able in these days; though in her own time she was styled "a grace for beauty and a muse for wit." Her youth, her accomplishments, her captivating person, her station at court, (as a maid of honor to Maria d'Este, then Duchess of York,) and her premature death at the age of twenty-four, all conspired to render her interesting to her contemporaries; and Dryden has given her a fame which cannot die. The stanza in this ode, in which the poet for himself and others, pleads guilty of having "made prostitute and profligate the muse," Whose harmony was first ordain'd above For tongues of angels and for hymns of love! -the sudden turn in praise of the young poetess, whose verse flowed pure as her own mind and heart; and the burst of enthusiasm Let this thy vestal, heaven! atone for all! are exceeding beautiful. His description of her skill in painting both landscape and portraits, would answer for a Claude, or a Titian. We are a little disappointed to find, after all this pomp and prodigality of praise, that Anne Killegrew's paintings were mediocre; and that her poetry has sunk, not undeservedly, into oblivion. She died of the smallpox in 1685. The famous Tom Killegrew, jester (by courtesy) to Charles the Second, was her uncle. There was also the young Duchess of Ormond, (Lady Mary Somerset, daughter of the Duke of Beaufort.) She married into a family which had been, for three generations, the patrons and benefactors of Dryden; and never was patronage so richly repaid. To this Duchess of Ormond, Dryden has dedicated the Tale of Palemon and Arcite, in an opening address full of poetry and compliment;-happily both justified and merited by the object. Lady Hyde, afterwards Countess of Clarendon and Rochester, was in her time a favorite theme of gay and gallant verse; but she maintained with her extreme beauty and gentleness of deportment, a dignity of conduct which disarmed scandal, and kept presumptuous wits as well as presumptuous fops at a distance. Lord Lansdown has crowned her with praise, very pointed and elegant, and seems to have contrasted her at the moment, with his coquettish Mira, Lady Newburgh. Others, by guilty artifice and arts, And promised kindness, practise on our hearts; She fans the fire without one gale of hope.* Lady Hyde was the daughter of Sir William Leveson Gower, (ancestor to the Marquis of Stafford,) and mother of that Lord Cornbury, who has been celebrated by Pope and Thomson. The second daughter of this lovely and amiable woman, Lady Catherine Hyde, was Prior's famous Kitty, * See the lines on Lady Hyde's picture in Granville's Poems. Beautiful and young, And wild as colt untam'd, the "female Phaeton," who obtained mamma's chariot for a day, to set the world on fire. Shall I thumb holy books, confin'd With Abigails forsaken? Must Lady Jenny frisk about, At balls must she make all this rout, What has she better, pray, than I? Dearest Mamma! for once, let me Fondness prevail'd, Mamma gave way: And set the world on fire! Kitty not only set the world on fire, but more than accomplished her magnanimous resolution to have an Earl as well as her sister, Lady Jenny.* She married the Duke of Queensbury and as that Duchess of Queensbury, who was the friend and : *Lady Jane Hyde married the Earl of Essex. patroness of Gay, is still farther connected with the history of our poetical literature. Pope paid a compliment to her beauty, in a well-known couplet, which is more refined in the application than in the expression : If Queensbury to strip there's no compelling, She was an amiable, exemplary woman, and possessed that best and only preservative of youth and beauty,—a kind, cheerful disposition and buoyant spirits. When she walked at the coronation of George the Third, she was still so strikingly attractive, that Horace Walpole handed to her the following impromptu, written on a leaf of his pocketbook, To many a Kitty, Love, his car, Obtained it for an age! She is also alluded to in Thomson's Seasons. And stooping thence to Ham's embowering walks, Summer. The Duchess of Queensbury died in 1777.* * On the death of Gay, Swift had addressed to the Duchess a letter of condolence in his usual cynical style. The Duchess replied with feeling-"I differ from you, that it is possible to comfort one's self for the loss of friends, as one does for the loss of money. I think I could live on very little, nor think myself Two other women, who lived about the same time, possess a degree of celebrity which, though but a sound- —a name—rather than a feeling or an interest, must not pass unnoticed; more particularly as they will farther illustrate the theory we have hitherto kept in view. I allude to "Granville's Mira," and "Prior's Chloe." For the fame of the first, a single line of Pope has done more than all the verses of Lord Lansdown it is in the Epistle to Jervas the painter With Zeuxis' Helen, thy Bridgewater vie, And these be sung, till Granville's Mira die! Now, "Granville's Mira" would have been dead long ago, had she not been preserved in some material more precious and lasting than the poetry of her noble admirer: she shines, however, 66 embalmed in the lucid amber" of Pope's lines; and we not only wonder how she got there, but are tempted to inquire who she was, or if ever she was at all. Granville's Mira was Lady Frances Brudenel, third daughter of the Earl of Cardigan. She was married very young to Livingstone, Earl of Newburgh; and Granville's first introduction to her must have taken place soon after her marriage, in 1690; he was then about twenty, already distin poor, nor be thought so; but a little friendship could never satisfy one. In almost every thing but friends, another of the same name may do as well; but friend is more than a name, if it be any thing."-This is true; but, as Touchstone says-" much virtue in if!" |