"
"No, sir, I despise him because he is so much less than a King. Nobody
could hate Charles the Second. He is not big enough."
"Oh, dem, we want no meddlesome Kings to quarrel with their neighbours, and
set Europe by the ears! The treaty of the Pyrenees may be a fine thing for
France; but how many noble gentlemen's lives it cost, to say nothing of the
common people! Rowley is the finest gentleman in his kingdom, and the most
good-natured. Eh, gud, sirs! what more would you have?"
"A MAN--like Henry the Fifth, or Oliver Cromwell, or Elizabeth."
"Faith, she had need possess the manly virtues, for she must have been
an untowardly female--a sour, lantern-jawed spinster, with all the
inclinations but none of the qualities of a coquette."
"Greatness has the privilege of small failings, or it would scarce
be human. Elizabeth and Julius Caesar might be excused some harmless
vanities."
* * * * *
The spring evenings were now mild enough for promenading St. James's Park,
and the Mall was crowded night after night by the finest company in London.
Hyacinth walked in the Mall, and appeared occasionally in her coach in
Hyde Park; but she repeatedly reminded her friends how inferior was the
mill-round of the Ring to the procession of open carriages along the Cours
la Reine, by the side of the Seine; the splendour of the women's dress,
outshone sometimes by the extravagant decoration of their coaches and the
richness of their liveries; the crowds of horsemen, the finest gentlemen in
France, riding at the coach doors, and bandying jests and compliments with
Beauty, enthroned in her triumphal chariot.
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