"And the proper one for a handsome woman," said Lord Mordaunt, looking up from the racing calendar, “graceful and elegant” like herself. I wish you would mind whom you attack, Anne, when you are in one of your quizzing humours."

"Excellent, faith!" said Lord Hazlemere, elevating his bushy eyebrows a full half inch, and running his fingers through his well-curled locks: "I am obliged to you, Mordaunt." But his Lordship took no notice, though several of the company looked surprised.

Lady Anne, heedless of every thing but her present whim, continued ; Now, my friend Maria Molyneux sports the brusque and laconic, hopping from one thing to another in an extraordinary manner. Supposing she begins: Was glad to hear your cold better, and hope you will take care of yourself. Colds have been very general this winter. Mr. Smith has got a bad cold, and his wife has had the influenza, and their little girl has been suffering from the croup; a most dreadful complaint, which has been very general lately at Bath among children. I hear Bath is just now very gay, but the company not quite so select as at Brighton. The King is the great life of that place: some fancy the Pavilion will not be gay this winter; which would be a vast pity, I think. Mr. Petty is to marry the little Miss Coates, so the wits say she will never want for petti-coats.' Now this is Maria's style of eloquence. "Dora's is the true humdrum; too dull almost to quiz. I hope your ladyship will excuse my not having written sooner, (as indeed I wished to have done,) but papa has been ill, which makes him very uncomfortable, besides being a little crossisli, as many people are apt to be when they are rather ill; no one more so than myself: so, you know, one ought always to make allowances for others, particularly for elderly people. I hope this will be a sufficient excuse to you for my not having taken up my pen before; but indeed I have a better one still to give, which I am sure you will be quite satisfied with, for I have cut my finger and thumb so very badly, (indeed I may almost say dangerously,) that till to-day I really could not hold a pen.'-Now, good people, I think I have given you quite enough for the present."

"Oh, do go on, dear Lady Anne," said Lord Dorville, clapping his hands; "it is quite delightful to hear you give us one of Miss Bevil's letters."

"Oh, an attempt at esprit, le style castique par excellence. Let us see; Oh! I have her now: London dull this winter; balls without suppers, men without money, girls without lovers. People of ton, and high ton too, give dinners of fourteen, and only two dishes of a side; so it must be elegant to have no appetites. Then they stick themselves up on the fourth tier of the opera, and vote it charming: all humbug, imposes on no one. Sir Jemmy Jessamy aux pieds de Mademoiselle Flutter, Lord Foppington aur écoutes, in case the baronet should be congédie'd, in order to pop into his shoes. Mrs. Pickle's affair with Mr. Pepper quite off. The Puddledocks are done up in toto; going abroad: they prefer starving in France to begging in England: wish 'em joy with all my heart.'

"Ha, ha, ha!" said Lord Dorville; "and who the deuce are the Puddledocks?" "Oh, that I leave you to find out!" said Lady Anne, as she threw herself back on her chair, and yawned aloud, "How tired I am, to be sure."

"No wonder," said Lord George, after such exertions: why, you have given us the Polite Letter-writer with great effect."

These three lords, Dorville, Hazlemere, and George Fitzallan, are three conspicuous figures in the piece. The last is an Irish younger brother, represented as warm-hearted; he is only, however, selfish and warm-tempered. He has the liveliness of his country, and he shows it in industrious flirtation. Lord Dorville is a fashionable idiot; to look at his dress, his set-out, and all his appointments, he might be supposed perfect; he is, in fact, a fool. Lord Haslemere has some talent, which he displays in departing as far as possible from the received rules of courtesy and good breeding, and in professing a superlative contempt of all that does not accord with the conventional manners of a certain set, who have the vanity to persuade themselves, and the dexterity to persuade others, that there is something about them superior to any thing which their compeers can boast. The reader is now ready, it is hoped, to go to town-that is the scene for which he is prepared by the writer through one volume and a half.

At the opening of the winter season, it appears that one of the Lady Patronesses has abdicated, or, in other words, that she has been driven from her seat of power and pre-eminence. The Regent of Almack's, a sort of usurper, who has assumed authority over her colleagues, is Lady Hauton. Upon her devolves the duty of co-optating a partner in the honours and fatigues of office. Her choice falls upon the Baroness de Wallestein, an English lady, the sister of Colonel Montague, as it luckily happens, and the wife of the new Austrian ambassador.

"What, so soon back!" exclaimed Louisa, rising from the great arm-chair, and putting down the last new novel, as the Baroness entered the room [from her first council at Almack's]; "now tell us all about it."

"Oh! the story is soon told; Lady Hauton met me at the door of the apartment, and introduced me to all the ladies who were then and there assembled in full divan, et d'abord je fus présentée à chacune séparément, et puis les complimens d'usage, alors on s'examina de part et d'autre, on me critiqua en secret, vous n'en doutez pas.”

"And who were there? describe the ladies."

"Oh! Lady Hauton is quite the reigning power, to whom they all pay implicit deference: et elle se sert de toutes ses armes-la flatterie pour l'une, les reproches pour l'autre, elle se moque de celle-ci, elle caresse celle-là, et elle parler pour tout le monde."

"The Duchess of Stavordale is a round, fat, jolly-looking woman, with a vulgar, good-humoured countenance; very civil in her manner; and she shook my hand so violently, à la manière Anglaise, that she forced my rings quite into my fingers."

"Next came the Marchioness of Plinlimmon, who is quite in another style; official and important, a tall, stately-looking personage, full of the dignity of office, une femme à grands mots enfin."

"Lady Bellamont is a thin, pale, gawky-looking woman, with a very cross countenance, qui me fit la mine de coté, comme si elle ne me voulait pas du bien; and I overheard her saying something to Lady Rochefort about her poor dear friend Lady Lochaber. "Cette petite Vicomtesse is very pretty, and very affected, and they say is très mechante and spirituelle: je parie qu'elle a déja fait quelque plaisanterie sur mon compte; she is short, and fat, and fair, et très coquette. I have heard that her husband neglects her terribly, but she consoles herself by having always some favoured attendants, and her constant swain last year was Lord Mordaunt."

"And what did you do afterwards?"

"Oh, nothing at all! they looked at me, and I looked at them. I see plainly that I am Lady Hauton's patroness, and that this bold step has completely established her ladyship's power. I would rather be her friend than her enemy, for I think her a very fearful kind of person, she dares to do or say any thing to any body. Then she has such powers of ridicule, that she frightens all into compliance with her will and pleasure she told the Duchess of Stavordale that Lord Haslemere had made a capital caricature of Lady Lochaber paying her adieux to the committee, which she intends to have lithographed, as a vignette to the air of Adieu to Lochaber,' which she is arranging as a quadrille to be played on Wednesday."

And what are these baskets for, which Felix has just brought in?" enquired Louisa.

"Oh! the large one is to hold all the notes of application, as they come in promiscuously. Then, of the other two, you see one has Almack's admitted,' marked on it: that one I shall leave on Monday with Willis, after I have signed all the vouchers, that he may send them over the town, after he has made out the tickets, which the people will send for on Wednesday. This other basket, marked Almack's rejected,' of course contains all the applications which are not successful, from which a list is made, to save trouble, of those who are never, on any account, to be admitted. Then I am to have a complete visiting book made out of all my visiting acquaintance, as no one can be admitted whom you do not previously visit; and there is a splendid folio to be bound, with my name in gilt letters on the back, in which le bon homme, Willis, is to enter the names of all whom I admit on my books, as they term it. Oh! je l'assure, ma chère Louise, qu'il n'y a point d'affaire d'état arrangée avec plus de soin et d'ordre, que ne sont ces choses-ci."

"Oh! I am quite aware of that," replied Louisa; "but whom have we here?" and the door opened for Lady Anne Norbury.

The charm of Almack's is the difficulty of getting there. We pre

sume that the description of the fair authoress is to be depended ont and if so, for we pretend to no actual experience, the entertainmen; arises solely from the consciousness of being in a particular place at a particular time, where many others are trying to be, without success. The amusements are such as are to be met with pe every ball-room, and in the time of the authoress (we apprehend some little change has been made here since then, for there is a dispute in the council as to the admission of ecarté!) even more scanty, while the ornaments and the refreshments are infinitely inferior to those found at ordinary routs in the houses of the nobility. Yet this passion for exclusiveness turns the naked walls of Almack's into a paradise. Many a vote in the House of Commons has been sold by papa, for a subscription to Almack's for his corpulent lady and her gawky daughters. The place thus, in addition to its being the scene of the frivolity and heartless gaiety of our fashionables, acquires a political importance. As every thing turns upon admission, we shall give the minutes of the council, in which the pretensions of the candidates for the season are examined. It is a long extract, and the last.

"How d'ye do, Lady Hauton?" said a gay-looking dandy, on a very fresh horse; "I've been waiting this half-hour for you, to know what's the next process."

"Oh! it's Mr. Stanhope: why send up your card by Willis, as I've told you before, and perhaps you'll have a voucher sent down directly, or else you must call again at five o'clock."

My dear Lady Hauton, any hopes for me?" said a dashing young guardsman in uniform, opening the carriage-door.

"Oh! Colonel Williams, I know you are on my list."

"Well, well! then I will call again for my voucher: I am on guard at St. James's, so it will do capitally."

"Has your ladyship ever thought of me?" said another, who pushed Colonel Williams aside, to hand Lady Hauton from her carriage.

Oh! indeed, Sir Philip, I told you there was no chance; you have had two subscriptions already. It's positively against the rules.'

"Confound those rules!" muttered Sir Philip Turner, sulkily.

"Heavens! ""

exclaimed Lady Hauton; "do I see Lord Hazlemere?"

His lordship approached immediately. "Will Lady Rochefort be here?" enquired he, with some anxiety.

"I should suppose, of course," replied the Countess; "but why so anxious?" "I wrote to her about a subscription for Lady Glenmore, Will you see about it, dear Lady Hauton?"

"leave it to me.

"Oh! is that all?" said her ladyship, somewhat satirically; Come, my dear Madame de Wallestein, we must wait no longer, positively." "Qui est donc ce monsieur à la porte?" enquired the Baroness.

"Oh! that is Mr. Willis," said Lady Hauton. Then, turning to this very important official person, her ladyship added,

"I am afraid we are very late this morning?"

"Yes, my lady, the other members of the committee have all been assembled some time, and are already been engaged in business."

But

"Dear, I am quite shocked! Let my books and baskets be brought into the committee-room directly. Come, my dear Madame de Wallestein, take my arm. stop! stop! Mr. Willis, this lady is the Baroness de Wallestein, the Austrian ambassadress, the new lady patroness in the room of Lady Lochaber."

Mr. Willis, the elder, we believe, bowed long and low to each of these mighty titles of honour. We really should not have presumed to introduce this gentleman's name into print, had not the example been set us by the Muse of Almack's, whose footsteps we are proud to follow at humble distance, if simple prose may thus venture to imitate the flights of poetic fancy, in something the like manner as a modest one-horse chaise will, on Newmarket Heath, adventurously pursue the well-appointed barouche and four of some proud leader of the turf.

Thus we have been inspired by that display of Luttrell's. genius, in depicting his "taste for the very highest life."

JAN. 1827.

I

He opens Almack's in the following manner :—

"But see approach, with looks so sinister,
Willis, their Excellencies' minister."

We can declare, upon our honour, that on this memorable morning, instead of sinister, his looks were most smiling whenever Lady Hauton spoke to him.

The portes battantes of the committee-room were now thrown open; the board of red cloth were all assembled. The ladies sat round a large table, covered with a scarlet tapis, each with her desk before her, on which reposed the books of fate. Mr. Plume, the secretary, was a little behind the ladies, with a small table before him. On benches in front sat several ladies, who came as petitioners for themselves or their friends. On a board over the chimney-piece were inscribed the following sentences, which Colonel Leach had termed the laws of the Medes and Persians.

"ALMACK'S.

"" RULES.

"No lady patroness can give a subscription, or a ticket, to a lady she does not visit, or to a gentleman who is not introduced to her by a lady who is on her visiting list. "No more than three ladies of a family are to be upon the ladies' lists.

"No lady's or gentleman's name can continue on the list of the same lady patroness for more than two sets of balls; but ladies are not to consider themselves entitled to the second set of balls, unless it is stipulated on their subscribing to the first, and no lady or gentleman can have more than six tickets from the same lady, during the

season.

"No application from ladies to procure tickets for other ladies, or from gentlemen, for ladies or gentlemen's tickets, can be attended to.

"No gentleman's tickets can be transferred. Ladies' tickets are only to be transferred from mother to daughter, or between unmarried sisters.

"Subscribers who are prevented from coming are requested to give notice to the ladies patronesses the day of the ball, by two o'clock, directed to Willis's rooms, that the ladies may fill up the vacancies.

"The ladies patronesses request that applications for subscriptions and tickets may be sent to Willis's rooms, and not to their houses, in consequence of the confusion that arises from notes being lost and mislaid.

"In consequence of the numerous applications from families whom the ladies patronesses cannot accommodate with tickets, they are obliged to make a positive rule, that not more than three ladies in a family can be admitted to any ball.

"The subscribers are most respectfully informed, that the rooms will be lighted up by ten o'clock, and, by orders from the ladies patronesses, no person can possibly be admitted after half-past eleven o'clock; except members of both Houses of Parliament, who may be detained at the House on business.

"Applications for new subscribers must be submitted for the concurrence of all the ladies patronesses."

The new patroness was received with the utmost distinction; all the privy council rose at once to welcome her; she was handed to her seat by the secretary, the obsequious Mr. Plume. The fair legislators then resumed their places; and the order of the day was called for.

Lady Hauton put up her glass, to discover her acquaintance among the ladies who were whispering on the opposite bench; she soon caught the eye of Miss Bevil, who, in a crimson pelisse, and a bonnet of the same dashing hue, her cheeks a tint deeper, looked all bustle and agitation.

My dear Lady Hauton! how do you do? am glad to find your cold has not prevented you coming; I began to be in a fright lest you should not attend, which would have quite undone me."

"And whom are you come begging for?" enquired Lady Hauton.

"Oh! a very smart young lady, who will be much admired, I am sure; Miss Trecosey of St. Michael's Mount—a pretty cousin of mine.”

"What! a Cornish chough, I suppose," said Lady Rochefort, sharply; “for I remember Walter Scott's proverb says,

But who knows her, pray?"

"Not I," said the Duchess of Stavordale, laughing, "I don't think I cap reproach myself with having any acquaintance so near the Land's end. But probably Lady Plinlimmon may know her as a countrywoman."

"Tre-madoc and Tre-vanion, and Tre-fusis, I know," said the Marchioness of Plinlimmon, in a slow stately manner; "but Tre-cosey I know nothing about."

"Oh! and Tre-maine, the man of refinement, you must know him too; for I think he must be from Cornwall, though his biographer has chosen to transplaut him into Yorkshire," said Lady Hauton.

"Poor dear Miss Bevil!" said Lady Bellamont with a lisp; "I am afraid this Miss with the tre-mendous name has not much chance."

"Faint heart never won a fair lady yet,' ""said the undaunted Miss Bevil. "Miss Trecosey is coming to stay some time with me in town; her name will be on my visiting tickets, therefore she will be known to you, Lady Hauton, and to Lady Rochefort, and to Madame de Wallestein: those are her three pleas for admission. Well, then, of course you will be anxious to have the beautiful Lady Beaulieus among your Almack's belles, and Lord Beaulieu, dear good man that he is, has made a point that I should chaperon his daughters." She paused; a sort of smile was visible on the countenances of most of the ladies.

Miss Bevil resumed, "Think how hard it will be on poor Bridget Trecosey, if she is to say at home while I go out; Madame la Baronne, did you bring my note with you?"

"Ŏui, oui," said Madame de Wallestein, " le billet et le portrait aussi ;" and she produced a beautiful miniature, with a note on rose coloured paper.

"A striking likeness, I suppose, of your protégée," said Lady Hauton, laughing, "upon my word, a pretty girl. And does she mean to honour us with this black velvet cap too? Why she will be quite a lion, I protest!"

A good deal of whispering and tittering took place among the ladies: at last Lady Hauton said

"Take back your pretty miniature, my dear Miss Bevil; if we agree to admit Miss Trecosey, you will have a voucher sent to you."

་་

Pray remember that there are hundreds of petitioners with better claims," said Lady Rochefort, with a toss of her little head.

Now, Mrs. Bucannon," said Lady Hauton, "what do you want?"

"The favour of the Baroness de Wallestein's interest, in behalf of my niece, Miss Jane Leslie."

"But there must be some mistake," said the Baroness, mildly, "I have not the pleasure of knowing the young lady."

'Oh, my dear Madam, I dare say you have forgotten it; very probably or perhaps you are very short sighted: but Jane and I had the honour of being introduced to you by Lady Birmingham last week."

I remember seeing you with her; but that does not make an acquaintance, does it ?"

"This will never do, Mrs. Bucannon," said Lady Hauton; "it is a very irregular proceeding to come here to disturb the committee in this way, in the midst of business, and to take advantage of Madame de Wallestein's being lately come to this country, in order to force your acquaintance upon her. You were upon Lady Lochaber's lists, I remember; and you and Miss Leslie have already had one set this year, which ought to satisfy you both; so you will get nothing by staying and we must have no farther interruptions at present. And therefore I request the other ladies will also withdraw."

The indignant Mrs. Bucannon was forced to obey; she was followed by several other petitioners, all much enraged at this sudden display of power.

"We might as well have heard what those other ladies wanted," said Lady Bellamont, "after they had waited so long."

"Oh! there will be no end of it, if once people are allowed to intrude into the committee-room," said Lady Hauton, augrily; "I shall desire Willis to stop every one from coming in."

The door was just then slowly opened, and a very elegant pink satin hat, with pleureuses feathers, presented itself.