t at last to exert
her supernatural power to some extent in order to carry the recreant
into her "cool grot," not, indeed, under water, but invisibly situated
on land. What there takes place is, unfortunately, as has been said,
mainly the telling of a very dull story with one not so dull episode.
But the conclusion of the preface exemplifies the whimsicality even of
the writer, and points to the existence of a commodity in the fashion of
wig-wearing which few who glory in "their own hair," and despise their
periwigged forefathers, are likely to have thought of:

[Sidenote: Hamilton and the Nymph.]

At these words [_her own_] raising her eyes to heaven, she
sighed several times; and though she tried to keep them
back, I saw, coursing the length of her cheeks and falling
on her beautiful neck, tears so natural, in the midst of a
silence so touching, that I was just about to follow her
example.[293] But she soon recovered herself; and having
shown me by a languishing look that she was not insensible
to my sympathetic emotion ... [_she enjoins discretion, and
then_:--] After having looked at me attentively for some
time she came closer to me, and as she gently pulled one
side of my wig in order to whisper in my ear, I had to lean
over her in a rather familiar manner.[294] Her face touched
mine, and it seemed to me animated by a lively warmth, very
different from the insensibility which I had accused[295]
her of shedding upon me when she came out of the water. Her
breath was pure and fresh, and her goddess-ship, which I had
suspected of being something marshy, had no taint of mud
about it. If only I might reveal all that she said to me in
a confidence which I could have wished longer![295] But
apparently she got tired of it[295] and let go my wig.
"'Twould be too tiresome," she said, "to go on talking like
this. Go out there, and leave us alone!" I turned round, and
seeing no one in the room, I thought this order was
addressed to me, so I was just rising....

This quaint presentation of a craven swain is perhaps as good an example
as could be found of the curious mixture of French and English in
Hamilton. Hardly any Frenchman could have borne to put even a fictitious
eidolon of himself in such a contemptible light; very few Englishmen,
though they might easily have done this, would have done it so