In these latter days can we imagine a lawsuit, costing contestants
thousands of pounds, over the right to a certain heraldic charge? In
the fourteenth century Sir Robert Grosvenor was the defendant in such
a suit, and we read of Chaucer, John of Gaunt, Owen Glendower, and
Hotspur being witnesses before the High Court of Chivalry. Sir Robert
established his defence, and since those days the Grosvenors have ever
held a high rank in the nobility of England. Quite as proud a
patrician position was held through the centuries by the family of
Gower. In the early part of this century, the heir of the Grosvenors
espoused the most beautiful daughter of the House of Gower,--Lady
Elizabeth Mary Leveson Gower. This lady was the youngest daughter of
George, the second Marquis of Stafford, who married, in 1785,
Elizabeth, who was Countess of Sutherland and Baroness Strathnaver in
her own right. The Marquis was created Duke of Sutherland in 1833.
The Lady Elizabeth Mary was born in 1797, and married, in 1819,
Robert, Viscount Belgrave, eldest son of the second Earl of Grosvenor.
The portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence was painted in the year preceding
her marriage.
The Marquisate of Westminster had been created in 1831, and in 1845,
when the Viscount's father died, he succeeded to the title. He had
entered Parliament in 1818 as member for Chester. He spoke but rarely
in the House, although a hard worker on committees. He greatly
improved his vast London property, and had the credit of administering
his estate with a combination of intelligence and generosity seldom
seen. Of reserved habits and inexpensive tastes, he was averse to
ostentation and extravagance. He died in 1869. His successor was his
son (born in 1825) the present Duke, who was elevated to a dukedom in
1874. He is one of the wealthiest peers in the kingdom, is a man of
great taste, and has patronized the arts with almost a Medician
munificence.
The seat of the family is the renowned Eaton Hall, near Chester; that
stately mansion set in the centre of a country rich in pastoral
beauty. Its enlargement and beautification was begun by the second
Earl in 1802, and has been carried on by its present lord until it is
now the most magnificent of all the modern mansions of the nobility.
G.F. Watts's heroic equestrian statue of Hugh Lupus, the founder of
the family and a nephew of William the Conqueror, challenges
admiration as one enters the grounds. There is no great picture
gallery in the Hall, for that is at Grosvenor House in London, but the
family portraits are here. Let into panels of the dining-room are
portraits from the time of the first Earl, who was painted by
Gainsborough. The Viscount Belgrave and his lady were painted by
Pickersgill, in 1825,--this picture of the latter being much inferior
to Lawrence's,--while the present generation was painted almost wholly
by Millais,--that of Constance, the Duke's first wife, being
especially fine. Leslie, in 1833, executed a group of the Grosvenor
family.
Lawrence and Hoppner were to the regency what Reynolds, Gainsborough,
and Romney were to the early days of the reign of George III., as
painters of the patrician beauties. What a marvellous mass of records
of fair women these five have left us!--Reynolds, supreme in style,
painting the character as seen through the fair mask of the flesh;
Gainsborough, superbly picturesque, and a faithful limner withal;
Romney, impressively picturesque, too, a fine colorist, imaginative,
and but now, a century later, coming into his proper meed of praise;
Lawrence, elegant, charming,--a courtier indeed; Hoppner, through many
years a close rival of Lawrence. To Hoppner we are indebted for the
visible evidence of the beauty of many who had repute as fair women.
There is that piquant Jane Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford, who greets
us in the National Gallery. Then that dark-eyed and winsome Lady
Kenyon, who was one of the reigning belles, on canvas, at the Grafton
Gallery show in London this year. In this exhibit, too, was his
"Mademoiselle Hillsberg,"--a tall and dark dancing woman, which he
regarded as his best work. Then there is that group of noble dames by
him, which were engraved by Charles Wilkin and published under the
title "Bygone Beauties,"--Lady Charlotte Duncombe; Viscountess St.
Asaph; Lady Charlotte Campbell, daughter of Elizabeth Gunning;
Viscountess Andover; Lady Langham; the Countess of Euston, one of the
three beautiful Ladies Waldegrave, painted by Reynolds; the Duchess of
Rutland. These are indeed "a select series of ladies of rank and
fashion." And with these must be classed that sweet ideal face of Mrs,
Arbuthnot, known as "Marcia." At this late date it gives us greeting
from how many a parlor wall! Its tender charm makes perpetual appeal
to the passer-by from how many a print-shop window!
There seems to have been bitter feeling between Hoppner, who was an
intense Whig, and Lawrence, who knew no politics, but was all things
to all men. "The ladies of Lawrence show a gaudy dissoluteness of
taste, and sometimes trespass on moral as well as professional
chastity," and "Lawrence shall paint my mistress and Phillips my
wife," were the two rapier phrases Hoppner thrust at his rival. But it
is recorded that thenceforth Lawrence's commissions from fair sitters
multiplied.
Sir Thomas was a finished flatterer. No man ever knew better, except
it was Lely, how to pay the compliment of the brush. This form is the
substantial, the lasting compliment for which golden guineas are
gladly paid. Grace and elegance are the hall-mark of his every
picture. But the artist was a courtier in speech and manners as well,
and this got him into trouble once. He was attentive to the ill-used
Princess Caroline,--markedly attentive! A royal commission inquired
into his conduct, but absolved him from the charges of wrongdoing.
When Lady Grosvenor, who had become Marchioness of Westminster, was an
old lady, in 1881, she wrote in a letter to Lord Leveson Gower her
recollections of the painter: "His manners were what is called
extremely 'polished' (not the fault of the present times). He wore a
large cravat, and had a tinge about him of the time of George IV.,
pervading his general demeanor.... I should not say he was amusing,
but what struck me most, during my two hours sitting in Russell
Square, was the perfection of the drawing of his portraits. Before any
color was put on, the drawing itself was so perfectly beautiful that
it seemed almost a sin to add any color." This portrait of her, which
was painted at this one sitting, is considered the very best Lawrence
ever painted. The head has distinction and hauteur, albeit the face is
sweetly ingenuous. And the eyes! Well, Sir Thomas always excelled
here! Never, since Titian, has painter given us such "strange sweet
maddening eyes,"--
"Fathomless dusk by night, the day lets in
Glimmer of emerald,--thus those eyes of hers!"
This picture now hangs in the gallery of Stafford House, and was
mezzotinted by Cousins, in 1844, and included in the published
collection of the artist's works. This volume is representative of the
artist. It opens with that perennially delightful picture of the
"Calmady Children," called "Nature,"--one of the very best and
sweetest representations of child life ever made. Here is the
elemental artlessness of nature, and here the beatitude of innocence.
Another child-picture is the portrait of Lady Emily Cowper, afterwards
Lady Ashley, called "The Rosebud." Among the ladies shown are Lady
Leicester, Lady Lyndhurst, and Lady Georgiana Agar Ellis, the picture
of the latter being surpassing in its elegance. That majestically
maternal picture is here of Lady Gower and Lady Elizabeth Leveson
Gower,--not our Elizabeth Mary, but she who became Duchess of Argyll.
The Countess of Grosvenor was a lady of high character and most
affable manners, and held her exalted position with a dignity of
demeanor and a bearing worthy of a descent from the noble Gowers,
lords of Sittenham. Her residence latterly was Motcombe House, near
Shaftesbury, Dorsetshire. She lived on until our own day, dying at the
age of ninety-four.
In 1840-41 she accompanied her husband on a yacht voyage in the
Mediterranean, an entertaining account of which she published in two
volumes. She was a keen politician, as so many ladies of rank are in
England. In 1873 Lady Westminster's son, then Lord Robert Grosvenor,
spoke in favor of the Liberal candidate for Shaftesbury. The candidate
told her tenants that he believed her ladyship was not averse to his
candidature. It was putting his fingers into the den of the apparently
sleeping lioness. She wrote sharply: "I beg to undeceive you. I am
most anxious for the success of the conservative cause, connected as
it is with the preservation of our religion and our loyalty to our
Queen."