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letters and diaries of the countess and her daughters; and lord Orford describes lady Pembroke's Memorials of her life to be "extant in the British Museum 9:” but, after consulting the Harleian and other catalogues, with the willing aid of Mr. Henry Ellis, I have not been able to trace such reliquiæ.]

8 Tour in Scotland, part ii. p. 361.

9 See Works, vol. i. p. 486.

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WILLIAM CAVENDISH,

DUKE OF NEWCASTLE,

A MAN extremely known from the course of life into which he was forced, and who would soon have been forgotten in the walk of fame which he chose for himself. Yet as an author he is familiar to those who scarce know any other author-from his book of horsemanship. Though "amorous in poetry and musick,” as my lord Clarendon says2; he was fitter to break Pegasus for a manage, than to mount him on the steeps of Parnassus. Of all the riders of that steed, perhaps there have not been a more fantastic couple than his grace and his faithful duchess, who was never off her pillion. One of the noble historian's finest portraits is of this duke; the duchess has left another, more diffuse indeed, but not less entertaining. It is equally amusing to hear her sometimes compare

2 Vol. ii. p. 507. [The historian adds, what is highly to the duke's credit and honour, that nothing could have tempted him out of those paths of pleasure which he enjoyed in a full and ample fortune, but honour and ambition to serve the king when he saw him in distress, and abandoned by most of those who were in the highest degree obliged to him.]

3 [Her grace certainly had a hobby to herself, on which she frequently vaulted and curvetted, in her own saddle, when the duke did not bear her company. Vide p. 154, sup.]

her lord to Julius Cæsar, and oftener to acquaint you with such anecdotes, as in what sort of coach he went to Amsterdam. The touches on her own character are inimitable: she says, that" it pleased God to command his servant Nature to indue her with a poetical and philosophical genius even from her birth; for she did write some books even in that kind before she was twelve years of age." But though she had written philosophy, it seems she had read none; for, at near forty, she informs us, that she applied "to the reading of philosophical authors, in order to learn those names and words of art that are used in schools." But what gives one the best idea of her unbounded passion for scribbling, was her seldom revising the copies of her works, "lest it should disturb her following conceptions." What a picture of foolish nobility was this stately poetic couple, retired to

4 Dedication.

5 Ibid.

6 So fond, says Dr. Lort, was her grace of these conceptions, and so careful lest they should be still-born, that I have heard or read somewhere, that her servant John Rolleston, the duke's secretary, (whose name I think is mentioned by her with much condescension and affection in her dedication of the duke's life to the duke) was ordered to lie in a truckle-bed in a closet within her grace's bedchamber, and whenever at any time she gave the summons by calling out "JOHN, I conceive;" poor John was to get up, and commit to writing the offspring of his mistress's reveries. MS. note in Mr. Gough's copy.]

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