"Round all the confines of the yielding waist,
The strangest hand may wander undisplaced.
* * *
Till some might marvel with the modest Turk,
If 'nothing follows all this palming work.'"
To draw all the portraits who figured in the fascinating scene of gay delight would be a task of almost equal magnitude with the Herculean labours, and one which in attempting, I fear some of my readers may censure me for already dwelling too long upon: but let them remember, I am a professed painter of real life, not the inventor or promoter of these delectable nocte Attici and depraved orgies; that in faithfully narrating scenes and describing character, the object of the author and artist is to show up vice in all its native deformity; that being known, it may be avoided, and being exposed, despised. But I must crave permission to extend my notice of the Cythereans to a few more characters, ere yet the mirth-inspiring notes of the band have ceased to vibrate, or the graceful fair ones to trip it lightly on fantastic toe; this done, I shall perhaps take a peep into the supper-room, drink Champagne, and pick the wing of a chicken while I whisper a few soft syllables into the ear of the nearest elegante; and then—gentle reader, start not—then——-
"The breast thus publicly resign'd to man
In private may resist him—if it can."
But here the curtain shall drop upon all the fairy sirens who lead the young heart captive in their silken chains; and the daughters of pleasure and the sons of profligacy may practise the mysteries of Cytherea in private, undisturbed by the pen of the satirist or the pencil of the humorist.
"The scandalizing group in close conference in the left-hand corner, behind Lord William Lenox and another dashing ensign in the guards, is composed," said Crony, "of Mrs. Nixon, the ci-devant Mrs. Baring, Nugent's old.flame, Mrs. Christopher Harrison, the two sisters, Mesdames Gardner and Peters, and the well-known Kitty Stock, all minor constellations, mostly on the decline, and hence full of envious jealousy at the attention paid by the beaux to the more attractive charms of the newly discovered planets, the younger sisterhood of the convent." "If we could but get near enough to overhear their conversation," said Transit, "we should, no doubt, obtain possession of a few rich anecdotes of the Paphians and their paramours." "I have already enough of the latter," said I, "to fill a dozen albums, without descending to the meanness of becoming a listener. Amorous follies are the least censurable of the sins of men, when they are confined to professed courtezans. The heartless conduct of the systematic seducer demands indignation; but the trifling peccadillos of the sons of fortune and the stars of fashion may be passed by, without any serious personal exposure, since time, cash, and constitution are the three practising physicians who generally effect a radical cure, without the aid of the satirist. But come, Crony, you must give us the nom de guerre of the last-mentioned belles: you have hitherto distinguished all the Cythereans by some eccentric appellation; let us therefore have the list complete." "By all means, gentlemen," replied the old beau: "if I must stand godfather to the whole fraternity of Cyprians, I think I ought, at least, to have free access to every convent in Christendom; but I must refer to my tablets, for I keep a regular entry of all the new appearances, or I should never remember half their designations. Mrs. N———has the harmonious appellation of the mocking bird, from her silly habit of repeating every word you address to her. Mrs. B———is called the New Perdita, from a royal conquest she once made, but which we have only her own authority for believing; at any rate, she is known to be fond of a New-gent, and the title may on that account be fairly her own. Mrs. C——-H——— has the honour of being distinguished by the appropriate name of the Napoleon Venus, from the similarity of her contour with the countenance of that great man.
The two sisters, Mesdames G———and P———, are well known by the flattering distinctions of the red and the black Swan, from the colour of their hair and the stateliness of their carriage; and Kitty Stock has the poetical cognomen of blue-eyed Lima. Now, you have nearly the whole vocabulary of love's votaries," said old Crony; "and be sure, young gentlemen, you profit by the precepts of experience; for not one of these frail fair ones but in her time has made as many conquests as Wellington, and caused perhaps as much devastation among the sons of men as any hero in the world. But a new light breaks in upon us," said Crony, "in the person of Mrs. Simmons, the Tartar sultana, whom you may observe conversing with Lords H———d and P——-m in the centre of the room. Poor N—g—nt the cyprian's ball will long remember her prowess in battle, when the strength of her passion had nearly brought matters to a point, and that not a very tender one; but the swain cut the affair in good time, or might have been cruelly cut himself. Messrs. H—h and R—s—w could also give some affecting descriptions of the Tartar sultana's rage when armed with jealousy or resentment. Her residence, No. 30, B—k—r-street, has long been celebrated as the three x x x; a name probably given to it by some spark who found the sultana three times more cross than even common report had stated her to be." The night was now fast wearing away, when Crony again directed our attention to the right-hand corner of the room, where, just under the orchestra, appeared the elder sister of the notorious Harriette Wilson seated, and in close conversation with the Milesian M. C, O'M————a, who, according to his usual custom, was dispensing his entertaining anecdotes of all his acquaintance who graced the present scene. "That is Amy Campbell, otherwise Sydenham, &e., &c, but now legally Bochsa, of whom Harriette has since told so many agreeable stories relative to the black puddings and Argyle; however, considerable suspicion attaches itself to Harriette's anecdotes of her elder sister, particularly as she herself admits they were not very good friends, and Harriette never would forgive Amy for seducing the Duke of Argyle from his allegiance to her. Mrs. Campbell was for some years the favourite sultana of his grace, and has a son by him, a fine boy, now about twelve years of age, who goes by the family name, and for whose support the kind-hearted duke allows the mother a very handsome annuity. Amy is certainly a woman of considerable talent; a good musician, as might have been expected from her attachment to the harpist, and an excellent linguist, speaking the French, Spanish, and Italian languages with the greatest fluency. In her person she begins to exhibit the ravages of time, is somewhat embonpoint, with dark hair and fine eyes, but rather of the keen order of countenance than the agreeable; and report says, that the Signior composer, amid his plurality of wives, never found a more difficult task to preserve the equilibrium of domestic harmony.
By the side of this fair one, arm in arm with a well-known bookseller, you may perceive Harriette Kochforte, alias Wilson, who, according to her own account, has had as many amours as the Grand Seignor can boast wives, and with just as little of affection in the affaires de cour as his sublime highness, only with something more of publicity. Harriette gives the honour of her introduction into the mysteries of Cytherea to the Earl of Craven; but it is well known that a certain dashing solicitor's clerk then living in the neighbourhood of Chelsea, and near her amiable mamma's residence, first engrossed, her attention, and by whom she exhibited increasing symptoms of affection, which being properly engrafted on the person of the fair stockinger, in due time required a release from a practitioner of another profession; an innocent affair that now lies buried deep in an odd corner at the old churchyard at Chelsea, without a monumental stone or epitaph to point out the early virtues of the fair Cytherean. To this limb of the law succeeded the Honourable Be—1—y C———n, who was then too volatile and capricious to pay his devotions at any particular shrine for more than a week together. It was this cold neglect of the honourable's that has, perhaps, secured him from mention in her Memoirs; since Harriette never speaks of her beaux without giving the reader to suppose they were desperately in love with herself: then there was more of the dignified in an affair with an earl, and Madame Harriette has a great notion of preserving her consequence, although, it must be confessed, she has latterly shown the most perfect indifference to the preservation of character. The the cyprian's ball circumstance which first gave Miss Wilson her great notoriety was the affair with the young Marquis of Worcester, then just come out, and a willing captive to her artful wiles. So successfully did she inveigle her noble swain, and so completely environ his heart, that in the fulness of his boyish adoration of the fair Cytherean, he executed in her favour a certain promise in writing, not a promise to pay, for that might have been of no consequence, nor a promise of settlement, nor a promise to protect, nothing so unsettled,—nothing less did the fair intriguante obtain than a full, clear, and definite promise of marriage, with a sufficient penalty thereunto attached to make the matter alarming and complete, with every appearance on his part to ratify the contract. In this state of things, information reached his Grace of B—f—t of his noble heir's intention, who not much relishing the intended honour, or perhaps doubting the permanency of his son's passion (for to question the purity of the lady was impossible), entered into a negotiation with Harriette, by which, on condition of her resigning the promise and pledging herself never to see the Marquis more on familiar terms, this disinterested woman was to receive eight hundred pounds per annum—so anxious was his grace to prevent a mes-alliance in his family. But, alas for Harriette! jealousy for once got the better of her love of gain; her pride was wounded to see a sister flirting with her affianced lord, and in a moment of irritation, she in a most unequivocal manner publicly asserted her right to his person: the gallant yielded, the bond was __null and void, the promise burnt, his grace relieved from the payment of eight hundred pounds per annum, and his son the Marquis, profiting by past experience, not so green as to renew the former obligation.
"My intention is not to pirate the lady's memoirs, and so rob her of the fair gain of her professional experience," said Crony, when I mentioned these circumstances to him afterwards; "I only mean to supply certain trifling omissions in the biography of Harriette and her family, which the fair narrator has very modestly suppressed. It is but a few months since, that passing accidentally into Warwick-court, Holborn, to call upon an old friend, a navy lieutenant on half-pay, I thought I recognised the well-known superlative wig of the dandy Rochforte, thrust longitudinally forward from beneath the sash of a two pair of stairs window.—Can it be possible? thought I: and then again, I asked myself, why not? for the last time I saw him he was rusticating in Surrey, beating the balls about in Banco Regis; from which black place he did not escape without a little white-washing: however, he's a full Colonel of some unknown corps of South American Independents for all that, and was once in his life, although for a very short time, a full Cornet, in Lincoln Stanhope's regiment, the 17th dragoons, I think it was, and has never clipped his mustachios since, one would imagine, by their length and ferocious appearance. To be brief, I had scarcely placed my glass into the orifice before my imperfect vision, when Harriette appeared at the adjoining window, and instantly recognizing an old acquaintance, invited me up stairs. 'Times are a little changed,' said she, 'Mr. Crony, since last we met:' 'True, madam,' I responded; and then to cheer the belle a little, I added, 'but not persons, I perceive, for you are looking as young and as attractive as ever.' The compliment did not seem to please the Colonel in the wig, who turned round, looked frowningly, and then twirled the dexter side of his lip wing into a perfect circle. It is not possible that this thing can affect jealousy of such a woman as Harriette? thought I: so proceeded with our conversation: and he shortly resumed his polite amusement of spitting upon the children who were playing marbles beneath his window. 'I am really married to that monster, yonder,' said she, in an under tone: 'How do you like my choice?' 'I am not old enough in the gentleman's acquaintance to hazard an opinion on his merits,' quoth I; 'but you are a woman of experience, belle Harriette, and should be a good judge of male bipeds, although I cannot say much in favour of your military taste.' 'And you was always a quiz, Crony,' retorted belle Harriette: 'remember my sister Mary, who is now Mrs. Bochsa,{3} how you used to annoy her about her gaudy style of dressing, when we used to foot it at Chelsea:—but I 3 There were in all eight sisters of the Debouchettes, and three brothers; but only one of the latter is living. Of the girls, Amy is now Mrs. Bochsa; Mary, married to a nephew of Sir Richard Bo****hs, a great Irish contractor; Harriette, actually married to Cornet Rochforte; Fanny expired in the holy keeping of the present Marquis of H——-; Sophia has been raised to the peerage, by the style and title of Lady B——-k, and by her subsequent conduct well deserves her elevation; Julia, an affectionate girl, clung to the house of Coventry through poor Tom's days of adversity, and died early, leaving some unprotected orphans; Charlotte and Louisa, younger sisters, the first now about eighteen and very beautiful, although a little lame, have been educated and brought up by their elder sister, the Baroness, and are by her intended for the church—vestals for Hymen's altar: at any rate, I hope they will escape the sacrifices of Cytherea. Harriette is now about forty years of age: she was, when at her zenith, always celebrated rather for her tact in love affairs, and her talent at invention, than the soft engaging qualifications of the frail fair, which fascinate the eye and lead the heart captive with delight: her conversational powers were admirable; but her temper was outrageous, with a natural inclination to the satirical:—to sum up her merits at once, she was what a connoisseur would have called a bold fine woman, rather than an engaging handsome one—more of the English Bellona than the Venus de Medici. Crony's account of the Round Room and belle Harriette's first views of publishing are, I have since learned, strictly correct. There is not a person mentioned in her Memoirs, or scarcely one of any note in the Court-guide, of whom she has at any time had the slightest knowledge, that have not been applied to repeatedly within the last three years, and received threats of exposure to compel them to submit to extortion. want your assistance.' Egad, I dare say, I looked rather comical at this moment, for in truth I was somewhat alarmed at the last phrase. Harriette burst into a loud fit of laughter; the Colonel drew in his elegant wig, and deigned a smile; while I, involuntarily forcing my hand into the pocket of my inexpressibles, carefully drove the few sovereigns I had up into one corner, fearing the belle Harriette had a mighty notion of laying strong siege to them: in this, however, I was agreeably disappointed; for recovering herself, she acknowledged she had perceived my embarrassment, but assured me I need be under no alarm on this occasion, as, at present, she only wanted to borrow a few—ideas: what a relief the last short word afforded! 'I have been writing some sketches of my life,' said she, 'and am going to publish: give me your opinion, Crony, upon its merits;' and without more ceremony, she thrust a little packet of papers into my hand, headed 'Sketches in the Round Room at the Opera House;' in which all the characters of the Opera frequenters were tolerably well drawn, nor was the dialogue deficient in spirit; but the titles were all fictitious—such as my Lord Red Head, for the Marquess of H——-d, Lord Pensiveham, for P———m, and so on to the end of the chapter. Having glanced through the contents, I recommended her to Colburn, as the universal speculator in paper and print; but his highness is playing magnifico, à la Murray, in his new mansion, it would seem; for he, as I have since learned, refused to publish. At length, after trying Allman and others, belle Harriette hit upon Stockdale, who having made some bad hits in his time, thought a little courtesanish scandal could not make bad worse. Under his superintendence real names were substituted for the fictitious; and it is said, that the choice notes of the lady are interwoven and extended, connected and illustrated, by the same elegant Apollo who used to write love letters for Mary Ann, and love epistles to half a thousand, including Bang and the Bantum, in the dark refectory of the celebrated mother Wood, the Lady of the Priory, or Lisle-street Convent." "If such is the case, 'how are the mighty fallen!'" said I.———But let us return to the ball-room. As the night advanced, a few more stars made their appearance in the firmament of beauty; among these, Crony pointed out some of the demirespectables, attracted thither either by curiosity or the force of old habit: among these was Charles Wy—h—m's bit of rue, that herb of grace, the once beautiful Mrs. Ho—g—s, since closely connected with the whiskered Lord P——-, to whose brother, the Honourable F———g, her daughter, the elegant Miss W————n, had the good fortune to be early married. In the same group appeared another star of no mean attraction, the Honourable Mrs. L——-g, whose present husband underwent the ordeal of a crim. con. trial to obtain her person. 'Par nobile fratum,' the world may well say of the brothers, P——— and L——-g; while F————y, with all his eccentricities, has the credit of being a very good husband. Three little affected mortals, the Misses St—ts, Crony introduced by the name of the pretenders, from the assumed modesty and great secrecy with which they carry on their amours. 'Pas à pas on va bien loin,' says the old French proverb, and rightly too," remarked our ancient; "for if you boys had not brought me here, I should never have known the extent of my experience, or have attempted to calculate the number of my female acquaintances." In the supper-room, which opened at four o'clock in the morning, Waud had spread forth a banquet every way worthy the occasion: a profuse display of the choicest viands of the season and delicacies of the most costly character graced the splendid board, where the rich juice of the grape, and the inviting ripeness of the dessert, were only equalled by the voluptuous votaries who surrounded the repast. It was now that ceremony and the cold restraint of well regulated society were banished, by the free circulation of the glass. The eye of love shot forth the electric flash which animates the heart of young desire, lip met lip, and the soft cheek of violet beauty pressed the stubble down of manliness. Then, while the snowy orbs of nature undisguised heaved like old ocean with a circling swell, the amorous lover palmed the melting fair, and led her forth to where shame-faced Aurora, with her virgin gray, the blue-eyed herald of the golden morn, might hope in vain to draw aside the curtain and penetrate the mysteries of Cytherea. And now, gentle reader, be ye of the hardy sex, who dare the glories of the healthful chase and haunt the peopled stream of gay delight—or of that lovely race, from which alone man's earthly joys arise, the soft-skinned conquerors of hearts—be ye prudes or stoics, chaste as virgin gold, or cold as alpine snow—confess that I have strictly kept my promise here, nor strayed aside in all my wanderings among the daughters of pleasure, to give pain to worthy bosoms or offend the ear of nicest modesty. Pity for the unfortunate, and respect for the feelings of the relatives of the vicious and the dissolute, has prevented the insertion of many anecdotes, with which Crony illustrated his sketches of character. Enough, it is presumed, has been done to show vice in all its native deformity, without wounding the ear by one immoral or indelicate expression. For the unhappy fair ones who form the principal portraits, it should be remembered they have been selected from those only who are notorious, as belles of the first order, stars of fashion, and if not something indebted to fortune they would have escaped enrolment here. When beauty and poverty are allied, it must too often fall a victim to the eager eye of roving lust; for, even to the titled profligate, beauty, when arrayed in a simple garb of spotless chastity, seems
"——Fairer she
In innocence and homespun vestments spread,
Than if cerulean sapphires at her ears
Shone pendent, or a precious diamond cross
Heaved gently on her panting bosom white.
But let the frail remember, that the allurements of wealth and the blandishments of equipage fall off with possession and satiety; to the force of novelty succeeds the baseness of desertion. For a short time, the fallen one is fed like the silk-worm upon the fragrant mulberry leaf, and when she has spun her yellow web of silken attraction, sinks into decay, a common chrysalis, shakes her trembling and emaciated wings in hopeless agony, and then flutters and droops, till death steps in and relieves her from an accumulation of miseries, ere yet the transient summer of youth has passed over her devoted head.