The "virgin band" over whom Caroline thus came towering along the Kensington walks, consisted of the snowdrops aforesaid, her Maids of Honour; and these remain. famous to the present moment in the pages of Pope, Gay, and others. The reader may see them all at once, and make their intimate acquaintance, in the "Suffolk Correspondence," where they laugh and talk as freely as they did viva voce; and very startling to modern ears the talk sometimes is. They are not all in their maiden state in the "Correspondence." Some have married; but none have lost their vivacity. There is Miss Hobart, the sweet-tempered and sincere (now become Mrs. Howard, afterwards Lady Suffolk); Miss Howe, the giddiest of the giddy (which she lived to lament); Margaret Bellenden, who vied in height with her royal

mistress; the beautiful Mary Bellenden, her sister, who became Duchess of Argyle; Mary Lepell, the lovely, who became Lady Hervey; and Anne Pitt, sister of the future Lord Chatham, whom we have seen in these pages before (" as like him as two drops of fire.") Most of these ladies, with other promenaders of the day, may be seen personally coming forward as if down the walks, in Gay's "Welcome (to Pope) from Greece:"

"Of goodly dames, and courteous knights, I view
The silken petticoat, and broider'd vest ;
Yea, peers and mighty dukes, with ribbands blue,

(True blue, fair emblem of unstainèd breast.)

What lady's that to whom he gently bends ?

Who knows not her? Ah, those are Wortley's

eyes.

(Lady Mary Wortley Montague.)

How art thou honour'd, number'd with her friends,

For she distinguishes the good and wise.

The sweet-tongued Murray near her side attends;

(This was afterwards the famous Lord Chief Justice)

Now to my heart the glance of Howard flies;
Now Hervey, fair of face, I mark full well,

(our reader's acquaintance, Lord Hervey, who could hardly have relished this equivocal compliment)

With thee, Youth's youngest daughter, sweet Lepell.

(who, as we have just seen, became his wife. What Gay means, by calling her "Youth's youngest daughter," we never could make out; unless it was to imply, that young as

she was, she was remarkable for the juvenility of her appearance.)

I see two lovely sisters, hand in hand,
The fair-hair'd Martha, and Teresa brown;

(Pope's two favourites, the Miss Blounts)

Madge Bellenden, the tallest of the land,

And smiling Mary, soft and fair as down.

Yonder I see the cheerful Dutchess stand,

For friendship, zeal, and blithsome humours known;

(Gay's hearty friend, Catharine Hyde, Duchess of Queensbury, who is said to have retained her beauty for nearly a century.)

Whence that loud shout in such a hearty strain?
Why, all the Hamiltons are in her train.
See next, the decent Scudamore advance,
With Winchelsea, still meditating song.

(Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea, a

She

charming woman, and real poetess. had been Maid of Honour, when Miss Kingsmill, to poor Mary Beatrice of Modena, Queen of James the Second.)

With her, perhaps, Miss Howe came there by chance,

Nor knows with whom, or why, she comes along.

(the giddy Miss Howe, above mentioned. This account of her is very characteristic.)

Far off from these see Santlow, fam'd for dance,
And frolic Bicknell, and her sister young.

(Santlow was a dancer, and Bicknell an actress; both in repute.)

With other names by me not to be nam'd,

Much lov'd in private, not in public fam'd.