copied and engraved. It is dated 1578, the thirtysixth of her age, and the tenth of her captivity. The figure is elegant, and the face pensive and sweet.* Beside her, in strong contrast, hangs Elizabeth, in a most preposterous farthingale, and a superabundance of all her usual absurdities and enormities of dress. The petticoat is embroidered over with snakes, crocodiles, and all manner of creeping things. We feel almost inclined to ask whether the artist could possibly have intended them as emblems, like the eyes and ears in her picture at Hatfield; but it may have been one of the three thousand gowns, in which Spenser's Gloriana, Raleigh's Venus, loved to array her old wrinkled, crooked carcase. Katherine of Arragon is here-a small head in a hood: the face not only harsh, as in all her pictures, but vulgar, a cha

This picture and the next are said to be by Richard Stevens, of whom there is some account in Walpole, (Anecdotes of Painting.) Mary also sat to Hilliard and to Zucchero. The lovely picture by Zucchero is at Chiswick. There is another small head of her at Hardwicke, said to have been painted in France, in a cap and feather. The turn of the head is airy and graceful. As to the features, they have been so marred by some soi-disant restorer, it is difficult to say what they may have been originally.

racteristic I never saw in any other. There is that pecular expression round the mouth, which might be called either decision or obstinacy. And here too is the famous Lucy Harrington, Countess of Bedford, the friend and patroness of Ben Jonson, looking sentimental in a widow's dress, with a white pocket handkerchief. There is character enough in the countenance to make us turn with pleasure to Ben Jonson's exquisite eulogium on her.

"I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,
Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride :
I meant each softest virtue there should meet,

Fit in that softer bosom to reside.

Only a learned and a manly soul

I purposed her; that should with even powers
The rock, the spindle, and the sheers controul
Of destiny, and spin her own free hours!"

Farther on is another more celebrated woman, Christian Bruce, the second Countess of Devonshire, so distinguished in the reigns of Charles I. and Charles II. She had all the good qualities of Bess of Hardwicke: her sense, her firmness, her talents for business, her magnificent and inde

insatiate, and generally successful: but in one memorable instance she overshot her mark. She contrived (unknown to her lord) to marry her favourite daughter, Elizabeth Cavendish, to Lord Lennox, the younger brother of the murdered Darnley, and consequently standing in the same degree of relationship to the crown. Queen Elizabeth, in the extremity of her rage and consternation, ordered both the dowager Lady Lennox and Lady Shrewsbury to the Tower, where the latter remained for some months; we may suppose, to the great relief of her husband. He used, however, all his interest to excuse her delinquency, and at length procured her liberation. But this was not all. Elizabeth Cavendish, the young Lady Lennox, while yet in all her bridal bloom, died in the arms of her mother, who appears to have suffered that searing, lasting grief which stern hearts sometimes feel. The only issue of this marriage was an infant daughter, that unhappy Arabella Stuart, who was one of the most memorable victims of jealous tyranny which our history has recorded. Her very existence, from her near relationship to the throne, was a crime in the

There is no

eyes of Elizabeth and James I. evidence that Lady Shrewsbury indulged in any ambitious schemes for this favourite granddaughter, "her dear jewel, Arbell," as she terms her; but she did not hesitate to enforce her claims to royal blood by requiring 6007. a year from the treasury for her board and education as became the queen's kinswoman. Elizabeth allowed her 2001. a year, and this pittance Lady Shrewsbury accepted. Her rent-roll was at this time 60,000l. a year, equal to at least 200,000l. at the present day.

The Earl of Shrewsbury died in 1590, at enmity to the last moment with his wife and son; and the Lady of Hardwicke having survived four husbands, and seeing all her children settled and prosperous, still absolute mistress over her family, resided during the last seventeen years of her life in great state and plenty at Hardwicke, her birth place. Here she superintended the education of Arabella Stuart, who, as she grew up to womanhood, was kept by her grandmother in a state of seclusion, amounting almost to imprisonment, lest the jea

* See two of her letters in Sir Henry Ellis's Collection.

lousy of Elizabeth should rob her of her treasure.*

Next to the love of money and power, the chief passion of this magnificent old beldam, was building. It is a family tradition, that some prophet had foretold that she should never die as long as she was building, and she died at last, in 1607, during a hard frost, when her labourers were obliged to suspend their work. She built Chatsworth, Oldcotes, and Hardwicke; and Fuller adds in his quaint style that she left "two sacred (besides civil) monuments of her memory; one that I hope will not be taken away (her splendid tomb, erected by herself,+) and one that I am sure cannot be taken away, being registered in the court of heaven, viz. her stately almshouses for twelve poor people at Derby."

* See some letters in Ellis's Collection, vol. ii. series 1, which show with what constant jealousy Lady Shrewsbury and her charge were watched by the court.

+ In All Hallows, in Derby. After leaving Hardwicke, I went, of course, to pay my respects to it. It is a vast and gorgeous shrine of many coloured marbles, covered with painting, gilding, emblazonments, and inscriptions, within which the lady lies at full length in a golden ruff, and a most sumptuous farthingale.