He now turned his face towards the Channel, and opened the campaign in London on a much more extensive scale. He took up his quarters at Higginbottom's hotel in the same year that young Napoleon came to England, and only left it when it was given up to that lamented and accomplished prince. It is not generally known that he ever visited England. His sojourn in the capital was kept a profound secret. The master of the hotel and all his servants took an oath of secrecy; and Prince Esterhazy and the members of the Austrian embassy were not likely to betray it. The prince passed a week with George the Fourth at the Cottage at Windsor, and afterwards assisted at a concert at the Hanover Square rooms, himself leading a concert on the piano. This by the bye. Mascalbruni on that occasion attracted all eyes, and fascinated all ears, and was greeted after a solo with the loudest plaudits. He had now become the fashion, and, having forged a letter from one of the cardinals at Rome to a patroness of Almacks, obtained the _entrée_, and made one of the three hundred that compose the world of London. You know, however, in this world that there is another world--orb within orb--an _imperium in imperio_--the Exclusives. It is difficult to define what the qualifications for an exclusive are: it is not rank, connexion, talents, virtues, grace, elegance, accomplishments. No. But I shall not attempt to explain the inexplicable. Certain it is, however, that our hero was admitted into the _coteries_ of this caste, as distinct--as much separated by a line of demarcation drawn round them from the rest--as the Rajhpoot is from the Raiot, who sprang, one from the head, the other from the heels of Brahma. It was on the daughter of one of these extra-exclusives that Mascalbruni cast his eye. He flew at high game. The Honourable Miss M. was the belle of the season. I remember seeing her the year before at a fancy ball. A quadrille had been got up, for which were selected twelve of the most beautiful girls to represent the twelve Seasons. Louisa was May, and excelled the rest, (I do not speak of the present year,) as much as that season of flowers does the other months. It was an 'incarnation of May!'--a metaphor of Spring, and Youth, and Morning!--a rose-bud just opening its young leaves, that brings the swiftest thought of beauty, though words cannot embody it:--a sylph borne by a breath, a zephyr, as in the celebrated Hebe of John of Bologna, may make intelligible the lightness of her step,--the ethereal grace of her form. She was a nymph of Canova, without her affectation. Hers was the poetry of motion,-- "It was the soul, which from so fair a frame Look'd forth, and told us 'twas from heaven it came,"-- that would have been the despair of sculpture or poetry. I have never seen but one who might compare with her, and she was engulfed that same year in the waters of the inexorable Tiber,--Rosa Bathurst.[13]