the lovely Emma Richardson, sometime since called Standish or Davison, a
Cytherean of the very first order, and the sister planet to the equally
charming Ellen Hanbury, otherwise Bl-----g-----ve, constellations of the
utmost brilliancy, very uncertain in their appearance, and equally so,
if report speaks truth, in their attachment to either Jupiter, Mars,
Vulcan, or Apollo. The first is denominated _Venus Mendicant_, from her
always pleading poverty to her suitors, and thus artfully increasing
their generosity towards her. Sister Ellen has obtained the appellation
of _Venus Callipyga_, from her elegant form and generally half-draped
appearance in public. Do you perceive the swarthy amazon waddling along
yonder, whom the old Earl of W-----d appears to be eyeing with no little
anticipation of delight? that is a lady with a very ancient and most
fish-like flavor, odoriferous in person as the oily female Esquimaux,
or the more _fragrant_ feminine inhabitants of Russian Tartary and the
Crimea; she has with some of her admirers obtained the name of _Dolly
Drinkwater_, from her known dislike to any ~44~~thing _stronger_ than
pure French Brandy. Her present travelling cognomen is Mrs. Sp**c*r,
otherwise _Black Moll_; and a wag of the day, who is rather notorious
for the variety of his taste, has recently insisted upon re-christening
her by the _attractive nom de guerre_ of _Nux Vomica_. The little
goddess of the golden locks, dancing with a well-known _roue_, is Fanny
My*rs, a very efficient partner in the dance, and if report be true not
less engaging in the sacred mysteries of Cytherea." It would fill the
ample page to relate the varied anecdote with which Crony illustrated,
as he proceeded to describe the Scyllo and Charybdes of the unwary and
the gay; who in their voyage through life are lured by the syrens of
sweet voice, and the Pyrrhas of sweet lip, the Cleopatras of modern
times, the conquerors of hearts, and the voluptuous rioters in
pleasurable excesses, of those of whom Byron has sung,--
"Round all the confines of the yielding waist,
The strangest hand may wander undisplaced.
* * *
Till some might marvel with the modest Turk,
If 'nothing follows all this palming work.'"
To draw all the portraits who figured in the fascinating scene of gay
delight would be a task of almost equal magnitude with the Herculean
labours, and one which in attempting, I fear some of my readers may
censure me for already dwelling too long upon: but let them remember,
I am a professed painter of real life, not the inventor or promoter of
these delectable _nocte Attici_ and depraved orgies; that in faithfully
narrating scenes and describing character, the object of the author and
artist is to show up vice in all its native deformity; that being
known, it may be avoided, and being exposed, despised. But I must
crave permission to extend my notice of the Cythereans to a few more
characters, ere yet the mirth-inspiring notes of the band have ceased to
vibrate, or the graceful ~45~~fair ones to trip it lightly on fantastic
toe; this done, I shall perhaps take a peep into the supper-room, drink
Champagne, and pick the wing of a chicken while I whisper a few soft
syllables into the ear of the nearest _elegante_; and then--gentle
reader, start not--then-----
"The breast thus _publicly_ resign'd to man
In _private_ may resist him--if it can."
But here the curtain shall drop upon all the fairy sirens who lead
the young heart captive in their silken chains; and the _daughters of
pleasure_ and the _sons of profligacy_ may practise the mysteries of
Cytherea in private, undisturbed by the pen of the satirist or the
pencil of the humorist.
"The scandalizing group in close conference in the left-hand corner,
behind Lord William Lenox and another dashing ensign in the guards,
is composed," said Crony, "of Mrs. Nixon, the _ci-devant_ Mrs. Baring,
Nugent's old.flame, Mrs. Christopher Harrison, the two sisters,
Mesdames Gardner and Peters, and the well-known Kitty Stock, all
minor constellations, mostly on the decline, and hence full of envious
jealousy at the attention paid by the beaux to the more attractive
charms of the newly discovered planets, the younger sisterhood of
the convent." "If we could but get near enough to overhear their
conversation," said Transit, "we should, no doubt, obtain possession
of a few rich anecdotes of the Paphians and their paramours." "I have
already enough of the latter," said I, "to fill a dozen albums, without
descending to the meanness of becoming a listener. Amorous follies
are the least censurable of the sins of men, when they are confined to
professed courtezans. The heartless conduct of the systematic seducer
demands indignation; but the trifling peccadillos of the sons of fortune
and the stars of fashion may be passed by, without any serious personal
exposure, since _time, ~46~~cash, and constitution are the three
practising physicians_ who generally effect a radical cure, without
the aid of the satirist. But come, Crony, you must give us the _nom de
guerre_ of the last-mentioned belles: you have hitherto distinguished
all the Cythereans by some eccentric appellation; let us therefore have
the list complete." "By all means, gentlemen," replied the old beau: "if
I must stand godfather to the whole fraternity of Cyprians, I think I
ought, at least, to have free access to every convent in Christendom;
but I must refer to my tablets, for I keep a regular entry of all the
new appearances, or I should never remember half their designations.
Mrs. N------has the harmonious appellation of the _mocking bird_,
from her silly habit of repeating every word you address to her. Mrs.
B------is called the _New Perdita_, from a royal conquest she once made,
but which we have only her own authority for believing; at any rate, she
is known to be fond of a _New-gent_, and the title may on that
account be fairly her own. Mrs. C-----H------ has the honour of being
distinguished by the appropriate name of the _Napoleon Venus_, from the
similarity of her contour with the countenance of that great man.
The two sisters, Mesdames G------and P------, are well known by the
flattering distinctions of the red and the black Swan, from the colour
of their hair and the stateliness of their carriage; and Kitty Stock
has the poetical cognomen of _blue-eyed Lima_. Now, you have nearly
the whole vocabulary of love's votaries," said old Crony; "and be sure,
young gentlemen, you profit by the precepts of experience; for not one
of these frail fair ones but in her time has made as many conquests as
Wellington, and caused perhaps as much devastation among the sons of
men as any hero in the world. But a new light breaks in upon us," said
Crony, "in the person of Mrs. Simmons, the _Tartar sultana_, whom you
may observe conversing with Lords H------d and P-----m in the centre of
the room. Poor N--g--nt the cyprian's ball ~47~~will long remember her
prowess in battle, when the strength of her passion had nearly brought
matters to a point, and that not a very tender one; but the swain cut
the affair in good time, or might have been cruelly cut himself. Messrs.
H--h and R--s--w could also give some affecting descriptions of the
Tartar sultana's rage when armed with jealousy or resentment. Her
residence, No. 30, B--k--r-street, has long been celebrated as the three
x x x; a name probably given to it by some spark who found the sultana
three times more cross than even common report had stated her to be."
The night was now fast wearing away, when Crony again directed our
attention to the right-hand corner of the room, where, just under the
orchestra, appeared the elder sister of the notorious Harriette Wilson
seated, and in close conversation with the Milesian M. C, O'M--------a,
who, according to his usual custom, was dispensing his entertaining
anecdotes of all his acquaintance who graced the present scene. "That
is Amy Campbell, otherwise Sydenham, &e., &c, but now legally Bochsa, of
whom Harriette has since told so many agreeable stories relative to
the black puddings and Argyle; however, considerable suspicion attaches
itself to Harriette's anecdotes of her elder sister, particularly as
she herself admits they were not very good friends, and Harriette never
would forgive Amy for seducing the Duke of Argyle from his allegiance
to her. Mrs. Campbell was for some years the favourite sultana of his
grace, and has a son by him, a fine boy, now about twelve years of age,
who goes by the family name, and for whose support the kind-hearted duke
allows the mother a very handsome annuity. Amy is certainly a woman of
considerable talent; a good musician, as might have been expected from
her attachment to the harpist, and an excellent linguist, speaking the
French, Spanish, and Italian languages with the greatest fluency. In
her person she begins to exhibit the ravages of time, is somewhat
_embonpoint_, with ~48~~dark hair and fine eyes, but rather of the
keen order of countenance than the agreeable; and report says, that
the Signior composer, amid his plurality of wives, never found a more
difficult task to preserve the equilibrium of domestic harmony.
By the side of this fair one, arm in arm with a well-known bookseller,
you may perceive Harriette Kochforte, alias Wilson, who, according to
her own account, has had as many amours as the Grand Seignor can boast
wives, and with just as little of affection in the _affaires de cour_ as
his sublime highness, only with something more of publicity. Harriette
gives the honour of her introduction into the mysteries of Cytherea
to the Earl of Craven; but it is well known that a certain dashing
solicitor's clerk then living in the neighbourhood of Chelsea, and near
her amiable mamma's residence, first engrossed, her attention, and
by whom she exhibited increasing symptoms of affection, which being
properly engrafted on the person of the fair stockinger, in due time
required a release from a practitioner of another profession; an
innocent affair that now lies buried deep in an odd corner at the old
churchyard at Chelsea, without a monumental stone or epitaph to point
out the early virtues of the fair Cytherean. To this limb of the law
succeeded the Honourable Be--1--y C------n, who was then too volatile
and capricious to pay his devotions at any particular shrine for more
than a week together. It was this cold neglect of the honourable's that
has, perhaps, secured him from mention in her Memoirs; since Harriette
never speaks of her beaux without giving the reader to suppose they were
desperately in love with herself: then there was more of the dignified
in an affair with an earl, and Madame Harriette has a great notion of
preserving her consequence, although, it must be confessed, she has
latterly shown the most perfect indifference to the preservation of
character. The the cyprian's ball ~49~~circumstance which first gave
Miss Wilson her great notoriety was the affair with the young Marquis
of Worcester, then just _come out_, and a willing captive to her
artful wiles. So successfully did she inveigle her noble swain, and
so completely environ his heart, that in the fulness of his boyish
adoration of the fair Cytherean, he executed in her favour a certain
promise in writing, not a promise to pay, for that might have been of
no consequence, nor a promise of settlement, nor a promise to protect,
nothing so unsettled,--nothing less did the fair intriguante obtain
than a full, clear, and definite promise of marriage, with a sufficient
penalty thereunto attached to make the matter alarming and complete,
with every appearance on his part to ratify the contract. In this state
of things, information reached his Grace of B--f--t of his noble heir's
intention, who not much relishing the intended honour, or perhaps
doubting the permanency of his son's passion (for to question the purity
of the lady was impossible), entered into a negotiation with Harriette,
by which, on condition of her resigning the promise and pledging herself
never to see the Marquis more on familiar terms, this disinterested
woman was to receive eight hundred pounds per annum--so anxious was his
grace to prevent a mes-alliance in his family. But, alas for Harriette!
jealousy for once got the better of her love of gain; her pride was
wounded to see a sister flirting with her affianced lord, and in a
moment of irritation, she in a most unequivocal manner publicly asserted
her right to his person: the gallant yielded, the bond was __null and
void, the _promise burnt_, his grace relieved from the payment of eight
hundred pounds per annum, and his son the Marquis, profiting by past
experience, not so green as to renew the former obligation.
"My intention is not to pirate the lady's memoirs, and so rob her of
the fair gain of her professional ~50~~experience," said Crony, when I
mentioned these circumstances to him afterwards; "I only mean to supply
certain trifling omissions in the biography of Harriette and her family,
which the fair narrator has very modestly suppressed. It is but a few
months since, that passing accidentally into Warwick-court, Holborn,
to call upon an old friend, a navy lieutenant on half-pay, I thought I
recognised the well-known superlative wig of the dandy Rochforte, thrust
longitudinally forward from beneath the sash of a two pair of stairs
window.--Can it be possible? thought I: and then again, I asked myself,
why not? for the last time I saw him he was rusticating in Surrey,
beating the balls about in _Banco Regis_; from which black place he did
not escape without a little white-washing: however, he's a full Colonel
of some unknown corps of South American Independents for all that, and
was once in his life, although for a very short time, a full Cornet, in
Lincoln Stanhope's regiment, the 17th dragoons, I think it was, and has
never clipped his mustachios since, one would imagine, by their length
and ferocious appearance. To be brief, I had scarcely placed my glass
into the orifice before my imperfect vision, when Harriette appeared
at the adjoining window, and instantly recognizing an old acquaintance,
invited me up stairs. 'Times are a little changed,' said she, 'Mr.
Crony, since last we met:' 'True, madam,' I responded; and then to cheer
the belle a little, I added, 'but not persons, I perceive, for you are
looking as young and as attractive as ever.' The compliment did not seem
to please the Colonel in the wig, who turned round, looked frowningly,
and then twirled the dexter side of his lip wing into a perfect circle.
It is not possible that this thing can affect jealousy of such a woman
as Harriette? thought I: so proceeded with our conversation: and he
shortly resumed his polite amusement of spitting upon the children who
were ~51~~playing marbles beneath his window. 'I am really married to
that monster, yonder,' said she, in an under tone: 'How do you like my
choice?' 'I am not old enough in the gentleman's acquaintance to hazard
an opinion on his merits,' quoth I; 'but you are a woman of experience,
belle Harriette, and should be a good judge of male bipeds, although I
cannot say much in favour of your military taste.' 'And you was always a
_quiz_, Crony,' retorted belle Harriette: 'remember my sister Mary, who
is now Mrs. Bochsa,{3} how you used to annoy her about her gaudy style
of dressing, when we used to foot it at Chelsea:--but I 3 There were in
all eight sisters of the Debouchettes, and three brothers; but only one
of the latter is living. Of the girls, Amy is now Mrs. Bochsa; Mary,
married to a nephew of Sir Richard Bo****hs, a great Irish contractor;
Harriette, actually married to Cornet Rochforte; Fanny expired in the
_holy keeping_ of the present Marquis of H-----; Sophia has been raised
to the peerage, by the style and title of Lady B-----k, and by her
subsequent conduct well deserves her elevation; Julia, an affectionate
girl, clung to the house of Coventry through poor Tom's days of
adversity, and died early, leaving some unprotected orphans; Charlotte
and Louisa, younger sisters, the first now about eighteen and very
beautiful, although a little lame, have been educated and brought up
by their elder sister, the Baroness, and are by her intended for the
church--vestals for Hymen's altar: at any rate, I hope they will escape
the _sacrifices of Cytherea_. Harriette is now about forty years of age:
she was, when at her zenith, always celebrated rather for her tact
in love affairs, and her talent at invention, than the soft engaging
qualifications of the frail fair, which fascinate the eye and lead the
heart captive with delight: her conversational powers were admirable;
but her temper was outrageous, with a natural inclination to the
satirical:--to sum up her merits at once, she was what a _connoisseur_
would have called a bold fine woman, rather than an engaging handsome
one--more of the English Bellona than the _Venus de Medici_. Crony's
account of the Round Room and belle Harriette's first views of
publishing are, I have since learned, strictly correct. There is not
a person mentioned in her Memoirs, or scarcely one of any note in the
Court-guide, of whom she has at any time had the slightest knowledge,
that have not been applied to repeatedly within the last three years,
and received threats of exposure to compel them to submit to extortion.
~52~~want your assistance.' Egad, I dare say, I looked rather comical
at this moment, for in truth I was somewhat alarmed at the last phrase.
Harriette burst into a loud fit of laughter; the Colonel drew in his
elegant wig, and deigned a smile; while I, involuntarily forcing my hand
into the pocket of my inexpressibles, carefully drove the few sovereigns
I had up into one corner, fearing the belle Harriette had a mighty
notion of laying strong siege to them: in this, however, I was agreeably
disappointed; for recovering herself, she acknowledged she had perceived
my embarrassment, but assured me I need be under no alarm on this
occasion, as, at present, she only wanted to borrow a few--ideas: what a
relief the last short word afforded! 'I have been writing some sketches
of my life,' said she, 'and am going to publish: give me your opinion,
Crony, upon its merits;' and without more ceremony, she thrust a little
packet of papers into my hand, headed 'Sketches in the Round Room at the
Opera House;' in which all the characters of the Opera frequenters were
tolerably well drawn, nor was the dialogue deficient in spirit; but the
titles were all fictitious--such as my Lord Red Head, for the Marquess
of H-----d, Lord Pensiveham, for P------m, and so on to the end of
the chapter. Having glanced through the contents, I recommended her
to Colburn, as the universal speculator in paper and print; but his
highness is playing _magnifico_, a la Murray, in his new mansion, it
would seem; for he, as I have since learned, refused to publish.
At length, after trying Allman and others, belle Harriette hit upon
Stockdale, who having made some bad hits in his time, thought a
little _courtesanish_ scandal could not make bad worse. Under his
superintendence real names were substituted for the fictitious; and it
is said, that the choice notes of the lady are interwoven and extended,
connected and illustrated, by the same elegant Apollo who used to write
love letters for Mary Ann, and ~58~~love epistles to half a thousand,
including Bang and the Bantum, in the dark refectory of the celebrated
mother Wood, the Lady of the Priory, or Lisle-street Convent." "If
such is the case, 'how are the mighty fallen!'" said I.------But let us
return to the ball-room. As the night advanced, a few more stars made
their appearance in the firmament of beauty; among these, Crony pointed
out some of the demirespectables, attracted thither either by curiosity
or the force of old habit: among these was Charles Wy--h--m's bit of
rue, that herb of grace, the once beautiful Mrs. Ho--g--s, since
closely connected with the whiskered Lord P-----, to whose brother, the
Honourable F------g, her daughter, the elegant Miss W--------n, had the
good fortune to be early married. In the same group appeared another
star of no mean attraction, the Honourable Mrs. L-----g, whose present
husband underwent the ordeal of a crim. con. trial to obtain her person.
'Par nobile fratum,' the world may well say of the brothers, P------ and
L-----g; while F--------y, with all his eccentricities, has the credit
of being a very good husband. Three little affected mortals, the Misses
St--ts, Crony introduced by the name of the pretenders, from the assumed
modesty and great secrecy with which they carry on their amours. '_Pas
a pas on va bien loin_,' says the old French proverb, and rightly too,"
remarked our ancient; "for if you boys had not brought me here, I should
never have known the extent of my experience, or have attempted to
calculate the number of my female acquaintances." In the supper-room,
which opened at four o'clock in the morning, Waud had spread forth a
banquet every way worthy the occasion: a profuse display of the choicest
viands of the season and delicacies of the most costly character graced
the splendid board, where the rich juice of the grape, and the inviting
ripeness of the dessert, were only equalled by the voluptuous votaries
who ~54~~surrounded the repast. It was now that ceremony and the
cold restraint of well regulated society were banished, by the free
circulation of the glass. The eye of love shot forth the electric flash
which animates the heart of young desire, lip met lip, and the soft
cheek of violet beauty pressed the stubble down of manliness. Then,
while the snowy orbs of nature undisguised heaved like old ocean with a
circling swell, the amorous lover palmed the melting fair, and led her
forth to where shame-faced Aurora, with her virgin gray, the blue-eyed
herald of the golden morn, might hope in vain to draw aside the curtain
and penetrate the mysteries of Cytherea. And now, gentle reader, be ye
of the hardy sex, who dare the glories of the healthful chase and haunt
the peopled stream of gay delight--or of that lovely race, from
which alone man's earthly joys arise, the soft-skinned conquerors of
hearts--be ye prudes or stoics, chaste as virgin gold, or cold as alpine
snow--confess that I have strictly kept my promise here, nor strayed
aside in all my wanderings among the daughters of pleasure, to give
pain to worthy bosoms or offend the ear of nicest modesty. Pity for
the unfortunate, and respect for the feelings of the relatives of
the vicious and the dissolute, has prevented the insertion of many
anecdotes, with which Crony illustrated his sketches of character.
Enough, it is presumed, has been done to show vice in all its native
deformity, without wounding the ear by one immoral or indelicate
expression. For the unhappy fair ones who form the principal portraits,
it should be remembered they have been selected from those only who are
notorious, as belles of the first order, stars of fashion, and if not
something indebted to fortune they would have escaped enrolment here.
When beauty and poverty are allied, it must too often fall a victim to
the eager eye of roving lust; for, even to the titled ~55~~profligate,
beauty, when arrayed in a simple garb of spotless chastity, seems
"----Fairer she
In innocence and homespun vestments spread,
Than if cerulean sapphires at her ears
Shone pendent, or a precious diamond cross
Heaved gently on her panting bosom white.
But let the frail remember, that the allurements of wealth and the
blandishments of equipage fall off with possession and satiety; to the
force of novelty succeeds the baseness of desertion. For a short time,
the fallen one is fed like the silk-worm upon the fragrant mulberry
leaf, and when she has spun her yellow web of silken attraction, sinks
into decay, a common chrysalis, shakes her trembling and emaciated wings
in hopeless agony, and then flutters and droops, till death steps in
and relieves her from an accumulation of miseries, ere yet the transient
summer of youth has passed over her devoted head.
Bernard Blackmantle.