an admirer, as was also, more
emphatically, Fred St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke,--"Billy and Bully"
these two blades were termed. There was rumor, at one time, of the
Earl seriously resenting the attentions of Bolingbroke. The old King,
too, showed her some courtesies; and the most oft-told anecdote of her
is about His Majesty asking if she were not sorry the masquerades were
over. She assured him she was surfeited with pageants,--there was but
one she wished yet to see, and that was a coronation. She saw it not,
for the King outlived her by a fortnight. Had she but abstained from
the use of paint and powder, her career would not have ended at the
early age of twenty-seven. Blood-poisoning came from the use of it.
Her beauty paled rapidly. My lady lay on a couch, a pocket-glass
constantly in hand, grieving at the gradual decay. The room was
darkened, that others might not discern that which so chagrined her.
Then the curtains of the bed were drawn to guard her from pitying
gaze; and then, on a September day, in 1760, the pathetic end came.
Over ten thousand people viewed her coffin. Sensationalism even after
the drop of the curtain! The Countess left four children, two sons and
two daughters. Of these, Anne, four years old at her mother's death,
was one of the children whom George Selwyn showed much kindness to.
The Earl married again, the second Countess being Barbara, daughter of
Lord St. John of Bletsoe. George William, the son of Maria, came to
the earldom in 1809.

In an ode on the death of Maria the poet Mason wrote:--

"For she was fair beyond your brightest bloom
(This Envy owns, since now her bloom is fled):
Fair as the Forms that wove in Fancy's loom,
Float in light vision round the Poet's head.
Whene'er with soft serenity she smiled,
Or caught the orient blush of quick surprise,
How sweetly mutable, how brightly wild.
The liquid lustre darted from her eyes!
Each look, each motion, waked a new-born grace
That o'er her form its transient glory cast:
Some lovelier wonder soon usurped the place,
Chased by a charm still lovelier than the last."

[Illustration: ELIZABETH COUNTESS GROSVENOR by LAWRENCE]

LADY ELIZABETH

In these latter days can we imagine a lawsuit, costing contestants
thousands of pounds, over the right to a certain heraldic charge? In
the fourteenth century Sir Robert Grosvenor was the defendant in such
a suit, and we read of Chauc