They retire to their Country Seat. frame of the Duchess, more delicate, seemed sinking under the frequent repetitions of revelry. Sleep was banished from her nights, and the morning avocations of receiving and returning visits, attending auctions, various exhibitions and fashionable lounging shops, prevented her experiencing, from the somniferous god, that benefit which might enable her to recruit her declining strength. The wealthy Duke wished for an heir; but four years had elapsed and no prospect presented itself of such a blessing; an absolute order from the physicians compelled the weeping fair one to accompany her Lord to an hunting-box, situated above one hundred miles from the capital. Here, to the great disappointment of the Duke, at the end of ten months, his Duchess presented him with his daughter, Lady Charlotte, and, after a lapse of five years, his grace became the delighted father of a son. A Description. Dissipation, more than time, had made sad havoc in the charms of the Duchess; no art was left untried to repair those devastations; but in spite of Sicilian bloom, Circassian pomatum, and all the ransacked stores of the perfumers' shops, the perfidious wrinkles would appear; the bared throat presented a yellow tinge, which no art could disguise; the azure circle encompassed the sinking eye; and the anatomical stay in vain exerted its elastic force to render full and plump the fast-withering bosom: Yet the blind vanity of the Duchess of Pyrmont made her insensible to these decays; she was rich, The art of the TOILETTE is not of modern invention; Homer and Anacreon give us to understand that women in their times were already great proficients in the elegant science, and the beautiful description of the Cestus in the Iliad, is a proof that the Mæonian Bard had a peep into the female Arsenal, Esther and Judith of old, were full aware of its powerful influence on the eyes of the stronger sex; A Description continued. she lived in splendor, she gave sumptuous dinners, she was the daughter of, and, thanks to our imitative dispositions, we can boast here of as great a skill in the art as any other nation. The love of dress attends the cradle of the infant girl, and grows with woman through life! But the mcment when all its strength is put in immediate requisition, its tricks most usefully played, and all its batteries directed towards half the world, is when the climacteric age of FORTY approaches. Then the goddess of the Toilette and her retinue, the milliner, the perfumer, the hair-dresser, must bring their auxilliary assistance, and do wonders. I have been told many a time that my great aunt, the Baroness of Quincey, was born without the least appearance of Eye-brows, and that as the brightness and eloquence of her eye, the regularity of her face, and the delicacy and sweetness of her smile, made full amends for the deficit, myriads of admirers fluttered about her when young, and that her marriage with the noble Baron, insured to her as much happiness as may be the lot of any mortal being. Yet, wondrous to tell! as soon as she arrived at that critical period, when the natural bloom of youth vanishes, she reflected on her countenance, and it struck her, for the first time, that she never had any Eye-brows. She A Note on Eye-brows. and wife to a duke, both of the most ancient nobility. There was elegance about had never given a thought to it before; though she allowed them to be a very pretty sort of ornament to the "crystal windows of the soul." What's to be done? Lamp-black, ground in spirit of ginger, the dark ashes of a ham-lone reduced to impalpable powder in a well-luted crucible, the snuff of wax-candles kneaded with fresh butter, all was tried by the skilful hand of Betty the chambermaid, but to little purpose, for the elegant implements seemed to add mere to her years than to her charms; although these fastitious arcs of ebony colour were often accompanied with the black patch to heighten the whiteness of the skin, and turn away the sight from the incipient wrinkles. The dear Baroness carried her adscititious brows to the age of seventy, and died of a fit of laughter at loo, with three trumps in her hand. Her case, and that of the Duchess, remind me of the following strophe of an ode to Wisdom, which, when at school, I inserted in my common place book. "La Beauté n'est qu'un bien frivole "Qu'un Souffle, un rien peut nous ravir "Pour jamais ne plus revenir Fashionable life. her, and a something yet piquant and beautiful in her countenance; so that flatterers still buzzed their soft nonsense in her ear, and she thought herself as young and lovely as ever. She therefore trod on the steps of those fashionable females, who heed neither age nor the marriage tie, but are determined "to live all the days of their lives." The Duke, perfectly indifferent to her, let her follow her own inclinations, while he pursued his, without restraint or control. The scandalous tale of the day had reached the ears of Lady Charlotte Stanmore, and had given rise to the remark which disgusted the Duchess, to think "Chloris par mille cosmetiques "Mais c'est envain qu'elle s'abuse, "Ni le carmin, ni la céruse "Ne la rajeuniront jamais." CHAULIEU |