Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/42

 xxxviii INTRODUCTION ���of each Sex the two best Gifts enjoy'd, The Skill to write, the Modesty to hide. �Grace Stroud, the wife of Henry Thynne, is the Cleo'ne of the poems. Her husband is Theanor, and is always spoken of with a certain awe because of his knowledge of the fine arts. As a judge of tapestry, painting, and poetry his opin- ions seemed beyond contradiction. Ardelia must have had more than one thrill of gratified pride as she found her own poems praised from time to time by so competent a critic. When, seven years after his death, she sent her volume of poems to his daughter, the young Countess of Hertford, she rests her modest plea on the father's favor rather than on her own merits. It is interesting to see Lady Hertford, the friend in later years of Thomson, Savage, and Shenstone, begin thus early her role as patroness of letters. �Frances, the daughter of Viscount Weymouth, married Sir Robert Worsley in 1690. Lady Worsley is the " Utresia " who had " so obligingly desired Ardelia to correspond with her by Letter." Ardelia's response to the request of this petted child of fortune, beautiful in her fresh and smiling bloom, universally beloved, encompassed with present joys and rich in hope, is couched in complimentary terms that would cer- tainly stimulate Lady Worsley 's side of the correspondence. But though extravagant, the praise Ardelia gives is evidently from her heart. She speaks only what she feels. A little hint of the permanence of this friendship is found in a letter from Lady Marrow to Lady Kay, quoted on page xliv. In Ardelia's Answer to Ephelia the reference to "your large Pallace" as their "place of meeting, love and liberty," would seem definitely to affix the " Ephelia" to some one of the Longleat ladies. The date of the poem, which is about 1690-1, would still further confine the allusion to the Vis- countess Weymouth or to the Lady Worsley, and Anne's in- timacy with the latter would make her the more probable one. ��� �