LORD ANNANDALE TO THE MARQUESS OF NOTTINGHAM.

CONGRATULATE me, my dear Nottingham, for I am the happiest dog alive this day. You will be ready to exclaim, with the Lord C., on a similar occasion, some fifty years ago, "Every dog has his day;" but I will forgive you the assertion, for I am too happy, too proud, to cavil with any thing at present.

"Well, well," I fancy I hear you ask, "what does all this joy mean? Is there a change of ministry, and is he premier? or has his horse won at Newmarket? Has his worst enemy lost half his fortune at Crockford's, and has he gained it? or, has he got the twenty-thousand prize in the lottery?"

No, mon cher! none of these auspicious events have occurred; but I have drawn a

prize in the lottery of wedlock, that has ren

dered me more happy than if each and all of them had happened. I have proposed for, and been accepted by, the most beautiful and fascinating of her sex, who has just enough of the angel in her composition to elevate her above all other women; and just enough of the woman to make a lover go mad, if she chose to take it into her head to torment him. Papa and mamma are the most primitively good persons on earth, knowing little of our world, and scarcely dreaming that vice or wickedness exists. They idolise their daughter, as well they may, and were unwilling to consent to her marrying for two years to come. But, I won on Lady Augusta's pity, by displaying the love I felt, and the despair I did not feel: for, entre nous, I was sure of talking her over to take my side of the question, by giving her a few insinuations that papa and mamma were treating her as a child. This

suggestion, aided by my vehement protestations of affection and grief, soon settled the affair; and induced her to tell mamma that her happiness depended upon our union. You know that I had determined on never again entering the pale of matrimony; a resolution that I should have faithfully kept, had I only seen the belles of Almack's gallopading, waltzing, or quadrilling, for husbands; or cantering in the Park, to catch some Nimrod. No; your London beauty, with pale cheeks, languid eyes, and uncountable accomplishments, would not have made me captive: but, this creature-as fresh in mind as in person, full of health, of hope, and joy-there was no resisting. I shall be disappointed if she do not produce an amazing sensation in the fashionable world. Her beauty is so brilliant, that it must command universal homage; and her naïveté has nothing rustic in

it. She has been so much accustomed to be admired, nay, worshipped, by those around her, that she is more likely to receive the general admiration of our circle as her right, than as a subject for gratitude. And yet, there is nothing insolent in her pretensions : a consciousness of beauty and power may well be pardoned in a creature fair enough to warm the frozen heart of a Stoic, and lively enough to keep that heart in perpetual agitation.

To-morrow, ma belle fiancée, and her papa and mamma, leave this place, with Lord Howard, for Delaward Park. I know I am no favourite with the Delawards, who are very formal, stuck-up people; and who, were I not an accepted lover, might be very likely to influence Lady Augusta, over whom Lady Delaward has long exercised an empire founded on affection. I feared this empire, and en

deavoured, once or twice, to ridicule Lady Delaward, to my future; but, she resented the attempt most warmly, and, therefore, I have ever since avoided the subject.

I return to Gloucestershire to-morrow, and shall be in town in a few days, to put all en train with the lawyers, who now-a-days make as many difficulties in letting a man marry, as they formerly did in unmarrying him; consequently, a modern marriagesettlement seems more like an agreement drawn up between two hostile parties, mutually apprehensive of fraud, than of two loving persons going to be made one. The Scotch term of married against, instead of to, has always struck me as peculiarly felicitous. But here am I plaisantant respecting that state into which I am so anxious to enter! perhaps on the principle of anticipating the mauvaises plaisanteries of my friends. Adieu,