have superior parts, General (at that time only Colonel) Charles Churchill, and others not necessary to rehearse, were constant attendants:  Miss Lepelle, afterwards Lady Hervey, my mother, Lady Walpole, Mrs. Selwyn, mother of the famous George, and herself of much vivacity and pretty, Mrs. Howard, and above all for universal admiration, Miss Bellenden, one of the maids of honour.  Her face and person were charming; lively she was almost to `etourderie; (105) and so agreeable she was, that I never heard her mentioned afterwards by one of her contemporaries who did not prefer her as the most perfect creature they ever knew.  The Prince frequented the waiting-room, and soon felt a stronger inclination for her than he ever entertained but for his Princess.  Miss Bellenden by no means felt a reciprocal passion.  The Prince’s gallantry was by no means delicate; and his avarice disgusted her.  One evening sitting by her, he took out his purse and counted his money.  He repeated the numeration:  the giddy Bellenden lost her patience, and cried out, “Sir, I cannot bear it! if you count your money any more, I will go out of the room.”  The chink of the gold did not tempt her more than the person of his Royal Highness.  In fact, her heart was engaged; and so the Prince, finding his love fruitless, suspected.  He was even so generous as to promise her, that if she would discover the object of her Choice, and would engage not to marry without his privity, he would consent to the match, and would be kind to her husband.  She gave him the promise he exacted, but without acknowledging the person; and then, lest his Highness should throw any obstacle in the way, married, without his knowledge, Colonel Campbell, one of the grooms of his bedchamber, and who long afterwards succeeded to the title of Argyle at the death of Duke Archibald. (106) The Prince never forgave the breach of her word; and whenever she went to the drawing-room, as from her husband’s situation she was sometimes obliged to do, though trembling at what she knew she was to undergo, the Prince always stepped up to her, and whispered some very harsh reproach in her ear.  Mrs. Howard was the intimate friend of Miss Bellenden; had been the confidante of the Prince’s passion; and, on Mrs. Campbell’s eclipse, succeeded to her friend’s post of favourite, but not to her resistance.

>From the steady decorum of Mrs. Howard, I should conclude that she would have preferred the advantages of her situation to the ostentatious `eclat of it:  but many obstacles stood in the way of total concealment; nor do I suppose that love had any share in the sacrifice she made of her virtue.  She had felt poverty, and was far from disliking power.  Mr. Howard was probably as little agreeable to her as he proved worthless.  The King, though very amorous, was certainly more attracted by a silly idea he had entertained of gallantry being becoming, than by a love of variety; and he added the more egregious folly of fancying that