Note 6 — Chapter I · “Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life.”—Psalm xxiii. 6.

So many misstatements have been unscrupulously published concerning these beauties, that I may be forgiven for quoting a few paragraphs from an excellent article on “The beautiful Misses Gunning,” which appeared in the Cornhill Magazine for 1867.

“The Gunnings were a branch of an old English family, which had settled in Ireland in the reign of James I., their estate being Castle Coote, in Roscommon.

“In 1731, Mr. Gunning married the Honourable Bridget Bourke, daughter of Lord Mayo—‘a lady of most elegant figure.’ In the two following years were born their daughters Maria and Elizabeth. At this time they were living at Hemingford Gray, in Huntingdonshire, but on the death of Mr. Gunning’s father, the family was transplanted to the wilds of Connaught, where two other beautiful daughters and a son were born. One of these daughters died as a child. Kitty married Mr. Travers in Ireland. The son distinguished himself in the American war, and became a General and K.C.B.

“In 1748, the family removed to Dublin, and (at the ages of fifteen and sixteen) the beauties appeared at the Vice-Regal Court, Lord Harrington being Lord Lieutenant.

“In 1750, they removed to London, and were presented at Court. Thenceforward they carried society by storm. Horace Walpole declared of ‘those goddesses’ that ‘they make more noise than any of their predecessors since the days of Helen of Troy.’ They could not walk in the parks on account of the crowds that surrounded them in sheer admiration. When travelling through the country, crowds lined the roads to gaze at them, and hundreds of people stayed up all night round the inns where they halted, on the chance of getting a peep at them in the morning. Imagine a shoemaker realising three guineas in one day by the exhibition, at a penny a head, of one of their shoes!

“In February 1752, Elizabeth married the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon. When she next appeared at Court, the excitement was so great that the highest ladies in the land climbed on chairs and tables to look at her. Her marriage with this proud but dissipated duke was not very happy. He died in 1758.

“At five-and-twenty she was handsomer than ever. The Duke of Bridgewater was among her suitors, and it was after her refusal that he devoted himself to the making of the Bridgewater Canal and other useful public works.

“In March 1759, she married Lord John Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyll. After her second marriage she almost entirely disappeared from the fashionable world.

“In 1760, she was created Baroness Hamilton of Hambeldon, in Leicestershire. She was then in attendance upon Queen Charlotte. She died in 1790, aged fifty-seven.”