Part 4 (1/2)

Then the curtains of the bed were drawn to guard her from pitying gaze; and then, on a September day, in 1760, the pathetic end came.

Over ten thousand people viewed her coffin. Sensationalism even after the drop of the curtain! The Countess left four children, two sons and two daughters. Of these, Anne, four years old at her mother's death, was one of the children whom George Selwyn showed much kindness to.

The Earl married again, the second Countess being Barbara, daughter of Lord St. John of Bletsoe. George William, the son of Maria, came to the earldom in 1809.

In an ode on the death of Maria the poet Mason wrote:--

”For she was fair beyond your brightest bloom (This Envy owns, since now her bloom is fled): Fair as the Forms that wove in Fancy's loom, Float in light vision round the Poet's head.

Whene'er with soft serenity she smiled, Or caught the orient blush of quick surprise, How sweetly mutable, how brightly wild.

The liquid l.u.s.tre darted from her eyes!

Each look, each motion, waked a new-born grace That o'er her form its transient glory cast: Some lovelier wonder soon usurped the place, Chased by a charm still lovelier than the last.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ELIZABETH COUNTESS GROSVENOR by LAWRENCE]

LADY ELIZABETH

In these latter days can we imagine a lawsuit, costing contestants thousands of pounds, over the right to a certain heraldic charge? In the fourteenth century Sir Robert Grosvenor was the defendant in such a suit, and we read of Chaucer, John of Gaunt, Owen Glendower, and Hotspur being witnesses before the High Court of Chivalry. Sir Robert established his defence, and since those days the Grosvenors have ever held a high rank in the n.o.bility of England. Quite as proud a patrician position was held through the centuries by the family of Gower. In the early part of this century, the heir of the Grosvenors espoused the most beautiful daughter of the House of Gower,--Lady Elizabeth Mary Leveson Gower. This lady was the youngest daughter of George, the second Marquis of Stafford, who married, in 1785, Elizabeth, who was Countess of Sutherland and Baroness Strathnaver in her own right. The Marquis was created Duke of Sutherland in 1833.

The Lady Elizabeth Mary was born in 1797, and married, in 1819, Robert, Viscount Belgrave, eldest son of the second Earl of Grosvenor.

The portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence was painted in the year preceding her marriage.

The Marquisate of Westminster had been created in 1831, and in 1845, when the Viscount's father died, he succeeded to the t.i.tle. He had entered Parliament in 1818 as member for Chester. He spoke but rarely in the House, although a hard worker on committees. He greatly improved his vast London property, and had the credit of administering his estate with a combination of intelligence and generosity seldom seen. Of reserved habits and inexpensive tastes, he was averse to ostentation and extravagance. He died in 1869. His successor was his son (born in 1825) the present Duke, who was elevated to a dukedom in 1874. He is one of the wealthiest peers in the kingdom, is a man of great taste, and has patronized the arts with almost a Medician munificence.