Chapter XXXV…

Chapter XXXV

One day as I was sitting at dinner with Rosabella, a poor Italian introduced himself to her, and had the art to impose himself upon her as a countryman of her own of very high rank, who had returned from the Spanish wars in the greatest possible distress, and had just left his lovely wife, who was of noble blood, entirely unprotected. Rosabella offered her mite at once. I wish I had followed her example; but, instead of this, in my eagerness to contribute more substantially to his relief, I addressed a letter to Lord Fife, whom I had twice met in Paris, requesting him to take compassion on the unfortunate bearer of it, who found himself, after enduring the fatigues of a hard campaign in Spain, deserted in a foreign land, where he was likely to starve, if none of us came forward with at least so much relief as might enable him to return to Naples. The poor wretch came to me on the following morning, with a countenance which appeared the very image of despair.

"Hélas!" he exclaimed, "milord Fife ne m'a rien donné."

I then recollected my old beau Wellington, who, I knew, was at that time our ambassador at Paris, although I had not yet met with him: but I did not like to intrude myself on his recollection. However, I strongly advised the poor fellow to explain the real state of his case to His Excellency, and to acquaint me with the result.

"Hélas!" reiterated the Italian, again returning, "je ne suis qu'un malheureux. Milord Villainton, ne veut rien faire, pour moi, non plus."

Vexed and hurt at the idea of having given the poor fellow so much useless trouble, I from my own pocket handed him a five-pound note, and promised my influence with Mr. Henry Brougham, who, with Luttrell and his brother Nugent, had just arrived in Paris. My application to that friendly, kind-hearted man was successful, and the next day I presented a second bank-note for five pounds to my poor protégé, who seemed absolutely overcome by excess of gratitude.

Amy, if I recollect right, came to Paris with Nugent and Luttrell: at all events if she was not actually the companion of those famous inseparables, she must have followed them immediately. I remember all three paying me a visit together, and inviting me to visit them in the Rue Mont Blanc.

"What then, do you all live together?" I inquired.

"We have each separate apartments, in the same hotel," they replied, and I agreed to call on them.

As for Meyler, he continued to be all a woman could possibly wish him, as long as there was rivalry with Lord Ebrington; but, as soon as ever his lordship had, or seemed to have, relinquished the pursuit, Meyler left off being amiable by slow degrees, till he became just what he had been before Ebrington had made an infraction in the complete harmony of our ménage. At that time Lord Hertford's remark occurred to me: "Better live on a bone, than with a man of uneven or bad temper."

In one of Meyler's fits of dogged humour, he asked me if I imagined he was vain enough or dupe enough to believe that I had given up such a man as Lord Ebrington for him? "You know, as well as I do," continued Meyler, "that you are only making a merit of necessity. Ebrington got tired of you!"

I bit my lips with indignation, as ladies are wont to do on these occasions; but I remained silent, considering that most dignified. At last I subdued my anger, and held out my hand to him, saying, "Come, soyons amis. It is a great misfortune to yourself that your temper is so unhappy; and therefore I will try and forgive the torment it sometimes occasions me. In regard to what you say of my making a pis-aller of you, it might perhaps not be very difficult to convince you of the contrary; however of this I do not profess to be certain. At a word then, shall I try the experiment?"

"You know I shall not consent or you would not ask me," answered Meyler.

"Be it so then," retorted I; "be it as you will, only pray, pray, a little peace if you please, and a little respite from these eternal quarrels, or part we must and part we will!"

Again we were friends, pour le moment, and again and again we quarrelled. Meyler had his fits of good and bad humour alternately. One hour this peevish, spoiled, provoking little creature would declare that we would never part, and that he had determined never to marry for my sake; and the next, he would say that it was not in his nature to be constant. Sometimes, he would profess to feel respect and friendship alone for me; but as to passion, or anything like love, that naturally had gone by long ago: and then he would make strong love to Rosabella.

I cannot help giving myself some little credit for the patience and command of temper with which I endured all these taunts. On another occasion he assured me, in direct contradiction to all this, that I was so profligate that he could not like or respect me; nay more, it was out of his power to respect any woman on earth, who had shared her favours with more than one man, and that the very strong passion I had inspired him with was his only reason for staying with me.

I began to grow thin and to lose my appetite owing to the wretched life I led with Meyler, and I often asked myself why I endured it. I must have been naturally steadfast in my attachments, or possessed a very good heart. One of these, I hope, cannot admit of a doubt. At length, Meyler began to despair of putting me in a passion by anything he could say on the subject of Lord Ebrington having cut me dead, and of my having made a merit of returning to him, faute de mieux. This was what his jealous, suspicious temper made him really believe, and he never gave a woman the credit of any single good motive for what she did or said. "Perhaps," observed Meyler, in his zeal to tease and provoke, "perhaps Ebrington likes you still and wishes to visit you, while you are so excessively cold-blooded as to leave the man you like to stay with me, because I am so much richer."

"Which of us two must leave the room?" said I, taking up my bonnet and ringing my bell in a violent passion.

Meyler had never seen me so violently disturbed, and half afraid he might have gone too far, he affected to turn the whole into a mere joke, when he took leave of me, as he said, to dress for dinner.

The very instant he had turned his back I wrote a note to Lord Ebrington, declaring whether he ever wished to see me again or not, Meyler and I were now really separated: but that it would certainly make me happy, if he were disposed to convince me he was not offended by what I said to him at our last meeting, by coming to me directly.

Lord Ebrington, who lived in my neighbourhood, was at home, and immediately answered my letter in person. Though his pride had not permitted him to show any symptoms of regret when he was dismissed, yet he very willingly expressed his delight and satisfaction at being reinstated.

"Meyler has accused me of leaving you, to endure his vile temper, merely for his fortune, and that accusation has decided the business. I will therefore receive your visits just as publicly as you please and when you please, for as long as ever we shall both agree together."

Ebrington stayed so long with me, that I was obliged to offer him some of my dinner. In short, difficulties never fail to increase passion even in the coldest breast. Ebrington however, as a lover, was far from cold at any time; but a man may possess very warm passions with a cold heart. Ebrington acknowledged that his heart was cold, at the same time it was on this day rather unusually warmed.

"I love heart in women," said Ebrington, "and am grateful when feeling of any kind is evinced towards me."

His lordship's extreme gentleness of disposition appeared very attractive when set in contrast with Meyler's tormenting, dogged humour. In short, ours bid fair to grow into a strong, mutual fancy, if not to real, true love, selon les règles.

I could not get Ebrington out of the house. He remained with me from five in the evening until past three on the following day, when, after obtaining my promise to receive him again on the same evening, he took his departure in full dress, having called on me the day before, merely with the intention to make me a flying visit on his way to a large dinner-party. Ward, who, as I have before said, had accompanied him to Paris and lodged with him at the same hotel, entered his room just as he had sat down to a second breakfast, without changing his white silk stockings, &c.

"Dejeuner restoratif, apparemment?" said Ward, bowing to him, and mawkish as this may seem in print, it was certainly the most amusing attempt at wit I ever heard from that quarter: although Nugent accuses him of having uttered many more good things.

Ebrington's pretty cabriolet, which he had sent for, was scarcely driven from the door when,--enter little Mr. Dick Meyler, M.P. and sugar-baker, as pale as a ghost! I was really shocked, having seldom seen him look so ill, and I took hold of his hand, which was as cold as death.

"Why, Meyler, will you force me from you, if you really have the smallest attachment for me?"

"I saw Ebrington's cabriolet, and had no stomach for going out to dinner yesterday; so down I sat at my window to watch for his lordship's departure. In about an hour, I saw Ebrington's head put out of your window to order his servant home. I could not endure solitude; therefore, I called on a woman in search of consolation; but she wanted me to make love to her, and I left her in disgust. I then went to Bradshaw, to whom I related everything. He appeared quite surprised at the state of agitation you had put me into, declaring that, from all he had lately observed, he should have firmly believed that I must have been glad and happy to have got rid of you on such easy terms. I was angry and disgusted with him for speaking of you in this manner, and I asked him if he did not think you had used me very ill?"

"'Why,' answered Bradshaw, 'a handsome, young fellow like you, with more than twenty thousand a year, ought not to admit that it was in the power of any woman to use him ill. How the deuce can you fret about one who thus openly leaves you to intrigue with another man, almost under your very nose?'

"'I love her all the better for it; it was a proof of her independence, and affords me a decided proof that my money may all be d----d for anything she cares about it.'"

"You were right there," said I.

"Well," continued Meyler, "as Bradshaw's conversation afforded me no comfort, I returned home to Mr. Brown." (He alluded to an elderly gentleman, a friend and distant relation of his, whom he had invited to accompany him on the continent.) "Mr. Brown expressed himself much struck with my agitated manner and appearance, and strongly advised me to go to bed; but that was impossible. I sat at my window till past two o'clock in the morning, watching for Lord Ebrington."

"And did not you then begin to hate me?" I inquired.

Meyler shook his head, and the tears were actually gathering in his eyes.

"What an unaccountable creature is man!" exclaimed I.

"Ultimately," continued Meyler, "I threw myself on my bed, and fell into a feverish sleep, during which I dreamed that both you and Lord Ebrington were trying to destroy me."

I now felt so tormented between pity for Meyler's unhappiness and disgust at the idea of being longer the slave of such a temper, which no kindness or attention could mend, because it was ever misinterpreted, that I heartily wished Ebrington in Italy, that Meyler might leave me without fear, to join the Leicestershire hunt, since August was fast approaching.

"Anything on earth will I do, for a quiet life," said I to Meyler. "I have suffered too much already. My nerves and health are nearly destroyed, and, if this is the perpetual tax upon a little wit or a little beauty, I would I were a homely idiot and the mistress of some clean little hut, where people would let me alone. I can do very well without love, for I can always find plenty of things to laugh at and amuse myself with, only do for heaven's sake let me alone: for nothing you can now say or do shall induce me to be tormented with your society."

"Then I will very soon take my departure for London," answered Meyler, despondingly, "for I see you are really in earnest. Only promise me that for the short time I feel under the necessity of remaining in Paris, in order to give a fair trial to my medical adviser here, of whom I think highly, not to let me see Ebrington visit you."

"Indeed, I will not," answered I, feelingly, "and I will advise him to continue his journey to Italy very shortly. We will correspond with your permission when you are in town, and yet we may meet as friends. I sincerely wish you happy; but, my dear Meyler, our feelings, tastes and characters being so very opposite, added to your extreme irritability and the very vile opinion you entertain of women, renders it morally impossible for me to enjoy a single hour's comfort, when you consider that you have any sort of right over me. For ever and for ever then, we are now free, mind! and, being free, if the humour seizes us mutually at any future time, we will meet, without feeling it incumbent on us to answer a single question as to how we have been employed, or with whom we have been in love. Indeed, Meyler, you will be happier thus. Don't fret about impossibilities."

Meyler was almost convinced that his temper was too bad for my endurance, and that, in fact, it would be better for both that we separated, and that I should only receive him as a visitor. Still Ebrington affected his spirits so terribly, that I was obliged to promise that he should not for the present visit me.

"I want rest," said I, "and I cannot be teased just now. Allez, mon ami. Amuse toi bien, and be sure to tell me when you go to England, that we may take leave of each other."

Meyler was no doubt affected, and felt deeply at particular moments; but he was a hard liver, and his heart was a cold one. He loved riding and good claret better than the finest woman in the world, so that, the first burst over, I have no doubt, with Bradshaw's help, with whom I knew I was no favourite, he soon learned to support the dire calamity of my loss, assisted by some gay, pretty Frenchwoman, of rather more refined manners than those of his lost Dulcineas. However that might be, he never attempted to visit me during another fortnight or more.

Being tired of the idea of a mere animal, whom I had loved for his beauty, I began to grow in love with mind. Ebrington passed the whole of his time with me; but he never brought his cabriolet to my door, and I strictly enjoined him to watch in every direction for Meyler, before he ventured to approach my house, in order to spare that little gentleman, if possible, the disgust of seeing him enter. Much as I abhorred deception, I considered this a matter of common delicacy towards a man with whom I had once lived as a wife; but, to have denied myself the society of a person so very pleasing, merely to gratify Meyler, who had so coarsely insulted my feelings, I conceived to be quite unnecessary, particularly as I often observed him go out in his barouche with a party of male friends, evidently in improved health and tolerable spirits. Meyler's spirits had never been high since I had known him, owing, probably to a decayed constitution, for even when I first saw him, strong and blooming as he seemed to the careless observer, he had symptoms of decline about him; and one of them was that lovely transparency of skin and the occasional blue tint of his lips.

Ebrington and I were excellent companions. We both knew the world well, and well we both knew how to laugh at it. We often strolled in the Tuilleries, or down the Champs Elysées. One evening we attempted to enter the former just as the hour had passed for the admittance of strangers.

"On n'entre pas," said the garde royale, pointing his bayonet fiercely towards the breast of his lordship, who, without advancing or retreating a single step, fixed his eyes on the man's face and said very slowly:

"Comme il vous plaira! Cela m'est parfaitement indifférent." The guard seemed astonished, and I laughed at his lordship's extreme coolness.

"I take everything in this life coolly," answered Ebrington, "except you," he added smiling. He then related to me the circumstance of his having one night gone, with the Hon. John William Ward, to the Salon des Etrangers, not knowing that an introduction was necessary, when they were refused admittance. "I, of course," continued Ebrington, "took the thing very quietly, with my usual cela m'est infiniment indifférent; but Ward began to bully and make a noise, and swear at them, declaring that he did too much honour to a mere tripod de jeu; but, for my part, I thought him so very absurd, that I was ashamed of him: for, if such was the rule of their house, what were we that should require them to dispense with it?"

It was long since I had been fairly and truly in love. I might very likely have begun again with Lord Ebrington, but that there was a certain hauteur about his character, added to a disposition to be severe and satirical, which rendered him at some moments quite odious. Au reste, few men could, when he happened to be in the humour, render themselves more pleasing to a woman than Lord Ebrington. There was, indeed, much of true dignity in his carriage, manner, and general deportment. His countenance bore a strong resemblance to that of the late John Philip Kemble; but, though I conceive no man alive could be more handsome than Kemble, yet his lordship's features were perhaps more delicately turned: in fact, they would, generally, have had more attraction in a woman's eye, from possessing somewhat more of softness.

Ebrington, in point of every exterior quality, perhaps too in many of his general habits, was a model for English noblemen. Nevertheless, though he never scolded, nor found fault with anybody, he often put me in a passion. If one kept him waiting, or refused even his most trifling request, he would not condescend to complain, and yet there was something about the freezing reserve he assumed on such occasions, which my pride and feeling could ill brook. There was no affectation in this; but much genuine, innate pride. His lordship was a connoisseur in pictures and statues, and a most enthusiastic admirer of Napoleon, to whom he said he had some idea of paying a visit at St. Helena. In short, the only time I ever heard Ebrington speak like a man of warm feelings was one evening as we stood in the Place Vendôme canvassing the merits and the faults of Bonaparte.

Lord Ebrington having accompanied to the continent a party who were impatient to be on their road to Italy, after passing a few more weeks with me began to talk of taking his departure.

"If we like each other again, we will renew our acquaintance on your return," said I, "but pray let us make no promises. I am so delighted to have obtained my liberty, that I am resolved to permit no man on earth to infringe it."

Ebrington, with his cold heart and his proud disposition, naturally loved to feel himself unshackled as well as I did, however he might regret the idea of leaving me. I think Lady Heathcote was one of the party he was to accompany to Italy. Ebrington at last took his leave of me, promising to make Paris in his way back. Our parting was affectionate: it might have been enthusiastic on my part; but that I could not help thinking Ebrington naturally selfish. Yet, since I found him an intelligent, delightful companion, I regretted him for a whole day and night.

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Chapter XXXVI

The next morning Meyler entered my room before I was out of bed.

"Thank God, Ebrington is off for Italy," said he; "and, knowing you were alone, how could I resist paying you a visit?"

"I am glad to see you, poor little Meyler; but how very pale you are!"

"I have had a severe attack of liver," answered Meyler, "which confined me six days to my bed."

"Indeed, if I had known that, I would have gone to see you. I thought you were gone to Brussels or Versailles, when I did not see you pass in your carriage."

"I am going to England," said Meyler. "Paris does not agree with me, neither will I ever again attempt to live with any woman breathing. You are the first, and shall be the last. I now know myself and my temper, and feel that my only chance of enjoying health or quiet is in living alone: my nerves are so terribly irritable."

"Believe me, Meyler," I answered, "I would never have left you had there been the slightest hope that my society and attentions could really contribute to your comfort or happiness. I am naturally affectionate, and much the creature of habit. Even now, I would make any sacrifice for you if I could believe it would do you good."

"I trust we shall always continue friends," said Meyler, holding out to me his hand, which was, as I believe I have before said, without any one exception, the most beautiful hand I ever saw in my life. The tones of his voice, naturally melancholy, were now affectingly so. His eyes were rather sunk, and his manner and appearance touched me deeply. I burst into tears!

He asked me in astonishment what had thus affected me.

I would not tell him that I thought him dying, so I expressed my regret that he had not written to me when he was so ill. "Oh!" answered Meyler, "had we been the best friends in the world, I would not then have admitted you. I hate anybody to come near me while I suffer pain. Their pity, or their attention, only makes me worse."

"I am sure that a hot climate would be of service to you," said I.

"So I am told," replied Meyler, "but I know my own temper, and that nothing which disturbs or irritates my nerves can do me any good; and I hate travelling, and should be out of patience fifty times a day, with the bad roads and various inconveniences one must encounter while journeying on the continent: and then, if I am not to hunt in Leicestershire, I may just as well die at once, since that is the only pursuit I have, and my stud is the only thing I am not tired of."

"Thank you," I answered.

"Oh! perhaps, I still like you; at all events, I like no other woman; but, the fact is, I am naturally a much better friend to men than to women; for I believe and put faith in men, while nothing any of you can say or do ever makes me believe in your affection or sincerity."

This characteristic answer of Meyler's dried up my tears. "Why should I fret about this senseless, heartless being?" thought I.

"You may learn to know and appreciate us better one day or other," I observed coldly.

"I shall go to England in three days," said Meyler. "May I see you constantly till I go?"

It was not in my power to refuse this request from one whom I fancied to be dying in the very bloom of youth; and we passed two whole days together, without once quarrelling. Meyler's late indisposition had, in fact, left him too weak to contend, while I humoured him as though he had been a child.

We slept in separate beds, in the same room; and, on the night previous to Meyler's departure for England, just as we were composing ourselves to rest, Lord Ebrington walked up to my bedside! I screamed aloud. Perhaps I mistook him for a ghost, or, it might be, I dreaded the effect this mal à propos visit might have on poor Meyler's shattered and irritable nerves.

"Dear little Harry, have I frightened you?" said Lord Ebrington, in speechless dismay.

I pointed with my finger towards the small French bed, where poor Meyler was still calmly sleeping, and Lord Ebrington hastily bolted from the room. I then got out of bed, and, after steadfastly examining Meyler's features to ascertain that he really slept, seized my lamp, and hastened to awaken my English maid, who slept in a closet adjoining my bedroom, which was situated next to the entrance-room.

I asked her how she came to be so forgetful as to leave the key on the outside of the ante-room.

Martha was frightened to death and begged my pardon; hoped nothing had been stolen.

"A man has entered our bedroom," answered I, and Martha was thinking about fainting!

"Don't faint," said I, "but secure the door instead." I then crept quietly back to my bed, resolved not to tease poor Meyler by acquainting him with Lord Ebrington's unexpected return. I however wrote to his lordship early the following morning, desiring him not to make his appearance until Meyler should have left Paris.

For more than a month after Meyler's departure for Melton Mowbray, I continued in very low spirits about him. Lord Ebrington, after travelling two whole days along a flat, ugly country, was seized with a fit of love for me, or disgust of flat countries, I am not sure which.

"Suppose we turn our horses' heads towards Paris again?" said Lord Ebrington to Lady Heathcote, on the third morning after they had quitted that gay delightful city. Now it happened to have been long shrewdly suspected, that my Lady Heathcote could refuse Lord Ebrington nothing. However that may be, certain it is, she did not refuse to return to Paris with the rest of the party, which consisted of--I forget who.

Ebrington, on the wings of love, flew to his faithful Harriette, whom he expected no doubt to find like fair Lucretia, surrounded by her virgins, at their spinning wheels; instead of which--but I told all this before.

I fancy his vanity was irreparably wounded with what he saw on his arrival. He had left me in tears, and returned almost under the impression that he should save me from despair. He was half in love with me for my tenderness of heart. We might have travelled to Italy altogether, and I would have rather made the tour of Italy with Ebrington, than almost anybody I knew, now that he had quarrelled with Ward, or rather cut and parted company with him. No wonder! who could travel with Ward? However, Meyler spoiled my preferment with Ebrington by hurting his lordship's vanity and thus damping all his ardour.

We passed about a week together, during which time I was continually talking of poor Meyler and lamenting his precarious state of health. Ebrington took his leave of me and of Paris. Could I wonder at it?

To drown care on this terrible occasion, I went to pay Nugent, Luttrell, and Amy a visit, all under one. There was a smart young Frenchwoman waiting in Nugent's ante-room, and we rated him most unmercifully about her.

"It is invariably the case," said Luttrell with his usual earnestness.

"Nugent ought really to hire some sort of a cheap machine in the shape of an equipage, to bring his ladies home in," Amy observed, "for the poor things look very miserable, arriving always alone and on foot."

"I have just hired a large light blue coach to contain six of them with ease. It is rather dirty, and one of the horses is thin and stone-blind, and the other very lame, so they go extremely well together."

Amy, in the plentitude of her goodness, actually invited me to dine with her. She had found out an excellent black-pudding shop, in the first place; in the second, she wanted me to make her au fait as to what was going on in Paris, and hoped I would introduce her to some nice men, or at all events give her a place in my opera-box, when she should be too poor to hire one for herself. However that might be, I accepted her invitation, because Luttrell and Nugent were pleasant men, particularly the former, and I promised to return to them after I had taken my usual drive in the Bois de Boulogne.

"What can be the matter with you, Harriette?" Luttrell inquired, "that you are eternally driving up that long stupid Bois de Boulogne?"

I replied that I could not live without air.

"Mercy on me, what a tax upon life!" Luttrell said, turning up his eyes.

There were, in fact, but few things which Luttrell did not vote a tax on life, being one of the most dissatisfied men I ever knew.

We were summoned to the common drawing-room to receive the visit of my mother. She complained of inflammation in her foot. Nugent prescribed for her. I was indeed surprised at the very respectful attention he showed towards her, it was so strikingly polite. As we were not alone, she soon left us, and I insisted on her taking my carriage, which she promised to send back for me.

"I have often wondered," said Nugent, as soon as my mother had left the room, "how it happened that so very large a family as yours should not only all be very handsome, but likewise so perfectly lady-like and well bred. Now it is accounted for: the secret I discovered in your mother. I have not for many years felt such perfect respect and admiration for a woman, who at least must be bordering upon fifty. Not only is she still very handsome and delicate; but there is a certain air of modest dignity in her manner, which, I believe, the greatest libertine in France could not fail to be struck with."

I was more grateful to Nugent than I can describe, for this most warm, uncalled-for, and spontaneous praise of my mother. I knew he only did her justice; but how few among the gay and the fashionable, ever think about doing justice to the excellent qualities of a woman of fifty!

"Mind you are here by six," said Amy, as I was leaving her; "because, perhaps, we shall go to the opera, if we can procure a box."

"Vous voilà," said I to myself, and then offered her a place in mine.

"Do be punctual," added she, "for it is not the fashion to dress unless when there is a new piece. Come as you are. That is a beautiful plume of white ostrich-feathers in your bonnet. You are always so very magnificent. Remember, black-puddings are good for nothing cold. The French consider them a very recherché dish I assure you, and they are much more expensive than in town."

I returned to Amy's just as her black pudding was being served up, and for once in my life I met Luttrell without Nugent.

"Nugent is not dead, I hope?" said I.

"Oh no," answered Amy, "he has just taken out one of his ladies in his large blue remise."

"Shocking work!" Luttrell observed, with just as pious a face, turned towards the ceiling as though he had not lately stepped out of window for love and regard of that fair she who set his brain a madding.

Amy was in a great hurry to go to the opera, and we were comfortably seated in my private box before eight o'clock, and soon visited by my late, mild, and gentle acquaintance, Lord William Russell, who really appeared very glad to meet with me. In the room downstairs we mustered a tolerably brilliant number of beaux about us, for Paris; but Paris was not London. Among them was Lord Fife, who came sailing towards me the moment I entered the room.

"How do you do? How do you do?" said Fife. "Very glad to see you in Paris. Who would have thought to find you here? By the bye, you sent me the greatest rogue in the world some time ago, who told me a long story about having served: all entirely humbug. I know Spain well enough, and he had never been there in his life. Could not give the least description of it."

"I am truly sorry that I threw away five pounds on him then; for I might have guessed that your kindness would not have refused to assist him if he had been deserving."

"I did not refuse," answered Fife. "You know my way, I give to everybody, good, bad, or indifferent. I gave him ten pounds, and told him he was the greatest rascal I had ever met with."

I resolved never to be duped again.

"May I presume to inquire after the petite santé of Miss Eliza Higgins?" I asked.

"Oh! You are always quizzing me," answered Lord Fife, without answering my question.

Just as Amy, Luttrell and myself were seated in the carriage, Nugent came puffing up to it, whispered in my ear, "Beg ten thousand pardons, Harriette; but want to oblige a lady here, and am going to call on another. You will infinitely oblige me by setting her down. I know I take a liberty; but you may take two with me some other time in return."

It was easy to guess the style of lady who would be at the opera alone, trusting to chance or Nugent for a conveyance.

"Agreed," answered I, "so that I may affect not to understand a word of French."

"Certainly," said Nugent, handing into my carriage a very gaily dressed young lady, whom I set down where he directed without exchanging a single word with her.

As one always requires a good supper after dining at Amy's expense, I accepted Luttrell's invitation to eat cold chicken and drink champagne. During our supper, Amy was entertaining us with the delightful qualities of one Mr. Grefule, a Swiss banker residing at Paris, whom I thought the most absurd, affected, mean, contemptible blockhead I had ever met with. It is true I knew but little about him and cared less, and may have been mistaken in all but his stinginess, of which I had an opportunity of judging, having heard that subject discussed by those who knew him well.

"You surely must be in love with his large property?" said I to Amy.

"In love with his property! Why is he not an Adonis?"

Amy's Adonis is a short, thick man, almost a mulatto, with little purblind eyes and straight, coarse, black hair; and his age at least five and forty.

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Chapter XXXVII

The next day, Henry Brougham, M.P., engaged me to dine with him at Verié's in the Palais Royal. He had invited Nugent and Luttrell to join us, but not Amy. The shrewd observations which Brougham made during dinner, on all he had heard and seen in the morning, having passed several hours of it listening to the debates, dans la Chambre des Pairs, not only amused, they astonished me. I never yet came in contact with such a memory as Brougham's in my life. It was not like Worcester's, gaping wide open, to receive and retain all the trash that might assail his ears. Brougham caught the substance and pith of what he heard with peculiar tact, while the prose and folly appeared to have flitted across his memory but an instant, and then passed away like chaff, leaving only real matter behind.

After dinner, we went to witness Talma's performance in one of Racine's tragedies, Brougham being a very great admirer of French dramatic poetry. Before we parted, Brougham promised to present me to a very interesting new acquaintance of his, in the shape of a very fine, noble-looking, elderly man, whose name I have forgotten. He was a peer of France, and certainly one of the best bred and most imposingly respectable men I ever had the good fortune to meet with. He did Brougham and me the honour to accompany us to the Théâtre François, and I saw him depart with feelings of real regret, being well aware that I was not likely to fall into his society again.

Brougham I saw very frequently, and I one day took the liberty of consulting him on the subject of my annuity from the Duke of Beaufort, which His Grace refused to pay me, owing to my having been induced to write a few lines to Lord Worcester, contrary to the letter of the bond.

Brougham said boldly, and at a public dinner-table, that it was a mean, paltry transaction, the object of the duke being fully obtained by my final separation from his son, to seize hold of such a pretext for depriving me of a bare existence. He advised me to bring the cause to trial by all means; had no doubt of its success; afterwards wrote to me from England to the same effect, and I showed his letter to young Montagu, who was a friend of the Duchess of Beaufort, and often on a visit to her at Badminton. This gay young man was, however, now passing a few weeks at Paris.

Before Brougham went to England he very kindly promised to give me every assistance in his power, provided I would take the advice he so strongly recommended, of proceeding against his Grace of Beaufort.

"In the first place," said Brougham, "Lord Worcester could not in common decency, even supposing it were possible that he wished it--and I will not for an instant imagine that possible, or in human nature--but even if he wished to bring your letter, written under such circumstances, in evidence against you, shame must hold him back."

Everybody agreed with Brougham. Even his friend Montagu said that, of course, Lord Worcester would not think of turning witness against me in a court of justice. That he said was quite out of the question; but he understood that his evidence on oath would not be required to prove that I had forfeited the bond.

I asked Montagu how he could excuse his friend the Duke of Beaufort for acting so very selfish and mean a part towards me, who had trusted so entirely to his honour.

"Why, as for the duke," said Montagu, "he was wholly guided in this business by Lord Worcester. For my part, I do not want to enter on the subject of what you may or may not deserve from Lord Worcester; but this I will say, that be your merits or demerits what they may, I think Worcester ought not to leave you unprovided for. It was due to himself and to his high rank after what had passed, that you should not be thrown upon the wide world, and so I would tell Worcester as I tell you, were he here at this moment. In Worcester's place I would most unquestionably have seen you provided for."

Now it would certainly be very easy for Montagu to deny having uttered one word of the above; for I cannot prove that he did. Luttrell and Nugent were present it is true: but this discourse, having been addressed to me by Montagu, who sat next to me at a dinner, or evening-party, and in a low voice, they in all probability had something more pleasant to do than listen to us. Nevertheless, as I believe in my heart that Edward Montagu is a perfect gentleman, he will not, I imagine, be ashamed to avow anything he ever said to me on this or any other subject.

I was very sorry to lose Brougham's society: his polite attention had flattered me greatly, and his conversation had been a source of the highest gratification to me. I disliked the idea of proceeding against the Duke of Beaufort: however, I promised to take the matter into serious consideration, and Brougham took his leave of me and of Paris nearly at the same moment.

During my stay in Paris Lord Herbert was introduced to me by Mr. Bradshaw. It was at a large party. I remember that I was very much struck with Lord Herbert's beauty, for it was generally believed that he was married to the Duke Spinelli's sister, whose name I have forgotten. As we had much conversation together, I asked him if this was really the case.

"No, to be sure not," answered his lordship, to whom the subject appeared to be very annoying. "How can you fancy I would marry a d----d old Italian, old enough to be my mother? She answered my purpose very well while I was there, and I certainly entertained a violent passion for her. We, in fact, never met during her husband's existence, but at the risk of both our lives in the event of a discovery, which was not at all impossible. Our only place of rendezvous was the garden. The very night her husband died I made a bet that I would accomplish my wishes as usual; and I won it."

Had Lord Herbert's profligacy not been so extravagant, I should probably have fallen in love with him; but profligacy, and such profligacy, in a man, was ever disgusting to me. I allude to that bare-faced want of decency which is in so very bad taste, and more particularly when it is unaccompanied by wit or humour; for then it appears in all its native ugliness! Not that I love a saint: but rather something which is most luxuriously sly and quiet.

As I was one day taking a solitary drive up the Champs Elysées on my road to the Bois de Boulogne, the Duke of Wellington galloped past my carriage. He did look at me; but passing so rapidly I was uncertain whether he recognised me or not. In another instant he had returned and was at the side of my carriage.

"I thought it was you," said Wellington, "and am glad to see you are looking so beautiful. I'll come and see you. How long have you been in Paris? When may I come? Where do you live? How far are you going?"

"Which of these questions do you desire to have answered first, Wellington?" I inquired.

"I want to know where you live?"

"At thirty-five Rue de la Paix."

"And may I pay you a visit?"

"When you like."

"I'll come to night at eight o'clock. Will that suit you?" I assented, and shook hands with him. His lordship was punctual and came to me in a very gay equipage. He was all over orders and ribbons of different colours, bows, and stars, and he looked pretty well.

"The ladies here tell me you make a bad hand at ambassadorship," said I to him.

"How so?"

"Why, the other day you wrote to ask a lady of rank if you might visit her, à cheval? What does that mean pray?"

"In boots, you foolish creature! What else could it mean?"

"Why the lady thought it just possible that the great Villainton, being an extraordinary man, might propose entering her drawing-room, on the outside of his charger, as being the most warrior-like mode of attacking her heart."

"You are a little fool," said Wellington, kissing me by main force.

"And then your routs are so ill conducted, the society so mixed."

"What is that to me? I don't invite the people. I suppose they ask everybody to avoid offence. Who the devil was that old woman last Friday?"

"What do you mean? I was not there. What sort of an old woman do you allude to?" I inquired, laughing.

"An old woman, with a piece of crape hanging down here," said he, pointing to his breast, "and ragged, red shoes."

"How am I to know all your ragamuffins?"

I hope my readers have now had enough of the immortal Wellington. In short, they must e'en be satisfied, whether they have or not; for they will get nothing better out of him.

Wellington was no inducement for me to prolong my stay in Paris, and as Buonaparte was now on his way from Elba, I began to prepare for my departure. The English were all hurrying away in a state of great alarm.

My mother, having settled herself in a small house just out of Paris, expressed her determination to remain where she was; so did Amy. They were neither of them in the least alarmed. For my part, besides being very anxious to see my sister Fanny, my finances required that I should return to London.

Before I quit Paris, I must once more revert to the "comment ça va?" of the Prince Esterhazy, who thus addressed me in his usual coarse style at a masquerade, but without his mask.

Lord Beauchamp asked His Excellency to remain with me, while he left us to pay his respects to some old acquaintance.

In the course of our conversation, the prince let fall a remark which astonished me. He actually alluded to our former intimacy!

"What intimacy ever existed between you and me, pray, beyond that of common acquaintance?"

"Est-il possible? Did nothing more happen?"

"Do you doubt it still?"

"To be sure. I really thought I had been your favoured lover for some time, when I was last in England!"

"Your intrigues then are so frequent, that you forget with whom they occur it should seem?"

Esterhazy laughed with the most perfect self-complacency.

I met the Prince in the New Road, at the outskirts of London, some time afterwards. He pulled up his horse, to inquire about my health and learn where I was to be found. I gave him a very incorrect address, and his groom had on the following day failed to find me out. The prince then set off in his curricle, to search for me himself, and, having found a house in the neighbourhood where I had formerly lived, he wanted the owners to take charge of a letter for me, which was rudely refused. On the third day, the prince's servant was again despatched on the same errand, and he was at last successful.

"I have been two whole days vainly endeavouring to find you out, madam," said the servant, while delivering into my hands the prince's note, which contained an earnest request for me to appoint an hour to receive his visit.

I named Sunday at two o'clock, and immediately handed over his note to Mr. Livius, the amateur play-writer, French horn-blower, lady-killer, &c. He joined with me in anxious surprise, at what this sudden impressement, of a man who for years had been in the constant habit of meeting me in public, could mean.

On Sunday morning, it so happened that Livius wanted me to read my translation of Molière's play to him.

"But the German prince?" said I.

"Oh never mind a German prince! I'll wait in the parlour while you speak to him, in case he should have any secret communication to make to you."

Livius called at one o'clock, and, just as I was about to begin my play, Esterhazy drove up to my door.

Livius saw him from the window, and went down into the parlour.

The prince entered and, throwing off his large German cloak, shook hands with me.

"Prince," said I, "I know you don't come here to make love to me, which knowledge renders me the more curious to learn what you do come here for."

"Why," said the prince, "I have a high opinion of you, and always had."

I bowed.

"In short, I have great confidence in you, and think you a very clever good creature, besides that you speak and write such excellent French."

"True, prince! I remember that, presuming on this good opinion of yours, some time ago I ventured to address a letter to you in French, requesting you for old acquaintance' sake to send me a little cash, of which I stood much in need; but neither my excellent French nor all my other charming qualities to boot could excite in you the least desire to serve me."

"Quite the contrary," said the prince, "nothing will give me greater pleasure."

"Indeed! Why they say you are at all times the most stingy rich man in Europe."

"I assure you, Harriette," answered the prince, "that you can have no conception of the vast number of letters I receive containing applications for money. It is indeed quite impossible to satisfy them all: but, as to you, as a proof of my goodwill, I beg you to accept what I happen to have about me."

He took out his pocket-book and presented me with a ten-pound note!

This Prince Esterhazy was nothing to me, and never had been, nor could be but a common acquaintance; so I thought I might just as well buy myself some little trinket with his magnificent donation as refuse to accept it.

"It is all I happen to have about me," said the prince, observing that I blushed for him, not for myself, at the insignificance of the sum; "but, rely on my future friendship. I am going to point out to you how we may serve each other very effectually. I want a friend like you. It is what I was always accustomed to have in Paris. In short, I want to make the acquaintance of some interesting young ladies. I hate those which are common or vulgar; now you could make a party here in this delightful, pretty cottage, and invite me to pay my court to any young lady of your acquaintance, perhaps your sister!"

"Do you allude to an innocent girl, prince?" said I; "and do you really imagine that, for all your fortune, paid to me twice over, I would be instrumental in the seduction of a young lady of education? And, if I would, would you not yourself scruple, as a married man, to be the cause of misery to a poor young creature?"

"There are many girls who determine on their own fall," said Esterhazy. "All I want is that, when you see them going down, you will give them a gentle push, thus," said he, "to accelerate their fall," making signs, with his hand, on my shoulders.

"Prince," I replied, "I will never injure a woman while I breathe, and I will assist and serve those of my own sex whenever I can, as I always have done. No innocent girl, however inclined she may be to fall, shall receive the push you suggest from me. On the contrary, I will always lend my hand, as I did to my sister Sophia, to try to prevent her from falling, or to lift her up again. If I knew a poor young creature, deserted by her friends and her seducer, and you would make a provision for her during her life, I would for her sake, not for yours, perhaps present her to you."

"Perhaps I would make a settlement on her," said Esterhazy; "but mind, she must be very young, very fair, and almost innocent."

"The only person I know who exactly answers your description, and for whom as a poor deserted orphan it would be a charity to provide, is in Paris."

"She might just as well be in the East Indies," said Esterhazy.

"Why you are like the princess in Tom Thumb! And all the while you have the enjoyment of the most beautiful wife in Europe!"

"Oh Harriette! a wife is altogether so very different from what is desirable, no sort of comparison can be made with them; but," continued His Excellency, taking up his cloak, "I cannot possibly stop now, because I must meet His Majesty at this very hour. Tell me the best time to find you and I will come often. In the meantime, pray write to me. You shall see me very soon:" and he hurried away.

In two days he came to me again, in a dirty great coat, all over wet and mud, just at my dinner-time. He placed himself before my fire so that I could not see a bit of it, with his hat on, and declared he was much disappointed at not having heard from me.

"Take your hat off, prince," said I.

"I never take it off, nor behave differently to the first duchess in the land! It is my way. I cannot alter it. I am too old to mend. I saw two of the most lovely sisters, walking with their mothers to-day. They would not measure round the waist more than so much"--describing to me the circumference with his hands. "I watched them home, to No.-- in ----Street. Do pray contrive to get acquainted with them."

"You had better leave my house," said I, beginning to be truly disgusted at the very honourable employment which this princely representative of Imperial dignity, morality, disinterestedness, and humanity wished to force upon me.

"At all events, take off your hat, prince, and let me see the fire!"

"I tell you I will do no such thing," asseverated the prince, with the dignified positiveness of his own imperial master.

"Ou ôtes ton chapeau, monsieur le prince, ou va-t-en au diable! comme je t'ai dis auparavant," said I, in a passion.

"Je prendrai le dernier parti," said the prince, leaving the room.

"Et tant mieux," I observed to him, as he went downstairs.

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Chapter XXXVIII

I am indeed most inexcusably forgetful, I should otherwise have described, in its proper time and place, that famous masquerade which was given by the members of Wattier's club, to all the nobility in England, in honour of peace between Great Britain and France, which occurred prior to my leaving England. It was the most brilliant assemblage I had ever witnessed. Amy, Fanny, and I were promised tickets from the very beginning; but poor Julia was not popular. After making vain applications to half the town, and to all the members of the club who were stewards of the feast, she at last addressed herself to Lord Hertford.

"I am not a member of Wattier's; therefore I cannot obtain a lady's ticket for you," said his lordship; "but, if you like to go in boy's clothes, I have one at your disposal; but not transferable, mind."

Julia was very shy and did not like boy's clothes; but Julia's legs were perhaps the handsomest in Europe, and then Julia knew there was no remedy: so, after accepting Lord Hertford's polite offer with many thanks, I accompanied her to Mr. Stultze, the German regimental tailor and money-lender in Clifford Street.

It was just before I left England for Paris. I cannot think why I am so very careless as not to put more order into my Memoirs. However, when a person gives a bad dinner, and apologises for not giving you a better, the apology is always more insufferable than the dinner.

We asked Stultze's advice about a modest disguise for Julia, and he referred us to a book full of drawings therein exhibited, the dress of an Italian or Austrian peasant-boy and girl, I forget which; but I remember that Julia wore black satin small-clothes, plaited very full, round the waist, à la Cossaque, fastened tight at the knee, with a smart bow, fine, black, transparent silk stockings, black satin shoes, cut very short in the quarters, and tied with a large red rosette, a French cambric shirt, with beautifully small plaited sleeves, a bright blue, rich silk jacket without sleeves, trimmed, very thick, with curiously wrought silver bell-buttons, and a plain, round black hat, with a red silk band and bow.

I, as Julia's fair companion, was to wear a bright, red, thick silk petticoat, with a black satin jacket, the form of which was very peculiar and most advantageous to the shape. The sleeves were tight, and it came rather high upon the breast. It was very full-trimmed, with a double row of the same buttons Julia wore. My shoes were black satin, turned over with red morocco; my stockings were of fine blue silk, with small red clocks; my hat was small, round, and almost flat, the crown being merely the height of a full puffing of rich pea-green satin ribbon. The hat was covered with satin of the same colour, and placed on one side at the back of the head. The hair was to fall over the neck and face in a profusion of careless ringlets, and, inside my vest, an Indian amber-coloured hankerchief.

Stultze brought home our dresses himself in his tilbury, on the morning of the masquerade, being anxious that we should do him credit. Everything fitted us to a hair. The crowd was expected to be immense, and we were advised to get into our carriage at five in the afternoon, as, by so doing, we should stand a chance of arriving between nine and ten o'clock, at which hour the rooms were expected to be quite full.

Fanny chose the character of a country house-maid. She wore short sleeves to show her pretty arms, an Indian, glazed, open, coloured gown, neatly tucked up behind, a white muslin apron, coloured hankerchief, pink glazed petticoat, and smart, little, high, muslin cap.

What character in the name of wonder did Amy choose? That of a nun, forsooth!

We were actually on our road, seated in the carriage, from the hour of five till nine. At last we arrived and were received at the first entrance-room by the Dukes of Devonshire and Leinster, dressed in light blue dominos. They were unmasked, this being the costume fixed on for all the members of Wattier's club. No one else was to be admitted but in character. The newspapers described this most brilliant fête in glowing colours long ago, and much better than I can do it; I will therefore merely state that it exceeded all my highest flights of imagination, even when, as a child I used to picture to my fancy the luxurious palaces of the fairies described in my story-books.

One of the immense suite of rooms formed a delicious, refreshing contrast to the dazzling brilliancy of all the others. This room contained, in a profusion almost incredible, every rare exotic root and flower. It was lighted by large, ground-glass, French globe-lamps, suspended from the ceiling at equal distances. The rich draperies were of pale green satin and white silver muslin. The ottomans, which were uniformly placed, were covered with satin to correspond with the drapery, and fringed with silver. Mixing carelessly in the motley throng, I did not discover this charming spot till I had been there some time.

On our entrance, the Duke of Devonshire presented us with tickets for a raffle. "These," said His Grace bowing low, without in the least guessing who we were, "these tickets will entitle you to one chance each in the lottery, which will commence drawing at twelve o'clock."

The two best characters in my opinion, were the Honourable Douglas Kinnaird as a Yorkshireman in search of a place, and Colonel Armstrong as an old, stiff, maiden-lady of high rank in the reign of Queen Anne. He wore no mask; but his face, though curiously patched and painted, was easily known. He sat on a bench, with his hoops and ruffles and high powdered head, his point laced lappets, &c., fanning himself, and talking to his young maids of honour, who sat, one on each side of him. Everybody who passed stopped to examine him with much doubtful curiosity, which was constantly followed by a loud laugh, and exclamations of, "It is Colonel Armstrong!" "Ha! ha! ha!" "Capital." Those who could command their countenances among the ambassadors, and men who bore high characters, for that night at least, addressed him in the most obsequious manner, with "I hope your ladyship caught no cold at Lady Betty's last night. Immense crowd! Charming evening!"

Armstrong answered all these orations, sticking close to the character and with the most dignified politeness, while the loud, vociferous roars of laughter, which were bestowed on his successful efforts to make himself so very ridiculous, never once tempted him to move a single visible muscle of his odd countenance.

One of his lace lappets came unpinned.

"I'll trouble you for a pin, my dear," said Armstrong to one of his attendant maidens.

"I have not got one," answered the fair virgin, in confusion.

She was, if I remember rightly, a young rake of fashion thus disguised.

"Oh fie, child! You ought always to have your pincushion about you. Always, always, child!" fanning himself with increased rapidity.

Douglas Kinnaird was unfeelingly severe on almost everybody in their turn. To one gay fashionable mother, whose name I have forgotten, he said, "Why Missis, you've been hawking them girls all over the world for these last six years, and sin they be made to hong upon hond like, mayhap they'd go off better all of a lump, if you was to tie um up in bunches you see, as they do cherries, look ye. I manes no offence."

Fanny, in her housemaid's dress, and with her natural, lively humour, made an excellent companion for Kinnaird, who appeared much pleased with her and delighted to draw her out, although he had not any idea who she was. The fact is, we had determined not to unmask or make ourselves known to anybody during the whole evening.

Meyler looked very interesting and handsome, in his blue domino of rich Gros de Naples. I had given him leave to find me out if he could, and I guessed that he was busily but vainly employed in the pursuit. I waltzed and danced quadrilles with half the young ladies and gentlemen in the room.

"Is that a boy, or a girl, think you?" was the question from every mouth, as Julia and I passed them. "The leg is a boy's, the finest I ever saw," said one; "but then that foot, where shall we find a boy with such delicate feet and hands?" Still it remained a puzzle, and everybody seemed undecided as to the sex of Julia.

"Who can they be?" said Mrs. Scott Waring to Berkeley Craven.

"I want to know myself," answered he; "for I am in love with the lady's feet."

"I think they are both ladies," returned Mrs. Scott Waring.

"Pray who made that lovely shoe to fit that pretty foot so charmingly?" Berkeley Craven asked me.

I was determined not to open my lips, lest my voice should betray me to Berkeley Craven.

"We are admiring your feet and ankles," said Mrs. Scott Waring, addressing herself to me; but I was still dumb, preferring the idea of passing for a fool, to the risk of making myself known. At last, Meyler discovered my sister Fanny by her voice.

"Pray point out Harriette to me," said Meyler, "for I am tired and worn out with my fruitless search."

"That is Harriette," answered Fanny, directing his attention to a young flower-girl who, with her disguised mincing voice, kept him a quarter of an hour in suspense, before he could ascertain the joke Fanny had practised against him; and it took him a second quarter of an hour to find Fanny again.

"Oh you little, wicked, provoking creature!" exclaimed Meyler, at length, catching hold of her hand. "I now vow and declare not to relinquish this fair hand until you conduct me to your sister."

"Upon my word and honour that nun is my sister," answered Fanny, leading him towards Amy, who was standing near her in conversation with Colonel Armstrong.

"Thank you," said Meyler, releasing Fanny's hand in his zeal to join the nun.

Fanny was out of sight in one instant, and, in the next, Meyler had discovered his mistake and resumed his pursuit of her.

"Why is this unusual pressure of company?" I inquired of a gay captain of Italian banditti with whom I had been waltzing. It was owing to the raffle! Having been absolutely carried along by the immense concourse of ladies, we came up close to Lord Kinnaird, who was dealing out the blanks and prizes.

"Nay, don't push forward so, ladies," said his lordship, "now, pray, really, I must beg. This is almost unladylike. Patience then! Ladies, I cannot endure this pressure. Ladies, I must retire. Ladies, I am overpowered," and he handed some one a small French prize; to Fanny a pretty brooch; to me, a blank. "Ladies, I never knew ladies so violent and rude before."

Poor man! He might well complain, supposing he had been the meekest of Christians, which is not exactly the case: for never was poor knight of the ladies so hemmed in, squeezed and teased.

Lord Kinnaird is not, I have heard say, a popular man; but as I have always seen him pleasant and gentlemanly, except when fair ladies tried to squeeze the breath out of his body, it gives me pleasure to assert that I cannot help thinking favourably of him, notwithstanding he admired my sister Amy infinitely more than me.

William Lamb, who is very handsome, wore a magnificent Italian dress, supported no character, and looked so stupid, I could not help fancying that Lady Caroline had insisted on his showing himself thus beautiful, to gratify her vanity: for, to do William Lamb justice, his character is in truth a manly one, and I will venture to say this said tawdry dress was never one of his own choosing.

I know not how I came to lose my party, just as the grand supper-rooms were thrown open to accommodate, as I should guess, at the least five thousand people. I was in a great fright lest I should lose my supper. The rooms were suddenly deserted. I found myself alone; but it was only for an instant. A gentleman, in a rich white satin, Spanish dress, and a very magnificent plume of white ostrich-feathers in his hat, suddenly seized me in his arms, and forcing over my chin my mask, which was fastened loosely to admit of air, pressed his lips with such ardour to mine that I was almost suffocated; and all this without unmasking, but merely by raising for an instant, the thick black crape, which fully concealed the lower part of his face. I would have screamed, but from a dread of what might follow.

"This is most unmanly conduct," said I, as soon as I could recover my breath.

"My dear, dear, sweet, lovely Harriette," said the mask, "I implore your forgiveness of a poor married wretch, who hates and abhors the wife whom circumstances oblige him to fear. I have been mad for you these five years. I knew you were here, and how could I fail to discover you? I shall never on earth have such another opportunity, and I had taken an oath to press my lips to yours as I have now done, before I died."

"I believe this to be all nonsense," answered I, "so pray tell me who you are."

"So far from it," answered the mask, with mysterious earnestness, "that, after what has passed, were you to discover me I would blow my brains out."

"Not surely, if I were secret as the grave itself?"

"I would not trust you! But come, I am keeping you from your supper. I accompanied my wife in the disguise of an Italian monk, and having only this instant changed it for the gay one I now wear, I will venture to hand you down to supper, and place you at the greatest distance from my own family; but I entreat one more kiss, dear Harriette, and if ever the fates make me free then you shall not doubt my affection. The feelings you have inspired in me are unaccountable, even to myself. I am in love with your character."

"Are you old?"

"Guess my age," answered the mysterious mask.

"To judge of you by the nonsense you talk, I should say twenty; but by your voice, your hands, and your person, I should say five and thirty."

"No matter which," said the mask, sighing, or making a feint to sigh. I do not pretend to say it was a true, genuine sigh! "No matter; for I shall, I fear, never enjoy your society more."

I liked his voice, and there was something romantic throughout this little adventure which pleased me. I was in high spirits, and the mask's beautiful dress was set off by a very fine person: and so, when he again insisted on more kisses, I candidly confess I never once dreamed of calling out murder.

"Come," said the mask at last, dragging me hastily towards the supper rooms, "you shall not lose your supper for such an insignificant wretch as I am: and yet, had I known you before my marriage, my dearest and most generous of all human beings, you should never have been exposed to the cold-blooded, unfeeling wretches, who have always taken such an unfair advantage of you."

"Why be a slave to any unamiable woman?" I inquired.

"Political necessity," replied the mask, in a low whisper.

"Do you think I believe all this incredible, romantic nonsense? Why you are some strolling player perhaps!"

"No matter: for we are not likely to meet again," the mask said coldly.

"I am glad," added he, "that the little you have heard and seen of me is disagreeable to you; for, neither wife nor children nor politics should have kept me from Harriette Wilson, if it had been possible for her to have loved me only half as much as she once loved----" he paused.

"Who?"

"Ponsonby."

"Do you know Lord Ponsonby?" I inquired, with surprise.

"It is of no consequence. You are losing your supper. I will conduct you to your own party."

The mask now hurried me along so fast, that I arrived at the table panting for breath.

"Make room for your sister," whispered the mask in Fanny's ear, as soon as he approached her, and the next moment we were both seated.

"Is there nothing in the tone of my voice or in my manner which seems familiar to you?" questioned the mask, in a low voice.

"Nothing, positively."

"And my kisses? Think you that you felt them to-night for the very first time in your life?"

I started, and threw a hasty earnest glance on the person of the stranger; for there had indeed seemed magic in his kiss; and, while his lips were pressed to mine, I did think on Ponsonby, yet it was quite impossible that this should have been his lordship, who was I knew on the continent. Neither was it his voice nor his person.

"Tell me; did you several times receive money sent to you in a blank envelope by the post?"

"And was it you who----?"

"No, not I," interrupted the mask. "A mere accident made me acquainted with the circumstance, and yet I am always near you, I watch over you like a poor wretch, as I am," said he, seizing my hand, and, pressing his lips most ardently on every part of it, he arose from the supper table and was out of sight in an instant.

Before I could recover my astonishment, a man habited as a friar came towards me, and bending his head close to my ear said, in a tremulous voice, affected by real agitation, or, if otherwise, it was excellent acting, "Farewell, daughter! Every night I shall fervently pray that you and I may love each other in a better world!" It was the stranger-mask, who again vanished from my sight never to return.

I soon forgot this odd adventure; because I was not so radically vain as to conceive it possible that I could have excited such deep interest in the breast of any individual, as could thus survive hope and feed on air! "It is a mere masquerade-trick, got up to perplex me; so I'll e'en not puzzle about it," thought I.

"Have you everything that you require, at this end of the table?" said Meyler, passing close to me, and bowing with distant respect; for the table was so excessively crowded, and there were so many more housemaids in nearly the same costume as Fanny, that he passed her without observing his late tormentor, otherwise he might have guessed that I could not be far off.

Douglas Kinnaird kept up his character the whole of the evening, and contributed much to our amusement during supper. This consisted of every rare delicacy, in and out of season. The wines were delicious, and the members of Wattier's club were as attentive to us as though they had all been valets, and bred up to their situations like George Brummell, who, by the bye, was the only exception. Instead of parading behind our chairs to inquire what we wanted, he sat teasing a lady with a wax mask, declaring that he would not leave her till he had seen her face.

I love a masquerade; because a female can never enjoy the same liberty anywhere else. It is delightful to me to be able to wander about in a crowd, making my observations, and conversing with whomsoever I please without being liable to be stared at or remarked upon, and to speak to whom I please, and run away from them the moment I have discovered their stupidity. Fanny was very angry with me for running away from her after supper; but I was in my glory, and determined to enjoy myself in perfect freedom. I chatted with everybody who addressed me, just long enough to ascertain that they were uninteresting people.

At last I found myself in the still quiet room I have before described. It was entirely deserted, save by one solitary individual. He was habited in a dark brown flowing robe, which was confined round the waist by a leathern belt, and fell in ample folds to the ground. His head was uncovered, and presented a fine model for the painter's art. He was unmasked, and his bright penetrating eyes seemed earnestly fixed, I could not discover on what. "Surely he sees beyond this gay scene into some other world, which is hidden from the rest of mankind," thought I, being impressed, for the first time in my life with an idea that I was in the presence of a supernatural being. His attitude was graceful in the extreme. His whole countenance so bright, severe, and beautiful, that I should have been afraid to have loved him.

After watching his unchanged attitude for nearly ten minutes, I ventured to examine that side of the room towards which his fine head was directed; but there was nothing visible at all likely to fix the attention of any one after the first coup d'oeil. "Can this be a mere masquerade-attitude for effect, practised in an empty room?" though I, being almost convinced that I had not been observed. His age might be eight and twenty, or less; his complexion clear olive; his forehead high; his mouth, as I afterwards discovered, was beautifully formed, for at this moment the brightness of the eyes and their deep expression fixed the whole of my attention. "Surely that man's thoughts are occupied with intense interest, on something he sees, which is beyond our common sight or conception," said I, encouraging the mysterious turn of ideas which had obtained the mastery over my imagination: and I will speak to him. I approached slowly, and on the points of my feet. The stranger seemed not to have observed me; for he did not change his position, nor did his eyes move from their fixed and penetrating gaze on what seemed but space and air, until I came up, close to him, and addressed him thus:

"I entreat you to gratify my curiosity. Who and what are you, who appear to me a being too bright and too severe to dwell among us?"

He started violently, and reddened, while he answered rather peevishly, "You had better bestow your attention on some one more worthy of you, fair lady. I am a very stupid masquerade-companion;" and he was going away.

"Listen to me," said I, seizing one of his beautiful little hands, urged on by irresistible curiosity, "whoever you are, it is clear to me, that my intrusion bores you; but it cannot be more annoying to you than your running away will be to me. Do not torment me, to secure to yourself a moment's ease. I promise to leave you at liberty in one quarter of an hour; nor will I insist on your disclosing your name, and I promise you shall not know mine."

The stranger hesitated.

I had addressed him in French; because I wore a foreign costume, and had promised Meyler, when he presented me with a ticket, that I would remain the whole evening incognita.

The stranger hesitated.

"Don't you understand French?" I inquired.

"Perfectly."

"Well then, take out your watch. In one quarter of an hour you shall be free from all my persecution; but, give me that time, pray do!"

"Agreed," said the stranger smiling, as he gracefully offered me his arm.

"This," said I, pressing the arm I had taken, "this seems, I am sorry to say, to be mere solid flesh and blood. I had fancied----"

"What?"

"Why," continued I, half ashamed of myself, "upon my word and honour, I do confess I thought you something supernatural!"

The stranger's countenance brightened, and he asked me eagerly if I had ever seen him before.

"Never, nor am I naturally superstitious or weak."

"I am not much like the world, I believe," said the stranger; "but I am merely one of ye."

"Does not that satisfy you?" I inquired.

"No; I would be more or less: anything rather than myself; but what is all this to you? Are you a Frenchwoman?"

"No; English."

"Nonsense!"

"Fact, upon my word."

"Well then, let me hear you speak in your own language?"

"Excuse me."

"Allons! I like even an Englishwoman better than a Frenchwoman. Not, I assure you, from any national prejudice in their favour; but, Frenchwomen are my aversion, generally speaking."

"No matter, I do not require you to like me, for you are too handsome to love in vain."

"What! Then you really could not return my passion?"

"No, upon my word; and yet your countenance is magnificently beautiful!"

"So much the better," answered he; "for I am sick to death of woman's love, particularly to-night."

I looked at the stranger with earnest curiosity.

"You are what most ladies would call very conceited and impertinent, but I can forgive you; because I have not discovered any affectation in your manner, and you appear to speak as you feel, and to feel like a man whose natural superiority has made him despise and look down on the common every-day blessings of life."

"Perhaps you are right, and no doubt I have been very rude: but then you really struck me as rather a sensible girl, and, if so, you will not like me the worse for saying whatever comes into my head, just as it may occur. Why did you make believe to be English?"

"An Englishwoman would have had too good taste not to have fallen in love with you, perhaps you mean; but," added I, in English, "the fact is, I am English: nevertheless, I could not love you, though you were to break your heart about it."

"Who can you be?" said the stranger, in evident surprise, "and why, if you dislike me, were you so very desirous to speak to me?"

"Who on earth could dislike you? Now would I forswear love, which has hitherto been my all, to follow you to banishment or to death, so that I could be considered your equal, worthy to be consulted by you as a friend; for, though I do not know you, yet I guess that you are on earth and that there's nothing like you. I could pity you, for your fifty thousand weaknesses and errors, adore your talents, and----"

"Here is a high flight," interrupted the stranger, "I can now guess who you are; but dare not name the person I take you to be, lest I offend. Yet," and he paused to examine my person and my feet, "yet, it is impossible it can be anybody else. Why did you affect not to know me? Was it one of my weaknesses you wanted to humour, by appearing to guess me something out of the common way?"

"Indeed I do not know you: and it has only this instant struck me, for the first time, that you must be Lord Byron, whom I have never seen."

"And you are Harriette Wilson."

We shook hands cordially.

"I know you hate me, Lord Byron," said I.

"On the contrary, upon my word, you inspired me with a very friendly disposition towards you at once. I was in the humour to quarrel with everybody, and yet I could not resist offering you my arm."

"You did not, I fear, believe in women's friendship and affection, towards men they could not love."

"Why could not you love me? Mind, I only ask from curiosity."

"It is a foolish question."

"I agree with you. Love comes on, we know not why nor wherefore, for certain objects, and for others never will come."

"And yet, I think, I can describe why I could never entertain anything like passion for you. Your beauty is all intellectual. There is nothing voluptuous in the character of it. Added to this, I know that such a man as you are, ought not, or if he ought, he will not, make woman his first pursuit; and, to love at all, he must feel pride in the object of his affections. I might excite your passions; but then, such contempt as you have lavished on poor Lady Caroline Lamb would kill me."

"Is there any sort of comparison to be made between you and that mad woman?" Lord Byron asked.

"No matter! I would never put myself in the power of a man who could speak thus of any lady whom he had once professed to love."

"How do you know I ever did?"

"Those letters, in her ladyship's novel, Glenarvon, are much in your own style, and rather better than she could write. Have you any objection to tell me candidly whether they are really your originals?"

"Yes! they are. But what of that? Is it not absurd to suppose that a woman, who was not quite a fool, could believe in such ridiculous, heartless nonsense? Would not you have laughed at such poetical stuff?"

"Certainly. Those letters would have done more to convince me of your perfect indifference, than even your silence and neglect. Nobody ever did or can impose upon me by a heartless love-letter. Quand le coeur parle, adieu l'esprit. It is, in fact, almost impossible to compose anything, which has a resemblance to strong feeling, when one is addressing a person towards whom our heart is cold."

"I am glad we agree on one point. Now, with regard to my various errors, of which you have been pleased to make mention."

"I did not do so to wound or to vex;" interrupted I, "but you are too touchy and susceptible. I am surprised at what, when carried to excess, I conceive to be the defect of a little mind. However, much may be said in extenuation of your sensitiveness; because you are in ill-health, and may be blue-devilled, when you see things in such a sickly light, or suspect persons of meaning to insult your feelings, when they perhaps never once thought about you in their lives."

"You use me worse than anybody, and yet, touchy as I am, I really like you, because I feel the conviction, that you would sacrifice your own interest to do me good: and, suspicious as you are pleased to describe me, I am convinced that there is nothing you could ever say or do to me, but I should take as I know it would be meant, in good part. You have perhaps the sort of plain understanding which would serve to make me better; but you could not live with me or endure much of my society. I am, in short, determined that you shall like me all my life, and I know myself too well to believe that to be possible, were you to see me at all times."

"As you please. Remember I am always, while I live, your faithful friend, proud when you will employ me or invite me near you, yet submitting to your better judgment with philosophic cheerfulness, whenever you may desire my absence."

"I thank you very sincerely," said Lord Byron, pressing my hand with much friendly warmth.

"You must be ill or unhappy, when you are so violent and gloomy," I continued, "and, while your genius is delighting all the world, it is hard, and deeply I lament, that you do not enjoy such calm tranquil thoughts, as I shall pray may yet be yours."

"Who shall console us for acute bodily anguish?" said Lord Byron, in a tone of wild and thrilling despondency. "But," added he hastily, "you are a dear, good-natured creature to waste the gay fleeting pleasures of this evening, in listening to the despair of a wretch like me."

I pressed his hand to my heart because being masked, I could not kiss it.

"I seldom have intruded my wretchedness on others," said Lord Byron.

"A thousand thanks, my dear Lord Byron. You do, I know, feel sure of my heart. We are all more or less subject to bodily sufferings. Thank God, they will have an end."

"And what then?" inquired his lordship.

"We will hope, at least, that bodily pain and anxiety shall cease with our lives. This, surely, is a reasonable hope. In the meantime, yours cannot be all made up of bitterness. You have enjoyed exquisite moments of triumphs, and you have written the Corsair!"

"True! I cannot deny that my sensations are sometimes enviable. You have already done me good, and you and I are now, I hope, sworn friends. Something has this day ruffled me beyond my stock of patience. I must leave you; but we shall meet again, and you will let me hear from you I hope. Or, do you mean to forget me? I may not long continue in the same country with you; but wherever I am, it will console me to know that I am remembered kindly by you."

"Do you wish to leave me now, then?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Thank you for being candid, and God bless you, dear Lord Byron," said I, this time raising up my mask, that I might press his hand to my lips.

"Amuse toi, bien, mon enfant," said Lord Byron, drawing away his hand from my mouth, to give me an affectionate kiss.

I saw no more of him for that evening; but I offered up a fervent, short, ejaculatory prayer to Heaven, for this interesting young man's better health, and then joined the noisy merry throng in the adjoining rooms.

A party of high-bred young ladies, with whom I had danced before supper, came round me, and asked me if I was too tired for a quadrille. "But do, for heaven's sake, take off your mask, child: it really is such affectation! What are you afraid of? I am sure you cannot be so very ugly as to be ashamed of your face, with those bright hazel eyes, and all that fine hair!"

"Come," said another, "let me untie your ugly mask; we are all so tired of looking at the nasty simpering expression of it."

While I was defending my mask Fanny passed me, followed by Meyler, who was still tormenting her to tell him under what disguise he must look for me.

"There," said Fanny, "Harriette is among those ladies. There are not more than eight or ten of them, and I declare to you that I will not point out Harriette from the rest, say or do what you will." Meyler, in his anxiety to make us all speak to him, suffered Fanny to depart in peace. He did not once address me, but stood puzzling between a gipsy-girl and a flower-girl, till I was induced so far to take compassion on him, as to place my hand in that of the gipsy, making signs for her to tell my fortune, as though I had been representing a dumb woman.

Meyler examined my hand and nails attentively, and then called me by my name.

"I could swear to this hand anywhere; but how you have tormented me to-night," said Meyler.

The novelty of my dress seemed to make the impression on Meyler, which a new woman might be expected to make on a man, who, like him, was so fond of variety. He was quite in raptures, and refused to leave my side an instant during the remainder of the evening, lest any famous knight-errant should carry me off in a balloon.

At eight o'clock in the morning an excellent breakfast was served. It consisted of coffee, tea and chocolate; and, when I returned home at half-past nine o'clock, I heartily wished that the whole fête would begin again.

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Chapter XXXIX

Very soon after this I left London for Paris, as I have already described, and I must now carry my readers back a few pages, to that part of my Memoirs where I have stated that my finances required my return to London.

I passed the whole of the last day with Rosabella, who was in an agony of passionate grief, when at last I, with my English maid and femme de chambre, was seated in the carriage. She absolutely called after the post-boys, and insisted on once more pressing me in her arms. Any one who had heard her sobs would have thought she was parting with a beloved husband for ever: and yet, when we afterwards got her adored Bonaparte into our power, Rosabella cut me dead, just as if I could possibly have helped it.

I arrived in town late in the evening, and was immediately visited by my constant swain, Lord Frederick Bentinck, whom I found at least as entertaining as usual. I visited my sister Fanny early the next morning, and presented her son and heir, George Woodcock who, strange to tell, had actually forgotten his English and answered everybody in French, to his mother's great surprise and amusement.

Amy continued with Paget, and insisted with much vulgarity on his appearing with her everywhere in public; particularly at the opera, because Mrs. Berkeley Paget frequented the theatre herself.

I forget whether the Prussian King and the Russian Emperor were in London, or only expected; but I remember well that London had never been so brilliantly gay in my time before, and the opera-house was perhaps never so crowded, in the memory of any person now living, as on the night that these two crowned heads, accompanied by our own beloved Sovereign, who was then Regent, appeared at this theatre. Thirty guineas were, I know, refused for a box on the upper tier.

Amy, with her usual selfishness, forced herself into my box, which was already crowded almost beyond endurance, because it exactly faced the royal one. No less than fifty people obtained permission to take a peep at the three reigning princes from my excellent position. Altogether, I had like to have been suffocated. A little before the curtain dropped, I contrived to secure a seat near the entrance to the upper room, called the round-room, which faces the Haymarket. There I waited patiently till the gay crowd should disperse, amusing myself by endeavouring to guess at the characters of those persons who were nearest me.

Lady Anne Wyndham was leaning against the crimson door in her most studied attitude: her swan's-down tippet thrown back on purpose to display her bosom, while the same set soft smile she had worn for the last twenty years played on her lips, and might have played there unobserved till doomsday, but for her faithful solitary swain, Cecisbo or lover, I know not which appellation he best deserved, my Lord Petersham, who was eagerly making his way through the crowd in his outré costume d'Espagne, in order to pay his respects to her ladyship. His address was most correctly elegant, his school, Lord Chesterfield, with less of pedantry, or the late Duc de Richelieu perhaps, without his depravity.

"I am quite distressed," said his lordship, after performing his graceful bow of six years studying, "that I have been prevented joining you earlier. I am afraid you found the heat very oppressive to-night. Allow me to offer you these violets," presenting a small bouquet between his delicate finger and thumb. "They are, I know, the flowers you prefer." Lady Anne became broad awake, if not animated by the attention of her admirer.

I now observed a very corpulent gentleman sailing towards us. He had a lady leaning on his right arm, and two ugly, tawny daughters on his left: all three seemed ready to expire under the pressure of heat and finery.

"La! papa, don't pull so," said the eldest daughter.

"Somebody has shoved the comb out of my head, I declare; and I have torn my dress," said the youngest.

"Why don't William stay with the girls?" said mamma. "I declare I am squeezed to death."

Beau Brummell, at this moment, passed immediately between Lord Petersham and this interesting family party. As the pressure prevented the possibility of advancing, the corpulent gentleman, after taking out his pocket-handkerchief and wiping his head and face, seemed about to address Beau Brummell, and I promised myself not a little amusement, from observing the very essence of vulgarity in close contact with the finest man in town.

"Warm work this, sir," said the corpulent gentleman to Brummell, who merely answered by a look of dismay, softened, however, by a glance at the muscular strength of his neighbour.

"Pray, sir," said the fat gentleman, speaking louder, "may I be bold to ask which of they two foreigners might be the Russian Emperor?"

"Sir?" said Brummell, shrugging up his shoulders, and turning up his eyes from Lord Petersham to the ceiling in utter despondency at observing no possible means of escape. The man of real high rank and breeding might here have been easily distinguished from the mere man of impudent pretensions. Lord Petersham good-naturedly condescended to answer for the beau.

"Thank you, sir," said the fat gentleman. "I thought so; and, do you know, I likes the look of him."

"Pa!" said the eldest daughter, anxious to be thought of consequence, and having actually made a slight acquaintance with Lord Alvanly by accident, "here comes our friend Lord Alvanly."

Lord Alvanly, much amused at finding the Smiths in such society, affected great cordiality, and shaking them heartily by the hand, begged to have the honour of introducing Mr. and Mrs. Smith, also the two Misses Smith, to Lord Petersham and Mr. Brummell. On hearing the name of Brummell Mr. Smith, mistaking it for some acquaintance of his own, repeated the name to himself, "Brummell! Brummell!"

"I believe, sir," addressing the beau smirkingly, "I fancy, sir, I have had the pleasure of meeting you before? I am sure I have. You are the gentleman as sung such a good song at our club."

The well-taught muscles of Lord Petersham's face were nearly giving way, not only against all superfine Chesterfieldian rules, but common civility. Even Lady Anne's placid waxen smile was almost enlarging into a laugh, at the idea of Brummell singing a good song at Smith's club; but Lord Alvanly whispered gravely in Smith's ear, that he had no doubt it was the very same person, adding that Mr. Brummell did sing a remarkably good song; but was always shy at receiving compliments, in public.

"Sir," said Smith, bowing to Brummell, "I shall be most happy to see you at my snug box at Clapham. All my family are fond of a good English song, and I will venture to say I can give you as good a bottle of port wine as any in England."

Brummell here forced his way through the crowd in a fit of desperation and disappeared.

"That's a queer chap!" said Smith, much offended; "but, good Lord, who have we got here? Crazy Jane?"

The personage who thus excited his surprise was Lady Owen, who came sailing towards them under the escort of a young barrister, whose broad unmeaning face some ladies have been pleased to call handsome. A profusion of full-grown artificial wheat was scattered over her head in grotesque confusion. Several dark ringlets were suffered to fall loosely over her neck and shoulders, and the rest was confined by immense red roses, indigenous, probably, to Brobdingnag or Patagonia, or some other climate where everything is gigantic. She did not appear to affect youth, but voluptuousness; rolling her eyes in affectation of libertinism, such as she had no inclination to indulge, yet seemed as anxious to excite, as if it had been her natural vocation. Indeed that was the character of her countenance, which could have expressed no other feeling even at her best beloved's funeral!

Miss Smith now addressed a young man, with stiff dark whiskers, by the appellation of brother, who, though a better grammarian, appeared to be as much more radically vulgar than his father, as he was presuming and self-sufficient.

"Laws! William," said his youngest sister, "Pa has had a nice job with us three women."

"We are very much obliged to you, indeed," the eldest Miss Smith observed.

"I told you before," said the pompous youth, pulling up his neck-cloth without looking at his sisters, "I have frequently informed you that brothers attending their sisters in public is not at all the correct thing, neither is this the proper spot to wait in."

"Don't tell me your nonsense about the proper spot," said old Smith, "I have almost had the breath shoved out of my body to-night."

"Pray William," said his mother, "why do you come to the Hoppera in that hodious round 'at, after giving such a price for a three-cornered one?"

"If you inquire, Madam," answered William, with grave contempt, "you will learn that a round hat is the correct thing at this time of the year."

Hearing the clock strike three, I immediately fancied myself half dead with fatigue, and hurried to my carriage as fast as the crowd, which still continued, would permit me.

Meyler, as I had been informed, while at Paris was consoling himself with a Mrs. Stonyer, as she was called, because she lived with Mr. Stonyer. However, I saw him at the Opera looking so very pale and ill that my heart relented, and I wrote to inquire after him, and the next day he called upon me. I asked him if he was much in love with his new acquaintance.

"Not at all," said Meyler; "but, Stonyer being such a fool, there was no resisting the amusement of making him a cuckold. How do you think I manage it at Melton?"

"How should I know?"

"Why we all go out hunting together and, when I have rode a few miles, I wink at the rest and fall down from my horse, or affect to hurt my ankle. I then express my vexation at being obliged to return home to nurse myself. Stonyer condoles with and offers to accompany me. I insist on his remaining to enjoy the fine sport of the day, and I go back to his mistress. However," continued Meyler, "she got jealous and fond of me latterly, which disgusted me, and I cut her. She then so far lost sight of common prudence as to send her good man Stonyer after me."

"My Mary Ann," or "my Betsy," or whatever her name was, which I have forgotten, "wishes, of all things to see you, if you please," would he say to Meyler, and when Meyler rudely refused to obey the fair lady's summons, Stonyer would remark to some of his Melton friends in a whisper, that, being a delicate subject, he could not well consult Mrs. Stonyer concerning Meyler's rudeness, in being sulky and refusing to obey her invitation: but he was himself pretty shrewd and could guess how the affair stood. He was afraid his friend Meyler had presumed to take some slight liberty with Mrs. Stonyer, which must have seriously alarmed her, and which she must have resented, perhaps so harshly as to wound Meyler's pride in a way not to be overcome.

"Stonyer," Fred Bentinck would sometimes say to me, "Stonyer is like a man in a play; a man quite below par. I never heard such a fool off the stage. He often calls me aside, with much mystery and, having got me into a corner, whispers in my ear that he is afraid we shall have a wet season."

Somewhere about this time John Mills of the Guards insisted on falling in love with me, merely to prove himself a fashionable man. Being a friend of Meyler's, I could not easily avoid making his acquaintance. He was rather well informed: but a stiff, bad imitator of Meyler's gentlemanly carriage and manner: a sort of man who would rather have died than not been a member of White's club, at the door of which he always wished his tilbury and neat groom to be found, between the hours of four and five. From that he went into Hyde Park, for such was the fashion, and he had a chance of meeting Brummell and Meyler there. The former was just now getting into disgrace. The story was this.

Brummell, Alvanly, and Worcester agreed to raise thirty thousand pounds on their joint securities. Brummell, having made Worcester believe that he was at least competent to pay the interest of the debt, the money was raised, and the weight of the debt was expected to fall on the Duke of Beaufort, who, after strict inquiry, ascertained that Brummell was deeply involved and without even the most remote prospect of ever possessing a single guinea. When Meyler heard this he became furious, both on his friend Worcester's account and his own, declaring that Brummell had borrowed seven thousand pounds from him, which he had lent in the fullest conviction that Brummell was a man of honour.

I asked Meyler how he could be so very stupid as to have been deceived, even for an instant, about Brummell.

"Why, did not everybody think so?"

"Certainly not. Brummell was pretty generally known for a man destitute of feeling or principle; but he looked well at an assembly, and was the fashion."

"I would forgive him the seven thousand pounds he has robbed me of; but, on Worcester's account, I shall expose him to-morrow at White's."

"Why not let Worcester fight his own battles?"

"That is just what, for the Duchess of Beaufort's sake, I wish to prevent."

"I think you may trust Worcester, who has no sort of inclination to fight Brummell nor anybody else."

"No matter. Brummell I will certainly expose; because he has basely obtained a sum of money from my friend."

"So has Lord Alvanly."

"But then, Lord Alvanly may at least contrive to pay the interest; therefore it was not so complete a fraud. Nevertheless, I hold it my duty, as an independent gentleman, never to give my countenance nor society to a man who has done a dishonourable action. I shall therefore cut Lord Alvanly wherever I meet him, notwithstanding no man delights more in his amusing qualities than I do; but, believing that society would be much improved by general firmness of this kind, no power on earth should prevail on me to swerve from this my fixed determination."

Meyler strictly adhered to this resolution to the day of his death. Even when he met Lord Alvanly in the Duchess of Beaufort's box, or no matter where, he never spoke to him again. Alvanly used to rail at Meyler for this, as might naturally be expected, calling him a d----d methodistical grocer, &c.

The little sugar-baker kept his promise of exposing Mr. Brummell at White's Club, where he placed himself the following morning for the sole purpose of saying to every man who entered, that Mr. Brummell's late conduct both towards the Marquis of Worcester and himself, had been such as rendered him a disgrace to society, and most unfit to remain a member of that club. Tom Raikes, I believe it was, who acquainted Brummell the next day of this glowing panegyric on his character.

Brummell addressed a few lines to Meyler, begging to be informed if such had really and truly been the expressions made use of.

Meyler answered that not only he had used expressions, but that he further proposed returning to the club on the following day, for the sole purpose of repeating them between the hours of two and four, to anybody who might happen to be present, and, if Mr. Brummell had anything to say to him in return, he would be sure to find him at White's during that particular time.

Brummell never made his appearance in London after the receipt of this letter, which gained Meyler the nickname of the dandy-killer. Since then, dandies have gone out of fashion.

Brummell, finding himself on his last legs, made the best of his way to about a dozen of his former acquaintances, from most of whom he had already contrived to obtain large sums of money.

"Play has been the ruin of me," said he to each of them in turn. "I now throw myself on your compassion, being in a wretched plight; for I have been led into such scrapes, as oblige me to leave London at a minute's notice, and I have not a guinea to pay post horses."

Many of them gave him a fifty-pound note; so did John Mills I believe; but first, he expostulated with the beau, and asked him what excuse he could offer for having already obtained such large sums from one who knew so little of him.

"Why," said Brummell to several of these half-and-half sort of gentry, "have not I called you Dick, Tom, and John, you rogues? And was not that worth all the money to you? But for this, do you fancy or flatter yourselves that you would ever have been seen picking your teeth in Lady Foley's box, or the Duchess of Rutland's? John Mills above all!"

Brummell was soon after this established in Calais, and half the world went to see him, as though he had been a lion. I determined to do so too on my return to Paris, where I promised to join my mother as soon as I had settled the business which had brought me to England. In the interval, I passed much of my time with Fanny, who now saw a good deal of Lord Bective. Her health continued much as usual.

Lord Byron paid me frequent visits; but I really cannot recollect whether it was just at this period or later in that year or the next. No matter, Voltaire says somewhere, that provided there was a battle, it does not signify when it took place. His lordship's manner was always natural, sometimes very pleasant; but generally egotistical. He would listen to one's conversation just as long as he was entertained by it and no longer. However, he very good-naturedly permitted one to grow tired of him in the like manner, which was more than many great men could pardon. Once he talked with me on religion till I grew weary and absent. He then fixed his expressive eyes keenly on my face for an instant, as if to read my thoughts before he ventured to proceed, and complacently changed the subject, observing, "I have tired you to death on religion. Let us talk of the gay world, men and women! Perhaps you may find me less tiresome."

"You are never tiresome on any subject; but I was vexed, and tired of the vain attempts I have been making to change such opinions, as seem to engender black melancholy, in the mind of a man superior and amiable, as you would be with a happier temper. It was indeed the very height of vanity and folly in me, to have hoped for an instant, that anything I could say would influence you."

"The strong proof that you have affected me by much which you have been saying, is the energy and nerve with which I have been striving to refute your arguments during the last half-hour. Do you believe I should have taken all this trouble, if you had said nothing to strike me or throw new lights on a subject which is often tormenting me?"

"Why not make up our minds that we know nothing, and then, while we quietly follow the dictates of our own consciences, hope the best?"

"Very comfortable doctrine, certainly," said Lord Byron: "but, if thoughts and wishes, boundless as the heavens, will force themselves on a soaring inquisitive mind almost to madness, while shame for its own littleness, and dread of a future which cannot be understood or avoided, contribute to disgust me with my present state, and make me the wretch of impulse which you and all must hate----?"

Lord Byron uttered these words in such a tremendous, loud voice, that his strength and feelings were suddenly exhausted, and his countenance changed to the ashy paleness of death as he threw his head against the back of the sofa whereon he was sitting. Common-place words of sympathy and condolence I conceived must be thrown away on any person, at a moment when the feelings were so highly wrought. I therefore silently placing myself by his side imprinted a kiss on his hand. He was in the act of withdrawing it almost furiously; but I fixed my eyes upon his face, and their expression must have pleased him; for he immediately replaced his hand in mine, which he pressed very affectionately. I reclined my head on his shoulder, in order to talk to him with less formality.

"It is the over-excitement of a too active mind which operates thus upon our nerves," said I, trying to identify myself with his mental sufferings. "It would surely soothe us, could we in such moments recline on the fresh grass by the side of a clear brook, and amuse ourselves in luxurious indolence watching the pebbles, as we threw them into the water, until the monotony of this lazy occupation should put us to sleep, when we might happen to dream of infinite space, and freedom, and joy, with no sad void left aching in the breast."

Lord Byron smiled on me with the earnest warmth which a parent would show towards a child, in reward for its attempts to please and amuse him.

"One day or other such a dream as this shall be eternal;" I continued, and, without giving him time to argue on the subject I drew his attention, as if by accident, to some of the most striking and animated beauties of his Corsair, just as they had really impressed me. Where is the author who can be indifferent to the genuine unhackneyed praise bestowed on his own composition?

Lord Byron gradually recovered his serenity, and, before we separated, we had mutually indulged in many a hearty laugh at the expense of false prudes: ladies who put their heads into their pillows, while affecting to cry nay, and, at the same time, elles se prêtent à la circonstance. But never mind what we laughed at, or how absurd our conversation, so that poor dear Lord Byron got rid of his sombre melancholy.

We met on various occasions previously to his separation from his wife; and his lordship made me very happy one day, by assuring me that there was a soothing kind of softness in my temper and disposition, which, joined to much playful humour, had more than once saved him from feelings nearly allied to madness.

Speaking one day of the severe critique published by the Edinburgh reviewers on his first work, entitled Hours of Idleness, I mentioned my surprise at his lordship having been so irritated and annoyed by it.

"I can easily conceive a stupid, prosing poet, who felt his own inferiority and despaired of writing anything better, becoming furious at such absurd scurrility; but I should have expected you to have read it without feeling your temper ruffled; though, in fact, your poetry was perhaps a little lame: but the satire directed against it became pointless, from its unnatural severity."

"And where did you ever see a stupid, prosing poet, who did feel his own inferiority?" asked Lord Byron. "As a boy, I certainly had a strong suspicion that I possessed unusual abilities; but I was by no means convinced of it: and I often felt myself very deficient in things which it was incumbent on any man to know. I offered my work to the public in fear and trembling; for I knew but very little of the world, and was foolishly sensitive."

Speaking of vanity some time afterwards, Lord Byron remarked, laughingly, that he was tired of praise as Lord Byron, because it now became a thing of course; but still he felt at all times proud and grateful, when any stranger took him for a very fine fellow.

"I, one day," he continued, "determined to try what effect I could produce on an untaught servant-maid. She was very pretty and not, I think, deficient in natural abilities, though it is really very good of me to say so; for she could not endure me! I made myself very smart too at our second meeting, and she became a little more reconciled to me before I left England. However, she certainly was much more in love with a young shop-keeper in the neighbourhood. You made my vanity ample amends: for I am too proud of your spontaneous good opinion, to suffer myself to doubt the truth of your former assurance, upon your word and honour, that you did not know me when you addressed me at the masquerade."

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Chapter XL

Lord Ebrington came to see me in town on his return from Italy, and declared me so delightful that I reminded him of les beaux vieux temps passés. I nevertheless went hack to Paris, without doing anything with the Duke of Beaufort respecting my annuity.

I cannot help thinking that many persons are governed rather by worldly than by moral principles, in their determination to praise everybody they know without rhyme or reason: for I have been acquainted with many, to whom mild Christian charity was a stranger, who courted popularity by indiscriminate praise of the good and of the bad. Coldness of heart renders all this easy and natural.

The good-natured man, says some great writer or other, is generally without benevolence or any other virtue, than such as indolence and insensibility confer. Now, the selfsame energy and warmth of heart, which creates enthusiastic admiration of the virtuous and amiable, excites the strongest feelings of resentment against those who are capable of meanness or dishonour.

Few were, I believe, unacquainted with the real character of Beau Brummell, among those who courted, praised, sought and copied him. The prudence of such conduct can no more be doubted, in my humble opinion, than its injustice towards the truly amiable. Although for my part I never affected friendship for Mr. Brummell, either in his day of triumph or since his disgrace, yet curiosity induced me to inquire about him as I passed through Calais.

"C'était un homme charmant" his French language-master informed me. "Qu'il avait un ton parfait; que c'était aussi étonnant, qu'heureux qu'il n'eut jamais appris à parler Français, en Angleterre."

I made the beau a hasty visit, just as the horses were being put to my carriage. My inquiry, "Si Monsieur Brummell était visible?" was answered by his valet, just such a valet as one would have given the beau in the acme of his glory, bien poudré, bien cérémonieu, et bien mis, que Monsieur fesait sa barbe.

"Pardon," added the valet, seeing me about to leave my card, "mais Monsieur reçoit, en faisant la barbe toujours. Monsieur est à sa seconde toilette, actuellement.

I found the beau en robe de chambre de Florence, and, if one might judge from his increased embonpoint and freshness, his disgrace had not seriously affected him. He touched lightly on this subject in the course of our conversation, faisant toujours la barbe, avec une grace toute particulière, et le moindre petit rasoir, que je n'eus jamais vu.

"Play," he said, "had been the ruin of them all."

"Whom do you include in your all?"

He told me there had been a rot in White's club.

"I have heard all about your late tricks in London," said I.

Brummell laughed, and told me that in Calais he sought only French society; because it was his decided opinion that nothing could be more ridiculous than the idea of a man going to the continent, whether from necessity or choice, merely to associate with Englishmen.

I asked him if he did not find Calais a very melancholy residence.

"No," answered Brummell, "not at all. I draw, read, study French, and----"

"Play with that dirty French dog," interrupted I.

"Finissez donc, Louis," said he laughing, and encouraging the animal to play tricks, leap on his robe de chambre de Florence, and make a noise. Then, turning to me. "There are some pretty French actresses at Paris. I had such a sweet green shoe here just now. In short," added Brummell, "I have never been in any place in my life, where I could not amuse myself."

Brummell's table was covered with seals, chains, snuff-boxes and watches: presents, as he said, from Lady Jersey and various other ladies of high rank.

The only talent I could ever discover in this beau was that of having well-fashioned the character of a gentleman, and proved himself a tolerably good actor; yet, to a nice observer, a certain impenetrable, unnatural stiffness of manner proved him but nature's journeyman after all; but then his wig--his new French wig was nature itself.

From what I had heard of the hero's fall, I fully expected to have found him reclined on a couch worn down to a skeleton, and with these lines of the poor Cardinal Wolsey, or the like of them, ever and anon in his mouth:

Go get thee from me! I am poor fallen man. No sun shall ever usher forth mine honours, Or gild again the noble hoofs that waited Upon my smiles.

Quite the contrary however was Brummell, who, had he not covered his bald pate with the said model of a wig, would have looked just as usual.

At Paris, I found most of my friends just as I had left them. Rosabella was delighted to see me. Nugent's old blue remise was still kept in constant motion, rattling about the dirty streets of Paris after his favourite women, and Amy's eyes still rolled and ogled her ugly Swiss banker, Monsieur Grefule, who, being still cruel, my pen was employed to melt his Swiss heart; but one might as well have attempted to thaw a Swiss mountain-cape of ice.

I think it was during this visit of mine to Paris, that I happened to be in want of money, an exigency by no means unusual with me; and, having considered who was most likely to give it me, after vainly applying to Argyle I fixed on Lord Byron, who was at that time in Italy: and I addressed him as follows:

"Paris, 15_th March._

"MY DEAR LORD BYRON,--I hate to ask you for money, because you ought not to pay anybody: not even turnpike men, postmen nor tax-gathering men: for we are all paid ten-fold by your delicious verses, even if we had claims on you, and I have none. However, I only require a little present aid, and that I am sure you will not refuse me, as you once refused to make my acquaintance because you held me too cheap. At the same time, pray write me word that you are tolerably happy. I hope you believe in the very strong interest I take, and always shall take, in your welfare: so I need not prose about it. God bless you, my dear Lord Byron.

"H.W."

By return of post, I received the following answer:

"Ravenna, March 30_th._

"I have just received your letter, dated 15th instant, and will send you fifty pounds, if you will inform me how I can remit that sum; for I have no correspondence with Paris of any kind; my letters of credit being for Italy; but perhaps you can get some one to cash you a bill for fifty pounds on me, which I would honour, or you can give me a safe direction for the remission of a bill to that amount. Address to me at Ravenna, not Venice.

"With regard to my refusal, some years ago, to comply with a very different request of yours, you mistook, or chose to mistake the motive: it was not that 'I held you much too cheap' as you say, but that my compliance with your request to visit you, would just then have been a great wrong to another person: and, whatever you may have heard, or may believe, I have ever acted with good faith in things even where it is rarely observed, as long as good faith is kept with me. I told you afterwards that I had no wish to hurt your self-love, and I tell you so again, when you will be more disposed to believe me.

"In answer to your wish that I shall tell you if I was 'happy,' perhaps it would be a folly in any human being to say so of themselves, particularly a man who has had to pass through the sort of things which I have encountered; but I can at least say that I am not miserable, and am perhaps more tranquil than ever I was in England.

"You can answer as soon as you please: and believe me

"Yours, &c. "BYRON.

"P.S. Send me a banker's or merchant's address, or any person's in your confidence, and I will get Langle, my banker at Bologna, to remit you the sum I have mentioned.

"It is not a very magnificent one; but it is all I can spare just now."

Answer:

"Paris, 30 Rue de la Paix.

"Ten thousand thanks, dear Lord Byron, for your prompt compliance with my request. You had better send the money to me here and I shall get it safe. I am very glad to learn that you are more tranquil. For my part, I never aspired to being your companion, and should be quite enough puffed up with pride, were I permitted to be your housekeeper, attend to your morning cup of chocolate, damn your night-cap, comb your dog, and see that your linen and beds are well aired, and, supposing all these things were duly and properly attended to, perhaps you might, one day or other in the course of a season, desire me to put on my clean bib and apron and seat myself by your side, while you condescended to read me in your beautiful voice your last new poem!

"Apropos! I travelled with a man lately who had just left you. I forget his name; a sort of a lawyer as I guessed, because he would talk about the 'parties' every few minutes. No! he could not be quite so bad as that neither. I don't know what he was; but he had not the least mite of skin on his long, thin, straight nose. That had been all entirely burnt off, he said, while he was enjoying the charms of your delightful society at Venice. Heaven defend me from such a nose, however poetically bestowed upon me! Don Juan kept me up the whole of last night. I will not attempt to describe its beauties, as they struck and delighted me; because that would be at the expense of another night's rest: and, what can I say to you, who know well that you are the first poet of this, I am inclined to think of any, age? And, being this, as well as young and beautiful, why condescend to resent our sins against you? A common man might as well be angry with a wasp, as Lord Byron with a common man, when he is waspish towards him, and let me ask you, what harm the commandments ever did you or those who believe in them since they teach nought but virtue. And what catchpenny ballad writer could not write a parody on them as you have done? Souviens toi, comme tu es noble, et ne te mêle point de tout cela. Let our religion alone, till you can furnish us with a more perfect creed. Till then, neither you nor Voltaire will ever enlighten the world by laughing at it.

"It would serve me right, were you to refuse to send me what you promised after my presumption in writing you this sermon. However, I must be frank and take my chance, and, if you really wish to convince me you bear no malice nor hatred in your heart, tell me something about yourself; and do pray try and write a little better, for I never saw such a vile hand as yours has become. Was it never a little more decent? True, a great man is permitted to write worse than ordinary people; mais votre écriture passe la permission. Any one, casting a hasty glance at one of your effusions, would mistake it for a washer-woman's laboured scrawl, or a long dirty ditty from some poor soul just married, who humbly begs the favour of a little mangling from the neighbouring nobility, gentry, and others! Look to it, man! Are there no writing-masters at Ravenna? Cannot you write straight at least? Dean Swift would have taken you 'for a lady of England!'

"God bless you, you beautiful, little, ill-tempered, delightful creature, and make you as happy as I wish you to be.

"HARRIETTE.

"Can I forward you a bundle of pens, or anything?"

Answer:

"Ravenna, May 15_th._

"I enclose a bill for a thousand francs, a good deal short of fifty pounds; but I will remit the rest by the very first opportunity. Owing to the little correspondence between Langle, the Bologna banker, I have had more difficulty in arranging the remittance of this paltry sum, than if it had been as many hundreds, to be paid on the spot. Excuse all this, also the badness of my hand-writing, which you find fault with and which was once better; but, like everything else, it has suffered from late hours and irregular habits.

"The Italian pens, ink and paper are also two centuries behind the like articles in other countries.

"Yours very truly and affectionately, "BYRON.

"I should have written more at length, in reply to some parts of your letter; but I am at 'this present writing' in a scrape (not a pecuniary one, but personal, about one of your ambrosial sex), which may probably end this very evening seriously. Don't be frightened. The Italians don't fight: they stab a little now and then; but it is not that, it is a divorce and separation; and, as the aggrieved person is a rich noble and old, and has had a fit of discovery against his moiety, who is only twenty years old, matters look menacing.

"I must also get on horse-back this minute, as I keep a friend waiting.

"Address to me at Ravenna as usual."

Lord Byron wrote me many letters at times; but I have lost or mislaid them all, except those which I have herein given, and can show to any one, who may be pleased to question their being really originals.

Here's a disaster--a multiplicity of disasters in short, as Lady Berwick said one day, when the compound evils fell upon her. First, Peacock did not send her shoes home. Secondly, Lord Berwick threw a large, hot leg of mutton at his well-powdered footman's head. I will tell you why: the stupid cook insisted on serving it up, unadorned by the smart piece of writing-paper which is usually wrapped round the shank-bone. His lordship had expostulated so often that, this time, he hoped to imprint the fact more strongly on the memory by dousing the untouched, greasy joint against his lacquey's brain. Now Sophia, it so chanced, was fond of a slice of mutton. Thirdly, that little man in St. James' Street, who sells box-combs, I forget his name, cut her hair at least an inch too short on the forehead. Fourthly, Sophia could not match the silk she wanted to finish a purse she happened to be netting for her handsome harp-master, Boscha of ---- notoriety.

"One thing coming upon another," said Sophia, turning up her eyes as she sat with her feet on the fender; "one thing coming upon another, I feel I shall go mad." But, heavy as were her ladyship's afflictions, they cannot reasonably be named in the same day with the tragic misadventures which have been lately heaped on my poor little devoted shoulders.

I had proceeded nearly thus far with these my most valuable Memoirs, and nearly thus much had been kindly forwarded by the late, good-natured, obliging ambassador, Sir Charles Stuart.

Hélas! les voilà passés, ces jours de fêtes! Sir Charles is sent to India, and his place supplied by that self-same beau, whom I one Sunday trotted up to Marylebone Fields in the dog-days, and did not order him home again till he was expiring with fatigue and perspiration. It just now occurs to me that I styled him Lord George, instead of Lord Granville Leveson Gower, an error which I hasten to correct and in all humility atone for: but it really is difficult to bear in mind the names of those who do not excite in us the least interest. Now that the case is altered, my readers perceive how readily I correct myself, having addressed his lordship to this effect:

"My acquaintance with your lordship is very slight, since we have met but once in our lives, and that was a long while ago. Nevertheless, I hope you will prevent my feeling the loss of my late kind friend, whom everybody likes, as far as permitting me to forward my letters in the bag.

"You will thus, my lord, serve me just now most positively and effectually, for which condescending kindness I shall ever remain your lordship's obliged and most obedient servant,

"H. WILSON."

Lord Granville sent me a stiff formal note, which I have neither time nor inclination to look for, stating his regrets that, owing to certain regulations at the Foreign Office, he was compelled to refuse my request.

To which I replied:

"MY LORD,--I was looking about for a fool to fill up my book, and you are just arrived in Paris in time to take the place, for which I am indebted to you.

"Yours obliged and obediently, "H.W."

In the following week, this most upright Plenipo's conscience growing slack, he slackened the strings of the bag so far as to admit the private correspondence of an acquaintance of mine, whose name he may learn whenever he thinks it worth his while to apply for it to me, who am his near neighbour.

To proceed with my disasters: the next was a pressing letter from Stockdale, handed to me by bag, declaring that he must have the rest of my Memoirs, because folks began to think it was all an hoax, as Liston or some other funny fellow says. Que faire? Having, by some wonderful chance or providence, contrived to scrape together two hundred francs, I determined to cross the Channel once more; for I hate to break my word.

Arrived at Mr. Stockdale's house, 'willa' I would call it were it at all cockneyish, I handed him over, as a plenipo-pacificator, the chief part of my delectable memoirs. I conceived that my disasters were now completely at an end, and I looked forwards to a rich harvest, with unbounded applause.

Unfortunately, Stockdale, in a courteous fit, acquainted the immortal Wellington that I was about to publish part of his private life, under the impression, of course, that every act which relates to so great a hero must be interesting.

Will it ever be believed? His Grace, in the meek humility of his heart, has written to menace a prosecution if such trash be published. What trash, my dear Wellington? Now, I will admit, for an instant, and it is really very good of me, that you are an excellent judge of literature, and could decide on the merits or demerits of a work with better taste and judgment than the first of Edinburgh reviewers. Still, in order to pronounce it trash, we should fancy that even Wellington himself must throw a hasty glance on one of its pages at least. Quite the contrary. Wellington knows himself to be the subject, and therefore wisely prejudges the book trash one fortnight before it sees the light! So far so good! But when my own Wellington, who has sighed over me, and groaned over me by the hour, talked of my wonderful beauty, ran after me, bribed Mrs. Porter over and over again, after I refused to listen to her overtures, only for a single smile from his beautiful Harriette! Did he not kneel? And was I not the object of his first, his most ardent wishes, on his arrival from Spain? Only it was such a pity that Argyle got to my house first. No matter! Though Argyle was not his rose, he had dwelled with it; therefore, what could my tender swain Wellington do better than stand in the gutter at two in the morning, pouring forth his amorous wishes in the pouring rain, in strains replete with the most heart-rending grief, to the favoured and fortunate lover who had supplanted him, as Stockdale has indulged me by getting so inimitably delineated. When, I say, this faithful lover, whose love survived six winters, six frosts, six chilling, nay, killing frosts, when Wellington sends the ungentle hint to my publisher, of hanging me, beautiful, adored and adorable me, on whom he had so often hung! Alors je pend la tête! Is it thus he would immortalise me?

I do not mean to say that Wellington threatened to hang me, in so many words: but honestly, it was something to say the least, not very unlike it: viz., it assumed the questionable shape of ----. The prosecution might take a different turn from the circumstance of my having written to him, stating that I would certainly publish some anecdotes from real life, to try to get paid for them, in case my tender lover refused me some small assistance, to procure a little bread and cheese or so. Of course, it could never enter the brain of any one, save that of stupidity personified, to conceive that so great a man as Wellington, ever did anything whatever, of which he was the least ashamed or minded my publishing. Nevertheless, since he has threatened to bring forward my soft epistles, in which I remember I wrote that old frights like himself, who could not be contented with amiable wives, but must run about to old procuresses, bribing them to decoy young girls, who are living in perfect retirement in Duke's Row, Somers Town, and not dreaming of harm, ought to pay us for the sacrifice they tempt us to make, as well as for our secrecy. However, all I entreat of my late tenderly enamoured wooer is, that he forthwith fulfil his threat and produce these said letters in court: and, lest a small trifle of hanging should be the result, but whether of him or me is yet to be seen, I'll e'en make my will, and so good-bye to ye, old Bombastes Furioso.

Yet I scarcely know how to take leave of the subject, it affects me so deeply! I should not have been half so much afraid of hanging, only I was subpoenaed on a trial at the Old Bailey a short time ago, as witness against a poor girl who stole a watch out of my house. She acknowledged the fact, and was honourably acquitted!

"Och! the divel fly away wid all the world!" shrieked out my Irish cook, a widow who had just lost her husband. "Sure my darlink's watch has been stolen out of the kitchen."

She came flying into my room when I was ill in bed, and frightened me half out of my wits.

"Nonsense!" said I. "Who could steal your watch, think you?"

"Och! Don't bother me now. Sure it was the last thing my own darlink husband clapped his two good-looking eyes upon, before he died, and I'll murder every mother's son of you, but I'll have my watch!"

"For God's sake look for your watch, you provoking, impertinent creature, and don't stand there making a noise in my ears. Who on earth could steal your watch?"

"Oh! by the Almighty God, it was hanging on a nail of the kitchen-shelf half an hour ago, when I went out just to buy some petaties for my own dinner."

"Why, not a soul has been here during your absence, except a very interesting young woman, who did not appear to be more than seventeen years of age. She has left her direction, as she wanted to be my housemaid. I desired her to let herself out, and to be sure to shut the street door after her. On her head she wore a straw bonnet with green ribbons; but my room was rather dark, and that was all I noticed of her. I scarcely think I should know her again."

My Irish cook raved, roared, stormed, and bellowed along the streets, on her way to a magistrate, from whom, having obtained a warrant, she passed three whole days in wandering about London to look for young women with ribbons on their bonnets. Of these she contrived to coax three or four to walk with her to my house; but, alas! they did not include the person she wanted. At last she chanced to meet with a young female about seventeen years of age, who blushed deeply when she mentioned to her having been cruelly robbed of a watch. Without hesitation she seized her by the arm, and observing how the young woman trembled, under a promise of pardon prevailed on her to confess the theft, and immediately had her taken into custody. Next day two officers made me accompany them to Marlborough-street public office. The girl was fully committed for trial and sent to Newgate, where I visited her, and expressed my astonishment that so young a girl could commit so daring a robbery. Her plea was, that a soldier had seduced her, she was pregnant by him, and he loved her no longer. In short, her only chance of being admitted to visit him rested in her having money to give him. Love had made her so desperate, that she stole my Irish woman's watch on her way downstairs, merely to ensure one more interview with her faithless lover.

Oh this love! this love!

For more than a week I was shut up all day long in the witness box at the Old Bailey. The first evening, only petty offences were tried. Two men for pig-stealing, a gentleman for stealing a piece of pickled pork, and concealing it about the lower parts of his person. This, notwithstanding it was a fundamental error, was pardoned, and excited an expression of loud applause from the gallery auditors. The judge reprimanded the noisy throng, with proper dignity, assuring them that, if this indecent conduct was repeated, they should be severely punished.

The next morning I saw three men condemned to be hanged. The same judge sat upon the bench. These dreadful scenes were new to me, and I was overpowered with a violent hysterical affection, for which I expected seven years transportation at least; but the judge, it should seem, preferred the sound of sobs and tears to applause, from mere habit, for he took no sort of notice of me. I forget his name. He was a very old man, and spoke as if he took much snuff. I know not whether he or Denman is most respected: but this I know, that, for my own part, next to not being hanged at all, plait à M. Wellington, I should like Denman to pronounce sentence upon me: so pleasing a voice and so persuasive manner I never witnessed, and the most placid, benevolent countenance! No one could see him on the bench, and not feel the comfortable conviction of his earnest wish to save the unfortunates, if it were consistent with his duty. Now I could not help fancying that the learned and snuffy judge was a little more convinced of the wholesomeness and convenience of hanging, than either Denman, or our good King George.

There was a handsome young house-breaker, whose favourable witness was his sweetheart. The judge, of course, declared that such evidence was good for nothing. However, at the request of the house-breaker's counsel, she was allowed to speak, although I don't think the oath was administered to her.

"Are you a girl of the town?" asked the judge, to begin with.

The lady honestly owned she was, and, being further questioned by my lord judge, she gave an account of her lover being taken out of her room by two police officers.

"And did they not take you too?"

"No, my lord."

"A pity!"

I observed Andrews among the counsellors, with his beak-nose, looking quite as wise and learned, as when he came forth a few years ago in defence of Mrs. Bertram, formerly Mrs. Kent. This gentleman stared at me with disgusting persevering effrontery. He seemed to me to be eternally labouring for distinction, from his discovery of loop-holes and knotty points in the law; but his attempts were invariably unsuccessful. When it shall please the mighty Wellington to try to hang me, Andrews certainly shall not plead in my behalf, to show cause why I should not have such a rise in the world. I can get an old woman in petticoats to prose for me for half the money!

Young Law, Lord Ellenborough's son, was a very smart, fine, young gentleman, and his impatience of temper passed, I dare say occasionally, for quickness. His wig was never straight on his head. I rather fancy he liked to show his own good head of hair under it. He was constantly explaining to the witnesses what the snuffy judge said to them, from very impatience, and then again he would explain to my lud on the bench the blunders and mistakes of witnesses.

Young Law cross-questioned an old woman in an antique costume.

"When you first beheld the deceased did you, from your own observation, conceive him to be in a dying state?"

"He said he was very bad, sir."

"I do not ask you what he said, my good woman. I want to know what your own opinion of his health was."

"Why, lord, sir, everybody said he was in a bad way: upon my word they did."

"Come, come! This won't do, upon your word! What's upon your word to do with it? Don't you know you are on your oath? What--was--your--own--opinion, as to the man's state of health?"

"Oh law!" said the witness, and then paused. I thought, really, that she was calling him by his name. "Oh law! I think he must have been but poorly! very so so, indeed."

"My lud," said young Law, tossing up his little head with such uncontrollable impatience towards the bench, as to shake out a cloud of powder from his wig, "my lud, I am no match for this woman. She had better be examined by some one more competent."

The good woman was desired to leave the witness-box.

I was in a rage with Phillip's brogue; because I should otherwise have been so delighted with him. People say that a brogue is expressive; but I think a little goes a great way.

When the learned judge began to sum up the evidence, I thought we never should have done with it. I could not help naming him slow and sure, from what I observed of him.

"Mary Allen states that--(holding the paper close to his eyes)--Mary Allen states--she--states--she--no--she states--nothing--but she--ah--no! Mary Allen states, that--ah! right! that she knew the prisoner--when--when--when--Mary Allen states, that she knew the prisoner when he lodged--yes--Mary Allen knew the prisoner, when he--when he--when he--when he----"

"My lud!" said young Law, popping up his little powdered head again, in a high fever of desperate impatience--"My lud! shall I order candles?"

Good-bye, judge snuffy. Heaven knows how soon you and I may meet again, thanks to the great Wellington. It is a nervous subject to me, yet I cannot help reverting to it. However, let us change it and proceed with my Memoirs.

There is surely something harsh and unmanly in threatening a woman with any kind of law or prosecution, unless she were to do something much worse than telling the truth: and there is a double want of gallantry in threatening a fair lady, whose favours have been earnestly courted! N'est-ce pas?

The man who lays his hand on a woman, save in the way of kindness, is a monster, whom it were gross flattery to call coward.

Now what would this excellent author say to Mr. Jack Ketch's hand being laid on one, and that not quite in the way of kindness either? Yet, if all the lords and law-givers are like Wellington, in the habit of threatening poor devils of authors and book-sellers with prosecution, hanging, and destruction, as often as they are about to publish any facts, which do not altogether redound to their honour and glory, while they modestly swallow all the outré applause which may be bestowed on their luck or their talents for killing men and winning battles, I can no longer be surprised that even Beaufort has maintained his good character up to this present writing, since publishers will quake when heroes bully.

There's no spirit nowadays.

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XLI. London, 20_th January._

Another hero in a passion! Another lover threatens prosecution! No less a personage than that most prolific Plenipo, the Hon. Frederick Lamb, who yesterday called on Stockdale to threaten him, or us, with prosecution, death and destruction, if his conduct towards me in times, auld lang syne, was printed and published in any part of my Memoirs, after Part I., which he acknowledged that his counsel had informed him he could not lay hold of. No wonder that he is sore. I have certainly told, as the Hon. Frederick Lamb was well aware must be the case, harsh truths of him, I confess: but then it will disgust one to think that a man would feel such violent passion for a girl without the heart to save her from absolute want afterwards. Yet I never deceived him, and I endeavoured to live on nothing, at my nurse's in Somers Town, pour ses beaux yeux, as long as I possibly could. When I say nothing I mean nothing, in the literal sense of the word. Frederick had never given me a single shilling up to the time when hard necessity obliged me to accept the Duke of Argyle for my lover.

As to Frederick Lamb's rage at my publishing these facts, he was fully acquainted with my intention; and had he, now that he is in better circumstances, only opened his heart, or even purse, to have given me but a few hundreds, there would have been no book, to the infinite loss of all persons of good taste and genuine morality, and who are judges of real merit. But I hate harping on peoples' unkindness, and vice versâ, I cannot omit to acknowledge the generous condescension of Earl Spencer, who, though I have not the honour to be in the least acquainted with him, has very repeatedly assisted me. In short, his lordship has promptly complied with every request for money I ever made to him, merely as a matter of benevolence.

Lord Rivers, with whom I have but a bowing acquaintance, has not only often permitted me to apply to him for money; but once, when I named a certain sum to him, he liberally doubled it; because, as he kindly stated in his letter, he was so truly sorry to think that one who possessed such a generous heart as mine should not be in affluent circumstances. Lord Palmerston also, one fine day, did me a pecuniary service without my having applied to him for it. Neither can I express half the gratitude I feel, and shall entertain to the end of my life, for the steady, active friendship Mr. Brougham has invariably evinced towards me, actuated, as he is, solely by a spirit of philanthropy. When I see a man of such brilliant talents pleading the cause of almost all those persons whose characters I have sketched in these pages, with such honest warmth and benevolence of feeling, as Brougham did yesterday, to say I look up to him and love him, is but a cold description of the sentiments he inspires in my heart.

"A pretty list indeed," said Brougham, alluding to my characters, as advertised in the newspapers by Stockdale. "Almost every one of my particular friends is among them! The poor Duke of Argyle! What has he done? I am very angry with you. I don't really think I can shake hands with you."

"I have strictly adhered to the truth."

"Yes; but then, who wants to have their secrets exposed! Secrets, some of them, sixteen years old."

"Who do you think would have entrusted me with their secrets fifteen years ago? Besides, why don't my old friends keep me among them? They are all rich. I have applied to them and they refuse me the bare means of existence. Must I not strive to live by my wits? You say you have not read even the first part of my book. How do you know that it is severe?"

"Well! perhaps not! The Duke of Leinster tells me that it is not severe, nor does it, he says, contain any libel."

"To be sure not! Why, as His Grace goes on, he will find that I give him credit for a little more intellect than even a Newfoundland dog! Que voulez-vous? But I wish to explain the Duke of Beaufort's conduct, certainly."

"Aye! true! The Duke of Beaufort treated you shamefully. You are very welcome to tell the world that I am your counsel in that business; that I said then, and repeat now, that he took a shameful advantage of your generosity. There, you behaved only too well."

"Thus then, though many of you are angry with me, you all agree in being disgusted with the heartless selfishness of the Duke of Beaufort. The Duke of Portland says he cannot conceive or understand it. So say Montagu, Fred Bentinck, Headfort, yourself: in short, if Beaufort means to fight all those who call his treatment of me infamous, he may gain the high-sounding epitaph of fighting Bob before he knows where he is: so farewell Beaufort. I would not change hearts with you. May you meet with all the respect you merit here, and forgiveness hereafter. I have certainly deserved better from you."

"Well! never mind Beaufort," said Brougham, "tell all the truth of him; but, as to the others, pray don't be severe. Write something from your fancy, I cannot endure the idea of all this. You perhaps do not address your letters correctly when you want money. You are so careless. I was once desired to send you some in a great hurry, and there was no date to your letter! I am sure these old friends of yours would provide for you, if applied to civilly."

"I tell you, you judge of them by your own excellent heart: you, who have never refused me any assistance I asked you for, nor any act of friendship in your power, while I have not nor never had any claim upon you. There is the Duke of Argyle, who used to write thus:

"'If at any future time you are in trouble and will condescend to apply to me, you shall be as welcome as my sister; for indeed, I am afraid, I love you.'

"Well, I have, at His Grace's request, condescended to apply civilly, stating my distress, and humbly entreating for anything he could conveniently afford, at least fifty times: and I have never received one single shilling, nor any proof of friendship since it pleased him to become le beau papa. Everybody who knows me will admit that I have all my life been disposed to like Argyle, to pardon all his sins against me, and inspire others with a favourable opinion of his heart and character; but the invariable excessive selfishness and want of feeling which His Grace evinces towards me has, at length, I confess, disgusted me."

I have a few more high characters in reserve to sketch for the benefit of my readers; but they are too noble and brilliant to come in at the fag-end of a work. I mean therefore to conclude these Memoirs, and take my rest for a month or so, in order to collect my ideas for a new work in two volumes, which ought to be printed on the most expensive hot-pressed vellum, wholly and solely for the express purpose of immortalising His Grace of Richmond, the Marquis of Londonderry, Lord Maryborough, Grand Master of the Mint, and of the Art of Love, and Mr. Arthur Chichester, contrary to their particular wishes; and at his own earnest, urgent and especial desire expressed in a letter now in my possession, the Earl of Clanricarde.

Oh muse, &c. &c. &c., grant me eloquence to do justice to my subjects on that great and mighty occasion! In the meantime let me conclude, or rather let us proceed to draw these anecdotes into something like the form of a conclusion, because I their writer am tired of them, if you the reader of them are not.

My friend Rosabella permitted her interesting son to pass a week with my impudent nephew, George Woodcock, on our return to Paris.

"What would you give to be as clever as Carlo?" said I, on the day after he had left us to return to his college.

"Clever!" repeated George, in a tone of infinite contempt. "Clever! He is the greatest ass in the world. Why he plays at cricket in gloves! Clever indeed! Only come and see him swim!"

My sister Fanny never came to the continent, and, when I again joined her in London some months afterwards, I found her in very indifferent spirits.

"In vain do I strive," said Fanny to me, "I cannot get the better of Parker's marriage, and I never shall."

One day, while I was dressing to drive out in my carriage, my servant informed me that Fanny had just called on me, and was in the drawing-room. I was surprised that she did not come up to my bedroom, that being her constant habit whenever I happened to be at my toilette. I hurried on my pelisse, and went down to join her. She was sitting near the window, with her head reclined on her hand, and appeared more than usually pensive.

"My dear Fanny," said I, "what is the matter? Why did not you come upstairs?"

"I feel a weight here," said she, laying her hand on her heart. "It is not a weight of spirits only; but there is something not right here. I am sick and faint."

"A drive in Hyde Park will do you good," said I, and we were soon seated in the carriage. Turning down Baker Street we saw Colonel Parker. Fanny was greatly agitated. He did not seem to have observed us.

"I dare say he is only just come to town, and means to call and see his child," said I, hoping to enliven her. We then drove twice up the Park, and Fanny made an effort to answer the beaux who flocked around the carriage, with cheerfulness. Suddenly she complained to me again of sickness, occasioned by some pressure or tightness about the heart.

"I am sorry to take you from this gay scene," said poor Fanny, "but I am too unwell to remain." I immediately pulled the check-string, and desired my coachman to drive to Hertford Street, Mayfair, where Fanny was then residing. After remaining with her half an hour she begged me to leave her, while she endeavoured to obtain a little sleep. She made light of the sickness, and told me to call and take her into the park on the following day. I did so, and, just as I was stepping out of my carriage in Hertford Street for that purpose, Lord Hertford came running downstairs to join me, from Fanny's apartment.

"Don't get out, Harriette," said he, "as you will only lose time; but go directly for a surgeon. I was going myself. Fanny is very ill, and her physician has prescribed bleeding, without loss of time."

In the most extreme agitation I hurried after the surgeon and brought him with me in my carriage. Fanny was now affected with such a violent palpitation of the heart that its pulsations might be distinctly seen at the opposite side of the room through her handkerchief.

"I am very ill, Harriette," said the dear sufferer, with encouraging firmness, holding out her hand to me; "but don't frighten yourself. I shall soon get better: indeed I shall. Bleeding will do me good directly," continued she, observing, with affectionate anxiety, the fast gathering tears in my eyes.

I called Lord Hertford aside, and addressed him: "Tell me, I earnestly implore you, most candidly and truly, do you think Fanny will recover?"

"I do not think she ever will," answered Hertford.

"Nonsense!" said I, forcing my mind by an effort to disagree with him. "Fanny was so perfectly well the day before yesterday, so fresh, and her lips so red and beautiful; and then many people are afflicted with these palpitations of the heart, and recover perfectly."

"If her pulse beat with her heart, I should have hopes; but her pulse is calm, and I have none. Disorders of the heart are incurable."

Instead of wishing to display feeling, Lord Hertford seemed ashamed, and afraid of feeling too much.

For another fortnight, Fanny's sufferings were dreadfully severe and, being quite aware of her danger, she requested that her body might be examined after her death for the benefit of others. My readers will, I hope, do me the justice to acquit me of affectation, when I say that this subject still affects me so deeply, I cannot dwell upon it. All the world were anxiously, and almost hourly, inquiring if there were hope: Sir William Knighton and Sir John Millman, her medical attendants, gave us none, or very slight hopes, even from the first hour.

Fanny never slept, nor enjoyed a single interval of repose. Her courage and patient firmness exceeded all I had imagined possible, even in a man. Once, and once only, she spoke of Colonel Parker; for it was the study of every moment of her life to avoid giving us pain. Fanny called me to her bedside: it was midnight.

"Harriette, remember, for my sake, not to be very angry with poor Parker. It is true, you have written to say I am ill, and he refuses to come and shake hands with me; but then, believe me, he does not think me so ill as I really am, or he would come. Oblige me by forgiving him! Now talk to me of something else: no more of this pray!"

I pressed her hand and immediately changed the subject. She begged, when we told her of Lord Hertford having had straw put down by her door, and of all his constant, steady attentions, that, when he came next, she might see him and thank him. In consequence of this request, he was admitted on the following morning. Fanny was not able to talk much; but she seemed gratified and happy to see him. When his lordship was about to depart, she held out her hand to him. Hertford said, in a tone of much real feeling, "God bless you, poor thing," and then left the room.

A monster, in the shape of a nurse to Colonel Parker's child, Louisa, took this opportunity to remain out with the infant the whole of the night! I will no longer dwell on this subject; for, indeed, I cannot.

Fanny was my only friend on earth. I had no sister but her. She was my hope, and my consoler in affliction, ever eloquent in my defence, and would not have forsaken me to have become the wife of an emperor, but God willed Fanny's Death.

I saw her laid low in her kindred vaults, And her immortal part with angels lives.

Only three weeks had elapsed since Fanny's lovely, laughing countenance, as she drove round the ring in Hyde Park, excited the admiration of all who beheld her. Her life was ebbing fast, when her friends acceded to her earnest desire to be removed to a more airy situation.

Reclined at length on a couch, in her new apartment, Fanny's spirits appeared so much improved as to encourage hopes which had become extinct.

"Do you not breathe with rather less pain?" I asked, while I pressed her cold damp hand between my own.

"At all events," answered poor Fanny, "I would rather die here, than in the close apartment I have just quitted. How sweet and refreshing the flowers smelt, as I was carried along the garden! I did not see them, for I could not endure the light. I wish I could," continued Fanny, fixing her clear, still lovely blue eyes on my face beseechingly. "The prospect, I understand, is most beautiful, from the room above us; but I shall never see it."

"Do, dearest Fanny," said I, making a violent effort to conceal my tears, lest they should agitate my suffering sister, "let me open one of the shutters a very little. The air is mild and delicious, and the heat no longer oppressive, as it was when you passed through the garden."

The last ray of the setting sun fell on poor Fanny's pale, beautiful features, as I drew back the curtains. It was one of those lovely evenings in the month of June, which often succeed a thunder-storm, and the honeysuckles, which clustered round the windows, emitted a rich and fragrant perfume.

I asked her if the fresh air did not enliven her a little.

She requested to have her head raised, and I rested it on my bosom.

"Alas!" said poor Fanny, "gloriously as the sun is setting, I may now behold it for the last time!"

Cold drops hung on her fair, lovely forehead. I feared that the slightest agitation would destroy at once the fragile being I held in my arms, and yet, mastered by the strong impulse of irresistible tenderness, I suddenly imprinted a kiss on my sister's dying lips.

The last tear poor Fanny ever shed trembled in her eyes. Forcing a smile, I now endeavoured to address her with cheerfulness, and administered her last draught of goat's milk, which she held firmly in her hand without requiring my assistance.

"I did not believe I should shed another tear," said Fanny, brushing away the drops which were stealing slowly down her fair, wan cheeks. "Pray for me, Harriette! Pray that my sufferings may soon cease."

"I do pray for you, my poor sister, and God knows how earnestly. Be assured, dearest, that your sufferings will very soon cease. You will recover, or you will be at rest for ever. Remember my love, that we have all committed many faults, and you may be called upon to suffer yet a few more hours, as your only punishment, before you are permitted to rest eternally with your God. Yet a little fortitude, my dearest Fanny. It is all that will be required of you."

Fanny seemed deeply impressed with what I had said. Her agony was at that moment dreadfully severe. She crossed her hands on her breast, and there was something sublime in the stern expression her features assumed, while she suppressed the cries which nature would almost have wrung from her. She compressed her lips, and her brow was contracted. In this attitude, with her eyes raised to heaven, she appeared a martyr, severe in virtue and almost masculine fortitude.

"I am better," said Fanny, half an hour after having made this strong effort.

"Thank God!" I ejaculated, taking hold of her hand.

"What o'clock is it?" she inquired.

"Near seven."

"I am very sleepy. I could sleep, if you would promise to continue holding my hand, and would not leave me."

I placed myself close to my sister, with her cold damp hand clasped between both of mine.

"I am near you, always, dearest," said I. "Sleeping or waking, I shall never leave you more." Fanny threw her arms once more round my neck, and with a convulsive last effort pressed me to her heart.

"May the Almighty for ever bless you!" said she, and, sinking back on her pillow, a gentle sleep stole on her senses. I watched her lovely countenance with breathless anxiety.

In less than an hour poor Fanny opened her eyes and fixed them on me with a bright smile, expressive of the purest happiness.

"I am quite well," said Fanny, in a tone of great animation.

Again her eyes closed and her breathing became shorter.

Suddenly, a slight convulsion of the upper lip induced me to place my trembling hand on my sister's heart.

I felt it beat!

Joy flushed my face with a momentary hectic----

And then, hope fled for ever!

Fanny's cheek, still warm and lovely, rested on her arm. The expression of pain and agony was exchanged for the calm, still, innocent smile of a sleeping infant.

I had felt the last faint vibration of poor Fanny's heart.

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Chapter XLII

It was some time previous to the death of my sister, that I was induced by the advice of Mr. Brougham and Mr. Treslove to commence proceedings against the Duke of Beaufort for the recovery of the small annuity he had thought fit to deprive me of.

I have already related the circumstance of my having refused to marry Lord Worcester over and over again, solely to relieve the minds of his parents, and further went down to Oxford to implore Worcester, by all his future hopes of happiness, to pass his solemn word to the duke and duchess never to marry me; and it was only at my request he could be induced to promise to go abroad for one year, on condition that his father made me an allowance. This the duke gladly agreed to, and sent Worcester to me, accompanied by his attorney, to ask me what I required.

"Enough to pay for my board only," was my reply. "Nor do I require bonds or signatures. The duke is a gentleman, and will take care that the person who has complied with all his wishes shall not come to want. Of that I am well satisfied."

Robinson told me to fear nothing, and down I went into Devonshire, where I might have wanted bread, without obtaining a shilling or an answer to any one of my letters addressed to His Grace, had I not, after waiting four or five months, been obliged to threaten that I would join Worcester in Spain. This, and this only, brought a polite letter, enclosing two quarters of the promised allowance, from His Grace.

I should like to know if His Grace or his noble son will take upon them to deny any of these facts, or that he did not desire me to make my own terms if I would not marry Worcester? and for which, all the world are crying "Off! Off! Off!" to the Duke of Beaufort, just as if he were Kean the actor. At all events, the facts I am now proceeding to relate were public.

Neither Brougham nor Treslove could be induced to believe that, since the Duke of Beaufort had bestowed a small annuity on me for the purpose of separating me from Lord Worcester, it could ever be His Grace's wish to rob me of that annuity, while the intent and purpose of it was fulfilled. I had indeed written a few lines to Lord Worcester, trusting to their humanity to forgive me for the exercise of mine; but, since my letter did not interrupt the object of the bond, which was to separate us, nobody would believe that the duke wished to throw on the world, me, who might have been his daughter, without the means of existence.

"The duke will prefer giving you fifty thousand pounds," said the duke's attorney to me.

My answer was, "Were I selfish, I would marry Worcester."

To satisfy these incredulous gentlemen, I renewed my applications to His Grace; but they were unattended to, as before.

As the day of trial drew near, I expressed my astonishment to my legal advisers that they wished me to bring forward a case like this, which I must inevitably lose if Lord Worcester produced the letter I wrote to him, which was directly in the teeth of the conditions of the bond.

"Fear nothing," was Brougham's answer. "Lord Worcester cannot appear in it without irremediable disgrace and loss of character."

"How can you imagine it possible," asked Brougham, "that Lord Worcester, the man who for years together has sworn to make you his wife, can appear in evidence against you, for the purpose of leaving you destitute, and effectually robbing you of the trifling independence which you were gracious enough to be satisfied with, when you might have been Duchess of Beaufort?"

I was at last almost convinced that Lord Worcester could not act thus.

"If he does he ought to be ashamed of himself," said Fred Bentinck, "and so I shall tell him. I always tell everybody exactly what I think of them, for my part."

The day of trial arrived. Thee very hour approached, and Worcester had not obeyed his father's peremptory summons to come up to town and attend as evidence against me. The duke, knowing there could be no other witness, was in a terrible fever of agitation, as my attorney told me.

Just at the last, when the furious duke had given up all hopes of his son, he, in a great fright, proposed to my attorney to pay him twelve hundred pounds, rather than stand the event of the trial alone, and Brougham had scarcely given his written consent to this compromise, which was immediately signed, when the most liberal, generous, high-minded, and noble Marquis of Worcester stepped out of his travelling carriage, and came driving towards the scene of action, with my poor, ill-fated letter in his hand. Such at least is my attorney's account of the business. He may be referred to by the incredulous. I was not present.

Thus was I indebted to the duke's fears of wanting a witness, or being hissed out of court, for the sum of twelve hundred pounds, which was handed to me as soon as I had accompanied the attorney to Westminster Hall and taken the following oath:

"THE KING'S BENCH, "Between Harriette Wilson, Plt. and "His Grace the Duke of Beaufort, Deft. "Harriette Wilson of the above named

plaintiff, maketh oath, and saith that she hath, in the schedule hereunder written, set forth a full and true list of all the letters, papers, and writings in her possession, or power, written by the Marquis of Worcester to this deponent, and that she hath not retained or delivered to any person, any copies, or extracts of them, or any or either of them, save and except any extract that this deponent may have sent or delivered to the above defendant."

And now good-bye, Beaufort.

I forgot to mention my having met with Lord Francis Conyngham, now Earl of Mount Charles, in Paris, with whose beauty I was much attracted. There was nothing national in his manner, nor, I think, in his character. He was perhaps rather cold; but amiable and truly unaffected. Such as he was, I remember he interested me very much. I did not fall in love with him, partly because he had the tremendous bad taste not to fall in love with me; but his ill health and his cough induced me to encourage somewhat of the tenderness of a mamma towards him; and I used to dream about his eyes, they were so very blue and beautiful.

I have often met the young Marquis of Graham too, who is not very popular, as I am told; but that is nothing to me.

Any fool may be popular: it is the easiest thing in the world.

Only be a good listener and praise everybody on the face of the earth, that is the whole fact.

However, Lord Graham is rather reserved; mais ne méprisez pas les personnes froides; elles ont leurs bons côtés. Lord Graham is very just, friendly, and strictly honourable, neither is he the stupid person many imagine him to be. For my own part, I like Lord Graham, and always have had reason to like him; and I am sure Beau Brummell would like him, because his clothes are uniformly so well made and in such good taste.

My readers will believe that my poor sister's death affected me deeply, and my health suffered seriously from my anxiety and want of rest. About two days after I had seen my dear sister buried, Amy appeared to feel something like compassion for the weak state in which she found me. She suddenly took me in her arms, and told me she feared I should die, and then burst into a flood of tears, as she added that she knew well she had never been kind to me!

Everything was forgiven from my heart and soul at that moment; but Amy soon ran up a fresh score of offences, just in her usual way.

I cannot in justice help relating Sophia's kind attention to her sister Fanny in her last moments. Not that there was merit in one sister loving another, who was too amiable ever to have made a single enemy in her life: one, whom the most cold-blooded and unfeeling could not but love: yet, still I am glad I can, with truth, affirm that Sophia did her duty in this instance, and Amy also, in the daytime. The night-watching devolved entirely on me; but whoever else might have watched poor Fanny I would never have quitted her.

From the hour of my sister's death, my dearest mother's health visibly declined, and exactly three months after Fanny had breathed her last, I followed my parent to her grave. From that period I was for more than two months confined to my room, and, generally, to my bed, with a violent liver complaint, or I know not what.

"It is liver," said Doctor Bree, "and she must swallow plenty of mercury."

"No such thing," said Doctor Nevinson. "It is neither more nor less than over-excitement of the nerves, with too much anxiety, fatigue, and distress of mind."

"All this has disordered her liver," reiterated Doctor Bree, who has written a book on people's livers.

"I won't stand it," said Doctor Nevinson; "and, before Harriette begins upon your mercury, I will call in Dr. Pemberton."

"Never mind that cough, ma'am," said Pemberton: "you may keep it till you are eighty, and it will be an amusement to you. It is only a nervous cough."

However I continued very ill in spite of all these gentlemen could do for me.

When my spirits and health were at their very worst, I was informed that poor Julia was dying and wanted to see me. I could not refuse her request. Her features bore the fixed rigidity of death when I entered her room. Her complaint, like her late poor friend's, was a disease of the heart, and there was no remedy.

She talked much of her dear Fanny, and said she had been certain from the first that she should soon follow her to the grave.

I insisted on writing to Napier, who was at Melton Mowbray.

"No! no!" said poor Julia. "If you will lend me your carriage, I am sure I shall be able to join him in a few days. I shall soon be better."

I wrote notwithstanding, and Napier came to her, kneeled by her bedside, read the service of the dead, and then--and then he again read prayers to her. All this he afterwards told me himself.

"You must have killed her," said I, "in so dreadfully weak a state as she was in."

This conversation took place some weeks after her death.

"Nonsense," replied Napier. "Why say such cruel unfeeling things to me? Upon my honour, there was no chance for poor, sweet, dear Julia, who was the image of death when I----"

"Oh Julia! Angel Julia! I cannot bear it!" he added, pulling his hair, and throwing the handsome pillows of my new sofa all about the room.

"Doucement! doucement! s'il vous plait," I observed. "Julia was my friend, I regret her certainly; but my feelings are so deeply affected by the death of my adored mother, whom God knows how I have loved, that there is scarcely room in my heart for any other grief, and, at all events, I don't quite see the use of your knocking my new sofa about."

"Very true," said Napier, suddenly jumping up; and, having wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, he began briskly to make fierce love to me.

"But Julia?" said I.

"Oh, Julia!" retorted he, banging another pillow on the ground, "I had her laid out in state, and wax candles were kept burning round her coffin for a fortnight: and I paid half of all her debts!"

"Suppose you had paid the whole?"

"Nonsense! They were very thankful for half."

"And what is to become of her poor children?"

"A noble relative has taken one, and Lord Folkestone another, and Mrs. Armstrong is consulting me about the rest."

There was nothing on earth, not even Fanny nor Lord Ponsonby, I ever loved, as I loved my mother. I do not dwell on the subject, nor on the manner of her death; because it is to me a very sacred one. No one, not even Amy, will call my affection for that beloved, that sainted parent, in question.

I am now about to return to Paris, from where I propose sending Stockdale this volume, or continuation of my Memoirs, provided you are all grateful and civil for the trouble I have already given myself; but I will pause now, at this period of my endeared parent's death; for my habits and character became more serious and melancholy from that hour. Meyler's sudden death too, which happened soon afterwards, certainly added much to those cold, desponding sensations, with which I was now often affected.

One night I dreamed that I saw my dearest mother standing at the top of a high hill or mountain: so high that her head seemed almost to touch the clouds, and her drapery was of such indefinite texture, that I doubted whether I saw a shadow or a real substance. She looked very pale and beautifully placid, as she pointed towards the heavens, fixing her eyes on my face.

I would have given half my existence when I awoke for such another dream! Having, in that hope, vainly courted sleep for several hours, my mind being deeply impressed with the subject, I sat down. I imagined the vision subjoined, with which I will for the present conclude, after wishing to all, a good night and pleasant dreams, and slumbers light.

A VISION

As balmy sleep had charmed my cares to rest, And love itself was banished from my breast, A train of phantoms, in wild order, rose, And, joined, this intellectual scene, compose.

Methought a spirit beckoned me, from the height of a steep mountain: its drapery appeared to be now of earthly texture, and anon but the bright rays of the sun, glittering on a cloud, which enveloped the form of an angel. Her beautiful features were benignly placid. The shadowy paleness of her countenance seemed as though touched by the moon's softest beam; yet it was the bright sun, in the meridian of its splendour, and oppressed me with its heat. To ascend the vast acclivity of the mountain presented a work of such danger and fatigue that I hesitated. The spirit turned from me with an expression of tender sorrow. Its profile, which now became visible, was familiar to me! I threw myself on my knees and raised my clasped hands to Heaven! "I will endure thy sun's scorching rays, O God of Mercy!" said I, "with the toils and perils of this thorny road, in meek resignation to thy Divine will. Grant me but life to accomplish the task!"

A smile now irradiated the features of the beautiful vision. Hope, doubt, and anxiety were blended in its expression, while the calm of angels' happiness prevailed, as though the spirit had passed the ordeal of human sufferings. She pointed with her right hand to the heavens; and, as she raised her eyes in the same direction, I saw a seraphic, radiant smile illumine her countenance for an instant, and then the figure was indistinctly veiled by the clouds, into which, gradually blending, it receded from my sight into thin air. My tears now fell in despondency at the dangers and labour of the task I had undertaken; yet I toiled on with indefatigable industry. "Oh! for the light of thy benign countenance, to cheer me on my dreary road," said I, sighing heavily. "Yet no! rest thou in pure eternal happiness, unclouded by the sight of early sufferings."

The sharp, burning stones and flints wounded my feet and caused me extreme anguish. At length, exhausted in body, though unsubdued in mind, I sunk down on the earth, hoping, by a short interval of rest, to recover my strength. Suddenly, the air was fanned with soft refreshing breezes; the feathered choir chanted their enlivening strains; the trees about me were covered with ripe, delicious fruit; luxurious repasts were profusely spread in groves, where nymphs enjoyed the fragrant shades, or danced and gambolled in wild and careless gaiety. A lovely female, fantastically though tastefully habited, smilingly entreated me to turn from my thorny road and follow her; but gay luxury possessed no charms for one who ambitioned higher joys. Hunger, thirst, and labour, with the goal of happiness in view, were more suited to my character, nor dreamed I of merit in declining mere senseless ease. Again I prostrated myself on the earth, and, pressing my hands to my burning temples, prayed for strength sufficient to keep out despondency.

The gates of pleasure now were closed upon me. My head became giddy. My lungs were oppressed, and I was sinking to the earth, when I felt myself withheld, by the firm grasp of some one behind me, who placed me gently on the ground, and presented to my lips some fruit, which instantly revived me.

On opening my eyes, I beheld at my side an aged man, whose white beard descended to his middle. "I am called Fortitude," said he. "My hand alone can lead you to the summit of your wishes. We will perform our task together. Nor will I forsake you till you forsake yourself."

Invigorated by the fruits which were presented to me by Fortitude, and comforted with the prospect of a friend to guide my trembling steps, we now continued our way along the pathless, barren track of the mountain, which seemed to mock my eagerness and retire as I advanced.

Suddenly, the atmosphere was impregnated with the odour of the Indian berry, which grew in immense quantities around me. My senses were affected by it, and a voluptuous indolence began to steal over me. My hand shrunk from the grasp of Fortitude, who continued his firm and undeviating road, frequently beckoning me to follow him. My eagerness now relaxed. My senses were overpowered, and I scarcely regretted my stern guide, when the windings of the mountain concealed him from my sight. At this time, I beheld, coming towards me, a being of extraordinary beauty. His age might be near thirty, judging by the strong growth of a beard, which curled in rich abundance over his chin; but his dark blue eye of fire told him younger.

"I am called Passion," said he. "There lies your road to Peace and Happiness," and he pointed to the height of the mountain. "Misery is here, and, though left of all when you forsake me, I scorn to complain. I deceive none but the weak and the wilful. If this bursting heart, this writhing lip speak not, leave me to the fate I deserve, and which I shall meet undismayed. Misery lies this way," repeated Passion, tearing his luxurious hair in all the frenzy of maddened sensation, while his teeth gnawed his nether lip till the red current disfigured a mouth of unequalled loveliness. He was turning from me with rapidity.

"Stay," said I faintly. He snatched me to his heart in all the wildness of frenzy. His heaving bosom seemed to threaten suffocation. His ardent gaze, and the liquid fire flashing from his eyes, dazzled and bewildered me. They spoke of feelings but guessed at by our softer nature; yet coloured by our sanguine minds even beyond reality. The pulsations of his heart were seen, nay almost heard; and still he curbed the passion which was consuming him; and still he had not pressed the lip, which quivered with delicious expectation. Now, with an effort almost supernatural, he threw me from him. His cheeks, late vermilion glow, were changed to the ashy paleness of death; his Herculean strength to the feebleness of infancy.

"Pursue thy happier path," said he, in accents scarcely audible, "nor seek thy destruction."

I threw myself on his bosom----. The delirium was succeeded by total insensibility, from which I slowly recovered, and, opening my languid eyes, I beheld myself in the arms of a hideous satyr!

The fright and horror which I experienced awoke me.

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Postscript

BY THE EDITOR

In every age of life, man requires relaxation after the fatigues and the cares of business: but the distinction of rank and the forms of modern society prevent his enjoying freedom of social intercourse. Hence have arisen, in France, those assemblies of literary men, who, under the presidency of some celebrated lady, have distinguished themselves by their labours, and have enriched their country in the various branches of science and of literature.

The utility and advantage to literary men of communicating their ideas have been equally felt in this country; and, from the time of Shakespeare to that of Johnson, mixed societies have been formed, in the freedom and conviviality of mirth, for the discussion of literary subjects. By these means, strength and copiousness have been imparted to the English language. The French, too, have introduced more correctness and elegance into their language, similar to the Greeks in the time of Pericles, by a greater devotion to the muses.

Monsieur Barthelemi speaking of the influence of Aspasia on the arts, the society, and the literature of Greece says, "Les Grecs furent encore moins étonnés de sa beauté, que de son eloquence, que de la profondeur, et des agréments de son esprit. Socrate, Alcibiade, les gens de lettres, et les artistes, les plus renommés, les Athéniens, et les Athéniennes les plus aimables, s'assemblaient auprès de cette femme singulière, qui parlait, a touts, leur langue, et qui s'attirait les regards de touts.

If a Prince of Wales should not think it unbecoming in him to have honoured the society of Mrs. Abington, it is not less creditable to the first Marquis of Lansdowne, Mr. Sheridan, and other celebrated characters, to have appreciated the elegance, the accomplishments and the acquirements of that lady.

Comparisons are odious, says some saw or adage, therefore, without comparing Harriette Wilson to any of her predecessors, it is due to her from me, her editor, to say that she first introduced order and decorum into the reign of fashion, that she reformed and improved the great world, that she established regulations, among which was one, that no man should be introduced into her world until he had been first presented to her, and another, that due homage should be paid to her in all public places.

That Miss Wilson did possess an undivided allegiance, no one who has lived in our times will be so daring or so venturesome as to deny; that she established a voluntary submission to her power, it will be presumption to doubt; that she has subdued conquerors, and that she has drawn within the influence of her dominion, great and celebrated characters, whether by the charms of her conversation, the sprightliness of her ready wit, or the elegance of her manners, by the glare of her beauty, by the sweet tones of her voice, or by a combination of all, those who have been attracted by her enchantments, if the spell be now broken, may be able to explain. It may be attributed to her, as to Orpheus, who, as we all recollect, by the power of his music tamed wild beasts and monsters of every kind, that all were obedient to her voice. Not that I mean to insinuate that her lovers were wild beasts or monsters, until they were drawn into the vortex of her numerous attractions, and thus became humanised and polished, though a keener satirist than myself might furnish some small portion of amusement, by tracing certain wild and monstrous propensities, which might be compared with their untamed and domesticated state, and their conduct and habits since they have divested themselves of the silken cords by which, while in her custody, they had been directed or restrained.

We have now seen Miss Wilson in various fluctuations of her reign; but not in all of them. She has already promised some further sketches. If she has endeavoured, in her Memoirs, to illustrate the characters of those who principally figure in them, while she has wielded the lash of truth, she has lost no opportunity to do justice to their merits.

These Memoirs, in their character of fidelity, which no one can reasonably doubt, assume a rank of more than common consideration. The accuracy with which the author has drawn her different characters is such, that, in every single instance, they must have been recognised by their intimates, had no names been attached to them; and herein, she has just right to rank with the very few impartial and fearless historians of their own times; but she has also the higher claim of having conferred on the moral state of society in Europe, such a benefit as is I believe without parallel.

This publication cannot fail to produce the greatest moral effect on the present and future generations. If

Vice is a monster, of such hideous mien, That, to be hated, needs but to be seen,

when has vice ever been so unsparingly exposed? Who has hitherto ever had the courage to beard the lion in his den; to drag forth the monster from his most secret recesses, from his most impregnable fastnesses, in the castles of earthly power, strip him of the armour with which he had been, as not he only, but almost every one, supposed, invincibly clad, by the very giants of rank and fortune, and exhibit him shorn, at once, of all those glorious beams, whose dazzling glare blinded even the strongest-sighted spectators, deprived of all his means to do mischief, and harmless and submissive as the veriest pet lamb.

On the subject of the line generally taken by the journalists of this country in reference to these Memoirs, it was my wish to have analysed their conduct with the same freedom they themselves have assumed. The publisher however prefers to choose his own time and place and mode of treating them. They may, notwithstanding, solace themselves with my assurance that a day of retribution will come, and may be nearer than many of them anticipate. He has, in the meantime, subjoined an extract of a letter from Colonel Rochfort, to Mr. Stockdale, dated Paris 24th of March: it runs thus, smoothly and pithily enough:

"I shall not talk, or write about vulgar editors: but shall act, the first time I come to England, practically; and, if you like, you shall see me."

This will do, for the present, from the husband and the publisher. Mrs. Rochfort speaks also for herself, of the learned doctor who edits the New Times and I shall venture to add, ex uno, disce omnes.

* * * * *

HER ANSWER, TO THE EDITOR OF THE "NEW TIMES," IS AS FOLLOWS:

"While expressing my sincere gratitude to such friends as have held out a helping hand towards me, it would have been very ungrateful on my part, to have omitted some brief acknowledgment to my most cordial supporter the brilliant editor of the New Times newspaper. He, in a paragraph of at least a foot long, with true, genuine, manly dignity loads me, a female, who never injured him nor meant him harm, with the coarsest abuse, bestowing on me the most ungentlemanlike epithets!

"My book was going on well, it is true: still, there were, no doubt, thousands of young ladies who had neither read it, nor dreamt of reading it, when this paragraph of the kind and judicious editor, like the apple upon Eve, so worked upon their imagination and excited their curiosity:

"'Most earnestly do we call on our fair countrywomen not to suffer such pollution to approach them, &c. &c. &c.'

"He then goes on to prose something about pickling or preserving the chastity of virgins and matrons.

"Now, if such a notice as the above was not actually meant to excite curiosity, and, by making the book circulate, effect the very horrors which he deprecates, I appeal to the candour of readers in general, whether this editor's total ignorance of human nature as well as of the nature and properties of young ladies, does not entirely disqualify him for the profession of an editorial partisan. He must indeed be a weak and silly and spiteful sort of a reptile not worth my notice, were it not for my naturally grateful disposition, the man's long-winded oration having put money into my pocket; yet he is said to be a doctor, learned in the law, ycleped LL.D. and very probably A.S.S.

"Great ends are often effected by little means. I am sorry he has worked himself up into such a desperately vengeful fit against me; because, really, when I, in the first Volume, mentioned Sophy's porkman having wrapped her black pudding up with a dirty piece of Times newspaper, I never thought of calling its editor a dirty fellow, as that most worthy gentleman has taken it: but, could I help a cap fitting now and then, though it was never made to order? I declare, I merely conceived the porkman's greasy hands had made a dirty Times newspaper of it; for, whether it be good or bad composition, I know not, as it is a paper which neither I nor any other well-bred person of my acquaintance ever looks into.

"I would appeal, even to Fred. Lamb himself, on whom I perhaps have been a little too severe, whether the editor's anonymous, personal, and low abuse of me, who affix my name to my Memoirs, is not disgraceful to any man?

"And then the worthy editor winds up his oration with an argument, which, to all noble fathers and parents of high taste and renown, must be found irresistible. He declares that his mighty immaculate pigmies, Gogs or Magogs, the Miss New Times's, or the Misses New Times, shall not read one line of my book!

"Quel malheur! tant pour les Misses New Times, que pour moi!

"But who on earth are the Miss New Times's? We declare, plurally speaking, in humble imitation of the worthy editor, that we never once knew, saw, nor heard of such people, or if we did, like our Latin, we have forgotten them.

"Editors, I humbly suppose, ought to be something like gentlemen, and if, though they may be old ladies, they are really moral characters too, I conceive they would be justified in expressing with manly firmness, their disapproval of any publication which they believed to be dangerous or improper; but the low meanness of loading with abuse a female like me, whose only protector resides on the continent, is the more cowardly, inasmuch as the said editors never applied those epithets to Lady Caroline Lamb, nor, in short, to any lady whose husband happened to be at hand, with that hand ready to pull their noses, if they have courage enough to let them appear.

"Now I beg to ask the editor of the New Times, what can be more immoral than Lady Caroline Lamb, a wife and mother, publishing her own desperate love-letters to Lord Byron, written under her husband's own roof? Yet what editor ever took to task a lady whose friends were on the spot? While this bold champion of the public morals spits his toad-like venom on me, who never yet deceived, nor acted a dishonourable part towards anybody, except myself, and who was at first forced into that unfortunate situation, which the heartless conduct of my former acquaintances obliged me to continue in. Yet, whatever may have been their sins against me, I am confident, as of my existence, that they will all express their unequalified disgust at the editor's unmanly abuse of me."

Thus far the fair auto-biographer. The whole and sole conduct of the editors may be defined in one word, selfishness. Their private pecuniary interest, and that alone, influenced their proceedings. They one and all expected to derive pecuniary advantage from the conduct they adopted in regard to these Memoirs, and, while many of them were abusing her, for having endeavoured to get money by her work, their single object was the very same, whether they affected to be loud in their complaints, whether they assumed a tone of moderation, or whether they were wholly silent--a very rare occurrence!

Scarcely inferior to the abuse of the press has been the abuse of power in the same case. Happy indeed is it for all concerned, and most happy for the general interests of society, that we live in a country where those who wield the sharpest swords with the most skilful hands, have even their power to oppress limited, and, from the throne itself, have bounds set to their wishes, by a constitution, which emphatically and almost with more than mortal voice exclaims, "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther."

It will be observed that this work has proved no less obnoxious to those out of power, than to those in power, and to some, we might almost say, of every rank and class, from the highest to the lowest. Here then was an embodied phalanx to be encountered, which the invincible, giant-arm of truth could alone dare, could alone meet, could alone discomfit. The great mass of the people, who did not know how soon their turn might come, exulted indeed in their present security, but dared not venture to do more than remain neutral: while the very, very few, who, when they knocked at the door of their own consciences, were sure of a comfortable answer, gave their unostentatious, almost silent, and not very effective encouragement to the publisher, not to be borne down by the torrent of abuse, which glanced harmless from that head which it was intended to crush and overwhelm, and bury in a heap of disgusting ruins.

A common interest, it was anticipated, would produce a more than common union of all the powers; yet great is truth, and it will prevail!

Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates; sed magis amica veritas.

The age of all the talents was revived on this occasion. Ministers and Opposition joined. White's, Brooke's, the United Service, and indeed all the principal clubs held meetings to extinguish this burning shame, which threatened an extent of desolation which, it was said, would make England not worth living in, and some actually quitted, while others prepared, to quit it in consequence.

One sapient resolution was that they should not buy these Memoirs; but the private curiosity of each, to see what figure his companions cut, rendered that resolve nugatory in a moment. Another resolution was to withdraw all custom from the publisher, and discountenance and annoy him in every possible way, especially by actions at law against him. This has been carried into effect, in a manner perhaps without precedent, and under the harass and expense of which, most physical and pecuniary resources would have given way; but here again we have reason to be thankful, and with the motto, "Be firm and you triumph, fear and you fall!" we have pretty well weathered the imminent storm.

Then, probably, as a last resource, but we must not halloa before we are out of the wood, the strong hand of power put itself forth, in the person of the representative of our most gracious sovereign at the court of France. Lord Granville, whose personal beauty when Lord Granville Leveson Gower was inadequate to obtain him favour in the eyes of our fair Memoirist, replaced Sir Charles Stuart as ambassador at Paris. His noble magnanimity instantly rushed forward to seize an opening, however slight, to revenge the insult on his vanity, which, if it had ever slept, revived with more than pristine ardour, from the publicity given to it in this work. As has been already seen, he deprived our heroine of the right of transmitting her letters direct by the ambassador's bag. This, however, was an obstacle easy to surmount. Her letters still passed by the same conveyance; but through an intermediate friend. It was now evident that her letters were opened, delayed, and sometimes withheld, and, at last, any letter from her was interdicted a reception in this select baggage, owing, as was stated, to orders from the Foreign Office, in consequence of personal dislike of Stockdale, whose letters were constantly delayed and perused, and not unfrequently suppressed. Her publisher soon satisfied her that it could not be true that such conduct prevailed here; because his letters continued to be received at the Foreign Office, as they had ever been, and therefore that it must be a false and paltry subterfuge of her Parisian friends, who were endeavouring by such means to make a breach between author and publisher.

Convinced by this plain unvarnished tale Mrs. Rochfort made known her sentiments, and the ambassador's influence soon produced an inquiry in the Foreign Office, of course promoted by that brilliant and eloquent satirist, the Right Hon. Secretary, George Canning, to ascertain the individual who took charge of my letters, and give him a reprimand for the present and caution for the future.

The sentiments of the head of the office being now so effectively made known, Mr. Stockdale soon learnt it by the return of two packets. He instantly transmitted them to the Earl of Mount Charles, who, he was confident, from attachment to the lady, had no less the means than the will to oblige her in so very trifling a matter. What then was the publisher's surprise, to receive back his letters from Lord Mount Charles, notwithstanding his lordship had in the customary official manner put his own initials at the corner of their envelopes, with a message that Lord Mount Charles had not the means of forwarding them.

In a trivial case, it would be difficult to instance a more complete, a more servile, a more degrading submission to the fiat of political influence than this, by a scion of the most prominent and influential, if not the most opulent noble, in the peerage of the United Kingdom. Alas! we cannot parody the line and say of the independence of the young and high-born heir of the Marquisate of Conyngham.

And, fled from monarchs, Mount Charles, dwells with thee!

But we will pursue this disgusting un-Englishlike, and mean abuse of power no farther, except to say that there is some reason to believe that the correspondence with this lady, which goes even by the General Post, at least from her publisher, is not kept inviolate; but whether at the English or at the French side of the Channel, this deponent saith not.

Before I wholly drop this subject, I am requested by Mrs. Rochfort to say that she has been like her publisher, so annoyed by anonymous and other impertinence, that, she will henceforth receive no letters whatever, unless they bear the superscription of the name and seal of their writers.

One or two trivial matters still remain to be noticed.

Charmouth, whither Harriette retired on the Marquis of Worcester's expatriation, is in Dorsetshire, not in Devonshire.

The publisher's courteous gallantry to the Countess of Clare induced him to make a communication to that lady and withhold the portion of the Memoirs which relates to her, until the printing had proceeded too far to admit its insertion in its assigned place, where Lord Ponsonby is spoken of, and this will therefore form part of the further Memoirs.

As the question of piracies, and Mr. Blore's proceedings against the publisher for libel, will find due publicity in the Court of King's Bench, I shall also, for the present, take my leave, after unsparing congratulations on the success of these Memoirs, and on their moral effects on society and manners throughout the civilised world, a consummation which will be assisted in no small degree by the series of prints, of which the publication has already commenced, and which, I cannot hesitate to affirm, are actually unrivalled in this or in any other country.

THOMAS LITTLE.

1_st June,_ 1825.

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