friend. It is necessary to mention this lady
particularly, as well as her sisters: they were the daughters of Henry
Bulkeley, son to the first viscount of that name: their father had been
master of the household to Charles: their mother was Lady Sophia Stewart,
sister to the beautiful Duchess of Richmond, so conspicuous in the
Grammont Memoirs. The sisters of the Duchess of Berwick were Charlotte,
married to Lord Clare, Henrietta, and Laura. They all occupy a
considerable space in Hamilton's correspondence, and the two last are the
ladies so often addressed as the Mademoiselles B.; they are almost the
constant subjects of Hamilton's verses; and it is recorded that he was a
particular admirer of Henrietta Bulkeley; but their union would have been
that of hunger and thirst, for both were very poor and very illustrious:
their junction would, of course, have militated against every rule of
common prudence. To the influence of this lady, particularly, we are
indebted for one or two of Hamilton's agreeable novels: she had taste
enough to laugh at the extravagant stories then so much in fashion, "plus
arabes qu'en Arabie,"

[They were wretched imitations of some of the Persian and Arabian
tales, in which everything was distorted, and rendered absurd and
preposterous.]

as Hamilton says; and he, in compliance with her taste, and his own, soon
put the fashionable tales to flight, by the publication of the 'Quatre
Facardins', and, more especially, 'La Fleur d'Epine'. Some of the
introductory verses to these productions are written with peculiar ease
and grace; and are highly extolled, and even imitated, by Voltaire. La
Harpe praises the Fleur d'Epine, as the work of an original genius: I do
not think, however, that they are much relished in England, probably
because very ill translated. Another of his literary productions was the
novel called Le Belier, which he wrote on the following occasion: Louis
XIV. had presented to the Countess of Grammont (whom he highly esteemed)
a remarkably elegant small country house in the park of Versailles: this
house became so fashionable a resort, and brought such constant visitors,
that the Count de Grammont said, in his usual way, he would present the
king with a list of all the persons he was obliged to entertain there, as
more suited to his Majesty's purse than his own: the countess wished to
change the name of the place from the vulgar appellation of Le Moulineau
into that of Penta