or at least, without
reflecting on the humiliation such a desertion must inflict on the
persons he had associated with him. He gives me the idea of a
man, who, feeling himself in such a dilemma, would become cold and
ungracious to the parties with whom he so stood, before he had mental
courage sufficient to abandon them. I may be wrong, but the whole of
his manner of talking of Mr. Hunt gives me this impression, though he
has not said what might be called an unkind word of him.

Much as Byron has braved public opinion it is evident he has a great
deference for those who stand high in it, and that he is shy
in attaching himself publicly to persons who have even, however
undeservedly, fallen under its censure. His expressed contempt and
defiance of the world, reminds me of the bravadoes of children, who,
afraid of darkness, make a noise to give themselves courage to support
what they dread. It is very evident that he is partial to aristocratic
friends, he dwells with complacency on the advantages of rank and
station, and has more than once boasted that people of family are
always to be recognised by a _certain air_, and the smallness and
delicacy of their hands.

* * * * *

NEW BOOKS.

THE PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF A WOMAN OF FASHION.

[This work is, to our thinking, what it professes to be, an
actual correspondence, and from the pen of a lady who, as her
motto states--"writes of countries and their societies as she
finds them, and as they strike her imagination." There is much
good sense in her letters, and less aristocratic affectation
than might be expected. The subjects are of the most
miscellaneous description. Her pen is what the small critics
call eminently graphic: in short, the work is one of the
pleasantest of the season. To be more explicit, it consists of
letters written between June, 1814, and December, 1816;
dated from South Lancing, (near Worthing), Rouen, Paris, and
Brussels; and the writer's _domicile_, Hampton Court. The most
interesting portion of the work is the gossip it contains on
the _state of things_ in the French capital, on the return
of Napoleon, in 1815, and in Brussels, before and after
the battle of Waterloo. Nevertheless, as the whole is
indiscribably discursive, so must be our quotations.]

_Arundel Castle._--Arundel Castle did not gratify my expectations
although the _coup d