Elizabeth, Countess of Sandwich
By KNELLER.
Half-Length.
(White Déshabille with Coloured Scarf. Hair en Négligé.)
Born, ——. Died, 1757. She was the second daughter of John, Earl of Rochester, by Elizabeth Mallet. She married Edward, third Earl of Sandwich, in 1691. As we have mentioned in the short notice of his life, the marriage was very unhappy, and Lady Sandwich’s conduct in every respect most reprehensible, in spite of her numerous panegyrists. She was a brilliant member of society, and we are told that at the early age of ten years, she already showed a great taste for reading, and had begun to cultivate several foreign languages. She spoke French, Italian and Spanish; Montaigne was one of her favourite authors. She danced and sang, and played on several instruments, and though learned was in no wise pedantic. Neither did she waste so much time on dress, as was usual with ladies of her time. Lady Sandwich went to Paris not very long after her marriage, and St. Evremond, whose admiration she appears to have shared with the Duchesse de Mazarin and Ninon de l’Enclos, thus speaks of her in a letter (without date) to the latter: “Le Docteur Morelli, mon ami particulier, accompagne Madame la Comtesse de Sandwich qui va en France pour sa santé. Feu Monsieur le Comte de Rochester, Père de Madame Sandwich, avoit plus d’esprit qu’homme en Angleterre. Madame de Sandwich en a plus que n’avoit Monsieur son père; aussi généreuse que spirituelle, aussi aimable que spirituelle et généreuse. Voilà une partie de ses qualités.” According to St. Evremond’s implied wishes, his two friends formed a close intimacy, and Lady Sandwich at Paris seems to have merited Ninon’s report of her when she says: “J’ignore les manières Anglaises, mais elle a été très française.” It must have been during this first visit to Paris that Lady Sandwich made the acquaintance of the French celebrities whose portraits now adorn the Drawing-room at Hinchingbrook, as on her return to the French metropolis in 1729 they were all dead. Mademoiselle de l’Enclos is never tired of praising her English friend; in a letter dated August, 1698, she says to St. Evremond: “Madame Sandwich m’a donné mille plaisirs, par le bonheur que j’ai eu de lui plaire; je ne croyois pas sur mon déclin, pouvoir être propre à une femme de son âge. Elle a plus d’esprit que toutes les femmes de France, et plus de véritable mérite. Elle nous quitte; c’est un regret pour tous qui la connoissent, et pour moi particulièrement. Si vous aviez été ici nous aurions faits des repas dignes du temps du passé. Vous allez revoir Madame Sandwich, que nous voyons partir avec beaucoup de regret.” Again in July, 1699: “Vous allez voir Madame Sandwich, mais je crains qu’elle n’aille à la campagne; elle sait tout ce que vous pensez d’elle; elle vous dira plus de nouvelles de ce pays ci que moi. Elle a tout approfondi et tout pénétré: elle connoit parfaitement tout ce que je hante, et a trouvé le moyen de n’être pas étrangère ici.” In the lengthened correspondence between Mademoiselle de l’Enclos and her faithful Abbé, she constantly reverts to the English lady after her departure from Paris: “Madame Sandwich conservera l’esprit en perdant la jeunesse. Faites la souvenir de moi; je serois bien fâchée d’en être oubliée;” while St. Evremond on his part tells her: “Tout le monde connoit l’esprit de Madame la Comtesse; je vois son bon goût par l’estime extraordinaire qu’elle a pour vous. Elle est admirée à Londres comme elle fut à Paris.”
There is a long tedious poem from the same pen, describing the presents (comestibles) which Lady Sandwich had sent the Duchesse de Mazarin, with whom she had become very intimate: “Des moutons et des lapins de Bath.” He speaks of Morelli as friend and physician of all three:
“Sandwich et Mazarin que le Ciel vous unisse,
Et que cette union de cent ans ne finisse.”
He alludes to meeting her often in society, more especially at Boughton, the beautiful country house of Lord (afterwards Duke of) Montagu. “Jamais personne n’a mieux mérité d’être reçue magnifiquement, et galamment régalée, que Madame Sandwich; jamais homme ne fut plus propre pour la bien recevoir que my Lord Montagu. J’espère que la cascade l’octagone, les jets d’eau, etc., auront fait oublier la France à Madame Sandwich, et comme my Lord est assez heureux pour inspirer son goût et ses desseins sur les bâtiments et les jardins, je ne doute point qu’elle n’entreprenne bientôt quelque nouvel ouvrage à Hinchinbrooke. On ne sauroit être plus sensible que je le suis à l’honneur de son souvenir. Il ne manquoit rien pour combler mon déplaisir de n’avoir pas vu Boughton et le maître du lieu, que de ne point voir Hinchinbrooke et sa maîtresse, qui est le plus grand ornement de tous les lieux où elle se trouve.” He writes to Ninon to tell her of a wager he had with Lady Sandwich, respecting their eating powers at a dinner at Lord Jersey’s: “Je ne fut pas vaincu,” boasts the epicure, “ni sur les louanges ni sur l’appétit.”
At Bath she evidently was the head of a coterie; and Pope writes: “I am beginning an acquaintance with Lady Sandwich, who has all the spirit of the past age, and the gay experience of a pleasurable life. It were as scandalous an omission to come to the Bath, and not to see my Lady Sandwich, as it had been to have travelled to Rome, and not to have seen the Queen of Sweden. It is, in a word, the best thing the country has to boast of, and as she has been all that a woman of spirit could be, so she still continues that easy and independent creature, that a sensible woman always will be.” Such is Pope’s standard of female excellence! In another letter to his friend, Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery, he says: “This lady is both an honour, and a disgrace to her native country. She resided in France for some time; but it is a melancholy reflection that we have either nothing in England, valuable enough to make her prefer her own country to another, or that we will not suffer such a person to reside quietly among us.”
In 1729, on the death of her ill-fated husband, the object of so much praise and admiration, returned to the more genial atmosphere of Paris, for the remainder of her life.
In June 1751, Lord Chesterfield writes to his son, then at Paris, as follows: “A propos of beaux esprits, have you les entrées at Lady Sandwich’s, who, old as she was, when I saw her last, had the strongest parts of any woman I ever knew in my life. If you are not acquainted with her, the Duchesse d’Aiguillon or Lady Hervey can, and I daresay will, introduce you. I assure you it is worth while both on her own account, and for the sake of people of wit and learning, who frequent her salon. In such companies there is always something to be learned as well as manners; the conversation turns on something above trifles; some point of literature, customs, history, etc., is discussed with ingenuity and good manners; for I must do the French people of learning justice; they are not bears as most of ours are, but gentlemen.”
Lady Sandwich died at Paris, at her house in the Rue Vaugirard, July 1, 1757, in the Faubourg St. Germains. In a letter of Horace Walpole’s, to John Chute, Esq., the same year, he says: “Old Lady Sandwich is dead at Paris, and my Lord (her grandson) has given me her picture of Ninon de l’Enclos in the prettiest manner in the world. If ever he should intermeddle in an election in Hampshire, I beg you will serve him to the utmost of your power. I fear I must wait for the picture.” At Lady Sandwich’s death in Paris, although she had taken every precaution to prevent such a casualty, there arose a great difficulty in securing the property to her grandson and heir. The French officers rushed in, put seals on everything, and claimed le “mobilier, les tableaux, etc., par le droit d’aubaine.” Lord Sandwich sent over his solicitor, who had a roughish time of it, with these “harpies.” He appealed to the Duchesse d’ Aiguillon and other illustrious friends of the deceased countess, who promised him every assistance, and as he discovered afterwards, were working against him all the time. But the good lawyer was triumphant in the end and wrote to his noble client that everything was safe, including the pictures, and he especially notes that of Ninon de l’Enclos, “which is very valuable,” he says, “and innumerable offers have been made for it, here.” But it was reserved for Horace Walpole’s Gallery, and some letters passed on the subject, for although Horace could express his opinion of Lord Sandwich in no flattering terms, he did not object to receive a present at his hands; and he offers in return (later) a copy of the memoirs of the Comte de Grammont, printed at his own press at Strawberry Hill, which contains an engraving of the afore-mentioned portrait of Mademoiselle de l’Enclos, Lord Sandwich’s letters on the subject are in his most jocose style.