"Two Irish girls of no fortune, who make more noise than any of their
predecessors since the days of Helen, and who are declared the
handsomest women alive." So wrote Walpole, in June, 1751. If we were
to judge of their beauty by the pictured presentments of it, we would
certainly agree with "our Horace" when he says he has seen much
handsomer women than either. We have no adequate image of their
surpassing loveliness, the beholding of which would cause us to feel
how merited was their meed of praise, how fair the contemporary
comment on their comeliness, and how just the wide fame of a beauty
which tradition has epitomized for us in the phrase, "The Fair
Gunnings." Though the print publishers of the time actively issued
portraits, we feel that none of them picture such a person as would
set society and the whole city of London astir by her blazing beauty.
The best-known likenesses are the various pictures by Francis Cotes,
one of the founders of the Royal Academy, a painter of considerable
merit, who was born about 1725, and died in 1770. It is said that
Hogarth preferred him as a portrait painter to Reynolds. His studio
was in Cavendish Square, and at his death was taken by Romney; and it
was while he worked there that Sir Joshua referred to his rival as
"the man in Cavendish Square." The studio was later occupied by Sir
Martin Shee.
Cotes's picture of Maria is a half length of a modestly dignified
lady, having no tendency at all to that silliness that Walpole
insinuates was characteristic of her. The face is oval, the eyebrows
well apart and distinctly arched, and the hair brushed back from the
forehead and falling on the very graceful neck. The dress is cut low,
showing a delicately-moulded bosom. This picture was mezzo-tinted by
McArdell; and there is another, somewhat similar, reproduced superbly
by Spooner. His principal picture of Elizabeth is not so attractive
as the picture of her sister; the body is too constrained and
symmetrically formal; the dress is very low and edged with lace, some
flowers resting on her bosom. The neck and breast have not the suave
grace of the sister's. This has been engraved in mezzo-tint by
Houston. Another portrait by Cotes shows her with fur on the dress. He
also painted a portrait of Kitty in a low dress sprigged with flowers,
with a sash, and ribbons at the back of the head. This has a wooded
landscape background. Below the print of this picture is engraved
these lines:--
"This youngest of the Graces here we view
So like in Beauty to the other two
Whoe'er compares their Features and their Frame
Will know at once that Gunning is her name."
There is an engraved picture of the two sisters together--based on
Cotes's portrayals--called "The Hibernian Sisters." Maria is sitting
on the left, looking toward the right, with a dog on her lap; the
younger is on the right, looking to the front, and holds a fan in her
hand. In the background is a garden wall. Cupids surmount the
picture. The inscription is in this fashion:--
"Hibernia long with spleen beheld
Her Favorite Toasts by ours excelled.
Resolved to outvie Britannia's Fair
By her own Beauties,--sent a pair."
Reynolds painted them both, in 1753; but he failed to give them the
charm we would expect. Unless Sir Joshua's engravers belie him, he did
not make Maria even ordinarily fair to look upon. These pictures are
not classed among his masterpieces. There is a picture of Maria by B.
Wilson the engraver, made before she left Ireland. In it the features
are handsome and the figure graceful, though over-dressed, and the
whole impression is of a matron in her thirties rather than a maid in
her teens. The picture we give of her is from a whole-length by Gavin
Hamilton, a Scotch artist, a friend of Burns, born in Lanark about
1730. He must have been a precocious genius, for this picture was
engraved by McArdell, and published in 1754. Hamilton passed the
greater part of his life in Rome, painting classical subjects and
pursuing archaeological investigations. He died there, in 1797.
Portraiture was probably a pecuniary pursuit before the classics
claimed him. His portraits savor somewhat of the affectations of the
"curtain and column" school. His canvas of Elizabeth shows her
standing on a terrace with a low dress and long hair, a veil loosely
tied across her chest. Her left hand rests on the head of a greyhound.
There is a seat to the left and trees in the background.
Houston engraved a portrait of Maria after a drawing by J. St.
Liotard. This is a three-quarter length figure. Her hair is in large
plaits twined with a muslin veil on her head. The dress is open at the
throat, showing a necklace. There is a wide belt with large clasps.
Her left elbow rests on her knee. Perhaps the most satisfactory
pictures of the Beauties are those by Catharine Read, who died, in
1786; and who is chiefly known by her winsome delineations of the
graces of the Gunning girls. We could readily judge from these that
the girls were attractive. There is a genial graciousness in the face
of she of Coventry, while the Scotch duchess is possessed of a
persuasive sweetness of mien. The mob-cap frames a face almost
faultless in the regularity of its features. For all the pleasant
flavor of these facial charms, there is absent that peerless, regal
loveliness, that compelling magnificence of presence, that hauteur
which dazzles and enthrals.
The originals of these various portraits have been retained at Croome
Court, near Worcester; the seat of the Coventry family, at Inverary
Castle, Argyllshire; and at Hamilton Palace.
Three weeks after the romantic marriage of her younger sister, Maria
Gunning was married to George William, who was Lord Deerhurst--"that
grave young Lord," Walpole calls him--until 1750, when he succeeded to
the Earldom of Coventry. He had been dangling about her for some time,
and seemed nerved to the wedding by his Grace of Hamilton's
precipitate action. The Earl took her for a trip on the Continent in
company with Lady Caroline Petersham, that other great beauty. Neither
caused much comment abroad, and Paris did not ratify the repute of
London. My Lady was at a disadvantage from her ignorance of the French
language. She complained, too, of the arbitrary rule of her husband in
not allowing her red nor powder, so much in vogue with the Parisian
beauties. It is told how he saw her appear at a dinner with some on,
and took out his handkerchief, and there tried to rub it off. But her
fame abated not in England. Crowds continued to mob her whenever she
appeared on the street. The King was pleased to order that whenever my
Lady Coventry walked abroad she should be attended by a guard of
soldiers. Shortly after this she simulated great fright at the
curiosity of the mob, and asked for escort. She then paraded in the
park, accompanied by her husband and Lord Pembroke, preceded by two
sergeants, and followed by twelve soldiers. Surely this outdoes the
advertising genius of any latter-day American actress! A shoemaker at
Worcester gained two guineas and a half by exhibiting at a penny a
head a shoe he had made for the Countess. She was in much favor at
Court, and always circulated in an atmosphere of adulation and
sensation. The Duke of Cumberland was an admirer, as was also, more
emphatically, Fred St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke,--"Billy and Bully"
these two blades were termed. There was rumor, at one time, of the
Earl seriously resenting the attentions of Bolingbroke. The old King,
too, showed her some courtesies; and the most oft-told anecdote of her
is about His Majesty asking if she were not sorry the masquerades were
over. She assured him she was surfeited with pageants,--there was but
one she wished yet to see, and that was a coronation. She saw it not,
for the King outlived her by a fortnight. Had she but abstained from
the use of paint and powder, her career would not have ended at the
early age of twenty-seven. Blood-poisoning came from the use of it.
Her beauty paled rapidly. My lady lay on a couch, a pocket-glass
constantly in hand, grieving at the gradual decay. The room was
darkened, that others might not discern that which so chagrined her.
Then the curtains of the bed were drawn to guard her from pitying
gaze; and then, on a September day, in 1760, the pathetic end came.
Over ten thousand people viewed her coffin. Sensationalism even after
the drop of the curtain! The Countess left four children, two sons and
two daughters. Of these, Anne, four years old at her mother's death,
was one of the children whom George Selwyn showed much kindness to.
The Earl married again, the second Countess being Barbara, daughter of
Lord St. John of Bletsoe. George William, the son of Maria, came to
the earldom in 1809.