THE HOTTENTOT VENUS 245 



which Mr. Gladstone is now said to profess : ' A man 

 is of service, at least to the State, till he is ninety ' — 

 or words to that effect. 



With this confidence in the Duke's power of per- 

 ception and diagnosis, a daily paper relates the visit of 

 the then well-known ' Hottentot Venus ' to his house, 

 where his grace had ' a select party of amateurs of 

 natural production ' to see the black damsel. Whether 

 this be true or not little concerns me, as it is the 

 liberty with which Queensberry was treated I wish to 

 show. 



It is almost a matter of course that the papers 

 should record his grace as giving his opinion on 

 another puzzle of the early years of this century, 

 the Chevalier D'Eon. The Morning Herald of 

 June 2nd, 1810, has the following paragraph : — 

 ' The Duke of Queensberry, it seems, does not give 

 credit to the discovery of the ChevaHer D'Eon's being 

 of the male sex, his grace having declared that they 

 might as well attempt to prove him to be of the 

 feminine gender ; though he is ready to admit, with 

 Mr. Garrick's song, that " Old women can do as much 

 as old men." ' 



Many who have followed me thus far will think 

 that Queensberry had already been sufficiently 

 'guyed'; nevertheless, the organ of the Prince of 



