accession of George the Third.

During the reign of that domesticated paterfamilias a slight exception,
it is true, occurred in the instance of Georgina Spencer, Duchess of
Devonshire. Young, beautiful, amiable, and witty, and not altogether
free from coquetry, she reckoned amongst her admirers some of the most
distinguished men of that day. She fascinated them all without
encouraging the pretensions of any; and notwithstanding the jealousy
which so great a superiority necessarily excited among her own sex, and
despite the rancour to which the inutility of their efforts to please
her gave birth in the bosoms of certain of the men, she preserved a
reputation for discretion beyond all suspicion. One circumstance of her
life might indeed have cast a slur upon her fair fame if her
irreproachable conduct, added to her natural graces, had not condoned a
species of notoriety which opinion in England very generally reproves.
The Duchess of Devonshire had friendly relations with the celebrated
Charles James Fox, and that friendship had taken the tinge of party
spirit. Fox presented himself as a candidate to represent Westminster in
Parliament. He had two very formidable opponents, and it was thought
that he would have succumbed in the struggle had not several amiable and
energetic women made extraordinary efforts to procure him votes. At the
head of these fair solicitors was the Duchess of Devonshire. A butcher
whose vote she requested promised it to her on the condition that he
might give her a kiss. To this she cheerfully consented, and that kiss
added one more vote to her friend's poll. Such familiarity was far less
shocking to our English manners than the too active and public part
taken by a lady of distinction in politics. Very few of her countrywomen
before her time had given occasion for a like scandal.[1]

[1] An anecdote of her has been preserved which proves how very
general was the impression the grace and beauty of the Duchess of
Devonshire made upon men in every station of society. On one
occasion of her being present on the racecourse at Newmarket, a
burly farmer who stood near her carriage, after having for some time
gazed at her in a species of ecstasy, exclaimed aloud, "Ah! why am I
not God Almighty?--she should then be Queen of Heaven!" The Duchess
preserved her personal charms far beyond the period of life when
they commonly disappear among women, though she lost one of her