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as the A. & directe, cxpressly for La Belle Ajoomblies.

Bell's

COURT AND FASHIONABLE

MAGAZINE,

For APRIL, 1806.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

OF

ILLUSTRIOUS LADIES.

The Third Number.

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS SOPHIA OF GLOUCESTER.

Example, whether of good or bad, ori

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS SOPHIA || pre-eminence in virtue thus entitles them MATILDA, Princess of Gloucester, is the to a double distinction. daughter of the late William Henry Duke of Gloucester: she was born May 29,||ginates principally with high rank. The 1773. The family of his Royal Highness the late Duke was,

great are the guardians of the morals of the low. The vices of inferior conditions are but too often the reflection of those that infest the highest. But as the great have a double crime to answer for in their vices, so, on the contrary, have their 3. William Frederick, the present Duke, virtues a weight and authority which does born at Rome, January 15, 1776. not belong to their inferiors. If society

1. Sophia Matilda, born as above. 2. Caroline Augusta Maria, born June 24, 1774; died March 14th in the following||

year.

It is the most pleasing part of our la-feels the shock of their vices, it is equally bour, in the slight Biographical Sketches nourished and ameliorated by their virin which we are engaged, that when we tues. are summoned to fix attention upon exalted rank, an opportunity is at the same time afforded us of doing justice to the virtue that adorns it, and proposing as examples those who are naturally looked up to as superiors in station, and whose

No. III. Vol. I.

It is the just pride of England, and the fairest boast of our national morals, that when we look to the summit of rank and high station, we find it tipt with the brightest radiance of purity and virtue. Where all eyes are attracted by envy and

R

curiosity, they are detained by admiration of Gloucester has kept an equal pace with and reverence; and it is assuredly no her Royal cousins in the cultivation of adulation to say, that the female branch every virtue and feminine accomplishment; of the present Royal Family exhibits indi-she is to be distinguished for the same vidually, and without one single exception, noble modesty of demeanour, the same the brightest patterns of public and private benevolence and affability, the same prefervirtue. ence of retirement and domestic life.

Her Royal Highness the Princess Sophia

THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE.

THE public, and the world of fashion, draw from them in the maturity of youth have lately had occasion to regret the loss and beauty, and devote her whole care to of a lady no less distinguished by her rank the education of her family. A character than her virtues, for virtues which, amidst of this kind, so rare in high life, should all the seductions of high life and splendid not pass without its just praise; and as fortune, remained steadfast and unsullied,|| we have long marked the mild, the unand which, without being contaminated affected, the resigned, and pious decline by pride, or shaken by temptation, accom-of this amiable lady into the vale of years, panied her from her first entrance into we have a gratification peculiarly exlife to its final close, and gave that lustre to her rank, and influence to her example, that the world may be truly said to have sustained a loss, almost irreparable, by her decease.

quisite, in paying this tribute of praise so justly due to her, and holding her out as an example to her sex, of a woman who knows how to grow old with grace, and improve life to the moment of its close.

Georgiana Cavendish, the late Duchess Under the superintendance of such an of Devonshire, was the eldest daughter of instructress, her Grace received a bias the late John Earl Spencer, and sister to of character which she never lost. Early the present Lord. Her mother, the Dow-formed to a habit of the virtues of her ager Countess Spencer, now living, was mother, she reflected her conduct in her descended from the ancient family of own, and never losing the sight or copy

Poyntz.

of the original, filial reverence and virHer Grace was born June 7th 1757. tuous ardour contributed to make her She was educated chiefly under the eye of emulous of an equal excellence. Her her mother, a lady whom it is unnceessary sister, Henrietta Frances, the present to commend; her character was truly that Countess of Besborough, who was some of an English matron; a noble chastity of years younger than her Grace, was no less mind, and simplicity of conduct, were accomplished in the same school, and with united to a sound and well cultivated un-qualities equally shining and promising derstanding, and her whole character was with those of her sister, she united the refined and exalted by a strong sense and same emulation of her mother's example. devout practice of religious obligations; Her Grace was scarcely ushered into she was a lady truly exemplary and estim-public life, when the lustre of her beauty, able. She had lived in high life, and em- and the fame of her accomplishments, probellished the most splendid circles, and cured her the general notice and admirawithout a fastidious disgust of its pleasures tion of the world. With the merit of perand amusements, which she partook of sonal charms, in which she had few comwith a delicate, temperate, and discrimi-petitors, she united the substance of nobler nate taste, she had the resolution to with- accomplishments which, in these days of

frivolity and artifice, are seldom seen but in the exterior. It was no wonder, therefore, that all eyes were fixed upon her, and many splendid alliances offered. The devoirs of the Duke of Devonshire were finally successful, and she was scarcely turned of her seventeenth year, when she bestowed her hand upon his Grace. The marriage was celebrated June 6, 1774. Being thus at once established in the highest rank, and the most splendid opulence, a star, in the language of our great orator, just beaming above the horizon, and decorating and cheering the elevated sphere in which she moved, it was not to be wondered that she was courted with every kind of adulation, and that it became a kind of fashion to paneygerize and extoll her.

The general character of the Duke was estimable and worthy in a high degree; but he had something of the haughtiness of rank, and pride of exterior, which it became the business of the Duchess to soften towards all who approached him. She succeeded in melting this frigidity, and smoothing the way for the reception of those at Devonshire house who, in a less happy hour, might have been repulsed, or treated with indifference.

The Duchess of Devonshire may be said almost to have produced a revolution in fashionable life. The influence derived from her rank and fortune gave a kind of credit to her example; and elegance and refined luxury succeeded to that gross and inelegant dissipation which had been before so prevalent among the higher orders of the nobility. A kind of arbitress of fashion and of taste, she was approached with a sort of devotion by the votaries of the gay and changeable goddess; and as example is powerful equally for good and bad, it was no less the merit than the fortune of her Grace, to be able to give it a direction to the improvement of exterior decency, and the inculcation of pure morals.

The Duchess had no less affability in her manners than grace and dignity in her demeanour; without the least appearance of pride, and indeed with a most benevolent and conciliating softness, she had still the art to inspire a respect and consciousmess of her rank; but this prudent care of

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her dignity was without formality or ostentation. She was condescending without meanness, and maintained her rank without imposing restraint.

We have observed that the Duchess of Devonshire now occupied an eminence which attracted the common gaze of the public; and on this slippery pinnacle her || virtue kept her stedfast, and envy had no food for gratification. Though the world conspired in her adulation, and wits became rivals in her praise, she passed through the most dangerous and fiery ordeal, that of an unrivalled, unalloyed, and flattered prosperity, with a most noble and unaffected modesty; to resist the temptation of public panegyric is given but to few, her Grace, however, was of the elect.

To say that she presided in the minor provinces of fashion, that she gave a fashion to a cap, or to a gown, that she regulated the elegance of costume, and bestowed her name upon almost every ornament of female dress, as the means of giving it fashion and currency, would be to award her but a small tribute of the public fame which is due to her; it was in the higher departments of fashion that her Grace presided. It was her just pride to have given a kind of style and sentiment to manners; to have mingled that kind of benevolence with politeness, as to make it that virtue in reality of which it is only the semblance.

Naturally inclined to society, and of a disposition full of gaiety and fancy, her Grace threw open the doors of Devonshirehouse to people of character, rank, and talents, of every description. At this general rendezvous, as might be imagined, politics and party were found, but eminence obtained in the more quiet and humble walks of literary ambition was not excluded. Her Grace was enthusiastically devoted to the fine arts. She handled the pencil with spirit, delicacy, and science, and in her compositions of the pen, her merits were not inferior.

Amongst those who were chiefly attracted to Devonshire-house by the merits of the young Duchess, were Burke, Fox, Barre, Burgoyne, and the parliamentary leaders of the Rockingham, at that time the Opposition, party. With this party the Duke of Devonshire was at that period connected, and the Duchess, who was re

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