HE says, that no dowager may walk at it. ‘I will have no dowagers;’ l’ingrat!!
Lord —— is in alternate paroxysms of delight that he and his wife may walk at it, and of terror at the expense. She jingles her bells more quietly. He was shocked at my repeating, though I said I did not believe it, that each dress would cost £800. The love of money and show are usually united.
I have just skimmed The Monastery, and am angry with the author for appropriating our Irish Banshee, and making so little of her, for she was originally a poetical creature. He degrades her to something between a ghost and a fairy, who comes popping up in all places on the most trivial occasions, and then melts away like a lump of sugar, till she is called again. Fleury’s account of Buonaparte’s last short reign,[64] is by far the cleverest of the new books I have read, and, to all but military men, more amusing than Napoleon’s own Memoirs.
If I were not ashamed of the length of this letter, I should ask if you had seen Mrs. Delany’s Letters.[65] They are too much alike, and, short as is the volume, it might be shortened with advantage; but some of them give a most pleasing and minute picture of the interior of Windsor Castle in the happiest days of our late Sovereigns. They are valuable historically, as a faithful, though slight sketch of that branch of history, detailing the private life of the great, of which the French have too much, and we too little. We are now reading Cottu, On the Administration of Criminal Justice in England. He takes, also, a rapid and entertaining view of our social life, our elections, &c. &c., and is a very pleasant writer, particularly as he finds us all perfection. It is gratifying to see oneself in so becoming a glass.
TO THE SAME.
London, Aug., 1821.
I know you will be pleased to hear that the tickets, for which we were so much obliged, did all that tickets could do. The place was excellent, particularly for me, who lived half the time in the air, which enabled me to bear fifteen hours’ attendance, and some carriage and other difficulties, without injury. I opened my eyes on a hair-dresser at a quarter before four, was en route in a white satin dress-gown and court plume at five; at six, was seated in the Hall, after various difficulties occasioned by the dulness of doorkeepers, and some danger from the circumstance of my being within a few yards of the gate at the very instant the guards were called out to oppose the Queen. Tired to death at having been sent backwards and forwards by doorkeepers, I was at last near the right entrance, when I heard loud shouts, a few faint hisses, and a cry of ‘Close the doors.’ The Guards are called out; the Battle-axes rushed in, and absolutely carried me in amongst them, and with wonderful alarm was the door closed against a woman—and a Queen.
The show was all that Oriental pomp, feudal ceremonial, and British wealth could unite. The processions in The Curse of Kehama, and in Rimini, with the painting of Belshazzar’s Feast, were continually recalled to my memory. The conflict of the two lights from the blaze of artificial day mixing with a splendid sunshine, the position of the King’s table, the pomp of the banquet, with its vessels of gold and silver, the richness of the dresses, and a thousand other particulars, rendered the resemblance so perfect, it seemed as if the Feast had been in some degree copied from the picture. Thus does art seem to contain the germ of all that is developed in life.
Our loyalty was noisy, and I think our roarings might have been dispensed with; for we roared not once, nor thrice, but at least a dozen times. We had great desire to roar for the horses also; but an energetic hush from those who conducted the ceremonial silenced us with difficulty, as we attempted it repeatedly.