THE PEASANT COUNTESS called him "Gentleman Harry." The clergyman, Mr. Dickenson, became interested in him, and often talked with him, and used to invite him to smoke an evening pipe with him in the study. Mr. Hoggins had a daughter Sarah, the beauty of Bolas, and they became lovers. With the clergyman's aid Cecil, not without difficulty, persuaded Hoggins to allow the marriage, which took place at St. Mildred's, Bread Street, October 30th, 1791, his broken heart having mended fairly quickly. He was now forty years of age, and before the marriage he had told Dickenson who he was. For two years they lived in a small farm, when, from a Shrewsbury paper, "Mr. Cecil" learnt that he had succeeded his uncle in the title and the possession of Burleigh House and estate. Thither in due course he took his bride. Her picture is on the wall, but she did not live long.
"For a trouble weighed upon her,
And perplexed her night and morn,
With the burthen of an honour
Unto which she was not born.
Faint she grew and even fainter,
And she murmured 'Oh that he
Were once more that landscape painter
That did win my heart from me'!
So she drooped and drooped before him,
Fading slowly from his side:
Three fair children first she bore him,
Then before her time she died."
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Stamford from Freeman's Close.
