[_From a packet of letters, written in the middle of the eighteenth
century by Lady Fanny Armine to her cousin, Lady Desmond, in Ireland, I
have strung together one of the strangest of true stories--the history of
Maria Walpole, niece of the famous Horace Walpole and illegitimate
daughter of his brother, Sir Edward Walpole. The letters are a potpourri
of town and family gossip, and in gathering the references to Maria
Walpole into coherence, I am compelled to omit much that is characteristic
and interesting._]
_May, 1754._
Why, Kitty, my dear, what signifies your reproaches? I wish I may never be
more guilty than I am this day. I laid out a part of your money in a
made-up mantua and a petticoat of Rat de St. Maur, and for the hat,'twas
the exact copy of the lovely Gunning's--Maria Coventry. And though I won't
flatter you, child, by saying your bloom equals hers (for I can't tell
what hers may be under the white lead she lays on so thick), yet I will
say that your Irish eyes may ambuscade to the full as well beneath it,
though they won't shoot an earl flying, like hers, because you have
captured your baronet already!
But 'tis news you would have--news, says you, of all the gay doings of the
town.
And how is her Gunning Grace of Hamilton, you ask, and do the folk still
climb on chairs at Court to stare at her? Vastly in beauty, child. She was
in a suit of fine blue satin at the last Birthnight, sprigged all over
with white, and the petticoat robings broidered in the manner of a
trimming wove in the satin. A hoop of the richest damask, trimmed with
gold and silver. These cost fourteen guineas a hoop, my dear. Who shall
say the ladies of the present age don't understand refinements? Her Grace
had diamonds plastered on wherever they would stick, and all the people of
quality run mad to have a stare at so much beauty, set off with as much
glare as Vauxhall on a fête night, and she as demure as a cat after
chickens.
But 'tis always the way with these sudden-come-ups, they never have the
easy carriage that comes from breeding, and 'tis too much to expect she
should be a topping courtier.
You must know Horry Walpole was there, in gray and silver brocade, as fine
and finical a gentleman as ever, and most genteelly lean; and says I to
him:--
"What think you, Mr Walpole, of our two coquet Irish beauties? Do they put
out all the fire of our English charmers?"
So he drew himself up and took a pinch of rappee (can't you see him,
Kitty, my girl?), and says he:--
"Madam, to a lady that is herself all beauty and need envy none, I may say
we have a beauty to be produced shortly to the town that will flutter all
the world, excepting only the lady I have the honour to address."
And, Lord! the bow he made me, with his hat to his heart!
"La, man," says I, "who is she? But sure I know. 'T is the Duchess of
Queensberry reduced a good half in size and with a new complexion."
But Horry shook his ambrosial curls.
"No, Madam, 'pon honour! A little girl with the vivacity of sixteen and
brown eyes, brown hair--in fact, a brown beauty."