weaver-bird the Duchess had been fond of and always kept in her room. Mrs. Delany took the bird home to Windsor, and it grew so dear to her, she "could scarce ever look at it with dry eyes." But, alas, it did not bear transplantation, and, one morning-when, most unfortunately, its owner lay ill upstairs-Fanny Burney, 'not seeing the bird perching,' took down the cage, and found the poor weaver-bird dead. While it still lay in her hand, Miss Planta, the princesses' governess, was announced. She" was sorry," and soon left. In less than a quarter of an hour, back came good Miss Planta, bearing, in a very fine cage, a live weaver-bird. It was one of the only two Queen Charlotte had ever possessed, and she had sent it, thinking a pious fraud might be effected. The birds, however, proved too unlike to deceive a lady who, at seventy-three, invented a hortus siccus in paper mosaic, and, to provide against this contingency, the Queen had alternatively sent a message that she hoped Mrs. Delany would accept a new bird which might somewhat assuage her grief at losing what she looked upon as her last relic of association with her beloved friend. Miss Planta, Georgiana Port (Mrs. Delany's niece), and Fanny accordingly went up to her, taking the Queen's weaverbird in its magnificent cage, and told her all. She heard them more quietly than they had expected, after which the tears came, and, looking at her adored Queen's gift with great tenderness, she exclaimed, "Don't you, too, die in my hands!"

Of totally different calibre from the two last was the next lady of quality who may be mentioned as possessing the honour1 of Garrick's acquaintance, Maria, Countess of Coventry, the elder of the two celebrated

Mr.

"All who were friendly with Garrick did themselves honour. Garrick had none to acquire.”—Garrick Correspondence, I. lxi. (Introductory Memoir by Boaden).

Gunnings. Maria and Elizabeth Gunning were the children of John Gunning, Esq., of Castle Coote, Co. Roscommon, and, though their mother was a viscount's daughter, they were not only portionless, but hardly knew how to get themselves clad. Transported to London, their extraordinary beauty caused the public furor with which Horace Walpole's letters acquaint us. When aged respectively eighteen and seventeen, they married into the English aristocracy, the younger to a bridegroom so desperate that a curtain-ring had to do duty for a wedding ring, and, though it was late at night, and a parson hard to find, Duke Hamilton' swore he would send for the Archbishop if any difficulties were raised. His enchantress, whose splendid match sped the suit of Lord Coventry, already enamoured of Maria, had a finer and longer future than her elder sister, for she became the wife of two, and the mother of four dukes, was subsequently created a baroness in her own right, and lived till 1793, whereas Maria died 'of a deep decline' in 1759.

Their marriages, both occurring in 1752, raised the 'Gunninghiad' to its height. Politics were a bad second in coffee-house and drawing-room, and, as a topic, the Miss Gunnings rivalled Miss Jeffries and Miss Blandy, two murderesses executed at Newgate that same "General attention," says Reynolds, "is divided between. the two young ladies who were married and the two young ladies who were hanged."

Lady Coventry was as silly as she was lovely. Education she had none, and no brains to supply the deficiency. She assumed a thousand tonish airs, 'but with a sort of innocence that diverted' people. She was notorious for things one would rather not have said, as when she told George II she was dying to see a Coronation. Thanks to the dimples and prettinesses

in her cheeks,' and her fine eyes that drooped a little at the corners, the old King only smirked. How wily was Daddy Crisp to give her his MS. tragedy to take to Garrick instead of taking it himself or sending it by post! Mrs. Bellamy was furious when Lady Coventry disturbed an 'enrapt' theatre during the poison scene of Romeo and Juliet by laughing loudly while she twirled an orange on her finger.

This deplorably frivolous young lady knew all about clothes. When the Duchess of Portland took her to call on Mrs. Delany in 1755, she was in a ravishing get-up, consisting of a black silk sacque, and, over it, a pink satin long cloak lined with ermine, while her exquisite face was surmounted by a butterfly cap of blond, with frilled lappets that crossed under her chin, tied with pink and green ribbon. Very pretty, sure.

In an age of rouge, when every Madame Modish kept her ceruse-box in her pocket, and a pale woman of quality was unknown, Lady Coventry was rouged. Once, in France, at dinner, 'her Cov,' as she called her husband, was seen running round the table to her, with a napkin to scrub off the crimson. She died, poor beauty, partly of her injurious cosmetics.

Garrick knew Goldsmith's two Irish peers, Charlemont and Clare, very well. Malone, a great friend of both, states that the former was the original suggester of The Club. Charlemont, he says, named to Reynolds his idea of a club comprising all the talents, and Reynolds, passing it on to Johnson, proposed that his lordship should be one of the first members, whereat the stern Lawgiver objected, "No, we shall be called Charlemont's Club; let him come in afterwards." The episode is doubted by Forster, in view of the fact that Lord Charlemont did not come in till 1773, when he was elected on Beauclerk's nomination.