[454b] On the death of the third Earl in 1712, the title of Earl of Winchelsea passed to his uncle, Heneage Finch, who had married Anne, daughter of Sir William Kingsmill (see p. [227]).
[454c] Addressed to “Mrs. Dingley,” etc. Endorsed “Oct. 1st. At Portraune” [Portraine].
[455a] Oxford and Bolingbroke.
[455b] Including Hester Vanhomrigh.
[456a] He died on Sept. 15, 1712.
[456b] Elizabeth Villiers, eldest daughter of Sir Edward Villiers, Knight Marischal of England, and sister of the first Earl of Jersey. In 1695 she married Lord George Hamilton (son of Lord William Douglas, afterwards Duke of Hamilton), who was raised to the peerage of Scotland in 1696 as Earl of Orkney. William III. gave her an Irish estate worth £26,000 a year. Swift’s opinion of her wisdom is confirmed by Lord Lansdowne, who speaks, in his Progress of Poetry, of
“Villiers, for wisdom and deep judgment famed,
Of a high race, victorious beauty brings
To grace our Courts, and captivate our Kings.”
The “beauty” seems a poetic licence; Swift says the lady squinted “like a dragon.”
[456c] Cliefden.