1831.] Love and Novelism. 637 



Lord Humpback might wive his whole family hive, 



The Meltons at ditches look shy ; 

 The world run agog 1 , and the king play leap-frog, 



And the Thames and the Bank both run dry. 



Now the birds are all bliss, and Sol gives his last kiss, 



As much as to tell us, my dove, 

 That evening's a moment which no one should miss, 



Who thinks to make music or love : 

 So come to my side two such bosoms as ours 



Were made to be linked in one chain : 

 I've a cloak for the sun, an umbrella for showers, 



And a cab for old London again. 



Love-making. Brighton. 



Five in the Afternoon. Unspeakably weary of life and London. After 

 having sat out a quarter of an hour of the duchess's best conversation, 

 felt nature could endure no longer. Flew to my toilette, saw myself 

 growing visibly pale; held a council with M. Coquin, my newly- 

 imported valet, who has in his time curled and rouged half the crowned 

 heads -of Europe, questioned him whether I should send for Halford, 

 a new case of Stephanie's rouge vegetable, or a pint of laudanum. 

 The rascal set his face against the first and the last, I presume on the 

 ground that I have not yet disbursed his year's salary. So I must 

 submit to the carmine. 



Ten at Night. Just risen from table. The first course so horridly 

 oppressive with my lord's seven marriageable daughters, emblems of 

 the seven deadly sins, that, for all the life that's left me, I thought I 

 should faint. Rose suddenly from table in the midst of a discussion 

 on the merits of the sex as wives and mothers, and fled for the safety of 

 my person. The night cool. An airing may revive me ; ordered post- 

 horses, and shall in three hours be in Brighton. 



Ten A. M. Fine morning. But this a peculiar nuisance in this 

 citizenized spot. It brings out the whole horrid population in clusters ; 

 all the imports, with the London mark fresh upon them, like so many 

 bales or barrels rolled out of their own warehouses ; and, like them, all 

 to be disposed of to the best bidder, with a prodigious discount, too, 

 of face, figure, and fashion, for ready money. Throw commerce to the 

 dogs, I'll none of it. They have poisoned the air already. Goths and 

 Vandals, they have barbarized the Steyne, made the cliffs doubly peri- 

 lous, have turned Kemp Town into a cluster of wigwams, and have 

 absolutely left no resource to a man of delicacy and clean clothes but 

 the sky or the sea. Let me escape along the sands. But ha ! ye gods, 

 what a shape returning from her morning's dip. Wit in her eye, bloom 

 in her cheek, elegance in her form, and her bathing slippers in her 

 hand. She paces the shingle, which her steps turn into a Turkey car- 

 pet. She penetrates the mob of quakers, valets, billiard-markers, fish- 

 women, retired linendrapers, and dandies of the Fleet Ditch Hussars, 

 relaxing from the toils of war. She passes through them like a vision, 

 tracking her course with light, and carrying off all their half-baked 

 hearts and milk-and-water souls along with her. Lovely vision! 

 Cinderella of my fancy ! Be thou sempstress, laundress, nursery-maid, 

 or fairy queen, thou hast given my duchess-proof bosom a twinge. 

 " Tell me, my soul, if this be love !" 



Twelve at Night I have the fatal symptoms strong upon me. I have 



