Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth CenturyPeacock, Virginia Tatnall
History
Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century
Peacock, Virginia Tatnall
Women -- United States -- Biography
There is an anecdote frequently related of Lady Churchill's ready wit,
called forth by a situation which arose during the electioneering
campaign, in which she was taking an active interest, of Mr.
Burdett-Coutts, husband of the old Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who was
at the time over eighty years of age. An old voter upon whom Lady
Churchill called, and who seemed ready enough to cast his vote for Mr.
Burdett-Coutts, took occasion, however, to relate to her, with much
relish, the price which the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire had paid a
butcher for his vote in the days of the famous Pitt and Fox contest,
permitting him to kiss her lovely cheek. He concluded his narration
with a direct intimation that he would consider a similar reward as
fair payment for his own vote.
"Very well," replied Lady Churchill, smiling a gracious compliance, "I
will book your vote on those terms, but you must remember that I am
working for Mr. Burdett-Coutts, and I must, therefore, refer you for
payment to the Baroness."
In June, 1899, the first number of Lady Churchill's quarterly, the
_Anglo-Saxon Review_, which had been for several months the subject of
much conjecture and speculation, appeared.
"Have you heard of the wonderful new magazine
Lady Randolph's to edit with help from the Queen?
It's a guinea a number--too little by half,
For the crowned heads of Europe are all on the staff,"
ran the opening lines of perhaps the cleverest of the many verses and
paragraphs her new venture called forth.
Its contributions included papers from Lord Rosebery and Whitelaw Reid,
a poem from Swinburne, with stories from Henry James, Gilbert Parker,
and Sir Frank Sweetenham, and a drama from John Oliver Hobbes. Among
the illustrations were a picture of the Queen, as frontispiece, and a
reproduction of Gilbert Stewart's portrait of Washington. The binding
was in keeping with the contents, and was of dark-blue morocco, richly
tooled in gold, with the royal coat of arms in the centre, surmounted
by the crown of England, with supporters, a reproduction of a cover
designed in the seventeenth century by the court binder, Abraham
Bateman. It sold, as have the subsequent editions, for a guinea a
number, and was, as the enterprising editress said in her preface, a
volume "worthy to be taken up into that Valhalla of printed things, the
library."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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