SOME OLD TIME BEAUTIES MARGUERITE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON LAWRENCE 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 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 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." MARY ISABELLA REYNOLDS 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." LAVINIA COUNTESS SPENCER REYNOLDS 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. ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON READ 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. MARIA COUNTESS OF COVENTRY HAMILTON "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."