Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, vol 2 | Page 8

Spottiswoode of Spottiswoode. She wrote to an old refrain one of the most pathetic of modern Scotch ballads--
Douglas, Douglas, tender and true
The beauty of the ball was the Marchioness of Douro, who not so long ago had been the beauty of the season as Lady Elizabeth Hay, daughter of the Marquis of Tweeddale, when she caught the fancy of the elder, son and heir of the Duke of Wellington. In this case beauty was not unadorned, for the lovely Marchioness, [Footnote: Her likeness is familiar to many people in an engraving from a well-known picture of the Duke of Wellington showing his daughter-in-law the field of Waterloo] the Greek mould of whose head attracted the admiration of all judges, was said to wear jewels to the value of sixty thousand pounds, while the superb point-lace flounce to her white brocade must have been a source of pious horror to good Roman Catholics, since it was believed to have belonged to the sacred vestments of a pope.
We have said that lace and jewels gave the distinguishing stamp to the ball--such lace!--point d'Alen?on, point de Bayeux, point de Venise, point a l'aiguille, Mechlin, Guipure, Valenciennes, Chantilly, enough to have turned green with envy the soul of a cultured _petit- ma?tre_, an aesthetic fop of the present day.
Some of the jewels, no less than the lace, were historical. The Marchioness of Westminster, besides displaying sabots of point- lace, which had belonged to Caroline, queen of George II., wore the Nassuk and Arcot diamonds.
Miss Burdett-Coutts wore a lustrous diadem and necklace that had once graced the brow and throat of poor Marie Antoinette, and had found their way at last into jewel-cases no longer royal, owing their glittering contents to the wealth of a great city banker.
A word about the antiquated finery of the Iron Duke, with which the old soldier sought to please his young mistress. It provoked a smile or two from the more frivolous as the grey, gaunt, spindle-shanked old man stalked by, yet it was not without its pathetic side. The Duke wore a scarlet coat, a tight fit, laced with gold, with splendid gold buttons and frogs, the brilliant star of the Order of the Garter, and the Order of the Golden Fleece, a waistcoat of scarlet cashmere covered with gold lace, breeches of scarlet kerseymere trimmed with gold lace; gold buckles, white silk stockings, cocked hat laced with gold, sword studded with rose diamonds and emeralds.
It is nearly forty years since these resplendent masquers trod the floors of Buckingham Palace, and if the changes which time has brought about had been foreseen, if the veil which shrouds the future had been lifted, what emotions would have been called forth!
Who could have borne to hear that the bright Queen and giver of the fete would pass the years of her prime in the mournful shade of disconsolate widowhood? That the pale crown of a premature death was hovering over the head of him who was the life of her life, the active promoter and sustainer of all that was good and joyous in that great household, all that was great and happy in the kingdom over which she ruled?
Who would have ventured to prophesy that of the royal kindred and cherished guests, the Prince of Leiningen was to die a landless man, the Duc de Nemours to spend long years in exile, the Duchesse to be cut down in the flower of her womanhood? Who would have guessed that this great nobleman, the head of an ancient house, was to perish by a miserable accident in a foreign hotel; that his sister, the wife of an unfortunate statesman, was to be dragged through the mire of a divorce court; that the treasures of a princely home were to pass away from the race that had accumulated them, under the strokes of an auctioneer's hammer? Who could have dreamt that this fine intellect and loving heart would follow the lord of their destiny to Hades, and wander there for evermore distracted, in the land of shadows, where there is no light of the sun to show the way, no firm ground to stay the tottering feet and groping hands? As for these two fair sisters in Watteau style of blue and pink, and green and pink taffetas, lace, and pearls, and roses--surely the daintiest, most aristocratic shepherdesses ever beheld--one of them would have lost her graceful equanimity, reddened with affront, and tingled to the finger-tips with angry unbelief if she had been warned beforehand that she would be amongst the last of the high-born, high-bred brides who would forfeit her birthright and her presence at a Queen's Court by agreeing to be married at the hands of a blacksmith instead of a bishop, before the rude hymeneal altar at Gretna.
But