204 1fcfn0s ot tbe 1Rofc t IRffle, an& (Bun 



fashion. Horace Walpole, who was au courant with every 

 bit of scandal in Europe, writing under date of August 

 1 8th, 1774, says : " The young Mr. Coke is returned from 

 his travels, in love with the Pretender's queen, who has 

 permitted him to have her picture," The latter state- 

 ment, however, is not quite correct. The Countess of 

 Albany insisted on making her youthful admirer a 

 present of his own portrait, which is now at Longford 

 Hall, Derbyshire, the seat of his second son, Mr. Edward 

 Coke. Lord Albemarle says that the portrait was given 

 " as an acknowledgment of the impression which young 

 Coke's good looks had produced on the Countess." He 

 is represented with a mask in his hand and attired in a 

 pink and white masquerade dress. In the background 

 of the picture is a statue of Cleopatra reclining in the 

 act of applying the asp to her arm, and the face and 

 figure of the love-sick " serpent of old Nile " are said to 

 be those of the Countess of Albany. If this be so, it was 

 an ingenious way of presenting her admirer with her 

 own portrait without committing herself, and in a 

 suggestive guise, too, which must have been highly 

 flattering to the young Englishman, who would so 

 willingly have played the part of Antony. 



Another notable memento of Mr. Coke's sojourn in 

 Rome is preserved at Holkham in the shape of a fine 

 statue of Diana, which a romantic antiquarian fondly 

 imagines to be the identical statue mentioned by Cicero 

 in his oration against Verres as having been taken from 

 Sicily by the Carthaginians, recaptured from them by 

 Scipio Africanus, and restored by him to the Sicilians. 

 Whether this be so or not, the statue is unquestionably 



