ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. HYMENEA IN SEARCH OF A HUSBAND. No royal feast could exceed the magnificence of the luxurious banquet which presented itself. The chamber in which it was spread glowed with a thousand crystal lamps blazing from amidst the most superb draperies of gold and silver tissued hangings. The tables, of which there were several, were covered with vases of the most precious materials, from which issued aromatic flowers or fragrant burning incense. Every rarity of the season, and indeed of every country, was there to woo the appetite. The first wines of France poured from the various mouths of numerous crystal fountains which graced the boards under the shade of fairy orange and myrtle groves. Fruits of every clime occupied golden baskets of a thousand graceful forms; there was nothing absent that the most voluptuous or delicate taste could desire. The lovely Duchess, still in her simple but elegant theatrical attire, stood at the higher end of the room talking with one of the French Princes as the Duke of Sans Souci approached l:er leading forward Lady || Castledowne. The Duchess greeted her Ladyship with an animated delight which seemed to speak the language of peculiar esteem. Lady Castledowne replied to her ardent greeting with the strictest politeness, but it was so petrifying cold that I could not but be astonished to find it had no chilling effect on the Duchess, who still continued to utter an eloquent welcome to the wife of her husband's friend. I was then presented to her Grace. She received me with a bewitching smile, said a few words respecting the pleasure she hoped I had received in the comedy, and without waiting my answer turned again to the Duke de The exquisite beauty of the enchanting mistress of the splendid scene seemed to attract all eyes; every person present suc cessively pressed forward to pay a compliment to her acting, or to the taste displayed in the ducal theatre. In short, she ra ther seemed treated as a queen than as a subject. And, indeed, Lord Castledowne whispered me, as he held my arm in his :— "See, my dear Miss Wellwood, the caprice and power of fashion! When that same Duchess was Louisa Ammiral, I have seen her passed by in a room with the utmost contempt by those very women of rank who are now thronging about her with the solicitude of courtiers. The men now adulating her to deification used to call her a little pretty fool angling for hearts she could never catch. In short, until the Duke placed his coronet on her brows, she was universally regarded as nobody; but now, behold the reverse! she sets the models in dress, she leads the ton in partics, she is the standard of literary taste, the stamper of fashion on man, woman, and child. No stranger, of whatever rank or merit, is regarded with notice till he or she has been received at Sans Souci." "But I do not understand how this happens," replied I. "Is she really so accomplished and irresistibly charming as to deserve and excite this homage! For 1 see that even women of her own quality salute her as if they derived honour from her smiles." "I will tell you the reason," whispered Sir Bingham Courtown ; "there is no woman in the three kingdoms gives such sumptuous presents as the Duchess of Sans Souci, or spreads so pleasurable a scene before her friends. When the Duchess of Gretna-Green presented the last of her marriagable daughters at Court, the pretty Lady Kate was decorated with a suit of pearls, the gift of the Duchess of Sans Souci. When the Duchess of Faro sent In her maid to pawn her jewels to pay a large play debt, the Duchess of Sans Souci heard of the transaction from her own woman, who happened to be sister to the other Abigail; and the kind accommodating Duchess had the jewels intercepted in their way to the Three Golden Balls, and accompanying them with the money wanted, sent them back to their disconsolate mistress. short, the young Duchess of Sans Souci is so old in the science of the world, that she knows how to bind men and women of all ranks and dispositions to her feet. The riches of the Duke allow her to forge as many golden fetters as she pleases; and you see what a herd of illustrious slaves throng around her steps." While Sir Bingham was speaking, I observed a little bustle extraordinary at the lower end of the room, and presently I saw the gay Duchess (who had just given her hand with a sweet familiar smile to the French Duke to lead her to her seat at the top of the supper table) turn abruptly from her royal companion to receive a gentleman who now approached. Sir Bingham whispered " That is one of our Royal Dukes; and you will soon see how the faded lilies of France will shrink in that lady's eyes before the yet blooming rose of England!" The Duchess verified the prediction of the Baronet; she gave yet sweeter smiles to the English Prince, she laughed, she talked, she gave him her hand, and he led her to the seat; and at her request took the chair next her, which she had before designed for the Prince of the house of Bourbon. was as During the repast she seemed to have eyes and ears for none present but her royal partner. The Duke de much neglected as if he had been the son of a valet de chambre; and with a sympathy at my heart which robbed the scene of all its gaiety, I contemplated the noble demeanor of the illustrious exile as he sat, unconscious of the feelings he had excited, discoursing calmly, at a considerable distance from the top of the table, with the Earl of Cape de Verd, one of our gallant Admirals: Lord Fitzguy, an animated fine old man, sat on the other side of him, and pro | secuted a conversation in which he seemed much interested with great ardour. Lord Castledowne sighed and gently touched my hand as he observed the direction of my eyes:—" "I see by your looks, my sweet Hymenaea," said he in a low voice, "that you are struck by the indelicate conduct of the Duchess of Sans Souci to that unfortunate Prince. Were he not unfortunate how different would have been the conduct of that same capricious lady! We all know that the splendour of the French Court far exceeded ours; we all know that our Royal Dukes live in comparative penury compared with what was the magnificence and power of a French Prince. That very exile, now unobserved by all but true nobility, a few years ago commanded a train of followers like a sovereign. His smile was then valued at thousands; his wealth and his smiles were always companions. He was generous as the day, he was beneficent as illustrious, he was brave as his most valiant ancestors, and faithful to the sacrifice of all but his own honour." "And that is the man," exclaimed I with indignation, "that is treated with caprice by such a trifler as the Duchess of Sans Souci. Oh, were I in her place, there is no prince on his throne who I would receive with greater respect than one of the unfortunate family of the martyred Louis!" 66 I believe you, my lovely friend," replied the Earl; "but your heart is of dif ferent materials from that of most young women of fashion. Nay, why should I confine the reproach to them alone? It is too much the disposition of the world in general to apportion respect, not in proportion to the merit of the object, but to its power of administering to our wishes. It matters not to those selfish spirits the dignity of your birth, the virtues of your life, the depths of your misfortunes, nor the magnanimity with which you sustain the reverse. They know no essential in greatness but wealth and station; bereft of the one, or hurled from the other, is sufficient to deprive you of all interests in their hearts but that of curiosity. Once gratify that, and the most illustrious fugitive under hca ven may, for what they care, perish beneath the inclement elements without a roof to shelter him." 66 Nay, my Lord," observed Mr. Courtown, you are severe in this; do we not make the most benevolent subscriptions for the relief of foreigners?" "All subscriptions, my good Courtown," returned the Earl, "are not set on foot from a spirit of benevolence. It is not the money we give to the distressed that shews benevolence, but the manner of giving it. Ostentation is a prodigal almoner, but at fails to extract the bitter drop front the cup of dependance. True benevolence alters not its demeanor to the unfortunate, unless their misfortunes be the result of their own misconduct. I know that the name of the Duchess of Sans Souci is down in the list of subscriptious for emigrants, for one of the longest sums subscribed; but you see that she can treat one of their most illustrious Princes with marked neglect, when a greater glory cometh in to dim the less, when present power approaches to eclipse the star of departed royalty! It is not to the personal worth of our British Prince that the Duchess gives her discourse and smiles,-it is because the regal honours yet flourish round his house; but to such a woman as her Grace, a fallen descendant of our Plantagenets would be as little respected as the poorest of the house of Bourbon." "How I despise such venal souls!" exclaimed I; "I almost feel degraded at sitting at her board; and, methinks, that French Prince ought to feel as I do, and never again honour her with his presence." "So he would, if he thought about it," returned the Earl; "but his mind is so far above the common incidents of hourly return, that he does not observe who smiles or frowns on him; and his present discourse with our brave Admiral of Cape de Verde, and the truly noble Earl of Fitzguy, is more than an equivalent pleasure for what he loses in the gay repartee of the fickle Duchess." || fluence his attentions." Lord Castledowne smiled." That may be one cause of the deference which the Earl pays to greatness in ruins," replied his Lordship; "but the worthy descendant of the heroes of the race of Fitzguy has a nobler spring for his sympathies. It is to the memory of the virtuous ancestors of the Duke de - that he now makes his obeisance; it is reverence to the Duke's personal good qualities; it is homage to the magnanimity with which he bears a reverse of fortune which, in the minds of the great vulgar, levels him with any other victim of calamity." "My dear Miss Wellwood," cried Lady Castledowne, "we are so thoroughly a mercantile nation that the spirit of commerce has even taken possession of our higher orders; and only in a few instances, like Lord Fitzguy and my Earl, do we see an exception. Esteem, civilities, are now merely matters of traffic; and if you cannot give feasts and patronage in return, to Lords, Ladies, and their retainers, it is in vain you pretend to all the blood of the Cæsars, and all the virtues of the Catos." "Take warning by this lesson, fair lady," rejoined Mr. Courtown; "and never, if you hope for the world's worship, bestow that gentle hand on other than a first Lord of the Treasury." I smiled at this address from the young student, and was ready to laugh when the Baronet, with a raised colour, whispered to me:-" If I can read that fair countenance, it worships not at the shrine of Plutus; a soul of honour, and a heart of love, would be the objects of its elec tion?” He laid his hand on his breast as he spoke, and threw an expression of amatery devotion into his eyes that I could not mistake. I now guessed the cause of the sudden flush which started into his face when he first heard my name, and did not want a wizard to tell me that-Miss Wellwood, the heiress, was the stimulus to all this sentiment and compliment. I turned from him with an air of perfect indifference, and addressing Lady Castledowne, inquired the name of a fine woman sitting directly opposite to us, at another table, who was talking with great vehemence to a crowd of young men, who stood bowing and laughing at her wit behind her chair. Her dress was profusely covered with diamonds; and an immense cross of the same costly gems attracted the eye to the display of a bosom whose colour and form might have shamed the most perfect model of Greece. Her full and polished arms were naked to the shoulder, excepting where the brilliant clasp of jewellery marked their most graceful swells. Her eyes were large, and full of animated fire; and the bright rouge on her cheek finished her air of fashion. "That lady," replied the Countess looking grave, and drawing up with an air of offended dignity, “ought not to have been in this circle; but some strange and reprehensible caprice admits her almost every where. She is the wife of that Marquis who sits on the left hand of the Duchess of Sans Souci, and she was the wife of that Baronet who now stands a few yards from her, discoursing with one of her adulatory beaux!" I was thunderstruck at this reply.Surely, Lady Castledowne, you cannot mean that I see a divorced woman in this society? I do not behold the shame of her sex received with equal honour as the most virtuous ?" "You do see all this," answered the Countess. "It happens that this fair Marchioness has an effrontery equal to her want of chastity. Her present Lord is a man of commanding power and abilities. And how they have managed it I cannot explain, but while the unhappy girl who falls a victim to tenderness and the seductions of a lover she believes almost her husband, retires to grieve out her crime in the Magdalen, this unfaithful wife, this unnatural mother, this triumphant adulteress, thrusts herself into all societies, and dares to demand adulation as well as sufferance!" "The fact is," whispered the Earl, "there is no point you may not gain in this world if you have it in your power to administer to the real or fictitious wants of others, and the impudence to break through all ob stacles to gain the ultimatum of your own desires. That woman, who gives herself the airs of a princess, was originally the daughter of a country attorney. Her father gave her the education of a Circassian. nymph, and nature had endowed her with a vanity which seconded his ambition to see her greatly married. She was displayed at one or two county balls, and in her third season of exhibition married Sir Edward Woodford, a client of her father's. Sir Edward was an amiable young man who doated on his wife, and loved to live with her, and the sweet children she had brought him, in the bosom of an elegant retirement. Lady Woodford did not concur heartily in this plan; but pleased with her dignity, for several years she seemed content with her way of life, visits in the neighbourhood, and being the most admired at the county balls. "A general election threw all her husband's house into a tumult. The Marquis of Cyprus came down to support the interest of a friend he was anxious to bring in as one of the representatives. He was introduced at Woodford-Hall. Its beau Her teous lady became his warm coadjutor. The election was gained; and the Marquis carried his new member, and his fair friend's heart, with him to town together. In short, my dear Miss Wellwood, the coronet of a Marquis seemed a greater prize in her Ladyship's eyes than the crown of female honour-chastity. unhappy husband discovered the injury that had been done him. He reproached his faithless wife; she gloried in her shame, and next morning set off in a post-chaise and four to her paramour, Sir Edward immediately instituted a suit against the guilty pair; a divorce was issued; he received five thousand pounds damages; the Marquis married his mistress; and, by the aid of effroutery and strong friends (who regard him more than they did virtue), he has forced her into almost every circle in town. "Poor Sir Edward sought to drown the memory of his woes in wine; one dissipation induced another, and now he is brought in chains to town by the beau tiful widow of a certain Duke, who, while such name; but test I shod ne in the title, I will describe it as well as cau. be of any great bulk, and yet I understand it has been valued at thirty thousand pounds. "It is pity so valuable a piece should ever be lost; and the way to prevent this is by increasing the copies of it. If the author will give consent, and you will license it, I will immediately put it into the press. For my part I will spare no as to embellish and adorn the whole with d. st natural and lively figures; "It is a fair and beautiful manuscript, and I shot despair of producing an the ink very black and shining, on the edition as beautiful in the eyes of all men whitest virgiu v Pat can be imagined. as the dear original is at present in miue. The characters are so nice and delicate as || Methinks I could read it with pleasure to discover it to be the work of some mas-night and day. terly hand; and there is such symmetry and exact proportion in all its parts, and the features (if I may so them) are so just and true, that it puts t. reader often in rapture in admiring the beauties of them. "If therefore you will do me the favour to let me have your company this evening, and bring this incomparable piece along with you, it will add to the entertainment of every one, but particularly of him who is always with great respect "Yours, "ELZEVIR." "The book has an additional ornament, which it did not want-all the margin being flourished with gold. But that which commends it more is, that though This letter was written by a gentleman at has been written full eighteen years, as who a few years before had lost a very I am informed, yet it is not sullied nor amiable wife; and the intention of it was stained; in so much that one would think to invite the Dean and his company to at never was turned over by any man; supper, particularly a young lady of the and indeed there is reason to believe the name of Marshal, about eighteen years of first leaves are as yet unopened and un- age, with a fortune of £30,000, who was touched. lodged in the Dean's study, his house "The volume itself does not appear to being filled with visitors. |