May 26th.
This morning in the Park I could not restrain a hearty laugh at a young lord, who has not profited much by his residence at Paris, and whose beautiful horse attracted more admiration than himself. “Quel beau cheval que vous avez là!” said I. “Oui,” replied he, with his English accent; “je l’ai fait moi même, et pour celà je lui suis beaucoup attaché.” Is not this almost as good as the deaf Russian officer in B——, to whom the King said, on the entrance of a surgeon, “Ce poisson là est bien fréquent chez vous.” “Oui, Sire,” replied he, with a profound bow, “je l’ai été pendant quinze ans.”
‘Rex Judæorum’ gave a magnificent dinner, the dessert of which alone, as he told me, cost a hundred pounds. I sat next to a very clever woman, Mrs. A——, the friend of the Duke of W——, a very characteristic, acute, un-English physiognomy,—you may think what an ‘enragée’ politician. I must have annoyed her excessively; in the first place I am a great Canningite; in the second, I hate politics at dinner. We had a great exhibition of splendour. The table service was of vermillion and silver; that of the dessert, I think, all gold. Under the portrait of Prince Metternich (a present from the original) in an adjoining room, was a large gold box, perhaps a copy of the Ark of the Covenant. A concert succeeded the dinner, at which Mr. Moschelles played as enchantingly as his wife looked. It was not till two o’clock that I got away to a rout at the Duke of Northumberland’s, a small party of about a thousand persons. Music was performed in an immense picture-gallery, at thirty degrees of Reaumur. The crowd and bustle was however so great that we heard little of it. The atmosphere was like that of the black-hole at Calcutta. Are these really the amusements of civilized nations!
May 31st.
The rich Lady L——, with whose ‘black diamonds’ her complexion forms the most agreeable contrast, and whose ‘air chiffonné’ is quite original, showed me her bazaar this morning. It is no common one, for it contained jewels to the amount of three hundred thousand reichsthalers. The whole boudoir full of perfumes, flowers, and rarities, the ‘clair obscur’ of rose-coloured curtains, and the Marchioness herself in a dress of yellow gauze, reclined on her chaise longue ‘plongée dans une douce langueur;’—it was a pretty picture of ‘refinement.’ Diamonds and pearls, pens and ink, books, letters, toys and seals, and an unfinished purse, lay before her. Among the seals, two were piquant, from their contrast,—the one from Lord Byron:
“Love will find its way
Where wolves would fear to stray.”
The other says, with true French ‘philosophie,’ ‘Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe.’ Nothing, however, was so common in the house as portraits of the Emperor Alexander who had paid great attention to the Marchioness at V——, and whose image had been thus multiplied by gratitude. Her husband was ambassador there, and used his English prerogative to its full extent. Once he boxed with a ‘fiacre’ driver: another time he presented the Archduchess, and, if I mistake not, the Empress herself, to his wife, instead of the reverse;—then he ran into the kitchen to stab his cook for having offended the Marchioness: ‘enfin, il faisant la pluie et le beau tems à V——; ou plutôt l’orage et la grêle.’
Just conceive how ‘disappointed’ the poor lady must be, after so long ruling on the Continent, ‘malgré ses diamans, son rang, et sa jolie mine,’ not to be able to be really and truly fashionable. But this aristocracy of fashion is more difficult to attain to than the highest rank of freemasonry, and much more capricious than that venerable institution, though both alike make something out of nothing.
I dined at Lord Darnley’s, where I met Lord Bloomfield, formerly a conspicuous man, and great favourite of the King’s ‘du tems de ses frédaines.’ There was also the Archbishop of York, a majestic old man, who began life as a private tutor, and has reached this elevated station by the patronage of his pupils. Nothing can be at once more ugly and more laughable than the demi-toilette of an English Archbishop. A short schoolmaster’s wig ill-powdered, a black French coat, and a little black silk ladies’ apron hung over the inexpressibles in front, just as our miners hang theirs behind.