people in the world till after the Princess Anne was married, and when she lived at the Cock-pit, at which time an acquaintance of mine came to me, and said she believed I did not know that I had relations who were in want, and she gave me an account of them. When she had finished her story, I answered, that indeed I had never heard before of any such relations, and immediately gave her out of my purse ten guineas for their present relief, saying I would do what I could for them."

If the statements of the Duchess are to be relied upon, (and, though her pictures are, occasionally, highly coloured, there is no reason for questioning the truth of her assertions,) she behaved in the most exemplary manner towards her poor relations, and extended to them the kindness of which they stood so greatly in need. She appears to have frequently relieved the necessities of Mrs. Hill; while the subject of the present memoir, then a young and unmarried woman, appears to have been particularly honoured by her notice and regard. "The elder daughter, afterwards Mrs. Masham," says the Duchess," was a grown woman. I took her to St. Albans, where she lived with me and my children; and I treated her with as great kindness as if she had been my sister. After some time, a bedchamber-woman of the Princess of Denmark's died, and as, in that reign, after the Princesses were grown up, rockers, though not gentlewomen, had been advanced to be bedchamber-women, I thought I might ask

the Princess to give the vacant place to Mrs. Hill. At first, indeed, I had some scruple about it; but this being removed by persons I thought wiser, with whom I consulted, I made the request to the Princess, and it was granted."

Neither did her charity stop here. For an elder brother of Mrs. Masham she procured a place in the Custom House, and even induced a relation of the Duke of Marlborough to become security for him to the amount of two thousand pounds. A younger brother, afterwards well known among his contemporaries as "Jack Hill," she placed at a school at St. Albans, and though the Duchess admits, or rather affirms, that he was "good for nothing," she persuaded the Duke of Marlborough to take him as his aide-de-camp, and subsequently to confer on him a regiment. There now remained but one of her uncle's children to provide for. This was a younger daughter, for whom she procured an appointment as laundress in the household of the young Duke of Gloucester; and on the death of that promising scion of royalty, obtained for her a pension of two hundred a year.

These were no trifling benefits to confer on one family. The account, indeed, is taken from the statement of the Duchess herself, but there exists no reason to believe that she has exaggerated her philanthropy. Coxe, indeed, informs us, that there are preserved among the Marlborough Papers several letters from Mrs. Hill, the mother of Mrs. Masham, which teem with the warmest expressions of gratitude for the kindness of the Duchess, and

prove, beyond doubt, that she procured places or establishments for the children of her widowed

aunt.*

Among the letters of expostulation which, after her loss of power, the Duchess frequently addressed to her royal mistress, there is one in which she particularly vaunts the favours conferred by her on her rival. Speaking of her "cousin Hill," she says, "I have several letters under her hand to acknowledge that never any family had received such benefits as hers had done from me; which I will keep to show the world what returns she has made for obligations that she was sensible of." As the Queen was certain to display this passage to her new favourite, it is needless to add, that unless the Duchess had really conferred many important benefits on her ungrateful kinswoman, she would scarcely have boasted of them in so confident a manner.

On the other hand, it must be observed in justice to Mrs. Masham, that the account which the Duchess gives of her own munificence, and the picture which she draws of the ingratitude of her relative, constitute after all but an ex-parte statement. Admitting even the correctness of her Grace's assertion; allowing her the credit of having freely administered to the wants of a suffering family, and of having raised its members from comparative indigence and obscurity; it still becomes a question how far the haughty Duchess

* Coxe's Life of the Duke of Marlborough, v. ii. p. 257, note.

may have been influenced by family pride, and whether she may not have cancelled the obligation by subsequent unkindness, or by the proud and patronizing manner in which her favours were conferred. From the insight which we possess into the character of the Duchess, it is far from improbable that she assumed the part of a "Lady Bountiful," that she exacted on all occasions a due equivalent for her charity, and by treating her cousin, (at the time when she was a member of her household) rather as a dependant than a friend, purchased for herself the hatred, instead of the gratitude, of her future rival.

Mrs. Masham, it appears, had for many months been gradually undermining the Duchess of Marlborough in the affections of their royal mistress, long before the Duchess conceived the remotest suspicion that her influence was in danger. At length a particular circumstance served to enlighten her on the subject. Mrs. Masham, who, up to this period (1707), was merely regarded as plain Abigail Hill, one of the Queen's dressers, had formed an attachment for Mr. Masham, one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber to Prince George of Denmark. Masham, it seems, from motives of self-interest, rather than from any feeling of regard for the lady's person, was induced to make her an offer of his hand; moreover, by the advice of the insidious Harley, the Queen was made the confidant of their amours, with the understanding that the Duchess of

Marlborough was to be excluded from all knowledge of the affair. Not, indeed, that there existed any reasonable ground for making a matrimonial engagement between a gentleman of the bed-chamber and a royal waiting-woman a matter of state importance; more especially as both parties seem to have been very equally matched in rank and fortune; but Harley, at this juncture, was deep in female jealousies and intrigues; he was aware of the habitual awe, mingled with increasing dislike, with which the Queen regarded the Duchess of Marlborough; it was his object to accustom his royal mistress to resistance, in order to extricate her from the trammels in which she was entangled; and, with this object, he sought to implicate her in a private transaction, in which, for the first time since the commencement of her long intercourse with the Duchess, the Queen should be induced to engage without the knowledge of her domineering favourite. The result fully answered the expectations of the designing statesman; Anne not only signified her approval of the marriage, but consented to be present at its celebration. The ceremony was performed in the apartments of Dr. Arbuthnot, in the most private manner; no other person except the Queen being present.

When, in the course of time, the report of this secret marriage became matter of Court gossip, the Duchess, who was as yet ignorant of the Queen's share in the transaction, immediately hastened with pretended congratulations to her