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 she went out every night of her life. Society was as the breath of her nostrils, she was never so much at her ease as when she was receiving guests, or exhibiting lions, literary or otherwise. Though she rarely seems to have visited Ireland, on her mother's side, at any rate, she came of a thoroughly Irish stock—the family of Westenra. Her Irish blood came out in her temperament; she was warm-hearted, hospitable, generous, desirous of making an impression either by exhibiting herself, or being an exhibitor of other people. Vain she certainly was, but never ill-natured or churlish. She never sought out people merely for their rank or riches, but because she enjoyed their society. Her parties were the pleasantest in London, because they were exempt from the monotony that then brooded over the leaders of English fashion. Connected by birth and by marriage with two families of high rank, she was perfectly free from pride and ostentation.

She was the youngest child and only surviving daughter of John Monckton, first Viscount Gal way by his second wife, Jane, fourth daughter of Henry Warner Westenra, of Rathleagh, Queen's County,

Maria Monckton was born in 1747, and lived to the patriarchal age of 93, being generally known in her later years as "Old Lady Cork." She was compared by Luttrell, the famous wit, to a shuttlecock, "All Cork and feathers."