hat a
certain amount of baseness and dirt-eating, quite degrading in a man,
might be permitted to a woman, even to the lady of his thoughts. And
still I cannot help thinking that Alfieri, who could certainly, with his
strong will, have prevented the Countess from demeaning herself, and in
so far demeaning also his love for her, quietly abetted this step, and
then as quietly consigned it to oblivion.

But oblivion did not depend upon registration, or non-registration,
in Alfieri's memoirs. The letters of Walpole, the memoirs of Hannah
More, the political correspondence collected by Lord Stanhope, furnish
abundant detail of this affair. The Countess of Albany was introduced
by her relation, or connexion, the young Countess of Aylesbury, and
announced by her maiden name of Princess of Stolberg. Horace Walpole's
informant, who stood close by, told him that she was "well-dressed, and
not at all embarrassed." George III. and his sons talked a good deal to
her, about her passage, her stay in England, and similar matters; but
the princesses none of them said a word; and we hear that Queen Charlotte
"looked at her earnestly." The strait-laced wife of George III. had
probably consented to receive the Pretender's widow, only because this
ceremony was a sort of second burial of Charles Edward, a burial of all
the claims, the pride of the Stuarts; but she felt presumably no great
cordiality towards a woman who had run away from her husband, who was
travelling in England with her lover; and who, while affecting royal
state in her own house, could crave the honour of being received by the
family of the usurper.

Mme. d'Albany was not abashed: she seems to have made up her mind to get
all she could out of royal friendliness. She accepted a seat in the
King's box at the opera; nay, she accepted a seat at the foot of the
throne ("the throne she might once have expected to mount," remarks
Hannah More), on the occasion of the King's speech in the House of
Lords. It was the 10th of June, the birthday of Prince Charlie; and the
woman who sat there so unconcernedly, kept a throne with the British
arms in her ante-room, and made her servants address her as a Queen!

What were Alfieri's feelings when Mme. d'Albany came home in her Court
toilette, and told him of all these fine doings? The more we try to
conceive certain things, the more inconceivable they become: it is like
straining to see what may be hidden at the bottom of a very deep well