rich and handsome young men of fashion,-poaching, as it were, upon the peculiar preserves of the Ladies Marys and Selinas. These, with the usual allowance of colonels in the Guards, and well-dressed young men of straw, composed a party, the description of which will satisfy, we trust, the anxious reader, that the author of the pages he honours by holding in his hand, however deficient in other respects, may, in this most truly important particular, be implicitly depended upon.'-pp. 47-49. It is, at all events, the identical party which all writers of novels subsequent to the appearance of the latter cantos of Don Juan have thought proper to place in country-houses on such occasions. It has thus acquired a prescriptive authority, and may pass as a fair specimen of the fashionable world-not of the aristocracy, which, though constantly confounded, is essentially distinct. Louisa's success at the outset is described as exceedingly equivocal. Her beauty is undeniable; but (remarks the author) as beauty without the prestige of wealth or rank has almost entirely lost its effect upon the imagination of young men of fashion, nobody will be surprised to hear that Colonel Cadogan, arrived at that age when favoris are dyed, wigs à la royale worn, and to which clings a slight tincture of ancient gallantry in manner, and of the old-fashioned taste for pretty faces, was the only one of all these fine gentlemen who approached to offer his arm to conduct Miss Evelyn to the dinner-table.' We are obliged to own that this is probable enough in such a party as has been described; partly, because most of the men owe their position to the appearance of intimacy with some female leader of the coterie, and cannot afford to pursue an individual taste or preference which might lead beyond the limits of the set; partly, on account of the prevailing and vicious custom for the women to draw out, or faire le frais for, the men.* The dinner goes off heavily enough-the evening much the same; the morning drive is unproductive, and at the conclusion of the first race day, the cry is still 'Nobody coming to marry me, But before the race ball is half over, the decisive hit has been made, and Mrs. Carlton's brightest aspirations are on the point of being realised. 6 At a breakfast at the Count Apponi's, M. de Septeuil was standing and loung. ing near a table, where a young English lady was talking to him and helping herself to the good things. Some gentleman near him whispered some remark, and laughed. "Ça n'est pas exigeante, mon cher," said he, “ je suis fatigué." Had ça been a French lady, though plain, old, and unknown to him, he would have appeared all eagerness to assist her, to the tip of his little cane.'-Thoughts on the Ladies of the Aristocracy. By Lydia Tomkins, 1835.-A suspicious authority, but the story looks like truth, "Lord "Lord William Melville solicits an introduction to Miss Evelyn," said Mrs. Carlton, with an air of excessive satisfaction, and a gentleman was seen to advance, on whom the eyes of half the young ladies in the room were instantly fixed. And why?-He was neither remarkably handsome, nor remarkably well-shaped, nor remarkably tall, nor remarkably the reverse of any of these things. He was only distinguished by the simplicity of his extreme elegance, and by the total absence of that dandied, unnatural, constrained air and manner which, in some degree or other, infects most of our young men of fashion. He addressed Louisa with the most easy politeness, danced idly and without effort—and, when the dance was over, he continued to sit by her; and engaged her in conversation, not on those fashionable themes to which she was totally inadequate, but on subjects of general interest, which her talents and natural good taste calculated her to discuss as well as any one; only marking his admiration, as he did so, by an expression of the eye, as it rested upon her, the meaning, however, of which could not easily be mistaken-and which Louisa, like most women in such circumstances, seemed, by some natural instinct, to feel, rather than exactly to see.'-vol. i. pp. 64-66. This is the hero. During the rest of the visit to Dangerfield, he attaches himself to Louisa, and makes sad havoc with her unsophisticated heart; but the proposal is suspended, and she returns to the vicarage to pine away under an hourly-increasing despondency, which is just beginning to produce symptoms of consumption, when Lord William re-appears upon the stage, with intentions still wavering, but, through the timely interference of Charles, is worked up at length to the offer of his hand. The honeymoon is passed in Wales, where they get on pretty well between reading, boating, fishing, and scaling mountains, till their happiness is disturbed by a circumstance which is generally supposed to have a decidedly opposite tendency. Lady William becomes a candidate for the honours of maternity, and Lord William, albeit the inheriter of a vast entailed estate, is horrified at the venerable title of father! A less striking trait of his amiability is elicited, when they come to talk over their intended departure for London. Their way lies through the town in which Lady William's sister is settled, and she expresses a wish to pass a day there, but is reluctantly accorded an hour by her Lord, who seems to recollect with difficulty that his wife even had any relations at all. To do him justice, however, he is little more regardful of his own, who are collected to welcome his bride at his splendid mansion in Park Lane. He introduces her to his mother and sisters with the most perfect nonchalance, and lounges off to his club. The next morning being Sunday gives the authoress an opportunity of illustrating the notions of the aristocracy as to church going. Lady William is voted too ill to go to church; but it is proposed that she shall take an airing in the Park in the most delicious of all possible phaetons, drawn by the most adorable of all possible ponies,' which Lady Fanny, who thus describes them, is to drive. Louisa thinks that if she is well enough to drive out, she must be well enough to go to church, but she is compelled to give way by the authoritative interference of her husband 'Louisa was left alone with Lord William, who never went to church. His religious opinions are easily explained; they are those of numbers of his class and stamp. With little examination, he had decided upon the whole business, as an invention of priests to keep the world in subjection-an invention still useful, for the purpose of maintaining order and subordination among the lower ranks of society; and a superstition amiable and desirable, to a certain degree, in women.'-vol. i. pp. 221, 222. These opinions, we fear, are only too common amongst men, though certainly not so much so among men of the highest class as among those of one several steps under them; but to represent the women of the class here in question as talking lightly on any subject connected with religion, is (to use the mildest form of denial) a palpable mistake. It may be sentiment, or enthusiasm, fashion, if the author chooses, and is reluctant to give them credit for principle-but the fact is undoubted, that they are singularly sedulous in their attendance at church, and to all appearance unaffectedly serious in the devotional feelings they almost uniformly profess. We may further hint to the ingenious novelist, that a pony phaeton, with outriders, is not the exact description of equipage in which a man of Lord William's taste would permit his wife to disport herself on a Sunday in the Park, as she would certainly incur imminent risk of being taken for a femme entretenue. A whole host of errors are concentrated in the following paragraph, assigning Lady William's unhappiness, for which her husband's peculiar character was alone sufficient to account, to causes which had next to nothing to do with it. 'Wherever Louisa appeared, she was admired and followed; her extreme beauty and natural good taste, and a certain native dignity of manner, which might have deceived a very accurate observer as to her breeding, spared her those thousand minor mortifications which usually attend women under her circumstances: her misfortune lay deeper, it lay in a character, and habits, little adapted to the heartlessness of the situation which she occupied; she might be said not to have been properly educated for it. She had been cradled in domestic fondness; reared in the sweet habits of familiarity and confidence, and the perpetual presence and society of those she loved. She had not gone through that preparation for listless indifference, which the distant nursery-the mother with short and hurried visits-the severe and orderly nurse the the routine of the school-room, the stiff sententious governess-the artificial system of coldly regulated proprieties, supply to the children of the great as necessary, perhaps, to harden them for the career which they have afterwards to run; as the coarse fare, the noisy apartment, the busy, scolding, yet loving mother, alternating her blows and kissesthe stern and harsh, though affectionate father-to prepare the children of the poor for their rough, yet honest destiny.'-pp. 235-237. This is true, if true at all, only of a few generally ridiculed branches of the House of Carrabas; and the writer seems to forget that Louisa was the daughter of a gentleman; that her fare had not been coarse (witness the very tempting petit souper at the vicarage, pp. 20-23); and that her father, all polished and gentlemanlike,' was not stern and harsh, though affectionate.' The period of her confinement approaches, and again all natural feelings are represented as conflicting with and crushed by the cold, chilling, artificial habits of aristocracy. 'Louisa met her hour surrounded by strangers. No mother, kind and earnest, whispered to her encouragement. No sister, anxious, yet smiling, waited to kiss and caress the expected stranger-the new life! -the new creation!—the candidate fresh starting for immortality! No husband was there-to thank the mother and to bless the babe. He was at his club when he was told that his wife was ill-and, shortly afterwards, that she had made him a father, and of a daughter. A father!-the sound was even disagreeable to his ear: he mounted his horse, asked if all was going on well-and went-not home-but to the Park.'-pp. 243-245. Louisa's wish to nurse her child is voted preposterous, and it is only by stealth that she is enabled to watch over it, but the season is nearly over, and she supposes, as a matter of course, that she shall accompany her husband to his country-seat, and there, in comparative retirement, again be happy in his society, when he suddenly announces his intention of visiting Norway, and begs Louisa to arrange a winter campaign for herself. Her tears only excite his indignation; he proceeds on his northern tour, and Louisa goes down to the family castle with the Marchioness and Lady Gertrude. She found an immense dull-looking place, in one of the least interesting of the midland counties. The marquis was a heavy, cold, formal man; the marchioness the most empty and un-idead of women.' Louisa's time consequently is passed almost entirely with her child. In the April of the following year she is again in London, and Lord William returns. The mother's beauty renews old impressions for an hour, but the child turns from him as a stranger, and his indifference regarding it is confirmed. The picture would have been incomplete without the finishing touch of infidelity. Accordingly, he falls desperately in love with a prima donna, and Louisa, in her rural simplicity, is so ill-bred ill-bred as to feel exceedingly hurt on becoming casually informed of the liaison. When a stock-broker haunts the green-room of one of the minor theatres, no general conclusions are drawn unfavourable to the morality of stock-brokers; when an artizan squanders at Greenwich Fair the money required for the decent support of his family, the virtue of his order continues unimpeached; but let a nobleman fall under suspicion of dangling behind the scenes of the opera, and the whole peerage is found guilty of habitual licentiousness. Nothing now remains but her baby, and she is destined to be bereaved of that. They are staying at Brighton. The child falls sick at the moment that Lord William is anxious to set out for London, in order to present himself at St. James's, in company with his wife, with a view of silencing the rumours that began to prevail as to their estrangement. Louisa remonstrates, but Lord William insists and is obeyed. We will not linger over the distressing scene. The child left Brighton with its mother that evening-Louisa herself, inexperienced as she was, not sufficiently sensible of the risk that she ran; and somewhat soothed by the positive assurances of Mrs. Wily [the nurse] and the doctor, that Miss Melville was as well as herself. But as they approached Reigate the child became suddenly and alarmingly worse. It was ten o'clock already. Louisa stopped the carriage. "She can go no farther! God in heaven! she is choking! she can scarcely breathe or speak!" "Take her out!-take her out!-put her to bed!" was the agonized cry. No-go on!"-cried Lord William imperiously; "the child is only hoarse. If you want advice, get her to London." "She will never reach London!-she will die! O stop! stop! For God's sake let her be bled!-let her be bled!" "Absurd! Take her to London, I say." "O William! if ever you loved me—If you have one grain of pity left for me!-let us stop! she will die! she will die!" "She will do perfectly well, if my lady would not be so anxious," (fussy, she would have said,) cried the impenetrable Mrs. Wily." Oh William! William! don't believe her;-believe me this once!-this once!—this once! Grant my prayer-let us stop!" "No! she is not in the slightest danger. I insist upon an end being put to this nonsense-Order the horses out." "Good God! Lord William, she is too ill to move; she must instantly be bled. Cannot you see it in every look? hear it in that horrid !-horrid noise!" "She is hoarse -that is all. Will nobody order out the horses? Mrs. Wily, can she go, or not?" "Perfectly well, my lord." "Then she shall go." "Then she shall not go!" cried Louisa, the mother triumphing at last over every other feeling, as the increasing distress of the child amounted to agony." She shall not go! No-Lord William, I never disobeyed you before I disobey you now!-She shall not go!-My darling! yet, -yet will I save you! Tear us asunder by force-I defy you, cruel, cruel father! See! she is dying before your eyes!" She clasped the child fiercely |