MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 603 



by the other sex : besides which, and this especially, if there be any differ- 

 ence of station in the parties, the splendour of their rank dazzles or their 

 gold purchases the embraces of her who yields to the seducer. It is well 

 known that all women of character hold a wanton in detestation, what- 

 ever her rank may be ; and as for the dictum of Lady Blessington quoted in 

 confirmation of his view, that the crime of conjugal infidelity on the part of 

 aristocratic ladies does not, in the estimation of the members of their sex, 

 consist in the mere fact itself, but in allowing it to be detected." God save the 

 mark ! if her authority is to be taken for law on such matters. There may 

 be some truth in the assertion that rakes are always considered the most agree- 

 able members of society ; but it must not be forgotten that the same warmth 

 of constitution that hurries men, at least young men, into vices of the class 

 here alluded to begets also wit and vivacity of conversation, and that your cold- 

 blooded calculating saint is usually the dullest proser in Christendom. Not 

 that we would defend vice in any shape ; we merely wish to account for the 

 anomaly, without attributing to both mankind and womankind on universality 

 of depravation. Without pursuing this subject any further, we will turn to 

 some other points which jar on our sense of truth most amazingly. 



" We should like very much to know where Mr. Grant has picked up his 

 notions of the manners of our female aristocracy'; certainly not among 

 themselves, or at least in the company of a very equivocal portion of them. 

 There may be some parvenues most probably who indulge in the gross lan- 

 guage attributed to them, but it is a most disgraceful libel on them as a body, 

 to suppose them capable of using such language as the following. 



" * What savage is that with a face like a boiled lobster ?' inquired Lady 

 Mortimer, of one of her female friends at the last Almacks of the present year, 

 pointing. at the same time to a gentleman sitting opposite. 'My goodness! 

 my dear Marchioness/ said the Honourable Miss Lundy to the Marchioness 

 of Leamington, as they both sat together a few weeks since in the opera-box 

 of the latter, ' my dear Marchioness, who is that she-bear, with her blowsy 

 hair and face like a pickled cabbage, sitting in the Duchess of St. Alban's 

 box ?' ' That Miss Cleveland, with her overgrown crop of hair hanging about 

 her neck, looks like a water spaniel.' < Oh, I can't endure the sight of that 

 mountain of humanity ; that beetle-squasher, Lord Henry Manning/' The 

 very sight of that ugly wretch, Miss Bruce, makes me sicken/ ' Look at that 

 laughing hyena ; that piece of vulgarity, Miss Tomkins/ ' Did you ever see 

 such a brute as that Lord Brondon is ?' ' I could dig that horrid woman's 

 eyes out; she is always talking so maliciously of me/ 'I am sick to death 

 of that vulgar beast, Lord Montgomery ; did you ever see such a booby ?' 

 ' O, I could box the ears of that wretched creature, Miss Vernon !' " 



And what after all is the authority for these gross and indelicate expres- 

 sions ? Some silly tales forsooth, written by two bread and butter misses, yet 

 in the school-room, if not the nursery, at the time they put forth their precious 

 farrago of all that two very young ladies ought not to have written. 



The stigma too cast on the mode of arranging marriages among the aristo- 

 cracy is, we think, undeserved. Whether or not their unions be the result of 

 previous affection, we are quite sure that for the most part they make exem- 

 plary wives and mothers, and none are more fond of their children or more 

 constantly with them, than those who are not compelled from lack of means 

 to a personal superintendence of their offspring. The fact is, that love matches 

 are not generally very happy ones. The parties before their union have an 

 exaggerated idea of each other's virtues, and after time has cooled the ardour 

 of passion, they find out that their partners are not such faultless beings as 

 they had imagined, and the natural consequence is a re-action an ebb in the 

 tide of affection. Now in prudential marriages, most commonly it happens 

 that the parties are as fully alive to each other's failings before as after the 

 knot has been tied, so that on that score there is not likely to be any diminu- 

 tion of mutual respect or esteem ; and as we all know what time will effect, 

 we can easily conceive that it will soften down any little asperities or disso- 



