poem of the minuet—­became visible by the art of that exquisite girl, until all other dancers became common-place by comparison.”

Such was the fascination of their beauty that, it is said, the sisters were one day drugged by a party of licentious admirers, whose guests they had innocently consented to be, and were actually being carried away by their ravishers when Sheridan, who had got wind of the plot, appeared on the scene with a number of stout-armed friends, and effected their rescue.

But even Dublin was no suitable market for such peerless beauties, Mrs Gunning decided.  Through her they had the blood of the Plantagenets in their veins; and no man less than a Duke or an Earl—­certainly not an Irish squire or impoverished lord—­was a fitting match for her daughters.  And so to England and London they were carried, flushed with their conquests, leaving broken hearts behind them, and heralded across the Channel by many a sonnet singing their beauty.

But, although each was equally fair, the sisters were by no means alike in their charms.  Maria, all gladness and mirth, was a sprightly brunette, in whose laughing glances shone the fires of a pleasure-seeking soul; while Elizabeth, the younger, with soft blue eyes and dark golden hair, although infinitely more placid, was no less radiant than her dashing sister.

“Each was,” to quote another description, “divinely tall, with a figure of perfect symmetry, and a grace of dignity enhanced by the proud poise of the small Grecian head.  Faultless also were the rounded arms and the hands, with their long, slender tapering fingers.”

All the portraits of Elizabeth reveal the same dainty disdainful lips in the shape of a Cupid’s bow, the long, slender nose, the half-drooping lids and lashes.  In colouring there was the same delicacy.  A soft, ivory pallor shone in her face, a flush of pink warmed her cheeks, there was a gleam of gold as the sunbeams touched her light brown hair.

Such, in the cold medium of type, were the two Irish sisters who took London by storm, and who “made more noise than any of their predecessors since the days of Helen,” in the summer of 1751.  Their conquest was immediate, electrifying.  London raved about the new beauties; they were the theme of every tongue, from the Court to the meanest coffee-house.  Even Grub Street rubbed its eyes in amazement at the wonderful vision, and ransacked its dictionaries for superlatives; and the poets, with one accord, struck their lyres to a new inspiration.

Whenever the sisters took their walks abroad “they were beset by a curious multitude, the press being once so great that one of the sisters fainted away and had to be carried home in her chair; while on another occasion their beaux were compelled to draw swords to rescue them from the mob.”  When, too, they once went to Vauxhall Gardens, they found themselves the centre of a mob of eight thousand spectators, struggling to catch a glimpse of their lovely faces or to touch the “hem of their garments.”