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Page 15
When the earl retired from the admiralty, in 1800, his entertaining
became less general. His hospitalities at Spencer House were
restricted to his more intimate friends. Here came Lord Grenville,
Earl Grey, chief of the Whigs, Brougham, Horner, and Lord John
Russell; the younger men to hold converse with her who had known
Burke, Pitt, Fox, and all the older time orators and statesmen.
In a series of boyish letters sent by the heir to the earldom to his
father the ending of all is in this quaint phrase: "My duty to Mama."
The youth did his duty by his mother. She directed his tastes and
studies, and when he was at college incited him to try for high
honors, and urged, again and yet again, application to study; and
through her persuasion he became a reading man. He entered Parliament
when of age, in 1803. During the Fox and Grenville administration he
held office as a lord of the treasury. When his mother was
congratulated on his appointment, she said: "Jack was always skilful
in figures, and his work is so much to his taste that I am sure he
will do himself credit." He did himself great credit. His career was
consistently courageous, honorable, and beneficent. He had character!
This is his mother's best eulogy. She died in 1831, shortly after her
son had become Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which office he earned
his greatest repute as a statesman.
[Illustration: ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON by READ]
ELIZABETH GUNNING
The story of the Gunnings is as romantic as any ever wrought into
imaginative narrative or incorporated in epic poem. The notorious
damsels were daughters of John Gunning of Castle Coote, County
Roscommon, Ireland, by the Hon. Bridget Bourke, daughter of Theobald,
sixth Viscount Bourke of Mayo, whom he married in 1731. The family was
wofully impecunious; so when the daughters, Maria and Elizabeth, grew
into marvellously comely maidens, their mother urged their going on
the stage to augment the faulty fortune. They went to Dublin, and
there were kindly received by Peg Woffington, then in her glory as
_Sir Harry Wildair_, and by Tom Sheridan, manager of Dublin Theatre.
The stage had not then become the stepping-stone to the ranks of the
nobility, so the girls were advised to adventure socially, with their
faces for their fortunes. They had not the dresses to be presented in
at Dublin Castle, but Sheridan supplied these from the resources of
the green-room wardrobe. Attired as _Lady Macbeth_ and as _Juliet_
they made their curtsies to the Earl of Harrington, the then
Lord-Lieutenant.
The hostess of the evening was the handsome Lady Caroline Petersham,
bride of the Earl's eldest son. Lady Caroline had been one of the
"Beauty Fitzroys," and had been a favorite belle in town before her
marriage.
"When Fitzroy moves, resplendent, fair.
So warm her bloom, sublime her air,
Her ebon tresses formed to grace
And heighten while they shade her face."
Walpole wrote of her in his poem on "The Beauties." The raw Connaught
girls outshone this dazzling hostess.
Their "first night" was an auspicious success. The d�but was
applauded, and the players praised. They were adjudged fitted to star
the social capital, so to London they went, in June, 1751. Their
reception was magical. The West End went almost mad over them. When
they appeared at Court, the aristocracy present was indecorous in its
efforts to view the dominant beauties. Lords and ladies clambered on
any eminence to gaze. The crowd surged upon them, and it was with
difficulty they entered their chairs because of the mob outside. The
gayety of Vauxhall Gardens was incomplete without them.
Their campaign was a short and eminently active one; Elizabeth
triumphed first. At a masquerade at Lord Chesterfield's, in February,
1752, James, the sixth Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, who was enamoured
of the younger Irish girl, wished to marry her at once. A clergyman
was asked to perform the ceremony then and there. He objected to the
time and place and the absence of a ring. The Duke threatened to send
for the Archbishop. With the ring of a bed-curtain, at half an hour
past midnight, the wedding took place in Mayfair Chapel. The Scotch
were enraged at the alliance, which became an unhappy one. The Duke
was vulgar, debauched, extravagant, and "damaged in person and
fortune," yet, withal, insolently proud. He betook himself off within
six years, and his two sons by the Duchess became, successively,
seventh and eighth Dukes of Hamilton; and a daughter married Edward,
twelfth Earl of Derby.
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