The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1882-07-28
Professional Beauties.
A Pair of Them Who Figured in the Reign
OF George II.
London Society,"

London Society,"
The professional beauty is no new fea+ ure
of the London season; and though Photography
has no doubt done much to give publicity to
the charms Of the loyeiiest women in the ranks
OF fashion, yet in the days of our gre J-grand-
fathers and great-grandmothers the reigning
bellies excited quite as much vulgar curiosity
and gossip as they do now. Take, for example,
the Cummings Maria and Elizabeth, who ap-
peared at the Court of George IL, one at the
age of eighteen, the other Of nineteen, and
both without a shilling to their dowry. "They
are declared writes Walpole, "to be the hand
soonest women alive; they can't walk in the
Park or go to Vauxhall but such crowds follow
them that they are generally driven away"
One day they went to see Hampton Court as
they were going into the Beauty Room anoti-
er party arrived; the housekeeper, in state
of great excitement, said to the new Corners,
t.This way, ladies, here are the famous beau
tiesl" The Misses Cunning thereupon few in
to passion, and asked what she meant; they
went to see the palace, and rot 10 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 masquerade, and fortnight
later met her at an assembly in Lore Chester
fields gorgeous new house ia Mayfair. His
Grace was so ens1noured of the lovely Eliza
beth that he left the faro-table, where he had
stahed thousand guineas, and 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 DIR.
Keith, with the ring of a bed curtain in May
fair Chapel, one of the most hasty and eco an
trio marriages on record. In less than three
weeks Maria Cunning followed her sisters ex-
ample, and was welded to Lord Coventry,
thodgh not with such indecent haste as in the
other case.
The two beauties were even greater objects
of popular curiosity after their marriages than
before. When the Duchess Of Hamilton was
| presented the crowd at the drawing-room was
SO great that even mobile persons clambered
upon tables and chairs TO lcok at her; whilst
mobs gathered round the doors of the two ''god-
desses" to see them get into their chairs;
and such crowds focked to see the Duchess
when she went to her castle that 700 persons
sat up all night in a Yorkshire town in order
to see her start in her post-chaise the next
morningl
Lady Coventry was equally run after; at
Worcester shaemaker made two guineas and
half by showing, at penny head, the shoe
which he was making for the Countess. She
had, however, little but her beauIy TO recon-
mend her; it wss she who made the siDguiarly
malad ,oit remark to his Majesty that the one
sight she louged to see was q coronation. Her
husband who was a sensible man in many re-
spects, though somewhat of a bear in manners,
objected stlongv to her ladyship's excessive
use Of red nd white powders and paints; and
once at a large dinner marty, suspecting that
she had been making herself I'D" he chased
his wife around the table till he caught her,
when, before all the company, he scrubbed her
face with a napkin. When Lady Coventry
sited Paris she expected that her beauty
would meet with the applause which had fol-
i0EQ6 her and her ThrO1vh ENGLAND
but she was put to flight by another English
lady, still more lovely in the eyes of the Paris
ians A certain Mrs. Pitt took a box at the
opera opposite the Cour less. and was SO much
ha ldsomer than her ladyship that the parterre
| cried out that this was the real ENGLISH angel;
whereupon Lady Cove 1try quilted Paris in a
| huff. Not long afterwfId she died of congump-
ton, aceels ated, it was said, by the red and
white paint with which she plastered those
| luck ess charms of hers.