equipage and dress, in the course of one season have
thrown all the most established beaux and pretty fellows into the shade;
to whom dedications and odes and _billet-doux_ are so much waste paper;
who has carried off the most general envy and dislike that any man ever
was blest with, since St. John turned politician; what! thou all of a
sudden to become a railer against the divine sex that made thee what
thou art! Fly, fly, unhappy apostate, or expect the fate of Orpheus, at
least!"

"None of your raileries, Tarleton, or I shall speak to you of plebeians
and the _canaille!_"

"_Sacre_! my teeth are on edge already! Oh, the base, base _canaille_,
how I loathe them! Nay, Devereux, joking apart, I love you twice as well
for your humour. I despise the sex heartily. Indeed, _sub rosa_ be it
spoken, there are few things that breathe that I do not despise. Human
nature seems to me a most pitiful bundle of rags and scraps, which the
gods threw out of Heaven, as the dust and rubbish there."

"A pleasant view of thy species," said I.

"By my soul it is. Contempt is to me a luxury. I would not lose the
privilege of loathing for all the objects which fools ever admired. What
does old Persius say on the subject?

"'Hoc ridere meum, tam nil, nulla tibi vendo Iliade.'"*

* "This privilege of mine, to laugh,--such a nothing as it seems,--I
would not barter to thee for an Iliad."

"And yet, Tarleton," said I, "the littlest feeling of all is a delight
in contemplating the littleness of other people. Nothing is more
contemptible than habitual contempt."

"Prithee, now," answered the haughty aristocrat, "let us not talk of
these matters so subtly: leave me my enjoyment without refining upon it.
What is your first pursuit for the morning?"

"Why, I have promised my uncle a picture of that invaluable countenance
which Lady Hasselton finds so handsome; and I am going to give Kneller
my last sitting."

"So, so, I will accompany you; I like the vain old dog; 'tis a pleasure
to hear him admire himself so wittily."

"Come, then!" said I, taking up my hat and sword; and, entering
Tarleton's carriage, we drove to the painter's abode.

We found him employed in finishing a portrait of Lady Godolphin.

"He, he!" cried he, when he beheld me approach. "By Got, I am glad to
see you, Count Tevereux; dis painting is tamned poor work by one's self,
widout any one to make _des grands yeux_, and cry, 'Oh, Sir Godfrey
Kneller, how fine