She was born of a family that had already produced two men of splendid genius, whose names are written in golden letters in the annals of literature: Beaumont, the dramatist, who wrote, in collaboration with his friend Fletcher, some plays that are considered by our best critics as inferior only to Shakespeare's, was related by his mother to the Pierreponts of the Elizabethan age; and Henry Fielding, the novelist, was Lady Mary's second cousin. She is said to have written in her copy of _Tom Jones_ as fine a tribute to an author's power as could be desired--simply the words _Ne plus ultra_. Villiers, the notorious Duke of Buckingham, whose end served Pope for some of his best satirical verse, was also of the same stock. [Illustration: THORESBY] It was at Thoresby that Lady Mary's strange love affair with the handsome Mr. Edward Wortley, of Wharncliffe Chase--the abode of the Dragon of Wantley--began, and after many difficulties ended in one of the most mysterious marriages that ever puzzled literary students. When a girl of fourteen she met the gentleman at a party, and was delighted with the attraction which he found in her conversation. She became a particular friend of his sister, with whom she commenced a sentimental correspondence--most of the letters, it may be said, being written by Wortley himself. He became, through the vehicle of the complacent Miss Anne, her guide and philosopher, and soon we find him answering certain precocious queries about Latin. Then jealousy appeared--somebody had escorted Lady Mary to Nottingham Races! The flattered young beauty begs to know the name of the man she loves, "that I may (according to the laudable custom of lovers) sigh to the woods and groves hereabouts, and teach it to the echoes". Thereupon Wortley's inclinations were made known, and she replied: "To be capable of preferring the despicable wretch you mention to Mr. Wortley, is as ridiculous, if not as criminal, as forsaking the Deity to worship a calf; ... my tenderness is always built upon my esteem and when the foundation perishes, it falls". Wortley, not only in the courtship, but throughout their long wedded life, appears to have been singularly calm and unimpassioned. He was an admirable scholar, and counted among his intimate friends Addison and Steele. The second volume of the _Tatler_ was dedicated to him in an epistle probably composed by the latter writer.