As for the Honourable Jack Smallbranes, who was he not in love with-- or rather who was not in love with him? Poor fellow! he was born, in his own estimation, to be the destroyer of all domestic peace; he was created to be the ruin to all female happiness. Such a destiny might well have filled any one with sadness and depression; most men would have grieved over a lot which condemned them to be the origin of suffering. Not so, Jack; he felt he couldn’t help it--that it was no affair of his if he were the best-looking fellow in the world. The thing was so palpable; women ought to take care of themselves; he sailed under no false flag. No, there he was, the most irresistible, well-dressed, and handsomest fellow to be met with; and if they didn’t escape--or, to use his own expression, ‘cut their lucky’ in time--the fault was all their own. If queens smiled and archduchesses looked kind upon him, let kings and archdukes look to it. He took no unfair or underhand advantages; he made no secret attacks, no dark advances--he carried every fortress by assault, and in noonday. Some malicious people-- the world abounds in such--used to say that Jack’s gallantries were something like Falstaff’s deeds of prowess, and that his victims were all ‘in buckram.’ But who could believe it? Did not victory sit on his very brow; were not his looks the signs of conquest; and, better than all, who that ever knew him had not the assurance from his own lips? With what a happy mixture of nonchalance and self-satisfaction would he make these confessions! How admirably blended was the sense of triumph with the consciousness of its ease! How he would shake his ambrosial curls, and throw himself into a pose of elegance, as though to say, ‘’Twas thus I did it; ain’t I a sad dog?’