66 "Spare me, dear Lady Harriet!" cried I, struggling to get away from this O-verwhelming pedigree, you have said enough to convince me that your protegées have every chance of exclusion. You must be aware that the Patronesses have a decided objection to, but I will not say what might offend you in the persons of your cousins. Let me recommend you to drop the connection in your correspondance with Lady Grindlesham, or I will not answer for her not dropping you. If she and her sisterhood were not to do saucy things, such people as the descendants of Henry the Seventh's Barons would not care to go to Almack's. Meanwhile, I recommend their enlightenment to your prayers.-But your ladyship's carriage is driving off-will you give me leave?" And in I handed her,-looking penknives with sixteen blades at me; while I who, fifteen years before, used to thrill to the heart's core at the touch of her hand, shrugged my shoulders as she drove away. And yet, the worldliness I thought despicable in her at fifty, was only the same worldliness I had thought charming at thirty-five; saving that the hypocrisy which then made her a prude, now rendered her a bigot. There was, however, a small balance of rouge and pearl powder to be deducted from the latter account, which had been one of the weightiest sins of the former. Such were the Exclusives; and such the ninnies upon whose follies their empire was founded. It is now a thing of tradition!Exclusivism, fashionable novelism, Nashism, and fifty other fribbleisms of the West-end, were utterly extinguished by the Reform Bill; like certain fungi which, when trodden under foot, explode into dust, "leaving not a wreck behind." The Exclusives were, perhaps, obliged to invent their vocation in order to afford an object to their otherwise aimless existence; for if Idleness be the mother of the vices, Ennui is the parent of half the follies of mankind. What things we used to do at Windsor to get rid of that dolce far niente, which may be dolce enough as the leisure of contented minds, but which is bitter as colocynth, or the pleasantries of ****** when borne as an official burthen.-" Oh! the curse of having to amuse an unamusable prince!" wrote a female Cis Danby of the last century,—who had probably been spending the morning in choosing flies, and drawing patterns of purple velvet and white satin fishing-books with enamelled clasps, to contain them,—or dressing mother of pearl rods and golden hooks, to capture the gudgeon of the Virginia water of Versailles. I could a tale unfold, as amusing as instructive. But the man who hath taken wages for his service, hath taken them also for his discretion. Were I to find that O'Brien amused his brother tidewaiters (for I have done an Honourable master's duty by him, and provided for him in the Customs), with a sketch of my Life and Times in Hanover Square, I would-no! not have him kicked,-I would say he acted like a footman;-and should feel deserving the same ignominious stricture if I did not hasten to close the chapter. Vivendum recte est cùm propter plurima tunc his Contemnas! CHAPTER III. Fair Britain, in a monarch blest, Whose virtues bear the strictest test;- Nor minister nor poet flatter: What justice in rewarding merit! Dread from his hand impending changes; And Yankee, Tartar, and Chinese, Short by the knees intreat for peace.-SWIFT. THE Dean has forestalled all that my loyalty would otherwise have dictated; but under cover of our united flourish of trumpets, I sup I pose may presume to whisper to the public that I found the thraldom of my golden chains almost as irksome as if they had been formed of baser metal. |