Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/353

 sympathy with his aims; but reflection has taught him the pathetic side of all worldly aims. He admits Wolsey's haughtiness, his ‘respect to the honour of his person rather than to his spiritual profession,’ but this does not diminish his personal affection or destroy the glamour of the cardinal's glory. The picture which Cavendish draws of Wolsey is most attractive, and recalls vividly the impression which he produced in his own time. The refinement, the simplicity, the genuine goodness of the writer is present at every page. The fulness of portraiture, the clearness of personal details, the graceful description, the reserve shown in drawing from memories of a time long past and outlived, give the book a distinction of its own, and place it high among English biographies.

Besides the ‘Life of Wolsey,’ Singer publishes, from a manuscript in the Douce collection, some poems of George Cavendish which he calls ‘Metrical Visions.’ They are written in the style of Skelton, after the fashion of the ‘Mirrour for Magistrates,’ and represent the lamentations of fallen favourites bemoaning their errors. The poems are rough and halting. If they are the production of George Cavendish, he certainly had no claims to rank as a poet.

 CAVENDISH, GEORGIANA, (1757–1806), eldest daughter of John, first earl Spencer, was born 9 June 1757. She married in June 1774 the fifth duke of Devonshire, who was regarded as the ‘first match’ in England, and his wife became the reigning queen of society. She set the fashion in dress, and introduced a simple and graceful style to supersede the ridiculous hoop. But though entering with great zest into the fashionable amusements of the time, she possessed intellectual and moral characteristics of a kind which entitles her to be classed above the ordinary women of fashion. Great as were her personal charms, they were not the chief source of her influence even over the majority of her admirers; ‘it lay in the amenity and graces of her deportment, in her irresistible manners, and the seduction of her society’ (, Posthumous Memoirs, iii. 342). Walpole writes of her, she ‘effaces all without being a beauty; but her youthful figure, flowing good nature, sense and lively modesty, and modest familiarity make her a phenomenon’ (Letters, vi. 186). Madame d'Arblay when she met her did not find so much beauty as she expected, but ‘far more of manner, politeness, and gentle quiet’ (Diary, v. 254). She delighted in the society of persons of talent, and numbered among her special friends Fox, Sheridan, and Selwyn. Wraxall records that he has ‘seen the Duchess of Devonshire, then in the first bloom of youth, hanging on the sentences that fell from Johnson's lips, and contending for the nearest place to his chair’ (Memoirs, i. 133). Johnson when seventy-five visited the duke and duchess in 1784 at Chatsworth, and was, he mentions, ‘kindly received and honestly pressed to stay,’ but on account of his bodily infirmities declined to prolong his visit (, Life of Johnson). The Duchess of Devonshire was very strongly opposed to the political party in power, and, notwithstanding ‘the endeavours of the court party to deter her by the most illiberal and indecent abuse’ (, Letters, viii. 373), devoted her utmost efforts to secure the return of Fox at the famous Westminster election of 1784. During her canvass she entered ‘some of the most blackguard houses in the Long Acre’ (Cornwallis Correspondence, i. 166); though very ‘coarsely received by some worse than tars’ (, Letters, viii. 469), she was not in the least daunted, and is said to have exchanged kisses for promises of votes. She died at Devonshire House, Piccadilly, 30 March 1806, and was buried in the family vault at St. Stephen's Church, Derby. She left a son and two daughters. The duchess wrote verse, some of which displays very apt and elegant expression, while the sentiment also rises above the commonplace. Walpole refers to a number of poems circulating in manuscript, written by her while a girl to her father (ib. vi. 217), and mentions also having seen an ‘Ode to Hope’ by her, ‘easy and prettily expressed, though it does not express much,’ and ‘Hope's Answer’ by the Rev. William Mason, of which he entertained a much higher opinion. A poem by her on the ‘Passage of the Mountain of St. Gothard,’ dedicated to her children, was published with a French translation by the Abbé de Lille in 1802; an Italian translation by Signor Polidori appeared in 1803; a German translation in 1805; and in 1816 it was reprinted by the duke's second wife, [q. v.], along with a ‘Journey through Switzerland,’ originally published in 1796. It gave occasion to the ode of Coleridge with the refrain—

