232 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
The death of his second countess left the earl
free to win the prize and fulfil the nursery predictions.
? Admirers of a youthful, impassioned,
and sonnet-making cast might have trembled at
his approach to the shrine of their divinity, for
his lordship was one of those titled suitors who,
lifetime, it is not surprising that many interesting
particulars concerning her have been preserved and
handed down to us. She had a grace and bearing
all her own; hence the Eglinton air and the
Eglinton manner were long proverbial in Edinburgh
after she had passed away. Her seven
FLESHMARKET CLOSE. (From a Vicurpvhishd in 1845.)
however old and horrible, are never rejected except
in novels and romances ;? and though Sir John
Clerk had declared his passion, he did so in vain,
and his lovely Susanna became Countess of Eglinton
about the year of the Union.
To the charms of her personal appearance were
added the more powerful attractions of genius and
great accomplishments. Possessing these, in the
elevated position which she occupied during a?long
daughters were all handsome women, and it was
deemed indeed a goodly sight to see the long procession
of eight gilded sedans issue from the Stamp
Office Close, bearing her and her stately brood to
the Assembly Room, amid a crowd that was hushed
with respect and admiration, ?to behold their
lofty and graceful figures step from the chairs on
the pavement. It could not fail to be a remarkable
sight-eight singularly beautiful women, conspicuous
for their stature and camage, all dressed in the
splendid, though formal, fashions of that ? period,
and inspired at once with dignity of birth and coilsciousness
of beauty ! Alas! such visions no longer
illuminate the dark tortuosities of Auld Reekie ! ?
By his three countesses the Earl had twelve
daughters, and he was beginning to despair of an
heir to his title, when one was born to him. He
died in 1729. Shortly before his death he wrote a
SUSANNA, COUNTESS OF EGLINTON.
(From t h Portrait k the ?Memoirs of the Mo#fgome*&s.?v
under the misery and slavery of being united to
England,a Scotsman,without prostituting his honour,
can obtain nothing by following a Court but bring
his estate under debt, and consequently himself to
necessity,?
The Countess was a great patron of authors.
Boyse dedicated his poems to her, as Allan Ramsay
did his ?? Gentle Shepherd,? and in doing so enlarged
in glowing terms upon the virtues of his patroness,
letter to his son, the tenth Earl, in which he advised
him never to marry an Englishwoman, and
wherein the following passage occurs :-
?You came to live at a time, my chiefest care,
when the right to these kingdoms comes to be a
question betwixt the House of Hanover, in possession,
and the descendants of King James. You
are, in my poor opinion, not to intermeddle with
either, but live abstractly at home, managing your
affairs to the best advantage, and living in a good
understanding with your friends; for since we are
30
? ?If it were not for offending your ladyship
here, I might give the fullest liberty to my muse,
to delineate the finest of women by drawing your
ladyship?s character, and be in no hazard of
being deemed a flatterer, since flattery lies not
in paying what is due to merit, but in praises
misplaced.?
William Hamilton of Bangour, an elegant poet
and accomplished man, had recommended Allan
Ramsay to her notice in an address, in which he
eulogises her and her daughters. After referring to
