1829. ] Our Inquiring Correspondents. 39 
«« When men of the town, of the turf, or the tavern, or the gaol, figure 
in authorship, we know what we are to expect—the musings of minds 
as empty as their own last night’s bottle ; worn-out anecdotes of worn- 
out people; or dandyism as vapid as its life; the history of hands 
washed with Eau de Cologne ; curls of ‘ exquisite lustre, depending on 
cheeks hollow but lovely, with feelings too severely tried ; eyes lan- 
guishing with contempt of all things, human and divine ; and cravats 
tied with an indescribable knot, that instantly discloses the sacred sub- 
lime of gentlemanhood. 
« But, to do these very fine personages, or even their rougher fellow- 
scribblers, justice, their nonsense seldom goes farther ; and a woman 
may, in general, read their pages without feeling that she is making any 
progress towards distinction in our quarter of the world. 
_ © The case is rather different with the flaming colourists of the more 
ethereal sex. A noble authoress has lately written a book on ‘ Flirtation.’ 
No doubt with the best intentions. But she cures flirtation as the Spar- 
tans cured drunkenness, by the most complete display of its most com- 
plete consequences. Her flirt goes through a round of experiences, that, 
however flattering to Lady Charlotte Bury’s observation of fashionable 
facts, must communicate a great deal more knowledge than the noble 
authoress could have intended for the Lady Helenas and Aramintas 
before the mature age of fifteen. Her flirt is, of course, repentant at the 
last ; but it is repentance like Captain Macheath’s, when he is going to 
be hung, and his business is done with love and larceny. The progress 
to this perfection is the thing ; and if noble youths and bewitching beau- 
ties have any thing to learn on this high road to happiness, and the prac- 
titioners of our honourable court ; here let them study, and be as wise as 
their teacher. 
“ Her ladyship has again indulged us with a volume, a ‘ Marriage in 
High Life,’ to which she gives the additional pungency, ‘ that the facts 
are literally exact.’ And what are those facts? A lady of wealth mar- 
ries a man of rank, who (upon my life, Sir, I cannot bring myself to 
tell the story without a cover of some kind or other, and must try my old 
Latin) ‘ torum abnegat conjugale, rejicitque jura famine debita. This 
singular deduction from matrimonial prospects forms the whole sub- 
stratum of the book. The lady-wife pouts, pines in secret, and answers 
all hints about an heir to the estate with a melancholy smile. But the 
household know better ; and there is first a: murmuring, and then an open 
rebellion, among the waiting-women ; the rumour spreads, comes to the 
ears of the father and mother of the bride ; comes to the public ear, and 
becomes the universal talk in boudoirs and ball-rooms, until the 
unlucky wife dies, and the husband is very sorry ; and so ends the tale 
of the cruelest case within the bills of mortality.’ 
_ © On Lady Charlotte Bury’s idea of the hardship, I shall not dwell. 
With her ladyship’s personal opinions I have nothing to do. But I pre- 
sume that she must have either been very much at a loss for a subject, 
or been very signally alive to the nature of the misfortune, when she 
presented such a performance to the public. < It is, she says, ‘ the work 
of another.’ But it is ‘edited by her ;’ it comes to the world under her 
honourable auspices, and we are henceforth to be in no doubt whatever 
about Lady Charlotte Bury’s conception of the prime disaster of matri- 
mony. 
« Another patrician authoress follows her ladyship’s track. The 
Honourable Mrs. Grey has published ‘ De Lisle.’ The hero is a hand- 
