The English Spy, page 279 by Bernard Blackmantle
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a volume. The wantons wife whose vices sunk her from the drawing-room to the lobby; the{4} kitchen wench, whose pretty face and lewd ambition raised her to it; the romance bewildered{5} Miss, and the rude unlettered {6} villager, the hardened drunken profligate, and the timid half-ruined victim (the almost infant Jenny!) have all in turn tasted his bounty and his wine, have each been honoured with a page in his trifles: of his caresses he wisely was more chary. Which of the frail sisterhood has not had a ride in G---- L----'s worn out in the service 1 and which in its day might be said to roll mechanically from C----L----to C----s-s--t, with almost instinctive precision. But his days of poesy and nights of folly are now past!
Honest C----has taken the hint from nature, and retired, at once, from the republics of Venus and of letters. A kind, a generous, and a susceptible heart like his must long ere this have found, in the arms of an amiable wife, those unfading and honourable joys which, reflection must convince him, were not to be extracted from those foul and polluted sources from whence he sought and drew a short-lived pleasure."
You know Crony's affection for a good dinner, and will not therefore be surprised that I had the honour of his company this day; but i'faith he deserved his reward for the cheerfulness and amusement with which he contrived to kill time.
3 Lady B----e.
4 Mrs. H----y.
5 Louisa V----e.
6 Mrs. S--d--s.
7 Mrs. S--mm--ns.
~320~~In the evening it was proposed to visit the libraries; but as these places of public resort are not always eligible for the appearance of a star, Crony and myself were despatched first to reconnoitre and report to the Countess our opinions of the assembled group. The association of society has perhaps undergone a greater change in England within the last thirty years than any other of our peculiar characteristics; at least, I should guess s