the Pleiades, or a new fleuron in the crown, were less difficult to account for, than a new face; nor are the beefeaters keeping guard over the crown jewels more vigilant than the doorkeepers of royal favour!—

Still, I determined to do my best, in hopes of Mariana's worst; and flattering her vanity and my own, went on accepting Brettingham's invitations to dinner and his wife's smiles, whenever I derogated by a sojourn in town.

Those were mighty pleasant days!-as one usually says of days that are certain never to recur. Throughout Europe, it was holiday time for people intent upon promoting the greatest happiness of the smallest number. While the fashionable world of London, unchecked by the influence of a female court, did as it listed, in Paris, the person of the new King, Charles X., was so surrounded by Jesuits, both in and out of the Order, that he was unable to perceive what was going on at Court; and the Pavillon de Marsan, secure from his paternal

surveillance, was playing its fantastic tricks before high Heaven in a style which if it made the angels weep, made mortals smile.

Nothing could exceed the brilliancy of the fêtes offered to the young Duchesse de Berri,that is, not to the young Duchesse de Berri, but to the mother of the heir presumptive of the throne of France. Like the sunshine glaring on the beautiful vineyards of Portici, where the blue sky smiles above and the purple sea gleams beyond, while volcanic fires glow and redden in unsuspected fury below,—all was fair at the Tuileries,-all fair at the Palais Royal. In England, a standing army-in France, a brigade of priests,—the rouge et noir janissaries of modern despots,-enabled that venerable dowager Toryism to smooth the locks and pamper the pride of her spoiled child, Conservatism; - and Intolerance to adapt the keys of St. Peter to the locks of a new Bastille.

Nevertheless, Vesuvius was preparing for

an outburst. I know

I know very little about the coté droit or the coté gauche of Paris politics; inasmuch as it occurs to the place-mongers to announce every now and then, as the Médecin Malgré lui did of the human organization, that they have changé tout cela. But this I remember, that Villèle was the most unpopular minister against whom the cry of impeachment had been raised since the Restoration.

As to English politics, they were pretty much in the state of vicissitude that the human viscera may have been, when changing sides at the instigation of the said Médecin. Canning was recently deceased;-a great man who accomplished little,-a Damascus blade that came to hand when a tomahawk was wanted, -a temple of polished marble, when the wants of the times demanded a structure of unhewn granite. But now that he was gone, neither granite nor marble remained. Then came a coalition ministry, the wretchedest thing in nature; like a spliced mast, sure to give way in a storm. Each

moiety of the party was waiting for a favourable opportunity to throw over the others;-and Huskisson, the Ministre malgrè lui, was the victim.

In Ireland, too, I must admit that the sun

shine was overclouded. St. Patrick seemed no longer satisfied to lie still on his gridiron, like the blessed martyr, St. Lawrence; and was beginning to make an outcry. But after all, the outcries of Ireland have never availed her more than the sputtering of an apple while being roasted!

Some there were who saw clearly that though no ostensible change had been accomplished, the first stone of a temple of Liberalism had been laid by Canning, which must eventually find a superstructure.

Whenever I was able to escape from the golden fetters of my royal servitude, or the silken meshes of my più dolce servitù, so as to snatch a dinner with my brother in Connaught Place, I clearly discerned, though more from his silence than his words, that Danby contem

plated the growing irritability of Europe as that of a long overgorged boa constrictor, beginning to rouse itself for action; and that the long calm we had enjoyed was only the deadly stillness preceding a storm.

The sobriety of mind with which my brother refrained from taking any part in an administration, whose measures, feeble as they were, he had not sufficient ascendancy to fortify, was characteristic of his usual forecast. Again and again, did he refuse high office; for it was useless to lend the influence of his name, where the influence of his mind was ineffectual.

Herries was sometimes of our party: confident and jactant with all the official self-sufficiency that seems to await, like a wedding garment, the privileged banqueters upon Downing Street loaves and fishes. His reserve of former days was giving way under the influence of a long series of ministerial turtle and venison; and the marrow and fatness of prosperity had opened the heart of the shy man, and the