es Theobald here to swain Lady Bolsover, and talk 'Turf' with her
Lord. This is one of Berwick's 'good-natured things.' To do him justice,
nobody knows better how to place _chacun avec sa chacune_; but it is a
pity that in this case it contributes so little to the general
amusement; for really Theobald's intense flirtation with Lady Bolsover,
is the flattest piece of dull indecorum that ever met my virtuous eyes.
They are dull, these people--keep him from quadrupeds, and Theobald is a
cipher; and Lady B. has little more than the few ideas which she gets
sent over with her dresses from Paris. I know it is _mauvais ton_ to cry
them down--but I cannot help it. My sincerity will ruin me some fine
day.

"The Hartlands are here: he talks parliament, and she talks strong
sense, and tells every body how to do every thing, and seems to say,
like Madame de Sevigne's candid Frenchwoman, _Il n'y a que moi qui ai
toujours raison_. To close the list, we have that good-looking puppy,
young Leighton, an underbred youth, spoiled by premature immersion in a
dandy regiment, who goes about saying the same things to every body, and
labouring to reward the inconsiderate benevolence of you soft-hearted
patronesses, by talking as if London lay packed in Willis's rooms, and
nobody existed but on Wednesday nights. Forgive my impertinence; you
know how, in my heart, I revere your oligarchy.

"You will wonder how I amuse myself in the midst of this curious
specimen of a social _Macedoine_--quite well--and am acquiring a taste
for that true epicurean apathy which one enjoys in perfection, among
people whom one expects neither to interest, nor to be interested by;
and I sit down among them as calmly comfortable as I can conceive a
growing cabbage to be in wet weather. I hold my tongue and watch the
chaos as gravely as I can, while Berwick labours to make the jarring
elements of his party harmonize, and offends every one in turn by trying
to talk to him in his own way. I observe this generally irritates
people; nobody likes to be so well understood.

"I can hardly judge at present, but I don't think Arlington's suit will
prosper, and you will laugh when I tell you why: it is not that the
youth is too shy and the maiden too cold; it is not the officiousness of
the Berwicks;--it is because Lord Arlington has some thirty or forty
thousand a-year. He is so rich, and the Rochdales so poor, and so
stiffly disinterested withal; and it is such a mortal sin