“... In short, Pope is in the fullest sense of the word a mannerist. When you have said ‘The Dunciad,’ ‘The Eloise’ and ‘The Rape of the Lock’ you can say nothing more but ‘The Rape of the Lock,’ ‘The Dunciad’ and ‘The Eloise.’ I have some notion,” she adds, “that you are of a different opinion, and I am very glad of it; I love to make you quarrel with me. Nothing is so tiresome as acquiescence; I would at any time give a dozen civil Yes’s for one spirited No, especially in correspondence, which is exactly like a game of shuttle-cock, and would be at an end in an instant if both battledores struck the same way.” In another letter, writing of her special favourites amongst Shakespeare’s plays, she remarks: “And last, not least, _Much Ado About Nothing_. The Beatrice of this play is indeed my standard of female wit and almost of female character; nothing so lively, so clever, so unaffected and so warm-hearted ever trod this workaday world. Benedick is not quite equal to her; but this, in female eyes, is no great sin. Shakespeare saw through nature, and knew which sex to make the cleverest. There’s a challenge for you! Will you take up the glove?” CHAPTER XVII THE MARCH OF MIND In the month of June, 1814, that memorable period in our history, Mary Mitford was again visiting her friends the St. Quintins in Hans Place. London was then swarming with crowned heads, victorious generals and distinguished foreigners of all kinds, to rejoice with us upon the downfall of Napoleon. Even the ultra-Whigs, to which Mary and her family belonged, had long ceased to entertain any hopes of him as a benefactor to the human race, and she had declared to Sir William Elford in 1812 that she “was no well-wisher to Napoleon—the greatest enemy to democracy that ever existed.” On the 18th June Mary and her friends went to the office of the _Morning Chronicle_ (Mr. Perry, the editor, being an intimate friend of the Mitfords) to behold the grand procession of royal personages to the Merchant Taylors Hall. Writing on the following day to her mother, she says: “The _Chronicle_ will tell you much more of the procession than I can ... suffice it to say that we got there well and pleasantly, and saw them all most clearly; that the Emperor and Duchess are much alike—she a pretty woman, he a fine-looking man—both with fair complexions and round _Tartar_ faces—no expression of any sort except affability and good-humour; that the King of Prussia is a much more interesting and intelligent-looking man, though not so handsome; and that the Regent got notably hissed, in spite of his protecting presence.” And writing a few days later she says: