de bon air, never serious, sometimes sarcastic, and occasionally silly. The following extracts are addressed to Lady Suffolk from Paris, where he had just arrived: I OBEY your commands, madam, though it is to talk of myself. The journey has been of great service to me, and my strength returned sensibly in two days. Nay, though all my hours are turned topsy-turvy, I find no inconvenience, but dine at half an hour after two, and sup at ten, as easily as I did in England at my usual hours. Indeed, breakfast and dinner now and then jostle one another; but I have found an excellent preservative against sitting up late, which is by not playing at whist. They constantly tap a rubber before supper, get up in the middle of a game, finish it after a meal of three courses and a desert; add another rubber to it; then take their knotting-bags, draw together into a little circle, and start some topic of literature or irreligion, and chat till it is time to go to bed; that is, till you would think it time to get up again. The women are very good-humoured and easy; most of the men disagreeable enough. However, as every thing English is in fashion, our bad French is accepted into the bargain. Many of us are received every where. Mr. Humet is fashion itself, though his French is almost as unintelligible as his English; Mr. Stanley is extremely liked; and if liking them, goodhumour and spirits can make any body please, Mr. Elliot § will not fail. For my own part, I receive the greatest civilities, and in general am much amused. But I could wish there was less whist, and somewhat more cleanliness. My Lady Brown and I have diverted ourselves with the idea of Lady Blandford || here. I am convinced she would walk upon stilts for fear of coming near the floors, and that would be rather a droll sight. The town is extremely empty at present, our manners having gained so much in that respect too, as to send them all into the country till winter. Their countryhouses would appear to me no more rural than those in Paris. Their gardens are like deserts, with no more verdure or shade. What trees they have are stripped up, and cut straight at top; it is quite the massacre of the innocents. Their houses in town are all white and gold and lookingglass: I never knew one from another. ¶ Madame de Mirepoix's, though small, has the most variety, and a little leaven of English. But we are paying less attention than they merit to the female pens that figure in this collection. Among the letters of Lady Hervey (the celebrated Mary Lepel-so distinguished and indeed immortalized by Pope, Lord Chesterfield, Voltaire, Walpole, &c. for her wit, beauty, and unblemished conduct and character) there are many that are witty, amusing, and characteristic; and few that do not exhibit a tinge of that coarseness, both of thought and expression, which marked the manners even of the most refined persons of that period. The following is an allegorical description of the six maids of honour of the court of George the Second in the year 1731. "Pray give me leave to question your ladyship in my turn, and to inquire into your studies of all kinds; for I shall not, like you, bound my curiosity to the dead: * Walpole was extremely fond of this metaphor, and uses it indiscriminately. Tapping a rubber of whist is not quite in such good taste as tapping a shower in a dry summer at Strawberry-hill. David Hume, who was secretary of embassy to Lord Hertford, who had lately been our ambassador at Paris. Right Honourable Hans Stanley, envoy to the court of Versailles. Afterwards Sir Gilbert, and first Lord Minto. Lady Blandford, as our readers recollect, was a Dutch lady. The Mareschal, Duchesse de Mirepoix, sister of the Prince de Beauveau. there are living books which I am sure you sometimes peruse, and which I should be very glad to have an account of: and in so large a library as there is at Hampton Court, though the generality of books are dull and insipid, it is impossible but you must find something worth transcribing. There are six volumes which stand together that were published a good while ago, several of them bound in calf: if you will look into them, I cannot but think you will meet with things that may entertain, though not instruct. The first volume contains serious thoughts on the state of virginity, interspersed with occasional satires on several subjects. The second volume I have scarcely dipped into; but it seems to be a plain discourse on morality, and the unfitness of those things commonly called pleasures. The next, or at least that which I think follows, is a rhapsody; it is very verbose, and nothing in it: there is a very good print before it of the author's face. The fourth volume is neatly bound; the title of it, 'The Lady's Guide, or the Whole Art of Dress ;' a book well worth perusing. The next is a miscellaneous work, in a pocket edition, printed on bad paper, in which are some essays on love and gallantry; a discourse on lying; tea-table chit-chat; an attempt on political subjects; the whole very prolix and unentertaining. The sixth volume is a folio; being a collection of the subjects, cause, and occasion, of all the late court ballads; also a key to them, and to the jokes and witticisms of the most fashionable conversations now in town. This book is very diverting, and may be read by those of the meanest, as well as by those of the best understanding, being writ in the vulgar tongue. The following is the editor's conjecture as to who is pointed out respectively, in the above allegorical sketch: "The first and last were probably Miss Meadows and Miss Vane, whose characters are hardly to be mistaken. The fourth is likely to be Miss Fitzwilliam, afterwards Lady Pembroke; and the three others were probably Miss Carteret, Miss Mordaunt, and Miss Dives." Of the gay, giddy, and afterwards unhappy Miss Sophia Howemaid of honour to Queen Caroline when she was Princess of Wales— we present the reader with the following highly characteristic epistle. Shortly after the date of this, she was guilty of a fatal indiscretion, with Mr. A. Lowther, brother of Henry Viscount Lonsdale, and in 1726 died of a broken heart. The somewhat strict editor of these papers― (strict at least in his expressed opinions in regard to some portions of this correspondence-which portions, however, he does not object to publish)-seems to think that one could scarcely anticipate a better end than the above named to the writer of so very light-hearted a letter as the following: You will think, I suppose, that I have had no flirtation since I am here; but you will be mistaken; for the moment I entered Farnham, a man, in his own hair, cropped, and a brown coat, stopped the coach to bid me welcome, in a very gallant way and we had a visit, yesterday, from a country clown of this place, who did all he could to persuade me to be tired of the noise and fatigue of a court-life, and intimated, that a quiet country one would be very agreeable after it, and he would answer that in seven years I should have a little court of my own. I think this is very well advanced for the short time I have been here; and, truly, since what this gentleman has said, I am half resolved not to return to you, but follow his advice in taking up with a harmless, innocent, and honest livelihood, in a warm cottage; but for fear I should be tempted too far, put my Lord Lumley in mind to send the coach for me on Tuesday se'nnight; for though it will be a sort of mortification for me to leave this place, I will not be so ill-natured as to let you all die for want of me. I am just come from Farnham church, where I burst out in laughing* the monar I went in, and it was taken to be because I was just pulling out one of my Scotch cloth handkerchiefs, which made me think of Jenny Smith. The pastor made a very fine sermon upon what the wickedness of this world was come to ;—*** My service to the Duke of Argyll, and tell him I brought down his play-things to divert myself here, I cannot say to put myself in mind of him; for that purpose it would have been a needless trouble to load the coach with them. Tell Stanhope I have lost the Bath ring he gave me, but I am going into one (a bath) to-night, where I will dive for the other (a ring) to give him when we meet. S. H. We must now close our notice of these interesting papers; not without mentioning, however, that they are given to the public by the liberality of Emily, Marchioness of Londonderry; to whom they were bequeathed by her father, the second Earl of Buckinghamshire-who was a nephew of Lady Suffolk, and received them from herself. It should be added, also, that they are accompanied by many very valuable illustrative and explanatory notes, from the hand of the editor to whom the whole collection was submitted for selection,—who is evidently a person extremely well fitted, upon the whole, for the office he has undertaken. He possesses much taste, acuteness, and discrimination, added to a very extensive acquaintance with the affairs of the particular period to which the letters chiefly refer. A HYMN TO APOLLO. (By the Author of the "Poetical Scenes.") "The last time that I can call to mind, wherein this false deitie (Apollo) was openly worshipped, was upon a certain occasion at Delphi. There being a small knot of Pagan people still lingering on the borders of that country, they took their way to the temple there, dedicated to the god Phœbus, and at the rising of the sun poured out a strange and curious hymn, so loudly, and accompanied with such marvellous gesture, that a peasant who beheld them was sorely affrighted. The leader was a young man, of pale and mournful aspect, clad in the robes of a priest, but very earnest withal; and the rest, who followed him, were elder; the first singing the hymn, and the latter elevating their voices in chorus. It was a singular spectacle; and the hymn itself was preserved, by some means, and indeed is still extant among us."-Luc. Clodii Epistolæ, xlvii. HYMN. Hail!-Hail!-Hail! To our lord and our king, Apollo! Who cheereth the dawn so pale, * All the incidents of this letter are recorded in a ballad, written by Mr. Molyneux, found in another collection of MSS.; it is not without humour, but hardly fit for publication. On this irreverent laughing in church the Duchess of St. Albans chid Miss Howe, and told her that she could not do a worse thing; to which this giddy girl answered, "I beg your grace's pardon, I can do a great many things worse. Doth ride like a hunter bright, Chasing the track of the fleet-wing'd Night! CHORUS. Behold!-How like a thought which fills the brain Its prism athwart the sky through sparkling showers, So smileth he over the weeping flowers, Till the blue silence of the morning sings! HYMN. Yet, peerless Apollonian! thou didst come Bearing that grave-eyed child who scaled the stars, O wise and great Apollo, hear our song! In the freshness of the dawn ;— Hail!-Hail!-Hail! O prince of Music! whom the spheres obey, The banquet with its breath, as odours fall Of roses doth enwrap the brows of Spring, To thee, O Sun! belong The shell, the lyre, the song: Drum, and shriek, and soldier's groan Mars and the flush'd Bacchus own; And the pastoral flute, Now, alas! so mute, Sprang from the passionate wit of reeded Pan; But still thy shell and lyre, And thy song all fire Survive, and still enchant both God and grateful man' CHORUS. Hark-hark! from forest deeps, Where the laurel sleeps, A dreamy music like Love's murmur'd kiss Comes haunting through the air! O, who would miss The music of the morning! who would blind Their eyes and let the roaming wind Bear the fair beauty of the morn away! HYMN. We bless, and gaze upon thee, prince of Day, With pulsing heart, rais'd eyes, and bended knee, Before thy eternal glory Sorrow flieth, And Hunger, who once pined, complains no more, Want shrinks, and Death despairs, and Labour hieth Singing to scythed Time, whose locks all boar Look glistening, as though youth, newborn, returned; And strength struck down and weak, and Love inurned Arise, like angels, and proclaim the Day! O beautiful Apollo !-far away Into the dreaming west keep thou thy way; For there, amongst the flush'd and amorous skies, With white arms stretch'd the waveborn Thetis lies Sighing, and by her side the Hours fair Unbind their rainbow-colour'd hair, -Therefore we cease our praise, and sing no more. |