Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wallace, Grace
WALLACE, GRACE, Lady Wallace (d. 1878), author, was the eldest daughter of John Stein of Edinburgh. She became, on 19 Aug. 1824, the second wife of Sir Alexander Don, sixth baronet of Newton Don, and the intimate friend of Sir Walter Scott. She had two children: Sir William Henry Don [q. v.] seventh baronet, the celebrated actor; and Alexina Harriet, who married Sir Frederick Acclom Milbank, bart., of Hart and Hartlepool. In his ‘Familiar Letters’ (ii. 348) Sir Walter Scott writes to his son in 1825: ‘Mama and Anne are quite well; they are with me on a visit to Sir Alex. Don and his new lady, who is a very pleasant woman, and plays on the harp delightfully.’ Sir Alexander died in 1826; and in 1836 his widow married Sir James Maxwell Wallace, K.H., of Ainderby Hall, near Northallerton, an officer who had served under Wellington at Quatre Bras and Waterloo, was afterwards lieutenant-colonel of the 5th dragoon guards (when Prince Leopold, afterwards king of the Belgians, was colonel), and died on 3 Feb. 1867 as general and colonel of the 17th lancers. Robert Wallace (1773–1855) [q. v.] was his younger brother. Lady Wallace died on 12 March 1878 without issue by her second marriage.
Lady Wallace long and actively pursued a career as a translator of German and Spanish works, among others: 1. ‘The Princess Ilse,’ 1855. 2. ‘Clara; or Slave-life in Europe’ (by Hackländer), 1856. 3. ‘Voices from the Greenwood,’ 1856. 4. ‘The Old Monastery’ (by Hackländer), 1857. 5. ‘Frederick the Great and his Merchant,’ 1859. 6. ‘Schiller's Life and Works’ (by Palleske), 1859. 7. ‘The Castle and the Cottage in Spain’ (from the Spanish of Caballero), 1861. 8. ‘Joseph in the Snow’ (by Auerbach), 1861. 9. ‘Mendelssohn's Letters from Italy and Switzerland,’ 1862. 10. ‘Will-o'-the-Wisp,’ 1862. 11. ‘Letters of Mendelssohn from 1833 to 1847,’ 1863. 12. ‘Letters of Mozart,’ 1865. 13. ‘Beethoven's Letters, 1790–1826,’ 1866. 14. ‘Letters of Distinguished Musicians,’ 1867. 15. ‘Reminiscences of Mendelssohn’ (by Elise Polko), 1868. 16. ‘Alexandra Feodorowna’ (by Grimm), 1870. 17. ‘A German Peasant Romance: Elsa and the Vulture’ (by Von Hillern), 1876. 18. ‘Life of Mozart’ (by Nohl), 1877.
[Grove's Dict. of Music, vol. iv.; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Record of the 5th Dragoon Guards; Times, 7 Feb. 1867; Rogers's Book of Wallace (Grampian Club), i. 110–12; Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 1860.]