Lady Hyde, afterwards Countess of Clarendon and Rochester, was in her time a favourite theme of gay and gallant verse; but she maintained with her extreme beauty and gentleness of deportment, a dignity of conduct which disarmed scandal, and kept presumptuous wits as well as presumptuous fops at a distance. Lord Lansdown has crowned her with praise, very pointed and elegant, and seems to have contrasted her at the moment, with his coquettish Mira, Lady Newburgh.
Others, by guilty artifice and arts,
And promised kindness, practise on our hearts;
With expectation blow the passion up;
She fans the fire without one gale of hope.[102]
Lady Hyde was the daughter of Sir William Leveson Gower, (ancestor to the Marquis of Stafford,) and mother of that Lord Cornbury, who has been celebrated by Pope and Thomson.
The second daughter of this lovely and amiable woman, lady Catherine Hyde, was Prior's famous Kitty,
Beautiful and young,
And wild as colt untam'd,
the "female Phaeton," who obtained mamma's chariot for a day, to set the world on fire.
Shall I thumb holy books, confin'd
With Abigails forsaken?
Kitty's for other things design'd,
Or I am much mistaken.
Must Lady Jenny frisk about,
And visit with her cousins?
At balls must she make all this rout,
And bring home hearts by dozens?
What has she better, pray, than I?
What hidden charms to boast,
That all mankind for her must die,
Whilst I am scarce a toast?