h was from the park; it has been improved away by
the new government offices. Our dinner at the McDonalds' was on a
Saturday, and the next day, as we were walking part of the way home
together from church, Mrs. Norton broke out about Theodore Hook and his
odious ill-nature and abominable coarseness, saying that it was a
disgrace and a shame that for the sake of his paper, the _John Bull_,
and its influence, the Tories should receive such a man in society. I,
who but for her outburst upon the subject should have carefully avoided
mentioning Hook's name, presuming that after his previous evening's
performance it could not be very agreeable to Mrs. Norton, now, not
knowing very well what to say, but thinking the Sheridan blood
(especially in her veins) might have some sympathy with and find some
excuse for him, suggested the temptation that the possession of such wit
must always be, more or less, to the abuse of it. "Witty!" exclaimed the
indignant beauty, with her lip and nostril quivering, "witty! One may
well be witty when one fears neither God nor devil!" I was heartily glad
Hook was not there; he was not particular about the truth, and would
infallibly, in some shape or other, have translated for her benefit, "Je
crains Dieu, cher Abner, et n'ai point d'autre crainte."

The Nortons' house was close to the issue from St. James's Park into
Great George Street. I remember passing an evening with them there, when
a host of distinguished public and literary men were crowded into their
small drawing-room, which was literally resplendent with the light of
Sheridan beauty, male and female: Mrs. Sheridan (Miss Callender, of
whom, when she published a novel, the hero of which commits forgery,
that wicked wit, Sidney Smith, said he knew she was a Callender, but did
not know till then that she was a Newgate calendar), the mother of the
Graces, more beautiful than anybody but her daughters; Lady Grahame,
their beautiful aunt; Mrs. Norton, Mrs. Blackwood (Lady Dufferin),
Georgiana Sheridan (Duchess of Somerset and queen of beauty by universal
consent), and Charles Sheridan, their younger brother, a sort of younger
brother of the Apollo Belvedere. Certainly I never saw such a bunch of
beautiful creatures all growing on one stem. I remarked it to Mrs.
Norton, who looked complacently round her tiny drawing-room and said,
"Yes, we are rather good-looking people." I remember this evening
because of the impression made on me by the sight