handsome, he old and disagreeable: what reason then had he to flatter
himself that Heaven would exempt him from the fate of husbands in the
like circumstances? This he was continually saying to himself; but when
compliments were poured in upon him from all sides, upon the place his
lady was going to have near the duchess's person, he formed ideas of what
was sufficient to have made him hang himself, if he had possessed the
resolution. The traitor chose rather to exercise his courage against
another. He wanted precedents for putting in practice his resentments in
a privileged country: that of Lord Chesterfield was not sufficiently
bitter for the revenge he meditated: besides, he had no country-house to
which he could carry his unfortunate wife. This being the case, the old
villain made her travel a much longer journey without stirring out of
London. Merciless fate robbed her of life, and of her dearest hopes, in
the bloom of youth.

As no person entertained any doubt of his having poisoned her, the
populace of his neighbourhood had a design of tearing him in pieces, as
soon as he should come abroad; but he shut himself up to bewail her
death, until their fury was appeased by a magnificent funeral, at which
he distributed four times more burnt wine than had ever been drunk at any
burial in England.

[The lampoons of the day, some of which are to be found in Andrew
Marvell's Works, more than insinuate that she was deprived of life
by a mixture infused into some chocolate. The slander of the times
imputed her death to the jealousy of the Duchess of York.]

While the town was in fear of some great disaster, as an expiation for
these fatal effects of jealousy, Hamilton was not altogether so easy as
he flattered himself he should be after the departure of Lady