Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

108 HAMPTON COURT
name brought back to mind the fights of the Middle
Ages, and wife of Charles II.'s son, the Duke of St.
Albans; the Countesses of Peterborough, Ranelagh,
Dorset, and Essex (the last a Bentinck), the Duchess
of Grafton, Lady Middleton, and Miss Pitt.
Ladv Diana de Vere, Duchess of St. Albans, in
her quiet russet gown, with graceful yellow drapery
depending from her arms, is a charming figure. As a
toast, within a few years of the painting of this picture,
Halifax wrote the lines for her —
The line of Vere, so long renownedin arms,
Concludes with lustre in St. Albans' charms;
Her conquering eyes have made their race complete;
They rose in valourand in beauty set."
The Countess of Essex, a Bentinck, is not nearly so
attractive. Much prettier is the Countess of Peterborough,
the wife of the famous general and beau.
She is inblue and crimson;her white,rather dissipatedlooking
face at once arrests attention. The Countess
of Ranelagh in white, Miss Pitt in yellow, and the
Duchess of Grafton (who was the daughter of the
Arlington of the Cabal), the Countess of Dorset (a
Compton) in orange, with a mantle of blue satin and
ermine, are less interesting; but Mrs. Middleton
(no one is quite sure who she is) is charming as a
shepherdess.
If Mary had the Beauties of her court painted to
please her husband, he was not behind in employing
Kneller to immortalise himself. In the same room in