Hartley, Mr. Prattle, sir William Twyford, lord Martin, most of the
ladies we have already commemorated, and many others.
The repast was conducted with much solemnity. The masculine character of
the mind of Sophia had rendered her particularly attached to the grace of
action. When she drank the health of any of her guests, she accompanied it
with a most profound _conge_. When she invited them to partake of any
dish, she pointed towards it with her hand. This action might have served
to display a graceful arm, but, alas! upon hers the hand of time had been
making depredations, and it appeared somewhat coarse and discoloured.
After dinner, the lady of the house, as usual, turned the conversation
upon the subject of politics. She inveighed with much warmth against the
effeminacy and depravity of the modern times. We were slaves, and we
deserved to be so. In almost every country there now appeared a king, that
puppet pageant, that monster in creation, miserable itself, a combination
of every vice, and invented for the curse of human kind. "Where now," she
asked, "was the sternness and inflexibility of ancient story? Where was
that Junius, that stood and gazed in triumph upon the execution of his
sons? Where that Fabricius, that turned up his nose under the snout of an
elephant? Where was that Marcus Brutus, who sent his dagger to the heart
of Caesar? For her part, she believed, and she would not give the snap of
her fingers for him if it were otherwise, that he was in reality, as sage
historians have reported, the son of Julius.
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