402 THE LOVER OF BEAUTY ; 



"breathing marble;"* the proudest potentates of the earth bow their 

 regal heads before it, and the conqueror of man becomes the slave of 

 woman. Whether in art or nature, life or stone, it is not possible to gaze 

 upon it without emotion, and whatever may be advanced by the 

 philosopher against mere loveliness of exterior, a beautiful woman will 

 find admirers to the end of time, even though the ornaments of her 

 head, like the jewels of her tiara, be superficial only. It cannot be matter 

 of surprise that the Captain found his heart strangely entangled, and 

 somewhat in the situation of a wood-bird half taken in a net. Not even 

 dreaming of paying his addresses to Lady Eleanor, he still could not 

 brook the idea of another presuming to direct to her his assiduities ; and 

 most assuredly little provocation on such score would have produced a 

 fiery encounter with the presuming rival. In their present situation the 

 phantom of jealousy had no key-hole through which to glide ; there 

 were no beaux, no brother officers, no obliging friends within visiting 

 distance, and Henry knew that, for a week or two at least, he had the 

 field entirely to himself. With a slight tincture of acquired vanity, 

 pardonable, perhaps, in a young man of fashion and appearance, the 

 Captain, unquestionably, felt a desire to render himself agreeable to a 

 lovely and highly-accomplished girl who, in the absence of all other pre- 

 tenders, must be, in turn, disposed to regard him even more favorably 

 than she would have done had she been surrounded by a phalanx of 

 suitors. Thus it was that without an intention of assuming the roseate 

 bands of Hymen, Atherstone by a thousand delicate and exclusive 

 attentions, tacitly acknowledged himself the adorateur ot ,Lady Eleanor ; 

 and when dazzled by her bewildering graces, he suddenly awoke to a 

 memory of the danger he incurred by gazing upon her, he found it 

 difficult to erase the impression which it had made upon his heart. Her 

 form and features were for ever beaming upon his fancy, and he turned 

 without interest from the contemplation of all beauty that did not, in 

 some point or other, bear affinity with hers. Yet with all this, he could 

 not — would not have married her, and the gay and pleasurable officer 

 who, but six weeks before, had censured his brother, without mercy, for 

 not wedding himself to beauty, now discovered that beauty without sense 

 could not even lead him, hair-brained as he was, into the pale of 

 matrimony. 



To shorten the story, we must, briefly, inform the fair reader that a 

 letter from the Countess claimed the attendance of her daughter, and 

 that Lady Eleanor, under the fitting escort of a maiden aunt, quitted the 

 Abbey and its inmates, and hastened to Holyhead as fast as four horses 

 could bear her. The Captain was somewhat startled by her depar- 

 ture ; his first toilet after the event proved flat and profitless, as there 

 was no single woman that he cared to behold him ; and he very certainly 

 became sensible that, although not in love with her youthful Ladyship, 

 he was comfortless without her. With secret pleasure he beheld the 

 termination of his visit, and with real delight he made a valedictory bow 

 to the ** swarthy, ill-favoured, and elderly," shook hands with his brother, 



♦ This rich and expressive phrase is borrowed from some observations on that 

 celebrated bust of the Countess of Charlemont, by NoUekens, which Northcote is said 

 to have prized as " equal to any antique." The critique that contains the above 

 epithet will be found in the ** Sunday Review" of June 23rd, 1816, and emanated 

 from a volunteer pen which has been for more than half a century enthusiastically 

 exerted in the cause of native genius. The name of the critic must be familiar to 

 every artist and amateur. It is worthy of remembrance that Byron declared that 

 " he beheld in Lady Charlemont's countenance eUl that beauty which sculpture 

 could require for its ideal." 



