Note 96 — Chapter VII

Elizabeth Gunning, sister of the celebrated Countess of Coventry, had first married the Duke of Hamilton, and afterwards John Campbell, Marquis of Lorn, eldest son of John Duke of Argyle, whom he succeeded in the title, and thus became mother of the two heirs of the great rival houses of Hamilton and Argyle. She was Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte, and had gone to fetch her from Mecklenburg, with the Duchess of Ancaster, Mistress of the Robes. Her eldest son, Duke Hamilton, died before he was of age. Lord Douglas Hamilton, his brother, succeeded him. The Duchess Elizabeth, as guardian of her sons, carried on the famous law-suit against Mr. Douglas for the succession of his (supposed) uncle, the Duke of Douglas, of which more will be said hereafter. By Duke Hamilton she had one daughter, Lady Elizabeth, afterwards married to the Earl of Derby. By Lord Lorn she had two sons, the eldest of which died an infant, and two daughters. In her widowhood she had refused the hand of the Duke of Bridgwater. She was entirely governed by the artful Lady Susan Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Galloway, afterwards Countess Gower, on whose account she much offended the Queen, as will be said hereafter; but recovering her favour, was created an English Baroness, for the benefit of her eldest son, Duke Hamilton. It is very remarkable that this great lady and her sister, Lady Coventry, had been originally so poor, that they had thoughts of being actresses; and when they were first presented to the Earl of Harrington, the Lord-Lieutenant, at the Castle of Dublin, Mrs. Woffington, the actress, lent clothes to them. They no sooner appeared in England than their beauty drew crowds after them wherever they went. Duke Hamilton married the second in such haste, that, having no ring ready, they made use of one from the bed-curtain. The Duchess was more delicate than her sister, with the most beautiful hands and arms in the world; but Lady Coventry was still handsomer, had infinite life and vivacity, the finest eyes in the world, nose, and mouth, excepting that both had bad teeth. Lady Coventry danced like a nymph, and was too kind a one. The Duchess always preserved her character. Lady Coventry died young, of a consumption. Till within a few days of her death she lay on a couch with a looking-glass in her hand. When she found her beauty, which she idolized, was quite gone, she took to her bed, and would be seen by nobody—not even by her nurse, suffering only the light of a lamp in her room. She then took leave of her husband, who had forgiven her errors, and died with the utmost resignation. It was in October. I had dined with her in the foregoing June, with my niece, the beautiful Lady Waldegrave, then just married, since Duchess of Gloucester. They stood in the window in the full sun, and though Lady Coventry was wasted and faded, and Lady Waldegrave in all her glow of beauty, in spite of my partiality to my niece, I could not but own to myself that Lady Coventry was still superior. It was a less triumph, as Lord Pembroke was so fickle, that Lady Coventry gave great uneasiness to his lovely wife, Lady Elizabeth Spencer, who, in the Madonna style, was divinely beautiful. As the Gunnings made so much noise, it may be excused in a note if I mention another anecdote. Soon after Lady Coventry was married, I was at an assembly at Bedford House, and drew together, her, the charming Lady Emily Lenox, then Marchioness of Kildare, and since Duchess of Leinster, and Mrs. Penelope Pitt, since Lady Rivers (the two last celebrated in my poem of “The Beauties;”) I said I wanted to decide which was the handsomest. They said I should declare. I replied, that was hard, but since they insisted, I would—and “I give it,” added I, “to Lady Kildare, because she does what you both try to do—blush.” These trifling anecdotes may at least be as amusing us the more serious follies committed by and about Wilkes.