Three Generations of Fascinating Women. By Lady Russell. (Longmans and
Co. 31s. 6d. net.)—The "three generations" are Mary Bellenden, who married Colonel John Campbell, afterwards Fourth Duke of Argyll; her daughter Caroline, afterwards Countess of Ailesbury ; and her granddaughter, Mrs. Dawson Dames. The first lives in Gay's verse as "Smiling Mary, soft and fair as down,"—she was one of the maids-of-honour appointed to wait on the newly married Caroline of Anspach. The Countess of Ailesbury married, as her second husband, Henry, afterwards Marshal, Conway. Their daughter, Anne Seymour, made a most unfortunate marriage with the Hon. Dawson Damer. Mr. Darner was a foolish and brutal fop. He killed himself when he was but twenty-two, and his clothes sold for £15,000. Mrs. Dames is known as one of the very few women who have handled the sculptor's chisel with success. Two pieces of her work, the heads of Isis and Thamesis on the keystones of the central arch of Henley-on-Thames Bridge, must he known to many. She inherited Strawberry Hill from Horace Walpole, and died in 1828. Her last work was a bust of Nelson in bronze, which she finished a few days before her death. It was a commission from the Duke of Clarence. Lady Russell tells the tale of these ladies' triumphs, varying them with the gruesome story of Miss Blandy, who poisoned her father. The connection is not very obvious, consisting in the fact that the father, who was town clerk of Henley, had something to do with the sale of Park Place, near that town, to Marshal Conway. The "three generations" occupy less than a fourth of the volume. In the remaining part we have the dismal tale of Lord Ferrers, who was hanged for murdering his steward, and the tragic death of the Duke of Richmond, the genial Viceroy of Lever's story and the host at the Waterloo ball. He died of hydrophobia caught from the bite of a fox, and the narrative of his death is full of horror, mitigated by his unflinching courage. Then we have the strange story of Lady Lovat, who was imprisoned by her villainous husband. After this comes the curious episode of the Fraser claim for the Lovat estates. The book is full of interesting things, and it is very finely illustrated.
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