of distinguished foreigners; ministers,
and secretaries of embassy; some parliamentary leaders, men great on the
Treasury benches or strong on the Opposition. Beauties there were too,
past, present, and some, coming; a fair share of the notorieties of
fashion, and the last winner of the Derby, with--let me not forget
him--a Quarterly Reviewer. This last gentleman came with the Marquis
of Deepdene, and was, with the exception of a certain pertinacity of
manner, a very agreeable person.

Although previously unknown to the host, he had come down "special"
under the protection of his friend Lord Deepdene, hoping to secure his
grace's interest in the borough of Collyton, at that time vacant. He was
a man of very high attainments, had been an _optime_ at Cambridge, was
a distinguished essayist, and his party had conceived the very greatest
expectations of his success in Parliament. Of the world, or at least
that portion of it that moves upon Tournay carpets, amid Vandykes and
Velasquez, with sideboards of gold and lamps of silver, he had not
seen much, and learned still less; and it was plain to see that, in
the confidence of his own strong head, he was proof against either
the seductions of fashion or the sneers of those who might attempt to
criticise his breeding.

Before he was twenty-four hours in the house he had corrected his grace
in an historical statement, caught up the B---- of D---- in a blunder
of prosody, detected a sapphire in Lady Dollington's suite of yellow
diamonds, and exposed an error of Lord Sloperton's in his pedigree
of Brown Menelaus. It is needless to say he was almost universally
detested, for of those he had suffered to pass free, none knew how soon
his own time might arrive. His patron was miserable; he saw nothing but
failure where he looked for triumph. The very acquirements he had built
upon for success were become a terror to every one, and "the odious Mr.
Kitely" became a proverb. His political opponents chuckled over the "bad
tone" of such men in general; the stupid ones gloried over the fall of
a clever man; and the malignant part of the household threw out broad
hints that he was a mere adventurer, and they should not wonder if
actually---- an Irishman! Indeed, he had been heard to say "entirely"
twice upon the same evening in conversation, and suspicion had almost
become a certainty.

It was towards the end of my first week, as I was one day dressing for
dinner, Lord Collyton came hast