{Published by Special Arrangement.] THE ROMANCE OF THE CORONET.

Otago Witness, Issue 2652, 11 January 1905, Page 79

{Published by Special Arrangement.] THE ROMANCE OF THE CORONET.

By W. W. HUTCHINGS,

Author of "Guilty or Not Guilty?" "Historical Tragedies of London Life," " Humours of Life," &c, &c. [Copyright.] H.— THE MISSES WALPOLE AND THE MISSES GUNNING. In the middle of the eighteenth century the most renowned beauties .in England •were the ladies whose names appear at the iiead of these paragraphs. Their charms are 'embalmed in the social literature oi , the period, and one writer with a turn ' for pretty things" declared that if the three Graces of were to return to earth it \ta.s ~ doubtful whether they- would more feat- the- rivalry of the .fair .Walpqles or oi. the Ibeautiful - Gunnings.'- - The Misses Walpole — to begin with them —were the- handsome- daughters of handseme parents. The, father, Mr (afterward Sir) Edward Walpole, second son of the great Sir Robert, in bis youthful days formed a left-handed union with Mary Clement, a lovely, girl with fair complexion and eyes of the brightest blue, who was an apprentice to a tailor in Pall Mall. She was but f our-and-jfcwenty when she died, leaving behind her three daughters and two sons. The Threk Graces. The daughters — Laura, Staria, and Charlotte — grew up to- be not only dazzingly beautiful, but lively and clever, and their father saw to it that they missed no opportunity of acquiring the accomplishments or •which feminine education was in those days made up. Of their uncle* Horace they were

special favourites, and as we read in the late Edward "Walford's pleasant sketch of them in his " Tales of our Great Families," he would glady leave, any of his favourite occupations, even his collection of old china," in "order" to attend upon them;

"and it was. almost always" a grand and _festive day when the Lord of Strawberry Hill announced that he was to welcome the

Walpole beauties within its Gothic walls. But," he adds, "there were younger men ' than 'dear TJncle Horace ' who were -ready to leave their pursuits and professional studies in town in order to pass an afternoon in their charming society ; and the

lesser Court of King Horace at Twicken-

iam proved no contemptible rival to the greater Court of King George and bis Queen at St: James's." As -was fitting, the first of the three sisters to b.3 Jed to, the altar was the eldest, Laura, -who was espoused by the Hon. and Rev. Frederick Keppel, a -younger brother of the Earl of Albemarle, afterwards Bisnop of Exeter. Then came the turn of tha second, Maria, who, as

Horace Walpole declares, was "beauty itself. Her face,- bloom, eyes, hair, teeth, .and person x.re all perfect." That he was not led by an uncle's partiality into rai- "" discriminating admiration is evident from

•What follows. . "You may imagine how charming she is," lie goes on to say, " when I tell you that her only fault, if one must find one, is that her face is rather too round. She has a great deal of wit and vivacity, with perfect modesty." - A Royal Htjsb.vnd. To the girl whose loveliness is thus described came an offer from Earl Waldegrave, who was a full -twenty c years her senior.- The' fruit of the union was three daughters, and" then," after- four- years _-ot wedded Happiness, the". Earl was carried off -by the smallpox. How sincere and reciprocal the attachment between the pair lad .been became evident to all the "world •when the lovely young widow, still in the first bloom of her womanhood, was seen to refuse suitor after suitor, from dukes to commoners. But after three years ot •widowhood she found herself wooed by a prince of the blood, the King's own brother, and, Time having by now done its healing work, she no "longer said nay.

"A singular union indeed of the two ex-

treme links of the social chain," says Mr Eliot War-burton, " took place when H.R.H.

[William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, in 1766, espoused the daughter of the unfortunate Mary Clement — a marriage in virtue of -which it was not -only possible but quite probable that a descendant of the tailor's apprentice ' might in course of time take Us dr her seat upon that very throne to •which her, "her own daughter had been denied all approach." By this" second marriage the second of the trio of sisters had two children, the Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester, and the Princess Sophia, who never marriod. Lord Huntingtoweh.

The' story of the matrimonial fortunes

of the third daughter, Charlotte, shall be

told, by <he vivacious pen of her uncle Horace/ "There is in the world," he writes

to a correspondent, " and he lives directly *ver against me, across the water, a strange brute called the Earl of Dysart. Don't be frightened : he is not the bridegroom. His *on, Lord Huntingtower, to whom he gives but £400 a year, is a comely young gentle«aan of su-and-twentjr, who jia? often had

thoughts of trying whether his father would not liks grandchildren better than he does his own children. . ... All the answer he could ever get was that as he had five younger children, the Earl could not afford to make him any settlement ; but he offered, as a proof at once of his inability and his kindness, to lend Ms son a large sum ot money at a low interest. The indigent earl has" £13,000 a year, and £60,000 in the funds. This money, and ■ £10,000 out oi the £13,000 are entailed on Lord Huntingtower." The gossiping uncle then tells now his niece received the offer of Lord Huntingtower, who for months had worshipped her. at a distance— for a fortnight before this he was unknown to her by sight. He was now very ardent indeed, for he begged, if his suit should find favour in her eyes. that the marriage might take place within a week. To her sister Maria, who was •with her when the proposal was delivered, she said : "If I were but nineteen I would refuse point-blank, for I don't like to be married in a week to a man I never saw. But I am two-and-twenty. Some people say I am handsome, and some say I am not ; but I believe the truth is lam likely to be at large and to go off soon. It is dangerous to refuse so great a match." Verycool and business-like, certainly. But the match came off, though the worldly-wise uncle had his misgivings. He trembled for his, niece- because of the " oddness oi the father," and because he suspected that there might be any number of disagreeable things in a young man who had " lived entirely out of the world"; and he ruefully reflected that if Lord -Huntingtower died before his father she would lose all the money Ayhich she brought into the marriage, and would be leffcjivithout a sixpence. ~ However things did not so -turn out. •The Earl of 'Dysarb died in 1770, and then the -youngest 1 of the three sisters, like the second "of them, had her brows adorned -with- a countess's coronet. Thh Beauties. If nob less beautiful than the Misses Walpole, the Misses Gunning were at a disadvantage in that they were lacking both iii esprit and in accomplishments. They were Irish girls of no fortune, so poor, indeed that they thought of going on the stage, and it- is said that when they were presented to the Lord Lieutenant they tad to borrow clothes from the kindhearted Peg Woffington, the actress. Ot their- mental qualities we get a significant indication in the story that is told of their visit to Hampton Court. In taking them over the palace with a party of sightseers, the housekeeper said "This way, ladies, for the beauties," meaning, of course, the Kneller portraits o£ lovely women. At this they flew into a passion and said they had come to see the palace, and not to be made a show of.' The mistake, however, was not quite so gratuitous as may appear at first sight, for the two sisters were everywhere known as "the beauties." They could not walk in Hyde Park without being mobbtd, and one- Surday evening Mana, the elder of the two, was subjected to so much inconvenience from the enthusiasm of her admirers that tie king ordered that she should have" a guard. The next Sunday she made herself- ridiculous by promenading in the park for two mortal hours preceded by two sergeants of the guard carrying halberds, and followed by twelve soldiers ! Though more beaqtifjjj^gg»an her younger sister, Maria made a less distinguished match when she wedded the Earl ot Coventry. After marriage, as before, she was pretty much of a flirt. The king himself (George H) took a great deal of notice of her, and one day she amused him and made herself the lauighing-stock of the court by confiding to him that the one thing she longed to see was a Coronation. She died of consumption in 1760 at the age of 27, and to the last het appearance was her chief preoccupation. In her bedroom ske would have no light except that yielded by the lamp of a tea-kettle, nor would she ever allow the curtains of her bed to be undrawn, lest others should see how her charms had been impaired by disease. Vanitas Vanitatum! " DOCBLE-DUCHESSED." The younger cf the Gunning girls, ElizaI bpfch, became engaged at the age of seventeen to the Duke of Hamilton, of whom Horace Walpole speaks as " hot, debauched, extravagant, and equally damaged in his fortune." He describes what took place shortly afterwards at a party at Lord Chesterfield's when the duke ''made violent love at one end of the room while he was playing faro at the other end," with the result, of coui&e, that "he soon lost a thousand." Two nights afterwards, being at her house., this very impulsive lover

could wait no longer, but sent for a parson. In the absence of both license and ring the clergyman would not perform the ceremony, but at last, says Walpole, " they were married with a ring of the bed-curtain, at half an hour after twelve at night."

This was in 1752: in 1758 the Duchess of -Hamilton was a widoAv, and the next year she married the Marquis of Lome, ,and in due time became Duchess of Argyil, so that "she, as Horace Walpole says, was " double-duchessed." "What an extraordinary fate- is attached to those two women," was Horace's comment upon this second ducal match. "Who could have believed that a Gunning atouH unite the two great houses of Campbell and Hamilton?" But who can set limits to the magic power of beauty, even when allied ■with no graces of mind or of soul?