The match was probably in no point of view a prudent one. The lady's father had been killed in a duel, when she was an infant; her only brother was, at the period of her marriage, about fifteen years of age, and she herself but a very few years older. It is therefore not likely that the propriety of the connexion was very carefully considered on her part. It is certain that the union was far from fortunate.

Mr. Howard has been characterised by Mr. Horace Walpole as in the last degree worthless and contemptible. It may be doubted whether his errors deserved such severe epithets. His temper was indeed violent, and his feelings not delicate; but the circumstances in which he and Mrs. Howard subsequently found themselves, were such as might excuse some impatience on either side. Even the outset of their career was not happy. Mr. Howard seems to have had no patrimony, and the lady's fortune- £6000-though consider

able' for that day, was not alone sufficient for the maintenance of a family of their rank. Of this sum £ 4000 had been settled on Mrs. Howard--the other £ 2000 was at the disposal of the husband. This was soon dissipated, and the interest of the former sum became the only income of the young couple.

About this time the eyes of the nation began to be directed to the Hanoverian succession, and (on what particular inducement or introduction is not now known) Mr. and Mrs. Howard repaired to the court of Hanover, where Mrs. Howard had the honour of being peculiarly distinguished by the Electress Sophia, a princess who, notwithstanding her advanced age, had preserved all her discernment, intelligence, and vivacity. Her Royal Highness died some

1 Walpole, with an inaccuracy which every where characterises his account of Lady Suffolk's early life, says, she had only the slender fortune of an ancient baronet's daughter.

weeks before Queen Anne, but Mrs. Howard had become equally acceptable to the Electoral Princess, Caroline of Anspach; and, on the accession of George I., Mr. Howard was named groom of the bedchamber to the King, and Mrs. Howard was appointed one of the bedchamber-women to the new Princess of Wales.

The elder Whig politicians became ministers to the King. The most promising of the young lords and gentlemen of the party, and the prettiest and liveliest of the young ladies, formed the new court of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The apartment of the bedchamber-woman in waiting became the fashionable evening rendezvous of the most celebrated wits and beauties. In this brilliant circle were formed the intimacies and friendships which produced the following correspondence.

Though Miss Bellenden, one of the maids of honour, bore away the palm of beauty, and her colleague, Miss Lepell, that of grace and wit, Mrs. Howard's good sense,

amiability, and sweetness of temper and manners, made her a universal favourite; and it was her singular good fortune to be at once distinguished by her mistress, and beloved by her companions.

It is still more remarkable, that though her favour with the Prince seemed gradually to increase, that with the Princess kept pace with it. This latter circumstance should, it may be thought, have prevented any scandal which might otherwise have arisen from the former: but although, as Walpole allows, that "the propriety and decency of Mrs. Howard's behaviour were so great that she was always treated as if her character never had been questioned-her friends affecting to suppose that her connexion with the Prince had been confined to pure friendship,”—yet the world certainly suspected a more tender attachment; and Walpole has, in his Reminiscences, made direct charges of this nature, with such confidence and particularity, that the transitory scandal of the day has

X

been, on his authority, embodied in the graver pages of history. But a careful perusal of all Lady Suffolk's original papers obliges the editor to declare, that he not only finds a large proportion of Walpole's anecdotes to be unfounded'; but that he has not, in Mrs. Howard's correspondence with the King, nor the notes of her conversations with the Queen, nor in any of her most confidential papers, found a single trace of the feeling which Walpole so confidently imputes.

Lady Suffolk, in her old age, became Mr. Walpole's neighbour, and their acquaint

Some of the inconsistencies of Walpole's statement are evident on the very face of the story. He says the Prince took no notice of Mrs. Howard, till, on Miss Bellenden's marriage, he transferred his attentions from the latter to the former. Miss Bellenden was not married till 1720, at which time Mrs. Howard had been nearly ten years in the Princess's family. Again; he states that Mr. Howard's jealousy became outrageous before the Prince removed from St. James's to Leicester Fields; that removal took place in 1717, yet Walpole dates, as we have seen, Mrs. Howard's favour only from 1720.