was not so much to blame, and even his worst enemy cannot deny that he had a warm heart.
Miss Linley.
(From the Picture by Gainsborough.)
Moore tells us that, with all her beauty and talent, Mrs. Sheridan was not happy, nor did she escape the censure of the world; but that Sheridan was ever unmindful of her, Moore declares to be untrue. On the contrary, he says he followed her with a lover's eye throughout. Her letters to him would certainly give the reader the idea that she was on the best terms with her husband. They are delightful, fresh, and natural, and perfectly frank . . . . This gifted woman died early. She was only thirty-one when consumption laid its fatal hand upon her . . During her last illness Sheridan was devoted to her, his grief and his remorse for any shortcomings in his married life are most touching! Miss Le-Fanu, writing an account of the last days to Miss Sheridan, says: "Your brother behaved most wonderfully, although his heart was breaking, and at times his feelings were so violent that I feared he would be quite ungovernable at the last. Yet he summoned up courage to kneel by the bedside till he felt the last pulse of expiring excellence." And Mr. Moore tells us that, some weeks after his wife's death, "a friend, happening to sleep in the room next his, could hear him sobbing through the greater part of the night." But soon after he fell in love with Pamela and married a Miss Ogle in two years.
And now we come to the most beautiful woman of her time, Isabella, Duchess of Rutland. Looking at her picture by Sir Joshua, we cannot but be struck by the infinite grace of the attitude, the queenly dignity mixed with womanly sweetness. The Duchess was in fact eminently womanly, although acknowledged to be a queen of beauty. No word of scandal touched her name; and this in an age of Sneerwells and Backbites.
In The European Magazine of 1752 there is this curious testimony to her Grace's devotion to her lord:—"Annexed to the respective names are the amusements which the following women of fashion principally delight in:—
- Lady Spencer, riding,
- Lady Salisbury, dancing,
- Lady Craven, acting.
- Lady Pembroke, Viol de Gambe.
- Mrs. Damer, platonics
- Mrs. Greville, poetry.
- Duchess of Devonshire, admiration.
- Lady Weymouth, mankind.
- Lady Huntingdon, The Tabernacle.
- Lady South, the last word.
- The Duchess of Rutlund, her husband."
In 1782 the Duchess accompanied the Duke to Ireland, where he filled the post of Lord Lieutenant. She was well fitted to win the hearts of the Irish people, who were then, as now, easily impressed by beauty. The magnificence of the little Court had never been equalled, while at the same time decorum and a certain order were preserved, which had not always been the case. Under Lords Chesterfield and Townshead, Mrs. Deans talks of the guests carrying the dishes off the supper tables, and in Lady Hardwicke's time there it was that the romping bouts and the famous
