But I will sing him a song to-morrow:  I will please the honest man, if I can.  But he really should not have had for a wife a woman of so sweet a temper as your

Charlotte G——.

LETTER XLII

Lady G——­, to miss Byron
Monday, may 8.

My lord and I have had another little—­Tiff, shall I call it?  It came not up to a quarrel.  Married people would have enough to do, if they were to trouble their friends every time they misunderstood one another.  And now a word or two of other people:  not always scribbling of ourselves.

We have just heard, that our cousin Everard has added another fool of our sex to the number of the weak ones who disgrace it:  A sorry fellow!  He has been seen with her, by one whom he would not know, at Cuper’s Gardens; dressed like a sea-officer, and skulking like a thief into the privatest walks of the place.  When he is tired of the poor wretch, he will want to accommodate with us by promises of penitence and reformation, as once or twice before.  Rakes are not only odious, but they are despicable fellows.  You will the more clearly see this, when I assure you, from those who know, that this silly creature our cousin is looked upon, among his brother libertines, and smarts, as a man of first consideration!

He has also been seen, in a gayer habit, at a certain gaming-table, near Covent Garden; where he did not content himself with being an idle spectator.  Colonel Winwood, our informant, shook his head, but made no other answer, to some of our inquiries.  May he suffer! say I.—­A sorry fellow!

Preparations are going on all so-fast at Windsor.  We are all invited.  God grant that Miss Mansfield may be as happy a Lady W——­, as we all conclude she will be!  But I never was fond of matches between sober young women, and battered old rakes.  Much good may do the adventurers, drawn in by gewgaw and title!—­Poor things!—­But convenience, when that’s the motive, whatever foolish girls think, will hold out its comforts, while a gratified love quickly evaporates.

Beauchamp, who is acquainted with the Mansfields, is intrusted by my brother, in his absence, with the management of the law-affairs.  He hopes, he says, to give a good account of them.  The base steward of the uncle Calvert, who lived as a husband with the woman who had been forced upon his superannuated master in a doting fit, has been brought, by the death of one of the children born in Mr. Calvert’s life-time, and by the precarious health of the posthumous one, to make overtures of accommodation.  A new hearing of the cause between them and the Keelings, is granted; and great things are expected from it in their favour, from some new lights thrown in upon that suit.  The Keelings are frightened out of their wits, it seems; and are applying to Sir John Lambton, a disinterested neighbour, to offer himself as a mediator between them.  The Mansfields will so soon be related to us, that I make no apology for interesting you in their affairs.