days, quaffing hock and soda water, in order to allay the parching heat of a large fire which I was enduring, that my hair might dry the sooner, and enable me to get out to Richmond to dinner, my man entered with a note-" From Lord Castleton, sir-the servant waits an answer." Castleton was a college chum of mine, the best fellow in the world; in short, my fidus Achates; yet some how or other he had always (though unwittingly) crossed me in every thing; in a word, he had played the Leopold Prince of Orange, ever since I had known him. His note ran to my thus: "Dear Clavering,-If you have not disposed of yourself for this evening, either positively or conditionally, will you look in at Mrs. Damer's, No., Grosvenor-street? She is a beauty, a blue, and a widow, therefore thought she might be in your way, and, as she gave me a carte blanche, have filled it up with your name; but mind, I give you fair warning, not to think of her sister, who is a perfect goddess de seize ans, as refreshing, as sparkling, and as cold too, I fear, d―n her, as iced champagne à ce soir-Vale, "Ever yours, "CASTLETON." This note caused me to relinquish all ideas of Richmond for that day, lest fatigue, heat, and dust should be more malicious than nature, and make me look less attractive still. I was already in love with Mrs. Damer, for Castleton's sneer of her being a blue was quite as efficacious a spell as six whole months of "becks, and nods, and wreathed smiles," would have been to any other mortal. "You need not fear, Castleton," cried I, in an extacy, as I poured out the remainder of the bottle of hock: "no flippancy and fifteen for me;" and so saying, I rang the bell violently, when my servant entered. "Jefferson," said I, "order Ganymede to be saddled instantly, and go yourself to Henderson's for my violets." "Ganymede has been bled this morning, sir." "Well, then, take and and May-fly, and tell them to be sure and send me the large double violets." From the moment of my coming to town, I had contracted with Henderson to let me have violets, all the year round, for 150l. a year, and I should strenuously recommend cum multis aliis, who possess no more personal attractions than myself, never to be without a bouquet of violets, except in the months of February and March, (when all the world can have them, and therefore a moss-rose should be substituted); but it is astonishing the sensation they produce, and the notice they obtain for one, in December or July. Then you will see eyes, that never would have glanced towards you otherwise, fixed admiringly on you; then you will hear the sweetest voices exclaim"Oh, Mr. Such-a-one, or Lord So-and-so, where did you get those dear violets?" To have anything belonging to one called dear, and still more, the next moment, to see what was dear in you transferred to the most beautiful bosom in the world! This, at least, is cheap at 150l. a year; but I am obliged to go farther. Having always a collection of very costly and beautifully designed rings hanging to my chain, they are sure to attract the attention of some fair creature or other; upon which I' immediately invent some Polish, or Turkish superstition, as belonging to them, which serves as a pretext for my presenting, and their accepting them! Oh La dépense d'être laid! I could hardly wait patiently till half past ten, to present myself at Mrs. Damer's. A beauty-she was a perfect goddess; a blue indeed! She was the cleverest woman I had ever met in my life; and then, such a voice! She thanked me for coming, and said she had heard so much of me from Castleton. I need not say my violets were in her bosom at the end of half an hour. The sister was certainly pretty, looked like a Psyche, not come out, half cherub, half coquette; but the corners of her mouth curled up too much, and her eye was too laughing and restless for me to venture much near her. I soon became an habitué in Grosvenor-street. Oh those delicious, long, lounging morning visits!——when I had the extacy of hearing– Not at home” to every one but myself! We talked politics, metaphysics, physiology, and even sometimes common sense; but we had not yet got to sentiment— N'importe cela viendra, thought I, and in thinking so, every morning found some new offering on Mrs. Damer's shrine from her devoted slave. I happened to possess a copy of the original edition of "Shaftesbury's Characteristics;" I had valued it as the apple of my eye, but this too was sacrificed to my celestial, or, as Castleton called it, cerulean passion; but I was more than repaid by the grateful delight with which it was received. A few days after this my last gift, I received a note from Mrs. Damer; it was the first note I had ever had from her. Oh the effect of that first note from a woman one loves! I do not know whether to call it electricity or natural magic, or what; the note was only to ask me if I would go with her and Dora (her sister) to Deville's, and she would call for me at three; but it was read, and re-read, and I thought the hand prettier than Matilda Markham's; and I had to write my answer over six times before I could indite to my satisfaction this eloquent reply: 66 Dear Mrs. Damer,-Yes, with the greatest pleasure, and I shall be ready when you call for me at three. ،، Ever faithfully yours, "AUGUSTUS CLAVERING." Mrs. Damer and Dora were half-an-hour later than they said, and I thought it six hours at least; at length we were en route, and I was sitting opposite to all that I cared to behold in the world! I reaped comfort from the harvest of human ugliness which is always to be found in the Strand, and my thoughts actually became pleasant thereupon, till I saw two or three successive pattened and umbrellaed damsels touch their companion's arms, look at me, and laugh; then all became doubt, strife, and bitterness within me-so true is it that Mr. Deville soon explained to us all the "wacuums" and "horgans" in our respective craniums; but said so much of the wonders of mine in particular, that Mrs. Damer and Dora became very urgent that I should have a cast of my head taken. I resolutely refused, for very cogent reasons. Mr. Deville pushed back a phalanx of skulls and lamps, and began entreating me with great gesticulation and oratory; still I was immoveable, till Dora whispered me, with her little malicious will-o'-the-wisp smile," If you so obstinately refuse to become a slave of the lamp, you never can expect to have a slave of the ring." Mrs, Damer coloured at this speech, and said, imploringly, " Do, Mr. Clavering, let Mr. Deville take a cast of your head. I should so like to have it." There was no resisting this; so, with the air of a martyr, I sat down, and, like an excommunicated nun, was soon walled up alive. When I was released from my plaster Pandemonium, Mrs. Damer and her sister were laughing, almost convulsively, over a slip of paper that Miss Dora was holding. I begged to be let into the jest, but they refused. Emboldened by my own great stretch of complaisance, I snatched the paper out of Dora's hand, and had the satisfaction of reading the following epigram on myself, which she had scribbled with a pencil, while I was enduring the torments of the d-d to please herself and her sister : Love triumphs, and the struggle 's past; And stand the hazard of the dye.' '* This was too, too much. No sooner were we reseated in the carriage, than I began a pathetic remonstrance with Mrs. Damer upon the impropriety of her allowing her mad-cap of a sister to turn everything into ridicule, and make a laughing-stock of everybody. She replied, with the most insulting sang froid, "Really, Mr. Clavering, in this instance I must acquit Dora; for, as Lord Shaftesbury very justly observes, 'there is a great difference between seeking how to raise à laugh from everything, and seeking in everything what justly may be laughed at.'" This was indeed barbing the arrow with a feather from my own wing, and so making the wound rankle more deeply. Was there ever such heartlessness?-but those clever women never have any heart. With this thought I dashed open the carriage-door, and sprang into the street. hurried on, and never stopped till I arrived at my own room; there I forswore all ideas of love, at least of marriage, from that day. I Three years have elapsed since my adventure at Deville's. I am now thirty-four, and most true is it that for it has stolen away the only pleasure I ever had-hope. I am now too old to hope, and consequently unfit to live. My property is also considerably diminished, by foolish generosity to an ungrateful sex; in every grade, and in all attempts at propitiating them I have failed; even a little French opera-dancer, who took my diamonds when I addressed some verses to her, beginning with "O toi à qui l'amour à pretoit tous les charmes," had the impertinence to return me Ninon de l'Enclos' well-known answer to a similar effusion Eh bien si l'amour prête des charmes, Pourquoi n'empruntois tu pas." I shall only record one more of my adventures, or rather failures, as Lord Byron's journal of Mr. Hobhouse's piscatory exploits would, with a slight alteration in the wording, serve right well for "an abstract and * I have heard, Mr. Editor, another story respecting the origin of this epigram, and have known it attributed to another lady. I say, with Mahomet, "Mine is the only true account," brief chronicle of the rise, progress, decline, and fall of my bonnes fortunes,"―i. e." Hobhouse went out to fish-caught nothing." I was beginning to forget the many bitter lessons I had learnt, and feel a great deal more than was either prudent or proper for that prettiest of all pretty women, Lady ; for at all times, and at all places, she not only spoke to me, but spoke kindly to me. She asked me one night if I would go to the Opera with her. We were tête-à-tête till nearly the last act of the "Medea." I have no doubt Pasta was more divine than ever, but I neither saw nor heard; I was thinking I had never seen such eyes, or such an arm as Lady -'s. I was going to tell her so, when the door opened, and Castleton came in. He was my best friend, but I wished him most sincerely at the d-1; he stayed out the whole ballet, but he left us in the crush-room. Georgiana, as I now began to call her in my own mind, leant on me; I put her into her carriage; in getting in she dropped her handkerchief; I picked it up, and thought I never heard such music as the voice in which she said "Thank you;" she would have said it just as sweetly to an adder that had got out of her way. The next morning saw me in Belgrave-square by two o'clock. I was admitted; Lady was in her boudoir; the atmosphere was heavy with the breath of flowers, and the deep shade of the rose-coloured blinds at first prevented my perceiving that she had been in tears. She withdrew her handkerchief, and tried to smile when I came in. "Good heavens, Lady -," said I, "what can have made you so unhappy? I do not ask who has done so, for no one could be barbarian enough." After a little hesitation, and a fresh burst of tears, she at length sobbed out, "Lord is so very unkind to me-soso angry-about the Opera-last night." The next moment I was at her feet, and grasping her hand, cxclaimed, "Dearest Ladyat your going with me!" She withdrew her hand hastily, and smiling, nay almost laughing outright, through her tears, said, "Jealous of you! Oh no, no! Mr. Clavering, no one could be jealous of you, which was the reason I asked you; but it was be-be-because Lord Castleton came into my box, though I am sure he did not stay ten minutes." Here was another agreeable denouement. I rose and strode to the window. My eyes fell upon my five hundred guinea horse (which I had bought solely because Lady had admired it). "A shudder came o'er me, why wert thou so dear ?" -! angry I left the house-I vowed vengeance against love, and “all its dear, delightful, d-d sensations." I tried public life, and stood the other day for a certain borough, but all the women were against me, and—but what matter details-I lost my election. My father has been dead some years; my baronetcy is ancient enough, God knows; there is moreover a dormant peerage in our family. Will not these soften the heart of some gentle Zelica, and throw a silver veil over my unprepossessing physiognomy. Shall I try an advertisement?-mystery has great attractions-or- -What's this, Jefferson? a roll of paper-the last cariHa! confusion-the Lovely Lover! What, this in St. James'sstreet!-crowds round the window! 'Sdeath!-I shall go mad! Caricature, indeed! I wish it was-it is an exact likeness-a copy from the very picture I gave to the French opera-dancer, after making the d-d painter flatter the resemblance as much as he could! ture. A. O. Z. MEN AND BOOKS. Bookstalls, and a Lover of them-A French Emigrant-Memoirs of Madame de Stahl-Whims of a patronizing Duchess-Exactions of a Princess-The Abbé de Chaulieu, and his gallantry at fourscore-A real love—Extraordinary and candid account of a series of husband-huntings-Dacier in his last days-Royal and considerate advertisement of a wife to let-Geometrical test of the amount of a man's affections. I HAD Scarcely written my first article under the above head, in the course of which I had occasion to touch upon the exacting selfishness of the royal, when I met with a proper bookstall-book, much connected with that matter. It was an old favourite of mine, which I had not seen for many years, the Memoirs of Madame de Stahl; not the Madame de Staël lately so famous, but a lady of nearly the same name, who lived in the time of the Regent Duke of Orleans, and was mixed up with the conspiracy of the Duchess du Maine. Before I touch upon it, however, the reader will allow me to indulge in a notice of my older favourites,the bookstalls themselves. I have been a lover of bookstalls all my life, and at all seasons of the year; I seemed to fall naturally upon them the moment I left school. I not only found my Juvenal and Horace upon them (whose names I was glad to see, though I had a schoolboy's objection to their substance), but there also I met with my beloved English poets, and with a world of old authors and love-stories, all new to me, and precisely what I wanted. I had no prospects in life, and I did not wish to have any. I had all the faith in the present moment which youth, innocence, and fancy could bestow; and, perhaps, there were few happier persons than myself when I walked off with a new purchase under my arm, value ninepence, having the rest of the day, before dinner, to read it in, and a visit to somebody I loved for my prospect in the evening. It was still better if my purchase consisted of two volumes instead of one, for then I had the pleasure of carrying one in my hand, and of feeling the other making a square bulge in my pocket, delightfully inconvenient. No sooner did I walk off, than I fell reading "like a dragon," in the open street, but with so little ostentation, that the sarcasms of the errandboys, and other invidious passengers, gave me no concern; they only made me turn up the alleys and bye-places whenever I could. Half the quieter thoroughfares in Holborn and Oxford-street are endeared to me from the recollection. I have to think now, and do not read with such mere uninterruptedness, though it is in the spirit of truth that I have described my reading as incessant. The bookstalls I love as much as ever; it is with difficulty I pass one, upon whatever business I am bound, or in whatever weather. Rain prevents me, only because the books are taken indoors; and though conversant with the inner shelves, I do not take such delight in them as in those outside the window; I am too conscious that somebody is watching me, and I have the weakness of hating to quit a shop without buying something. I know that the man is glad to see me, and that he thinks I shall buy something next time, or go away with some memorandum, April-VOL. XXXVII. NO. CXLVIII, 2 H |