eighth Dukes of Hamilton; and a daughter married Edward,
+twelfth Earl of Derby.</p>
+
+<p>The dowager was less than a year in widow's weeds when she exchanged
+them for more strawberry leaves. She had two ducal offers, from their
+graces of Bridgewater and of Argyll; she accepted the latter. In
+March, 1759, she married John, the fifth Duke of that name. Walpole's
+comment on this was: "Who could have believed a Gunning would unite
+the two great houses of Campbell and Hamilton? For my part I expect to
+see Lady Coventry Queen of Prussia. I would not venture to marry
+either of them these thirty years, for fear of being shuffled out of
+the world prematurely, to make room for the rest of their adventurers.
+The first time Jack Campbell carries the Duchess into the Highlands, I
+am persuaded that some of his second-sighted subjects will see him in
+a winding-sheet with a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span>train of kings behind him as long as those in
+Macbeth." And again: "A match that would not disgrace Arcadia ... as
+she is not quite so charming as her sister, I do not know whether it
+is not better than to retain a title which puts one in mind of her
+beauty."</p>
+
+<p>The Dukes of Argyll&mdash;Lords of the Isles&mdash;have always shown a
+partiality for beauties as brides. This Duke's father married the
+beautiful Mary Bellenden, daughter of John, Lord Bellenden,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"Smiling Mary, soft and fair as down."</span>
+</p>
+<p class="poem">.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; . </p>
+<p>She is mentioned otherwise as by Gay:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"Bellenden we needs must praise,</span>
+<span class="i2">Who, as down the stairs she jumps,</span>
+<span class="i2">Sings 'Over the hills and far away,'</span>
+<span class="i2">Despising doleful dumps."</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>Walpole says she was never mentioned by her contemporaries but as the
+<i>most perfect creature</i> they had ever known. The present Duke wedded
+that charming child, Lady Elizabeth Leveson Gower, who sits on her
+mother's knee in that surpassingly fine picture by Lawrence, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span>called
+"Lady Gower and Child." And his son is allied to the Princess Louise,
+the most comely of Victoria's daughters.</p>
+
+<p>After her sister's death, in 1760, her Grace of Argyll suffered a
+decline in health. She was ordered abroad for change. She was
+appointed to accompany the Princess Sophia Charlotte on her journey to
+England to be married to the King. As they neared the ceremony in
+London, the Princess became nervous. Her Grace essayed to quiet her
+fears. "Ah, my dear Duchess, <i>you</i> may laugh at me, but <i>you</i> have
+been married twice," said the Princess. The Duchess became one of the
+ladies of the bedchamber, and was in much favor with the Queen.</p>
+
+<p>In 1767, her father died at Somerset House, and her mother, the Hon.
+Mrs. Gunning, in 1770. There were three sisters in the family besides
+our heroines: Sophia Gunning died, an infant, in 1737; Lissy, who died
+in 1752, aged eight years; and Catherine, who was married, in 1769, to
+Robert Travis an Irish squire in her own rank of life. She died, too,
+at Somerset House, in 1773, where she was an upper housekeeper. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span>A
+brother entered the army, fought at Bunker Hill, and became a
+major-general in 1787. He was much of a ladies' man. He married a Miss
+Minfie, author of some novels, and they had a daughter who aspired to
+repeat the successes of her famous aunts. She managed to marry the
+Hon. Stephen Digby, who had lost his first wife, a daughter of Lord
+Ilchester, in 1787. The Duchess of Argyll was created, in 1776, a
+peeress of England as Baroness Hamilton of Hambledon County,
+Leicester, and died in December, 1790. By her second marriage she had
+two sons, successively Dukes of Argyll, and two daughters, one of
+whom, Lady Charlotte Campbell, attained some fame as a novelist as
+Lady Charlotte Bury, she having married Colonel John Campbell and
+secondly Rev. Edward Bury.</p>
+
+<p>We have no evidence of the possession of bright Irish wit by the
+double-duchessed beauty. Ingenuous enthusiasm, perfect simplicity, and
+unfailing good humor ever marked her manner, and were a captivating
+adjunct to her great facial charm. Walpole writes of a pretty sight
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span>when their Graces of Hamilton and of Richmond with Lady Ailesbury
+sitting in a boat together, and proceeds to tell of the suspected
+jealousy by she of Hamilton of the beauty of his niece, daughter of
+Sir Edward Walpole, who became the bride of Earl Waldegrave, and later
+married the Duke of Gloucester, the King's youngest brother. At
+another time, when a lady wrote telling him of the advent of a beauty
+who was expected to outvie the Gunnings, he replies: "There was to
+have been a handsomer every summer these seven years, but when the
+seasons come they all seem to have been addled by the winter."</p>
+
+<p>One day the housekeeper of Hampton Court was showing the palace to
+visitors when the sisters were there. She threw open the door where
+they were sitting, saying, "This is our beauty-room." The pictures and
+galleries were forgotten by the crowd, which gazed on the beauties
+instead.</p>
+
+<p>For a decade their beauty was regnant in London. They were not
+politicians as were their Graces of Gordon and Devonshire, nor <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span>had
+they the ability to become such. Neither were they the associates of
+brilliant, intellectual men, but participants in the gay, vacuous,
+showy society of the rapid set of the aristocracy. The elder sister
+gained the coronet of Coventry, but her vanity caused her own undoing;
+the younger was a part of the exhibition of "Beauty and the Beast." A
+high price was paid for her position by the endurance of a period of
+tyranny and terror.</p>
+
+<p>Some praise must be accorded the beauties, for at a time of much
+licentiousness of a profligate society and tolerated coarsenesses, the
+sisters determinedly kept their names free from ignoble soil and
+scandal.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span></p>
+<div class="center"><a href="images/image_32.jpg"><img src="images/image_31.jpg" alt="MARIA COUNTESS OF COVENTRY" width="400" height="545" /></a><br />
+<span class="caption">MARIA COUNTESS OF COVENTRY<br />
+HAMILTON</span>
+</div>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_33.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="400" height="148" /></p>
+<p>"Two Irish girls of no fortune, who make more noise than any of their
+predecessors since the days of Helen, and who are declared the
+handsomest women alive." So wrote Walpole, in June, 1751. If we were
+to judge of their beauty by the pictured presentments of it, we would
+certainly agree with "our Horace" when he says he has seen much
+handsomer women than either. We have no adequate image of their
+surpassing loveliness, the beholding of which would cause us to feel
+how merited was their meed of praise, how fair the contemporary
+comment on their comeliness, and how just the wide fame of a beauty
+which tradition has epitomized for us in the phrase, "The Fair
+Gunnings." Though the print publishers of the time actively issued
+portraits, we feel that none of them picture such a person as would
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span>set society and the whole city of London astir by her blazing beauty.</p>
+
+<p>The best-known likenesses are the various pictures by Francis Cotes,
+one of the founders of the Royal Academy, a painter of considerable
+merit, who was born about 1725, and died in 1770. It is said that
+Hogarth preferred him as a portrait painter to Reynolds. His studio
+was in Cavendish Square, and at his death was taken by Romney; and it
+was while he worked there that Sir Joshua referred to his rival as
+"the man in Cavendish Square." The studio was later occupied by Sir
+Martin Shee.</p>
+
+<p>Cotes's picture of Maria is a half length of a modestly dignified
+lady, having no tendency at all to that silliness that Walpole
+insinuates was characteristic of her. The face is oval, the eyebrows
+well apart and distinctly arched, and the hair brushed back from the
+forehead and falling on the very graceful neck. The dress is cut low,
+showing a delicately-moulded bosom. This picture was mezzo-tinted by
+McArdell; and there is another, somewhat similar, reproduced superbly
+by Spooner. His principal picture of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span>Elizabeth is not so attractive
+as the picture of her sister; the body is too constrained and
+symmetrically formal; the dress is very low and edged with lace, some
+flowers resting on her bosom. The neck and breast have not the suave
+grace of the sister's. This has been engraved in mezzo-tint by
+Houston. Another portrait by Cotes shows her with fur on the dress. He
+also painted a portrait of Kitty in a low dress sprigged with flowers,
+with a sash, and ribbons at the back of the head. This has a wooded
+landscape background. Below the print of this picture is engraved
+these lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"This youngest of the Graces here we view</span>
+<span class="i2">So like in Beauty to the other two</span>
+<span class="i2">Whoe'er compares their Features and their Frame</span>
+<span class="i2">Will know at once that Gunning is her name."</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>There is an engraved picture of the two sisters together&mdash;based on
+Cotes's portrayals&mdash;called "The Hibernian Sisters." Maria is sitting
+on the left, looking toward the right, with a dog on her lap; the
+younger is on the right, looking to the front, and holds a fan in her
+hand. In <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span>the background is a garden wall. Cupids surmount the
+picture. The inscription is in this fashion:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"Hibernia long with spleen beheld</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Her Favorite Toasts by ours excelled.</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Resolved to outvie Britannia's Fair</span><br />
+<span class="i2">By her own Beauties,&mdash;sent a pair."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Reynolds painted them both, in 1753; but he failed to give them the
+charm we would expect. Unless Sir Joshua's engravers belie him, he did
+not make Maria even ordinarily fair to look upon. These pictures are
+not classed among his masterpieces. There is a picture of Maria by B.
+Wilson the engraver, made before she left Ireland. In it the features
+are handsome and the figure graceful, though over-dressed, and the
+whole impression is of a matron in her thirties rather than a maid in
+her teens. The picture we give of her is from a whole-length by Gavin
+Hamilton, a Scotch artist, a friend of Burns, born in Lanark about
+1730. He must have been a precocious genius, for this picture was
+engraved by McArdell, and published in 1754.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span> Hamilton passed the
+greater part of his life in Rome, painting classical subjects and
+pursuing archaeological investigations. He died there, in 1797.
+Portraiture was probably a pecuniary pursuit before the classics
+claimed him. His portraits savor somewhat of the affectations of the
+"curtain and column" school. His canvas of Elizabeth shows her
+standing on a terrace with a low dress and long hair, a veil loosely
+tied across her chest. Her left hand rests on the head of a greyhound.
+There is a seat to the left and trees in the background.</p>
+
+<p>Houston engraved a portrait of Maria after a drawing by J. St.
+Liotard. This is a three-quarter length figure. Her hair is in large
+plaits twined with a muslin veil on her head. The dress is open at the
+throat, showing a necklace. There is a wide belt with large clasps.
+Her left elbow rests on her knee. Perhaps the most satisfactory
+pictures of the Beauties are those by Catharine Read, who died, in
+1786; and who is chiefly known by her winsome delineations of the
+graces of the Gunning girls. We could readily judge from these that
+the girls were attractive. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span>There is a genial graciousness in the face
+of she of Coventry, while the Scotch duchess is possessed of a
+persuasive sweetness of mien. The mob-cap frames a face almost
+faultless in the regularity of its features. For all the pleasant
+flavor of these facial charms, there is absent that peerless, regal
+loveliness, that compelling magnificence of presence, that hauteur
+which dazzles and enthrals.</p>
+
+<p>The originals of these various portraits have been retained at Croome
+Court, near Worcester; the seat of the Coventry family, at Inverary
+Castle, Argyllshire; and at Hamilton Palace.</p>
+
+<p>Three weeks after the romantic marriage of her younger sister, Maria
+Gunning was married to George William, who was Lord Deerhurst&mdash;"that
+grave young Lord," Walpole calls him&mdash;until 1750, when he succeeded to
+the Earldom of Coventry. He had been dangling about her for some time,
+and seemed nerved to the wedding by his Grace of Hamilton's
+precipitate action. The Earl took her for a trip on the Continent in
+company with Lady Caroline Petersham, that other great beauty. Neither
+caused much <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span>comment abroad, and Paris did not ratify the repute of
+London. My Lady was at a disadvantage from her ignorance of the French
+language. She complained, too, of the arbitrary rule of her husband in
+not allowing her red nor powder, so much in vogue with the Parisian
+beauties. It is told how he saw her appear at a dinner with some on,
+and took out his handkerchief, and there tried to rub it off. But her
+fame abated not in England. Crowds continued to mob her whenever she
+appeared on the street. The King was pleased to order that whenever my
+Lady Coventry walked abroad she should be attended by a guard of
+soldiers. Shortly after this she simulated great fright at the
+curiosity of the mob, and asked for escort. She then paraded in the
+park, accompanied by her husband and Lord Pembroke, preceded by two
+sergeants, and followed by twelve soldiers. Surely this outdoes the
+advertising genius of any latter-day American actress! A shoemaker at
+Worcester gained two guineas and a half by exhibiting at a penny a
+head a shoe he had made for the Countess. She was in much favor at
+Court, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span>and always circulated in an atmosphere of adulation and
+sensation. The Duke of Cumberland was an admirer, as was also, more
+emphatically, Fred St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke,&mdash;"Billy and Bully"
+these two blades were termed. There was rumor, at one time, of the
+Earl seriously resenting the attentions of Bolingbroke. The old King,
+too, showed her some courtesies; and the most oft-told anecdote of her
+is about His Majesty asking if she were not sorry the masquerades were
+over. She assured him she was surfeited with pageants,&mdash;there was but
+one she wished yet to see, and that was a coronation. She saw it not,
+for the King outlived her by a fortnight. Had she but abstained from
+the use of paint and powder, her career would not have ended at the
+early age of twenty-seven. Blood-poisoning came from the use of it.
+Her beauty paled rapidly. My lady lay on a couch, a pocket-glass
+constantly in hand, grieving at the gradual decay. The room was
+darkened, that others might not discern that which so chagrined her.
+Then the curtains of the bed were drawn to guard her from pitying
+gaze; and then, on a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span>September day, in 1760, the pathetic end came.
+Over ten thousand people viewed her coffin. Sensationalism even after
+the drop of the curtain! The Countess left four children, two sons and
+two daughters. Of these, Anne, four years old at her mother's death,
+was one of the children whom George Selwyn showed much kindness to.
+The Earl married again, the second Countess being Barbara, daughter of
+Lord St. John of Bletsoe. George William, the son of Maria, came to
+the earldom in 1809.</p>
+
+<p>In an ode on the death of Maria the poet Mason wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"For she was fair beyond your brightest bloom</span>
+<span class="i4">(This Envy owns, since now her bloom is fled):</span>
+<span class="i2">Fair as the Forms that wove in Fancy's loom,</span>
+<span class="i4">Float in light vision round the Poet's head.</span>
+<span class="i2">Whene'er with soft serenity she smiled,</span>
+<span class="i4">Or caught the orient blush of quick surprise,</span>
+<span class="i2">How sweetly mutable, how brightly wild.</span>
+<span class="i4">The liquid lustre darted from her eyes!</span>
+<span class="i2">Each look, each motion, waked a new-born grace</span>
+<span class="i4">That o'er her form its transient glory cast:</span>
+<span class="i2">Some lovelier wonder soon usurped the place,</span>
+<span class="i4">Chased by a charm still lovelier than the last."</span>
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span></p>
+<div class="center"><a href="images/image_35.jpg"><img src="images/image_34.jpg" alt="ELIZABETH COUNTESS GROSVENOR" width="400" height="538" /></a><br />
+<span class="caption">ELIZABETH COUNTESS GROSVENOR<br />
+LAWRENCE</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_36.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="400" height="132" /></p>
+
+
+<p>In these latter days can we imagine a lawsuit, costing contestants
+thousands of pounds, over the right to a certain heraldic charge? In
+the fourteenth century Sir Robert Grosvenor was the defendant in such
+a suit, and we read of Chaucer, John of Gaunt, Owen Glendower, and
+Hotspur being witnesses before the High Court of Chivalry. Sir Robert
+established his defence, and since those days the Grosvenors have ever
+held a high rank in the nobility of England. Quite as proud a
+patrician position was held through the centuries by the family of
+Gower. In the early part of this century, the heir of the Grosvenors
+espoused the most beautiful daughter of the House of Gower,&mdash;Lady
+Elizabeth Mary Leveson Gower. This lady was the youngest daughter of
+George, the second Marquis of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span>Stafford, who married, in 1785,
+Elizabeth, who was Countess of Sutherland and Baroness Strathnaver in
+her own right. The Marquis was created Duke of Sutherland in 1833.</p>
+
+<p>The Lady Elizabeth Mary was born in 1797, and married, in 1819,
+Robert, Viscount Belgrave, eldest son of the second Earl of Grosvenor.
+The portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence was painted in the year preceding
+her marriage.</p>
+
+<p>The Marquisate of Westminster had been created in 1831, and in 1845,
+when the Viscount's father died, he succeeded to the title. He had
+entered Parliament in 1818 as member for Chester. He spoke but rarely
+in the House, although a hard worker on committees. He greatly
+improved his vast London property, and had the credit of administering
+his estate with a combination of intelligence and generosity seldom
+seen. Of reserved habits and inexpensive tastes, he was averse to
+ostentation and extravagance. He died in 1869. His successor was his
+son (born in 1825) the present Duke, who was elevated to a dukedom in
+1874. He is one of the wealthiest peers in the kingdom, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span>is a man of
+great taste, and has patronized the arts with almost a Medician
+munificence.</p>
+
+<p>The seat of the family is the renowned Eaton Hall, near Chester; that
+stately mansion set in the centre of a country rich in pastoral
+beauty. Its enlargement and beautification was begun by the second
+Earl in 1802, and has been carried on by its present lord until it is
+now the most magnificent of all the modern mansions of the nobility.
+G.F. Watts's heroic equestrian statue of Hugh Lupus, the founder of
+the family and a nephew of William the Conqueror, challenges
+admiration as one enters the grounds. There is no great picture
+gallery in the Hall, for that is at Grosvenor House in London, but the
+family portraits are here. Let into panels of the dining-room are
+portraits from the time of the first Earl, who was painted by
+Gainsborough. The Viscount Belgrave and his lady were painted by
+Pickersgill, in 1825,&mdash;this picture of the latter being much inferior
+to Lawrence's,&mdash;while the present generation was painted almost wholly
+by Millais,&mdash;that of Constance, the Duke's first <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span>wife, being
+especially fine. Leslie, in 1833, executed a group of the Grosvenor
+family.</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence and Hoppner were to the regency what Reynolds, Gainsborough,
+and Romney were to the early days of the reign of George III., as
+painters of the patrician beauties. What a marvellous mass of records
+of fair women these five have left us!&mdash;Reynolds, supreme in style,
+painting the character as seen through the fair mask of the flesh;
+Gainsborough, superbly picturesque, and a faithful limner withal;
+Romney, impressively picturesque, too, a fine colorist, imaginative,
+and but now, a century later, coming into his proper meed of praise;
+Lawrence, elegant, charming,&mdash;a courtier indeed; Hoppner, through many
+years a close rival of Lawrence. To Hoppner we are indebted for the
+visible evidence of the beauty of many who had repute as fair women.
+There is that piquant Jane Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford, who greets
+us in the National Gallery. Then that dark-eyed and winsome Lady
+Kenyon, who was one of the reigning belles, on canvas, at the Grafton
+Gallery show in London this year. In this exhibit, too, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span>was his
+"Mademoiselle Hillsberg,"&mdash;a tall and dark dancing woman, which he
+regarded as his best work. Then there is that group of noble dames by
+him, which were engraved by Charles Wilkin and published under the
+title "Bygone Beauties,"&mdash;Lady Charlotte Duncombe; Viscountess St.
+Asaph; Lady Charlotte Campbell, daughter of Elizabeth Gunning;
+Viscountess Andover; Lady Langham; the Countess of Euston, one of the
+three beautiful Ladies Waldegrave, painted by Reynolds; the Duchess of
+Rutland. These are indeed "a select series of ladies of rank and
+fashion." And with these must be classed that sweet ideal face of Mrs,
+Arbuthnot, known as "Marcia." At this late date it gives us greeting
+from how many a parlor wall! Its tender charm makes perpetual appeal
+to the passer-by from how many a print-shop window!</p>
+
+<p>There seems to have been bitter feeling between Hoppner, who was an
+intense Whig, and Lawrence, who knew no politics, but was all things
+to all men. "The ladies of Lawrence show a gaudy dissoluteness of
+taste, and sometimes <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span>trespass on moral as well as professional
+chastity," and "Lawrence shall paint my mistress and Phillips my
+wife," were the two rapier phrases Hoppner thrust at his rival. But it
+is recorded that thenceforth Lawrence's commissions from fair sitters
+multiplied.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thomas was a finished flatterer. No man ever knew better, except
+it was Lely, how to pay the compliment of the brush. This form is the
+substantial, the lasting compliment for which golden guineas are
+gladly paid. Grace and elegance are the hall-mark of his every
+picture. But the artist was a courtier in speech and manners as well,
+and this got him into trouble once. He was attentive to the ill-used
+Princess Caroline,&mdash;markedly attentive! A royal commission inquired
+into his conduct, but absolved him from the charges of wrongdoing.
+When Lady Grosvenor, who had become Marchioness of Westminster, was an
+old lady, in 1881, she wrote in a letter to Lord Leveson Gower her
+recollections of the painter: "His manners were what is called
+extremely 'polished' (not the fault of the present times). He wore a
+large cravat, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span>and had a tinge about him of the time of George IV.,
+pervading his general demeanor.... I should not say he was amusing,
+but what struck me most, during my two hours sitting in Russell
+Square, was the perfection of the drawing of his portraits. Before any
+color was put on, the drawing itself was so perfectly beautiful that
+it seemed almost a sin to add any color." This portrait of her, which
+was painted at this one sitting, is considered the very best Lawrence
+ever painted. The head has distinction and hauteur, albeit the face is
+sweetly ingenuous. And the eyes! Well, Sir Thomas always excelled
+here! Never, since Titian, has painter given us such "strange sweet
+maddening eyes,"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class="i2">"Fathomless dusk by night, the day lets in</span>
+<span class="i2">Glimmer of emerald,&mdash;thus those eyes of hers!"</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>This picture now hangs in the gallery of Stafford House, and was
+mezzotinted by Cousins, in 1844, and included in the published
+collection of the artist's works. This volume is representative of the
+artist. It opens with that perennially delightful picture of the
+"Calmady Children," <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span>called "Nature,"&mdash;one of the very best and
+sweetest representations of child life ever made. Here is the
+elemental artlessness of nature, and here the beatitude of innocence.
+Another child-picture is the portrait of Lady Emily Cowper, afterwards
+Lady Ashley, called "The Rosebud." Among the ladies shown are Lady
+Leicester, Lady Lyndhurst, and Lady Georgiana Agar Ellis, the picture
+of the latter being surpassing in its elegance. That majestically
+maternal picture is here of Lady Gower and Lady Elizabeth Leveson
+Gower,&mdash;not our Elizabeth Mary, but she who became Duchess of Argyll.</p>
+
+<p>The Countess of Grosvenor was a lady of high character and most
+affable manners, and held her exalted position with a dignity of
+demeanor and a bearing worthy of a descent from the noble Gowers,
+lords of Sittenham. Her residence latterly was Motcombe House, near
+Shaftesbury, Dorsetshire. She lived on until our own day, dying at the
+age of ninety-four.</p>
+
+<p>In 1840-41 she accompanied her husband on a yacht voyage in the
+Mediterranean, an entertaining account of which she published in two
+volumes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span> She was a keen politician, as so many ladies of rank are in
+England. In 1873 Lady Westminster's son, then Lord Robert Grosvenor,
+spoke in favor of the Liberal candidate for Shaftesbury. The candidate
+told her tenants that he believed her ladyship was not averse to his
+candidature. It was putting his fingers into the den of the apparently
+sleeping lioness. She wrote sharply: "I beg to undeceive you. I am
+most anxious for the success of the conservative cause, connected as
+it is with the preservation of our religion and our loyalty to our
+Queen."</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="center">
+<img src="images/image_37.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="150" height="79" /></div>
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image_38.jpg" alt="Decorative Image" width="200" height="190" /></div>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME OLD TIME BEAUTIES***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Some Old Time Beauties, by Thomson Willing
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Some Old Time Beauties
+       After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment
+
+
+Author: Thomson Willing
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 16, 2005  [eBook #16079]
+
+Language: en
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME OLD TIME BEAUTIES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Afra Ullah, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 16079-h.htm or 16079-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/0/7/16079/16079-h/16079-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/0/7/16079/16079-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+SOME OLD TIME BEAUTIES
+
+After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment
+
+by
+
+THOMSON WILLING
+
+Boston
+Joseph Knight Company
+
+MDCCCXCV
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE
+   Portrait by Thomas Gainsborough
+
+   MARY, HONORABLE MRS. GRAHAM
+   Portrait by Thomas Gainsborough.
+
+   EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
+   Portrait by George Romney.
+
+   MRS. SHERIDAN
+   Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
+
+   MARGUERITE, COUNTESS BLESSINGTON
+   Portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence.
+
+   MARY ISABELLA, DUCHESS OF RUTLAND
+   Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
+
+   LAVINIA, COUNTESS SPENCER
+   Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
+
+   ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON
+   Portrait by Catharine Read.
+
+   MARIA, COUNTESS OF COVENTRY
+   Portrait by Gavin Hamilton.
+
+   ELIZABETH, COUNTESS GROSVENOR
+   Portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE by GAINSBOROUGH]
+
+
+HER GRACE OF DEVONSHIRE
+
+
+The Dashing Duchess,--the impulsive, ebullient beauty whose smile
+swayed ministers, and for whose favor princes were beggars! A
+loveliness of manner, as of feature, such seductive color,--glowing
+carnations,--and such golden-brown hair, with a fine figure, made up
+an opulent personality, than which no more consummate type of beauty
+has been preserved to us by painter or poet.
+
+Georgiana Spencer was the daughter of Lord Spencer, afterwards first
+Earl Spencer; but her impulsiveness, her waywardness, and improvidence
+were a legacy from her grandfather, "Jack" Spencer, the grandson and
+special favorite of the beautiful Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. Her
+"Torismond," she called him. His was a career of profligacy, a course
+of error and extravagance. His mother was Lady Sunderland, known in
+society as "the little Whig," from her small stature and her
+persistent politics. Her party badge was always worn,--the black patch
+on the left side of the face, as distinguished from the Tory fashion
+of wearing it on the right side. So Georgiana came legitimately by her
+beauty, her Whiggish politics, and her versatile vivacity of manner,
+as well as her improvidence and indiscretion.
+
+But her mother's strong character was a potent influence. She was the
+daughter of the Right Honorable Stephen Poyntz, and was of high repute
+for generosity, for sensibility, for charity, and for courteous
+dignity of demeanor. We hear of Georgiana being a beautiful child; and
+Reynolds as well as Gainsborough, both made painted record of that
+childish beauty. Her brightness of mind gave her an interest in art,
+in music, and in literature; and, though not proficient in the
+practice of either, she had more than the society woman's knowledge of
+them. At seventeen, she married William, fifth Duke of Devonshire,
+ten years her senior. His was a temperament antipathetic to
+hers,--unsympathetic, unimpressionable, and taciturn, yet withal of
+the Cavendish characteristic persistency of purpose and honest intent.
+
+The Duchess at once became a queen of society in the Carlton House
+Court. Devonshire House was an assembly place for the Whigs; and its
+lovely mistress was the hostess of many a statesman exalted by his
+wit, as of many a politician with following by virtue of his station.
+Like all radical companies, it was a motley mixture that found welcome
+there. The Prince of Wales was a devotee. The then shining Sheridan
+was a frequenter; but with the name of Fox has that of the Duchess
+been more associated than of aught other. Her supremacy among these
+companions was not in the manner of the French Salon leaders,--while
+wit, knowledge, and tact were hers, she lived not by learning, but by
+her liveliness and jollity. She was not the scholar in politics, but
+the politician among scholars out of school.
+
+It was a roystering, revelling company; and political as well as
+personal penury became the portion of many as the result of these
+improvident and profligate days. The episode of the Duchess's career
+which is most known, is her purchase, by a kiss, of a vote for Fox
+when she was championing his cause in an election, and canvassing for
+votes in company with her sister, Lady Duncannon. It was said, "never
+before had two such lovely portraits appeared on a canvass." A butcher
+bargained for his vote by asking a kiss from the lovely lips of the
+seductive Duchess. The price was paid, amid the plaudits of the crowd.
+An Irish elector, impressed by the fair appellant's vivacity,
+exclaimed: "I could light my pipe at her eyes."
+
+Fox was elected for the Tory borough of Westminster, and great was the
+rejoicing at Carlton House. A _fete_ was given on the grounds the day
+following, and the ordinarily well-apparelled Prince appeared in a
+superb costume of the radical colors, blue and buff. This was the
+period of the Duchess's greatest glory, as well as of her most superb
+charm of personality; and it was about this period that Gainsborough
+painted his perennially delightful presentment of her. She was then
+twenty-seven years of age, and had been married ten years. Wraxall
+wrote what is probably the best contemporary description of her: "The
+personal charms of the Duchess of Devonshire constituted her smallest
+pretensions to universal admiration; nor did her beauty consist, like
+that of the Gunnings, in regularity of features, and faultless
+formation of limbs and shape; it lay in the amenity and graces of her
+deportment, in her irresistible manners, and the seduction of her
+society. Her hair was not without a tinge of red; and her face, though
+pleasing, yet, had it not been illuminated by her mind, might have
+been considered an ordinary countenance."
+
+It is said of Gainsborough that, while painting the Duchess, "he drew
+his wet pencil across a mouth all thought exquisitely lovely, saying,
+'Her Grace is too hard for me.'"
+
+The lady later knew the cuts of comment, and the keen pain of
+justifiable jealousy. The rival in her husband's attentions was Lady
+Elizabeth Foster, daughter of the Earl of Bristol, a brunette of
+handsome presence, and at the death of Georgiana, in 1806, she became
+the second wife of the Duke. There was an apparent friendship between
+the ladies, and Lady Elizabeth for a time lived under the same roof as
+the Duchess.
+
+Madame d'Arblay, in 1791, visited her at Bath, and made record then of
+her introduction to the Duchess, and indicated the premonition of
+trouble in this wise. "Presently followed two ladies; Lady Spencer,
+with a look and manner warmly announcing pleasure in what she was
+doing, then introduced me to the first of them, saying, 'Duchess of
+Devonshire, Miss Burney.' She made me a very civil compliment upon
+hoping my health was recovering; and Lady Spencer then, slightly, and
+as if unavoidably, said, 'Lady Elizabeth Foster.'" Gibbon said of the
+latter, that, "No man could withstand her; and that if she chose to
+beckon the Lord Chancellor from his woolsack, in full sight of the
+world, he could not resist obedience." Reynolds painted a portrait of
+her, showing a bright-eyed, smiling lady, with close-curled hair, of
+girlish appearance. In Samuel Rogers's "Table Talk" are several
+mentions of the famous Georgiana, and especially one which tells of
+her love for gambling. "Gaming was the rage during her day; she
+indulged in it, and was made miserable by her debts. A faro-table was
+kept by Martindale, at which the Duchess and other high fashionables
+used to play. Sheridan said that the Duchess and Martindale had agreed
+that whatever they two won from each other should be sometimes
+_double_, sometimes _treble_, what it was called. And Sheridan assured
+me that he had handed the Duchess into her carriage when she was
+literally sobbing at her losses, she having lost fifteen hundred
+pounds, when it was supposed to be only five hundred pounds." A life
+such as she then led surely affected her appearance. In 1783, Walpole
+wrote: "The Duchess of Devonshire, the empress of fashion, is no
+beauty at all. She was a very fine woman, with all the freshness of
+youth and health, but verges fast to a coarseness."
+
+The offspring of the Duchess Georgiana were: Georgiana Dorothy,
+afterwards Countess Carlisle, whose letters were lately published, and
+exhibit an original observation and a terse style of record; Henrietta
+Elizabeth, later Countess Granville; and a son, who succeeded to the
+Dukedom. About the latter's birth was some mystery; insinuation was
+active. The Duchess had little liking for domestic life, so normal
+neglect of child may have been construed into an unnatural dislike.
+Her son never married. Through the stress of the home infelicity, her
+beauty waned; but her bearing and breeding kept her paramount in her
+set. She is known to this later generation only as a superb beauty who
+stands with such opulent charm of costume, and of fine hauteur of
+manner, amid the noble groves of Chatsworth--as the once potential
+original of Gainsborough's greatest portrait. "The bust outlasts the
+throne, the coin Tiberius."
+
+A most pathetic tribute to the beauty of the Duchess was paid by
+"Peter Pindar" (Dr. Wolcot), who addressed "A Petition to Time in
+favor of the Duchess of Devonshire," and implored the Inexorable
+thus:--
+
+   "Hurt not the form that all admire.
+   Oh, never with white hairs her temple sprinkle!
+   Oh, sacred be her cheek, her lip, her bloom!
+   And do not, in a lovely dimple's room,
+   Place a hard mortifying wrinkle.
+
+   "Know shouldst thou bid the beauteous duchess fade,
+   Thou, therefore, must thy own delights invade;
+   And know, 't will be a long, long while
+   Before thou givest her equal to our isle.
+   Then do not with this sweet _chef-d'oeuvre_ part,
+   But keep to show the triumph of thy art."
+
+A dramatic fate has befallen the original canvas. In 1875, it was sold
+at auction, and was bought by a firm of dealers for the then highest
+price paid for a single picture in England. The publicity gained by
+this was taken advantage of by the purchasers to exhibit the picture.
+One morning when the gallery was opened, the frame only was there; the
+picture had vanished. The canvas is lost.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MARY, THE HONORABLE MRS GRAHAM by GAINSBOROUGH]
+
+
+LOVELY MARY CATHCART
+
+
+Like the happiest countries that have no history, the tranquil life of
+joyous content leaves little to chronicle. Only in the nobility of
+character of a husband who grieved her loss for years, and in his
+strong dignity, and devotion to her memory, do we get a hint of the
+gracious and good lady whom Gainsborough has made immortal for us.
+
+And in that phrase of her lifetime, "lovely Mary Cathcart," is a whole
+biography of benignity and beauty. She came of one of the most ancient
+and noble families in Scotland, and was the daughter of the ninth
+Baron Cathcart, called "Cathcart of Fontenoy." Her brother William
+became the tenth Baron, and afterwards the first Earl Cathcart. He had
+studied law, but abandoned it for the army, and had a gallant career
+therein; becoming a lieutenant-general in 1801, and commander-in-chief
+of the expedition to Copenhagen in 1807; afterwards acquiring
+reputation as ambassador for several years at St. Petersburg. He was
+perhaps the earliest of British noblemen to marry American beauties;
+having wedded the daughter of Andrew Elliott of New York, in 1779.
+
+In November, 1774, there was rejoicing among the retainers of the
+House of Cathcart, for there was to be a double wedding. The eldest
+daughter, "Jenny," was married to the Duke of Athole, that same Duke
+who became a friendly patron of Burns, and in reference to whom the
+poet writes, when addressing some verses to him: "It eases my heart a
+good deal, as rhyme is the coin with which a poet pays his debts of
+honor and gratitude. What I owe to the noble family of Athole, of the
+first kind, I shall ever proudly boast; what I owe of the last, so
+help me God, in my hour of need I shall never forget."
+
+The second sister, the Hon. Mary, was married to Sir Thomas Graham of
+Balgowan, a descendant of the Marquis of Montrose and of Graham of
+Claverhouse. The youngest sister, Louisa, later became Countess of
+Mansfield, and her portrait, by Romney,--a seated profile figure with
+flowing draperies,--is that artist's most masterly work.
+
+After eighteen years of happy married life, she died childless; one of
+those good women that were--
+
+   "True in loving all their lives,"--
+
+"a surpassing spirit whose light adorned the world around it." Her
+husband grieved greatly. He was ordered to travel to divert his
+despair. He visited Gibraltar, and there the dormant martial spirit of
+his ancestors was aroused by his environment. Though then forty-three
+years of age, he immediately entered the army as a volunteer. He
+rapidly rose in his profession, and had an especially brilliant career
+in the Peninsular War. In 1811, he became the hero of Barossa, and in
+the same year was made second in command to the Duke of Wellington. He
+was created Lord Lynedoch of Balgowan, Perthshire, and frequently was
+thanked by Parliament for his services. Sheridan said, "Never was
+there a loftier spirit in a braver heart." And alluding to his
+services during the retreat to Corunna, he said, "Graham was their
+best adviser in the hour of peril; and in the hour of disaster, their
+surest consolation." Scott eulogizes him in the poem, "The Vision of
+Don Roderick," in the lines,--
+
+   "Nor be his praise o'erpast who strove to hide
+   Beneath the warrior's vest affection's wound,
+   Whose wish Heaven for his country's weal denied;
+   Danger and fate, he sought, but glory found.
+
+   "From clime to clime, wher'e'r war's trumpets sound,
+   The wanderer went; yet, Caledonia, still
+   Thine was his thought in march and tented ground;
+   He dreamed mid Alpine cliffs of Athole's hill,
+   And heard in Ebro's roar his Lynedoch's lovely rill.
+
+   "O hero of a race renowned of old,
+   Whose war-cry oft has waked the battle swell!"
+
+Old Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, wrote of a late Duke of Athole:
+"Courage, endurance, stanchness, fidelity, and warmth of heart,
+simplicity, and downrightness, were his staples." They are ever the
+staples of the Scotch character, and they were all pre-eminent in Sir
+Thomas. His life was noble, and his affection was faithful to its
+early troth.
+
+A pathetic history attaches to this picture of Mrs. Graham: When its
+subject died, the sorrowing husband had it bricked up where it hung,
+and it was only by an accident that it was discovered at his death, in
+1843. It now hangs in the National Gallery of Scotland at Edinburgh.
+The present reproduction shows but a part of the picture, the figure
+being full length. It has been excellently reproduced in etching by
+both Flameng and Waltner.
+
+In 1885, a most comprehensive exhibition of Gainsborough's works was
+made at the Grosvenor Gallery in London. At it was noted the important
+part this painter had played in perpetuating the lineaments, bearing,
+graces, and gownings of the great persons of the latter half of the
+eighteenth century.
+
+   "The lips that laughed an age agone,
+   The fops, the dukes, the beauties all,
+   Le Brun that sang and Carr that shone."
+
+There was seen The Hon. Miss Georgiana Spencer, at the age of six, and
+again a later portrait of her as the Duchess of Devonshire,--she of
+the then irresistibly seductive manners,--and her mother, Countess
+Spencer, of whom Walpole wrote as being one of the beauties present at
+the coronation of George III., in 1761. There, too, was Anne Luttrell,
+daughter of Simon Luttrell, Baron Irnham, who married, first,
+Christopher Horton, and, secondly, the Duke of Cumberland, brother of
+the king. Of her Walpole wrote: "There was something so bewitching in
+her languishing eyes, which she could animate to enchantment if she
+pleased, and her coquetry was so active, so varied, and yet so
+habitual that it was difficult not to see through it, and yet as
+difficult to resist it." And here was another widow who captivated
+royalty, Mrs. Fitzherbert, who was a daughter of Walter Smythe of
+Bambridge, Hampshire, and married, first, Edward Weld, secondly,
+Thomas Fitzherbert of Synnerton, Staffordshire (who died in 1781), and
+was said to have been married to the Prince of Wales (George IV.) in
+1785. And there also was a more notorious beauty, Miss Grace
+Dalrymple, afterwards Mrs. Elliott,--though divorced later, and
+becoming the mistress of various aristocrats, notably the Duke of
+Orleans.
+
+The Duchess of Montagu, granddaughter of the great Duke of Marlborough
+(one of the Churchills,--a family prolific of beauties), was there
+seen. Several pictures of the painter's wife (who was a Miss Margaret
+Burr), of his youngest daughter, Mary, afterwards Mrs. Fischer, and
+one of his friend, Miss Linley, went to augment this superb
+congregation of beauties shown. Portraits of Garrick,--that intensely
+interesting Stratford portrait,--Earl Spencer, Pitt, Earl Stanhope,
+Colonel St. Leger, George IV., Duke of Cumberland, George III., Earl
+Cathcart, Canning, Dr. Johnson, Fox, and several showings of himself,
+made up a body of work unsurpassed in importance by that of the
+president of the Academy himself.
+
+Gainsborough was born in 1727; he moved to Bath, in its most brilliant
+period, in 1760. He died in 1788, but had ceased contributing to the
+Academy four years before, because of a disagreement with the hanging
+committee. His portraits of ladies were always picturesque and
+individual, each differentiated from each of his own works as well as
+from that of other painters.
+
+This portrait of the Hon. Mrs. Graham is delicate in color, yellowed
+somewhat by its long seclusion from the light,--and will remain one of
+the most delightful and _spirituel_ creations of the old-English
+school.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: EMMA, LADY HAMILTON by ROMNEY]
+
+
+Lady Hamilton
+
+
+With the name of Lady Hamilton is ever associated the names of
+England's most famous sailor and of one of her most famous painters.
+Hers was a life redolent of ill-repute. Though her beauty was great,
+it served her for ill purposes; but she came by her lack of character
+by heredity. She was born in 1761, the daughter of a female servant
+named Harte, and at the age of thirteen was put to service as a nurse
+in the house of a Mr. Thomas of Hawarden, Flintshire. She found
+tending children a tedious task, and forsook it. At sixteen, she went
+to London, and became a lady's maid there. Her leisure time was spent
+in reading novels and plays, which inspired a love for the drama. She
+early developed a rare ability for pantomimic representation; and
+this became a favorite form of entertainment in drawing-rooms and
+studios. Her duties as a domestic agreed not with the drama, so her
+next position was as barmaid in a tavern much frequented by actors and
+artists. She formed the acquaintance of a Welsh youth, on whose being
+impressed into the navy, she went to the captain to intercede for him.
+The boy was liberated, but the comely intercessor was impressed into
+the service of the captain. From him she went to live with a man of
+wealth; but her extravagance and wilfulness induced him to forego her
+company. Then followed a period of the lowest street degradation. From
+this state she was taken by a Dr. Graham, who was a lecturer upon
+health, and exhibited the finely-formed Emma as a perfect specimen of
+female symmetry. She became the topic of the town. Painters,
+sculptors, and others came to admire the shapely limbs shown under but
+a thin veil of gauze. The young bloods of the time worshipped,--some
+not afar off; and one of them, Charles Greville, of the Warwick
+family, who had essayed to educate her to become a fit companion for
+his elevated existence, maintained her for about four years. It is
+recorded, that when he took her to Ranelagh's the sensation was
+greater than had ever been produced by any other beauty there. Not the
+winsome and witty Mrs. Crewe, nor her friend Mrs. Bouverie; not that
+first flame of the amorous Prince of Wales, Mrs. Robinson, nor Anne
+Luttrell, also beloved of royalty; not the Marchioness of Tavistock,
+whose loveliness has been preserved to us by Sir Joshua, nor the
+delightful Duchess of Buccleugh; not Lady Cadogan, and not even the
+dashing Duchess of Devonshire herself,--caused the comment and
+admiration this low-born unprincipled young woman now excited. Mr.
+Greville would have married her had not his uncle, Sir William
+Hamilton, interfered. It is variously stated that Sir William agreed
+to pay his nephew's debts if he would yield up his mistress; and also
+that, in endeavoring to free the young man, the old gentleman himself
+fell into the snare of her charms. "She is better than anything in
+Nature. In her own particular way she is finer than anything that is
+to be found in Greek art," exclaimed this _savant_ on first seeing
+her. She was a most enchanting deceiver, and a finished actress in the
+parts of candor and simplicity, so succeeded in marrying Sir William,
+in 1791. He was over sixty years of age, a man of much classical and
+scientific erudition, and had been for many years ambassador at the
+court of Naples, to which place he was soon accompanied by his bride.
+She became a favorite with the queen, and a frequent visitor at the
+palace, also somewhat of a social success among the British residents.
+She sang well, and made a specialty of showing herself in "attitudes,"
+or what we term now "living pictures," for the delectation of her
+guests. "You never saw anything so charming as Lady Hamilton's
+attitudes," wrote the Countess of Malmesbury to her sister, Lady
+Elliot; "the most graceful statues or pictures do not give you an idea
+of them. Her dancing the Tarantella is beautiful to a degree." It was
+here began that intimacy with Nelson which became the great blot on
+his fair fame. He was then commanding the Agamemnon, and she became
+his constant companion, and was sometimes useful to him as a political
+agent. After the victory of Aboukir Bay, when Naples went wild in its
+enthusiastic reception of the naval hero, Lady Hamilton shared the
+honors of the pageant. She accompanied him in a tour through Germany;
+and most reprehensible was their conduct, at times, in defying the
+decencies of polite life. After the Treaty of Amiens, Nelson,
+accompanied by Sir William and Lady Hamilton, retired to his seat at
+Merton, in Surrey, and on the death of the ambassador, in 1803, he
+vainly endeavored to procure an allowance from the government for the
+widow, on the pretext of the services she had rendered the fleet in
+Sicily. Failing this, he himself granted her an annuity of twelve
+hundred pounds. We all know how at Trafalgar, when the hero was dying,
+he spoke of "dear Lady Hamilton, his guardian angel," and left to her
+all his belongings, and recommended her to the grateful care of his
+country. Notwithstanding this, she died almost in poverty, in 1815.
+In 1813 she had been imprisoned for debt, and when out on bail she
+fled to Calais, and there the career was closed. It was extraordinary
+that this woman should subjugate and hold in thrall men of great force
+of character. She had great loveliness of person; but physical beauty
+alone is ineffectual to charm such as these. Though not regularly
+educated, she acquired much general knowledge, and was tactful in the
+display and use of it.
+
+It was during the period of her posing for Dr. Graham, that Romney
+became enamoured of her beauty, and painted for us more than a dozen
+important pictures of her. Those were the days when ladies of rank and
+beauty were deified; and, following this fashion, Romney rendered
+"Fair Emma" in many guises. Her ability in acting made her a most
+useful model. Her features had much mobility, and were capable of
+expressing, with facility, all gradations of passion and niceties of
+feeling. Emma took pride and pleasure in serving Romney. He repeated
+to his friend, the poet Hayley, her request, that in the biography of
+the painter, Hayley would have much to say of her. One of his earliest
+classical conceptions painted from her, was a full length of Circe
+with her wand. Following this was a "Sensibility," which became the
+property of Hayley. Though we remember Romney chiefly in connection
+with his Lady Hamiltons, yet he had acquired his reputation and much
+fortune ere he met her. The great bulk of his portrayals of the
+nobility preceded his classical subjects, which took form from his
+superb model. She was Cassandra; she was Iphigenia, St. Caecilia,
+Bacchante, Calope, The Spinstress, Joan of Arc, The Pythian Princess
+Calypso, and Magdalene,--the two latter subjects painted to order for
+the then Prince of Wales.
+
+Allan Cunningham has this to say in his sketch of Romney's life: "A
+lady in the character of a saint. This sort of flattery, once so
+prevalent with painters, is now nearly worn out: we have now no Lady
+Betty's enacting the part of Diana; no Lady Jane's tripping it
+barefoot among the thorns and brambles of this weary world, in the
+character of Hebe. We have none now who either 'sinner it or saint it'
+on canvas; the flattery which the painter has to pay is of a more
+scientific kind,--he has to trust alone to the truth of his drawing
+and the harmony of his colors."
+
+Romney was a transgressor in this way at times; but Lady Hamilton's
+form was used to impart correct form to the conceptions of the
+painter,--not the theme used merely to exploit the beauty of the lady.
+In the exhibition of fair women in the Grafton Gallery in London this
+summer, she greeted us in the guise of Ariadne. In this the painter's
+use of the title was apt and justifiable. Here is the lady wholly
+clothed in the dress of the time,--a dress superb in its simplicity;
+but her pose and mien is indicative of the forsaken, the forlorn,
+despairing woman abandoned by her lover,--the fate of which the old
+story of the Greeks is the eternal epitome. The pathos of the pose, it
+may have been, as well as the classic face, allured the wanderer in
+the galleries, and anchored him before this canvas.
+
+The fame of Romney has steadily risen in the several generations from
+the beginning to the end of the century. Though the painter of many
+men of fame and ladies of fashion, his work was not held in the
+greatest regard in his lifetime. Though often spoken of as the rival
+of Reynolds, he had not the president's grasp of character or his
+ability in giving classic grace to the dress of the period, and he was
+never admitted as a member to the Academy.
+
+When Lady Hamilton commenced posing for him, he, perhaps wisely for
+his fame, reduced the number of his ordinary sitters, receiving none
+until afternoon. The picturing of what he termed "her divine beauty"
+became a passion with him; and the enthusiasm of the sitter was nearly
+as great as that of the painter, and she enacted his classic
+conceptions. The result is a superb series of pictures of faultless
+female form, and loveliness of feature. Of the model's immoral career
+we have naught now to do. Here is perpetual beauty, and it is ours to
+enjoy.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MRS SHERIDAN by REYNOLDS]
+
+
+ST. CAECILIA
+
+
+There are few names more associated with the brilliant days of Bath,
+the days of its social and artistic prominence, than those of Thomas
+Linley, the composer, and of his daughter, Eliza Anne, known abroad as
+"the Fair Maid of Bath." Linley was born there, in 1735; and after his
+studies in music on the Continent, under Paradies, he returned to the
+then fashionable city on the Avon. He conducted oratorios and concerts
+there, and became a power in the community. Delicacy, tenderness,
+simplicity, and taste were the characteristics of his compositions. It
+was said of him, that as Garrick had restored Shakspeare, so Linley
+has restored the sublime music of Handel. He trained his family to
+take part in the performances. His son Thomas, born in 1756,
+developed a marvellous ability in music,--playing the violin with
+great brilliancy and expression. He was the friend of Mozart, and took
+at times his father's place as conductor of the oratorios. His career
+was cut short by drowning, in 1778.
+
+But it was his beautiful daughter Eliza, born in 1754, who made the
+sensation of the time, when she sang with her sister, afterwards Mrs.
+Tickell. "A nest of nightingales," the family was termed. Walpole
+writes, in 1773: "I was not at the ball last night, and have only been
+to the opera, where I was infinitely struck with the Carrara, who is
+the prettiest creature upon earth. Mrs. Hartley I own to still find
+handsomer, and Miss Linley, to be the superlative degree. The king
+admires the last, and ogles her as much as he dares to do in so holy a
+place as an oratorio, and at so devout a service as 'Alexander's
+Feast.'" Musical prominence and personal beauty in this maid of but
+twenty made her an attractive flower in bloom to others than the king.
+The wits and gallants of the gay city sought and courted her. The
+family of Tom Sheridan, the Irish actor, and then a teacher of
+elocution in Bath, was intimate with the Linley family. Richard, who
+was born in Dublin in 1751, his elder brother Charles, and Nathaniel
+Halhed, a companion and literary partner with Richard, all admired the
+daughter Eliza. Halhed went to India,--afterwards becoming a judge
+there,--and Charles Sheridan retired from the race, and left the
+literary youth to win as pure a heart as ever cheered incipient genius
+to works of worth. She was lauded in verse by her young Irish suitor,
+and championed in deed. He asserts his constancy in a poem, of which
+the first stanza is--
+
+   "Dry that tear, my gentlest love;
+   Be hushed that struggling sigh;
+   Nor seasons, day, nor fate shall prove
+   More fixed, more true than I.
+   Hushed be that sigh, be dry that tear;
+   Cease boding doubt, cease anxious fear;
+      Dry be that tear."
+
+He proves his devotion by his action when appealed to by his
+divinity.
+
+A certain Captain Matthews, one of a numerous breed in Bath in those
+days,--that is, a fashionable scoundrel and a married man,--made
+himself obnoxious to Miss Linley by improper addresses. He annoyed and
+harassed her, threatening to destroy himself unless she gratified him,
+and later attempted to sully her reputation by calumnies. This brought
+about the culmination of her attachment to Sheridan. She fled her
+father's house and sought the protection of her lover. Accompanied by
+a chaperon, they left for France. After some romantic adventures, they
+were married in March, 1772, at a little village near Calais; but it
+was a wedding without the wherewithal to maintain a home, so the bride
+entered a convent, and, later, the house of an English physician,
+until literature should be remunerative. The eloping lady's father
+sought the runaways; and, after some explanations, they returned with
+him to England. It was shortly after this that Sheridan fought two
+duels with Matthews, being wounded in the later one to such an extent
+that his recovery was doubtful. "Sweet Betsy" claimed the right of a
+wife to tend her hurt husband, and so revealed the fact of the
+marriage in France. The old actor rejected his impulsive son, but
+Linley's aversion to the union of his daughter being at last set
+aside, the pair were re-married in England in April, 1773.
+
+The sweet singer had been admired by another, an elderly suitor of
+much fortune, whom her father had approved, but to whom she was
+averse. This gentleman now became the benefactor of the pair. He
+settled a moiety of three thousand pounds on the bride. Her father
+retained half of this as compensation for the loss of the services of
+his daughter. On the balance, the youthful couple lived. Sheridan had
+entered himself a student of the Middle Temple shortly before his
+marriage. Though their income was small, he would not allow his wife
+to accept several proffered professional engagements; he did not wish
+his helpmeet to become a servant of the public. This action incited
+some discussion, and much acrimonious comment, in her family and among
+their friends. Johnson upheld his course. Sheridan, in this instance,
+understood himself and understood the times. He knew of the flippant
+attitude of the young blades of the town toward all public performers;
+so he sought to save her, who was so sacred to him, from such insult,
+insincere adulation, and insinuation as she had heretofore suffered
+from. They retired to a cottage at East Burnham; and there she, who
+had received the plaudits of the public as a vocalist, won as noble a
+name in the character of the ideal wife, one in whom were united all
+the attributes of loveliness,--temper, manners, virtues, and
+surpassing beauty. What the then public lost, later generations have
+gained in the picture of that lovable woman, making a golden age of
+happiness for her greatly-gifted husband in the little cottage at East
+Burnham.
+
+Fanny Burney records her pleasant impressions of the bride,--"I was
+absolutely charmed at the sight of her. I think her quite as beautiful
+as ever, and even more captivating; for she has now a look of ease and
+happiness that animates her whole face. Miss Linley was with her; she
+is very handsome, but nothing near her sister; the elegance of Mrs.
+Sheridan's beauty is unequalled by any I ever saw, except Mrs. Crewe.
+I was pleased with her in all respects. She is much more lively and
+agreeable than I had any idea of finding her; she was very gay, and
+very unaffected, and totally free from airs of any kind."
+
+In 1775, the husband's genius was acknowledged by the town; for in
+January, that year, was first presented "The Rivals." In that play he
+draws from the material displayed by the superficial, flashing, and
+piquant society of the day at Bath, and from his own experience the
+inimitable duel scene therein.
+
+Much success followed for the dramatist. In the following year, in
+conjunction with his father-in-law, he purchased from Garrick the
+Drury Lane Theatre. They brought out several operas together; Linley's
+music in "The Duenna" and "The Beggar's Opera," being especially fine.
+Hazlitt speaks of the songs in them as having a joyous spirit of
+intoxication, and strains of the most melting tenderness.
+
+In 1777, appeared "The School for Scandal," a theme also suggested by
+scandal-mongering Bath. His fond and faithful wife lived not to see
+the dimming of the genius that produced these classics; she died of a
+decline, at Bristol, in 1792. Her daughter, too, died within the same
+year. Two of her accomplished descendants, through her son, have
+displayed some of her romantic taste and charm of manner to a
+generation just preceding our own,--her granddaughters, Lady Dufferin,
+mother of the English ambassador to France, and Hon. Caroline Norton,
+author of "Love not, love not, ye hapless sons of men."
+
+Though she whom he had adored was but three years dead, Sheridan
+married, in 1795, Esther Jane Ogle, daughter of the Dean of
+Winchester. With her he obtained some money and this, added to his
+own, purchased the estate of Polesdon, in Surrey. His wife was, at
+that time, spoken of as young, amiable, and devoted to him. She died
+at about the same time as he, in 1816.
+
+In the first flush of those romantic wedded days of their youth how
+impressive must have been the appearance of that markedly clever young
+man, eager in the fight for fame, and of his beauteous bride from
+Bath. Reynolds painted, in 1779, the standard presentment of Sheridan.
+Walpole's comment on it was: "Praise cannot overstate the merits of
+this portrait. It is not canvas and color, it is animated nature--all
+the unaffected manner and character of the great original." The artist
+said that among all his sitters none had such large pupils of the
+eyes. With the brilliance of that mind informing the face, his
+features, though not regular, were handsome. Of all the portraits of
+Miss Linley, perhaps the one by Gainsborough, in which she is
+portrayed with her young brother, gives the best idea of the special
+character of her type of beauty. Here are the large lustrous eyes and
+the very delicately modelled, sensitive, refined features; here, the
+luxuriant hair, the slender neck, and the sloping shoulders; and here,
+the superb poise of head and of mind. There is another fine picture of
+her by Gainsborough, for this painter was one of the brilliant men
+who frequented her father's house at Bath. A musician he was, too,
+and an excellent performer on the violin, so was congenial company in
+that musical family. He admired the daughter, and wrought for us the
+delightful records of her beauty. His change of residence, from Bath
+to London, coincided in date with that of the Sheridans. Opie, too,
+painted her portrait; not an ideal one, but good in respect to her
+eyes. And Romney has given us good pictures both of her and Mrs.
+Tickell. Reynolds's portrayal is supreme in indicating the exaltation
+of spirit, by the poise of head and perfection of profile. This
+picture of her as the patron saint of song was exhibited at the
+Academy, in 1775, just about the time its subject had abandoned public
+singing. It has been most beautifully engraved by Bartolozzi, and
+ranks as one of his best plates. When the days of sorrow came to
+Sheridan,--when his weaknesses of character brought him to a low
+estate; when poverty became his portion, and the long lost days of
+romantic love became but a memory; when treasure after treasure,
+manuscripts, and sumptuous books were disposed of, and presentation
+pictures were pawned,--this picture of St. Caecilia, a reminder of the
+days that had vanished, was the last valued possession to be parted
+with.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MARGUERITE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON by LAWRENCE]
+
+
+LADY BLESSINGTON
+
+
+The brilliant Blessington,--brilliant in beauty and in intellect!
+Throughout her life of romance she was fortunate in her literary
+friendships, through whom a knowledge of her abilities has grown to
+tradition, but most fortunate in the portrayer of her beauty. Lawrence
+has painted a picture which it is a perpetual pleasure to behold,--the
+superb arms and shoulders, the serene, steadfast gaze of the eyes, and
+the conscious, yet confident, poise of the head forming a record to
+justify the tradition of great personal beauty and alertness of mind.
+
+Marguerite Blessington's youth was ill-regulated and penurious. She
+was born in 1789, the second daughter of Edmund Power, of Knockbrit,
+near Clonmel, in the county of Tipperary. Her father came of a good
+family, as did also her mother, who spoke unduly often of her
+ancestors, the Desmonds. Marguerite was not comely in her early
+girlhood, though her sister Ellen and her brother Robert were handsome
+children. As a child, she was sensitive and sentimental, and her
+delight was to browse in a library,--and it was this taste that
+equipped her for her later friendships. Her power of imagination was
+uncommonly strong, and she became the entertainer of her
+children-companions with stories of her own imagining, as well as by
+her recitals of legends and romance learned in the library. Her father
+removed to Clonmel, and became editor of a paper there. He was not
+prosperous, and was a man of perverse temper, which grew with
+adversity. Marguerite and her sister were fancied by some wealthy
+maiden-lady relatives, and were taken by them to a home of comfort. On
+their return to Clonmel,--beautiful, and with the distinction of
+knowledge and a clever use of it,--they were a contrast to the
+ordinary Irish country girl, whose whole equipment of dress and
+accomplishments was "two washing gowns and a tune on the piano." The
+girls took part in all the gayeties of the town, and, besides the
+charm of their conversation, were graceful dancers; and though
+Marguerite was less beautiful, she was most tasteful in dress, and
+this became always a noted characteristic of hers. They became the
+attraction of an English regiment recently stationed in the town, and
+Marguerite was soon married, through the insistence of her father, to
+a Captain Farmer, when less than fifteen years of age. This was the
+great misfortune of her life.
+
+Her husband was subject to fits of insanity, and her whole feeling
+towards him was that of aversion. Cruelty and caprice were the chief
+components of his character. From his tyranny she fled,--first to her
+father's house, but was denied solace there, so sought it elsewhere.
+She led a somewhat vagabond existence for about nine years, living
+first with one friend, then with another; thankful for any home, and
+accommodating herself to any companions. Of this period of her life
+not much is recorded, save her beauty, for it was shortly after this
+that her peerless portrait was painted, ere her sorrow and suffering
+had time to efface the vivacity of youth, but only to give depth to
+the eyes and interest to the face. She lived in London with her
+brother Robert until in 1817, when her husband's death occurred by his
+falling out of a window when in a state of drunken frenzy. Four months
+after this she became the second wife of an Irish nobleman of a
+dashing person and little brains, Charles John Gardiner, second Earl
+of Blessington, when she was twenty-eight and he was thirty-five years
+of age. With this marriage came a reversal of her misfortunes. Her
+generosity, sympathy, and good heart soon prompted the improvement of
+the conditions of her own family, and in this gave emphatic evidence
+of that devotedness to duty and friends which became her strongest
+trait. Her youngest sister, Marianne, was adopted and educated by her,
+and became her travelling companion, and long afterwards her modest
+biographer. Her sister Ellen married first, Mr. Home Purves, and
+afterwards, Viscount Canterbury, speaker of the House of Commons.
+
+Lord Blessington's income was great, but his tastes were extravagant
+as were also his wife's, and luxurious was their home in St. James's
+Square, and magnificent the manner in which they entertained the
+brilliant society gathered there; and for three years their brilliant
+companies of beauty and intellect outshone the congregations at
+Holland House. In 1822, Count D'Orsay, a polished and accomplished
+young Frenchman, visited London, and was made most welcome by the
+Blessingtons. In August of that year they started for a leisurely tour
+of the Continent. The Countess kept a diary during this journeying,
+which was published in 1839, under the title of "The Idler in Italy,"
+revealing a keen observation and a capacity for entertaining comment.
+
+Her ladyship was ever ambitious of literary eminence. Possessed of
+great beauty, and after a time high station and wealth, she yet
+yearned for the recognition by great writers of her position as one of
+them. She had published, previous to her continental trip, two
+volumes,--one called "The Magic Lantern," the other, "Sketches and
+Fragments," both being accounts of and comments upon London society;
+both were unsuccessful. Her one book which will remain in literature
+was consequent upon her meeting with Lord Byron in Genoa, in 1823, and
+is a record of her conversations with the poet. She who aspired to
+make her mark in literature has made it, but as the chronicler of the
+sentiments, vanities, whims, and oddities of another. But it was no
+ordinary ability that was competent to persuade the great poet,
+usually unapproachable, to avow, in picturesque language, his opinions
+on men, women, and manners,--to provide for later times the data from
+which to gauge his strange personality.
+
+She has written much of herself into her records; and calumny urged,
+at the time of publication, that she insinuated in her writings a far
+greater degree of friendship on the poet's part than really existed.
+Yet, in refutation of this is Byron's letter to Moore:--
+
+"I have just seen some friends of yours, who paid me a visit
+yesterday, which, in honor of them and of yours, I returned to-day, as
+I reserve my bear-skin and teeth and paws and claws for our enemies.
+
+"Your allies, whom I found very agreeable personages, are Milor
+Blessington and _epouse_, travelling with a very handsome companion,
+in the shape of a 'French count' (to use Farquhar's phrase in the
+'Beau's Stratagem'), who has all the air of a _cupidor dechaine_.
+Milady seems highly literary; to which, and your honor's acquaintance
+with the family, I attribute the pleasure of having seen them. She is
+also very pretty, even in a morning; a species of beauty on which the
+sun of Italy does not shine so frequently as the chandelier."
+
+The Countess Guiccioli was among those who depreciated the
+Blessingtons' accounts of the conversations; but then, perchance,
+there may have been some jealousy of the attractive English woman's
+influence over the poet. The Blessingtons left Genoa in June of 1823,
+and continued their journeyings throughout Italy until 1828. In the
+preceding year, Count D'Orsay had become the husband of the Earl of
+Blessington's daughter, Lady Harriet Frances Gardiner, when she was
+but little over fifteen years of age; but they lived together but
+three years. In 1829, the Earl died in Paris; and the Countess
+continued there until after the Revolution of 1830, when she returned
+to England. Her journal of the trip from Naples to Paris, and her stay
+in that city, was published in 1841, under the title of "The Idler in
+France." In England she took a house in Seamore Place, Mayfair, and
+later removed to Gore House, Kensington, with which place is
+associated the traditions of her elegant entertainings and her
+intercourse with many men of eminence, but also with a course of
+living which compromised her reputation in society. Her son-in-law,
+the Count, continued to form one of her household, though separated
+from his wife, the Lady Harriet. Though not received in general
+society, the Countess surrounded herself with celebrities of all
+nations; and it was at her house that Louis Napoleon was a cherished
+guest in his years of exile, and from whence he proceeded to head the
+government of France. Here Bulwer came as perhaps her most intimate
+friend; here Thackeray was made most welcome, and Lord John Russell
+and Lord Palmerston, Canning and Castlereagh were frequent guests.
+Dickens,--then a dandy like unto D'Orsay, who seemed to be his
+model,--"Rejected Addresses" Smith, the banker-poet Rogers, Kemble,
+Wilkie, and Dr. Parr engaged in sparkling converse with their hostess,
+who sat in a deep arm-chair while Tom Moore was privileged to perch
+himself on a footstool at her feet; and by all these men she was
+held in unqualified respect. Her income became impaired and unequal to
+the expense of entertaining. She resorted to literature to add to her
+resources. She was engaged by Heath, the engraver, to edit a certain
+class of annuals popular in those days. For some years her income from
+"The Keepsake" and "The Book of Beauty" exceeded one thousand pounds a
+year. Her novels, too, were a source of some profit. For "Strathern"
+she received about three thousand dollars. These romances were weak in
+character and plot, but were fair pictures of society portrayed with
+much piquancy. In one, "Grace Cassidy," she describes interestingly
+scenes of her youth in Ireland. But interest in her work waned, and as
+she seems not to have thought of retrenchment of her expenditure,
+disaster rapidly descended. In 1849, she had perforce to sell out, and
+then moved to Paris, where she died in the same year. She was buried
+at Chambourcy, near St. Germain-en-Laye, the residence of the Duc and
+Duchesse de Grammont, the sister and brother-in-law of Count D'Orsay.
+
+She was a woman of great tact, of a sweet delicacy of manner, and of a
+chivalrous devotedness to friendship. Her friends were carefully
+chosen, and never deserted. Perhaps no woman of the century has had so
+many men of mark as her friends and admirers. She had charity towards
+others' failings. She gave pleasure where she could. She was elegant
+and dignified in her bearing, though possessed of Irish wit withal.
+She was very beautiful.
+
+Lord Byron was induced to sing the praise of her picture here
+given:--
+
+   "Were I now as I was, I had sung
+   What Lawrence has painted so well;
+   But the strain would expire on my tongue,
+   And the theme is too soft for my shell.
+
+   "I am ashes where once I was fire,
+   And the bard in my bosom is dead:
+   What I loved I now merely admire,
+   And my heart is as gray as my head.
+
+   "Let the young and the brilliant aspire
+   To sing what I gaze on in vain,
+   For sorrow has torn from my lyre
+   The string which was worthy the strain."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MARY ISABELLA DUCHESS OF RUTLAND by REYNOLDS]
+
+
+HER GRACE OF RUTLAND
+
+
+Rowlandson, the caricaturist, once published a cartoon entitled "Juno
+Devon, All Sublime." The rival goddesses in competition with her
+before that modern Paris, the Prince of Wales, being their Graces of
+Gordon and Rutland. Beyond the various written records of the opposing
+beauty of those aristocratic dames who dominated society in their day,
+we have ample painted evidence of their loveliness. Of her Grace of
+Devonshire, we have, first, the engraved renderings of "the lost
+Gainsborough." There are other Gainsboroughs, too,--Georgiana as a
+child, and a full-length of her standing at the edge of a lawn, her
+face looking down, wearing a white dress, her right elbow on the base
+of a column, a scarf in both hands, her hair piled high, but without
+the hat, as in the more famous picture. There are then several by Sir
+Joshua. The first, where she stands as a child beside her mother;
+then, she as a mother with her own child,--a very charming profile,
+and a picture that insinuates the vivacity of demeanor and the abandon
+so characteristic of her.
+
+Walpole wrote of this as "Little like and not good." Yet, as to
+goodness, a modern authority has said: "It is a superb work; and, in
+motive, color, and composition, it ranks as a triumph alike of nature
+and art." Again, there is a whole-length showing her about to descend
+some steps to a lawn, her superb shoulders and neck bare, and her hair
+highly bedecked with feathers. Walpole writes of another portrait,
+drawn by Lady Di Beauclerck, and engraved by Bartolozzi: "A Castilian
+nymph conceived by Sappho and executed by Myron, would not have had
+more grace and simplicity. The likeness is perfectly preserved, except
+that the paintress has lent her own expression to the Duchess, which
+you will allow is very agreeable flattering." In the Royal collection
+of miniatures at Windsor, are three charmingly executed ivories of her
+by Cosway. Lawrence, too, made a chalk drawing of her, which now hangs
+at Chiswick House, in the room in which Charles Fox died. This is an
+interesting work from being a very early effort of the after-time
+President of the Academy, and showing that then he had not attained
+the trick of flattering his sitters, even when they were noted
+beauties. Angelica Kauffman painted her, and John Downman also made a
+portrait replete with elegance and picturesqueness. In fact, the
+comely Duchess pervaded the art of the period. Of her Grace of Gordon,
+we have, as our ideal presentment of her, the portrait by Sir Joshua.
+In it her hair is done up high, and two rows of pearls are intertwined
+therein. The dress is of the Charles the First period, and shows the
+sweetly modulated shoulders leading up to--
+
+   "The pillared throat, clear chiselled cheek,
+   High arching brows, nose purely Greek,
+   Set lips,--too firm for a coquette."
+
+We have also an interesting portrait of her by Romney.
+
+Of her Grace of Rutland, we have also several pictures by Sir Joshua.
+There is a whole-length with a decorative head-dress, and a landscape
+background. The original of this was destroyed by fire at Belvoir
+Castle. Another, a half-length, in the same costume, and a
+three-quarter face, is mostly pervaded by a serene sense of pride.
+There is a drawing of her done by the Hon. Mrs. O'Neil, which is
+interesting from the picturesque head-dress shown. Her Grace of
+Gordon was as great a power in the political world as she of
+Devonshire,--probably greater, for her alliance and principles were
+with the ruling power. This lady was to Pitt's party what Fair Devon
+was to Fox's. In fact, it was asserted she endeavored to marry her
+daughter, Lady Charlotte, afterwards Duchess of Richmond, to the
+premier. When Georgiana made her famous canvass in favor of Fox, the
+Tories opposed to her the Scotch Duchess.
+
+She lived and entertained then in a splendid mansion in Pall Mall; and
+there assembled the adherents of the Administration.
+
+Jane was the daughter of Sir William Maxwell, of Monreith, and in her
+youth, even, was noted for beauty. A ballad, "Jenny of Monreith,"
+written in her honor, was often chivalrously sung by her son George,
+the last Duke of Gordon. "Jenny" married the fourth Duke, Alexander,
+in 1767. The career of the Duke's youngest brother George, identified
+with the "Gordon Riot," caused the family much embarrassment, and even
+threatened to derogate from the Duchess's dominance with the ruling
+party.
+
+Her Grace was of somewhat stronger fibre than she of Devon; more
+masculinity, ay, even more principle, characterized her. Thrift was a
+visible virtue, in contrast to Georgiana's improvidence. Command,
+rather than cajolery, was her political method. Her later life was
+devoted to securing sons-in-law; three dukes, a marquis, and a knight
+were of her garnering. She was on good terms with the Regent, and
+endeavored to aid him in his differences with his Princess Caroline.
+She is remembered, too, as a patron and friend of Dr. Beattie, the
+poet, who has eulogized her in these lines "To a Pen":--
+
+   "Go, and be guided by the brightest eyes,
+   And to the softest hand thine aid impart;
+   To trace the fair ideas as they arise,
+   Warm from the purest, gentlest, noblest heart."
+
+The third in that group of goddesses was surely the fairest of them
+all, of more perfect form, more noble bearing, having that ultimate
+element of the greatest beauty,--distinction. She came of a longer
+lineage, and was the consummate flower of beauty wrought by the sun
+and summers through many generations of patrician life,--life amid the
+palatial parks, the superb scenery, and majestic castles of England.
+Such living weaves its sweetest elements into the tissues of the being
+and works a spell of loveliness such as Lady Mary Somerset. She was
+the youngest daughter of Charles, fourth Duke of Beaufort, a
+descendant of the Plantagenets. In 1775, she was married to Lord
+Charles Manners, eldest son (born in 1754) of John,--that Marquis of
+Granby whom Junius attacked, who was associated in the government, in
+George the Second's time, with the Earl of Chatham. The Marquis was a
+man of much force, and a most hospitable entertainer. He died before
+his father, the third Duke of Rutland.
+
+Lord Charles succeeded to the dukedom in 1779. He had formed a
+friendship at Cambridge with Pitt, the son of his father's colleague,
+and through his influence Pitt entered Parliament. In 1784, he was
+induced by the young premier to accept the Lord-Lieutenancy of
+Ireland, and it is with the lavish entertainment and high revelries at
+Dublin Castle that his name and that of his beautiful Duchess is
+connected.
+
+High living soon told its tale, for the Duke died in 1787, at the
+early age of thirty-three. Though having the most beautiful wife in
+England, his affections wandered, and tales are told of his attachment
+to that siren singer, Mrs. Billington. The Duchess's manner had
+somewhat of levity and much coquetry in it, though she could not be
+classed with that company who have not time to be virtuous. At the
+time of her lord's death, she was living with her mother, the Dowager
+Duchess of Beaufort, in Berkeley Square, London, having been partially
+estranged from her husband. On hearing of his illness, she started to
+set out for Dublin; but a message of his death came fast upon the
+trail of the first news. Perchance it was this estrangement at death,
+this having parted in anger without the chance of reconciliation in
+life, that affected her so deeply that, though sought by many suitors,
+the widow was true to the memory of her late lord. Her son, John
+Henry, succeeded to the title; and his bride, a daughter of the Earl
+of Carlisle, was also known as a beauty, and her portrait was painted
+by Hoppner, in 1798. It was she of whom Greville wrote in his Memoirs,
+and commented on her lack of taste in spoiling the magnificent Castle
+of Belvoir, the pride and glory of the Eastern Midlands.
+
+The beauty of the Duchess Mary Isabella was statuesque, classical; her
+features were noble. She received admiration as her right, but gave
+not largesse of smiles and wit in return. She was not as the Devonian
+divinity, "The woman in whose golden smile all life seems enchanted."
+
+Wraxall writes of a lady telling of witnessing a prenuptial display of
+her person, and being entranced by lithe limb, by the fine and
+faultless form. Reynolds has hinted at the beauteous body, and the
+hint ensnares us. Verily, "the visible fair form of a woman is
+hereditary queen of us." Wraxall also likens the Duchess to an
+older-time beauty, Diane de Poitiers,--that famous lady of France, the
+favorite of Francois I. and Henri II. Of that lady's beauty, it was
+written, that it was of the form and feature rather than the radiance
+of the mind and manner transforming them; and like her, too, our
+Duchess retained her beauty to an advanced age. She died in 1821. To
+the last, she impressed one with her dignity, her nobility, her
+loveliness.
+
+   "And they who saw her snow-white hair.
+   And dark, sad eyes, so deep with feeling,
+   Breathed all at once the chancel air,
+   And seemed to hear the organ pealing."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: LAVINIA COUNTESS SPENCER by REYNOLDS]
+
+
+LAVINIA
+
+
+In March, 1781, Walpole writes to a friend: "As your lordship has
+honored all the productions of my press with your acceptance, I
+venture to inclose the last, which I printed to oblige the Lucans.
+There are many beautiful and poetic expressions in it. A wedding, to
+be sure, is neither a new nor a promising subject, nor will outlast
+the favors; still, I think Mr. Jones's ode is uncommonly good for the
+occasion." The ode was "The Muse Recalled," and the occasion the
+nuptials of Lord Viscount Althorp and Miss Lavinia Bingham, eldest
+daughter of Sir Charles Bingham, created, in 1776, Baron Lucan of
+Castlebar. Sir Charles was a man of culture, who was intimate with
+Johnson, Goldsmith, Gibbon, Reynolds, and Burke. He is frequently
+pleasantly mentioned by Boswell. He had married, in 1760, Margaret,
+daughter of James Smith, M.P., a lady of great good sense and rare
+accomplishments, and three lovely daughters were the issue from this
+union. Reynolds found in them most pleasing subjects for his pencil.
+Their pictures appeared at the Academy, in 1786. Lavinia was portrayed
+as shown in the picture here given, and again in quite as lovely a
+fashion,--standing out doors and wearing a wide-brimmed hat which
+casts a broad shade across the face; the wavy curls of hair fall upon
+the shoulder; in the background is a landscape. The naivete of the
+face is exquisitely delightful. The old-time flavor of the whole
+causes one to recall Locker's lines on the picture of his
+grandmother:--
+
+   "Beneath a summer tree.
+   Her maiden reverie
+     Has a charm;
+   Her ringlets are in taste;
+   What an arm! ... what a waist
+     For an arm!"
+
+In the picture of her youngest sister, Anne, is a broad hat, too; she
+sits full-face, but in her features there is lacking just a little of
+the quiet dignity of the eldest. All of these portraits have been made
+familiar to us by the most meritorious mezzotints of them by Cousins.
+In Lavinia's face there lingers all the enchanting grace of
+girlhood,--a face yet full of that early beauty--
+
+   "Which, like the morning's glow
+   Hints a full day below."
+
+A later president of the Academy, Sir Martin Shee, has shown us that
+face in the noonday of its matronly beauty, and the gentle character
+and sweet sensibility yet outshine through the mask of the flesh as in
+the earlier pictures.
+
+Lady Bingham was careful of the education and company of her
+daughters. The girls were musical, and Lavinia excelled in painting as
+well. Walpole writes of her being in Italy, in 1785, with Mrs. Damer,
+his sculptor friend, and of her drawing with very great expression. He
+was not so complimentary of her music some years before, when he tells
+of being invited to Lady Lucan's to hear her daughters sing Jomelli's
+"Miserere," set for two voices: "It lasted for two hours, and instead
+of being pathetic was eminently dull, until at last I rejoiced when
+'_the two women had left the sepulchre_.'"
+
+Shortly after this he tells of rumors of the attachment of George
+John, Lord Althorp, brother of Georgiana of Devonshire, to "that sweet
+creature" Lavinia. At dinner at Lord Lucan's, Lord Althorp sat at a
+side table with the girls and a Miss Shipley. "Pray, Lady Spencer,"
+said Walpole, "is it owned that Lord Althorp is to marry--Miss
+Shipley?" His next reference to the Lucans is in regard to the wedding
+ode printed on the Strawberry Hill press. The poet therein invokes
+blessings in this wise:--
+
+   "Shine forth, ye silver eyes of night,
+   And gaze on virtues crowned with treasures of delight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+   "Flow smoothly, circling hours,--
+   And o'er their heads unblended pleasure pour;
+   Nor let your fleeting round
+   Their mortal transports bound,
+   But fill their cup of bliss, eternal powers,
+   Till time himself shall cease, and suns shall blaze no more."
+
+He essays to eulogize the bride:--
+
+   "Each morn reclined on many a rose,
+   Lavinia's pencil shall disclose
+   New forms of dignity and grace,
+   The expressive air, the impassioned face,
+   The curled smile, the bubbling tear,
+   The bloom of hope, the snow of fear,
+   To some poetic tale fresh beauty give,
+   And bid the starting tablet rise and live;
+   Or with swift fingers shall she touch the strings,
+   Notes of such wondrous texture weave
+   As lifts the soul on seraph wings."
+
+He then proceeds to encourage Althorp to lead a strong, noble life,
+devoting his great abilities to the state, though he laments the small
+chances for genuine sterling worth to achieve eminence.
+
+   "In this voluptuous, this abandoned age,"
+
+when the leaders of the country are
+
+   "Slaves of vice and slaves of gold."
+
+There was much fitness in this poet essaying a homily for the groom's
+benefit, for he had been the young man's tutor some years before. When
+the first Earl--a man of most fascinating manners--placed his son in
+the tutor's charge, he said, "Make him, if you can, like yourself and
+I shall be satisfied." Johnson said of Sir William Jones, "The most
+enlightened of the sons of men." He became a great Indian and Persian
+scholar, and was ever an honored friend of his former pupil.
+
+Previous to his marriage, Lord Althorp had entered Parliament, and, as
+a Whig, was opposing Lord North. When the Marquess of Rockingham came
+to power, he was made a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury. In 1783, he
+succeeded to his father's earldom. The Dowager Countess lived on until
+1814. Her character has been variously described. Mrs. Delany calls
+her "an agreeable person, with a sensible, generous, and delicate
+mind." She was termed vain. What woman would not be who was mother to
+such beauties as Devonshire, Duncannon, and Lavinia. In an
+autobiography by the third Earl, he naively remarks that his mother
+never liked his grandmother. The pleasing picture of "Ruth and Naomi"
+is the exception in families.
+
+On the breaking out of the French Revolution, Earl Spencer gave his
+support to Pitt, by whom he was appointed first lord of the admiralty,
+in 1794. It was during the period of her husband's brilliant career in
+this office that the Countess made her greatest success as a hostess
+in ministerial society. She was a good conversationalist, and
+especially attractive to men of individuality who admired her
+sagacious, picturesque pungency of expression. The great naval
+commanders, who frequented the admiralty, were impressed with the
+frankness and force of her superior mind, Nelson and Collingwood
+particularly. She is frequently mentioned in their letters as being
+sure to have much sympathy in their work. A late biographer of the
+Earl wrote: "She had the penetration to appreciate Nelson through the
+cloud of personal vanity and silly conceit which caused him to be
+lightly esteemed in London society." Her "bull-dog" she used playfully
+to call him. She visited Gibbon at Lausanne, in 1795, and he writes:
+"She is a charming woman who, with sense and spirit, has the
+playfulness and simplicity of a child." By some she was accounted
+haughty and exclusive. Perchance she was to those who were without the
+breeding or the brains to commend them to her. Dignified she certainly
+was, and her influence was wholly for good in the uplifting of
+politics and the purifying of society. "I would not advise any one to
+utter a word against any one she was attached to," once said her
+father. She became the wise coadjutor of her husband in forming the
+magnificent Althorp Library.
+
+When the earl retired from the admiralty, in 1800, his entertaining
+became less general. His hospitalities at Spencer House were
+restricted to his more intimate friends. Here came Lord Grenville,
+Earl Grey, chief of the Whigs, Brougham, Horner, and Lord John
+Russell; the younger men to hold converse with her who had known
+Burke, Pitt, Fox, and all the older time orators and statesmen.
+
+In a series of boyish letters sent by the heir to the earldom to his
+father the ending of all is in this quaint phrase: "My duty to Mama."
+The youth did his duty by his mother. She directed his tastes and
+studies, and when he was at college incited him to try for high
+honors, and urged, again and yet again, application to study; and
+through her persuasion he became a reading man. He entered Parliament
+when of age, in 1803. During the Fox and Grenville administration he
+held office as a lord of the treasury. When his mother was
+congratulated on his appointment, she said: "Jack was always skilful
+in figures, and his work is so much to his taste that I am sure he
+will do himself credit." He did himself great credit. His career was
+consistently courageous, honorable, and beneficent. He had character!
+This is his mother's best eulogy. She died in 1831, shortly after her
+son had become Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which office he earned
+his greatest repute as a statesman.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON by READ]
+
+
+ELIZABETH GUNNING
+
+
+The story of the Gunnings is as romantic as any ever wrought into
+imaginative narrative or incorporated in epic poem. The notorious
+damsels were daughters of John Gunning of Castle Coote, County
+Roscommon, Ireland, by the Hon. Bridget Bourke, daughter of Theobald,
+sixth Viscount Bourke of Mayo, whom he married in 1731. The family was
+wofully impecunious; so when the daughters, Maria and Elizabeth, grew
+into marvellously comely maidens, their mother urged their going on
+the stage to augment the faulty fortune. They went to Dublin, and
+there were kindly received by Peg Woffington, then in her glory as
+_Sir Harry Wildair_, and by Tom Sheridan, manager of Dublin Theatre.
+The stage had not then become the stepping-stone to the ranks of the
+nobility, so the girls were advised to adventure socially, with their
+faces for their fortunes. They had not the dresses to be presented in
+at Dublin Castle, but Sheridan supplied these from the resources of
+the green-room wardrobe. Attired as _Lady Macbeth_ and as _Juliet_
+they made their curtsies to the Earl of Harrington, the then
+Lord-Lieutenant.
+
+The hostess of the evening was the handsome Lady Caroline Petersham,
+bride of the Earl's eldest son. Lady Caroline had been one of the
+"Beauty Fitzroys," and had been a favorite belle in town before her
+marriage.
+
+   "When Fitzroy moves, resplendent, fair.
+   So warm her bloom, sublime her air,
+   Her ebon tresses formed to grace
+   And heighten while they shade her face."
+
+Walpole wrote of her in his poem on "The Beauties." The raw Connaught
+girls outshone this dazzling hostess.
+
+Their "first night" was an auspicious success. The debut was
+applauded, and the players praised. They were adjudged fitted to star
+the social capital, so to London they went, in June, 1751. Their
+reception was magical. The West End went almost mad over them. When
+they appeared at Court, the aristocracy present was indecorous in its
+efforts to view the dominant beauties. Lords and ladies clambered on
+any eminence to gaze. The crowd surged upon them, and it was with
+difficulty they entered their chairs because of the mob outside. The
+gayety of Vauxhall Gardens was incomplete without them.
+
+Their campaign was a short and eminently active one; Elizabeth
+triumphed first. At a masquerade at Lord Chesterfield's, in February,
+1752, James, the sixth Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, who was enamoured
+of the younger Irish girl, wished to marry her at once. A clergyman
+was asked to perform the ceremony then and there. He objected to the
+time and place and the absence of a ring. The Duke threatened to send
+for the Archbishop. With the ring of a bed-curtain, at half an hour
+past midnight, the wedding took place in Mayfair Chapel. The Scotch
+were enraged at the alliance, which became an unhappy one. The Duke
+was vulgar, debauched, extravagant, and "damaged in person and
+fortune," yet, withal, insolently proud. He betook himself off within
+six years, and his two sons by the Duchess became, successively,
+seventh and eighth Dukes of Hamilton; and a daughter married Edward,
+twelfth Earl of Derby.
+
+The dowager was less than a year in widow's weeds when she exchanged
+them for more strawberry leaves. She had two ducal offers, from their
+graces of Bridgewater and of Argyll; she accepted the latter. In
+March, 1759, she married John, the fifth Duke of that name. Walpole's
+comment on this was: "Who could have believed a Gunning would unite
+the two great houses of Campbell and Hamilton? For my part I expect to
+see Lady Coventry Queen of Prussia. I would not venture to marry
+either of them these thirty years, for fear of being shuffled out of
+the world prematurely, to make room for the rest of their adventurers.
+The first time Jack Campbell carries the Duchess into the Highlands, I
+am persuaded that some of his second-sighted subjects will see him in
+a winding-sheet with a train of kings behind him as long as those in
+Macbeth." And again: "A match that would not disgrace Arcadia ... as
+she is not quite so charming as her sister, I do not know whether it
+is not better than to retain a title which puts one in mind of her
+beauty."
+
+The Dukes of Argyll--Lords of the Isles--have always shown a
+partiality for beauties as brides. This Duke's father married the
+beautiful Mary Bellenden, daughter of John, Lord Bellenden,--
+
+     "Smiling Mary, soft and fair as down."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She is mentioned otherwise as by Gay:--
+
+   "Bellenden we needs must praise,
+   Who, as down the stairs she jumps,
+   Sings 'Over the hills and far away,'
+   Despising doleful dumps."
+
+Walpole says she was never mentioned by her contemporaries but as the
+_most perfect creature_ they had ever known. The present Duke wedded
+that charming child, Lady Elizabeth Leveson Gower, who sits on her
+mother's knee in that surpassingly fine picture by Lawrence, called
+"Lady Gower and Child." And his son is allied to the Princess Louise,
+the most comely of Victoria's daughters.
+
+After her sister's death, in 1760, her Grace of Argyll suffered a
+decline in health. She was ordered abroad for change. She was
+appointed to accompany the Princess Sophia Charlotte on her journey to
+England to be married to the King. As they neared the ceremony in
+London, the Princess became nervous. Her Grace essayed to quiet her
+fears. "Ah, my dear Duchess, _you_ may laugh at me, but _you_ have
+been married twice," said the Princess. The Duchess became one of the
+ladies of the bedchamber, and was in much favor with the Queen.
+
+In 1767, her father died at Somerset House, and her mother, the Hon.
+Mrs. Gunning, in 1770. There were three sisters in the family besides
+our heroines: Sophia Gunning died, an infant, in 1737; Lissy, who died
+in 1752, aged eight years; and Catherine, who was married, in 1769, to
+Robert Travis an Irish squire in her own rank of life. She died, too,
+at Somerset House, in 1773, where she was an upper housekeeper. A
+brother entered the army, fought at Bunker Hill, and became a
+major-general in 1787. He was much of a ladies' man. He married a Miss
+Minfie, author of some novels, and they had a daughter who aspired to
+repeat the successes of her famous aunts. She managed to marry the
+Hon. Stephen Digby, who had lost his first wife, a daughter of Lord
+Ilchester, in 1787. The Duchess of Argyll was created, in 1776, a
+peeress of England as Baroness Hamilton of Hambledon County,
+Leicester, and died in December, 1790. By her second marriage she had
+two sons, successively Dukes of Argyll, and two daughters, one of
+whom, Lady Charlotte Campbell, attained some fame as a novelist as
+Lady Charlotte Bury, she having married Colonel John Campbell and
+secondly Rev. Edward Bury.
+
+We have no evidence of the possession of bright Irish wit by the
+double-duchessed beauty. Ingenuous enthusiasm, perfect simplicity, and
+unfailing good humor ever marked her manner, and were a captivating
+adjunct to her great facial charm. Walpole writes of a pretty sight
+when their Graces of Hamilton and of Richmond with Lady Ailesbury
+sitting in a boat together, and proceeds to tell of the suspected
+jealousy by she of Hamilton of the beauty of his niece, daughter of
+Sir Edward Walpole, who became the bride of Earl Waldegrave, and later
+married the Duke of Gloucester, the King's youngest brother. At
+another time, when a lady wrote telling him of the advent of a beauty
+who was expected to outvie the Gunnings, he replies: "There was to
+have been a handsomer every summer these seven years, but when the
+seasons come they all seem to have been addled by the winter."
+
+One day the housekeeper of Hampton Court was showing the palace to
+visitors when the sisters were there. She threw open the door where
+they were sitting, saying, "This is our beauty-room." The pictures and
+galleries were forgotten by the crowd, which gazed on the beauties
+instead.
+
+For a decade their beauty was regnant in London. They were not
+politicians as were their Graces of Gordon and Devonshire, nor had
+they the ability to become such. Neither were they the associates of
+brilliant, intellectual men, but participants in the gay, vacuous,
+showy society of the rapid set of the aristocracy. The elder sister
+gained the coronet of Coventry, but her vanity caused her own undoing;
+the younger was a part of the exhibition of "Beauty and the Beast." A
+high price was paid for her position by the endurance of a period of
+tyranny and terror.
+
+Some praise must be accorded the beauties, for at a time of much
+licentiousness of a profligate society and tolerated coarsenesses, the
+sisters determinedly kept their names free from ignoble soil and
+scandal.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MARIA COUNTESS OF COVENTRY by HAMILTON]
+
+
+MARIA GUNNING
+
+
+"Two Irish girls of no fortune, who make more noise than any of their
+predecessors since the days of Helen, and who are declared the
+handsomest women alive." So wrote Walpole, in June, 1751. If we were
+to judge of their beauty by the pictured presentments of it, we would
+certainly agree with "our Horace" when he says he has seen much
+handsomer women than either. We have no adequate image of their
+surpassing loveliness, the beholding of which would cause us to feel
+how merited was their meed of praise, how fair the contemporary
+comment on their comeliness, and how just the wide fame of a beauty
+which tradition has epitomized for us in the phrase, "The Fair
+Gunnings." Though the print publishers of the time actively issued
+portraits, we feel that none of them picture such a person as would
+set society and the whole city of London astir by her blazing beauty.
+
+The best-known likenesses are the various pictures by Francis Cotes,
+one of the founders of the Royal Academy, a painter of considerable
+merit, who was born about 1725, and died in 1770. It is said that
+Hogarth preferred him as a portrait painter to Reynolds. His studio
+was in Cavendish Square, and at his death was taken by Romney; and it
+was while he worked there that Sir Joshua referred to his rival as
+"the man in Cavendish Square." The studio was later occupied by Sir
+Martin Shee.
+
+Cotes's picture of Maria is a half length of a modestly dignified
+lady, having no tendency at all to that silliness that Walpole
+insinuates was characteristic of her. The face is oval, the eyebrows
+well apart and distinctly arched, and the hair brushed back from the
+forehead and falling on the very graceful neck. The dress is cut low,
+showing a delicately-moulded bosom. This picture was mezzo-tinted by
+McArdell; and there is another, somewhat similar, reproduced superbly
+by Spooner. His principal picture of Elizabeth is not so attractive
+as the picture of her sister; the body is too constrained and
+symmetrically formal; the dress is very low and edged with lace, some
+flowers resting on her bosom. The neck and breast have not the suave
+grace of the sister's. This has been engraved in mezzo-tint by
+Houston. Another portrait by Cotes shows her with fur on the dress. He
+also painted a portrait of Kitty in a low dress sprigged with flowers,
+with a sash, and ribbons at the back of the head. This has a wooded
+landscape background. Below the print of this picture is engraved
+these lines:--
+
+   "This youngest of the Graces here we view
+   So like in Beauty to the other two
+   Whoe'er compares their Features and their Frame
+   Will know at once that Gunning is her name."
+
+There is an engraved picture of the two sisters together--based on
+Cotes's portrayals--called "The Hibernian Sisters." Maria is sitting
+on the left, looking toward the right, with a dog on her lap; the
+younger is on the right, looking to the front, and holds a fan in her
+hand. In the background is a garden wall. Cupids surmount the
+picture. The inscription is in this fashion:--
+
+   "Hibernia long with spleen beheld
+   Her Favorite Toasts by ours excelled.
+   Resolved to outvie Britannia's Fair
+   By her own Beauties,--sent a pair."
+
+Reynolds painted them both, in 1753; but he failed to give them the
+charm we would expect. Unless Sir Joshua's engravers belie him, he did
+not make Maria even ordinarily fair to look upon. These pictures are
+not classed among his masterpieces. There is a picture of Maria by B.
+Wilson the engraver, made before she left Ireland. In it the features
+are handsome and the figure graceful, though over-dressed, and the
+whole impression is of a matron in her thirties rather than a maid in
+her teens. The picture we give of her is from a whole-length by Gavin
+Hamilton, a Scotch artist, a friend of Burns, born in Lanark about
+1730. He must have been a precocious genius, for this picture was
+engraved by McArdell, and published in 1754. Hamilton passed the
+greater part of his life in Rome, painting classical subjects and
+pursuing archaeological investigations. He died there, in 1797.
+Portraiture was probably a pecuniary pursuit before the classics
+claimed him. His portraits savor somewhat of the affectations of the
+"curtain and column" school. His canvas of Elizabeth shows her
+standing on a terrace with a low dress and long hair, a veil loosely
+tied across her chest. Her left hand rests on the head of a greyhound.
+There is a seat to the left and trees in the background.
+
+Houston engraved a portrait of Maria after a drawing by J. St.
+Liotard. This is a three-quarter length figure. Her hair is in large
+plaits twined with a muslin veil on her head. The dress is open at the
+throat, showing a necklace. There is a wide belt with large clasps.
+Her left elbow rests on her knee. Perhaps the most satisfactory
+pictures of the Beauties are those by Catharine Read, who died, in
+1786; and who is chiefly known by her winsome delineations of the
+graces of the Gunning girls. We could readily judge from these that
+the girls were attractive. There is a genial graciousness in the face
+of she of Coventry, while the Scotch duchess is possessed of a
+persuasive sweetness of mien. The mob-cap frames a face almost
+faultless in the regularity of its features. For all the pleasant
+flavor of these facial charms, there is absent that peerless, regal
+loveliness, that compelling magnificence of presence, that hauteur
+which dazzles and enthrals.
+
+The originals of these various portraits have been retained at Croome
+Court, near Worcester; the seat of the Coventry family, at Inverary
+Castle, Argyllshire; and at Hamilton Palace.
+
+Three weeks after the romantic marriage of her younger sister, Maria
+Gunning was married to George William, who was Lord Deerhurst--"that
+grave young Lord," Walpole calls him--until 1750, when he succeeded to
+the Earldom of Coventry. He had been dangling about her for some time,
+and seemed nerved to the wedding by his Grace of Hamilton's
+precipitate action. The Earl took her for a trip on the Continent in
+company with Lady Caroline Petersham, that other great beauty. Neither
+caused much comment abroad, and Paris did not ratify the repute of
+London. My Lady was at a disadvantage from her ignorance of the French
+language. She complained, too, of the arbitrary rule of her husband in
+not allowing her red nor powder, so much in vogue with the Parisian
+beauties. It is told how he saw her appear at a dinner with some on,
+and took out his handkerchief, and there tried to rub it off. But her
+fame abated not in England. Crowds continued to mob her whenever she
+appeared on the street. The King was pleased to order that whenever my
+Lady Coventry walked abroad she should be attended by a guard of
+soldiers. Shortly after this she simulated great fright at the
+curiosity of the mob, and asked for escort. She then paraded in the
+park, accompanied by her husband and Lord Pembroke, preceded by two
+sergeants, and followed by twelve soldiers. Surely this outdoes the
+advertising genius of any latter-day American actress! A shoemaker at
+Worcester gained two guineas and a half by exhibiting at a penny a
+head a shoe he had made for the Countess. She was in much favor at
+Court, and always circulated in an atmosphere of adulation and
+sensation. The Duke of Cumberland was an admirer, as was also, more
+emphatically, Fred St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke,--"Billy and Bully"
+these two blades were termed. There was rumor, at one time, of the
+Earl seriously resenting the attentions of Bolingbroke. The old King,
+too, showed her some courtesies; and the most oft-told anecdote of her
+is about His Majesty asking if she were not sorry the masquerades were
+over. She assured him she was surfeited with pageants,--there was but
+one she wished yet to see, and that was a coronation. She saw it not,
+for the King outlived her by a fortnight. Had she but abstained from
+the use of paint and powder, her career would not have ended at the
+early age of twenty-seven. Blood-poisoning came from the use of it.
+Her beauty paled rapidly. My lady lay on a couch, a pocket-glass
+constantly in hand, grieving at the gradual decay. The room was
+darkened, that others might not discern that which so chagrined her.
+Then the curtains of the bed were drawn to guard her from pitying
+gaze; and then, on a September day, in 1760, the pathetic end came.
+Over ten thousand people viewed her coffin. Sensationalism even after
+the drop of the curtain! The Countess left four children, two sons and
+two daughters. Of these, Anne, four years old at her mother's death,
+was one of the children whom George Selwyn showed much kindness to.
+The Earl married again, the second Countess being Barbara, daughter of
+Lord St. John of Bletsoe. George William, the son of Maria, came to
+the earldom in 1809.
+
+In an ode on the death of Maria the poet Mason wrote:--
+
+   "For she was fair beyond your brightest bloom
+     (This Envy owns, since now her bloom is fled):
+   Fair as the Forms that wove in Fancy's loom,
+     Float in light vision round the Poet's head.
+   Whene'er with soft serenity she smiled,
+     Or caught the orient blush of quick surprise,
+   How sweetly mutable, how brightly wild.
+     The liquid lustre darted from her eyes!
+   Each look, each motion, waked a new-born grace
+     That o'er her form its transient glory cast:
+   Some lovelier wonder soon usurped the place,
+     Chased by a charm still lovelier than the last."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ELIZABETH COUNTESS GROSVENOR by LAWRENCE]
+
+
+LADY ELIZABETH
+
+
+In these latter days can we imagine a lawsuit, costing contestants
+thousands of pounds, over the right to a certain heraldic charge? In
+the fourteenth century Sir Robert Grosvenor was the defendant in such
+a suit, and we read of Chaucer, John of Gaunt, Owen Glendower, and
+Hotspur being witnesses before the High Court of Chivalry. Sir Robert
+established his defence, and since those days the Grosvenors have ever
+held a high rank in the nobility of England. Quite as proud a
+patrician position was held through the centuries by the family of
+Gower. In the early part of this century, the heir of the Grosvenors
+espoused the most beautiful daughter of the House of Gower,--Lady
+Elizabeth Mary Leveson Gower. This lady was the youngest daughter of
+George, the second Marquis of Stafford, who married, in 1785,
+Elizabeth, who was Countess of Sutherland and Baroness Strathnaver in
+her own right. The Marquis was created Duke of Sutherland in 1833.
+
+The Lady Elizabeth Mary was born in 1797, and married, in 1819,
+Robert, Viscount Belgrave, eldest son of the second Earl of Grosvenor.
+The portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence was painted in the year preceding
+her marriage.
+
+The Marquisate of Westminster had been created in 1831, and in 1845,
+when the Viscount's father died, he succeeded to the title. He had
+entered Parliament in 1818 as member for Chester. He spoke but rarely
+in the House, although a hard worker on committees. He greatly
+improved his vast London property, and had the credit of administering
+his estate with a combination of intelligence and generosity seldom
+seen. Of reserved habits and inexpensive tastes, he was averse to
+ostentation and extravagance. He died in 1869. His successor was his
+son (born in 1825) the present Duke, who was elevated to a dukedom in
+1874. He is one of the wealthiest peers in the kingdom, is a man of
+great taste, and has patronized the arts with almost a Medician
+munificence.
+
+The seat of the family is the renowned Eaton Hall, near Chester; that
+stately mansion set in the centre of a country rich in pastoral
+beauty. Its enlargement and beautification was begun by the second
+Earl in 1802, and has been carried on by its present lord until it is
+now the most magnificent of all the modern mansions of the nobility.
+G.F. Watts's heroic equestrian statue of Hugh Lupus, the founder of
+the family and a nephew of William the Conqueror, challenges
+admiration as one enters the grounds. There is no great picture
+gallery in the Hall, for that is at Grosvenor House in London, but the
+family portraits are here. Let into panels of the dining-room are
+portraits from the time of the first Earl, who was painted by
+Gainsborough. The Viscount Belgrave and his lady were painted by
+Pickersgill, in 1825,--this picture of the latter being much inferior
+to Lawrence's,--while the present generation was painted almost wholly
+by Millais,--that of Constance, the Duke's first wife, being
+especially fine. Leslie, in 1833, executed a group of the Grosvenor
+family.
+
+Lawrence and Hoppner were to the regency what Reynolds, Gainsborough,
+and Romney were to the early days of the reign of George III., as
+painters of the patrician beauties. What a marvellous mass of records
+of fair women these five have left us!--Reynolds, supreme in style,
+painting the character as seen through the fair mask of the flesh;
+Gainsborough, superbly picturesque, and a faithful limner withal;
+Romney, impressively picturesque, too, a fine colorist, imaginative,
+and but now, a century later, coming into his proper meed of praise;
+Lawrence, elegant, charming,--a courtier indeed; Hoppner, through many
+years a close rival of Lawrence. To Hoppner we are indebted for the
+visible evidence of the beauty of many who had repute as fair women.
+There is that piquant Jane Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford, who greets
+us in the National Gallery. Then that dark-eyed and winsome Lady
+Kenyon, who was one of the reigning belles, on canvas, at the Grafton
+Gallery show in London this year. In this exhibit, too, was his
+"Mademoiselle Hillsberg,"--a tall and dark dancing woman, which he
+regarded as his best work. Then there is that group of noble dames by
+him, which were engraved by Charles Wilkin and published under the
+title "Bygone Beauties,"--Lady Charlotte Duncombe; Viscountess St.
+Asaph; Lady Charlotte Campbell, daughter of Elizabeth Gunning;
+Viscountess Andover; Lady Langham; the Countess of Euston, one of the
+three beautiful Ladies Waldegrave, painted by Reynolds; the Duchess of
+Rutland. These are indeed "a select series of ladies of rank and
+fashion." And with these must be classed that sweet ideal face of Mrs,
+Arbuthnot, known as "Marcia." At this late date it gives us greeting
+from how many a parlor wall! Its tender charm makes perpetual appeal
+to the passer-by from how many a print-shop window!
+
+There seems to have been bitter feeling between Hoppner, who was an
+intense Whig, and Lawrence, who knew no politics, but was all things
+to all men. "The ladies of Lawrence show a gaudy dissoluteness of
+taste, and sometimes trespass on moral as well as professional
+chastity," and "Lawrence shall paint my mistress and Phillips my
+wife," were the two rapier phrases Hoppner thrust at his rival. But it
+is recorded that thenceforth Lawrence's commissions from fair sitters
+multiplied.
+
+Sir Thomas was a finished flatterer. No man ever knew better, except
+it was Lely, how to pay the compliment of the brush. This form is the
+substantial, the lasting compliment for which golden guineas are
+gladly paid. Grace and elegance are the hall-mark of his every
+picture. But the artist was a courtier in speech and manners as well,
+and this got him into trouble once. He was attentive to the ill-used
+Princess Caroline,--markedly attentive! A royal commission inquired
+into his conduct, but absolved him from the charges of wrongdoing.
+When Lady Grosvenor, who had become Marchioness of Westminster, was an
+old lady, in 1881, she wrote in a letter to Lord Leveson Gower her
+recollections of the painter: "His manners were what is called
+extremely 'polished' (not the fault of the present times). He wore a
+large cravat, and had a tinge about him of the time of George IV.,
+pervading his general demeanor.... I should not say he was amusing,
+but what struck me most, during my two hours sitting in Russell
+Square, was the perfection of the drawing of his portraits. Before any
+color was put on, the drawing itself was so perfectly beautiful that
+it seemed almost a sin to add any color." This portrait of her, which
+was painted at this one sitting, is considered the very best Lawrence
+ever painted. The head has distinction and hauteur, albeit the face is
+sweetly ingenuous. And the eyes! Well, Sir Thomas always excelled
+here! Never, since Titian, has painter given us such "strange sweet
+maddening eyes,"--
+
+   "Fathomless dusk by night, the day lets in
+   Glimmer of emerald,--thus those eyes of hers!"
+
+This picture now hangs in the gallery of Stafford House, and was
+mezzotinted by Cousins, in 1844, and included in the published
+collection of the artist's works. This volume is representative of the
+artist. It opens with that perennially delightful picture of the
+"Calmady Children," called "Nature,"--one of the very best and
+sweetest representations of child life ever made. Here is the
+elemental artlessness of nature, and here the beatitude of innocence.
+Another child-picture is the portrait of Lady Emily Cowper, afterwards
+Lady Ashley, called "The Rosebud." Among the ladies shown are Lady
+Leicester, Lady Lyndhurst, and Lady Georgiana Agar Ellis, the picture
+of the latter being surpassing in its elegance. That majestically
+maternal picture is here of Lady Gower and Lady Elizabeth Leveson
+Gower,--not our Elizabeth Mary, but she who became Duchess of Argyll.
+
+The Countess of Grosvenor was a lady of high character and most
+affable manners, and held her exalted position with a dignity of
+demeanor and a bearing worthy of a descent from the noble Gowers,
+lords of Sittenham. Her residence latterly was Motcombe House, near
+Shaftesbury, Dorsetshire. She lived on until our own day, dying at the
+age of ninety-four.
+
+In 1840-41 she accompanied her husband on a yacht voyage in the
+Mediterranean, an entertaining account of which she published in two
+volumes. She was a keen politician, as so many ladies of rank are in
+England. In 1873 Lady Westminster's son, then Lord Robert Grosvenor,
+spoke in favor of the Liberal candidate for Shaftesbury. The candidate
+told her tenants that he believed her ladyship was not averse to his
+candidature. It was putting his fingers into the den of the apparently
+sleeping lioness. She wrote sharply: "I beg to undeceive you. I am
+most anxious for the success of the conservative cause, connected as
+it is with the preservation of our religion and our loyalty to our
+Queen."
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME OLD TIME BEAUTIES***
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