In her husband’s temper and propensities, Lady Sunderland found that counterbalance to her many worldly advantages, which those who enjoy the happiest lot must in this world experience. Lord Sunderland, from the account of historians, appears to have been of a factious, unhappy spirit; to have quarrelled with his best friends; to have failed in his ambition, not from want of abilities, but from want of conduct, and to have been alienated, by his rash and conceited deportment, from those who could alone save and serve him.[250] He had also a turn for extravagance, and a passion for gaming; and the last years of his more discreet wife were embittered by anxiety respecting a suitable provision for his children, an anxiety which events fully justified in the imprudent marriage which the Earl formed after her death. Yet was the Countess sincerely devoted to this uncongenial being, to whom political interests had caused her to be united at an age when she was too young to form a judgment upon such matters. When he was absent in Vienna, on an embassy, she composed a prayer, found among her papers after her death, dictated by the most ardent attachment to her husband, and by the purest and most exalted devotion to her Maker.[251] One would be apt to think highly of that man who could inspire such a woman with such an affection, but that daily and hourly we witness how the most disinterested and warmest feelings are bestowed by female hearts on unworthy objects, and how they are perpetuated by a sense of duty, by habit, by gratitude. Lady Sunderland had long suffered from the approaches of a mortal disorder, which she sustained with the spirit that became her. In her patience and christian resignation, she was consistent to the rest of her conduct. On the 15th of April, 1714, very shortly after the death of her sister, she was removed to a happier state; a fever, with which her impaired constitution could not struggle, closing, thus abruptly and mercifully, a life which might have lingered underneath the less violent attacks of a chronic disease. Her death was a severe blow to both her parents. In her, the Duchess lost the only solace which filial duty could supply; for her remaining daughters loved her not, and even from her grandchildren she failed to experience comfort. Among her mother’s papers was found the following letter, eloquent in its simple beauty, and deeply affecting to the parents, who could trace, in its touching requests, the pure but fretted spirit of their anxious child. The Duchess, according to her usual custom, had endorsed it with these words: “A copy of what my dear daughter wrote to her Lord, not to be given to him till after she was dead.”[252] “Altrop, Sept. 9, 1716.