how do the fire of youth, and flattery of the world blind our eyes, and mislead our fancies, after a thousand imaginary pleasures which are sure to disappoint us in the end!” The Duchess was a person whose moral constitution had not been injured by the atmosphere of a court. But though she kept aloof from its intrigues and had acquired even a distaste for its vanities, she retained always an affectionate regard for Queen Caroline's memory. “I should have been glad,” she says to Lady Pomfret, “to have shared your reverence and have indulged my own at Blansfelden, whilst you were overlooking the fields and the shades where our late mistress had passed the first scenes of her life, before the cares of royalty had clouded the natural vivacity of her temper, or the disguise which greatness is often forced to wear had veiled any of her native goodness; and certainly she had a greater stock of both than is often found in any rank.” She could never think of her without a sigh, she said. The most amiable mistress she calls her that ever adorned a court, and so fitted to charm in society, that it was impossible not to grudge her to that life which involved her in cares and encompassed her with such a cloud of different people, that her real lustre could not always reach those who perhaps had the most pleasure in it. Before the loss of her son (from which the Duchess never entirely recovered), her spirits had been affected by the state of her husband's health. “The many solitary hours I pass in a day,” she says, “and the melancholy employment of attending a person in his sufferings, to whom I owe every happiness I enjoy, cannot furnish me with many smiling ideas relating to this world.” The country in its wintry appearances accorded with her feelings, “where,” said she, “every thing around instructs me that decay is the lot of all created beings; where every tree spreads out its naked arms to testify the solemn truth, which I thank heaven I feel no pain in assenting to. It has long been my fixed opinion, that in the latter part of life, when the duties owing to a family no longer call upon us to act on the public stage of life, it is not only more decent, but infinitely more eligible to live in an absolute retirement. However this is not the general opinion of the world, and therefore I conclude that it is better it is not so, since Providence undoubtedly orders better for us than we are able to do for ourselves.”