Pardon, great shade, if duteous on thy hearse,
I hang my grateful tributary verse.

If I, who follow'd through thy various day,
Thy glorious zenith and thy bright decay;

Now strew thy tomb with flowers, and o'er thy urn,
With England, Liberty, and Envy mourn.

His soul was great, and dared not but do well;

His noble pride still urged him to excel.

Above the thirst of gold-if in his heart
Ambition govern'd, avarice had no part.
A genius to explore untrodden ways,

Where prudence sees no track, nor ever strays;
Which books and schools in vain attempt to teach,
And which laborious art can never reach.
Falsehood and flatt'ry, and the tricks of court,
He left to statesmen of a meaner sort:
Their cloaks and smiles were offer'd him in vain;
His acts were justice, which he dared maintain,
His words were truth, that held them in disdain.
Open to friends, but even to foes sincere,
Alike remote from jealousy and fear;
Tho' Envy's howl, tho' Faction's hiss he heard,
Tho' senates frown'd; tho' death itself appear'd;
Calmly he view'd them; conscious that his ends
Were right, and truth and innocence his friends.
Thus was he form'd to govern, and to please;
Familiar greatness, dignity with ease,
Composed his frame, admired in every state,
In private amiable, in public great;
Gentle in power, but daring in disgrace;
His love was liberty, his wish was peace.
Such was the man that smiled upon my lays;

And what can heighten thought, or genius raise,

Like praise from him whom all mankind must praise?
Whose knowledge, courage, temper, all surprised,
Whom many loved, few hated, none despised.

VOL. III.

2 D

402

HENRIETTA HOBART,

COUNTESS OF SUFFOLK.

Eldest daughter of Sir Henry Hobart.-Born in 1688.-Married, in 1708, to Charles Howard, third son of the Earl of Suffolk. Their limited fortune.-Mrs. Howard appointed Bedchamber Woman to the Princess of Wales.-Her early deafness. Her gentleness and propriety of conduct.-Horace Walpole's sketch of her character.-Her personal appearance. Her society courted by the celebrated wits of the day.-Pope's complimentary lines.-Anecdotes of her and Queen Caroline.-The former's slight influence over the King as his mistress.-Extract from H. Walpole, and from the Introductory Notice to the Suffolk Correspondence. -Mr. Howard succeeds to the Earldom of Suffolk.-The Countess appointed Mistress of the Robes.-Death of her husband in 1733.-Her retirement from Court in the following year.-Extract from Archdeacon Coxe, and from a letter of the Duke of Newcastle to Sir. R. Walpole.-The Countess' second marriage, in 1735, to the fourth son of the Earl of Berkeley. Her death at Marble-Hill, in 1767.-Horace Walpole's account of her last moments.

THIS lady, the celebrated mistress of George the Second, and one of the most decent of courtezans, was the eldest daughter of Sir Henry Hobart of Blickling, in the county of Norfolk, and sister of Sir John Hobart, Knight of the Bath; created, by her interest, a baron, and afterwards advanced to the earldom of Buckinghamshire. She was born in 1688.

About the year 1708 Miss Hobart became the wife of Charles Howard, third son of Henry fifth Earl of Suffolk. As their fortune was far from ample, they proceeded, shortly after their marriage, to Hanover, partly, it seems, with the view of economizing their means by residing in a less expensive country than England, but principally, it is said, for the sake of ingratiating themselves with the future sovereigns of England. "So narrow was their fortune," says Horace Walpole, "that Mr. Howard, finding it expedient to give a dinner to the Hanoverian ministers, Mrs. Howard is said to have sacrificed her beautiful head of hair to pay for the expense: it must be recollected that at that period were in fashion those enormous full-bottomed wigs, which often cost twenty and thirty guineas." This anecdote has certainly the air of being apocryphal. As Walpole, however, lived on the most intimate terms with Lady Suffolk during the last years of her long life; as he seems also to have neglected no opportunity of sifting and gleaning from her the gossip of former days; and as it was unlikely he should not have questioned her on the truth of a story which he has thought of sufficient importance to be recorded, we must presume he either heard it related or corroborated from her own mouth. But, on the other hand, when we consider that her husband must have been possessed of some fortune as the younger son of an earl, and that the marriage portion of Mrs. Howard (though, according to Walpole, she had

merely the slender fortune of an ancient baronet's daughter,") was as much as 60007., we cannot easily account for the extreme penury in which they are said to have lived.

During her residence in Hanover, Mrs. Howard seems to have been more fortunate in acquiring the esteem and good will of the amiable and gifted Electress Sophia, than in making any impression on the heart of the future sovereign of England. On the accession, indeed, of George the First to the throne, she obtained the appointment of Bedchamber Woman to the Princess of Wales; but there is no reason to attribute her elevation to any tenderness on the part of the Prince. At this period he had become deeply enamoured with the beautiful and lively Mary Bellenden, the friend of Mrs. Howard. According to Archdeacon Coxe, he made the latter the confidante of his passion, and on being rejected by Miss Bellenden, transferred his affections to her less beautiful friend.

Mrs. Howard at no period of her life appears to have been eminently handsome. She had the misfortune to be early affected with deafness ;* she was possessed of no very striking accomplishments; and, from her gentle and engaging man

* Lady Suffolk was early affected with deafness. Cheselden, the surgeon then in favour at court, persuaded her that he had hopes of being able to cure deafness by some operation on the drum of the ear, and offered to try the experiment on a condemned convict then in Newgate, who was deaf. If the convict could be pardoned, he would try it; and if he succeeded, would

ners, the quiet gravity of her demeanour, and the apparent decency and propriety of all her actions, seemed formed rather to be the centre of affection in a domestic circle, than an object of envy as the brilliant mistress of a king.

Her mental qualifications," says Walpole, "were by no means shining; her eyes and countenance showed her character, which was grave and mild. Her strict love of truth, and her accurate memory, were always in unison, and made her too circumstantial in trifles. She was discreet without being reserved; and having no bad qualities, and being constant to her connexions, she preserved uncommon respect to the end of her life; and from the propriety and decency of her behaviour, was always treated as if her virtue had never been questioned; her friends even affecting to suppose that her connexion with the King had been confined to pure friendship, but unfortunately his Majesty's passions were too indelicate to have been confined to Platonic love." appears to be a very fair estimate of Mrs. Howard's character. If further proofs were required of her many good qualities, they are afforded by the letters to and from her correspondents, which have recently seen the light; documents which practise the same cure on her ladyship. She obtained the man's pardon, who was cousin to Cheselden, who had feigned that pretended discovery to save his relation, and no more was heard of the experiment. The man saved his ear too, but Cheselden was disgraced at court."-Walpole's Reminiscences, p. 53, note. Walpole relates the same story in his Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of George II. vol. i. p. 154, note.

Such