The Romance of Biography (Vol 2 of 2)

istinguished as munificent patronesses of poetry, and favourite themes of poets,

ect of a

ster, Pembr

ets, and even in French, by Voiture. There was Lucy Harrington, Countess of Bedford, who, notwithstanding the accusation of vanity and extravagance which has been brought against her, was an amiable woman, and munificently reward

OUNTESS O

timely rapt

form unto m

creature I co

rve, and love

her fair, and

d, and yet more

-star should no

nfluence from h

uld be courteou

lemn vice of g

ftest virtue th

softer bos

rned, and

that should, w

pindle, and the

nd spin her o

nt to feign, an

dford write,-an

somewhat masculine-Anne Clifford, Countess of Cumberland, Pembroke, and Dorset, who erected monuments to Spenser, Drayton, and Daniel; and above them all, though living a little l

y, and his Geraldine, began this taste in England by introducing the school of Petrarch: and Sir Philip Sydney had entreated women to listen to those poets who promised them immortality,-"For thus doing, ye shall be most fair, most wise, most rich, mo

with personal abasement, which made it disreputable?"[14] or, that women, while they required the tribute, despised those who paid it,-and were paid for it?-not in sweet looks, soft smiles, and kind wishes, but with silver and gold, a cover at her ladyship's table "below the salt," or a bottle of sack from my lord's cel

make her either wise or amiable: he had better have married a milkmaid. She was weak in intellect, and violent in temper. Sir Walter Scott observes, very feelingly, that "The wife of one who is to gain his livelihood by poetry, or by any lab

e word.-"His idea of the female character was low;" his homage to beauty was not of that kind which beauty should be proud to receive.[15] When he attempted the praise of women, it w

yden might have left him the beauties of this tender story, unsullied by the profane coarseness of his own taste. In his tragedies, his heroines on stilts, and his drawcansir heroes, whine, rant, strut an

become m

ng at

t. His ideas of our sex seem to have been formed from a profligate actress,[16] and a silly, wayward, provoking wife; and we have

attention.-"Yes, my dear," replied Dryden, "an almanack."-"Why an almanack?" asked the wife innocently.-"Because then, my dear, I should change you once a year." The laugh, of course, is on the side of the wit; but Lady Elizabeth was a young spoiled beauty

d anxious; and at length, the lady was persuaded to marry him, on terms much like those on which a Turkish Princess is espoused, to whom the Sultan i

eld, and grand-daughter of the too famous, or more properly, infamous Duchess of Cleveland:-the marriage

e not synonymus,-au contraire. This is a question to be asked and examined; and I proceed to exami

TNO

ed by Sidney Godolphin in some very sweet lines, which contain a lovely female portrait.

, at once like l

ears,-the Lad

enant: the latter has paid h

ydney's Works, "D

s Life of D

and Arcite to the young and beautiful Duchess of Ormond

s mistress: she afte

on's Life