most agreeable companion; had much wit, and strong sense, and a just taste in polite literature. Her person was agreeable and well made: though she could not be called a beauty. I have had the pleasure of being at table with her, when her conversation was much admired by the first characters of the age, particularly the old Lord Bathurst and Lord Granville.’ At Capple Bank in Wensleydale, Yorkshire, there is still in existence a summer-house built for her by her lover, in which local tradition asserts she used to spend much time on her visits to the north of England, and which commands one of the most extensive and varied prospects in the dale (Notes and Queries, 5th ser. i. 488). The duke had had three children, all sons, by his mistress previously, but none when she became his wife; so that on his death at Tunbridge Wells in August 1754 the title went to his brother. An account of these three sons is given in Collins's ‘Peerage’ (Brydges), ii. 368 n. By his will the duke, after requesting to be buried in his family vault at Basing, county of Southampton, bequeathed all his estate, real and personal, to his ‘dear and well-beloved wife,’ who is the only person mentioned, and constituted her ‘whole and sole executrix’ (registered in P. C. C. 219, Pinfold). The duchess survived her husband until 24 Jan. 1760, after behaving, according to Walpole, not so well in the character of widow as of wife (Letters, iii. 286–7). Two years before her death, when ill at Tunbridge Wells, she made the acquaintanceship of an Irish surgeon named George Kelley, whom, by will dated 6 Dec. 1759 (P. C. C. 47, Lynch), she appointed her executor and residuary legatee, not, however, as Walpole asserts, to the prejudice of her children. They had been amply provided for by a settlement made in the lifetime of their father. The duchess died at West Combe Park, Greenwich, in January 1760, and was buried in the old church of St. Alphege, Greenwich.
Hogarth painted her portrait, and it is one of his best. It was engraved by G. Watson and others, and, when exhibited in the second Exhibition of National Portraits in 1867, was in the possession of Mr. Brinsley Marlay. She there looks about forty years of age. A fairly successful photograph from this portrait, while it was at South Kensington, was published by the Arundel Society. ‘Jack’ Ellys [q. v.] likewise painted her, and his work was mezzotinted by Faber in 1728. A third portrait, engraved by Tinney, represents her as a shepherdess with a crook.
[The Life of Lavinia Beswick, alias Fenton, alias Polly Peachum, 8vo, 1728, a shilling pamphlet of forty-eight pages, containing, amid much that is clearly fictitious, some useful facts; Dutton Cook in Once a Week, viii. 651–6; Memoirs of Charles Macklin, 8vo, 1804, pp. 41–8; Leigh Hunt's Men, Women, and Books, ii. 180–1; Lady M. W. Montagu's Letters (Wharncliffe and Thomas), i. 57, ii. 268; Collins's Peerage (Brydges), ii. 385–6; Burke's Extinct Peerage (1883), p. 420; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. viii. 442, 5th ser. ii. 13; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, i. 121; Grove's Dict. of Music, i. 511; Bromley's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, p. 304.]
FENTON, RICHARD (1746–1821), topographer and poet, born at St. David's, Pembrokeshire, in 1746, received his education in the cathedral school of his native city, and at an early age obtained a situation in London in the custom house. Afterwards he entered the Middle Temple, and studied for the legal profession. During his residence there he became acquainted with most of the literary and dramatic celebrities of the day. He knew something of Dr. Johnson, and of Goldsmith, as well as of Garrick, to whom many of his poems were addressed. After being called to the bar he attended the circuits in Wales for several years. The latter part of his life he devoted to literary pursuits. He was a very intimate friend of William Lisle Bowles and of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, whom he frequently visited at Stourhead. Fenton was a good Greek, Latin, and French scholar, and a gentleman who knew him well described him as ‘a man of indefatigable industry, of a fine poetical fancy, of a very cheerful disposition, of particularly gentlemanly and fascinating manners, and a person of the best information on almost every subject.’ He married the daughter of David Pillet, a Swiss military officer, the personal friend of the second Duke of Marlborough. By her he had a family who survived him. He died at Glynamel, near Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, in November 1821, and was buried at Manorowen.
His works are: 1. ‘Poems,’ Lond. 1773, 4to; 2 vols. 1790, 12mo. 2. ‘A Historical Tour through Pembrokeshire,’ Lond. 1811, 4to, with thirty plates and a map. Prefixed is the author's portrait, engraved by T. Woolnorth, from a painting by Woodforde. This is the work censured by Dr. Thomas Burgess, bishop of St. David's, and afterwards of Salisbury, in his ‘Bishops and benefactors of St. David's vindicated from the misrepresentations of a recent publication,’ 1812. Fenton's caustic reply to the bishop remains in manuscript. 3. ‘A Tour in quest of Genealogy through several parts of Wales, Somersetshire, and Wiltshire in a series of letters … interspersed with a description of Stourhead and Stonehenge … and curious fragments
