me against my will-in reality, created by Your Highness yourself, in that you appointed me such a mysterious kind of doctor-in-ordinary."

The Prince was secretly pleased with the doctor's honest, sensible character, for he now saw that he had not been deceived in his man. But he would not again act rashly. He, therefore, bade him return home for the present, with reassuring words, and searched farther into the matter. In spite of all the calumny which now fell like hail upon the fallen favorite, Casimir found more and more the truth of the doctor's story confirmed. After the lapse of a few days, therefore, he again summoned him to the palace, and told him that he had found him to be a rare man in five things. In the first place, he was modest and full of self-knowledge; secondly, discreet, and thirdly, truthful; fourthly, he did not desire to exercise any influence; and fifthly, with all this, he was as full of mother wit as the oldest diplomate: that, as the world had made him his confidant when he was not, henceforth he should be so in reality, now that the world believed him to have fallen into disgrace. He also commanded the doctor to resume is morning visits; but did not thereafter enquire about the weather and the state of his

health only, but also asked his advice on all important questions of State. Meanwhile, the doctor laid aside his medical studies altogether, and in all secrecy endeavored to make himself acquainted with the politics and affairs of State; in which direction, and for the use of a small principality, there was not so much required as in our day. After the lapse of a year, the doctor was named, to the great and final astonishment of the country, Minister of the Cabinet to the Prince, and as such he also married Fraülein Lehberg. The Prince was still much attached to the charming young lady, but not with his original impetuous passion.

The people would not believe, for a long time, that Doctor Miller had again been received into the good graces of the Prince; and when it was finally proven in the written decree of the Minister of the Cabinet, they said that outwardly the doctor had certainly received satisfaction, but that he nevertheless did no more possess such unbounded influence and friendship with the Prince as before his fall. Miller was wise enough to leave the country in this opinion, and was much less besieged and envied, when he really stood in close confidence with the Prince, than at the time when people merely attributed influence to him. A. A. Sargent.

Chas. S. Greene.

THE years passed peacefully enough at Delville till 1751, when the monotony was broken by passages of arms with Mrs. Clay

ton.

The ostensible ground of quarrel was her behavior about a legacy of her sister Donellan; but Mrs. Delany must have had some spur besides her affection for the oppressed Donellan-—of whom she had begun to grow a little tired even then, to judge from the calm wisdom with which she writes to the Duchess of Portland, apropos of Donellan: "Some tempers, like some constitutions, have an acid that at times makes everything disagree with them. I shall guard against it as well as I can. My dear friends, I am now an old woman, but as to my knowledge of the little world which has come under my observation, I am convinced that the greatest happiness we can enjoy (next to a conscientious discharge of our duty) is to be able to command our temper; it is better to us than riches or honor, or even health without it we suffer more pain and anxiety by our fretfulness than many distempers give us. Is this not true, my dearest Lady Duchess?" True, most true! but hardly generous reflections on poor Donellan, smarting under the wrong which had deprived her of nearly all her living, and who was hastening to Delville to find the wholehearted sympathy that she would have lavished on Mrs. Delany, had there been any need for it. She had not learned that desirable art of commanding the temper on which Mrs. Delany discourses. But there are times when that art is truly a black art, if we consider its exasperating effects on the poor victim-C'est un avantage terrible, mais il ne faut pas en abuser! In the matter of Mrs. Clayton, however, the views of Donellan and Mrs. Delany happened to coincide, in spite of the superior ethics of the latter who possibly smarted under some change of manner incident to her being now an inferior member of Mrs. Clayton's own set, instead

orange

of being, as in 1731, an honored visitor from the great world. The first note of discord is sounded in her account of the birthday, when she says: "I went to Madam in my coach at 10 o'clock; she, in her sedan with footmen in Saxony green and colored cockades, marched in state; I humbly fol lowed. Can you tell me why she desired me to go with her? I can: she was superb in brown and gold and diamonds; I was clad in the purple and white silk I bought last year in England, and my littleness set off her greatness! These odd fancies make me laugh, and not a bit angry; only, rather, selfsatisfied that I feel myself above doing the things which make the actors so despicable."

Twenty years before, Dr. Delany had expressed unbounded admiration of Mrs. Clayton, in a letter he wrote to her, begging her assistance for Mrs. Barber, the poetess, who was suspected of having slandered her. He refused to clear Mrs. Barber from the charge, because, in so doing, he would be putting Mrs. Clayton on an ordinary level— "whereas, at present," he says, “I have treated up to my own idea of your dignity, and to all the height of my esteem. Your character wanted this occasion to complete it, and Providence. hath been signally indulgent in throwing it in your way." Did he, one wonders, remember all this as he heard his wife and Donellan pointing out the singular incompleteness of Mrs. Clayton's character? One imagines him nervously clearing his throat as he listens to the two ladies, but not venturing to oppose the wife of his bosom, whom he describes, soon after their marriage, as being "the most extraordinary woman he ever had the honor of meeting”; who was, “in the words of Solomon, 'fair as the moon, clear as the sun, but terrible as an army with ban ners.'" He is not the only person whose letters will one day be amongst their most at cusing angels! It must be said for his wife that the only spiteful remarks in all her six

ton

volumes of letters are those about Mrs. Clayexcept, indeed, the one about Lady Baltimore. The smallest anecdote of Mrs. Clayton has a spiteful turn, and the pious hope that her mortification about the archbishopric may "abate some of her insolence," and be generally profitable to her, almost leads one to suspect that Mrs. Delany resent ed Dr. Clayton being already on that bench to which she had so often vainly tried to elevate Dr. Delany. She does "not see much of Madam," as "Mrs. Clayton's delicate (rather crazy) carcase cannot bear even her coach upon springs to come thus far, and she is grown so sour to everything that is not in her own flirting way that she is no loss." However, they were sometimes asked to meet each other, as at Mrs. Marley's, where they "waited dinner till near four; then in came Madam, pale, sick, and distrait-so 'fatigued' -so 'shocked'-she was 'killed'; she had 'got her death'; and what do you think had happened? Her grandeur's chairmen being both drunk, she was reduced to the dreadful necessity of coming a quarter of a mile in a hackney chair! Don't you pity her extremely? She looked about for pity, and the company were all so hard-hearted as to be rather glad than sorry!"

But accidents were not confined to the Claytons and chairmen: the Hamiltons were pending the day at Delville soon after this, and just before dinner, Mrs. Delany "found Master Hamilton sitting on the sofa, pale as leath. I took him by the hand, terrified at is looks, and found he was dirty and lookd as if he had had a fall; he could hardly peak, but would not own that he had. I esired him to get one of the servants to lean his coat. He went stumbling along, hich confirmed me that he was hurt, and desired Dr. Delany to follow him and try he would find out what was the matter. n the meantime the ladies came down and e went to dinner. Dr. Delany came in ith Master Hamilton, who, with difficulty, ated himself. His mother ran to him, nagining he had had a fall and fractured s skull; and we ordered William, our but r, to take a horse and go instantly for a

surgeon, for the boy would neither speak nor keep his seat, and his poor mother's agony was most affecting; but William, whispered to me, and said: 'Madam, Master drank at one draught above a pint of claret, and I do believe he is fuddled.' I ran with the utmost joy to Mrs. Hamilton, and without mincing the matter, said: Be easy! he is drunk!' for I was so happy to find it was not a mortal disorder that I had no management in what I said; and she answered with uplifted hands and eyes, 'I thank God !' William's respectful amusement and the good Dean's guileless anxiety must have been a sight worth seeing.

Constant little dinners and breakfasts were given at Delville, but nothing like the hospitality of the neighbors. "High living is too much the fashion here," writes Mrs. Delany; "you are not invited to dine with any private gentlemen of £1,000 a year, or less, that he does not give you seven dishes at one course, and Burgundy and champagne ; and these dinners they give once or twice a week, though provision is now as dear as in London. I own, I am surprised how they manage, for we cannot afford anything like it, with a much better income than most of those who give these entertainments."

She gives the following account of a subscription ball, held at this time in Dublin. The room represented a wood, and there was room down the middle for thirty couple to dance. On the right hand were trees, rocks, and caves-on the left, a jasmine bower, a Gothic temple which served as a sideboard, and trees. The whole terminated with a grotto of three rustic arches, set off with ivy, moss, icicles, and "all other rocky appurtenances." In the grotto were the musicians dressed as shepherds and shepherdesses, while under its portico stood the Lord Lieutenant and his wife, the Duke and Duchess of Dorset. The candles were in the trees and of green wax, so that only the flame was seen: if tea, or coffee, or chocolate were wanting, you held your cup to a leaf of a tree, and it was filled; and whatever you wanted to eat or drink was immediately found on a rock, or on a branch, or in the

tween

tenham waters; they eat no meat for supper, and take care not to catch cold." She adds the pertinent inquiry: "How long was it beyour children taking it of one another? Tell me very exactly." "The Duchess keeps up her spirits charmingly, and when we are not in the room with the dear child (in which we take our turns), our works go on. Our main work is a carpet in double cross stitch, for the Duchess's Gothic cell." One trembles to think what a nest of infection that cell must have been! The only person who took the situation seriously was the rector, who objected to officiating at the house; but his place was filled by Dr. Markham (afterwards Archbishop of York, but then head master of Westminster, where Lord Tichfield was at school), who chose this juncture to make a ten days' visit to Bulstrode. Perhaps, instead of being surprised at his coming, we should rather regard his invitation as a special distinction; for when Lord Edward caught scarlet fever the next year, we are told that "the Duchess saw no one but her most intimate friends," who doubtless appreciated the privilege. We are not surprised to read in a page or two that "the smallpox has come out very favorably in Lady Mary. Lady Betty was taken in the night on Tuesday; we are in daily expectation of Lady Harriet," she adds cheerfully. For a day or two Lady Harriet failed most unaccountably in answering their expectations, though "the poor Duchess looked every moment with affectionate and examining eyes for some alteration in her." However, it is not very long before poor Lady Harriet is gaily sending word from her sick bed to Mrs. Dewes that "she shall show her a pure spotted face when next they meet in town." But before spring the young ladies are pure well, and Lord Tichfield's first term at Oxford is the great event in the family; "another flutter upon the Duchess's spirits." She made Mrs. Delany write him a long letter of good advice, to which we will hope the young man attended. The next year, 1756, was marked by the narriage of Mr. Spencer (Lady Cowper's son by her first husband) to a very charming out portionless Miss Pointz, to whom he had

been passionately attached for a long time, though his health was so weak it had been doubtful whether he would live to marry her. However, he not only lived to do that but to become the first Lord Spencer five years later. Jewels were the chief part of the wedding finery; the bridegroom's shoebuckles alone were worth £30,000, and his grandmother, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, gave the newly married pair £100,ooo worth of diamonds. Mrs. Delany waxes eloquent over the bride's cap, all brilliants, made in the fashion of a butterfly skeleton, and the six roses, all brilliants, for her stays, "all which fine things," she says, "Mrs. Spencer looks at with the greatest unconcern as the least part of her happiness."

Two years later, a humbler, courtship occupies Mrs. Delany's attention-a Mr. Sandford, whose father will not give him "a competence," made her "a warm and full declaration of his attachment to our friend,” i. e., Sally Chapone, her god-daughter, of whom she was very fond, although Mrs. Clayton had objected to her, on the ground that "her handkerchief is always so smooth, and her cap is so nice, that I am sure she is one of the outrageously virtuous." Mr. Sandford can hardly be called extravagant in his views of what constituted "a competency," as he was prepared to take a "curacy that was not too laborious and not under £30 a year." As he was not possessed of even this modest post, Mrs. Delany can hardly be blamed for counselling delay; and she diverted Sally's mind in the interim by taking her with them to Delville that same year, and on the tour to the Giant's Causeway, which furnished many shells for Mrs. Delany's various works-among which, on her return, she began a wreath for the chapel window of oak branches, corn, and vines, made of cards and shells. The grapes were nuts and large periwinkles; the corn was real wheat; and the whole was painted over to look like stucShe found a difficulty in choosing the chapel chairs, but at last she got some in the shape of, and ornamented like, a Gothic arch. She worked coverings for the seats "in chenille on a black ground, which gives

CO.