es he had ever
committed against me, either on this night or in former times, and
assuring me that he had never ceased loving, _respecting_ and adoring
me, and that I was the only person he ever really loved...." "Think,"
she says, "of the dismay of all the formal ladies." But the formal
ladies, no doubt, had every reason to know their Devonshire House set;
and if society in 1805 would allow Sheridan to be drunk and stay at a
ball, it would prefer him maudlin drunk to drunk and disorderly. One
is bound to add, too, that Lady Bessborough was a fool, though
that, to be sure, is no excuse for Sheridan proving himself both old
blackguard and old fool in one.

Next year the Duchess died, and her sister's active persecution
appears to have ceased. But Sheridan by no means let her alone. On the
contrary, he had the assurance to send as intercessor no less a person
than the Prince Regent. "The Prince sent so repeatedly to me, and has
been throughout so kind and feeling that I thought it wrong to persist
in refusing to see him, so to-day he came soon after two and stayed
till six!... He gave me a very pretty emerald ring, which he begg'd me
to wear, _to bind still stronger the tie of Brotherhood which he has
always claim'd_. In the midst of all this he brought me a message from
Sheridan." This, which she describes as a "well-timed Petition for
Forgiveness," she had the prudence to wave aside. She said that she
had no wish to injure him, and only asked him to keep out of her way,
or, if they happened to meet, to cease to persecute her. And that was
very well, or would have been so, if she had had any character at
all, a quality which she unfortunately had not. In 1807, the following
year, she goes out to spend the evening with her daughter, Lady
Caroline, now married to William Lamb. "The entrance is, you know,
very dark; to my dismay, I saw a ruffian-like looking man following
me into the house. I hasten'd upstairs, but to my great dismay he also
ascended and enter'd the room immediately after me. It was so dark
I could not at first make out who he was. When I did, I was not the
better pleas'd with his establishing himself and passing the whole
evening with us; but much as I was displeased with him, I was still
more so with myself for being unable to resist laughing and appearing
entertained (he was so uncommonly clever), tho' I persevered in my
determination of not speaking to him. I do not like his having got
the entree there