Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/54

 1 INTRODUCTION ���impression further confirmed by G. Vertue's print of his lordship, which shows a portly man with straight nose, dark eyes, a white, curled wig, and a very kindly expression. �Lord Winchilsea died in 1726. A Latin eulogy of him is quoted in The Gentleman's Magazine for October, 1783. It is entitled "In Obitum Proenobilis Viri, HENEAGII FINCH, Comitis de Winchilsea, Epicedium et Apotheosi, Prid. Cal. Oct. 1726." But this tribute is less satisfying than the fol- lowing brief note from Lord Hertford to Dr. Stukeley : �The concern you express for the loss of Lord Winchelsea can- not but be pleasing to me; for I should be very sorry that you, for whom he had a just value, should not have grieved with the rest of his friends; and I think I may call the whole world so, for sure he had no enemy nor was he one to anybody. �The final impression made by these scattered facts con- cerning Lord Winchilsea is that he was as well fitted by temperament and tastes to find permanent joy in the retire- ment at Eastwell as was Ardelia herself. If she loved nature and poetry with emphasis on the nature, and he loved nature and antiquities with emphasis on the antiquities, that was only enough of a difference to give needed variety. They were both simple and unambitious in their desires. They were loyal to their friends. Their minds were alert and their interests always along scholarly or poetical lines. They very nearly made real Wordsworth's maxim of plain living and high thinking. �Lady Winchilsea died six years before her �Lady Win- * �chilsea's husband. Her death is thus recorded in �Death "Mawson's Obits." �On Friday, 5 th of August, 1720, dyed at her own house in Cleveland Row the Right Hon ble Anne Countess of Winchilsea, and was on Tuesday following privately Interred according to her desire at Eastwell in Kent, the ancient seat of that noble family. She was Dau'r of S r W m Kingsmill of Sidmonton, a very ancient family in Hampshire. ��� �