The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1882-08-01
Some Fashionable Beauties.


The eprofessional Iieauty" is no new
feature of the London season, and,
thongh photography has, no doubt, done
much 10 give publicity to the charms of
the loveliest women in,the ranks of fash
ion, vet in the days OF our great-grand-
fathers and great-grandmothers the
reigning bellies excited just as much vul-
gar curiosity and gossip as they do now
Take, for example, the Cummings, Maria
and Elizabeth, who appeared at the
Court of George IL. one at the age OF
eighteen and the other Of nineteen, and
both without shilling to their dowry.
Is.They are declared," writes Walpole,
ssto be thu handsomest women alive !;
they car walk in the Park or go to
Vh6xhaii tsuc,5 crowds follow them
that they are generally driven away"
One day they went to see Hampton
Court; as they were going into the Beau
ty Room another party arrived. The
housekeeper, in state of great excite
ment, said to the newcomes: "This way,
ladies. bere are the famous beauties -
The Misses Cunning thereupon flew into
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 be-
came the wife of James, Duke of Ham
ilton. He fell in love with her at mas
querade, and q fortnight later met her
at an assembly in Lord Chestertield's S
gorgeous new house in Mayfair. His
Grace was so enamored of the lovely
Elizabeth that be left the faro-table,
where he had staked thousand guineas,
and let the game slide, while he paid
court to bis enchantress. Two nights
later, at half an hour past midnight,
they we're married by DR.. Keith with the
ring of hpd-cnriain in Mayfair Chapel,
one OF the most nasty and eccentric
marriages on record. In less than three
weeks Maria Cunning followed her sis
ter's example, aud was welded to Lord
Coventry, though not with such inde-
cent haste as in the other case
The two beauties were even greater
objects of popular curiosity after their
marriages than before. When the DU.
chess OF Hamilton was presented the
crowd at the drawing room was so great
that even mobile persons" clambered
UPON chairs and tables to look at her,
while mobs gathered around the doors
of the two "goddesses" to see them get
into their sedan-chairs; and such crowds
focked to see the Duchess when she
went to her castle that seven hundred
persons sat up all night in Yorkshire
town in order to see her start in her
post.chalse the next morning!
Lady Coventry was equally run after;
st Worcester q shoe maker made two
guineas and half by showing, at pen
nv head, the shoe which he was max
ing for the Countess. She had. howev-
er, little hui hersseauty TO recommend
her; n. wasshe who made the singulatly
maladrsI remark to His Majesty that
the one sight she longed to see was
coronation. Her husband, who was q
sensible man in many respects, though
somewhat Of bear in manners. object.
ed strongly to her ladyship's excessive
use of red and white powders and
paints: and, once at large dinner-party,
that she had been making
herself up,'' he chased his wife round
the table till he caught her, when, be-
fore all the company, he scrubbed her
face with napkin. When Lady Coyen.
try visited Paris she expected that her
beauty would meet with the applause
which had followed her and her sister
through England; but she was put to
fight by another English lady, still more
lovely in the eyes of the Parisians. A
certain Mrs. Pitt took box at the opera
the Countess, and was go much
handsomer than her ladvship that the
parterre cried out that this was the real
English angel; wbereupon Lady Coven-
try Quilted Paris in huff Not long
atterward she died of consumption, ac-
ctlerated, it vas said; by the white paint
with which she plastered those luckless
charms of hers.