"Could Nature then no private woman grace,
Whom we might dare to love, with such a face,
Such a complexion, and so radiant eyes,
Such lovely motion, and such sharp replies?"
Davenant styles her, very beautifully, "The rich-eyed darling of a monarch's breast." Lord Holland, in the description he sent from Paris, dwells on the charm of her eyes, her smile, and her graceful figure, though he admits her to be rather petite; and if the poet and the courtier be distrusted, we have the authority of the puritanic Sir Symond d'Ewes, who allows the influence of her "excellent and sparkling black eyes." Henrietta could be very seductive, and had all the French grace of manner; but, as is well known, she could play the virago, "and cast such a scowl, as frightened all the lords and ladies in waiting." Too much importance is attached to her character and her influence over her husband, in the histories of that time. She was a fascinating, but a superficial and volatile Frenchwoman. With all her feminine love of sway, she had not sufficient energy to govern; and with all her disposition to intrigue, she never had discretion enough to keep her own or the king's secrets. When she rushed through a storm of bullets to save a favourite lap-dog; or when, amid the shrieks and entreaties of her terrified attendants, she commanded the captain of her vessel to "blow up the ship rather than strike to the Parliamentarian,"—it was more the spirit and wilfulness of a woman, who, with all her faults, had the blood of Henri Quatre in her veins, than the mental energy and resolute fortitude of a heroine. Near her hangs her daughter, who inherited her grace, her beauty, her petulance,—the unhappy Henriette d'Orleans,[ 75] fair, radiant, and lively, with a profusion of beautiful hair; it is impossible to look from the mother to the daughter, without remembering the scene in Retz's memoirs, when the queen said to him, in excuse for her daughter's absence, "My poor Henrietta is obliged to lie in bed, for I have no wood to make a fire for her—et la pauvre enfant était transie de froid."
Another picture by Vandyke hangs at the top of the room, one of the grandest and most spirited of his productions. It represents William, the first Duke of Bedford, the father of Lord William Russell, when young, and his brother-in-law, the famous (and infamous) Digby, Earl of Bristol. How admirably Vandyke has caught the characters of the two men!—the fine commanding form of the duke, as he steps forward, the frank, open countenance, expressive of all that is good and noble, speak him what he was—not less than that of Digby, which, though eminently handsome, has not one elevated or amiable trait in the countenance; the drapery, background, and more especially the hands, are magnificently painted. On one side of this superb picture, hangs the present Earl Spencer when a youth; and on the other, his sister, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, at the age of eighteen, looking all life and high-born loveliness, and reminding one of Coleridge's beautiful lines to her:—
"Light as a dream your days their circlets ran
From all that teaches brotherhood to man,
Far, far removed! from want, from grief, from fear!
Obedient music lull'd your infant ear;