"'Tis for that reason I utter them. I like being the object of hope and fear to men, since my miserable fortune made me marry at fourteen, and cease to be aught but a wedded thing to the women. But sup with me at the Bedford,--you, my Lord, and the Count." "And you will ask Walpole, Addison, and Steele,* to join us, eh?" said Bolingbroke. "No, we have other engagements for to-night; but we shall meet again soon." * All political opponents of Lord Bolingbroke. And the eccentric youth nodded his adieu, disappeared, and a minute afterwards was seated by the side of the Duchess of Marlborough. "There goes a boy," said Bolingbroke, "who, at the age of fifteen, has in him the power to be the greatest man of his day, and in all probability will only be the most singular. An obstinate man is sure of doing well; a wavering or a whimsical one (which is the same thing) is as uncertain, even in his elevation, as a shuttlecock. But look to the box at the right: do you see the beautiful Lady Mary?" "Yes," said Mr. Trefusis, who was with us, "she has only just come to town. 'Tis said she and Ned Montagu live like doves." "How!" said Lord Bolingbroke; "that quick, restless eye seems to have very little of the dove in it." "But how beautiful she is!" said Trefusis, admiringly. "What a pity that those exquisite hands should be so dirty! It reminds me" (Trefusis loved a coarse anecdote) "of her answer to old Madame de Noailles, who made exactly the same remark to her. 'Do you call my hands dirty?' cried Lady Mary, holding them up with the most innocent /naivete/. 'Ah, Madame, /si vous pouviez voir mes pieds!'" "/Fi donc/," said I, turning away; "but who is that very small, deformed man behind her,--he with the bright black eye?" "Know you not?" said Bolingbroke; "tell it not in Gath!--'tis a rising sun, whom I have already learned to worship,--the young author of the 'Essay on Criticism,' and 'The Rape of the Lock.' Egad, the little poet seems to eclipse us with the women as much as with the men. Do you mark how eagerly Lady Mary listens to him, even though the tall gentleman in black, who in vain endeavours to win her attentions, is thought the handsomest gallant in London? Ah, Genius is paid by smiles from all females but Fortune; little, methinks, does that young poet, in his first intoxication of flattery and fame, guess what a lot of contest and strife is in store for him. The very breath which a literary man respires is hot with hatred, and the youthful proselyte enters that career which seems to him so glittering, even as Dame Pliant's brother in the 'Alchemist' entered town,--not to be fed with luxury, and diet on pleasure, but 'to learn to quarrel and live by his wits.'"