10 MEMOIRS, JOURNAL, AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THOMAS MOORE. explain that it was for the purposes of information, and not a visit of ceremony. The ball dull enough: got home between two and three, and found Bess just rising from her bed to blow the fire for some hot drink for me. 20th. Ill, from want of sleep the two nights before; looked over Rogers's poems, and marked some lines with pencil; read the newspapers. A game of cribbage after dinner with Bessy. Sheridan's speeches in the evening; a dull, unprofitable day. MORE DOMESTIC MATTERS. Returned home to dinner at four; went to bed early, and was called up by Bessy at half-past eleven o'clock: sent for the midwife, who arrived between one and two, and at a quarter before four my darling Bessy was safely delivered of a son (and heir in partibus), to my unspeakable delight, for never had I felt half such anxiety about her. I walked about the parlour by myself, like one distracted; sometimes stopping to pray, sometimes opening the door to listen; and never was gratitude more fervent than that with which I knelt down to thank God for the dear girl's safety, when all was over-(the maid, by the by, very near catching me on my knees). Went to bed at six o'clock. 24th. Rose at half-past nine. Bessy and the little hero surprisingly well. Wrote to Lord Lansdowne, Roflattering. I wish he had offered to be godfather; had gers, &c.: Lord Lansdowne's answer most friendly and not courage to ask him. Walked to Devizes for money: drew on Wilkie for 407.: the little prodigal is no sooner born than money is wanted for him. Returned to dinner at five. 25th (Sunday). Resumed my Sheridan task, from which I have been diverted and disturbed all the last week. At Bessy's request, read prayers by her bedside, and joined heartily with her in thanksgiving for her safe delivery. Of course, Moore had his persecutions. Every unknown genius sent him manuscripts. This is only one of a hundred memoranda on the same subject. Aug. 24th. Arrived at my cottage. Always glad to return to it, and the dear girl who makes it so happy for me. Found heaps of letters, some of them from poets and authors, who are the pest of my life: one sending me a "Serio-comic Drama of Invasion, in Three Acts, including the Vision and the Battle," and referring me for his poetic credentials to three admirals and "the late comptroller of the navy!" Another begging to know whether I was acquainted with "any man or woman to whom money was for a time useless," who would venture 100%. upon a literary speculation he had in hand. The third letter from an eternal Amelia Louisa, announcing to me that her long threatened MS. was on its way to Wiltshire for my perusal. 26th. Answered the author who wanted the "useless money:" told him I, at least, had none of that description, -very sorry, &c. &c. Wrote also to the poetical grocer's apprentice in Dublin, from whom I had had a long letter the week before, complaining that I had left his MSS., when I came away, unfolded, and " open to the gaze of every one;" assured him I was sorry for the accident, which was owing to the carelessness of the person to whom I entrusted them, and concluded my letter thus: "Wishing you all success in that line of life, from which it would be cruel to divert you by any false hopes of literary eminence, I am, &c. &c." Began" Holcroft's Memoirs,"-his de scription of the life of a Newmarket boy, very curious and interesting. I wish every literary man would write his own memoirs. A MEDLEY. Sept. 11th. Mr. Hamilton the printer, who was once proprietor of the "Critical Review," called upon me with a letter of introduction from Wilkie. Came to propose to me to be editor of a new Monthly Review; explained his plan, and said, with a true trading spirit, that he intended the politics of the work should be Whiggish, because those appeared to be becoming the fashionable politics of the day. I declined, of course; told him that, as long as the little fancy and originality I possessed, remained, I should not take to reviewing; but when I become invalided, I shall look upon the editorship of a review as a good sort of Greenwich Hospital to retire to. Two other monitions served upon me from the Court of Admiralty for the defalcation of my deputy. Called at Carpenter's, and had the triumph of telling him the liberal conduct of the Longmans to me about the profits of the " Fudges;" such a contrast to his own! Bought a pretty gown at Hodgkinson's, to send by Scully to my sister. Dined at the George with Scully, and went alone to the Haymarket Theatre: "Honeymoon" and the "Green Man;" Major Dumpling in the latter by Tokeby excellent; a pretty girl, Miss E. Blanchard, who moves her head like a mandarin when 'tis near stopping. Why are there not more pretty girls on the stage? The Longmans are well spoken of, not only in the above extract, but throughout these volumes. They appear to have behaved towards the poet throughout his connection with them with a delicacy and liberality we are glad to see thus recorded. We wonder whether all their contemporaries will figure thus creditably in posthumous memoirs. Sept. 8th. Walked out, after breakfasting and writing to Bess (my daily task when away from her), with H., D., and Burdett, through Lord Aylesbury's forest. Magnificent! could ramble through forest scenery for ever: there is less of the world there than anywhere else, except on the ocean, if one was alone on it. Talked much of Ireland, with which Burdett is delighted; he told me if I would collect proofs against Lord Castlereagh's ministry in Ireland, and draw up resolutions, he would move them in the House, and impeach him; but the thing is gone by. He is evidently prejudiced against Grattan, and did not shew quite a right feeling on the late outrageous attack upon that noble old man in Dublin; he wants (what so many want) candour. Curran evidently the favourite of the whole party; and, no doubt, was far above Grattan in wit and genius, but still farther below him in real wisdom and goodness. I told stories of Curran which made them laugh a good deal; his adventure at Oxford with Reinagle and his man John; his speech to the Englishman who was laughing at him on the top of the coach, "May God Almighty never humanize your countenance, you odious baboon;" and many others. Talked of the intercourse of men of letters with the great; the story of a man who had been ceremoniously yielding precedence to another at some nobleman's house, but, upon hearing he was only a poet, saying, "Oh, then, I know my place," and instantly stepping before him: authors "fiers dans leurs écrits et rampans dans les antichambres." At dinner, besides the party of the day before, old Crowe, the author of "Lewesdon Hill," a good poet, and a man of simple manners; but his day of talent gone by. Translation by a schoolboy of "they ascended by ladders, "ascendebant per adolescentiores' (the comparative degree of lad, i. e. ladder). Music in the evening. Burdett's third daughter, Johanna, an exceedingly pretty girl. Davies's "Waters of Babylon' again set a-going. There is much of graver matter and more historical interest; but as this book will be in every one's hands, we have neither necessity nor excuse for unduly trenching upon its pages. MR. THACKERAY AND THE AGE OF QUEEN ANNE.* THE first volume of this novel is quite as hard reading as an equal number of pages of Mr. Burke's peerage: in the second the interest begins to quicken and grow lively; in the third it acquires strength, and carries the reader wondering to the end. Two months have elapsed since the day of publication, and we opine that very few of our subscribers have omitted to take at least a cursory glance at "Mr. Thackeray's new work." But of these a large number have dipped into it, and found the quaint type, and the dull matter-of-fact style of narration, by no means to their taste; a still larger number have got hopelessly entangled in the genealogy of the Castlewoods, and have testily thrown the book down; a few have discovered that they had before them only "Jeames" or "Yellowplush" masquerading in an ill-worn cast-off suit of Mr. De Foe, and have incontinently deserted-only a little remnant, persevering and confiding, have been true to the end. These last are doubtless now rewarded by the innocent conviction, that while their sympathies were gently played upon, they have been acquiring an intimate knowledge of the history of Queen Anne, and a perfect acquaintance with all the great men of her time. Seeing that we write for the many as well as for the few, it will be safer to preface our remarks upon this curious production by a rapidly-sketched outline of the story these volumes tell. The pedigree of the Esmonds is long to recount; but when the hero of our tale was born, Thomas, Lord Castlewood, of the peerage of Ireland, was the head of the family, and Francis, his cousin, was the heir-presumptive. The Irish peer had married Isabel, or, as she was sometimes called, Jezebel Esmond, a lady who had followed the vagabond court of Charles the Second previous to the Restoration, who had alternately dispensed her favours to Charles and to his brother James, and who had married her cousin Thomas to unite the family honours and estates. As the lady had been kind to king Charles at Breda, in 1650, and was not married till just before his death, which was in 1685, we scarcely wonder that she should be described as "a fly-blown, rank old morsel" when Thomas married her. It is rather to be admired, perhaps, that the lady, after having survived half a century of summers, gave birth even to a rickety and a short-lived son, than that she should be disappointed in all her after expectations of an heir to the house of Castlewood. The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne. Written by Himself. 3 Vols. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1852. Henry Esmond is introduced to the reader as a natural son of Lord Castlewood, having vague dreams of an infancy passed abroad, and stranger recollections of a childhood endured in the family of a weaver. He is adopted as the page of Lady Jezebel, whose patches, and rougepots, and affectations of juvenile playfulness, form attractive topics, to which the author constantly recurs, each time dilating pleasantly thereon through many pages. Father Holt, a Jesuit, who plots, and fights, and passes in and out of bow windows that turn into staircases on the touch of a spring, teaches the boy to speak Latin and French, to tell lies, to fence, and to be a Royalist and a Papist. Meanwhile the Revolution of 1688 takes place. In 1690, while the viscountess still considered herself "in a situation thet forbade horse exercise," Lord Castlewood goes forth to join a Jacobite rising, and Castlewood is occupied by King William's troops. The viscount is killed at the battle of the Boyne, having confessed to an Irish priest that he was married to Henry Esmond's mother, who afterwards died a nun, and that consequently Henry Esmond is heir to the title and estates. The boy, however, now twelve years old, studies in solitude at Castlewood, shrinking into the shadows as an unrecognised hanger-on of the family, when the cousin, Francis Esmond, arrives with his wife to take possession of the estate, and to wear the title. The new lord, his lady, her daughter Beatrix, and her son Frank, are the chief personages in this historic story. The age of the lady is stated to be scarce twenty at this time; but as Beatrix was four years old, and as girls in king Charles the Second's time were not generally married at fifteen, we are inclined to suspect that Lady Castlewood has lost a few years by an after thought, and a retouch of the memoir writer. However, taking the author's own account of this matter, the boy Henry stands half way between mother and daughter, the mother being eight years his elder, the daughter eight years his junior. Now for the lady. THE LADY CASTLEWOOD. foremost, Jove and supreme ruler, was her lord, Harry's My lady had on her side her three idols: first and patron, the good Viscount Castlewood. All wishes of his were laws with her. If he had a headache, she was ill. If he frowned, she trembled. If he joked, she smiled and was charmed. If he went a hunting she was always at the window to see him ride away, her little son crowing on her arm, or on the watch till his return. She made dishes for his dinner; spiced his wine for him; made the toast for his tankard at break fast; hushed the house when he slept in his chair; and watched for a look when he woke. If my lord was not a little proud of his beauty, my lady adored it. She clung to his arm as he paced the terrace, her two fair little hands clasped round his great one; her eyes were never tired of looking in his face and wondering at its perfection. Her little son was his son, and had his father's look and curly brown hair. Her daughter Beatrix was his daughter, and had his eyes-were there ever such beautiful eyes in the world? All the house was arranged so as to bring him ease and give him pleasure. She liked the small gentry round about to come and pay him court: never caring for admiration for herself, those who wanted to be well with the lady must admire him. Not regarding her dress, she would wear a gown to rags, because he had once liked it: and if he brought her a brooch or a ribbon, would prefer it to all the most costly articles of her wardrobe. My lord went to London every year for six weeks, and the family being too poor to appear at Court with any figure, he went alone. It was not until he was out of sight that her face showed any sorrow and what a joy when he came back! What preparation before his return! The fond creature had his arm-chair at the chimney-side-delighting to put the children in it, and look at them there. Nobody took his place at the table; but his silver tankard stood there as when my lord was present. The lady, however, had one fault. THE FAULT. It must be owned, even with regard to that other angel, his mistress, that she had a fault of character, which flawed her perfections. With the other sex perfectly tolerant and kindly, of her own she was invariably jealous, and a proof that she had this vice is, that though she would acknowledge a thousand faults which she had not, to this which she had she could never be got to own. But if there came a woman with even a semblance of beauty to Castlewood, she was so sure to find but some wrong in her, that my lord, laughing in his jolly way, would often joke with her concerning her foible. Comely servant-maids might come for hire, but none were taken at Castlewood. The housekeeper was old; my lady's own waiting-woman squinted, and was marked with the small-pox; the housemaids and scullion were ordinary country wenches, to whom Lady Castlewood was kind, as her nature made her to everybody almost; but as soon as ever she had to do with a pretty woman, she was cold, retiring, and haughty. The country ladies found this fault in her; and though the men all admired her, their wives and daughters complained of her coldness and airs, and said that Castlewood was pleasanter in Lady Jezebel's time (as the dowager was called) than at present. Some few were of my mistress's side. Old Lady Blenkinsop Jointure, who had been at court in King James the First's time, always took her side; and so did eld Mistress Crookshank, Bishop Crookshank's daughter, of Hexton, who, with some more of their like, pronounced my lady an angel; but the pretty women were not of this mind; and the opinion of the country was, that my lord was tied to his wife's apron-strings, and that she ruled over him. Lord Castlewood's character requires no elaborate notice. He was jolly, brave, vain, and, as we suspect any other man would have become eventually, dreadfully bored by his jealous wife. To eat, to sit, to talk, continually under the watching eye and trembling suspicion of a jealous woman, could end only in one of two ways-the husband must become either a slave or a brute. Lord Castlewood adopts the latter expedient, keeps mistresses, drinks strong drinks, smokes, and gambles. The lady wraps herself up in her virtue and her disdain, reads with her page, and learns to despise her letterless lord. This result, however, is arrived at through a process of much anguish, and we recommend those who have thrown down the novel unread to take it up again and search out those pages. The lady is jealous of all things, even of her page. Young Henry has a first love, whom he celebrates as the daughter of Venus, because her father, like the husband of that goddess, had the honour to be a blacksmith. The author probably invents the incident in order to remind us, by his sarcasm upon the abortion of these youthful passions, that he has not changed his mind on the subject since he wrote "Pendennis." But when Esmond comes back from Nancy, and brings the small-pox with him, we doubt, so slyly is the scene managed, whether Lady Castlewood is more moved by fear at the danger of her children, or by anger at the low amour of her page. Yet has she not quite given up her idolatry for her lord. He runs away from the smallpox: she remains, for the contagion had infected her. The disease passed over her lightly, just brushing a little of the fresh bloom of beauty from her cheek. THE RETURN. At length, when the danger was quite over, it was announced that my lord and his daughter would return. Esmond well remembered the day. The lady, his mistress, was in a flurry of fear: before my lord came, she went into her room, and returned from it with reddeued cheeks. Her fate was about to be decided. Her beauty was gone-was her reign, too, over? A minute would say. My lord came riding over the bridge-he could be seen from the great window, clad in scarlet, and mounted on his grey hackney-his little daughter ambled by him in a bright riding-dress of blue, on a shining chestnut horse. My lady leaned against the great mantel-piece, looking on, with one hand on her heart-she seemed only the more pale for those red marks on either cheek. She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and withdrew it, laughing hysterically-the cloth was quite red with the rouge when she took it away. She ran to her room again, and came back with pale cheeks and red eyes-her son in her hand-just as my lord entered, accompanied by young Esmond, who had gone out to meet his protector, and to hold his stirrup as he descended from horseback. "What, Harry, boy!" my lord said, good-naturedly, "you look as gaunt as a greyhound. The small pox hasn't improved your beauty, and your side of the house hadn't never too much of it-ho, ho!" And he laughed, and sprang to the ground with no small agility, looking handsome and red, with a jolly face and brown hair, like a beef-eater: Esmond kneeling again, as soon as his patron had descended, performed his homage, and then went to greet the little Beatrix, and help her from her horse. "And now for my lady," said my lord, going up the stairs, and passing under the tapestry curtain that hung before the drawing-room door. Esmond remembered that noble figure handsomely arrayed in scarlet. Within the last few months he himself had grown from a boy to be a man, and with his figure, his thoughts had shot up, and grown manly. My lady's countenance, of which Harry Esmond was accustomed to watch the changes, and with a solicitous affection to note and interpret the signs of gladness or care, wore a sad and depressed look for many weeks after her lord's return. After this they are husband and wife no more. It is easy to be imagined that, desponding and despairing, she must have grown more suspicious than ever, and added a querulous wretchedness to her other marks of oppressive fondness. But now Lord Mohun comes. Charles, Lord Mohun, is an historic character; and any one who will take down the 12th and the 13th volumes of Howell's "State Trials may read how he was twice tried before his peers, and twice acquitted. On the first occasion he had been the companion of one Hill in his attempt forcibly to carry away Mrs. Bracegirdle, the actress-an enterprise which ended with Hill killing an actor of the name of Mountford. The witnesses on one side said that Hill took the man at a disadvantage; on the other side, that he was killed in fair fighting; but both agreed that Lord Mohun drew no sword and took no active part in the affray. On the second occasion, which happened seven years later, he was tried as an accessary in the murder of a Captain Coote, who fell in a duel with Captain French; but nothing was proved against Lord Mohun, except that he had tried to accommodate the quarrel, and when every effort to prevent the duel had failed, followed the combatants to the ground. Furthermore, any, one may read in Swift's "Journal to Stella,' and in all other memoirs of the time, how, in 1712, Lord Mohun fell in a duel with the Duke of Hamilton, the duke being also slain in the encounter. Swift, in a paragraph which he inserted in the "Post Boy," and which he boasts that he made "as malicious as possible, and very proper for Abel Roper the printer of it," after detailing with great exaggeration the circumstances of the duel with the Duke of Hamilton, adds, "this is the fourth person that my Lord Mohun had the misfortune to kill;" but we believe this accusation rests on no better or other authority. The actual history of this Lord Mohun is just as well known to every person of common decent English education, as is the fact that Dean Swift wrote in the reign of Queen Anne, or that George the Third came to the throne in the year 1760. Our author takes good care to fix the identity of the nobleman, for he makes one of his characters reproach him with having held Mountford in talk while Hill stabbed him. This nobleman, whose Christian name of Charles was marked by the formal words of two state indictments, is produced in this novel as Henry, Lord Mohun, and a very great scoundrel. He wins Lord Castlewood's money-keeping * sober while his friend gets drunk-and he tries hard to debauch his wife. Lord Castlewood does not approve of this latter proceeding. He challenges Lord Mohun, and is killed by him. The duel is fought in Leicester Square, and is copied in all its circumstances, even to the smoking of the pipes of the chairmen, from the account given in the " State Trials" of the duel between Captain Coote and Captain French. The only difference is, that whereas, in the actual duel, Lord Mohun did all he could to prevent the conflict, and was unanimously acquitted by his peers of all participation in it; in the fictitious account of our author he is a principal, and the man-slayer.+ On his death-bed Lord Castlewood reveals to Esmond the story of his birth, a secret which the Jesuit bad used to bend him to his purposes. Esmond magnanimously resolves to suppress the proof, and to leave his benefactress and her children in enjoyment of the title and estates. Harry Esmond, having been one of the seconds, is arrested as an accessary to the murder: the lady visits him in prison, and curses him as the cause of her widowhood. Harry becomes a soldier, takes part in the campaigns of Marlborough, and gives occasion to the author again, wilfully and with evident intention, to make a ridiculous hotchpot of all the facts of history.‡ Mr. Thackeray further identifies the duel he imagines, with that described in the "State Trials," by telling us that "the reports of the lawyers have chronicled the particulars of the trial that ensued upon Lord Castlewood's homicide;" that Lord Warwick was one of the seconds, which was true; that Lord Mohun was now convicted of manslaughter, which is false; but fell, twelve years later, in another duel, which again is true; using throughout real names and real incidents only to distort them into such a hash of historical facts as can cept, perhaps, in Eugene Sue's "Deux Cadavres.” be found in no other work that we have ever seen, ex We are not surprised to find that in military matters all the details of this work are absurdly at variance with the history of the period; but upon such a topic we prefer a military authority. A letter appeared in the," British Army Dispatch" of the 26th of November, whence we extract the following paragraph As some of the readers of Mr. Thackeray's novel entitled the History of Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne, may wish to know the regiment designated in that work as the 'Fusilier Regiment,' of which that celebrated officer, Brigadier John Richmond Webb, was Colonel,' (see Vol. II., page 169), it may not be amiss to state that the regiment alluded to is the present 8th Foot, of which corps Lieut.-Colonel J. R. Webb, of the 3d Dragoons, was appointed Colonel, December 26, 1695, and in command of which he remained until July 1715, when political events occasioned his removal from all his comA full record of his distinguished services will be found mands, except the government of the Isle of Wight. in the Historical Record of the 8th Foot. He died After long time Harry returns, and finds the little Beatrix a woman. BEATRIX. Esmond had left a child, and found a woman, grown beyond the common height; and arrived at such a dazzling completeness of beauty, that his eyes might well shew surprise and delight at beholding her. In hers there was a brightness so lustrous and melting, that I have seen a whole assembly follow her as if by an attraction irresistible: and that night the great Duke was at the playhouse after Ramillies, every soul turned and looked (she chanced to enter at the opposite side of the theatre at the same moment) at her, and not at him. She was a brown beauty; that is, her eyes, hair, and eye-brows and eye-lashes, were dark; her hair curling with rich undulations, and waving over her shoulders; but her complexion was as dazzling white as snow in sunshine; except her cheeks, which were a bright red, and her lips, which were of a still deeper crimson. Her mouth and chin, they said, were too large and full, and so they might be for a goddess in marble, but not for a woman whose eyes were fire, whose look was love, whose voice was the sweetest low song, whose shape was perfect symmetry, health, decision, activity, whose foot as it planted itself on the ground was firm but flexible, and whose motion, whether rapid or slow, was always perfect grace-agile as a nymph, lofty as a queen-now melting, now imperious, now sarcastic, there was no single movement of hers but was beautiful. As he thinks of her, he who writes feels young again, and remembers a paragon. So she came holding her dress with one fair rounded arm, and her taper before her, tripping down the stair to greet Esmond. She hath put on her scarlet stockings and white shoes," says my lord, still laughing. "O, my fine mistress! is this the way you set your cap at the Captain!" She approached, shining smiles upon Esmond, who could look at nothing but her eyes. She advanced, holding forward her head, as if she would have him kiss her as he used to do when she was a child. "Stop," she said, "I am grown too big! Welcome, cousin Harry," and she made him an arch curtsey, sweeping down to the ground almost, with the most gracious bend, looking up the while with the brightest eyes and sweetest smile. Love seemed to radiate from her. Harry eyed her with such a rapture as the first lover is described as having by Milton. "N'est ce pas?" says my lady, in a low, sweet voice, still hanging on his arm. Esmond turned round with a start and a blush, as he WHY DO WE FALL IN LOVE? Esmond's mistress had a thousand faults beside her charms: he knew both perfectly well; she was imperious, she was light-minded, she was flighty, she was false, she had no reverence in her character; she was in every thing, even in beauty, the contrast of her mother, who was the most devoted and the least selfish of women. Well, from the very first moment he saw her on the stairs at Walcote, Esmond knew he loved Beatrix. There might be better women-he wanted that one. He cared for none other. Was it because she was gloriously beautiful? Beautiful as she was, he hath beard people say a score of times in their company, that Beatrix's mother looked as young, and was the handsomer of the two. Why did her voice thrill in his ear so? She could not sing near so well as Nicolini or Mrs. Tofts; nay, she sang out of tune, and yet he liked to hear her better than St. Cecilia. She had not a finer complexion than Mrs. Steele (Dick's wife, whom he had now got, and who ruled poor Dick with a rod of pickle), and yet to see her dazzled Esmond; he would shut his eyes, and the thought of her dazzled him all the same. was brilliant and lively in talk, but not so incomparably witty as her mother, who, when she was cheerful, said the finest things; but yet to hear her, and to be with her, was Esmond's greatest pleasure. She Time But Beatrix has far higher aims. goes on, and many a noble suitor is attracted, almost hooked, but ultimately lost. At last the Duke of Hamilton declares himself, and Esmond is coolly shewn the impossibility of preferring him to such a competitor. The heartless beauty is victorious the day is fixed. The beautiful Beatrix is to become Duchess of Hamilton. We could almost apologise for offering to our readers the following disgusting caricature of the conversation of the most accomplished man of his age-the great, the eloquent, the witty, the philosophical, but the unprincipled, Lord Bolingbroke-a man whom Bulwer has striven hard to paint, yet owns his pencil unequal to the portrait. Mr. Thackeray's daub is as like the original as the picture of Lord Nelson that swings over a village ale-house resembles the naval hero. The extract tells, how met his mistress's clear eyes. He had forgotten her, ever, the story of Beatrix's disappointment. wrapt in admiration of the filia pulcrior. September 5, 1724. This regiment never was a Fusilier The writer goes on to shew, that the regiment in which the young Lord Castlewood is represented as fighting against the French, was a regiment which adhered to James the Second, and actually followed him to France. He points out, moreover, some other mistakes which would not be worth mentioning if this novel bore about it less pretence of minute accuracy. MR. THACKERAY'S IDEA OF LORD BOLINGBROKE. Bolingbroke always spoke freely when he had drunk freely. His enemies could get any secret out of him in that condition; women were even employed to ply him, and take his words down. I have heard that my Lord Stair, three years after, when the Secretary fled to France and became the Pretender's minister, got all the information he wanted by putting female spies over St. John in his cups. He spoke freely now:--"Jonathan knows nothing of this for certain, though he suspects it, and by George, Webb will take an Archbishopric, and Jonathan a-no damme-Jonathan will take an Archbishopric from James, I warrant me, gladly enough. Your Duke hath the string of the whole matter in his hand," the Secretary went on. have that which will force Marlborough to keep his distance, and he goes out of London in a fortnight. Prior hath his business: he left me this morning; and mark me, Harry, should fate carry off our august, our beloved, our most gouty and plethoric Queen, and Defender of the Faith, la bonne cause triomphera. A la santé de la bonne cause. Every thing good comes from "We |