"Hymen ushers the lady Astrea,
The jest took hold of Latona the cold,
Ceres the brown, with bright Cytherea,
Thetis the wanton, Bellona the bold;
Shame-faced Aurora
With witty Pandora,
And Maia with Flora did company bear;"
(And many 'tis stated
Went there to be mated,
Who all their lives have been hunting the fair. )
Blackmantle, Transit, Eglantine, and Crony's Visit to the
Venetian Carnival—Exhibits—Their Char-acters drawn from
the Life—General Trinket, the M.C.—Crony's singidar
Anecdote of the great Earl of Chesterfield, and Origin of
the Debouchettes—The Omissions in the Wilson Memoirs
supplied—Biographical Reminiscences of the Amiable Mrs.
Debouchette—Harriette and lier Sisters—Amy—Mary—Fanny—
Julia—Sophia—Charlotte and Louisa—Paphians and their
Paramours—Peers and Plebeians—The Bang Bantam—London Leda
—Spanish Nun—Sparrow Hawk—Golden Pippin—White Crow—
Brazen Bellona—Edgeware Diana
Water Lily—White Doe—Comic Muse—Queen of the
Dansysettes—Vestina the Titan—The Red Rose—Moss Rose and
Cabbage Rose—The Doldrum Stars of Erin—Wren of Paradise—
Queen of the Amazons—Old Pomona—Venus Mendicant—Venus
Callypiga—Goddess of the Golden Locks—Mocking Bird—Net
Perdita—Napoleon Venus—Red Swan—Black Swan—Blue-eyed
Luna—Tartar Sultana The Bit of Rue—Brompton Ceres—
Celestina Conway—Lucy Bertram—Water Wagtail—Tops and
Bottoms—The Pretenders—The Old Story—Lady of the Priory—
Little White Morose—Queen of Trumps—Giovanni the Syren,
with Ileal Names "unexed—Original Portraits and Anecdotes
of the Dukes of M———and D———, Marquisses II——— and
II ——, Earls W———, F———, and C———, Lords
P———, A———, M———, and N———, llonourables
B———c, L———s, and F———s—General Trinket—Colonel
Caxon—Messrs. II—b—h, R———, D———, and B———,
and other Innumerables.
It was during the fashionable season of the year 1818, when Augusta Corri, ci-devant Lady Hawke,{1} shone forth under her newly-acquired title a planet of the first order, that a few amorous noblemen and wealthy dissolutes, ever on the qui vive for novelty, projected and sanctioned the celebrated Venetian carnival given at the Argyll-rooms under the patronage of her ladyship and four other equally celebrated courtezans. Of course, the female invitations were confined exclusively to the sisterhood, but restricted to the planets and stars of Cytherea, the carriage curiosities, and fair impures of the most dashing order and notoriety; and never were the revels of Terpsichore kept up with more spirit, or graced with a more choice collection of beautiful, ripe, and wanton fair ones.
1 In page 315 of our first volume we have given a brief
biographical sketch of her ladyship and her amours.
Nor was there any lack of distinguished personages of the other sex; almost all the leading roués of the day being present, from Lord p******** Tom B***, including many of the highest note in the peerage, court calendar, and army list. The elegance and superior arrangement of this Cytherean fête was in the most exquisite taste; and such was the number of applications for admissions, and the reported splendour of the preparations, that great influence in a certain court was necessary to insure a safe passport into the territories of the Paphian goddess. The enormous expense of this act of folly has been estimated at upwards of two thousand pounds; and many are the dupes who have been named as bearing proportions of the same, from a royal duke to a Hebrew star of some magnitude in the city; but truth will out, and the ingenuity of her ladyship in raising the wind has never been disputed, if it has ever been equalled, by any of her fair associates. The honour of the arrangement and a good portion of the expense were, undoubtedly, borne by a broad-shouldered Milesian commissary-general, who has since figured among the ton under the quaint cognomen of General Trinket, from his penchant for filling his pockets with a variety of cheap baubles, for the purpose of making presents to his numerous Dulcineas; a trifling extravagance, which joined to his attachment to rouge et noir has since consigned him to durance vile. The general is, however, certainly a fellow of some address, and, as a master of the ceremonies, deserves due credit for the superior genius he on that occasion displayed.
During dinner, Crony had been telling us a curious anecdote of the great Earl of Chesterfield and Miss Debouchette, the grandmother of the celebrated courtezans, Harriette Wilson and sisters. "At one of the places of public entertainment at the Hague, a very beautiful girl of the name of Debouchette, who acted as limonadière, had attracted the notice of a party of English noblemen, who were all equally anxious to obtain so fair a prize. Intreaties, promises of large settlements, and every species of lure that the intriguers could invent, had been attempted and played off without the slightest success; the fair limonadière was proof against all their arts. In this state of affairs arrived the then elegant and accomplished Earl of Chesterfield, certainly one of the most attractive and finished men of his time, but, without doubt, equally dissipated, and notorious for the number of his amours. Whenever a charming girl in the humbler walks of life becomes the star of noble attraction and the reigning toast among the roués of the day, her destruction may be considered almost inevitable. The amorous beaux naturally inflame the ardour of each other's desires by their admiration of the general object of excitement; until the honour of possessing such a treasure becomes a matter of heroism, a prize for which the young and gay will perform the most unaccountable prodigies, and, like the chivalrous knights of old, sacrifice health, fortune, and eventually life, to bear away in triumph the fair conqueror of hearts. Such was the situation of Miss Debouchette, when the Earl of Chesterfield, whose passions had been unusually inflamed by the current reports of the lady's beauty, found himself upon inspection that her attractions were irresistible, but that it would require no unusual skill to break down and conquer the prudence and good sense with which superior education had guarded the mind of the fair limonadière. To a man of gallantry, obstacles of the most imposing import are mere chimeras, and readily fall before the ardour of his impetuosity; 'faint heart never won fair lady,' is an ancient but trite proverb, that always encourages the devotee. The earl had made a large bet that he would carry off the lady. In England, among the retiring and the most modest of creation's lovely daughters, his success in intrigues had become proverbial; yet, for a long time, was he completely foiled by the fair Debouchette. No specious pretences, nor the flattering attentions of the most polished man in Europe, could induce the lady to depart from the paths of prudence and of virtue; every artifice to lure her into the snare of the seducer had been tried and found ineffectual, and his lordship was about to retire discomfited and disgraced from the scene of his amorous follies, with a loss of some thousands, the result of his rashness and impetuosity, when an artifice suggested itself to the fertile brain of his foreign valet, who was an experienced tactician in the wars of Venus. This was to ascertain, if possible, in what part of the mansion the lady slept; to be provided with a carriage and four horses, and in the dead of the night, with the assistance of two ruffians, to raise a large sheet before her window dipt in spirits, which being lighted would burn furiously, and then raising the cry of fire, the fair occupant would, of course, endeavour to escape; when the lover would have nothing more to do than watch his opportunity, seize her person, and conveying it to the carriage in waiting, drive off secure in his victory. The scheme was put in practice, and succeeded to the full extent of the projector's wishes; but the affair, which made considerable noise at the time, and was the subject of some official remonstrances, had nearly ended in a more serious manner. The brother of the lady was an officer in the army, and both the descendants of a poor but ancient family; the indignity offered to his name, and the seduction of his sister, called forth the retributive feelings of a just revenge; he sought out the offender, challenged him, but gave him the option of redeeming his sister's honour and his own by marriage. Alas! that was impossible; the earl was already engaged. A meeting took place, when, reflection and good sense having recovered their influence over the mind of the dissipated lover, he offered every atonement in his power, professed a most unlimited regard for the lady, suggested that his destruction would leave her, in her then peculiar state, exposed to indigence, proposed to protect her, and settle an annuity of two hundred pounds per annum upon her for her life; and thus circumstanced the brother acceded, and the affair was, by this interposition of the seconds, amicably arranged. There are those yet living who remember the fair limonadière first coming to this country, and they bear testimony to her superior attractions. The lady lived for some years in a state of close retirement, under the protection of the noble earl, in the neighbourhood of Chelsea, and the issue of that connexion was a natural son, Mr. Debouchette, whom report states to be the father of Harriette Wilson and her sisters.
'Ere man's corruptions made him wretched, he
Was born most noble, who was born most free.'
—Otway.
So thought young Debouchette; for a more wild and giddy fellow.in early life has seldom figured among the medium order of society. Whether the mother of the Cyprians was really honoured with the ceremony of the ritual, I have no means of knowing," said Crony; "but I well remember the lady, before these her beauteous daughters had trodden the slippery paths of pleasure: there was a something about her that is undefinable in language, but conveys to the mind impressions of no very pure principles of morality; a roving eye, salacious person, and swaggering carriage, with a most inviting condescension, always particularized the elder silk-stocking grafter of Chelsea, while yet the fair offspring of her house were lisping infants, innocent and beautiful as playful lambs. Debouchette himself was a right jolly fellow, careless of domestic happiness, and very fond of his bottle; and indeed that was excusable, as during a long period of his life he was concerned in the wine trade. To the conduct and instructions of the mother the daughters are indebted for their present share of notoriety, with all the attendant infamy that attaches itself to Harriette and her sisters:—and this perhaps is the reason why Mrs. Rochford, alias Harriette Wilson, so liberally eulogises, in her Memoirs, a parent whose purity of principle is so much in accordance with the exquisite delicacy of her accomplished daughter. As the girls grew up, they were employed, Amy and Harriette, at their mother's occupation, the grafting of silk stockings, while the junior branches of the family were operative clear starchers, as the old board over the parlour window used to signify, which Brummel would facetiously translate into getters up of fine linen, when Petersham did him the honour of driving him past the door, that he might give his opinion upon the rising merits of the family, who, like fragrant exotics, were always placed at the window by their judicious parent, to excite the attention of the curious. But, allons" said Crony, "we shall be late at the carnival, and I would not miss the treat of such an assemblage for the honour of knighthood."
A very few minutes brought Transit, Eglantine, Crony, and myself, within the vortex of this most seductive scene. Waltzing was the order of the night—