234 THE HUNTING FIELD 



very reverse of what he is. It was not her fault that 

 gentlemen were stationed at Brighton who were 

 quartered in Scotland, or that Lord Brougham was 

 made to dine with those with whom he was not 

 acquainted — it was the fault of circumstances — the 

 want of opportunity of knowing better. But, take it 

 for all and all, the performance was a wonderful — a 

 miraculous one. 



Talk of our novelists — our Bulwers, our Blessing- 

 tons, our Dickenses, our Jameses, our Hooks, or our 

 Hoods — how they sink into nothingness, how they 

 must hide their diminished heads before the maiden 

 efforts of that unadulterated, unsophisticated country 

 girl. Their writings are the produce of active and 

 experienced lives, their ministerings are to minds pre- 

 disposed to fiction (which yet they sometimes fail to 

 move), but here was pure, innocent inexperience, 

 storming the great citadel of reason, of Plutus, and of 

 power, capturing legal acuteness, and all but carrying 

 judge and jury in her train. Such efforts were worthy 

 of a better end. 



" Facts are stronger than fiction," says the proverb, 

 and assuredly the would-be-countess has proved them 

 so ; yet, let her not regret the loss of that " bauble," 

 the coronet, as Oliver Cromwell called the " mace." 

 It would but have consigned her to a life of inglorious 

 ease, perhaps voluptuous indolence, whereas she has 

 that within her which surpasses rank and wealth — 

 the power of leading the world. If the great man of 

 Great Marlborough Street, or some of the enterpris- 

 ing brethren of the press, have not a nine-volume 

 novel coming out from her pen, all we can say is, 

 that fiction must be out of fashion, or real talent 

 unappreciated. 



But to return to Tuft Hunting. 



A real, determined, out-and-out Tuft Hunter, is a 

 thing that loves a title merely because it is a title, 

 without reference to fame, talent, acquirements, 



