THE BEGINNINGS OF CANALS- 



PART V. 



struction of canals ! We find various allusions in the 

 letters of the time to the rumoured marriage of the 

 young Duke of Bridgewater. One rumour pointed to 

 the only daughter and heiress of Mr. Thomas Revell, 

 formerly M.P. for Dover, as the object of his choice. 1 

 But it appears that the lady to whom he became the 

 most strongly attached was one of the Gunnings the 

 comparatively portionless daughters of an Irish gentle- 

 man, who were then the reigning beauties at court. 

 The object of the Duke's affection was Elizabeth, the 

 youngest daughter, and perhaps the most beautiful of 

 the three. She had been married to the fourth Duke of 

 Hamilton, in Keith's Chapel, Mayfair, in 1752, " with a 

 ring of the bed-curtain, half-an-hour after twelve at 

 night," 2 but the Duke dying shortly after, she was now 

 a gay and beautiful widow, with many lovers in her 

 train. In the same year in which she had been clandes- 

 tinely married to the Duke of Hamilton, her eldest- 

 sister was married to the sixth Earl of Coventry. 



The Duke of Bridgewater paid his court to the young 

 widow, proposed, and was accepted. The arrangements 

 for the marriage were in progress, when certain rumours 

 reached his ear reflecting seriously upon the character of 

 Lady Coventry, his intended bride's elder sister, who 

 was certainly more fair than she was wise. Believing 

 the reports, he required the Duchess to desist from 

 further intimacy with her sister, a condition which 1 id- 

 high spirit would not brook, and, the Duke remaining 



1 Thomas and Maria Revell were 

 both servants in the family of Mr. 

 Nightingale, of Knibsworth. They 

 afterwards married, and took a farm 

 at Shingay, under my Lord Orford, 

 who, taking a liking to their two 

 eldest sons, Thomas and Russell, gave 

 them an English education, and got 

 them both places in the Victualling 

 Office. The eldest, Thomas, was 

 M.P. for Dover, and, dying in 1752 



at Bath, was buried, as I think, at or 

 near Leatherhead, Surrey, leaving an 

 only daughter behind him, to whom 

 he left about 120,000?. or 130,0002. It 

 is thought she is to be married to the 

 present Duke of Brid^-watcr, her 

 cousin. 'The Cole MSS.' (British 

 Museum), vol. ix., 113. 



2 'Walpole to Mann,' Feb. 27th, 

 1752. 



