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FOR

FEBRUARY, 1810.

A NEW SERIES.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

OF

ILLUSTRIOUS LADIES.

The Second Number.

HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE.

HER GRACE THE DUCHESS DEVONSHIRE, who has lately been elevated to her present rank by her marriage with the Duke of Devonshire, has long been distinguished in the fashionable world as Lady Elizabeth Foster. She was married early in life to Mr. Foster, a gentleman, we believe, of considerable distinction and fortune in Ireland; but who dying, not many years after his marriage, left her Ladyship a widow with a family.

wholly directed to private theatricals. Her Ladyship took a lead in the amusements of this kind at Richmond-house, and was perhaps esteemed, next to the Countess of Derby, second to none of the fashionable performers. But the most eminent display of private friendship and public feeling was evinced by this lady, in conjunction with the late Duchess of Devonshire, during the first Westminster Election, in which Mr. Fox became a candidate. She emHer Ladyship, during many years, was ployed herself in an active personal canone of the most admired toasts of the age. vass for this illustrious statesman, and sucShe was distinguished for her consummate ceeded by her fascinating manners, and knowledge of the polite world, for her never elegant solicitation, in conquering the prefailing vivacity, and an elegance of man-judice of many, and procuring the kindness ner which enchanted all who had the ho nour of her acquaintance.-Lady Elizabeth Foster was very much celebrated during that splendid epoch in the beau monde, when the taste of the nobility was almost

of all.

Lady Elizabeth Foster was married to the present Duke of Devonshire in the autumn of the last year. Her Ladyship has one son living by her first husband,

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

HYMENEA IN SEARCH OF A HUSBAND.
[Continued from page 6.]

Our arrival at Ramsgate interrupted my aunt's continuance of the story; and an event afterwards occurred which connected some immediate occurrences in my own life with the sequel of that narrative. I shall relate this in due season.

It really astonishes me, whenever a country so richly gifted by nature as Kent, and so near to the metropolis, should be so generally deserted by its resident gentry. By what perversion of natural taste is it, that the country gentlemen are to be found every where but on their own estates? In Essex, a county of marshes and meadows, I can very easily account for the scarcity of resident proprietors; there is neither a healthy nor a picturesque country to invite them; the scenery is tame, and every marsh and meadow has its appendant fevers and agues. But in Kent, where the surface of the ground is so beautifully distributed, where there is such an interchange of hill, valley, meadow, and plain, where the fertility of the soil is only rivalled by the beauty of the scenery, that such a country should be so generally abandoned and deserted, appears so extraordinary, that nothing could have induced me to believe it but my own actual observation.

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quarters. My aunt was not personally known to one individual in the room, yet had she not been there five minutes, before she was in conversation with all of them.

After some conversation, my aunt proposed a walk on the pier, and I assented. Some of the gentlemen, with all the wellbred impertinence of the fashionable character, offered their attendance; I gave my aunt an intimation of my wishes, and she with equal ease and good-breeding dis engaged herself from them.

"Is it possible," said I, "that you can indiscriminately suffer the conversation of every stranger you meet in that room?" Why not," replied my aunt, they are all strangers alike, and therefore may alike be all respectable."

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"True," said I;" but is there not an equal probability on the other side; may not some of them be of a doubtful character?"

"Yes," replied my aunt, "certainly; and I have no doubt that many of them are."

"Then how," said 1, associate with them?"

can you safely

"Because they are strangers," said my aunt, "and because every one knows them to be strangers to me, and therefore no one can impute any voluntary selfdegradation to a person of quality who adimits their conversation. It is a rule of charity in the fashionable world at a water

able till he is known, and that every one may have a more pleasing employment than hunting into the characters of these casual acquaintances."

The rank of my aunt, the style in which she lived, and the extent of her acquaint ance in the fashionable world, rendered our arrival a subject of immediate interest, and of general concern and conversation. Accordingly we no sooner entered the li-ing-place, that every stranger is respectbrary on the following morning, than we were joined by all the loungers in the town. It is one happiness of a fashionable life, that if a woman of quality be once introduced into the fashionable world, she can scarcely go into any quarter of the world, where she is not instantaneously known and at home. There is a freemasonry in the world of fashion, which connects and discovers its members in the most remote

"And in this manner," said I, “yourselves and your daughters may be shuffled into an evening's conversation or dancing with a swindler, or a highway man."

"Be it so," said my aunt; "that swin dler, or highwayman, knows nothing of us

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into participation. Brighton, I should suppose, is still worse than Ramsgate on this score,"

"Here is one example of the morals of watering-places," said Shuffleton; 66 look at the vast number of soies and other fish which that boat has just brought on shore, Now, let us go down to the boat, and endeavour to bargain for a dinner."

Any trifle is sufficient for a woman of fashion. My aunt, who would not in London have moved from her chair to save an hundred pounds, was now seized with an economical fit, and together with Shuffleton descended from the pier to traffic with the boatmen for her dinner. The fellows winked to each other with a

"And this is fashionable delicacy and look of low cunning, and after a good infashionable feeling," said I.

"It is fashionable prudence," said my aunt. "There is no sense in your extravagant refinements."

We were now on the pier, and were expressing our surprize, that in the wide circle of our visitants and acquaintances we had as yet met none of them, when we were joined by Mr. Shuffeton.

"What wind has brought your ladyship to this quarter," said be, "and this young lady; is it possible that Ramsgate can have any charms for two ladies of such thoroughbred fashionable taste?"

terval of beating down. Shuffleton and herself made a joint purchase at four times the price they would have given in London.

"Whence," said my aunt, "have fish reached this extravagant price even on the sea coast?”

"Because of the war," replied one of the fellows, with a look of vulgar banter.

"The war," rejoined Shuflleton, with a look of astonishment," how can that affect the price of fresh soles at Ramsgate?"

"Because the noise of the cannon frightens them away," returned the fellow, with as easy an assurance as if he had

"And why not, Shuffleton?" said my aunt; "to my thoughts Ramsgate is de-learnt the art of humbug in Bond-street. lightfully situated, and the company is as good as you can expect to meet in watering-places. What fault have you to find with Ramsgate ?"

“Only," replied he, "that of all the towns on the earth, the people of Rainsgate practise the most villainous imposi tion. All the tradesmen have the manners of smugglers, and all the smugglers the morals of highwaymen; they have fleeced. me most unmercifully within the short space of a month."

"Then why have you any dealings with them" said my aunt. "I have but one rule in all these things, and that is, to have every thing from London. I know nothing more intolerable than the gross impositions of tradespeople at wateringplaces and what is still worse, they cor rupt our men servants by enticing them

we

"They are not at least scarce," said my aunt. "Yes," replied the boatman, " have not caught more than this boatful within the last three months."

"Whence can you account for this disposition to extortion," said my aunt."This place has been entirely made by the liberality and profusion of the annual visitors, and such is their gratitude."

"As to gratitude," said I, you upon your part seek to make a claim to what you can have no right. The profusion and extravagance of the visitors at a watering-place can certainly impose no obligation of gratitude: they have no other end but the gratification of yourselves. They are not intended to serve the people with whom you deal, or even the place in which you live; it is absurd, therefore, my dear aunt, to talk of grati

tude, where you have intended no service, and imposed no obligation."

“But surely," said my aunt, "the tradesmen with whom we deal have some obligation towards us for the preference?" "Yes, aunt, where you have given a preference; but are you personally acquainted even with the names of your tradesmen?"

"But where they take so much money ef us," said my aunt, "do they owe us nothing in return?"

liam. In his confidence, however, of the virtuous education of the young lady, and in his knowledge of her pride, which he properly considered with the Poet as the joint safeguard of a lady's honour, he held them in merited contempt, when an acci. dent occurred which awakened suspicions in spite of himself. This was the dismissal of a female servant, in consequence of one of those accidents which frequently occur in country households. The Doctor, in his character as a magistrate, was reproving "Very little," said I; "if you buy in a the girl, who, instead of receiving his market, the marketman gives you his discourse with an air of penitence, mutgoods for your money, and there ends the tered something that people should look obligation. There may certainly be such at home, that the lecture would apply to a thing as an obligation of kindness arising her betters as well as herself, and that perfrom having received even an involuntary haps there was some one in the house who and accidental good from another. Such had been as unfortunate as herself. The is the narrow obligation which the water- Doctor, provoked by these words, coming-places owe their visitors: but to alkpelled the girl to speak out, when she of gratitude is to confound things." plainly told him, that Miss Clarissa was in "Will you accompany us in a ride into the same condition as herself. Sir Wilthe country?" said my aunt to Mr. Shuffle-liam had been in the apartment in the first part of this conversation; he had retired,

ton.

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"Madam, I am always at your service but he had heard enough to puzzle and from noon to midnight." embarrass him. The evident uneasiness "And suppose we should want it before of the Doctor at dinner, and the absolute Boon, Sir," said I.

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disappearance of Clarissa, had completed this perplexity. Sir William resolved to seek the girl, and to learn her secret. The girl, however, was removed. Sir William, in a state of mind which may be best comprehended by an anxious lover, stole softly along a gallery to the door of the apartment of Clarissa; using the familiarity which early acquaintance and almost brotherly intimacy had given him, he tapped softly. No answer. He tapped again; still no answer. He now softly opened the door, and cautiously entered the apartment; no one was there. He searched the house; no one was to be found. He sallied into the gardens; still no one was to be found. In the most dreadful anxiety, he sought the Doctor. Neither was the Doctor to be found. He inquired of one of the servants, a country fellow, whether he had seen his master or the young lady?

I discontinued my narrative," said she," where Clarissa had received a packet from Petersburgh, and the young Baronet had testified a degree of jealous impatience. Things continued in this manner during "Why, yes, master,' replied the herd; an interval of three or four months, when I have seen them, and I know not what a vague report began to be busy with the to make of them. Young Miss sent me in reputation of Clarissa, and an indistinct a great hurry for post-horses; as luck gossip's story reached the ears of Sir Wil-would have it, there was a chaise at hand,

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