1831.] v Afairs in General. 661 



There is something curious in this. Lady Sophia Gresley lost all her 

 ornaments lately : not a pin of them has ever emerged. Lady Nelson's 

 jewels are at this moment keeping all the policemen on the alert, but 

 not a syllable of intelligence has transpired. The conjecture is that a 

 woman was at the bottom of the mischief; which, in all cases of mischief, 

 Socrates said above two thousand years ago, is the most natural of all 

 conclusions. The story is thus told : 



" Lady Nelson had heen expecting some relatives from the country, and 

 was sitting in the drawing-room, when a knock and ring were given at the 

 street-door. The servant answered it, and, to appearance, a shabbily dressed 

 woman inquired if that was Lord Nelson's ? On being answered in the affir- 

 mative, she asked if his lordship was at home, and if riot, if her ladyship 

 was, and giving her name to the servant, he left the woman in the hall to 

 inform his mistress. On the servant's return the woman was gone, but not, 

 as he had supposed, out of the house, the street-door having been heard to 

 shut in his absence, but must have secreted herself in some closet, or corner 

 of the interior. Shortly afterwards Lady Nelson departed in her carriage to 

 chapel, and it was during her absence that the robbery was effected. Her 

 ladyship did not discover her loss till about twelve at night, when she was 

 about to retire, and observing- that the trunk which contained her jewels 

 appeared to project over the escrutoire, on which it was standing, rather more 

 than usual, she pushed it back, and she then found that the leather-case and 

 strap were all that remained." 



The police were called in, without any result, of course. The servants 

 were all examined, equally without result, of course. The odd conjec- 

 tures of the fate of the Princess of Orange's jewels, and their purloiner, 

 flash upon us now and then. But what is there in this world's round 

 on which malice will not fasten. The wags are already amusing them- 

 selves with the affair, and congratulating the Countess on her having 

 still preserved to her, by the bounty of fate, the reverend old Earl. One 

 of the papers says : " The robbery at Earl Nelson's during the absence 

 of his Lordship, is the subject of much conversation. It is said a minia- 

 ture was stolen from her Ladyship's chamber, which she valued exceed- 

 ingly. This was, probably, a likeness of her venerable husband, and 

 her chief consolation in his absence." 



The present lady is his Lordship's second wife, and has been married 

 but a few years. She is now the only Lady Nelson. The wife of the 

 great Nelson, the Duchess of Bronte, died a few weeks ago. 



Cobbett was always a vigorous hater, when he knew on which side he 

 intended to hate ; but he has settled down into a hatred of the Whigs, 

 and among them one of his chief present abhorrences is, old Coke of 

 Norfolk, whom he gallantly threatens with being compelled to refund, in 

 the contingency of Reform. This statement is fierce, eccentric and 

 amusing. 



. " I wondered what could make Coke so bitter an enemy of a man who had 

 never spoken ill of him, who had always been exhorting him not to lend 

 himself to the schemes of loan-jobbers, pensioners, sinecure placemen, and 

 grantees; little did I imagine that he was a grantee himself, and had been all 

 his life-time : little did I imagine that this great landowner, this munificent 

 patron of agriculture, this independent representative of the land ; little did I 

 imagine that he was the grantee of Dungeness light-house, through the means 

 of which he had drawn from the nation two or three hundred thousand pounds ! 

 He has recently said, that after being half a century a Member of Parliament, 



