Written by Herself With the Lives of the Duchesses of Gordon and Devonshire by Grace and Philip Wharton London, EDITION DE LUXE INTRODUCTION TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION EDITOR'S PREFACE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS MRS. MARY ROBINSON CONTINUATION JANE, DUCHESS OF GORDON GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE ENDNOTES...

The following brief memoirs of a beautiful, engaging, and, in many respects, highly gifted woman require little in the way of introduction. While we may trace same little negative disingenuousness in the writer, in regard to a due admission of her own failings, sufficient of uncoloured matter of fact remains to show the exposed situation of an unprotected beauty—or, what is worse, of a female of great personal and natural attraction, exposed to the gaze of libertine rank and fashion, under the m

The author of these memoirs, Mary Robinson, was one of the most prominent and eminently beautiful women of her day. From the description she furnishes of her personal appearance, we gather that her complexion was dark, her eyes large, her features expressive of melancholy; and this verbal sketch corresponds with her portrait, which presents a face at once grave, refined, and charming. Her beauty, indeed, was such as to attract, amongst others, the attentions of Lords Lyttelton and Northington, F

At the period when the ancient city of Bristol was besieged by Fairfax's army, the troops being stationed on a rising ground in the vicinity of the suburbs, a great part of the venerable minster was destroyed by the cannonading before Prince Rupert surrendered to the enemy; and the beautiful Gothic structure, which at this moment fills the contemplative mind with melancholy awe, was reduced to but little more than one-half of the original fabric. Adjoining to the consecrated hill, whose antique

Among those persons who have at various periods attracted the attention of the public, there are few whose virtues have been so little known, or whose characters have been so unfairly estimated, as the subject of the preceding memoir. To compress within narrow limits the numerous circumstances by which the later years of Mrs. Robinson's life were chequered, will be a task of no little difficulty. The earlier periods of her existence, rendered more interesting as narrated by her own pen, have dou

"Few women," says Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, "have performed a more conspicuous part, or occupied a higher place on the public theatre of fashion, politics, and dissipation, than the Duchess of Gordon." Jane, afterward Duchess of Gordon, the rival in beauty and talent to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was born in Wigtonshire, in Scotland. Her father, Sir William Maxwell of Monreith (anciently Mureith), represented one of the numerous families who branched off from the original stock—Herbert of Ca

Notwithstanding the purity of morals enjoined by the court of George III., the early period of his reign presents a picture of dissolute manners as well as of furious party spirit. The most fashionable of our ladies of rank were immersed in play or devoted to politics; the same spirit carried them into both. The Sabbath was disregarded, spent often in cards or desecrated by the meetings of partisans of both factions; moral duties were neglected and decorum outraged. The fact was that a minor cou