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Page 19
In an ode on the death of Maria the poet Mason wrote:--
"For she was fair beyond your brightest bloom
(This Envy owns, since now her bloom is fled):
Fair as the Forms that wove in Fancy's loom,
Float in light vision round the Poet's head.
Whene'er with soft serenity she smiled,
Or caught the orient blush of quick surprise,
How sweetly mutable, how brightly wild.
The liquid lustre darted from her eyes!
Each look, each motion, waked a new-born grace
That o'er her form its transient glory cast:
Some lovelier wonder soon usurped the place,
Chased by a charm still lovelier than the last."
[Illustration: ELIZABETH COUNTESS GROSVENOR by LAWRENCE]
LADY ELIZABETH
In these latter days can we imagine a lawsuit, costing contestants
thousands of pounds, over the right to a certain heraldic charge? In
the fourteenth century Sir Robert Grosvenor was the defendant in such
a suit, and we read of Chaucer, John of Gaunt, Owen Glendower, and
Hotspur being witnesses before the High Court of Chivalry. Sir Robert
established his defence, and since those days the Grosvenors have ever
held a high rank in the nobility of England. Quite as proud a
patrician position was held through the centuries by the family of
Gower. In the early part of this century, the heir of the Grosvenors
espoused the most beautiful daughter of the House of Gower,--Lady
Elizabeth Mary Leveson Gower. This lady was the youngest daughter of
George, the second Marquis of Stafford, who married, in 1785,
Elizabeth, who was Countess of Sutherland and Baroness Strathnaver in
her own right. The Marquis was created Duke of Sutherland in 1833.
The Lady Elizabeth Mary was born in 1797, and married, in 1819,
Robert, Viscount Belgrave, eldest son of the second Earl of Grosvenor.
The portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence was painted in the year preceding
her marriage.
The Marquisate of Westminster had been created in 1831, and in 1845,
when the Viscount's father died, he succeeded to the title. He had
entered Parliament in 1818 as member for Chester. He spoke but rarely
in the House, although a hard worker on committees. He greatly
improved his vast London property, and had the credit of administering
his estate with a combination of intelligence and generosity seldom
seen. Of reserved habits and inexpensive tastes, he was averse to
ostentation and extravagance. He died in 1869. His successor was his
son (born in 1825) the present Duke, who was elevated to a dukedom in
1874. He is one of the wealthiest peers in the kingdom, is a man of
great taste, and has patronized the arts with almost a Medician
munificence.
The seat of the family is the renowned Eaton Hall, near Chester; that
stately mansion set in the centre of a country rich in pastoral
beauty. Its enlargement and beautification was begun by the second
Earl in 1802, and has been carried on by its present lord until it is
now the most magnificent of all the modern mansions of the nobility.
G.F. Watts's heroic equestrian statue of Hugh Lupus, the founder of
the family and a nephew of William the Conqueror, challenges
admiration as one enters the grounds. There is no great picture
gallery in the Hall, for that is at Grosvenor House in London, but the
family portraits are here. Let into panels of the dining-room are
portraits from the time of the first Earl, who was painted by
Gainsborough. The Viscount Belgrave and his lady were painted by
Pickersgill, in 1825,--this picture of the latter being much inferior
to Lawrence's,--while the present generation was painted almost wholly
by Millais,--that of Constance, the Duke's first wife, being
especially fine. Leslie, in 1833, executed a group of the Grosvenor
family.
Lawrence and Hoppner were to the regency what Reynolds, Gainsborough,
and Romney were to the early days of the reign of George III., as
painters of the patrician beauties. What a marvellous mass of records
of fair women these five have left us!--Reynolds, supreme in style,
painting the character as seen through the fair mask of the flesh;
Gainsborough, superbly picturesque, and a faithful limner withal;
Romney, impressively picturesque, too, a fine colorist, imaginative,
and but now, a century later, coming into his proper meed of praise;
Lawrence, elegant, charming,--a courtier indeed; Hoppner, through many
years a close rival of Lawrence. To Hoppner we are indebted for the
visible evidence of the beauty of many who had repute as fair women.
There is that piquant Jane Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford, who greets
us in the National Gallery. Then that dark-eyed and winsome Lady
Kenyon, who was one of the reigning belles, on canvas, at the Grafton
Gallery show in London this year. In this exhibit, too, was his
"Mademoiselle Hillsberg,"--a tall and dark dancing woman, which he
regarded as his best work. Then there is that group of noble dames by
him, which were engraved by Charles Wilkin and published under the
title "Bygone Beauties,"--Lady Charlotte Duncombe; Viscountess St.
Asaph; Lady Charlotte Campbell, daughter of Elizabeth Gunning;
Viscountess Andover; Lady Langham; the Countess of Euston, one of the
three beautiful Ladies Waldegrave, painted by Reynolds; the Duchess of
Rutland. These are indeed "a select series of ladies of rank and
fashion." And with these must be classed that sweet ideal face of Mrs,
Arbuthnot, known as "Marcia." At this late date it gives us greeting
from how many a parlor wall! Its tender charm makes perpetual appeal
to the passer-by from how many a print-shop window!
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