It was Kitty who took Gay under her patronage, who resented the prohibition of the ‘Beggar’s Opera,’ remonstrated with the king and queen, and was thereupon forbidden the court.  She carried the poet to her house.  She may have been ridiculous, but she had a warm, generous heart.  ‘I am now,’ Gay wrote to Swift in 1729, ’in the Duke of Queensberry’s house, and have been so ever since I left Hampstead; where I was carried at a time that it was thought I could not live a day.  I must acquaint you (because I know it will please you) that during my sickness I had many of the kindest proofs of friendship, particularly from the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry; who, if I had been their nearest relation and dearest friend, could not have treated me with more constant attendance then, and they continue the same to me now.’

The duchess appears to have been one of those wilful, eccentric, spoiled children, whom the world at once worships and ridicules:  next to the Countess of Pomfret, she was Horace Walpole’s pet aversion.  She was well described as being ‘very clever, very whimsical, and just not mad.’  Some of Walpole’s touches are strongly confirmatory of this description.  For instance, her grace gives a ball, orders every one to come at six, to sup at twelve, and go away directly after:  opens the ball herself with a minuet.  To this ball she sends strange invitations; ‘yet,’ says Horace, ’except these flights, the only extraordinary thing the duchess did was to do nothing extraordinary, for I do not call it very mad that some pique happening between her and the Duchess of Bedford, the latter had this distich sent to her;—­

  ’Come with a whistle—­come with a call: 
  Come with good-will, or come not at all.’

’I do not know whether what I am going to tell you did not border a little upon Moorfields.  The gallery where they danced was very cold.  Lord Lorn, George Selwyn, and I retired into a little room, and sat comfortably by the fire.  The duchess looked in, said nothing, and sent a smith to take the hinges of the door oft.  We understood the hint—­left the room—­and so did the smith the door.’

‘I must tell you,’ he adds in another letter, ’of an admirable reply of your acquaintance, the Duchess of Queensberry:  old Lady Granville, Lord Carteret’s mother, whom they call the queen-mother, from taking upon her to do the honours of her son’s power, was pressing the duchess to ask her for some place for herself or friends, and assured her that she would procure it, be it what it would.  Could she have picked out a fitter person to be gracious to?  The duchess made her a most grave curtsey, and said, “Indeed, there was one thing she had set her heart on.”—­“Dear child, how you oblige me by asking anything!  What is it?  Tell me.”—­“Only that you would speak to my Lord Carteret to get me made lady of the bedchamber to the Queen of Hungary."’