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
