264 MEMOIR OF A GENTLEMAN. 



Dawkins would be continued. She had the true leaven of 

 family affection in her, and my past neglect was pardoned, 

 and the kindest letter returned to my communication. One 

 passage of her epistle ran thus 'Though I felt acutely at 

 your selecting a wife without even consulting one, of whose 

 attachment you must be well convinced, I forgive all, from 

 the personal description you give of your consort. May the 

 heir of our line be like his mother, is my prayer ! For, oh, 

 Daniel, my predilection for dark beauty is the same, and my 

 conviction unalterable, that even 



' Genius a dead loss is, 



With dark brows and long proboscis/ 



" Poor woman ! no wonder she thus considered : a sergeant 

 in the Guards, with a countenance of the true Kemble cha- 

 racter, had, in early life, almost turned her brain ; and Tooley- 

 street was kept in an uproar, until he was fortunately drafted 

 off to join the Duke of York upon the Continent, and there, in 

 due time, rested in the bed of glory. 



(e It is a lamentable thing for a man of sensibility to wed 

 a woman whose conduct he considers irreconcilable to his 

 ideas of what female delicacy demands and such was my 

 case. Drusilla not only assumed the mastery within doors, 

 but she extended her sway to the farm and the horses. One 

 day, at the head of a hundred paupers, she was planting trees ; 

 the next, with Marc Antony Bodkin, making a radical reform 

 in the stables. On these occasions, arrayed in a man's hat, 

 with her limbs cased in Hessian boots, she looked, as Tom 

 the Devil said, 'blasted knowing.' I occasionally was per- 

 mitted to attend, as a sort of travelling conveniency to hang 

 her cloak upon ; and I never returned without some indignity 

 from strangers, or personal disrespect from herself. It was 

 death to me to hear her addressed in the coarse language of 

 the stable, and allusions made to her altered figure, which 

 appeared too vulgar even for the servants' hall ; and when a 

 fellow of forbidding countenance, with a scarlet coat and white 

 unmentionables, whom the rest of the gang distinguished as 

 J Long Lanty,' crooked up the bottom of her dress with his 

 hunting-whip, exclaiming, ' Bone and sinew, by the holy ! 

 what a leg for a boot !' I could have knocked the ruffian 

 down, had I been able, although for the exploit I should be 



