Chapter 13 - Page 2

feed them.
[Footnote: The condition of men of wit and talents was never more
melancholy than about this period. Their lives were so irregular, and
their means of living so precarious, that they were alternately
rioting in debauchery, or encountering and struggling with the meanest
necessities. Two or three lost their lives by a surfeit brought on by
that fatal banquet of Rhenish wine and pickled herrings, which is
familiar to those who study the lighter literature of that age. The
whole history is a most melancholy picture of genius, degraded at once
by its own debaucheries, and the patronage of heartless rakes and
profligates.] For the rest of their wants, they can be at no loss for
cold water while the New River head holds good; and your doublets of
Parnassus are eternal in duration."

"Virgil and Horace had more efficient patronage," said Nigel.

"Ay," replied his countryman, "but these fellows are neither Virgil
nor Horace; besides, we have other spirits of another sort, to whom I
will introduce you on some early occasion. Our Swan of Avon hath sung
his last; but we have stout old Ben, with as much learning and genius
as ever prompted the treader of sock and buskin. It is not, however,
of him I mean now to speak; but I come to pray you, of dear love, to
row up with me as far as Richmond, where two or three of the gallants
whom you saw yesterday, mean to give music and syllabubs to a set of
beauties, with some curious bright eyes among them--such, I promise
you, as might win an astrologer from his worship of the galaxy. My
sister leads the bevy, to whom I desire to present you. She hath her
admirers at Court; and is regarded, though I might dispense with
sounding her praise, as one of the beauties of the time."

There was no refusing an engagement, where the presence of the party
invited, late so low in his own regard, was demanded by a lady of
quality, one of the choice beauties of the time. Lord Glenvarloch
accepted, as was inevitable, and spent a lively day among the gay and
the fair. He was the gallant in attendance, for the day, upon his
friend's sister, the beautiful Countess of Blackchester, who aimed at
once at superiority in the realms of fashion, of power, and of wit.

She was, indeed, considerably older than her brother, and had probably
completed her six lustres; but the deficiency in extreme youth was
more than atoned for, in the most precise and curious accuracy in
attire, an early acquaintance with every foreign mode, and a peculiar
gift in adapting the knowledge which she acquired, to her own
particular features and complexion. At Court, she knew as well as any
lady in the circle, the precise tone, moral, political, learned, or