“Ha! ha! ha!” replied Tom, almost bursting with laughter, yet endeavouring to conceal it, “that Lady of Quality, as you are inclined to think her, a very few years since, was nothing more than a pot-girl to a publican in Marj'-le-bone; but an old debauchee (upon the look out for defenceless beauty) admiring the fineness of her form, the brilliancy of her eye, and the symmetry of her features, became the possessor of her person, and took her into keeping, as one of the indispensable appendages of fashionable life, after a month's ablution at Margate, where he gave her masters of every description. Her understanding was ready, and at his death, which happened, luckily for her, before satiety had extinguished appetite, she was left with an annuity of twelve hundred pounds--improved beauty--superficial accomplishments--and an immoderate share of caprice, insolence, and vanity. As a proof of this, I must tell you that at an elegant entertainment lately given by this dashing cyprian, she demolished a desert service of glass and china that cost five hundred guineas, in a fit of passionate ill-humour; and when her paramour intreated her to be more composed, she became indignant--called for her writing-desk in a rage--committed a settlement of four hundred a year, which he had made but a short time previously, to the flames, and asked him, with, a self-important air, whether he dared to suppose that _paltry_ parchment gave him an authority to direct her actions?” “And what said the lover to this severe remonstrance?” “Say,--why he very sensibly made her a low bow, thanked her for her kindness, in releasing him from his bond, and took his leave of her, determined to return no more.” 22~~“Turn to the right,” says Tom, “and yonder you will see on horseback, that staunch patriot, and friend of the people, Sir----, of whom you must have heard so much.” “He has just come out of the K----B----, having completed last week the term of imprisonment, to which he was sentenced for a libel on Government, contained in his address to his constituents on the subject of the memorable Manchester Meeting.” “Ah! indeed, and is that the red-hot patriot?--well, I must say I have often regretted he should have gone to such extremes in one or two instances, although I ever admired his general character for firmness, manly intrepidity, and disinterested conduct.” “You are right, Bob, perfectly right; but you know, 'to err is human, to forgive divine,' and however he may err, he does so from principle. In his private character, as father, husband, friend, and polished gentleman, he has very few equals--no superior.