Star.
London, England, 1826-10-13 00:00:00

heavily painted ; the colours, brown and blue, harmo-
nize ill. In spite of these faiths, the picture pleases as
a fine composition, and strikes yet mire as an engraving
than as. a painting. In the mezzntinto a soft, light,
satiny effect is given to drapery, which is not in the ori-
ginal, and the faults of colouring are not apparent.
The Fitzroys of Grafton and Southampton, with all
their collateral branches, are descended from this Lady,
and the Dukes of Grafton inherit from her the titles of
Eatl of Arlington and Baron Thetford, which she pos
sessed in her own sight.
Miss PITT, ASTERWARDS MRS. Scnoor.—Of this fair
and gentle looking creature, nothing is known but the
name or rather names ; k does not appear that a Miss
Pitt, or a Mrs. Scroop, was attached to the Court of Mary
in any ostensible capacity, So that her claim to be ad-
mitted into the Gallery of Beauties seems to hare rested
on her charms only. She is here represented in a gar-
den, washing her hands in a fountain which Aushes
from a lion's month ; the colouring has much sweetness
and delicacy, and the drapery more lightness than in
most of the others. The landscape is too dark; pet-
haps designedly so ; it was a well known practice of
Sir Godfrey Kneller, to sacrifice thegeneral effect of his
pictures, in order to bring out the head—a trick of art
unworthy a great painter.
THE COUNTESS or R ANELAGIT.—Lady Margaret
Cecil, daughter of James Earl of Salisbury, and wifeof
Richard Jones, last Earl of Ranelagh.—Mr. Noble, in
his Continuation of Granger's History, has fallen into a
strange mistake concerning this Countess of Ranelagh,
which will probably be corrected in a future edition. He
has confounded her with her mother-in-law and prede-
cessor in the title, Catherine Boyle, daughter of the
great Earl of Cork, and sister of the more celebrated
Robert Boyle, the philosopher and chemist. The old
Countess of Ranelagh, as she was styled in those days,
was in all Jespects one of the most extraordinary and
accomplished women of the age in which she lived,
emulating her father and brother in talents, in virtue,
and in her long and prosperous life. She died very old
in 1691 ; it is therefore impossible that she could have
been included in the Gallery of Beauties, which was not
begun till some time afterwards. Though a distin-
guished woman to the last moment of her existence, her
beauty belonged to another reign, and a distant period.
The young and lovely Countess of Ranelagh, whose
portrait we are now considering, was married first to
Lord Stawel, and afterwards at the age of nineteen, to
the Earl of Ranelagh, who was then near sixty, but still

" Frisky and juvenile, curly and gay,"
possessing to the last his fine person, his eccentricities,
his wit, and his high animal spirits. Lady Ranelagh
appears to have been a dazzling and disdainful beauty,
and is addressed by her poetical adorers in terms of the
humblest deprecation. Lord Lansdown celebrates her,
in his 61 Progress of Beauty," in the most hyperbolical
strain of compliment :

0 Fain would my mute to Cecil bend her flight,
But ruins ostonish'd from the dazzling light,
Nor dares attempt to climb the weepy height, ate."
" Climbing a height" is much of a piece with "Cupid
and his Galaxy;" but, as some pq.r subjects have been
embalmed in the "lucid amber" of beautiful verse, so
here the beauty of the subjects may be allowed, in re-
turn, to absolve the poverty of the verse.

The husband of this beautiful Countess was a man of
wit and pleasure in the Court of Charles the Second,
and as such he figures in the Memoirs of De Grammont,
under the dame of Richard Jones. "He had," says
Burnet, "great parts and as great vices, and was ca-
pable of all affairs even in the midst of a loose run of
pleasure and great riot :" he captivated Charles by his
brilliant powers of conversation; pleased James by his
dexterity in business; and was favoured by William as a
useful political, agent. He designed and built for himself
a beautiful house at Chelsea, and laid out the gardens
with exquisite taste. After the death of his daughter
Lady Catherine Jones, this domain fell into the hands
of speculators, and was opened as a place of public en-
tertainment, and tea gardens, under the well known
name of Ranelagh. The rotunda, the finest concert
room in Europe, together with the house and gardens,
were destroyed about eighteen years ago; the site is
now built over, and not a vestige remains of the magni-
ficent taste of Lord Ranelagh and of the gay scenes
where our grand-mammas, gorgeous in hoops and bro-
cades, and head dresses three stories high, swam round
the circle, or flirted and sipped tea—scenes which Eve-
' line and Cecilia and Clarissa rendered, in some sort,
classic ground. One universal waste of brick and mor-
tar covers all.

This portrait of the Countess of Rantlagh is men-
tinned by Horace Walpole as one of the finest pictures
ever painted by Kneller. The figure is tall, slender, and
elegant, the attitude easy, the neck and turn of the bead
dignified and graceful ; the complexion is that of a
brunette, with fine dark eyes, and an expression of
smiling disdain on the full red lips ; the drapery is in-
tended to represent white satin, but the tint is that of
chalk, and the texture that of woollen ; the back ground
is well painted ; on the whole it may be pronounced a
fine picture, and certainly the finest of all the 61 Beauties."
(To be continued.)

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.
-4.--
MA NSION-HOUSE.

Flan Comarrar. OWDZIL a Naw AcT. —Elijah ?bane was charged
by a clothier in the county of Gloucester, to whom be bad been an
agent for some time, with having pledged two pieces of keneymere,
which had been entrusted to hint in order that be might sell them
for the benefit of the prosecutor.
Mr. Nathaniel Shackell Nailsworth stated, that the prisoner was
his agent. and was employed by him to sell goods. On the 2d 'gale
present month witneu directed Daniel Taylor, a person also in his
employment, to deliver to Piukney two pieces of kerseymere to sell
on his account. Pinkney was his agent before this transaction, and
was to bare two soda half per cent. commission, and he neither re-
ceived authority, directly nor indirectly, from the witness to pledge
the kerseymere so entrusted to him.
Daniel Taylor delivered the kerseymere to the prisoner.
Joseph Burgess, shopman to Mr. Purr, of Loudon-wall, stated,
that on the 2d of Oct. the pi isoner pledged the two pieces of kersey-
mere at. the shop, the one for 6/. and the other for U.

The Lou) davoit stated that in an Act in the 6th of Geo. IV.
cap. 94, there was a clause which made the offence just mentioned
a misdemeanour. It was a singular fact, his Lordship remarked,
that the Act came into operation on the Ist of Oct. and the offence
imputed was said to have taken place on the 2d.
His Lordship immediately committed the prisoner, under the
above-mentioned Act, to Newgate for trial.
A Gentleman was brought before the Loan MAYOR, charged by
the street keeper of Cortihill, with having in a fit of intoxication en-
dangered his own life.

Taylor, the street-keeper, stated, that on the previous evening, as
he was walking along hi. heat, he saw the Gentleman following a
hackney coach as if with the intention of getting the number of it.
Witness called out to the coachman to stop, but he %hipped on his
horses, although the Gentleman took hold of the reins and was ill
great danger of being tun over.
The coachman assured the Lord Mayor he had been very badly
treated, indeed.
Taylor—l assure your Lordship that this coachman whipped the
Gentleman several tinsel, notwithstanding my interference as an
and even snuck him as hard as he could with the butt end
et the whip.