"Now should I like to call that a most courtly compliment, but for my

life I cannot--it is so true."

"You pronounce a severe satire on your father's court, my friend; and

one that I hope it merits not."

"Merits! Perhaps not--for, though the youngest and least rational of my

father's children, I can perceive there are some about him who hit upon

truth occasionally, either by chance or intention. There's that rugged

bear, Sir Thomas Pride, whom, I have heard say, my father knighted with

a mopstick--he, I do believe, speaks truth, and of a truth follows one

scriptural virtue, being no respecter of persons. As to General George

Monk, my father trusts him--and so--yet have I observed, at any mention

of Charles Stuart's name, a cunning twinkling of the eye that may yet

kindle into loyalty.--I would as soon believe in his honesty as in his

lady's gentleness. Did you hear, by the way, what Jerry, my poor

disgraced beau, Jerry White, said of her? Why, that if her husband could

raise and command a regiment endowed with his wife's spirit, he might

storm the stronghold of sin, and make Satan a state prisoner. Then our

Irish Lord Chancellor--we call him the true Steele; and, indeed, any one

who ventures to tell my father he errs, deserves credit. Yes, Sir

William Steele may certainly be called a truth-teller. Not so our last

court novelty, Griffeth Williams of Carnarvon, Esq., who though he

affects to despise all modern titles, and boasts of his blood-ties with

the Princes of Wales, Kings of France, Arragon, Castile, and Man, with

the sovereigns of Englefield and Provence to boot, yet moves every

secret engine he can find to gain a paltry baronetcy! Even you, dear

Constance, would have smiled to see the grave and courtly salutations

that passed between him and the Earl of Warwick--the haughty Earl, who

refused to sit in the same house with Pride and Hewson--a circumstance,

by the way, that caused Jerry White to say, 'he had too much Pride to

attend to the mending of his soul.' The jest is lost unless you

remember that Hewson had been a cobbler. As to John Milton----"

"Touch him not," interrupted Constance; "let not your thoughtless mirth

light upon John Milton; there is that about the poet, which made me feel

the very first time I saw him, that-'Something holy lodges in that breast.' I remember the day well, now more than three years ago, while staying at

Hampton Court, (whither your gracious mother had commanded me,) and

reading to the Lady Claypole, near the small window of her

dressing-room, which opened into the conservatory, one sultry July

evening, when the last rays of the golden sun disturbed the sober and to

me more touching beauty of the silver night--at last I could no longer

see, and closed the volume; your sister, in sweet and gentle voice,

stayed me to repeat some passages from the 'Masque of Comus.' How

accurately I can call to mind her every tone, as it mingled with the

perfume of the myrtle and orange trees, impregnating the air at once

with harmony and fragrance.




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