"Few women," says Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, "have performed a more conspicuous part, or occupied a higher place on the public theatre of fashion, politics, and dissipation, than the Duchess of Gordon."

Jane, afterward Duchess of Gordon, the rival in beauty and talent to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was born in Wigtonshire, in Scotland. Her father, Sir William Maxwell of Monreith (anciently Mureith), represented one of the numerous families who branched off from the original stock—Herbert of Caerlaverock, first Lord Maxwell, the ancestor of the famous Earl of Nithsdale, whose countess, Winifred, played so noble a part when her husband was in prison during the Jacobite insurrection. From this honourable house descended, in our time, the gallant Sir Murray Maxwell, whose daughter, Mrs. Carew, became the wife of the too well-known Colonel Waugh; the events which followed are still fresh in the public mind. Until that blemish, loyalty, honour, and prosperity marked out the Maxwells of Monreith for "their own." In 1681, William Maxwell was created a baronet of Nova Scotia. Various marriages and intermarriages with old and noble families kept the blood pure, a circumstance as much prized by the Scotch as by the Germans. Sir William, the father of the Duchess of Gordon, married Magdalene, the daughter of William Blair, of Blair, and had by her six children,—three sons and three daughters,—of whom the youngest but one was Jane, the subject of this memoir.

This celebrated woman was a true Scotchwoman—staunch to her principles, proud of her birth, energetic, and determined. Her energy might have died away like a flash in the pan had it not been for her determination. She carried through everything that she attempted; and great personal charms accelerated her influence in that state of society in which, as in the French capital, women had, at that period, an astonishing though transient degree of ascendency.

The attractions of Jane Maxwell appeared to have been developed early, for before she entered on the gay world, a song, "Jenny of Monreith," was composed in her honour, which her son, the Duke of Gordon, used to sing, long after the charms, which were thus celebrated, had vanished. Her features were regular; the contour of her face was truly noble; her hair was dark, as well as her eyes and eyebrows; her face long and beautifully oval; the chin somewhat too long; the upper lip was short, and the mouth, notwithstanding a certain expression of determination, sweet and well defined. Nothing can be more becoming to features of this stamp, that require softening, than the mode of dressing the hair then general. Sir Joshua Reynolds has painted the Duchess of Gordon with her dark hair drawn back, in front, over a cushion, or some support that gave it waviness; round and round the head, between each rich mass, were two rows of large pearls, until, at the top, they were lost in the folds of a ribbon; a double row of pearls round the fair neck; a ruff, opening low in front, a tight bodice, and sleeves full to an extreme at the top, tighter toward the wrists, seem to indicate that the dress of the period of Charles I had even been selected for this most lovely portrait. The head is turned aside—with great judgment—probably to mitigate the decided expression of the face when in a front view.

As she grew up, however, the young lady was found to be deficient in one especial grace—she was not feminine; her person, her mind, her manners, all, in this respect, corresponded. "She might," says one who knew her, "have aptly represented Homer's Juno." Always animated, with features that were constantly in play, one great charm was wanting—that of sensibility. Sometimes her beautiful face was overclouded with anger; more frequently was it irradiated with smiles. Her conversation, too, annihilated much of the impression made by her commanding beauty. She despised the usages of the world, and, believing herself exempted from them by her rank, after she became a duchess, she dispensed with them, and sacrificed to her venal ambition some of the most lovable qualities of her sex. One of her speeches, when honours became, as she thought, too common at court, betrays her pride and her coarseness. "Upon my word," she used to say, "one cannot look out of one's coach window without spitting on a knight." Whatever were her defects, her beauty captivated the fancy of Alexander, the fourth Duke of Gordon, a young man of twenty-four years of age, whom she married on the 28th of October, 1767. The family she entered, as well as the family whence she sprang, were devoted adherents of the exiled Stuarts, and carried, to a great extent, the hereditary Toryism of their exalted lineage. The great-grandmother of the duke was that singular Duchess of Gordon who sent a medal to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, with the head of James Stuart the Chevalier on one side, and on the other the British Isles, with the word "Reddite" inscribed underneath. The Faculty were highly gratified by this present. After a debate, they accepted the medal, and sent two of their body to thank the duchess, and to say that they hoped she would soon be enabled to favour the society with a second medal on the Restoration. Duke Alexander, the husband of Jane Maxwell, showed in his calm and inert character no evidence of being descended from this courageous partisan. He was a man of no energy, except in his love of country pursuits, and left the advancement of the family interests wholly to his spirited and ambitious wife. They were married only six years after George III had succeeded to the throne. Never was a court more destitute of amusements than that of the then youthful sovereign of England. Until his latter days, George II. had enjoyed revelries, though of a slow, formal, German character; but his grandson confined himself, from the age of twenty-two, to his public and private duties. He neither frequented masquerades nor joined in play. The splendours of a court were reserved for birthdays, and for those alone; neither did the king usually sit down to table with the nobility or with his courtiers. Never was he known to be guilty of the slightest excess at table, and his repasts were simple, if not frugal. At a levee, or on the terrace at Windsor, or in the circle of Hyde Park, this model of a worthy English gentleman might be seen, either with his plain-featured queen on his arm, or driven in his well-known coach with his old and famous cream-coloured horses. Junius derided the court, "where," he said, "prayers are morality and kneeling is religion." But although wanting in animation, it was far less reprehensible than that which preceded or that which followed it. The Duchess of Gordon, irreproachable in conduct, with her high Tory principles, was well suited to a court over which Lord Bute exercised a strong influence. She had naturally a calculating turn of mind. Fame, admiration, fashion, were agreeable trifles, but wealth and rank were the solid aims to which every effort was directed. Unlike her future rival, the Duchess of Devonshire, who impoverished herself in her boundless charities, the Duchess of Gordon kept in view the main chance, and resolved from her early youth to aggrandise the family into which she had entered.

Her empire as a wit was undisputed, for the Duchess of Devonshire was then a mere girl, at her mother's knee; but that for beauty was disputed by Mary, Duchess of Rutland, so well remembered in our own time, as she survived till 1831.

This exquisite specimen of English loveliness, compared by some to Musidora, as described by Thomson, was the most beautiful woman of rank in the kingdom. Every turn of her features, every form of her limbs, was perfect, and grace accompanied every movement. She was tall, of the just height; slender, but not thin; her features were delicate and noble; and her ancestors, the Plantagenets, were in her represented by a faultless sample of personal attributes. She was the daughter of a race which has given to the world many heroes, one philosopher, and several celebrated beauties—that of Somerset; and, as the descendant of the defenders of Raglan Castle, might be expected to combine various noble qualities with personal gifts. But she was cold, although a coquette. In the Duchess of Devonshire it was the besoin d'aimer, the cordial nature recoiled into itself from being linked to an expletive, that betrayed her into an encouragement of what offered her the semblance of affection—into the temptation of being beloved. To the Duchess of Gordon her conquests were enhanced by the remembrance of what they might bring; but the Duchess of Rutland viewed her admirers in the light of offering tributes to a goddess. She was destitute of the smiles, the intelligence, and sweetness of the Duchess of Devonshire; and conscious of charms, received adoration as her due. "In truth," Sir Nathanial Wraxall, who knew her well, writes, "I never contemplated her except as an enchanting statue, formed to excite admiration rather than to awaken love, this superb production of nature not being lighted up by corresponding mental attractions."

This lady was united to one of the most attractive and popular of men, but one of the most imprudent and convivial. The son of that celebrated Marquis of Granby whom Junius attacked, the young Duke of Rutland was a firm partisan of Pitt, whom he first brought into the House of Commons, and at whose wish he accepted the government of Ireland in 1784. Never was there such splendour at the vice-regal court as in his time. Vessels laden with the expensive luxuries from England were seen in the Bay of Dublin at short intervals; the banquets given were most costly; the evenings at the castle were divided between play and drinking; and yet the mornings found the young duke breakfasting on six or seven turkey's eggs. He then, when on his progress, rode forty or fifty miles, returned to dinner at seven, and sat up to a late hour, supping before he retired to rest.

The duchess had little place in his heart, and the siren, Mrs. Billington, held it in temporary thraldom; but constancy was to a man of such a calibre impossible. Nevertheless, when the duke saw his wife surrounded by admirers, whom her levity of manner encouraged, he became jealous, and they parted, for the last time as it proved, on bad terms. One evening, seeing him engaged in play, the duchess approached the window of the room in which he sat, and tapped at it. He was highly incensed by this interference with his amusements. She returned to England, an invalid, in order to consult Doctor Warren, the father of the late physician of that name. Whilst residing with her mother in Berkeley Square, she heard that the duke was attacked with fever. She sent off Doctor Warren to see him, and was preparing to follow him when the physician returned. At Holyhead he had heard that the duke was no more. He died at the early age of thirty-three, his blood having been inflamed by his intemperance, which, however, never affected his reason, and was, therefore, the more destructive to his health. His widow, in spite of their alienation, mourned long and deeply. Never did she appear more beautiful than when, in 1788, she reappeared after her seclusion. Like Diana of Poictiers, she retained her wonderful loveliness to an advanced age. Latterly, she covered her wrinkles with enamel, and when she appeared in public always quitted a room in which the windows, which might admit the dampness, were opened. She never married again, notwithstanding the various suitors who desired to obtain her hand.

For a long time the Duchess of Gordon continued to reign over the Tory party almost without a rival. When, at last, the Duchess of Devonshire came forward as the female champion of the Foxites, Pitt and Dundas, afterward Lord Melville, opposed to her the Duchess of Gordon. At that time she lived in the splendid mansion of the then Marquis of Buckingham in Pall Mall. Every evening, numerous assemblies of persons attached to the administration gathered in those stately saloons, built upon or near the terrace whereon Nell Gwyn used to chat with Charles II on the grass below, as he was going to feed his birds in his gardens. Presuming on her rank, her influence, her beauty, the Duchess of Gordon used to act in the most determined manner as a government whipper-in. When a member on whom she counted was wanting, she did not scruple to send for him, to remonstrate, to persuade, to fix him by a thousand arts. Strange must have been the scene—more strange than attractive. Everything was forgotten but the one grand object of the evening, the theme of all talk,—the next debate and its supporters. In the year 1780 events took place which for some time appeared likely to shake the prosperity of the Gordon family almost to its fall.

The duke had two brothers, the elder of whom, Lord William, was the Ranger of Windsor Park, and survived to a great age. The younger, Lord George, holds a very conspicuous but not a very creditable place in the annals of his country. No event in our history bears any analogy with that styled the "Gordon Riots," excepting the fire of London in the reign of Charles II; and even that calamity did not exhibit the mournful spectacle which attended the conflagrations of 1780. In the former instance, the miserable sufferers had to contend only with a devouring element; in the latter, they had to seek protection, and to seek it in vain, from a populace of the lowest description, and the vilest purposes, who carried with them destruction wherever they went. Even during the French Revolution, revolting and degrading as it was, the firebrand was not employed in the work of destruction; the public and private buildings of Paris were spared.

The author of all these calamities, Lord George Gordon, was a young man of gentle, agreeable manners, and delicate, high-bred appearance. His features were regular and pleasing; he was thin and pale, but with a cunning, sinister expression in his face that indicated wrong-headedness. He was dependent on his elder brother, the duke, for his maintenance, six hundred pounds a year being allowed him by his Grace. Such was the exterior, such the circumstances of an incendiary who has been classed with Wat Tyler and Jack Cade, or with Kett, the delinquent in the time of Edward VI.

It was during the administration of Lord North that the Cordon Riots took place, excited by the harangues and speeches of Lord George. On the 2d of June he harangued the people; on the 7th these memorable disturbances broke out; Bloomsbury Square was the first point of attack. In Pope's time this now neglected square was fashionable:

Baxter, the Nonconformist, and Sir Hans Sloane once inhabited what was, in their time, called Southampton Square, from Southampton House, which occupied one whole side of Bloomsbury Square, and was long the abode of Lady Rachel Russell, after the execution of her lord. Like every other part of what may be called "Old London," it is almost sanctified by the memories of the lettered and the unfortunate. But the glory of Bloomsbury Square was, in those days, the house of Lord Mansfield, at the north end of the east side; in which that judge had collected many valuables, among which his library was the dearest to his heart; it was the finest legal library of his time. As soon as the long summer's day had closed, and darkness permitted the acts of violence to be fully recognised, Hart Street and Great Russell Street were illuminated by large fires, composed of the furniture taken from the houses of certain magistrates. Walking into Bloomsbury, the astounded observer of that night's horrors saw, with consternation, the hall door of Lord Mansfield's house broken open; and instantly all the contents of the various apartments were thrown into the square, and set on fire. In vain did a small body of foot-soldiers attempt to intimidate the rioters. The whole of the house was consumed, and vengeance would have fallen on Lord Mansfield and his lady had they not escaped by a back door a few minutes before the hall was broken into; such was that memorable act of destruction—so prompt, so complete. Let us follow the mob, in fancy, and leaving the burning pile in Bloomsbury Square, track the steps of the crowd into Holborn. We remember, as we are hurried along, with a bitter feeling, that Holborn was the appointed road for criminals from Newgate to Tyburn. It is now one blaze of light; in the hollow near Fleet Market, the house and warehouses of Mr. Langdale, a Catholic—a Christian like ourselves, though not one of our own blessed and reformed church—is blazing; a pinnacle of flame, like a volcano, is sent up into the air. St. Andrew's Church is almost scorched with the heat; whilst the figures of the clock—that annalist which numbers, as it stands, the hours of guilt—are plain as at noonday. The gutters beneath, catching here and there gleams of the fiery heavens, run with spirituous liquors from the plundered distilleries; the night is calm, as if no deeds of persecution sullied its beauty; at times it is obscured by volumes of smoke, but they pass away, and the appalled spectators of the street below are plainly visible. Here stands a mother with an infant in her arms looking on; there, a father, leading his boy to the safest point of observation. We wonder at their boldness; but it is the direst sign of affright—in their homes they are insecure—everywhere, anywhere, the ruthless unseen hand may cast the brand, and all may perish. At this early hour there seemed to be no ringleader—no pillage; it appeared difficult to conceive who could be the wretch who instigated, who directed this awful riot; but, at the windows, men were seen calmly tearing away pictures from the walls; furniture, books, plate, from their places, and throwing them into the flames. As midnight drew near, the ferocious passions of the multitude were heightened by ardent spirits; not a soldier, either horse or foot, is visible. "Whilst we stood," says an eye-witness, "by the wall of St. Andrew's churchyard, a watchman, with his lanthorn in his hand, passed on, calling the hour as if in a time of profound security."

Meantime, the King's Bench Prison was enveloped in flames; the Mansion House and the Bank were attacked. But the troops were killing and dispersing the rioters on Blackfriars Bridge; a desperate conflict between the horse and the mob was going on near the Bank. What a night! The whole city seemed to be abandoned to pillage—to destruction. Shouts, yells, the shrieks of women, the crackling of the burning houses, the firing of platoons toward St. George's Fields, combined to show that no horrors, no foes are equal to those of domestic treachery, domestic persecution, domestic fury, and infatuation.

It was not alone the Roman Catholics who were threatened. Sir George Savile's house in Leicester Square—once the peaceful locality in which Dorothy Sydney, Waller's "Sacharissa," bloomed—was plundered and burned. Then the Duchess of Devonshire took fright, and did not venture to stay at Devonshire House for many nights after dusk, but took refuge at Lord Clermont's in Berkeley Square, sleeping on a sofa in the drawing-room. In Downing Street, Lord North was dining with a party his brother, Colonel North, Mr. Eden, afterward Lord Auckland, the Honourable John St. John, General Fraser, and Count Malzen, the Prussian minister. The little square then surrounding Downing Street was filled with the mob. "Who commands the upper story?" said Lord North. "I do," answered Colonel North; "and I have twenty or thirty grenadiers well armed, who are ready to fire on the first notice."

"If your grenadiers fire," said Mr. Eden, calmly, "they will probably fire into my house just opposite."

The mob was now threatening; every moment the peril was increasing. Mr. St. John held a pistol in his hand; and Lord North, who never could forbear cutting a joke, said, "I am not half so much afraid of the mob as of Jack St. John's pistol." By degrees, however, the crowd, seeing that the house was well guarded, dispersed, and the gentlemen quietly sat down again to their wine until late in the evening, when they all ascended to the top of the house, and beheld the capital blazing. It was here that the first suggestion of a coalition between Lord North and Fox, to save the country and themselves, was started, and afterward perfected behind the scenes of the Opera House in the Haymarket. During this memorable night George III, behaved with the courage which, whatever their failings, has ever highly distinguished the Hanoverian family. By the vigorous measures, late indeed, but not too late, which he acceded to at the Council, London was saved. But the popular fury had extended to other towns. Bath was in tumult; a new Roman Catholic chapel there was burned. Mrs. Thrale, hearing that her house at Streatham had been threatened, caused it to be emptied of its furniture. Three times was Mrs. Thrale's town house attacked; her valuables and furniture were removed thence also; and she deemed it prudent to leave Bath, into which coaches, chalked over with "No Popery," were hourly driving. The composure with which the rioters did their work seemed to render the scene more fearful, as they performed these acts of violence as if they were carrying out a religious duty rather than deeds of execrable hatred.

It was not until two or three days after tranquillity had been restored that Lord George Gordon was apprehended. Ministers were justly reproached for not having sent him to the Tower on the 2d of June, when he had assembled and excited the mob to extort compliance with their wishes from the House of Commons. Such a step, when the House was surrounded by multitudes, and when, every moment, it was expected that the door would be broken open, would have been hazardous; had that occurred, Lord George would have suffered instant death. General Murray, afterward Duke of Atholl, held his sword ready to pass it through Lord George's body the instant the mob rushed in. The Earl of Carnarvon, the grandfather of the present earl, followed him closely with the same intent.

The indignation of the insulted Commons was extreme, and the distress and displeasure of Lord George's own family doubtless excessive. The House of Commons had never been thus insulted before. It is difficult to determine what could be Lord George's motives for the conduct which led to these awful results, during the whole of which he preserved a composure that bordered on insensibility; he was a perfect master of himself whilst the city was in flames. Much may be laid to fanaticism, and the mental derangement which it either produced or evinced. When too late he tried in vain to abate the fury he had excited, and offered to take his stand by Lord Rodney's[55] side when the Bank was attacked, to aid that officer, who commanded the Guards, in its defence.

Lord George then lived in Weibeck Street, Cavendish Square, and tradition assigns as his house that now occupied by Mr. Newby, the publisher, No. 30, and for many years the house of Count Woronzoff, the Russian ambassador, who died there. Lord George there prepared for his defence, which was entrusted to the great Erskine, then in his prime, or, as he was called in caricatures, with which the shops were full, from his extreme vanity, Counsellor Ego. In February, 1781, the trial took place, and Lord George was acquitted. He retired to Birmingham, became a Jew, and lived in that faith, or under the delusion that he did so. The hundreds who perished from his folly or insanity were avenged in his subsequent imprisonment in Newgate for a libel on Marie Antoinette, of which he was convicted. He died a very few years after the riots of 1780, in Newgate, generally condemned, and but little compassionated.

It appears from the letters addressed by Doctor Beanie to the Duchess of Gordon, that she was not in London during the riots of June, 1780. The poet had been introduced to her by Sir William Forbes, and frequently visited Gordon Castle. We find him, whilst London was blazing, sending thither a parcel of Mirrors, the fashionable journal, "Count Fathom," "The Tale of a Tub," and the fanciful, forgotten romance by Bishop Berkeley, "Gaudentio di Lucca," to amuse her solitude. "'Gaudentio,'" he writes, "will amuse you, though there are tedious passages in it. The whole description of passing the deserts of Africa is particularly excellent." It is singular that this dream of Bishop Berkeley's of a country fertile and delicious in the centre of Africa should have been almost realised in our own time by the discoveries of Doctor Livingstone.

To his present of books, Doctor Beattie added a flask of whisky, which he sealed with his usual seal, "The three graces, whom I take to be your Grace's near relations, as they have the honour, not only to bear one of your titles, but also to resemble you exceedingly in form, feature, and manner. If you had lived three thousand years ago, which I am very glad you did not, there would have been four of them, and you the first. May all happiness attend your Grace!"

This graceful piece of adulation was followed by a tender concern for "her Grace's" health. A sportive benediction was offered whilst the duchess was at Glenfiddick, a hunting seat in the heart of the Grampian Hills—a wild, sequestered spot, of which Doctor Beattie was particularly fond.

"I rejoice in the good weather, in the belief that it extends to Glenfiddick, where I pray that your Grace may enjoy all the health and happiness that good air, goats' whey, romantic solitude, and the society of the loveliest children in the world can bestow. May your days be clear sunshine; and may a gentle rain give balm to your nights, that the flowers and birch-trees may salute you in the morning with all their fragrance! May the kids frisk and play tricks before you with unusual sprightliness; and may the song of birds, the hum of bees, and the distant waterfall, with now and then the shepherd's horn resounding from the mountains, entertain you with a full chorus of Highland music! My imagination had parcelled out the lovely little glen into a thousand little paradises; in the hope of being there, and seeing everyday in that solitude, what is

But the information you received at Cluny gave a check to my fancy, and was indeed a great disappointment to Mrs. Beattie and me; not on account of the goats' whey, but because it keeps us so long at such a distance from your Grace."

When at Gordon Castle, the duchess occupied herself with pursuits that elevated whilst they refreshed her mind. She promised Doctor Beattie to send him the history of a day. Her day seems to have been partly engaged in the instruction of her five daughters, and in an active correspondence and reading. It is difficult to imagine this busy, flattered woman reading Blair's sermons—which had then been recently published—to her family on Sundays; or the duke, whom Doctor Beattie describes as "more astronomical than ever," engrossed from morning to night in making calculations with Mr. Copland, Professor of Astronomy in Marischal College, Aberdeen. Beattie's letters to the duchess, although too adulatory, were those of a man who respects the understanding of the woman to whom he writes. The following anecdotes, the one relating to Hume, the other to Handel, are in his letters to the Duchess of Gordon, and they cannot be read without interest.

"Mr. Hume was boasting to the doctor (Gregory) that among his disciples he had the honour to reckon many of the fair sex. 'Now tell me,' said the doctor, 'whether, if you had a wife or a daughter, you would wish them to be your disciples? Think well before you answer me; for I assure you that whatever your answer is, I will not conceal it.' Mr. Hume, with a smile and some hesitation, made this reply: 'No; I believe skepticism may be too sturdy a virtue for a woman.' Miss Gregory will certainly remember she has heard her father tell this story."

Again, about Handel:

"I lately heard two anecdotes, which deserve to be put in writing, and which you will be glad to hear. When Handel's 'Messiah' was first performed, the audience were exceedingly struck and affected by the music in general; but when the chorus struck up, 'For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth,' they were so transported that they all, together with the king (who happened to be present), started up, and remained standing till the chorus ended; and hence it became the fashion in England for the audience to stand while that part of the music is performing. Some days after the first exhibition of the same divine oratorio, Mr. Handel came to pay his respects to Lord Kinnoul, with whom he was particularly acquainted. His lordship, as was natural, paid him some compliments on the noble entertainment which he had lately given the town. 'My lord,' said Handel, 'I should be sorry if I only entertained them—I wish to make them better.'"

Beattie's happiest hours are said to have been passed at Gordon Castle, with those whose tastes, in some respects differing from his own, he contributed to form; whilst he was charmed with the beauty, the wit, the cultivated intellect of the duchess, and he justly appreciated her talents and virtues. Throughout a friendship of years her kindness was unvaried;

The duchess felt sincerely for poor Beattie's domestic sorrows; for the peculiarities of his wife, whom he designated as "nervous;" for the early death of his son, in whom all the poet's affections were bound up, and to whose welfare every thought of his was directed.

One would gladly take one's impressions of the Duchess of Gordon's character from Beattie, rather than from the pen of political writers, who knew her but as a partisan. The duchess, according to Beattie, was feelingly alive to every fine impulse; demonstrative herself, detesting coldness in others; the life of every party; the consoling friend of every scene of sorrow; a compound of sensibility and vivacity, of strength and softness. This is not the view that the world took of her character. Beattie always quitted Gordon Castle "with sighs and tears." It is much to have added to the transient gleams of happiness enjoyed by so good and so afflicted a man. "I cannot think," he wrote, when under the pressure of dreaded calamity—that of seeing his wife insane; "I am too much agitated and distrait (as Lord Chesterfield would say) to read anything that is not very desultory; I cannot play at cards; I could never learn to smoke; and my musical days are over. My first excursion, if ever I make any, must be to Gordon Castle."

There he found what is indispensable to such a man—congeniality. Amusement was not what he required; it was soothing. It was in the duchess's presence that he wrote the following "Lines to a Pen:"

lines in which the praise is worth more than the poetry. The duchess sent him a copy by Smith of her portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, a picture to which reference has been already made.

In 1782 the duchess grieved for the death of Lord Kaimes, for whom she had a sincere friendship, although the religious opinions of that celebrated man differed greatly from those of Beattie. Lord Kaimes was fifty-six years an author, in company with the eccentric Lord Monboddo, the author of the theory that men have had tails. Lord Kaimes passed some days at Gordon Castle shortly before his death. Monboddo and he detested each other, and squabbled incessantly. Lord Kaimes understood no Greek; and Monboddo, who was as mad and as tiresome about Greek and Aristotle, and as absurd and peculiar on that score as Don Quixote was about chivalry, told him that without understanding Greek he could not write a page of good English. Their arguments must have been highly diverting. Lord Kaimes, on his death-bed, left a remembrance to the Duchess of Gordon, who had justly appreciated him, and defended him from the charge of skepticism. Lord Monboddo compared the duchess to Helen of Troy, whom he asserted to have been seven feet high; but whether in stature, in beauty, or in the circumstances of her life, does not appear.

The happiness of the duchess was perfected by the blessings granted to her in her family. In 1770 the birth of her eldest son George, long beloved in Scotland whilst the Marquis of Huntley, took place. Doctor Beattie describes him as "the best and most beautiful boy that ever was born." He proved to be one of the most popular of the young nobility of that period. Doctor Beattie strongly advised the duchess to engage an English tutor, a clergyman, for him, recommended either by the Archbishop of York, or by the Provost of Eton. When it afterward became a question whether the young heir should go to Oxford or to Cambridge, the doctor, who seems to have been a universal authority, allowed that Cambridge was the best for a man of study, whilst Oxford had more dash and spirit in it: so little are matters altered since that time.

Fifteen years appear to have elapsed before the birth of a second son, Alexander. Both these scions of this ducal house became military men: the young marquis was colonel of the Scots Fusileer Guards, and served in the Peninsular war, and was eventually Governor of Edinburgh Castle. Long was he remembered by many a brother officer, many an old soldier, as a gallant, courteous, gay-hearted man; with some of the faults and all the virtues of the military character. He married late in life Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander Brodie, Esq., of Arnhall, N. B., who survived him. Lord Alexander Cordon died unmarried; but five daughters added to the family lustre by noble and wealthy alliances.

Wraxall remarks "that the conjugal duties of the Duchess of Gordon pressed on her heart with less force than did her maternal solicitudes." For their elevation she thought, indeed, no sacrifice too great, and no efforts too laborious. In the success of her matrimonial speculations she has been compared to Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who numbered among her sons-in-law two dukes and three earls. But the daughters of the proud Sarah were, it has been observed, the children of John Churchill, and on them were settled, successively, Blenheim and the dukedom. The Ladies Gordon were portionless, and far less beautiful than their mother. To her skilful diplomacy alone were these brilliant fortunes owing.

Lady Charlotte, the eldest, was eighteen years of age when her mother first entertained matrimonial projects for her, and chose for their object no less a personage than Pitt, then prime minister. Her schemes might have proved successful had not Pitt had that sure impediment to maternal management,—a friend. This friend was the subtle Henry Dundas, afterward Lord Melville; one of those men who, under the semblance of unguarded manners and a free, open bearing, conceal the deepest designs of personal aggrandisement. Governing India, governing Scotland, the vicegerent in Edinburgh for places and pensions, Dundas was looking forward to a peerage, and kept his eye steadily on Pitt, whom he guided in many matters, adapting his conduct and his conversation to the peculiar tone of the minister's mind. Flattery he never used—dictation he carefully avoided; both would have been detrimental to his influence with the reserved statesman.

Pitt was by no means calculated to win the affection of a blooming girl of eighteen, who, whatever Wraxall may have thought, lived to be one of the most beautiful and graceful women of her time. Many years ago, during the life of Sir Thomas Lawrence, his portrait of the Duchess of Richmond, formerly Lady Charlotte Cordon, was exhibited at Somerset House. So exquisite were the feminine charms of that lovely face, so elegant the form he had portrayed, that all crowded to look upon that delineation of a woman no longer young; whilst beauties in the bloom of youth were passed by as they hung on the walls in all the glowing colours of girlhood.

On most intimate terms with the duchess, Pitt seems to have been touched with the attractions of Lady Charlotte, and to have paid her some attentions. He was one of the stiffest and shyest of men, finely formed in figure, but plain in face; the last man to be fascinated, the last to fascinate. Drives to Dundas's house at Wimbledon when Pitt was there; evenings at home, in easy converse with these two politicians; suppers, at which the premier always finished his bottle, as well as the hardier Scotchman, failed to bring forward the reserved William Pitt. The fact was, that Dundas could not permit any one, far less the Duchess of Gordon, to have the ascendency over the prime minister that so near a relationship would occasion. He trembled for his own influence. A widower at that time,—his wife, a Miss Rennie of Melville, who had been divorced from him, being dead,—he affected to lay his own person and fortune at Lady Charlotte's feet. Pitt instantly retired, and the sacrifice cost him little; and Dundas's object being answered, his pretensions also dropped through. Two years afterward, Lady Charlotte became the wife of Colonel Lennox, afterward Duke of Richmond, and in the course of years the mother of fourteen children; one of whom, Henry Adam, a midshipman, fell overboard from the Blake in 1812, and was drowned. According to Wraxall, the Duke of Richmond had to pay the penalty of what he calls "this imprudent, if not unfortunate marriage," being banished to the snowy banks of St. Lawrence under the name of governor.

In modern times, our young nobility of promise have learned the important truth, ably enforced by Thomas Carlyle, that work is not only man's appointed lot, but his highest blessing and safeguard. The rising members of various noble families have laid this axiom to heart; and, when not engaged in public business, have come grandly forward to protect the unhappy, to provide for the young, to solace the old. The name of Shaftesbury carries with it gratitude and comfort in its sound; whilst that of him who figured of old in the cabal, the Shaftesbury of Charles II's time, is, indeed, not forgotten, but remembered with detestation. Ragged schools; provident schools; asylums for the aged governess; homes in which the consumptive may lay their heads in peace and die; asylums for the penitent; asylums for the idiot; homes where the houseless may repose,—these are the monuments to our Shaftesbury, to our younger sons. The mere political ascendency—the garter or the coronet—are distinctions which pale before these, as does the moon when dawn has touched the mountains' tops with floods of light. As lecturers amid their own people, as the best friends and counsellors of the indigent, as man bound to man by community of interests, our noblemen in many instances stand before us—Catholic and Protestant zealous alike.

"Jock of Norfolk" is represented by a descendant of noble impulses. Elgin, Carlisle, Stanley—the Bruce, the Howard, the Stanley of former days—are our true heroes of society, men of great aims and great powers.

The Duchess of Gordon was indefatigable in her ambition, but she could not always entangle dukes. Her second daughter, Madelina, was married first to Sir Robert Sinclair; and secondly, to Charles Fyshe Palmer, Esq., of Luckley Hall, Berkshire. Lady Madelina was not handsome, but extremely agreeable, animated, and intellectual. Among her other conquests was the famous Samuel Parr, of Hatton, who used to delight in sounding her praises, and recording her perfections with much of that eloquence which is now fast dying out of remembrance, but which was a thing À part in that celebrated Grecian. Susan, the third daughter of the duke and duchess, married William, Duke of Manchester, thus becoming connected with a descendant of John, Duke of Marlborough.

Louisa, the fourth daughter, married Charles, second Marquis Cornwallis, and son of the justly celebrated Governor of India; and Georgiana, the fifth and youngest, became the wife of John, the late Duke of Bedford.

Such alliances might have satisfied the ambition of most mothers; but for her youngest and most beautiful daughter, the Duchess of Bedford, the Duchess of Cordon had even entertained what she thought higher views. In 1802, whilst Buonaparte was first consul, and anticipating an imperial crown, the Duchess of Gordon visited Paris, and received there such distinctions from Napoleon Bonaparte, then first consul, as excited hopes in her mind of an alliance with that man whom, but a few years previously, she would probably have termed an adventurer!

Paris was then, during the short peace, engrossed with fÊtes, reviews, and dramatic amusements, the account of which makes one almost fancy oneself in the year 1852, that of the coup d'État, instead of the period of 1802. The whirlwinds of revolution seemed then, as now, to have left all unchanged; the character of the people, who were still devoted to pleasure, and sanguine, was, on the surface, gay and buoyant as ever. Buonaparte holding his levÉes at the Tuileries, with all the splendour of majesty, reminds one of his nephew performing similar ceremonies at the ÉlysÉe, previously to his assuming the purple. All republican simplicity was abandoned, and the richest taste displayed on public occasions in both eras.

Let us picture to ourselves the old, quaint palace of the Tuileries on a reception day then; and the impression made on the senses will serve for the modern drama; be it comedy, or be it tragedy, which is to be played out in those stately rooms wherein so many actors have passed and repassed to their doom.

It is noon, and the first consul is receiving a host of ambassadors within the consular apartment, answering probably to the "Salle des MarÉchaux" of Napoleon III. Therein the envoys from every European state are attempting to comprehend, what none could ever fathom, the consul's mind. Let us not intermeddle with their conference, but look around us, and view the gallery in which we are waiting until he, who was yesterday so small, and who is to-day so great, should come forth amongst us.

How gorgeous is the old gallery, with its many windows, its rich roof, and gilded panels! The footmen of the first consul, in splendid liveries, are bringing chairs for the ladies who are awaiting the approach of that schoolmaster's son; they are waiting until the weighty conference within is terminated. Peace-officers, superbly bedizened, are walking up and down to keep ladies to their seats and gentlemen to the ranks, so as to form a passage for the first consul to pass down. Pages of the back stairs, dressed in black, and with gold chains hanging around their necks, are standing by the door to guard it, or to open it when he on whom all thoughts are fixed should come forth.

But what is beyond everything striking is the array of Buonaparte's aids-de-camp,—fine fellows, war-worn,—men such as he, and he alone, would choose; and so gorgeous, so radiant are their uniforms, that all else seem as if in shadow in comparison.

The gardens of the Tuileries meantime are filling with troops whom the first consul is going to review. There are now Zouaves there; but these are men whom the suns of the tropics hate embrowned; little fellows, many of them, of all heights, such as we might make drummers of in our stalwart ranks; but see how muscular, active, full of fire they are; fierce as hawks, relentless as tigers. See the horse-soldiers on their scraggy steeds; watch their evolutions, and you will own, with a young guardsman who stood gazing, fifty years afterward, on the troops which followed Napoleon III into Paris, that "they are worth looking at."

The long hour is past; the pages in black are evidently on the watch; the double door which leads into the Salle des MarÉchaux is opened from within; a stricter line is instantly kept by the officers in the gallery. Fair faces, many an English one among them, are flushed. Anon he appears, whilst an officer at the door, with one hand raised above his head and the other extended, exclaims, "Le Premier Consul."

Forth he walks, a firm, short, stolid form, with falling shoulders beneath his tight, deep-blue frock. His tread is heavy rather than majestic,—that of a man who has a purpose in walking, not merely to show himself as a parade. His head is large, and formed with a perfection which we call classic; his features are noble, modelled by that hand of Nature which framed this man "fearfully," indeed, and "wonderfully." Nothing was ever finer than his mouth—nothing more disappointing than his eye; it is heavy, almost mournful. His face is pale, almost sallow, while—let one speak who beheld him—"not only in the eye, but in every feature, care, thought, melancholy, and meditation are strongly marked, with so much of character, nay, genius, and so penetrating a seriousness, or rather sadness, as powerfully to sink into an observer's mind."

It is the countenance of a student, not of a warrior; of one deep in unpractical meditation, not of one whose every act and plan had then been but a tissue of successes. It is the face of a man wedded to deep thought, not of the hero of the battle-field, the ruler of assemblies; and, as if to perfect the contrast, whilst all around is gorgeous and blazing, he passes along without a single decoration on his plain dress, not even a star to mark out the first consul. It is well; there can but be one Napoleon in the world, and he wants no distinction.

He is followed by diplomatists of every European power, vassals, all, more or less, save England; and to England, and to her sons and daughters, are the most cherished courtesies directed. Does not that recall the present policy?

By his side walks a handsome youth whom he has just been presenting to the Bavarian minister,—that envoy from a strange, wild country, little known save by the dogged valour of its mountaineers. The ruler of that land, until now an elector, has been saluted king by Napoleon the powerful.

On the youth, who addresses him as mon pÈr, a slight glance is allowed even from those downcast eyes which none may ever look into too full. EugÈne Beauharnais, his stepson, the son of his ever-loved Josephine, has a place in that remorseless heart. "All are not evil." Is it some inkling of the parental love, is it ambition, that causes the first consul to be always accompanied by that handsome youth, fascinating as his mother, libertine as his stepfather, but destitute at once of the sensibilities of the former and of the powerful intelligence of the latter?

It is on him—on EugÈne Beauharnais—that the hopes of the proud Duchess of Gordon rest. Happily for her whom she would willingly have given to him as a bride, her scheme was frustrated. Such a sacrifice was incomplete.

Look now from the windows of that gallery; let your gaze rest on the parade below, in the Rue de Rivoli, through which Buonaparte is riding at the head of his staff to the review. He has mounted a beautiful white horse; his aids-de-camp are by his side, followed by his generals. He rides on so carelessly that an ordinary judge would call him an indifferent equestrian. He holds his bridle first in one hand, then in another, yet he has the animal in perfect control; he can master it by a single movement. As he presents some swords of honour, the whole bearing and aspect of the man change. He is no longer the melancholy student; stretching out his arm, the severe, scholastic mien assumes instantly a military and commanding air.

Then the consular band strike up a march, and the troops follow in grand succession toward the Champs ÉlysÉes. The crowds within the gallery disappear; I look around me: the hedges of human beings who had been standing back to let the hero pass, are broken, and all are hurrying away. The pages are lounging; the aids-de-camp are gone; already is silence creeping over that vast gallery of old historic remembrances. Do not our hearts sink? Here, in this centre window, Marie Antoinette showed her little son to the infuriated mob below. She stood before unpitying eyes. Happier had it been for him, for her, had they died then. Will those scenes, we thought, ever recur? They have—they have! mercifully mitigated, it is true; yet ruthless hands have torn from those walls their rich hangings. By yon door did the son of ÉgalitÉ escape. Twice has that venerable pile been desecrated. Even in 152, when crowds hastened to the first ball given by Napoleon III., he traces of the last revolution were pointed out to the dancers. They have darkened the floors; all is, it is true, not only renovated, but embellished, so as to constitute the most gorgeous of modern palaces; yet for how long?

It is, indeed, in mercy that many of our wishes are denied us. EugÈne Beauharnais was even then, destined to a bride whom he had never seen, the eldest daughter of that Elector of Bavaria to whom Buonaparte had given royalty; and the sister of Ludwig, the ex-King of Bavaria, was the destined fair one. They were married; and she, at all events, was fond, faithful, nay, even devoted. He was created Duke of Leuchtenberg, and Marie of Leuchtenberg was beautiful, majestic, pious, graceful; but she could not keep his heart. So fair was she, with those sweet blue eyes, that pearl-like skin, that fine form, made to show off the parures of jewels which poor Josephine bequeathed to her—so fair was she, that when Buonaparte saw her before her bridal, he uttered these few words, "Had I known, I would have married her myself." Still she was but second, perhaps third, perhaps fourth ('tis a way they have in France) in his affections; nevertheless, when he died,—and it was in his youth, and Thorwaldsen has executed a noble monument of him in the Dom Kirche at Munich,—when that last separation came, preceded by many a one that had been voluntary on his part, his widow mourned, and no second bridal ever tempted her to cancel the remembrance of EugÈne Beauharnais.

For Lady Georgiana Gordon, a happier fate was reserved. She married, in 1803, John, the sixth Duke of Bedford, a nobleman whose character would have appeared in a more resplendent light had he not succeeded a brother singularly endowed, and whose death was considered to be a public calamity. Of Francis, Duke of Bedford, who was summoned away in his thirty-seventh year, Fox said: "In his friendships, not only was he disinterested and sincere, but in him were to be found united all the characteristic excellencies that have ever distinguished the men most renowned for that virtue. Some are warm, but volatile and inconstant; he was warm too, but steady and unchangeable. Where his attachment was placed, there it remained, or rather there it grew.... If he loved you at the beginning of the year, and you did nothing to lose his esteem, he would love you more at the end of it; such was the uniformly progressive state of his affections, no less than of his virtue and friendship."

John, Duke of Bedford, was a widower of thirty-seven when he married Georgiana, remembered as the most graceful, accomplished, and charming of women. The duke had then five sons, the youngest of whom was Lord John Russell, and the eldest Francis, the present duke. By his second duchess, Georgiana, the duke had also a numerous family. She survived until 1853. The designs formed by the duchess to marry Lady Georgiana to Pitt first, and then to EugÈne Beauharnais, rest on the authority of Wraxall, who knew the family of the Duke of Gordon personally; but he does not state them as coming from his own knowledge. "I have good reason," he says, "for believing them to be founded in truth. They come from very high authority."

Notwithstanding the preference evinced by the Prince of Wales for the Duchess of Devonshire, he was at this time on very intimate terms with her rival in the sphere of fashion, and passed a part of almost every evening in the society of the Duchess of Gordon. She treated him with the utmost familiarity, and even on points of great delicacy expressed herself very freely. The attention of the public had been for some time directed toward the complicated difficulties of the Prince of Wales's situation. His debts had now become an intolerable burden; and all applications to his royal father being unavailing, it was determined by his friends to throw his Royal Highness on the generosity of the House of Commons. At the head of those who hoped to relieve the prince of his embarrassments were Lord Loughborough, Fox, and Sheridan. The ministerial party were under the guidance of Pitt, who avowed his determination to let the subject come to a strict investigation.

This investigation referred chiefly to the prince's marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert, who, being a Roman Catholic, was peculiarly obnoxious both to the court and to the country, notwithstanding her virtues, her salutary influence over the prince, and her injuries.

During this conjuncture the Duchess of Gordon acted as mediator between the two conflicting parties, alternately advising, consoling, and even reproving the prince, who threw himself on her kindness. Nothing could be more hopeless than the prince's affairs if an investigation into the source of his difficulties took place; nothing could be less desired by his royal parents than a public exposure of his life and habits. The world already knew enough and too much, and were satisfied that he was actually married to Mrs. Fitzherbert. At this crisis, the base falsehood which denied that union was authorised by the prince, connived at by Sheridan, who partly gave it out in the House, and consummated by Fox. A memorable, a melancholy scene was enacted in the House of Commons on the 8th of April, 1787,—a day that the admirers of the Whig leaders would gladly blot out from the annals of the country. Rolle, afterward Lord Rolle, having referred to the marriage, Fox adverted to his allusion, stating it to be a low, malicious calumny. Rolle, in reply, admitted the legal impossibility of the marriage, but maintained "that there were modes in which it might have taken place." Fox replied that he denied it in point of fact, as well as of law, the thing never having been done in any way. Rolle then asked if he spoke from authority. Fox answered in the affirmative, and here the dialogue ended, a profound silence reigning throughout the House and the galleries, which were crowded to excess. This body of English gentlemen expressed their contempt more fully by that ominous stillness, so unusual in that assembly, than any eloquence could have done. Pitt stood aloof; dignified, contemptuous, and silent. Sheridan challenged from Rolle some token of satisfaction at the information; but Rolle merely returned that he had indeed received an answer, but that the House must form their own opinion on it. In the discussions which ensued, a channel was nevertheless opened for mutual concessions—which ended eventually in the relief of the prince from pecuniary embarrassments, part of which were ascribed to the king's having appropriated to his own use the revenues of the duchy of Cornwall, and refusing to render any account of them on the prince's coming of age. It was the mediation of the Duchess of Gordon that brought the matter promptly to a conclusion, and through her representations, Dundas was sent to Canton House, to ascertain from the prince the extent of his liabilities; an assurance was given that immediate steps would be taken to relieve his Royal Highness. The interview was enlivened by a considerable quantity of wine; and after a pretty long flow of the generous bowl, Dundas's promises were energetically ratified. Never was there a man more "malleable," to use Wraxall's expression, than Harry Dundas. Pitt soon afterward had an audience equally amicable with the prince.

From this period until after the death of Pitt, in 1806, the Duchess of Cordon's influence remained in the ascendant. The last years of the man whom she had destined for her son-in-law, and who had ever been on terms of the greatest intimacy with her, were clouded. Pitt had the misfortune not only of being a public man,—for to say that is to imply a sacrifice of happiness,—but to be a public man solely. He would turn neither to marriage, nor to books, nor to agriculture, nor even to friendship, for the repose of a mind that could not, from insatiable ambition, find rest. He died involved in debt—in terror and grief for his country. He is said never to have been in love. At twenty-four he had the sagacity, the prudence, the reserve of a man of fifty. His excess in wine undermined his constitution, but was source of few comments when his companions drank more freely than men in office had ever been known to do since the time of Charles II. Unloved he lived; and alone, uncared for, unwept, he died. That he was nobly indifferent to money, that he had a contempt for everything mean, or venal, or false, was, in those days, no ordinary merit.

During the whirl of gaiety, politics, and matchmaking, the Duchess of Gordon continued to read, and to correspond with Beattie upon topics of less perishable interest than the factions of the hour. Beattie sent her his "Essay on Beauty" to read in manuscript; he wrote to her about Petrarch, about Lord Monboddo's works, and Burke's book on the French Revolution,—works which the duchess found time to read and wished to analyse. Their friendship, so honoured to her, continued until his death in 1803.

The years of life that remained to the Duchess of Gordon must have been gladdened by the birth of her grandchildren, and by the promise of her sons George, afterward Duke of Gordon, and Alexander. The illness of George III., the trials of Hastings and of Lord Melville, the general war, were the events that most varied the political world, in which she ever took a keen interest. She died in 1812, and the duke married soon afterward Mrs. Christie, by whom he had no children.

The dukedom of Gordon became extinct at his death; and the present representative of this great family is the Marquis of Huntley.