bute of great
beauty, and lively, without the not less invidious faculty of wit. All
the court officials crowded her apartments in the palace. Chesterfield,
young Churchill, Lord Hervey, Lord Scarborough, all hurried to the
tea-table of the well-bred bedchamber-woman, to escape the dreary duties
and monotonous moping of attendance on the throne. Lady Walpole, Mrs
Selwyn, Mary Lepell, and Mary Bellenden, formed a part of this
coterie--all women of presumed character, yet all associating familiarly
with women of none. Of Mrs Howard, Swift observed in his acid
style--"That her private virtues, for want of room to operate, might be
folded and laid up clean, like clothes in a chest, never to be put on;
till satiety, or some reverse of fortune should dispose her to
retirement."

Then, probably in reference to the prudery with which she occasionally
covered her conduct,--"In the meantime," said he, "it will be her
prudence, to take care that they be not tarnished and moth-eaten, for
want of opening and airing, and turning, at least _once a-year_."

Those matters seem to have sought no concealment whatever. "Es regolar,"
says the Spaniard, when his country is charged with some especial
abomination. Howard, the husband, though a _roue_, at last went into the
quadrangle at St James's and publicly demanded his wife. He then wrote
to the Archbishop. His letter was given to the Queen, and by her to Mrs
Howard. Yet all this scandal never interrupted the lady's intercourse
with the highest personages of the court. Mrs Howard continued to be the
Queen's bedchamber woman; the Queen suffered her personal attendance,
her carriage was escorted by John Duke of Argyle; her husband obtained a
pension to hold his tongue; and even when the King grew tired of the
_liaison_, and wished to get rid of her, actually complaining to the
Queen, "That he did not know why she would not let him part with a deaf
old woman, of whom he was weary," the politic Caroline would not allow
him to give her up, "lest a younger favourite should gain a greater
ascendency over him." After this, we must hear no more of the delicacy
of Queen Caroline. Virtue and religion scarcely belonged to her day.

In a court of this intolerable worldliness, the worldly must thrive; and
Mrs Clayton advanced year by year in the imitation of her mistress, and
in power. She, as well as Lady Suffolk, adopted Caroline's patronage of
letters, and corresponded a good deal with the clever m