Some Old Time Beauties: After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and CommentWilling, Thomson
History
Some Old Time Beauties: After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment
Willing, Thomson
Great Britain -- Biography; Women -- Biography
The second sister, the Hon. Mary, was married to Sir Thomas Graham of
Balgowan, a descendant of the Marquis of Montrose and of Graham of
Claverhouse. The youngest sister, Louisa, later became Countess of
Mansfield, and her portrait, by Romney,--a seated profile figure with
flowing draperies,--is that artist's most masterly work.
After eighteen years of happy married life, she died childless; one of
those good women that were--
"True in loving all their lives,"--
"a surpassing spirit whose light adorned the world around it." Her
husband grieved greatly. He was ordered to travel to divert his
despair. He visited Gibraltar, and there the dormant martial spirit of
his ancestors was aroused by his environment. Though then forty-three
years of age, he immediately entered the army as a volunteer. He
rapidly rose in his profession, and had an especially brilliant career
in the Peninsular War. In 1811, he became the hero of Barossa, and in
the same year was made second in command to the Duke of Wellington. He
was created Lord Lynedoch of Balgowan, Perthshire, and frequently was
thanked by Parliament for his services. Sheridan said, "Never was
there a loftier spirit in a braver heart." And alluding to his
services during the retreat to Corunna, he said, "Graham was their
best adviser in the hour of peril; and in the hour of disaster, their
surest consolation." Scott eulogizes him in the poem, "The Vision of
Don Roderick," in the lines,--
"Nor be his praise o'erpast who strove to hide
Beneath the warrior's vest affection's wound,
Whose wish Heaven for his country's weal denied;
Danger and fate, he sought, but glory found.
"From clime to clime, wher'e'r war's trumpets sound,
The wanderer went; yet, Caledonia, still
Thine was his thought in march and tented ground;
He dreamed mid Alpine cliffs of Athole's hill,
And heard in Ebro's roar his Lynedoch's lovely rill.
"O hero of a race renowned of old,
Whose war-cry oft has waked the battle swell!"
Old Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, wrote of a late Duke of Athole:
"Courage, endurance, stanchness, fidelity, and warmth of heart,
simplicity, and downrightness, were his staples." They are ever the
staples of the Scotch character, and they were all pre-eminent in Sir
Thomas. His life was noble, and his affection was faithful to its
early troth.
A pathetic history attaches to this picture of Mrs. Graham: When its
subject died, the sorrowing husband had it bricked up where it hung,
and it was only by an accident that it was discovered at his death, in
1843. It now hangs in the National Gallery of Scotland at Edinburgh.
The present reproduction shows but a part of the picture, the figure
being full length. It has been excellently reproduced in etching by
both Flameng and Waltner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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