Star.
London, England, 1826-10-11 00:00:00

FROM THE NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

• The Hampton Court Beauties, like the Windsor
Beauties, owe their existence to a woman's pride in her
own sex, not to the gallantry of ours. The thought was
first suggested by Queen Mary, and its execution was
begun dui ing one of King William's absences.
The Beauties of Hampton Court are all full-lengths,l
wish the excepti••n of Queen Mary. As paintings, they
are decidedly inferior to the Windsor Beauties, and, with
due deference to the vii tires of the Ladies they represent,'
are certainly inferior to them in the interest and beauty
of the subj .c.s. They have suffered too so much from
the alternate dampness and dryness of their situation,
that it would be invidious to criticise the colouring as
the fault of the Artist; there is a chalkiness in the flesh,
and a general rawness in the tints, which will not bear
a comparison with the delicacy of Lely's carnations, nor
even with many of Kneller's other works which have
been better preserved. _

" Alas! bow little from the grave we claim:
Thou bat prtserv'st a face, and I, a name,"—
Exclaimed Pope w his friend : and pity it is, that of
several of the beautiful. women we are now about con-
sidering, the face and the name are all that remain to us.
QUEEN Maxi, eldest daughter of James the Second,
by Anne Hyde: half length, by Wissing.
As this picture represents Mary, without any of her
paraphernalia of royalty, and merely in the usual dress
of a Lady of her time, we shall consider her accordingly
in her most interesting and distinguished character—as
a woman, and not as a Queen.
Mary was married young to a man destitute of every
quality which could recommend him to the sex; he was
feeble in temperament, ungraceful in his person, and
ungracious in his manners. Whatever we may owe as
a nation to the public virtue or ambition of William, it
is certain that the different notices of him scattered
through the pages of Iris panegyrist Burnet, when
brought together, make up a most unatniable and re-
volting private character.
With regard to Mary's conduct towards her father
and sister, it appears so inexcusable, that Burnet, with
all his admiration of her excellencies, rather apologizes
for her than attempts to defend her. On her first arrival
at Whitehall, after the deposition of Jantes.the Second,
her unconcerned gaiety was so like exultation, that even
the Bishop was scandalized :—"I confess," he says, " I
was one of those who censured this in my thoughts. 1
thought a little more seriousness had dose as well when
she came into her father's palace. and was to be set on
his throne the next day." The Queen afterwards said,
that she had been commanded by the Prince, her hut.
band, to " put on a cheerfulness, and act a part not na-
tural to her, for fear of disgusting their adherents, and
that none knew what she suffered ;" and she might have
Added, none believed. In this instance, as in many
others, dissimulation, if it was such, defeatesrits owls
purpose; for her conduct on the occasion exposed her
.to general indign%tion, and for a time turned every heart
against her.• Neither does it seem necessary that she
.should have carried her dissimulation even into her own
bedchamber. " I was one of those," says the Duchess
of Marlborough, (who, though passionate and preju-
diced, is tolerably good authority for facts) "who had
.tee honour to watt upon the Queen to her own apart-
ment. She ran about it, look ng into every closet and
conveniency, and turning up the quilts upon the bed, as
people do when they come into an inn, and with no
other sort of concern in ber appearance, but such as
they express; and," adds the Duchess, with naivete, " if
.she felt no tenderness, I thought she ought at least to
have looked grave, or even pensively sad, at so melan-
chuly a reverse of her father's fortune." Such hypo-
crisy would at least have served her cause better.

The porttait of WILLIAM Tait THIRD is at one end of
the Gallery of Beauties, near that of the Queen. The
man ter in sshich the pictures are hung is a good ex-
emplification of their domestic arrangements. The
pa: trait of M .ty, a small unpretending half length, is
modestly suspended by the side of her husband, whose
majesty covers one end of the loom and half an acre of
canvass. And though, as poets wine—

" I leaven itself to Knelaces baud decreed
To 6: great Nassau on the bounding steed,"

Heaven seems to have left him these, and denied its in-
spiration to his work. Ndthilg can be conceived more
tame and spiritless than the whole performanCe, crowded
with a:legorical monsters in the worst style of tasteless
affect:Mon. As the man says in Where, "Nous evons
..chang6 tout vela;" what should we say now if the Pre-
sident 01 the Royal Academy were to exhibit a picture
of the Doke of Wellington in a lull suit of tight regi-
mentals, sun ound, d by a host of Virtues and Victor
and Valours and Temperances, and fat little Geni.ises

• Sladanie de SevignE calls her "La second? Mlle," and there is
extant' a furious satire, attrd.uttd to I /epic:), entitled " Tarquin and
• leis." $o strong was p,ny brainy at that time, that one Clergy-
so; preached a sermon on her funeral, from the text in the WA
• Kings, "tome now let ug take this accursed 1,0113.1 D and bury
tar, fur she Is a' King's daughter." .

!wiolt light blue wings, flying and sprawling about in
An directions? . _

The portrait of Mary is in better taste; it is very
ladylike, and unaffected: the neck and bosom per-
haps rather too much exposed, considering that Mary in-
troduced a decorum in dress unknown in the last two
reigns. The face is a complete Stuart face, and has a
striking resemblance to 411 the pictures of the young
Pretender. With considerable beauty, sweetness, and
dignity, we find those indications of weakness and ob-
stinacy round the mouth, and in the lower part of
the countenance, common to all the portraits of the
Stuart. line.

Tag COUNTtS3 07 PETERBQROUGA.—Carey Fraser,
daughter of Alexander Fraser, and first wife of Charles
Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough and Monmouth.
Ntither the charms nor the virtues of this amiable
and beautiful woman, had power to fix the heart of her
inconstant and eccentric husband. He spent very little
of his time with her, his restless and volatile spirit leading
him constantly abroad. It was his boast, " that he had
seen more kings and more postilions than any man in
Eurtspe." Walpole calls him "as gallant as Amadis,
and as brave el and Pope said of him, "that he was
never born to die like other men, any more than to live
like them."* Lord Peterborough's rivalship of the Duke
of Marlborough, and his exploits while he was Com-
mander in•chief of the British forces in Spain, may be
found in every History of England. •
Married to such a man, the Countess of Peterborotigh
must have derived what portion of happiness fell to her
share from the glory rather than the tenderness of her
husband, and the noble qualities of her sons, who were
both of them distinguished by their gallantry and good
conduct. She died in 1709, leaving also a daughter,
afterwards Duchess of Gordon. The second wife of
the Earl of Peterborough seas the celebrated singer
Anastasia Robinson, of whom Dr. Burney has given us
such an interesting memoir in his History of Music.
In this portrait of the first Countess of Peterborough,
the face has great beauty and a dignified expression,
mingled, however, with an air of pensiveness, such as
the wife of Lord Peterborough may be supposed to
have worn habitually. She is leaning on a pedestal of
the statue of Pallas: the attitude is easy, unaffected,
and lady-like. The drapery, however, is a failure, being
carelessly painted, and composed of deep shades of red
and blue violently contrasted, which have a most inju-
dicious effect ; the folds have the stiffness and heavi-
ness of cast-iron : all the beauty and effect of the pic-
ture are confined, as usual, to the head, which is
extremely well painted, and full of interest.
(To be mutinied.)

• See a most Interesting letter in the supplementary volume of
Pope's Works, describing his visit to Lord Peterborough, a short
time before the death of the latter.

SHIPWRECK.