L

great fortune was, we are told in a note, raised by "diligent attendance on the necessities of others." But the young duke was a mere boy,-not more than twelve or thir

teen.

Dr. Johnson mentions that the estate of John of Bucks was found charged with an annuity to Pope,-of £200 a year, says the annotator of Johnson's Lives. Was there something informal in this deed, which, after the duke's death, required the signature of the duchess to give it validity and force?

These, however, are mere speculations, and we are concerned only with facts.

Whether Pope and the duchess were ever after on civil terms, we know not. Pope, in his letter to Moyser, says that she " 'picked a quarrel" with him-in 1729-and they, 66 never saw each other in five or six years." This would bring us to about the time of the young duke's death,-November, 1735,-a very natural occasion for Pope to express the respect which he had ever professed for the family, and to offer a word of consolation even to the duchess. Pope did so, and wrote the well-known epitaph; but the "weeping marble" never asked a "tear," the proud duchess was no more willing to remain under an obligation in 1735 than in 1730, and the epitaph was not inscribed on the monument. This must have been gall and wormwood to Pope. Even after her death, he spoke of her with bitterness. In a letter to Bethel, he thus wrote:

"All her private papers, and those of her correspondents, are left in the hands of Lord Hervey, so that it is not impossible another volume of my letters may come out. I am sure they make no part of her treasonable correspondence (which they say she has expressly left to him); but sure this is infamous conduct towards any common acquaintance. And yet this woman seemed once a woman of great honor, and many generous principles."-(Ruffhead, p. 408.)

Here the actions of the duchess, once, in Pope's opinion, a woman "of great honor and many generous principles," are spoken of as infamous.

Whether this enmity was embittered by political differences, we know not. It is certain that the High-Church Jacobite duchess, before she died, took the more celebrated Whigs into her especial favor. Her grandson, by her first husband the Earl of Anglesea, was married to the daughter of Lord Hervey, a court Whig of unmistakable politics, to whom the duchess bequeathed, among other things, her noble mansion of Buckingham House, in St. James' Park; and she appointed Lord Orford, the hated Sir Robert Walpole of other days, her exec

litical change took place in the Duchess of Marlborough, who, from personal dislike to, or prejudice against, Walpole, became intimately associated with the discontented Whigs and the Tories-with Pope's friends -with what was called the " Opposition." We see the effect of this change on Pope, so early as 1735. In the epistle to Cobham, published in the quarto edition of his poems, 1735, Pope introduced the following attack on Marlborough :

"Triumphant leaders at an army's head,
Hemmed round with glories, pilfer cloth and
bread;

As meanly plunder as they bravely fought,
Now save a people, and now save a groat.”

to bear on Pope, or Pope's own feelings sug-
Some friendly influence was now brought
gested the indelicacy of this; and, therefore,
we have the following note in the Appen-
dix:-

"Epist. 1, ver. 146. Triumphant leaders, etc. These four verses having been misconstrued, contrary to the author's meaning, they are suppressed in as many copies as he could re

call."

We never saw a copy of this or any subsequent edition in which they were suppressed; but the note served Pope's purpose.

The Duchess of Marlborough humored and flattered, and did every thing to conciliate Pope, all her friends were his friends, and we see the growing effect of this. In what was called the surreptitious edition of Pope's Letters, 1735, we have one describing and disparaging Blenheim, in which he takes occasion to illustrate the description of the place by the characters of the duke and duchess their greatness and littleness their selfishness and meanness. This letter was not republished in the quarto, 1737, nor, which is far more significant, in the smaller edition of 1737, which was undoubtedly published with Pope's sanction, and which professed to contain all the rejected letters of the quarto; nor in any edition published in Pope's lifetime. So, too, the sarcasm on the duke, in the letter to a lady, with reference to the camp in Hyde Park, where he speaks of "new regiments with new clothes and furniture (far exceeding the late cloth and linen designed by his grace for the soldiery)," even this reference to a subject, which circumstances had made painful to the Marlboroughs, was omitted in the quarto of 1737.

In May, 1739, Pope wrote to Swift: "the Duchess of Marlborough makes great court to me." In January, 1741, when at Bath, he was, we think, applied to, by the duchess' friend, Lord Chesterfield, to recommend some It is strange, but more certain that a po-person to write her memoirs. Pope cer

utor.

POPE AND THE DUCHESSES.

tainly at that time, 9th of January, 1740, wrote to Lord Polworth, "I am in great pain to find out Mr. Hook. Does your lordship, or Mr. Hume, or Dr. King, know where he is?" Ruffhead tells us that Hooke

death did not save her from his denunciations. It is further proved that, however politically opposed to the Marlboroughs, Pope never had any personal quarrel with the duchess, and that the political antipathies and associations which had at first separated performed this work so much to her grace's them, eventually drew them together. There satisfaction, that she talked of rewarding largely, is reason to believe that Pope manifested but would do nothing till Mr. Pope came to the most friendly disposition towards the her, whose company she then sought all opportunities to procure, and was uneasy to be with- duchess as early as 1735. This feeling is out it. He was at that time with some friends, shown in increasing strength by various whom he was unwilling to part with, a. hundred suppressions of letters and passages in letmiles distant; but at Mr. Hooke's earnest solic- ters. We have proof that they became more itation, when Mr. Pope found his presence so and more intimate,-that Pope visited her, essentially concerned his friend's interest and that she wrote and spoke most kindly of future support, he broke through all his engage- Pope, and Pope as respectfully of the duchments, and in the depth of winter and ill ways, flew to his assistance. On his coming, the duchess, as late as July, 1743. Later still he must ess secured to Mr. Hooke five thousand pounds." have thought well and kindly of her, for he remarked to Spence (p. 295)," the old Duchess of Marlborough has given away in charities and in presents to her granddaughters and other relations near £300,000 in her lifetime."

In a letter to the Earl of Marchmont, written so late as 3d of March, 1742, the duchess "If you talk to Mr. Pope of me endeavor to keep him my friend." Pope then was her friend at that time.

says:

Again, 15th of March, 1742, among other complimentary phrases, she says:

"If I could receive letters from you and Mr. Pope as I had leisure, I would never come to town as long as I live. . . . I shall always be pleased to see your lordship and Mr. Pope when you will be so bountiful as to give me any part of your time."

Under these circumstances, which was the lady Pope was most in the humor to satirize in 1743?

The character of Atossa is first heard of after Pope's death. Bolingbroke then wrote to Marchmont :

"Our friend Pope, it seems, corrected and prepared for the press, just before his death, an edition of the four Epistles, that follow the Essay On the 8th of September, 1742, Lord Ches-on Man.' They were then printed off, and are terfield wrote to Lord Marchmont :

66

I go to-morrow to Nugent for a week, from whence, when I return, I shall take up Pope at Twickenham on the 19th, and carry him to the Duchess of Marlborough's at Windsor, in our way to Cobham's, where we are to be on the 21st of this month."

mont:

now ready for publication. I am sorry. for it, because if he could be excused for writing the character of Atossa formerly, there is no excuse for his design of publishing it, after he had reacter of Atossa is inserted. I have a copy of ceived the favor you and I know, and the charthe book."

This book was, no doubt, a continuation "with the ComSo Pope [in July, 1743] to Lord March- of the edition in quarto, mentary and Notes of W. Warburton," of which "The Dunciad," the "Essay on Man," and the "Essay on Criticism" were already published; the work, in short, referred to by Pope, as mentioned by Spence :

"There are many hours I could be glad to talk to (or rather to hear) the Duchess of Marlborough.... I could listen to her with the

same veneration and belief in all her doctrines "Here am I, like Socrates, distributing my as the disciples of Socrates gave to the words of their master, or he himself to his demon (for, I morality among my friends just as I am dying. think, she too has a devil, whom in civility we-P.' And Spence adds,This was said on his sending about some of his Ethic Epistles, as will call a genius)." presents, about three weeks before we lost him.'"

No doubt the duchess had a devil, and a fierce one if provoked, as her friends and enemies well knew.

The result of this inquiry is proof that Pope had quarrelled personally with that “mad" woman, the Duchess of Buckinghamshire, as early as 1729,-that they never, as is admitted, saw each other for five or six years, and never, so far as we have evidence, were on friendly terms afterwards, and that even

This character of Atossa is understood to have been referred to in the following note to the epistle "On the Characters of Women," published in 1735 :

"Between this and the former lines, and also in some following parts, a want of connection may be perceived, occasioned by the omission of certain examples and illustrations of the maxims laid down, which may put the reader in mind of

what the author has said in his Imitation of mate relations with the Duchess of BuckingHorace :

"Last night her lord was all that's good and

"from her birth
Finds all her life one warfare upon earth;
Shines in exposing knaves."

great;

A knave this morning, and his will a cheat."

The father of the Duchess of Bucking- some reason to complain of the duke, and The Duchess of Buchinghamshire had hamshire was driven from his throne, and "the unjust lawsuits" which his will gave her brother declared supposititious. While rise to, consequent, we presume, on the reyet in her teens she was forced to sue for a versionary interests therein given to his natdivorce from her husband, the Earl of An- ural children. The Duchess of Marlborough glesea, on the ground of cruelty, and ob- made no such complaining-night and morntained it. She had long litigations with the ing were alike with her, and alike her love Duke of Buckinghamshire's natural children, and reverence for her dead husband. When and she makes an express bequest to one of the proud Duke of Somerset, as he was them, because" of her not taking part with called, offered to lay his fortune at her feet the other illegitimate children of her late and implored her hand, she declared that, husband in the unjust lawsuits brought "if she were only thirty, she would not peragainst her." She prosecuted to conviction mit even the emperor of the world to sucJohn Ward, M.P. for Weymouth, for forg- ceed in that heart which had been devoted ery, and he was in consequence expelled to John Duke of Marlborough."

the House of Commons and condemned to "Childless, with all her children, wants an heir." the pillory. Pope alludes to this prosecution

in "The Dunciad," written before the quar-daughter by the Earl of Anglesea, who, The Duchess of Buckinghamshire had a rel; and Curll's "Key" says, the was written "to please a certain duchess." passage however, died before her mother, but left of these circumstances can be made to apply whom died before her, and the last in 1735, We know not how, by possibility, any one issue. But the satire applies to the duchess, who had by the duke five children, all of to the Duchess of Marlborough. when the dukedom became extinct.

"To heirs unknown descends the unguarded

We then read of Atossa's "loveless youth." How that might apply to the Duchess of The Duchess of Marlborough, though she Buckinghamshire we know not, unless, in- lived to eighty-four, left one child, and a deed, something might be inferred from the dozen grandchildren, every one of whom treatment she received from her first hus- would have been her heir by law, and was band. It is, however, directly the reverse under the entail heir to the dukedom. So of true if applied to the Duchess of Marl- far from wanting an heir, she was herself, borough, who, as Coxe tells us, "though for many years, Dowager Duchess. One of not so transcendently lovely as her sister" her daughters, Henrietta Duchess of Marl[la belle Jennings of Grammont], "her ani- borough, was succeeded in 1733 by Charles mated countenance and commanding figure the son of Anne (Henrietta's sister) and the attracted numerous admirers, and even in grandson of the dowager. the dawn of beauty she received advantageous offers of marriage." So Macaulay says: "Sarah, less regularly beautiful [than la belle Jennings], was perhaps more attractive. The face was expressive. Her form wanted no feminine charm, and the profusion of her fine hair. . . was the delight of numerous Colonel Churchill, young, handsome, graceful, . must have been enamored indeed. Marriage only strengthened his passion." "The pleasure missed her, but the scandal hit."

admirers.

Here, again, we know not how this might apply to the Duchess of Buckinghamshire; but assuredly, it does not to the Duchess of Marlborough, who, as Coxe records," in the midst of a licentious court, maintained an unspotted reputation, and was as much respected for her prudence and propriety as she was admired for the charms of her per

son."

store,

Or wanders, heaven directed, to the poor."

We find, by the London Evening Post of the 5th of May, 1743, that immediately on the death of the Duchess of Buckinghamshire there was "a trial at bar to prove who was heir-at-law to the late Duke of Buckinghamshire, when the Misses Walshes of Ireland were found to be his heirs." Could this be said, or prophesied, of Sarah Duchess. of Marlborough? Living or dead, was her vast wealth "unguarded"? Only £300 went to the poor, and that, not heaven directed, but by direction of her will; and not her will might determine its direction; but one shilling wandered, or could wander, if that fact could not have been known to Pope, who died before her.

ular subject. On the first convenient opWe have now fairly exhausted this particous history connected with the publication portunity we shall inquire into the very curiof Pope's Letters.

From Chambers's Journal.
THE AMBASSADOR'S BALL.

AMONG the persons of distinction who composed the highest society of Paris in 1810, none were more conspicuous than the Austrian ambassador, Prince Carl von Schwartzenberg, and his family. The prince himself, a handsome, stately man, dignified, yet popular and easy in his bearing, distinguished both in the council-chamber and in the field, was a really imposing representative of his imperial master. Not less remarkable was his charming princess; a rare intelligence, grace, fascination, and sincere amiability, all combined to fit her for her brilliant position. The prince and princess held at their magnificent Hôtel de Légation, Rue de Mont Blanc, a court-in all but its name and tedious ceremonials. Here French and Germans met on common ground, unfettered by the uneasiness, restraint, and smothered suspicion which darkened the atmosphere of St. Cloud. Here, on the contrary, there seemed to be good-will and friendliness for all-a moral sunshine, in which even strangers gladly came to bask. To those who were admitted to any degree of intimacy with the family, the source of this pervading light and warmth remained no secret. Beneath the splendors of the Hôtel de Légation there flourished all the simple virtues of household affections. Husband and wife loved each other tenderly, as it was not the fashion for French husbands and wives to love in those days; a charming family was growing up about them; they had a circle of valued household friends. Prince Joseph von Schwartzenberg, the ambassador's elder brother, had also taken up his residence in Paris. The brothers were deeply attached to each other; their children had the same masters, and lived like brothers and sisters together; each family shared and heightened the other's pleasures. No wonder that, amidst the false glitter of the empire, this home-happiness-quiet, pure, and true should have exercised a subtle charm on those who came within its influence.

Of all the festivities which had taken place in honor of the nuptials of Marie Louise, that of the Hôtel de Légation was to be the crown. It was not considered simply as a ball given by the ambassador; it was the fête of Austria herself in honor of a daughter of the House of Hapsburg. Every Austrian in Paris felt himself personally compromised in the success of this entertainment, which was to be on a scale of far greater magnificence than any which had preceded it. If Austria had been forced to lay down her arms on the field of Wagram, here, at least, France should confess herself vanquished. The fête was to take place on the 1st of July, and for weeks beforehand, an army of workmen were em

ployed in the necessary preparations. As the time drew near, they worked in relays, day and night. Indeed, those whose turn fell in the night were more fortunate than their brethren, for the heat by day was intense; the paint blistered the wood-work, the stone blocks glowed under that burning sun. Scarcely a drop of rain had fallen for weeks; the foliage withered in every direction, as if under the breath of a simoon; the turf and boughs required for decoration had to be kept fresh by artificial means. The hôtel itself, it was thought, would not be large enough for the occasion, so the mansion next door to it was hired, and the two buildings thrown into one. But the grand ball-room, a palace in itself for size and magnificence, was erected of solid wood-work in the garden. Its roof and walls, covered on the outside with waxedcloth, were decorated in the interior with tapestry, and all the resources of upholstery and taste expended in the arrangement of mirrors, candelabra, colored lamps, and every kind of dazzling ornament. The roof, which was dome-shaped, was supported by wooden pillars covered with white satin damask, striped in gold and silver, and festooned with muslin, gauze, and other light fabrics, bound by wreaths of artificial flowers. Massive glass-lustres swung on gold and silver chains from the roof, and were combined in one graceful and harmonious whole with the other decorations, by means of floating draperies, flowers, and ribbons. At one end of this pavilion rose a daïs, carpeted with cloth "of gold, on which two throne-chairs were placed for the emperor and his bride; at the opposite end, was a gallery for the orchestra. There were three entrances to the ball-room, besides that for the musicians at the back of the orchestra- one behind the daïs, communicating with the mansion; another into a wide, long gallery, temporary, like the ballroom, and decorated to match it; this gallery ran parallel with the hôtel, and had several doors communicating with it and with the gardens. But the principal entrance to the ball-room was a magnificent portal, from which a flight of broad steps led down into the gardens, where every arrangement had been made to facilitate the ingress and egress of the crowd of guests. Over the portal shone in illuminated letters the following inscription, in German, which some friend of Prince Schwartzenberg, inspired evidently by the muse who presides over mottoes for crackers and bonbons, improvised for the occasion :— With gentle Beauty's charm is glorious Valor

bound!

All hail! the golden age again on earth is found!

So rose the light, graceful structure, as by the wand of some architectural Ariel: it looked,