ling eyes,
is the favourite elect of a well-known whig member; here she passes by
the name of the _Comic Muse_, the first letter of which will also answer
for the leading initial of her theatrical cognomen. Her, private history
is well-known to every son of _old Etona_ who has taken a _toodle_
over Windsor-bridge on a market-day within the last fifteen years,
her parents being market gardeners in the neighbourhood; and her two
unmarried sisters, both fine girls, are equally celebrated with the Bath
orange-women for the neatness of their dress and comeliness of their
persons. There is a sprightliness and good-humour about the _Comic
Muse_ that turns aside the shafts of ill-nature; and had she made her
selection more in accordance with propriety, and her own age, she might
have escaped our notice; but, alas!" said Crony, "she forgets that

'The rose's age is but a day;
Its bloom, the pledge of its decay,
Sweet in scent, in colour bright,
It blooms at morn and fades at night.

~18~~At this moment a dashing little horsewoman trotted by in great
style, followed by a servant in blue and gold livery; her bust was
perfection itself, but studded with the oddest pair of _ogles_ in the
world, and Crony assured me (report said) her person was supported by
the shortest pair of legs, for an adult, in Christendom. "That is the
_queen_ of the _dandysettes_," said my old friend, "Sophia, Selina, or,
as she is more generally denominated, _Galloping_ W****y, from a _long
Pole_, who settled the interest of five thousand upon her for her
natural life; she is since said to have married her groom, with,
however, this prudent stipulation, that he is still to ride behind
her in public, and answer all demands in _propria persona_. She is
constantly to be seen at all masquerades, and may be easily known by her
utter contempt for the incumbrance of decent costume." "How d'ye do? How
d'ye do?" said a most elegant creature, stretching forth her delicate
white kid-covered arm over the _fenetre_ of Lord Hxxxxxxx*h's _vis a
vis_. "Ah! _bon jour, ma chere amie_," said old Crony, waving his hand
and making one of his best bows in return. "You are a happy dog," said
I, "old fellow, to be upon such pleasant terms with that divinity. No
plebeian blood there, I should think: a peeress, I perceive, by the
coronet on the panels." "_A peine cognoist, ou la femme et le melon_,"
responded Crony, "you shall hear. Among the