I scarcely know in what consisted the deficiencies that rendered her obnoxious to their coterie. All I perceived on the subject was that, into the inner sanctuary of the Temple of Fashion, Mrs. Brettingham had not made her way.

a

I seldom made mine; from no want of the countersign enabling me to enter,-for their high priestess, Lady Grindlesham, was lady patroness of Cecil Danby as well as of Almack's;-but because I thought those women a bore. I do not pretend to despise fine ladies; but a fine lady, according to my exposition of the thing, must be a lady so very refined, that her finery is imperceptible; one of those rare combinations of high birth, high breeding and intelligence, who move through life as a well-built cutter through the water, without leaving a ripple on the waves;-an object of service and delight to her owners, and of admiration to all the world.

But I hate laborious fine ladyism, as heavy and graceless a thing as a gilded Lord Mayor's

coach; and the pride, fastidiousness, and prodigality of fuss and money of the Exlusives served only to shew how many thousand weight of spangles and feathers are necessary to weigh in the balance against queenly influence in the land.

O curas hominum, ô quantum est in rebus inane!

Oh! womankind equally absurd! to trouble yourselves so sorely with minikin Machiavelism and gilt paper stateswomanship!-how little did your manœuvres effect beyond making yourselves objects of pity to the wise, and odium to the vulgar!

The pride of the Exclusives piqued the multitude to discover a thousand blemishes in their escutcheon, seeing there were many of them who could not have proved even four quarters of nobility; while their prodigality set the gossips upon ascertaining the amount of mortgages upon the lands of their lords, who were not their masters. Their fastidiousness affixed

publicity to a thousand traits of personal frailty or personal defect, which had been otherwise passed over in silence;—and from all this, they incurred a degree of opprobrium in the coteries, fully equalling the unpopularity of the court with that mightier circle, the public, of which royalty is the centre. Poor Lady Ormington, when occasionally I devoted a vacant evening to her tea-table, was full of wonder at the potency of their sceptre. Even the Saints stood wondering!

"Ah! my dear Mr. Danby," sighed Lady Harriet Vandeleur, whom I met one day at Rivingtons' door, (as I was coming out of the adjoining silk-mercer's, where I had been giving a design for a new waistcoat piece for his Majesty),—"what a lamentable thing to see poor dear Lady Grindlesham so wedded to the levities of life, as to be playing the girl in a hair head and gauze tunic, with her son gaining prizes at Cambridge!-If her eldest had been a daughter, you know, she might have been a

grandmother these three years!-Yet you see she fancies herself sixteen!-Poor deluded soul! if her eyes could but be opened by—"

Hastily interrupting her, for I saw that her Ladyship was setting in for a cant, and an easterly wind was cutting us in quarters much as I suspect she was about to do Lady Grindlesham, I assured her I made it a duty to remain blind to the faults of a pretty woman, more especially when, as in Lady Grindlesham's case, a particular friend.

"A particular friend?" — reiterated Lady Harriet, and instantly drawing me back into the vestibule of the shop she was quitting, (what a locale for scandal-mongery!) "in that case," said she, "you would infinitely oblige me by speaking to her in favour of my cousin Lady Jane O'Callaghan, who has two daughters she wants exceedingly to get to Almack's this season. The first subscription, my dear Mr. Danby, will not begin for this month to come; so we have plenty of time before us. To say the truth, I wrote

three times to Lady Grindlesham, without getting an answer. At last, I sent her a list of Lady Jane's family connections, to prove that I had not troubled her for a person not fully qualified to grace her list. And what do you think she had the insolence to do?-I had dear Lady Grindleshamed' her,-having intimately known her father, I was going to say her grandfather, but I believe she never had one;-and in return, she presented me her compliments, and begged me to address my communications to her at Willis's rooms, where they would be attended to at the proper time.-Did you ever hear of such a thing!"

"Not often of any thing so reasonable from so fine a lady!"-was my cool reply.

"But I tell you, my dear Mr. Danby, Lady Jane O'Callaghan is daughter to the Earl of O'Shaughnessy,-whose Barony is of Henry the Seventh's time; and her husband is the eldest son of the Catholic Lord O'Flaherty,— whose ancestors were Kings of