During the middle of the last century, literature was again the fashion among the higher classes. Doctor Johnson and the Thrales, Miss Gurney, Hannah More, still clustered at Streatham; many of our politicians were, if not poets, poetasters. It is true, if we except the heart-touching poems of Cowper, the Muses were silent. The verses which were the delight of polished drawing-rooms were of little value, and have been swept away from our memories of the present day as waste paper; but a taste for what is refined was thus prevalent, and thus affected the then rising generation favourably. Lady Georgiana Spencer had, however, a very few years allotted her for improvement or for the enjoyment of her youth, for in her seventeenth year she married. William, the fifth Duke of Devonshire, at the time when he was united to Lady Georgiana was twenty-seven years of age. He was one of the most apathetic of men. Tall, yet not even stately, calm to a fault, he had inherited from the Cavendish family a stern probity of character, which always has a certain influence in society. Weight he wanted not, for a heavier man never led to the altar a wife full of generous impulses and of sensibility. He was wholly incapable of strong emotion, and could only be roused by whist or faro from a sort of moral lethargy. He was, nevertheless, crammed with a learning that caused him to be a sort of oracle at Brookes's when disputes arose about passages from Roman poets or historians. With all these qualities, he was capable of being, in a certain sense, in love, though not always with his lovely and engaging first wife. Miss Burney relates a characteristic trait of this nobleman; it was related to her by Miss Monckton. The duke was standing near a very fine glass lustre in a corner of a room in the house of people who were not possessed of means sufficient to consider expense as immaterial; by carelessly lolling back, he threw the lustre back, and it was broken. He was not, however, in the least disturbed by the accident, but coolly said: "I wonder how I did that!" He then removed to the opposite corner, and to show, it was supposed, that he had forgotten what he had done, leaned his head in the same manner, and down came the second lustre. He looked at it with philosophical composure, and merely said: "This is singular enough," and walked to another part of the room without either distress or apology. To this automaton was the young Lady Georgiana consigned; and the marriage was, in the estimation of society, a splendid alliance.