'On seeing the Duchess of Queensberry walk at the funeral of the
Princess Dowager of Wales,--

'To many a Kitty, Love his car
Would for a day engage;
But Prior's Kitty, ever fair,
Obtained it for an age.'

It was Kitty who took Gay under her patronage, who resented the
prohibition of the 'Beggar's Opera,' remonstrated with the king and
queen, and was thereupon forbidden the court. She carried the poet to
her house. She may have been ridiculous, but she had a warm, generous
heart. 'I am now,' Gay wrote to Swift in 1729, 'in the Duke of
Queensberry's house, and have been so ever since I left Hampstead; where
I was carried at a time that it was thought I could not live a day. I
must acquaint you (because I know it will please you) that during my
sickness I had many of the kindest proofs of friendship, particularly
from the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry; who, if I had been their
nearest relation and dearest friend, could not have treated me with more
constant attendance then, and they continue the same to me now.'

The duchess appears to have been one of those wilful, eccentric, spoiled
children, whom the world at once worships and ridicules: next to the
Countess of Pomfret, she was Horace Walpole's pet aversion. She was well
described as being 'very clever, very whimsical, and just not mad.' Some
of Walpole's touches are strongly confirmatory of this description. For
instance, her grace gives a ball, orders every one to come at six, to
sup at twelve, and go away directly after: opens the ball herself with a
minuet. To this ball she sends strange invitations; 'yet,' says Horace,