“I am not well versed enough in the ways of single woman to make much matrimonial progress. * * * * * * *
“I have been dining, like the dragon of Wantley for this last week. My head aches with the vintage of various cellars, and my brains are muddled as their dregs. I met your friends, the D * *s:—she sung one of your best songs so well, that, but for the appearance of affectation, I could have cried; he reminds me of Hunt, but handsomer, and more musical in soul, perhaps. I wish to God he may conquer his horrible anomalous complaint. The upper part of her face is beautiful, and she seems much attached to her husband. He is right, nevertheless, in leaving this nauseous town. The first winter would infallibly destroy her complexion,—and the second, very probably, every thing else.
“I must tell you a story. M * * (of indifferent memory) was dining out the other day, and
complaining of the P—e’s coldness to his old
wassailers. D’ * * (a learned Jew)
bored him with questions—why this? and why that? ‘Why did the P—e act
thus?’—‘Why, sir, on account of Lord * *, who ought to be ashamed of
himself.’ ‘And why ought Lord * * to he ashamed of
himself?;’—‘Because the P—e, sir, * * *
* * * *.’ ‘And why, sir, did the P—e cut
you?’—‘Because, G—d
| A. D. 1813. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 413 |
“Is not this last question the best that ever was put, when you consider to whom? It nearly killed M * *. Perhaps you may think it stupid, but, as Goldsmith said about the peas, it was a very good joke when I heard it—as I did from an ear-witness—and is only spoilt in my narration.
“The season has closed with a Dandy Ball;—but I have dinners with the Harrowbys, Rogers, and Frere and Mackintosh, where I shall drink your health in a silent bumper, and regret your absence till ‘too much canaries’ wash away my memory, or render it superfluous by a vision of you at the opposite side of the table. Canning has disbanded his party by a speech from his * * * *—the true throne of a Tory. Conceive his turning them off in a formal harangue, and bidding them think for themselves. ‘I have led my ragamuffins where they are well peppered. There are but three of the 150 left alive, and they are for the Town’s-end (query, might not Falstaff mean the Bow-street officer? I dare say Malone’s posthumous edition will have it so) for life.’
“Since I wrote last, I have been into the country. I journeyed by night—no incident or accident, but an alarm on the part of my valet on the outside, who, in crossing Epping Forest, actually, I believe, flung down his purse before a mile-stone, with a glow-worm in the second figure of number XIX—mistaking it for a footpad and dark lantern. I can only attribute his fears to a pair of new pistols, wherewith I had armed him; and he thought it necessary to display his vigilance by calling out to me whenever we passed any thing—no matter whether moving or stationary. Conceive ten miles, with a tremor every furlong. I have scribbled you a fearfully long letter. This sheet must be blank, and is merely a wrapper, to preclude the tabellarians of the post from peeping. You once complained of my not writing;—I will heap ‘coals of fire upon your head’ by not complaining of your not reading. Ever, my dear Moore, your’n (isn’t that the Staffordshire termination?)
