Henrietta Countifs of Suffelle?!?

Engraved by E. Scriven from an original paiture at Blichting.

TO AND FROM

HENRIETTA, COUNTESS OF SUFFOLK,

AND HER SECOND HUSBAND,

THE HON. GEORGE BERKELEY;

FROM 1712 TO 1767.

WITH

HISTORICAL, BIOGRAPHICAL, AND EXPLANATORY

NOTES.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET.

1824.

LENOX

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

HENRIETTA HOBART was the eldest daughter of Sir Henry Hobart, the fourth baronet of his family, and sister of Sir John Hobart, who was successively created a Knight of the Bath, Baron Hobart, and Earl of Buckinghamshire.

The exact date of her birth is nowhere preserved. But as she is stated to have died in 1767, at the age of seventy-nine, it seems that she was born about 1688.

She married (about 1708) the Honourable Charles Howard, (third son of Henry, fifth Earl of Suffolk,) who, in 1731, became, by the deaths of his nephews and two elder brothers, ninth Earl of Suffolk.

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