It is rather curious that one of my informants in this article should have dined with a lady who had dined with a peeress married in the year 1662.

This peeress was Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, the wife of the unfortunate son of Charles II. As is well known, she was early deserted by her husband, who represented, not without justice, that a marriage into which he had been tempted for reasons of policy by his relations, when he was only thirteen years of age, could hardly be binding.

The young duchess, naturally plain in features, was so unfortunate in early womanhood as to become lame in consequence of some feats in dancing. For her want of personal graces there is negative evidence in a dedication of Dryden, where he speaks abundantly of her wit, but not a word of beauty, which shows that the case must have been desperate. [This, by the way, was the remark made to me on the subject by Sir Walter Scott, who, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, has done what Dryden could not do—flattered the duchess:

Were any further proof wanting, it might be found in the regard in which she was held by James II., who, as is well known, had such a tendency to plain women as induced a suspicion in his witty brother that they were prescribed to him by his confessor by way of penance. This friendship, in which there was nothing improper, was the means of saving her grace’s estates at the tragical close of her husband’s life.

It is curious to learn that the duchess, notwithstanding the terms on which she had been with her husband, and the sad stamp put upon his pretensions to legitimacy, acted throughout the remainder of her somewhat protracted life as if she had been the widow of a true prince of the blood-royal. In her state-rooms she had a canopy erected, beneath which was the only seat in the apartment, everybody standing besides herself. When Lady Margaret Montgomery, one of the beautiful Countess of Eglintoune’s daughters, was at a boarding-school near London—previous to the year Thirty—she was frequently invited by the duchess to her house; and because her great-grandmother, Lady Mary Leslie, was sister to her grace’s mother, she was allowed a chair; but this was an extraordinary mark of grace. The duchess was the last person of quality in Scotland who kept pages, in the proper acceptation of the term—that is, young gentlemen of good birth, who acquired manners and knowledge of the world in attending upon persons of exalted rank. The last of her grace’s pages rose to be a general. When a letter was brought for the duchess, the domestic gave it to the page, the page to the waiting-gentlewoman (always a person of birth also), and she at length to her grace. The duchess kept a tight hand over her clan and tenants, but was upon the whole beloved.

She was buried (1732) on the same day with the too-much-celebrated Colonel Charteris. At the funeral of Henry, Duke of Buccleuch, in the year 1812, in the aisle of the church at Dalkeith, my informant (Sir Walter Scott) was shown an old man who had been at the funeral of both her grace and Colonel Charteris. He said that the day was dreadfully stormy, which all the world agreed was owing to the devil carrying off Charteris. The mob broke in upon the mourners who followed this personage to the grave, and threw cats, dogs, and a pack of cards upon the coffin; whereupon the gentlemen drew their swords, and cut away among the rioters. In the confusion one little old man was pushed into the grave; and the sextons, somewhat prompt in the discharge of their duty, began to shovel in the earth upon the quick and the dead. The grandfather of my informant (Dr Rutherford), who was one of the mourners, was much hurt in the affray; and my informant has heard his mother describe the terror of the family on his coming home with his clothes bloody and his sword broken.

As to pages—a custom existed among old ladies till a later day of keeping such attendants, rather superior to the little polybuttoned personages who are now so universal. It was not, however, to be expected that a pranksome youth would behave with consistent respect to an aged female of the stiff manners then prevalent. Accordingly, ridiculous circumstances took place. An old lady of the name of Plenderleith, of very stately aspect and grave carriage, used to walk to Leith by the Easter Road with her little foot-page behind her. For the whole way, the young rogue would be seen projecting burs at her dress, laughing immoderately, but silently, when one stuck. An old lady and her sequel of a page was very much like a tragedy followed by a farce. The keeping of the rascals in order at home used also to be a sad problem to a quiet old lady. The only expedient which Miss —— could hit upon to preserve her page from the corruption of the streets was, in her own phrase, to lock up his breeks, which she did almost every evening. The youth, being then only presentable at a window, had to content himself with such chat as he could indulge in with his companions and such mischief as he could execute from that loophole of retreat. So much for the parade of keeping pages.