21 BKAUTY his Grace died, in 1758, it was expected that his widow would look for compensation in another marriage. Her beauty was still at its zenith, and her admirers were legion. The Duke of Bridge- water she refused, but eventually she accepted Colonel John Campbell, who, in 1770, became fifth Duke of Argyll. Judges of female beauty have regarded Elizabeth Gunning as the handsomer of the two sisters. Cotes painted the portraits of both, but Reynolds painted Elizabeth only, for when Maria died he had not yet become a fashionable portrait-painter. The Duchess of Hamilton and Argyll, and Baroness Hamilton in her own right, lived to the age of sixty, and retained much of her great beauty to the very end. She was of a good-natured disposition, and none of the hard things said against her sister have ever been said against her. Maria and the Earl of Coventry Shortly after Elizabeth's marriage to the Duke of Hamilton, Maria, the elder sister, married the Earl of Coventry. The Earl had postponed taking the irrevocable step for a long time, and was the cause of much anxiety to Mrs. Gunning. Immediately on their arrival in town, the Earl had marked the beauty of Mrs. Gunning's daughters, and accorded his preference to Maria. Wherever she went he was sure to be found in close attendance upon her, and a report was soon circulated that, though his lordship was making love, his intentions were not serious. Lord Chesterfield, speaking of the open- ing of Parliament in November, 1751, says : " Lord Coventry moved the address in the House of Lords and did it well enough, though agitated at the same time by the two strong passions of love and fear ; Miss Gunning being seated on one side of him, and the House on the other. That affair is within a few days of its crisis, but whether that will be a marriage or a settlemertt is undecided. Most people think the latter ; for my part, I think the former." However, in spite of ill-natured remarks, Lord Coventry continued to pay much atten- tion to Maria Gunning, and she continued to favour his advances. He was a wealthy and solemn young man, and looked upon as one of the greatest catches about town. At length, however, in 1752, he was persuaded to propose. Maria accepted him, and in INlarch the eldest daughter of Mrs. Gunning became a Countess. Lady Coventry in Paris Elizabeth may have been the more beautilul of the two sisters, but Maria, especially after her marriage, met with greater success in society. In Paris, how- ever, she was coldly received. She visited tr.at city in June, 1752, and Walpole, writing in July about the visit, says :
- Our beauties are returned, and have
done no execution. The French would not conceive that Lady Caroline Petersham ever had been handsome, nor that my Lady Coventry has much pretence to be so now. Indeed, all the travelled English allow that there is a Madame Brionne, handsomer and a finer figure." " Poor Lady Coventry," Walpole, how- ever, continues, " was under piteous dis- advantages . . . suffered to wear neither red nor powder . . . her lord . . . is jealous, prude, and scrupulous. At Sir John Bland's, before sixteen persons, he coursed his wife round the table on sus- pecting she had stolen on a little red, seized her, scrubbed it off by force with a napkin, and then told her that since she had deceived him and broke her promise he would carry her back direct to England." Mrs. Delany, writing on November 10, 1754, to her sister, Mrs. Dewes, gives an interesting account of the appearance of Lady Coventry, as she saw her at White- hall : " Yesterda3^ after chapel, the Duchess (Portland) brought home Lady Coventry to feast me, and a feast she was 1 She is a fine figure and vastly handsome, notwith- standing a silly look sometimes about her mouth ; she has a thousand airs, but with a sort of innocence that diverts one. Her dress was a black silk sack, made for a large hoop, which she wore without any, and it trailed a yard on the ground ; she had on a cobweb laced handkerchief, a pink satin long cloke, lined with ermine, mixed with squirrel skins ; on her head a French cap that just covered the top of her head, of blond, and stood in the form of a butterfly with its wings not quite extended, frilled sort of lappets crossed under her chin, and tied with pink and green ribbon — a head-dress that would have charmed a shepherd f She has a thousand dimples and prettiness in her cheeks, her eyes a little drooping at the corners, but fine for all that." The Leader of Fashion For a long time Lady Coventry continued, to be the leader of fashion in London. Gradually, however, the symptoms of the doom which consumption had pronounced on her became more and more observable, and in 1 760, in accordance with the prophecy of the Dublin seer, she died. Maria was quite a different type of woman to her sister. She was mean, and to Miss Bellamy, to whom she owed much, she behaved most cruelly. Once she insulted her in her own theatre, and excused the rudeness by saying Miss Bellamy's acting was so inferior to Mrs. Gibber's impersonation of Juliet that she could not restrain her derision. On another occasion, when visiting George II., then an old and feeble man, Maria de- clared to him there was but one sight she cared to see, and that — a coronation. TAis delightful historical scries will be continued in Every Woman's ENXvcLOPiEDiA.
