CHAPTEE VL 



NOW AND THEN. 



HEN — youth's gay fancy threw o'er life its 

 glowing hue, in the merry days when we 

 were young, and affected as a matter of 

 course the fashionable quarters of the 

 metropolis in pursuit of a little pleasureable excite- 

 ment. 



Some four decades since, Her Most Gracious 

 Majesty was in her teens, His Royal Highness the 

 Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief a stripling, the 

 Prime Minister a rising politician and a successful 

 author, the Lord President of the Council a light- 

 hearted schoolboy, Louis Napoleon a lodger in King 

 Street, Elizabeth Vassal (Lady Holland) the most 

 charming of hostesses, Count D'Orsay the glass of 

 fashion and the mould of form, and the pleasant est 

 of companions to boot, Lord Alvanley the wit of the 

 period, Lord Brudenell the beau sahreur of the army, 

 Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence and Sir George Womb- 

 well " the twin inseparables," the Marquis of Water- 

 ford the evil spirit of the Haymarket, " Honest Tom 

 Duncombe " the most indebted, and " Handsome 

 Jack Spalding " the most extravagant man in Lon- 

 don — at least in the opinion of his stepfather, Lord 



