is not worth reading at the
present day.

In _The Book of the Boudoir_, a sort of literary ragbag, she gives, under
the heading "My First Rout in London," a graphic picture of an evening at
Lady Cork's: "A few days after my arrival in London, and while my little
book, _The Wild Irish Girl_, was running rapidly through successive
editions, I was presented to the countess-dowager of Cork, and invited to
a rout at her fantastic and pretty mansion in New Burlington street. Oh,
how her Irish historical name tingled in my ears and seized on my
imagination, reminding me of her great ancestor, 'the father of chemistry
and uncle to the earl of Cork'! I stepped into my job carriage at the hour
of ten, and, all alone by myself, as the song says, 'to Eden took my
solitary way.' What added to my fears and doubts and hopes and
embarrassments was a note from my noble hostess received at the moment of
departure: 'Everybody has been invited expressly to meet the Wild Irish
Girl; so she must bring her Irish harp. M.C.O.' I arrived at New
Burlington street without my harp and with a beating heart, and I heard
the high-sounding titles of princes and ambassadors and dukes and
duchesses announced long before my poor plebeian name puzzled the porter
and was bandied from footman to footman. As I ascended the marble stairs
with their gilt balustrade, I was agitated by emotions similar to those
which drew from a frightened countryman his frank exclamation in the heat
of the battle of Vittoria: 'Oh, jabbers! I wish some of my greatest
enemies was kicking me down Dame street.' Lady Cork met me at the door:
'What! no harp, Glorvina?'--'Oh, Lady Cork!'--'Oh, Lady Fiddlestick! You
are a fool, child: you don't know your own interests.--Here, James,
William, Thomas! send one of the chairmen to Stanhope street for Miss
Owenson's harp.'"

After a stand and a stare of some seconds at a strikingly sullen-looking,
handsome creature who stood alone, and whom she heard addressed by a
pretty sprite of fashion with a "How-do, Lord Byron?" she says: "I was
pushed on, and on reaching the centre of the conservatory I found myself
suddenly pounced upon a sort of rustic seat, a very uneasy pre-eminence,
and there I sat, the lioness of the night, shown off like the hyena of
Exeter 'Change, looking almost as wild and feeling quite as savage.
Presenting me to each and all of the splendid crowd which an idle
curiosity, easily excited and as soon satisfied, had gathered