Part 3

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."

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."

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.

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.