Hannah More to her Sister-Trial of the Duchess of Kingston.

Public matters grow worse and worse. When they are at the worst they will mend themselves if (as is the fashionable system) things are left to the care of matter and motion. Motion certainly does its part; if there be any failure, it will be in sluggish matter.

And now, as you say, let us come to business. It is said that you and I should have no better (as Honest Lopes says in the Spanish Curate),

"Than ringing all-in to a rout of dunces."

I propose to have my visitation between hay and corn harvest. But my officers are so ignorant of this proper vacancy, that I doubt we must have recourse to your brother to acquaint us with the precise interval. I have fixed on this as most commodious to you; for I suppose hay harvest will not be quite ended in Gloucestershire by the 5th of July.

I could not but smile at your putting in a caveat so early against our asking you to return with us to Prior Park. My wife is well, and always yours. I have left half my soul at Claverton in good health, and in such dispositions as I could wish. When any thing befalls me, I not only expect you should be a father to him, but such a father as he shall have lost. My dearest friend, ever yours, W. GLOUCESTER.

XXVII.—TRIAL OF THE DUCHESS OF KINGSTON.*

Hannah More to her Sister.

ADELPHI, 1776.

I wish it were possible for me to give you the slighest idea of the scene I was present at yesterday. Garrick would make

*The facts connected with this celebrated trial are well known. Whilst a maid of honor to the wife of Frederick, Prince of Wales, Miss Chudleigh,

Hannah More to her Sister-Trial of the Duchess of Kingston.

me take his ticket to go to the trial of the Duchess of Kingston; a sight which, for beauty and magnificence, exceeded any thing which those who were never present at a coronation, or a trial by peers, can have the least notion of. Mrs. Garrick and I were in full dress by seven. At eight we went to the Duke of Newcastle's, whose house adjoins Westminster Hall, in which he has a large gallery, communicating with the apartments in his house. You will imagine the bustle of five thousand people getting into one hall! yet in all this hurry we walked in tranquilly. When they were all seated, and the king-at-arms had commanded silence on pain of imprisonment, which, however, was very ill-observed, the gentleman of the black rod was commanded to bring in his prisoner. Elizabeth, calling herself Duchess-dowager of Kingston, walked in, led by the black rod

who was regarded as one of the most beautiful young women of her time, was privately married to Lord Bristol, then Lieutenant Hervey. A separation, for some reason never clearly explained, took place almost immediately. A child, the fruit of the union, survived its birth but a short time, and the marriage was kept a profound secret from the world. Mrs. Hervey being still young, beautiful, and ambitious, determined to break the chain which bound her to a husband she disliked, and who annoyed her with constant importunities. Ascertaining that the clergyman who married her was dead, she repaired to the parish church where the ceremony was performed, and while a friend engaged the clerk in conversation in another part of the vestry, contrived to abstract the entry of her marriage from the parish register. She soon afterwards became the wife of the Duke of Kingston, with whom, it was believed, she had long carried on an illicit intercourse. On the death of the Duke, his nephew and heir at law, whose suspicions had been aroused, instituted proceedings against the Duchess for bigamy. She was found guilty, but as she claimed the privilege of the peerage, was discharged from custody on payment of the usual fees. Horace Walpole writes thus to Mann, on the 24th April, 1776: "If the Pope expects his Duchess back, he must create her one, for her peers have reduced her to a countess. Her folly and obstinacy now appear in their full vigor, at least her faith in the Ecclesiastical court, trusting to the infalibillity of which she provoked this trial, in the face of every sort of detection. A living wit

Hannah More to her Sister-Trial of the Duchess of Kingston.

and Mr. La Roche, courtesying profoundly to her judge; when she bent, the lord-steward called out, "Madam, you may rise;" which, I think, was literally taking her up before she was down. The peers made her a slight bow. The prisoner was dressed in deep mourning: a black hood on her head, her hair modestly dressed and powdered, a black silk sack with crape trimmings, black gauze deep ruffles, and black gloves. The counsel spoke about an hour and a quarter each. Dunning's manner is insufferably bad, coughing and spitting at every three words, but his sense and his expression pointed to the last degree; he made her Grace shed bitter tears. I had the pleasure of hearing several of the lords speak, though nothing more than proposals on common things. Among these were Lyttleton, Talbot, Townsend, and Camden. The fair victim had four virgins in

ness of the first marriage; a register of it fabricated long afterwards by herself; the widow of the clergyman who married her; many confidants to whom she had trusted the secret; and even Hawkins, the surgeon, privy to the birth of her child, appeared against her. The Lords were tender, and would not probe the Earl's collusion. The Duchess, who could produce nothing else of corsequence in her favor, tried the powers of oratory, and made a long oration, in which she cited the protection of her late mistress. Her counsel would have curtailed this harangue, but she told them they might be good lawyers, but did not understand speaking to the passions. She concluded her rhetoric with a fit, and the trial with rage, when convicted of the bigamy. The Attorney-General labored to have her burnt in the hand, but the judges were hustled into an opinion against it, and it was waived. So all this complication of knavery receives no punishment but the loss of the duchy."

After her trial the Duchess proceeded to Rome, and thence to St. Petersburg, where she was admitted to the friendship of the famous Catharine. An entertainment which she gave to the Empress, is said to have been more magnificent than any which had hitherto been given in that country. Finding herself, however, neglected by the English ambassador and the Russian nobility, she removed to France, where she died in 1778, in the fifty-ninth year of her age.-H.

Hannah More to her Sister-Trial of the Duchess of Kingston.

white behind the bar. She imitated her great predecessor, Mrs. Rudd, and affected to write very often--though I plainly perceived she only wrote as they do their love epistles on the stage, without forming a letter. I must not omit one of the best things: we had only to open a door to get at a very fine cold collation of all sorts of meats and wines, with tea, &c., a privilege confined to those who belonged to the Duke of Newcastle. I fancy the peeresses would have been glad of our places at the trial, for I saw Lady Derby and the Duchess of Devonshire with their workbags full of good things. Their rank and dignity did not exempt them from the "villanous appetites" of eating and drinking.

Foote says that the Empress of Russia, the Duchess of Kingston, and Mrs. Rudd, are the three most extraordinary women in Europe; but the Duchess disdainfully, and I think unjustly, excludes Mrs. Rudd from the honor of deserving to make one in the triple alliance. The Duchess has but small remains of that beauty of which kings and princes were once so enamored; she looked very much like Mrs. Prichard; she is large and illshaped; there was nothing white but her face, and had it not been for that, she would have looked like a bale of bombazine. There was a great deal of ceremony, a great deal of splendor, and a great deal of nonsense; they adjourned upon the most foolish pretences imaginable, and did nothing with such an air of business as was truly ridiculous. I forgot to tell you the Duchess was taken ill, but performed it badly.

6

Hannah More to Martha More-A Royal Wedding.

XXVIII.—A ROYAL WEDDING.

Hannah More to Martha More.

FULHAM PALACE, May, 1797.

I am just come from attending the royal nuptials at St. James's. It was, indeed, a most august spectacle. If, indeed, it had been only the spectacle and the procession which I could have seen, I should have had little curiosity; but the bishop, who has the management of the whole chapel, secured me a place with Mrs. Porteous so near the altar that I could hear every word distinctly. The royal bride behaved with great feeling and modesty; the Prince of Wurtemberg had also a very becoming solemnity in his behavior. The King and Queen wept, but took great pains to restrain themselves. As I looked at the sixteen handsome and magnificently dressed royals sitting round the altar, I could not help thinking how many plans were perhaps at that very moment forming for their destruction; for the bad news from Ireland had just arrived. They talk of the number of acknowledged malcontents being 150,000, but I believe not a large part of that number have arms. I forgot to say that the King gave his daughter away, and it was really very affecting. The archbishop read the service with great emphasis and solemnity. The newspapers will have described all the crape, and the foils, and the feathers, and the diamonds, &c. We were four hours in chapel.

Lord Orford's executors, Mrs. Damer and Lord Frederick Campbell, have sent me word they will return all my letters, which they have found carefully preserved. I am also applied to in form to consent to give up such of his letters to me as are fit for publication. I have told them how extremely careful I