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Lady Mary's epilogue will be found both in Dodsley's "Miscellany" and in the recent collection of her works.

We have now brought our notices of the Duke of Wharton very nearly to a close. He himself had prognosticated that his existence would be a short one, and the prediction was destined to be verified. He was in his quarters at Lerida, at the commencement of 1731, when he was attacked by the disorder of which he afterward died. For about two months he was deprived of the use of his limbs; he was unable to walk without assistance from his bed to the fireside; and his stomach became so weak that broth, with the yolks of eggs beat up in it, was the only sustenance he could take. Fortunately, however, he suffered no pain; and though apparently sensible of his imminent danger, his natural gaiety is said to have suffered but little diminution.

Although the hand of death was on the Duke of Wharton, he gained by degrees a slight accession of strength, which enabled him to repair to the mountains of Catalonia, where he derived a temporary relief from the chalybeate waters, which abound in that district. However, in the month of May following, he suffered a relapse at Tarragona, when he again repaired to the mineral springs of Catalonia, in the hope that they would once more afford him a reprieve. But his constitution was now too effectually shattered to admit of further repair.

In one of the fits to which he was subject, he fell from his horse, in which condition he was carried to a wretched village, where he lay for some time. sick, helpless, and destitute. At length some charitable monks of the Order of St. Bernard removed him to their convent of Poblet, where, after lingering another week, without a friend or an acquaintance to close his eyes, this once envied and gifted being — the inheritor of almost princely wealth, and the last scion of an honoured and noble race - ended his eccentric and unprofitable

career.

Thus, on the 31st of May, 1731, at the age of thirty-two, died Philip, Duke of Wharton. To the inquiries addressed by strangers to the charitable fathers of Poblet, as to the manner in which the duke demeaned himself in his last moments, the answer is said to have been in merely general terms, that he made a very penitent and Christian end. He died, it appears, in the habit of their order, and was buried in their cemetery in the same coarse and simple manner in which they interred their own fraternity. In the church of the monastery-in one of the aisles, and apart from the other monuments may still be seen a plain slab, which once bore the name of the Duke of Wharton. Nearly half a century since, however, the traveller could with difficulty trace the letters, and probably the name is now altogether illegible.

It was said of the Duke of Wharton by Swift that he was so entirely indifferent as to the light in which his conduct would be viewed by future ages, that he would just as soon have been painted with the vices of a Catiline as with the virtues of an Atticus. This disregard for the opinion of posterity was, however, so far from being a characteristic of the Duke of Wharton that, singular as appears to be the anomaly, he seems to have been extremely sensitive on the subject of his posthumous reputation. In his conversations and correspondence with his friends he is said to have feelingly and frequently alluded to the subject. To one friend we find him quoting the words of Othello:

"When you shall my unhappy deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate,
But set down nought in malice."

And again, in one of the last letters which he probably ever wrote, he concludes with the beautiful appeal of Dryden to Congreve:

"Be kind to my remains and, oh! defend Against your judgment your departed friend! Let not th' insulting foe my fame pursue,

But shade those laurels that descend to you."

The Duke of Wharton left no children to inherit

his empty titles and ruined name.

With him de

clined the ancient honours of an aspiring family,

a family which for centuries had been a knightly or a noble one, and which could claim descent in the legitimate line from the house of Lancaster. The first peer of the family was Sir Thomas Wharton, who, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, with only five hundred men under his command, defeated an army of fifteen thousand Scots, and slew or took prisoners some of the most powerful of their nobility.

The Duchess of Wharton survived her husband several years. She repaired to England after his death, and, continuing a widow, lived in great privacy in London, on a small pension allowed her by the Spanish court.

CHAPTER XIV.

ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF KINGSTON.

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Born in 1730- Her Beauty and Wit — Pulteney, Afterward Earl of Bath, Her Admirer - Procures Her the Appointment of Maid of Honour to the Princess of Wales - Duke of Hamilton Proposes for Her Circumstances Prevent Their Union - She Privately Marries Mr. Hervey, Afterward Earl of Bristol-Separates from Him Immediately after Her Marriage Stormy Interview with Him - Birth of a Child — Duke of Hamilton Again Makes Her an Offer - Duke of Ancaster and Others of the Nobility Propose for Her HandHer Refusals- Her Visit to Germany, and Flattering Recep tion by the King of Prussia and the Electress of SaxonyHer Taste for Dissipation — Scandalous Reports - Her Appearance at a Masquerade as Iphigenia - The Princess of Wales Shocked at Her Indecent Dress - George the Second's Admiration of Miss Chudleigh - Annoyed by Her Husband - Tears the Certificate of Her Marriage from the Parish Register of Lainston - Reinserts the Leaf on Mr. Hervey Succeeding to the Earl of Bristol - The Duke of Kingston Pays Her His Addresses She Sounds Her Husband on the Subject of a Divorce - His Answer - Institutes a Cause against Him in Doctors' Commons Its Successful Issue - Her Marriage to the Duke of Kingston - Splendour of the Nuptials- Duchess Received at Court - The Duke's Death and Will Her Death in 1788.

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THIS beautiful but eccentric woman was the daughter of Colonel Chudleigh, Lieutenant-Gov

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