eradicate the
hatred of Philip--and of vociferous cries for relief from penury and
famine. "I am in extreme want, having exhausted the assistance of all my
friends, and no longer knowing where to find my daily bread," is the
terrible confession of the once favourite minister of the most powerful
monarch in Europe. He never touched the ground, or even gazed on the
distant hills of Spain again. In one of the obscure streets of Paris, in
solitude and poverty, he dragged the grief and infirmities of his old
age slowly towards the grave; and at length, in the seventy-second year
of his age, on a natural and quiet deathbed, closed the troubles of his
tempestuous existence.

Such is "this strange eventful history." Such was the incalculable
progeny of misery, disgrace, disaster, and ruin, involving himself, his
family, countless individuals, and an entire nation, which issued from
the guilty love of Perez and the Princess of Eboli.

_Antonio Perez and Philip II._ By M. MIGNET. Translated by C.
COCKS, B.L. London: 1846.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: "Dona Ana de Mendoza y de la Cerda," observes the historian
of the house of Silva, "the only daughter of Don Diego de Mendoza and
the Lady Catalina de Silva, was, from the blood which ran in her veins,
from her beauty, and her noble inheritance, one of the most desirable
matches (_apeticidos casamientos_) of the day!"]

RECOLLECTIONS OF A LOVER OF SOCIETY.

No. II.

1802.

All the great people of London, and most of the little, have been kept
in a fever of agitation during the last fortnight, by the preparatives
for the grand club ball in honour of the peace. Texier had the direction
of the fete, and he exhibited his taste to the astonishment of _les
sauvages Britanniques_. Never were seen such decorations, such chaplets,
such chandeliers, such bowers of roses. In short, the whole was a Bond
Street Arcadia. All the world of the West End were there; the number
could not have been less than a thousand--all in fancy dresses and
looking remarkably brilliant. The Prince of Wales, the most showy of men
every where, wore a Highland dress, such, however, as no Highlander ever
wore since Deucalion's flood, unless Donald was master of diamonds
enough to purchase a principality. The Prince, of course, had a separate
room for his own supper party, and the genius of M. Texier had contrived
a little entertainment for the royal party, by building an adjoining
apartment in