Accordingly the Abigail took a chair-at a respectable distance from those occupied by Lady Hovingham and Harry Northam.

While thus seated, and chatting in the most innocent manner, Charley Chesterford passed them on horseback, in company with the orderly officer who, having in the morning found him disengaged, had invited him to dinner.

"That's a regular case," said he, referring to Lady Hovingham. "I met his lordship driving down to Hurlingham. cat's away the mice will play."

While the

"Don't be severe, Charley," said the gallant Life Guardsman. "Lady Hovingham is a model wife, and Harry Northam is like a pet dog in the family; besides, they say he is engaged to a Miss Clifford."

At dinner Chesterford enlarged upon thesubject, thus spreading a report which eventually produced the most dire consequences.

CHAPTER VI.

In this ocean of pleasure, egad, there were tars,

Who ne'er passed the buoy of the Nore;

There were soldiers, like Hymen, who knew not of wars,
Flocks of "Leicesters" you'd count by the score.

There were "Sunbeams" " and "Fair Stars," resplendent,
not bright,

"Minervas" without sense or tongue,

And rosy-cheeked "Morning" and dark dreary "Night,"
"Do you know me?" was all said and sung.

Grave "Conjurors," too, who ne'er conjured before,
And " Harlequins" heavy as dross,

Impecunious spendthrifts, "Nabobs of Mysore,"
A roué as "John Kyrle" of Ross.

A plain "Marie Stuart," the loveliest of Queens,
A "blue-stocking," stout "Columbine,"

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A flippant young Juliet," scarce out of her teens,
And an elderly "Sappho divine."

The Masquerade.-W. P. L.

HORACE WALPOLE, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, thus describes a masquerade given by the Duchess of Norfolk, in February,

1741 :

VOL. III.

G

"I must tell you how fine the masquerade of last night was. There were five hundred persons, in the greatest variety of handsome and rich dresses I ever saw, and all the jewels of London-and London has some!

"There were dozens of ugly Queens of Scots. The Princess of Wales was one, covered with diamonds, but did not take off her mask; none of the Royalties did, but everybody else. Lady Conway was a charming Mary Stuart,' Lord and Lady Euston man and woman Hussars. But the two finest and most charming masks were their Graces of Richmond, like 'Harry the Eighth' and 'Jane Seymour,' excessively rich, and both so handsome! Here is a nephew of the King of Denmark, who was in armour, and his governor, a most admirable Quixote.' There were quantities of pretty Vandykes,' and all kinds of old pictures walked out of their frames. It was an assemblage of all

ages and nations. My dress was an Aurengzebe;'

but of all extravagant figures, commend me

to our friend the Countess of Pomfret. She and my Lord trudged in, like pilgrims, with vast staffs in their hands, and she was so heated that you would have thought her pilgrimage had been, like Pantagruel's voyage, to the oracle of the Bottle. Lady Sophia was in a Spanish dress, so was Lord Lincoln, not, to be sure, by design; but so it happened. When the King came in, the Faussans, two celebrated comic dancers, were there, and danced an entrée."

By the above it will be seen that masquerades in Horace Walpole's time were very much as they are at the present time, though the remark he makes about dozens of ugly Queens of Scots are no longer applicable. Still, a great change has to be made before those who attend masquerades or fancy dress balls appear to thorough advantage. How often do we see a blonde appear as the Jewish maiden, Rebecca; how often does a dark-eyed beauty take the character of the "Fair Maid of Perth." Then, again,

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we have ladies of low stature representing the dignified "Volumnia," or the stately "Queen Katherine," while those of higher and more majestic mien fancy themselves. especially adapted for the rôles of "Ariel," Fenella," or "Little Red Riding Hood." What, too, can be more ridiculous than a plain "Ninon de Lonilos," a dowdy "Anne Boleyne," an ill-featured "Juliet," a gawky "Sylphide," a nez retrousée "Roman maiden," or an antiquated "Ellen Douglas ?" Nor are the men free from the above charge. We see striplings figuring as "Richard with the Lion's heart," or the Peruvian hero, "Rolla;" stout individuals, who might represent "Friar Tuck' or "Falstaff " to the life, don the costume of the love-sick "Romeo" or the gallant "Harry Percy;" attenuated youths aspire to the characters of "Bold Robin Hood" or the chivalrous "Ivanhoe;" overgrown hobbledehoys furnish pens of sheepish-looking “Leicesters ;” men whose physiognomies are ever on the broad grin may be seen as the melancholy

or