Note 229 — INDEX TO VOL. I.
Reading edition
Lady Fanny Shirley, the aunt of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, had a house at Twickenham, very near the residence of Pope. Lady Fanny was a reigning beauty of the Court of George I. Pope’s lines—
“Yes I beheld th’ Athenian Queen Descend, in all her sober charms,”
were addressed to her in return for “a standish and two pens.” Lord Chesterfield’s verses, commencing
“So the first man from Paradise was driven,”
were also written in celebration of Lady Fanny Shirley. To her were addressed Hervey’s “Theron and Aspasia,” and his observations on Bolingbroke’s “Use and Study of History.” Here it was that Lady Huntingdon became intimate with the celebrated men of the day. The house, which was left by Lady Fanny to her brother, the Hon. G. Shirley, of Eatington Park, Warwickshire, is now one of the residences of the present representative of that branch of the Shirley family, Evelyn John Shirley, Esq., M.P. for South Warwickshire.