Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 362, December 1845Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 362, December 1845
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
candidate was beaten, Wilkes threw in his remaining votes for Cooke,
and they came in together. The election was thus over on the second
day, but the mob paraded the metropolis at night, insisting on a
general illumination. The handsome Duchess of Hamilton, one of the
Gunnings, who had now become quite a Butite, was determined not to
illuminate. The result was, that the mob grew outrageous, broke down
the outward gates with iron-crows, tore up the pavement of the street,
and battered the doors and shutters for three hours; fortunately
without being able to get in. The Count de Sollein, the Austrian
ambassador, the most stately and ceremonious of men, was taken out of
his coach by the mob, who chalked 45 on the sole of his shoe! He
complained in form of the insult. Walpole says, fairly enough, "it was
as difficult for the ministers to help laughing as to give him
redress."
Walpole frequently alludes to the two Gunnings as the two handsomest
sisters of their time. They were Irish-women, fresh-coloured, lively,
and well formed, but obviously more indebted to nature than to
education. Lady Coventry died young, and had the misfortune, even in
her grave, of being made the subject of an epitaph by Mason, one of
the most listless and languid poems of an unpoetic time. The Duchess
of Hamilton survived to a considerable age, and was loaded with
matrimonial honours. She first married the Duke of Hamilton. On his
death, she married the Marquis of Lorn, eldest son of the Duke of
Argyll, whom he succeeded in the title--thus becoming mother of the
heirs of the two great rival houses of Hamilton and Argyll. While in
her widowhood, she had been proposed for by the Duke of Bridgewater.
Lady Coventry seems to have realized Pope's verses of a dying belle--
"And, Betty, give this cheek a little red,
One would not, sure, look ugly when one's dead."
"Till within a few days of her death, she lay on a couch with a
looking-glass in her hand. When she found her beauty, which she
idolized, was quite gone, she took to her bed, and would be seen by
nobody, not even by her nurse, suffering only the light of a lamp in
her room."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 362, December 1845 — John Shaqi
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account