Page:Paul Clifford Vol 2.djvu/219

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PAUL CLIFFORD.
211

No sooner were the cards issued for Lord Mauleverer's fête, than nothing else was talked of among the circles, which at Bath people were pleased to term "the World."—Sometime or other we intend more poetically than these pages will suffer us, to take notice of the amusements and pursuits of that said "World," in whatever corner of England it may be found. Grant us patience, Heaven,—power and patience to tell the people of what stuff "Fashion" is made;—while other Novelists praise, imitate, exalt the vicious inanities of a hoary aristocracy, grown to that age when even the respectable crimes of its earlier youth sink into drivelling,—grant us the ability to expose and to deride them, and we will not ask the blessing to bequeath any other moral to our sons!

But, in the interim, caps are making, and talk flowing, at Bath; and when it was found that Lord Mauleverer—the good-natured Lord Mauleverer!—the obliging Lord Mauleverer!—was really going to be exclusive, and out of a thou-