Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1879 — Death of a Remarkable Woman. [ARTICLE]

Death of a Remarkable Woman.

Borne forty or forty-five years ago, a man named Braham, an Englishman by birth, a Hebrew by race, took Great Britain and the continent of Europe by storm with the splendor of his vocal powers. There is perhaps no other case on reoord in which a vocalist of the first rank enjoyed the use of his organ so long. Between the first and last public appearance considerably more than sixty years intervened, during forty of which he held the undisputed supremicy alike in opera, oratorio, and the concert room. His career in Italy was one of continuous triumph. He appeared in all its principal opera-houses, and was universally regonized as being without a rival even in that land of song. He was bom in London in 1774 his family name being Abraham; apjieared on the stage of the Convent Garden Theater as early 1787; and died Feb. 17, 1866, at the age of 82. We are reminded of the career of this great vocalist by the announcement just made in the I ondon journals of the death of, Frances, Countess of Waldegrave. This woman was ths daughter of John Braham above alluded to. She was as remarkable in her sphere as her father was in his. She was a woman of extraordinary ability. Tliis must be acknowledged, as some of the leading Britsh journals admit that her death is a great loss to the party of England. Her countiy residence was the toy-castle which Horace Walpole builtatStrawberry Hill on the banks of the Thames. She had also a town house in Loudon, where she died of acute bronchitis. Her fattier embraced the Christian faith and his childreu were brought up in the Church of England. She was born in 1820, and was consequently in her 59th year at the time of her death. She was married no less than four times. Her first-husband was a Mr. Waldegrave. At his death which occurred in 1840, he left her his large estates. She next, in about a year, married a blood relation of his, the seventh Earl of Waldegrave, who died in 1846. At his death she came into possession of Strawberry Hill, and also into that of large estates which he owned in Somerset and Essex. The next year she married Mr. G. G. Vernon Hareourt. He dying in 1861 she married, for the fourth and last time, Mr. Chichester Fortescue. since become Lord Carlingsford. At tne time of the marriage he was Chief Secretary of Ireland. Lord Carlingsfprd is one of the leaders of the British Liberals, curiously enough, Mr. Fortescue was Mias Braham’s first love, and she his. It is acknowledged that the late Countess was a tower of strength to the Liberal party. Lor nearly forty years*she occupied a leading position in its councils Her residences at Chewton and Strawberry Hill, and her town house in Carleton Gardens, were ever open houses. In them, at her tables, ana asemblies, she received all that was great, noble and talented in English society. Mindful of her own origin, she always extended a helping hand and a generous patronage to rising talent in every walk of life. This her great wealth and also widely extended patronage enabled her to do. A London journal calls her a “Uady Bountiful,” whose good deeds are countless. In fine, the organs of both the great English parties agree in eulogizing her as the most charmiug, most genial, and most, charitable of women. TTiev also express the opinion that it will be a long time before the gap left by her death will be approfiriately filled. The traditions of her sa* on promise to be as famous as those of Holland House.