ct upon me. And although I found, from the tone of the conversation
about, how immeasurably I was their inferior, yet by a delicate and
courteous interest in the scene of which I had lately partaken, they took
away the awkwardness which in some degree was inseparable from the novelty
of my position among them.

Conversing about the Peninsula with a degree of knowledge which I could
in no wise comprehend from those not engaged in the war, they appeared
perfectly acquainted with all the details of the campaign; and I heard on
every side of me anecdotes and stories which I scarcely believed known
beyond the precincts of a regiment. The Prince himself--the grace and charm
of whose narrative talents have seldom been excelled--was particularly
conspicuous, and I could not help feeling struck with his admirable
imitations of voice and manner. The most accomplished actor could not have
personated the canny, calculating spirit of the Scot, or the rollicking
recklessness of the Irishman, with more tact and _finesse_. But far above
all this, shone the person I have already alluded to as speaking to his
Royal Highness in the drawing-room. Combining the happiest conversational
eloquence with a quick, ready, and brilliant fancy, he threw from him in
all the careless profusion of boundless resource a shower of pointed and
epigrammatic witticisms. Now illustrating a really difficult subject by one
happy touch, as the blaze of the lightning will light up the whole surface
of the dark landscape beneath it; now turning the force of an adversary's
argument by some fallacious but unanswerable jest, accompanying the whole
by those fascinations of voice, look, gesture, and manner which have made
those who once have seen, never able to forget Brinsley Sheridan.

I am not able, were I even disposed, to record more particularly the
details of that most brilliant evening of my life. On every side of me I
heard the names of those whose fame as statesmen or whose repute as men of
letters was ringing throughout Europe. They were then, too, not in the easy
indolence of ordinary life, but displaying with their utmost effort those
powers of wit, fancy, imagination, and eloquence which had won for them
elsewhere their high and exalted position. The masculine understanding
and powerful intellect of Tierney vied with the brilliant and dazzling
conceptions of Sheridan. The easy _bonhomie_ and English heartiness of Fox
contrasted with the cutting sarcasm and