Elizabeth Foster.’” Gibbon said of the latter, that, “No man could withstand her; and that if she chose to beckon the Lord Chancellor from his woolsack, in full sight of the world, he could not resist obedience.”  Reynolds painted a portrait of her, showing a bright-eyed, smiling lady, with close-curled hair, of girlish appearance.  In Samuel Rogers’s “Table Talk” are several mentions of the famous Georgiana, and especially one which tells of her love for gambling.  “Gaming was the rage during her day; she indulged in it, and was made miserable by her debts.  A faro-table was kept by Martindale, at which the Duchess and other high fashionables used to play.  Sheridan said that the Duchess and Martindale had agreed that whatever they two won from each other should be sometimes double, sometimes treble, what it was called.  And Sheridan assured me that he had handed the Duchess into her carriage when she was literally sobbing at her losses, she having lost fifteen hundred pounds, when it was supposed to be only five hundred pounds.”  A life such as she then led surely affected her appearance.  In 1783, Walpole wrote:  “The Duchess of Devonshire, the empress of fashion, is no beauty at all.  She was a very fine woman, with all the freshness of youth and health, but verges fast to a coarseness.”

The offspring of the Duchess Georgiana were:  Georgiana Dorothy, afterwards Countess Carlisle, whose letters were lately published, and exhibit an original observation and a terse style of record; Henrietta Elizabeth, later Countess Granville; and a son, who succeeded to the Dukedom.  About the latter’s birth was some mystery; insinuation was active.  The Duchess had little liking for domestic life, so normal neglect of child may have been construed into an unnatural dislike.  Her son never married.  Through the stress of the home infelicity, her beauty waned; but her bearing and breeding kept her paramount in her set.  She is known to this later generation only as a superb beauty who stands with such opulent charm of costume, and of fine hauteur of manner, amid the noble groves of Chatsworth—­as the once potential original of Gainsborough’s greatest portrait.  “The bust outlasts the throne, the coin Tiberius.”

A most pathetic tribute to the beauty of the Duchess was paid by “Peter Pindar” (Dr. Wolcot), who addressed “A Petition to Time in favor of the Duchess of Devonshire,” and implored the Inexorable thus:—­

   “Hurt not the form that all admire. 
   Oh, never with white hairs her temple sprinkle! 
   Oh, sacred be her cheek, her lip, her bloom! 
   And do not, in a lovely dimple’s room,
   Place a hard mortifying wrinkle.

   “Know shouldst thou bid the beauteous duchess fade,
   Thou, therefore, must thy own delights invade;
   And know, ’t will be a long, long while
   Before thou givest her equal to our isle. 
   Then do not with this sweet chef-d’oeuvre part,
   But keep to show the triumph of thy art.”