political as well as
personal penury became the portion of many as the result of these
improvident and profligate days. The episode of the Duchess's career
which is most known, is her purchase, by a kiss, of a vote for Fox
when she was championing his cause in an election, and canvassing for
votes in company with her sister, Lady Duncannon. It was said, "never
before had two such lovely portraits appeared on a canvass." A butcher
bargained for his vote by asking a kiss from the lovely lips of the
seductive Duchess. The price was paid, amid the plaudits of the crowd.
An Irish elector, impressed by the fair appellant's vivacity,
exclaimed: "I could light my pipe at her eyes."

Fox was elected for the Tory borough of Westminster, and great was the
rejoicing at Carlton House. A _fete_ was given on the grounds the day
following, and the ordinarily well-apparelled Prince appeared in a
superb costume of the radical colors, blue and buff. This was the
period of the Duchess's greatest glory, as well as of her most superb
charm of personality; and it was about this period that Gainsborough
painted his perennially delightful presentment of her. She was then
twenty-seven years of age, and had been married ten years. Wraxall
wrote what is probably the best contemporary description of her: "The
personal charms of the Duchess of Devonshire constituted her smallest
pretensions to universal admiration; nor did her beauty consist, like
that of the Gunnings, in regularity of features, and faultless
formation of limbs and shape; it lay in the amenity and graces of her
deportment, in her irresistible manners, and the seduction of her
society. Her hair was not without a tinge of red; and her face, though
pleasing, yet, had it not been illuminated by her mind, might have
been considered an ordinary countenance."

It is said of Gainsborough that, while painting the Duchess, "he drew
his wet pencil across a mouth all thought exquisitely lovely, saying,
'Her Grace is too hard for me.'"

The lady later knew the cuts of comment, and the keen pain of
justifiable jealousy. The rival in her husband's attentions was Lady
Elizabeth Foster, daughter of the Earl of Bristol, a brunette of
handsome presence, and at the death of Georgiana, in 1806, she became
the second wife of the Duke. There was an apparent friendship between
the ladies, and Lady Elizabeth for a time lived under the same roof as
the Duchess.

Madame d'Arblay, in 1791, visited her at