have been hard for a monarch like Charles the Second, or a minister like Lord Bolingbroke, to resist the charms of those beautiful and sprightly girls who sparkle like diamonds in all the memoirs of that time. Their political influence was but small. George the First and his successor pursued their unwieldy loves and enjoyed their boorish romps in a style not seductive to English gentlemen. Politics were surrendered to Walpole; and the consequence was that, although there was plenty of immorality under those gracious Sovereigns, yet the feminine element of Court life had no longer that connection with _public policy_ which once for a brief space it had possessed; and the resemblance to French manners in this respect grew less and less, till it disappeared altogether with the accession of George the Third. During the reign of that domesticated paterfamilias a slight exception, it is true, occurred in the instance of Georgina Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire. Young, beautiful, amiable, and witty, and not altogether free from coquetry, she reckoned amongst her admirers some of the most distinguished men of that day. She fascinated them all without encouraging the pretensions of any; and notwithstanding the jealousy which so great a superiority necessarily excited among her own sex, and despite the rancour to which the inutility of their efforts to please her gave birth in the bosoms of certain of the men, she preserved a reputation for discretion beyond all suspicion. One circumstance of her life might indeed have cast a slur upon her fair fame if her irreproachable conduct, added to her natural graces, had not condoned a species of notoriety which opinion in England very generally reproves. The Duchess of Devonshire had friendly relations with the celebrated Charles James Fox, and that friendship had taken the tinge of party spirit. Fox presented himself as a candidate to represent Westminster in Parliament. He had two very formidable opponents, and it was thought that he would have succumbed in the struggle had not several amiable and energetic women made extraordinary efforts to procure him votes. At the head of these fair solicitors was the Duchess of Devonshire. A butcher whose vote she requested promised it to her on the condition that he might give her a kiss. To this she cheerfully consented, and that kiss added one more vote to her friend's poll. Such familiarity was far less shocking to our English manners than the too active and public part taken by a lady of distinction in politics. Very few of her countrywomen before her time had given occasion for a like scandal.[1]