Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1882-08-18
AqisftlIarrtcns.
some Fashionable Beauties.

The professional beauty" is no new
feature Of the London season; and though
photography has no doubt done much to
give publicity to the charms Of the love-
liest women in the ranks Of fashion, yet
in the days of our great-grandfather and
9randmothers the reigning bellies excited
Just - much vulgar curiosity and gossip
= they do now. Take. for example, the
Cummings, Maria and Elizabeth, who APP
peared at the Court Of George H., one at
the age of eighteen and the other OF nine
teen and both without shilling to their
dowry. They are declared writes
Walpole, Ito be the handsomest wo-
men alive; they can't walk in the Park or
20 to vauxhall but such crowds follow
them that they are generally driven
away One day they went to see Hamp-
ton Court as they were going into the
Beauty Room another party arrived; the
housekeeper. in state Of great excite
ment, said to the newcomers, This way.
ladies', here are the famous beauties J"
The Misses Cunning thereupon flew into
a passion, and asked her what she meant:
they went to see the palace, and not to be
shown as sight themselves.
The youngest Of the two sisters became
the wife of James. Duke of Hamilton he
fell in love with her at a masquerade. and
. fortnight later met her at an assembly
In Lord Chesierfeld's gorgeous new house
in MAYFAIR. His Grace was so enamored
of the lovely Elizabeth that he left the
faro-table, where he had staked a thou
sand guineas, ard ''let the game slide;
whilst he paid devoted court to his en-
chantress. Two nights later, at half an
hour past midnight. they were married by
DR.. Keith with the ring of bed-curtain
in MAYFAIR Chapel, one of the most hasty
and eccentric marriages on record. In
less than three weeks Maria Cunning fol-
lowed her sisters example. aud was
welded to Lord Coventry, though not
with such indecent haste as in the other
case.
The two beauties were even greater OBJ
iects of popular curiosity after their mar
riapes than before. When the Duchess
OF Hamilton was presented, the crowd at
the drawing room was so great that even
"noble persons" cambered upon chairs
and tables to look at her; whilst mobs
gathered round the doors of the two god
desses" to see them get into their sedan
chairs; and such crowds flocked to see
the Duchess when she went to her castle
that 700 persons. sat up all night in
Yorkshire town in order TO see her start
in her post chase the next morning
Lady Coventry was equally run after;
at Worcester a shoemaker made two
guineas and half by showing. at a penny
a head. the shoe which he was making for
the Countess She had, however, little
but her beauty to recommend her; it was
she who made the sipoularly naiadrOi
remark to his Majesty that the one sight
she longed TO see was coronation. Her
husband, who was a sensible man in many
respects. though somewhat of bear in
manners, objected strongly to her lady
ships excessive use of red and white pow
ders and paints; and once at n large din
ner party, suspecting that she had been
making herself up" he chased his wife
round the table till he caught her, when.
before all the company, he scrubbed her
face with a napkin. When Lady Coventry
visited Paris she expected that her beauty
would meet with the applause which had
followed her and her sister through Eng
land but she was put to flight by another
English lady. still more lovely in the eyes
of the Parisians. A certain Mrs. Pitt took
a box at the opera opposite the Countess,
and was so much handsomer than her
ladyship that the pdrterre cried out that
this was the real English angel; where
upon Lady Coventry quilted Paris in n
huff. Not long afterwards she died of
consumption. accelerated, it was said, by
the red and white paint with which she
plastered those luckless charms of hers
London Society.