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and consented to a separation for a consideration of £1200 a-year. All the wits and poets of the day-Swift, Pope, Gay, Lord Peterborough, and otherspaid court to Mrs. Howard; poor Gay always trusting to her influence for some easy sinecure appointment, in which he was doomed to disappointment. In 1731, on Mr. Howard succeeding to the earldom of Suffolk, the new countess became mistress of the robes, and three years afterwards she retired from Court. Her health had always been precarious, and she laboured under the infirmity of deafness, but the principal cause of her retirement was that she had entirely lost the royal favour. The Queen wished to retain her, fearing a more formidable successor, and George complained that she "would not let him part with a deaf old woman that he was weary of." It is scarcely possible to conceive anything more gross than the morals and manners of the

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English Court during the time of the two first Georges, as detailed by Walpole and Lord Hervey. Every department was affected; and among the maids of honour, as among the wits and divines, Mrs. Howard was looked upon as a model of propriety. Lord Hervey says that Mrs. Howard had £2000 a-year from the King while he was prince, and £3200 after his accession to the throne, "besides several little dabs of money both before and after he came to the crown." The final "dab" was £12,000 towards the completion of the villa of Marble-hill near Twickenham. "Lords Burlington and Pembroke designed the house; Lord Bathurst and Pope laid out the gardens; and Gay, Swift, and Arbuthnot constituted themselves superintendents of the household." Was ever villa so honoured before? In 1785 (having lost her uncongenial husband, Lord Suffolk, in 1733), "Chloe" married George Berkeley. She had then arrived at the age of forty-seven. They lived together

eleven years; and after Mr. Berkeley's decease, in 1746, she survived twentyone years, gratifying her neighbour, Horace Walpole, with Court anecdotes long after all the actors in them had passed away. "Lady Suffolk," says Walpole, "was of a just height, well made, extremely fair, with the finest light brown hair, was remarkably genteel, and always well dressed, with taste and simplicity. Those were her personal charms, for her face was regular and agreeable rather than beautiful; and those charms she retained, with little diminution, to her death, at the age of seventy-nine," July, 1767.

DUCHESS OF QUEENSBERRY.

Ver. 193. If Queensberry to strip there's no compelling,
'Tis from a handmaid we must take a Helen.

The celebrated Catherine Hyde, grand-daughter of the great Clarendon, and wife of Charles Douglas, third Duke of Queensberry. Prior, Swift, Pope, and Gay have all chanted the praises of "Kitty, beautiful and young, and wild as colt untamed." Prior makes her before her marriage spurn the restraints which "wise mamma ordained," and envy the freedom of her sister, Lady Jenny :

"What has she better, pray, than I?

What hidden charms to boast,

That all mankind for her should die,
Whilst I am scarce a toast?"

The second of these lines probably suggested the not very delicate compliment conveyed in Pope's couplet. The Duchess's extraordinary friendship for Gay is well known. He was the inmate of the ducal mansion for years, and, in order to promote his services, his fair patroness sacrificed even the favour of the Court. Lord Hervey has described this fracas in a style very characteristic:

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Among the remarkable occurrences of this winter [1729], I cannot help relating that of the Duchess of Queensberry being forbid the Court, and the occasion of it. One Gay, a poet, had written a ballad opera, which was thought to reflect a little upon the Court, and a good deal upon the minister. It was called The Beggar's Opera, and had a prodigious run, and was so extremely pretty in its kind, that even those who were most glanced at in the satire had prudence enough to disguise their resentment, by chiming in with the universal applause with which it was performed. Gay, who had attached himself to Mrs. Howard (then one of the ladies of the bedchamber to Queen Caroline), and been disappointed of preferment at Court, finding this couched satire upon those to whom he imputed his disappointment, succeed so well, wrote a second part to this opera, less pretty, but more abusive, and so little disguised, that Sir Robert Walpole resolved, rather than suffer himself to be produced for thirty nights together upon the stage, in the person of a highwayman, to make use of his friend, the Duke of Grafton's authority, as Lord Chamberlain, to put a stop to the representation of it. Accordingly, this theatrical Craftsman was prohibited at every playhouse.

Gay, irritated at this bar thrown in the way both of his interest and revenge, zested this work with some supplemental invectives, and resolved to print it by subscription. The Duchess of Queensberry set herself at the head of this undertaking, and solicited every mortal that came in her way, or in whose way she could put herself, to subscribe. To a woman of her quality, prover. bially beautiful, and at the top of the polite and fashionable world, people were ashamed to refuse a guinea, though they were afraid to give it. Her solicitations were so universal, and so pressing, that she came even into the Queen's apartment, went round the drawing-room, and made even the King's servants contribute to the printing of a thing which the King had forbid being acted. The King, when he came into the drawing-room, seeing her Grace very busy in a corner with three or four men, asked her what she had been doing. She answered, "What must be agreeable, she was sure, to anybody so humane as his Majesty, for it was an act of charity, and a charity to which she did not despair of bringing his Majesty to contribute." Enough was said for each to understand the other, and though the King did not then (as the Duchess of Queensberry reported) appear at all angry, yet this proceeding of her Grace's, when talked over in private between his Majesty and the Queen, was so resented, that Mr. Stanhope, then Vice-Chamberlain to the King, was sent in form to the Duchess of Queensberry, to desire her to forbear coming to Court. His message was verbal. Her answer, for fear of mistakes, she desired to send in writing, wrote it on the spot, and this is the literal copy :

'Feb. 27, 1728-9.

'That the Duchess of Queensberry is surprised and well pleased that the King hath given her so agreeable a command as to stay from Court, where she never came for diversion, but to bestow a great civility on the King and Queen she hopes by such an unprecedented order as this is, that the King will see as few as he wishes at his Court, particularly such as dare to think or speak truth. I dare not do otherwise, and ought not, nor could have imagined that it would not have been the very highest compliment that I could possibly pay the King, to endeavour to support truth and innocence in his house, particularly when the King and Queen both told me that they had not read Mr. Gay's play. I have certainly done right, then, to stand by my own words rather than his Grace of Grafton's, who hath neither made use of truth, judgment, nor honour, through this whole affair, either for himself or his friends. C. QUEENSBERRY.'

"When her Grace had finished this paper, drawn with more spirit than accuracy, she gave it to Mr. Stanhope, who desired her to think again, asked pardon for being so impertinent as to offer her any advice, but begged she would give him leave to carry an answer less rough than that she had put into his hands. Upon this she wrote another, but so much more disrespectful, that he desired the first again, and delivered it. Most people blamed the Court upon this occasion. What the Duchess of Queensberry did was certainly impertinent; but the manner of resenting it was thought impolitic. The Duke of Queensberry laid down his employment of Admiral of Scotland

upon it, though very much and very kindly pressed by the King to remain in his service." 6

Truly Kitty had realised the poet's prediction. She had

"Obtained the chariot for a day,

And set the world on fire!"

For "Johnny Gay" the rupture was the most fortunate thing that could have happened. His subscription list swelled up instantly. Old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, sent a hundred pounds for one copy; others contributed handsomely; and the City of London, and the people of England, took the part of the poet. "For writing in the cause of virtue, and against the fashionable vices," said Gay, "I am looked upon as the most obnoxious person almost in England!" And all this about "Polly," a dramatic piece which contains neither virtue, satire, wit, nor poetry! In fact, it is about the most vapid and tiresome of all Gay's productions. Arbuthnot, in a letter to Swift, ridicules the Gay combustion in his own happy and inimitable grave style. "The inoffensive John Gay," he says, "is now become one of the obstructions to the peace of Europe. He has got several turned out of their places'; the greatest ornament of the Court banished from it for his sake; another great lady [Mrs. Howard] in danger of being chassée likewise; about seven or eight duchesses pushing forward, like the ancient circumcelliones in the Church, who shall suffer martyrdom on his account first. He is the darling of the City. If he should travel about the country, he would have hecatombs of roasted oxen sacrificed to him. Since he became so conspicuous Will Pulteney hangs his head, to see himself so much outdone in the career of glory. I hope he will get a good deal of money by printing his play; but I really believe he would get more by showing his person: and I can assure you, this is the identical John Gay, whom you formerly knew, and lodged with in Whitehall two years ago."

The important and kind-hearted John Gay, of course overflowed with gratitude to the Duchess, to whom he said he owed his life and fortune. He begged Swift to think of her with respect, and in particular never more to despise a fork with three prongs, or to eat from the point of his knife! In this matter the Duchess was peculiarly touchy and sensitive, usually screaming out when she saw her guests lift food with a knife, and begging them not to cut their throats. Swift urged the best excuse for this solecism at table. In all poor houses, especially those of poets, the forks are only bidential, "upon which account a knife was absolutely necessary at Mr. Pope's, where it was morally impossible with a bidential fork to convey a morsel of beef, with the incumbrance of mustard and turnips, into your mouth at once."

Exactly eighteen years after penning her Court disclaimer, the Duchess of Queensberry found her way back to Court. Her eccentricities increased; she continued to wear the same style of dress that she had worn in her youth-would sometimes affect the peasant costume, with apron in front, and pincushion dangling outside from her waist-and was more often laughed at than admired. In truth, her eccentricities, though relieved or veiled by

6 Memoirs of the Reign of George II., by John Lord Hervey.

beauty, and by lively powers of conversation, were always tinged with insanity. She had when a girl been under restraint for outbreaks of this kind, and her son, Lord Drumlanrig, after exhibiting unequivocal proofs of mental alienation, committed suicide. The Duchess died in 1777, and the good Duke her husband, the year afterwards.

DR. STEPHEN HALES.

Ver. 198. From honest Mahomet, or plain Parson Hale.] Mahomet was servant to George I., and was said to be the son of a Turkish bassa, whom the King took at the siege of Buda.

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"Plain Parson Hale" (whose name has been deprived of a letter by the inexorable laws of rhyme) was Dr. Stephen Hales, Rector of Teddington, near Twickenham, and one of the witnesses to Pope's will. Dr. Hales was Clerk of the Closet to the Princess of Wales. He refused further Church preferment, that he might devote himself to those studies in experimental philosophy, to which he was so strongly attached. He was author of two scientific works, Vegetable Statics, and Statical Essays; and, among his numerous discoveries and inventions, was one of national importance-a ventilator for clearing ships and prisons of foul air. Dr. Hales seems to have been a simple benevolent man, delighting in his quiet village and pastoral duties. He rebuilt the tower of Teddington Church, and at a ripe old age he was interred beside it, dying in 1761, in his eighty-fourth year. Pope had a sincere regard for his amiable and scientific neighbour, but, according to

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