DEDICATED to the DUKE of DEVONSHIRE. Now complete, in one handsome Volume, Royal Quarto, price 51. 5s.; or on large paper, with India Proof Plates, 101. 10s. BEAUTIES OF THE COURT OF CHARLES II.; with Memoirs and Anecdotes of their Lives, and an introductory View of the STATE of FEMALE SOCIETY, and its Influence, Dress, Manners, &c. during that remarkable Reign. By Mrs. JAMESON, Authoress of 'The Lives of celebrated Female Sovereigns,'' Memoirs of the Loves of the Poets,' &c. Comprising a series of Twenty-two splendid Portraits, illustrating the Diaries of Pepys, Evelyn, Clarendon, and other contemporary writers of that gay and interesting period. Size of the plates, six inches by four and a half; engraved by the most distinguished Artists, from drawings made by order of Her late Royal Highness the PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. The following is a brief Descriptive List of the Portraits comprised in this Work, which supplies what has long been a desideratum in the Fine Arts, and form a desirable companion to Lodge's Portraits : CATHERINE of Braganza, the unhappy and slighted wife of Charles-Lady Castlemaine, afterwards Duchess of Cleveland, the haughty enslaver of the monarchLa Belle Hamilton, Countess De Grammont, one of the ancestors of the Jerningham family-The gentle and blameless Countess of Ossory, interesting from her extreme beauty, her tenderness, and her feminine virtues-Nell Gwynne, merry and open-hearted, who, with all her faults, was at least exempt from the courtly vice of hypocrisy, and whose redeeming qualities make even the justice of history half loth to condemn her-The beautiful and wealthy Duchess of Somerset, the wife of three successive husbands, one of whom encountered a tragical fate-The noted Frances Stewart, Duchess of Richmond (fond of adoration, yet armed with indifference'), whose marriage was the immediate cause of Lord Clarendon's disgrace-Miss Lawson, mild and gentle, yet opposing the fortitude of virtue to the perils of a licentious Court-The Countess of Chesterfield, one of the fair principals of De Grammont's celebrated story of the bas verts'-The Countess of Southesk, whose faults, follies, and miseries constitute a tale well fitted to 'point a moral'-The interesting and exemplary Countess of Rochester-The beauteous and arrogant Lady Denham, claiming interest from the poetical fame of her husband, and her own tragical and mysterious fate-The magnificent Lady Bellasys, renowned for her beauty, wit, and high spirit, and recorded as the Mistress of James, Duke of York, only through her voluntary resignation of the marriage contract by which she had really become united with him-Mrs. Nott, fair, sentimental, and Madonna-like-Anne Digby, Countess of Sutherland, beautiful and blameless, the friend of the angelic Lady Russell, and of the excellent EvelynThe fair coquette, Mrs. Middleton, one of De Grammont's special heroines-Miss Bagot, who became, in succession, the irreproachable wife of two libertine Lords -The fair, the elegant, and fascinating Miss Jennings, who robbed the men of their hearts, the women of their lovers, and never lost herself!'-The Countess of Northumberland, distinguished for her uncommon grace and beauty, and the blameless tenor of her life-The Duchess of Portsmouth, one of the most absolute of Royal favourites, and one of the most striking examples of the mischief of female usurpation in political affairs-and the Duchess of Devonshire, fair, kind, and true, and wedded to a Nobleman who, to the valour and bearing of a Paladin of old Romance, added the spirit of an ancient Roman. Published for H. COLBURN, by R. BENTLEY, New Burlington Street. |