MRS. INCHBALD.

31

live alone); or that five younger brother of lords of the bed-chamber had been the occupants-all being bachelors and expecting places in reversion. The two houses which seem to be nothing but one drawing-room, possess, however, parlours and second stories at the back, and have good gardens; so that what with their flowers behind them, the park in front, and their own neatness and elegance, the miniature aristocracy of their appearance is not ill borne out.

In the year 1816, Mrs. Inchbald (of whom more hereafter) knocked at the door of one of these houses, in hopes of getting the apartments that were to let; but the lodginghouse lady was so fine a personage, and so very unaccommodating, besides reserving all the prospect for herself, and charging a round sum for the rooms which had no prospect, that the authoress of the "Simple

Story" indignantly walked off.

She says

that the furniture was crazy; that she would not have accepted the first floor, had it been offered her for nothing; and that one of her big trunks would have taken up half the bed

room.

Since that day, there is reason to believe, that the furniture has much improved; for besides the air of taste which is diffused over all the little stuccoed houses, they have boasted divers inhabitants of worship: and at No 5, for a short time, lived Count d'Orsay. We shall have more to say of this distinguished person a little further on, when we come to Gore House. But it is impossible to mention such a "glass of fashion, and mould of form," without stopping a moment to look at him with our "mind's eye;" and as care had not yet overtaken him while residing at this house, we cannot but observe at once

D'ORSAY AND O'CONNELL.

33

how truly he merited the application of those words of Shakspeare.

To see d'Orsay coming up a lobby, or a drawing-room, was a sight; his face was so delicate, his figure so manly, and his white waistcoat so ample and august. We happened once to see him and O'Connell sitting opposite one another, the latter with a waistcoat to match; and we were at a loss to think which had the finer "thorax" of the twothe great Irishman, who thundered across the channel, or the magnificent French Adonis, who seemed to ennoble dandyism.

Over the doorway of No. 2 is a vase; and as old inhabitants do not remember when this vase was set up, it was not improbably a manifestation of his classical taste by a once much talked of person; for in this house, a little sequestered establishment was kept by the once famous demagogue, Wilkes-a man

as much over-estimated perhaps by his admirers, for a patriotism which was never thoroughly disinterested, as he was depreciated for a libertinism, by no means unaccompanied with good qualities. "Jack Wilkes," as he was familiarly called-member of parliament, alderman, fine gentleman, scholar, coarse wit, and middling writer, was certainly an "impudent dog," in more senses than that of "Jack Absolute" in the play. Excess of animal spirits, and the want of any depth of perception into some of the gravest questions, led him into outrages against decorum, that were justly denounced by all but the hypocritical. Nevertheless, the country is indebted to him for more than one benefit, particularly the freedom from arbitrary arrest; and the two daughters that Jack left behind him, illegitimate as well as legitimate, were models of well-educated, sensible women, as fond of

their father, as he had shown himself fond of them. The popularity to which he had attained at one time, was immense. "Wilkes

and Liberty," was the motto of the universal English nation. It was on every wall; sometimes on every door, and on every coach (to enable it to get along); it stamped the butter-pats, the biscuits, the handkerchiefs; in short, had so identified one word with the other, that a wit, writing to somebody, began his letter with, "Sir, I take the Wilkes and liberty to assure you."

Wilkes prospered so well by his patriotism, that he maintained three establishments at a time; one in the Isle of Wight, for the summer; another in Grosvenor Square, where his daughter Mary kept house for him; and the third at this place in Kensington Gore, where his second daughter, Harriet, lived with her mother, a Mrs.