Wraxall writes of a lady telling of witnessing a prenuptial display of her person, and being entranced by lithe limb, by the fine and faultless form.  Reynolds has hinted at the beauteous body, and the hint ensnares us.  Verily, “the visible fair form of a woman is hereditary queen of us.”  Wraxall also likens the Duchess to an older-time beauty, Diane de Poitiers,—­that famous lady of France, the favorite of Francois I. and Henri II.  Of that lady’s beauty, it was written, that it was of the form and feature rather than the radiance of the mind and manner transforming them; and like her, too, our Duchess retained her beauty to an advanced age.  She died in 1821.  To the last, she impressed one with her dignity, her nobility, her loveliness.

   “And they who saw her snow-white hair. 
   And dark, sad eyes, so deep with feeling,
   Breathed all at once the chancel air,
   And seemed to hear the organ pealing.”

[Illustration:  Lavinia Countess Spencer by Reynolds]

LAVINIA

In March, 1781, Walpole writes to a friend:  “As your lordship has honored all the productions of my press with your acceptance, I venture to inclose the last, which I printed to oblige the Lucans.  There are many beautiful and poetic expressions in it.  A wedding, to be sure, is neither a new nor a promising subject, nor will outlast the favors; still, I think Mr. Jones’s ode is uncommonly good for the occasion.”  The ode was “The Muse Recalled,” and the occasion the nuptials of Lord Viscount Althorp and Miss Lavinia Bingham, eldest daughter of Sir Charles Bingham, created, in 1776, Baron Lucan of Castlebar.  Sir Charles was a man of culture, who was intimate with Johnson, Goldsmith, Gibbon, Reynolds, and Burke.  He is frequently pleasantly mentioned by Boswell.  He had married, in 1760, Margaret, daughter of James Smith, M.P., a lady of great good sense and rare accomplishments, and three lovely daughters were the issue from this union.  Reynolds found in them most pleasing subjects for his pencil.  Their pictures appeared at the Academy, in 1786.  Lavinia was portrayed as shown in the picture here given, and again in quite as lovely a fashion,—­standing out doors and wearing a wide-brimmed hat which casts a broad shade across the face; the wavy curls of hair fall upon the shoulder; in the background is a landscape.  The naivete of the face is exquisitely delightful.  The old-time flavor of the whole causes one to recall Locker’s lines on the picture of his grandmother:—­

   “Beneath a summer tree. 
   Her maiden reverie
     Has a charm;
   Her ringlets are in taste;
   What an arm! ... what a waist
     For an arm!”

In the picture of her youngest sister, Anne, is a broad hat, too; she sits full-face, but in her features there is lacking just a little of the quiet dignity of the eldest.  All of these portraits have been made familiar to us by the most meritorious mezzotints of them by Cousins.  In Lavinia’s face there lingers all the enchanting grace of girlhood,—­a face yet full of that early beauty—­