Whatever shape Richard Lord Hertford’s eccentricities may have taken, he had one redeeming virtue. He was a model son, and his love for his mother was the great passion of his life. To attack her, to be in any way wanting in respect for her, was in his eyes the one crime for which there was no forgiveness, and that was precisely the crime of which Sir Francis Seymour was guilty. It was a pity, to say the least of it, that the unkind things, sure to be repeated, of which he was so prodigal in speaking of Lady Hertford, should ever have been uttered. However much he might disapprove of Lord Hertford’s way of life, it would have been wise to remember that a man is not responsible for his grandmother’s indiscretions, and the shady parentage of Maria Fagnani might well have been allowed the benefit of silence. At any rate, it was not the business of Sir Francis to trumpet that or any other scandal about her. Her story was curious. All the actors in the play have long been dead, but it is so intimately connected with the history of the Wallace Collection that, while there is no one left to whom its relation could give pain, it still retains a special interest. Anything that can throw light upon the passing of all those treasures into the possession of the nation is worth recording; and it is, moreover, an act of justice to clear the memory of a lady who has been somewhat roughly—and, as I believe, without foundation—handled in the “Dictionary of National Biography.” Under the blessing of the law, Maria was the daughter of the Marchese and Marchesa Fagnani, and the adopted child of George Selwyn. But the Marchesa, who was said to have been a ballet-dancer, must have been none too faithful to her husband; for, as a matter of fact, George Selwyn was said to dispute with the Duke of Queensberry, the wicked “Old Q,” the honour of being her father. As to that there seems to be no certain evidence, but one would have thought that such a rivalry, or partnership—whichever it might be—would have bred a jealousy between the two men. Not a bit of it! They remained fast friends, were constantly together, and, when apart, wrote to one another in the most affectionate terms. At George Selwyn’s death in 1791 he left thirty-three thousand pounds to Maria and the rest of his fortune to “Old Q.” When the Duke, in his turn, came to an end of his stormy life, dying in the odour of iniquity in 1810, he bequeathed to Maria, who had married Lord Yarmouth in 1798, a fortune of between three and four hundred thousand pounds, together with the famous house opposite the Green Park in Piccadilly, in the window of which, when he was too old to walk, he used to sit ogling the pretty women as they passed below him. That window, with its leering old tenant, was one of the sights of London.