contented with nothing less than the Garter. "Madam," replied Walpole, "they who take the Bath will sooner have the Garter." In her old age her ruling passion was hatred of Walpole. "I think," she wrote, "'tis thought wrong to wish anybody dead, but I hope 'tis none to wish he may be hanged." Her wishes were partly gratified, for she lived long enough to see this great statesman--so long supreme--driven to the very threshold of the Tower. For his son Horace she had equal dislike, and he returned her hatred with malignant satire. "Old Marlborough is dying," said the wit; "but who can tell? Last year she had lain a great while ill, without speaking, and her physician told her that she must be blistered, or she would die. She cried out, 'I won't be blistered, and I won't die,'" She did indeed last some time longer; but with increasing infirmities, her amusements and pleasures became yearly more circumscribed. In former years she had sometimes occupied her mind with the purchase of land; for she was shrewd, and rarely made a bad bargain. Even at the age of eighty she went to the city to bid in person for the estate of Lord Yarmouth. But as her darkened day approached its melancholy close, she amused herself by dictating in bed her "Vindication," After spending thus six hours daily with her secretary, she had recourse to her chamber organ, the eight tunes of which she thought much better to hear than going to the Italian opera. Even society, in which she once shone,--for her intellect was bright and her person beautiful,--at last wearied her and gave her no pleasure. Like many lonely, discontented women, she became attached to animals; she petted three dogs, in which she saw virtues that neither men nor women possessed. In her disquiet she often changed her residence. She went from Marlborough House to Windsor Lodge, and from Windsor Lodge to Wimbledon, only to discover that each place was damp and unhealthy. Wrapt up in flannels, and wheeled up and down her room in a chair, she discovered that wealth can only mitigate the evils of humanity, and realized how wretched is any person with a soul filled with discontent and bitterness, when animal spirits are destroyed by the infirmities of old age. All the views of this spoiled favorite of fortune were bounded by the scenes immediately before her. While she was not sceptical, she was far from being religious; and hence she was deprived of the highest consolations given to people in disappointment and sorrow and neglect. The older she grew, the more tenaciously did she cling to temporal possessions, and the more keenly did she feel occasional losses. Her intellect remained unclouded, but her feelings became callous. While she had no reverence for the dead, she felt increasing contempt for the living,--forgetting that no one, however exalted, can live at peace in an atmosphere of disdain.