must have been a deep interest in her misfortunes that tempted Lord Ossory into forming an intimacy which led to a dissolution of this ill-assorted marriage. Many and great were the trials this amiable woman endured, before she consented to take the step which tarnished her reputation, and deprived her of the place in society that her virtues adorned. Gilly Williams, intending to throw ridicule on her religious feelings, writes thus in 1765: "The Duchess of Grafton goes nowhere but to church." Horace Walpole, who was, says Mr. Jesse,' an ardent admirer of her beauty, her good sense, and many endearing qualities, and who, more than once, speaks of her enthusiastically as " my Duchess," pays her a pleasing compliment, in his poem of "The Three Herons." Lady Ossory was the only daughter of the first Lord. Ravensworth, and died in February 1804.

1

1 John Heneage Jesse, "Memoirs of the Court of England."

CHAPTER XV.

Lord John Townshend-Lady Hunloke-Sir Robert Adair-Poem of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire's, supposed to be addressed to Sir Robert Adair, by Lady Hunloke—Sir Robert Adair's Reply to Lady Hunloke, by Lord John Townshend—Sir Gregory Page Turner— Sir G. Osborne Turner-Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt Jones-Mr. Robson, M.P.

AMONGST the names of valued friends mentioned by Brummell, in his letter to the lady to whom he presented his album, is that of Lord John Townshend, son of the first Marquis Townshend so much distinguished at the battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy, and who had the melancholy satisfaction of receiving the keys of Quebec after the death of Wolfe. Lord John

was born on the 19th of January 1757, and was a godson of George the Second. He was educated at Eton, and afterwards went to Cambridge, where his career was so brilliant that the University returned him as their member at the age of twenty-three. He had been a candidate the previous year, 1779, when he was defeated by the Solicitor-General Mansfield, but only by twelve votes. It was on this occasion that the Marquis sent a man up to vote against his son, and for Lord Hyde, the third candidate. Lord

John's adherence to the Whig party cost him his seat in 1784, when he was superseded by Mr. Pitt. He was subsequently returned, with Fox as his colleague, for Westminster, and afterwards sat twenty-five years for Knaresborough, at the expiration of which time he retired from Parliament.

"Few men," says Wraxall, "held a higher place in Fox's friendship than the Lord John Townshend ; a place to which he was entitled by the elegance of his mind, his various accomplishments, and his adherence to him through life. If party could ever feel regret, it would have been excited by his being excluded from a seat so honourable in itself as that of the University of Cambridge, to which he had attained. by unwearied personal exertions." In early life Lord John was conspicuous in society for the grace of his manners, and, as his friend Tickell says, "for his pathetic bow." His poetical productions were admired for their exquisite humour; and, in conjunction with Tickell, he wrote the satire entitled Jekyll. To him we also owe the Probationary Ode for Major Scott, and the playful parody of "Donec gratus eram tibi; " he likewise wrote a severe ode addressed to Lord North, and similarly pungent verses to Lords Barring-. ton, Dartmouth, and George Germaine.

A party at Chatsworth, at which Lord John was present, gave rise to the following pretty piece of scandal in verse by the Duchess of Devonshire. It has been already alluded to, and will introduce a reply by his lordship, who, as I have before observed, was

one of her intimate friends. In this poem the spirituelle Georgiana appears to have been amusing herself not a little at the expense of Lady Hunloke, wife of Sir Henry Hunloke, Bart., and a sister of the late Lord Leicester. Her ladyship was one of the duchess's country neighbours, and stands accused of having a predilection for Mr., afterwards the Right Honourable Sir Robert Adair, also one of her Grace's political friends, and a visitor at Chatsworth.

This gentleman, son of the celebrated surgeon of that name by Lady Caroline Keppel, daughter of William, second Earl of Albemarle, was the élève and friend of Fox, whose memory he defended against Tomline; and while he sat in parliament, which he did, first for Appleby, and afterwards for Camelford, he steadily supported that statesman. In 1789, when Russia was menaced by England for her policy with regard to Turkey, Mr. Adair, under Fox's auspices, visited St. Petersburgh (a fact which the reader must bear in mind as he peruses the poem), to counteract Mr. Pitt's measures; and it was after this that the Empress Catherine requested Fox to sit for his bust, which she subsequently placed between those of Demosthenes and Cicero. That Charles Fox should feel an honest satisfaction in preserving his country from being embroiled in an unnecessary war, is perfectly comprehensible; but it is difficult to believe that he attached any value to this hollow compliment from the great representative of absolute power. 1806, Mr. Adair was appointed ambassador at Vienna,

In

and three years after was sent as minister to Constantinople; after which, he retired from public

life.

The "" dingy home," of which the duchess speaks in the opening lines of this poem, is Wingerworth Hall, the seat of the Hunloke family; and it was probably the iron founderies in the neighbourhood of Chesterfield that suggested the allusion, for Wingerworth is but two or three miles from that town; the Hall is about ten from Chatsworth. Though the Duchess of Devonshire's love of literature was quite sufficient to excite the envious of her day to call her a Blue, she would, by the quiz she thus inflicted upon her contemporary, have completely escaped the more recent denunciation of that clique by Trebeck, who observes, "that the Blues seldom condescend to scandal except scandal of the worst kind, such as ripping up old grievances, and speaking shamefully ill of the dead. I met a Blue the other day who was discussing the Suffolk letters, and Walpole's memoirs, and then went on to say paw-paw things of Lady Mary Wortley Montague. Now really this is quite atrocious to attack a modern reputation is venial in comparison. Thank Heaven, with all my faults, it cannot be said that I ever slandered anybody's greatgreat-grandmother." Now I venture to hope the reader will not think that I have slandered a greatgrandmother (for such would Lady Hunloke be were she now alive) by publishing these lines, as at the period they were written she was in her fifty-first