d far more than
all her aunt's beauty.* She was in weak health; but her vivacity was
extreme, and her conversation just what should be the conversation of a
woman who shines without striving for it.

* T am not ashamed to say to you that I admire her more every hour of my
life.--Letter from Lord Bolingbroke to Swift.

Bolingbroke loved her to the last; and perhaps it is just to a man
so celebrated for his gallantries to add that this beautiful and
accomplished woman seems to have admired and esteemed as much as she
loved him.--ED.

The business on which I was bound only allowed me to stay two days with
Bolingbroke, and this I stated at first, lest he should have dragged me
over his farm.

"Well," said my host, after vainly endeavouring to induce me to promise
a longer stay, "if you can only give us two days, I must write and
excuse myself to a great man with whom I was to dine to-day. Yet, if it
were not so inhospitable, I should like much to carry you with me to his
house; for I own that I wish you to see my companions, and to learn that
if I still consult the oracles, they are less for the predictions of
fortune than as the inspirations of the god."

"Ah!" said Lady Bolingbroke, who spoke in French, "I know whom you
allude to. Give him my homage, and assure him, when he next visits us,
we will appoint six _dames du palais_ to receive and pet him."

Upon this I insisted upon accompanying Bolingbroke to the house of so
fortunate a being, and he consented to my wish with feigned reluctance,
but evident pleasure.

"And who," said I to Lady Bolingbroke, "is the happy object of so much
respect?"

Lady Bolingbroke answered, laughing, that nothing was so pleasant as
suspense, and that it would be cruel in her to deprive me of it; and we
conversed with so much zest that it was not till Bolingbroke had left
the room for some moments that I observed he was not present. I took the
opportunity to remark that I was rejoiced to find him so happy and with
such just cause for happiness.

"He is happy, though at times he is restless. How, chained to this oar,
can he be otherwise?" answered Lady Bolingbroke, with a sigh; "but his
friends," she added, "who most enjoy his retirement, must yet lament it.
His genius is not wasted here, it is true: where could it be wasted?
But who does not feel that it is employed in too confined a sphere? And
yet--" and I saw a tear start to her eye--"I, at least, ought not to
repine. I sho