The same kind and conciliatory manner, the same noble enthusiasm, the same powers of conversation, refined and heightened by the literary career she had adopted to ward off the actual and pressing gripe of poverty, were still hers; but their value was differently estimated. The small and modest apartment could boast of but few of the _habitués_ who had formerly swelled to suffocation the crowd that formerly frequented her gilded _salons_. Some few were to be found, however, surrounding her couch of pain, and never had she taken so much trouble to court and conciliate the richest nobles, the reigning princes of her own and other lands, as she now did to show her cordial welcome, and the heartfelt pleasure she felt in beholding the faithful few, who dreamed not while listening to her brilliant wit, her sparkling reminiscences of bright fêtes in which she had been a principal actress, that the finger of death was already on her, that her moments of life and vivacity freely given for their amusement, were stimulated by the excessive use of opium, while her hours of racking pain and mental anguish were confined to her own bosom. She died in poverty; she who had given away in charity a hundred times more than would have made her last days comparatively affluent and easy--died in want. Her last days, nay hours, disturbed by pressing, though trifling demands. She died in an _Hospital_ for the destitute. I am proud to remember that she honoured me with her esteem and friendship. ❦ [Sidenote: Philip II.] Philip II. of Spain, said satirically, but truly, that actions in themselves are nothing, it is the _result_ that stamps them with right or wrong. ❦ [Sidenote: Beauty.] Bacon says justly, the best part of beauty is that which a picture cannot express. [Sidenote: Jacobite Poetry.] The following are the words to which the Jacobites sing the air of “God save the king,” which was originally a Jacobite song. Copied from an inscription cut on a glass drinking cup, at Fingarth, in the Carse of Gourie, Perthshire. God save the King, I pray, God bless the King, I pray, God save the King; Send him victorious, Happy, and glorious, Soon to reign over us, God save the King! God bless the Prince of Wales, The true born Prince of Wales[5] Sent us by Thee; Grant us one favour more, The King for to restore, As thou hast done before, The familie! This tradition may remind the reader of the answer of the Jacobite Countess, to the reproach of “not praying for the King.”--“For the King, I do pray; but I do not think it necessary to tell God _who is the King_.” [5] From this line it appears that these verses must have been written about the time of the rebellion, 1715, or before it. ❦ [Sidenote: Ill-placed Confidence.]