a malorum tam infida est quam ipsi,' as Pliny says,"
muttered Lord Vincent, getting up hastily, and buttoning his coat.

I took the opportunity of the ensuing pause to approach Lady Roseville,
and whisper my adieus. She was kind and even warm to me in returning
them; and pressed me, with something marvellously like sincerity, to
be sure to come and see her directly she returned to London. I soon
discharged the duties of my remaining farewells, and in less than
half an hour, was more than a mile distant from Garrett Park and its
inhabitants. I can't say that for one, who, like me, is fond of being
made a great deal of, that there is any thing very delightful in those
visits into the country. It may be all well enough for married people,
who, from the mere fact of being married, are always entitled to certain
consideration, put--par exemple--into a bed-room, a little larger than a
dog kennel, and accommodated with a looking-glass, that does not distort
one's features like a paralytic stroke. But we single men suffer a
plurality of evils and hard-ships, in entrusting ourselves to the
casualties of rural hospitality. We are thrust up into any attic
repository--exposed to the mercy of rats, and the incursions of
swallows. Our lavations are performed in a cracked basin, and we are so
far removed from human assistance, that our very bells sink into silence
before they reach half way down the stairs. But two days before I left
Garrett Park, I myself saw an enormous mouse run away with my almond
paste, without any possible means of resisting the aggression. Oh! the
hardships of a single man are beyond conception; and what is worse, the
very misfortune of being single deprives one of all sympathy. "A single
man can do this, and a single man ought to do that, and a single man may
be put here, and a single man may be sent there," are maxims that I have
been in the habit of hearing constantly inculcated and never disputed
during my whole life; and so, from our fare and treatment being coarse
in all matters, they have at last grown to be all matters in course.

CHAPTER IX.

Therefore to France.--Henry IV.

I was rejoiced to find myself again in London. I went to my father's
house in Grosvenor-square. All the family, viz. he and my mother, were
down at H--t--d; and, malgre my aversion to the country, I thought I
might venture as far as Lady S--'s for a couple of days. Accordingly,
to H--t--d I went. That is really a noble hou