IV.
SELINA, COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON.
Not very far from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire, there is now a fine Gothic building, where the old mansion of the Hastings family formerly, and for centuries, had stood. The situation is lovely, for Donnington-park, with its large forest trees and magnificent old oaks, forms a more than usually beautiful surrounding to the extensive and immediate grounds. Those, to the north, were precipitous, and the broken craggy ground, with hanging woods, give additional charm to the sweeping valleys and alternating hills.
To this venerable old English home, Lady Selina Shirley came, as the bride of Theophilus Hastings, ninth Earl of Huntingdon, when she was nearly twenty-one, from her own adjacent home, Stanton Harold, which lay between Donnington-park and Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
The two homes thus near, were singularly similar. For the home of Lady Selina's childhood was also a fine old edifice, very massive, with noble and spacious apartments, standing in the midst of an extensive park, with soft, swelling hills, and still softer green-clad vales. The tasteful grounds, too, were rendered more attractive by a large ornamental lake, which clearly mirrored a handsome stone bridge, as it lay peacefully resting against the sloping lawn. The church, with its pretty tower, adjoined the house, and Sunday after Sunday, the child, as she sat or stood in the old family pew, became familiar with the long inscriptions that were on the monuments of her own ancestors, and which plainly indicated that all, whatever the rank and station, must pass from the present to a future state.
The Shirley family was celebrated for two specialities—the purity of its genealogy, which could be traced up to the time of Edward the Confessor; and the piety of its most distinguished members, which, as it arose from a living faith in an eternal Saviour, must result in a future, which no human calculation can limit to its possessors, and in an infinite and everlasting life through Him alone.
The grandfather of Lady Selina Shirley had twenty-seven children, her father being the second son. She was born at Stanton Harold, on the 24th August, 1707. Two sisters, one older and one younger, shared the nursery with Lady Selina, and participated in the play, the happy strolls in the park, and presently in the early lessons. Elizabeth, the eldest, became the celebrated Lady E. Nightingale, and Mary, the "baby" of the family, was afterwards Viscountess Kilmorey.
Lady Selina was decidedly talented, very benevolent, unusually grave and serious, and extremely graceful. Though not strictly beautiful, yet the large, bright eyes, the well-formed mouth, and the bold, intellectual brow, when illumined by the animation of the ardent spirit, were far more attractive than those perishing charms which exist only in features and externals.