WIVES OF THE PRIME MINISTERS
moment, and then said with emphasis and distinctness, "Give my compliments—give Lady Jersey's compliments to the Duke of Wellington, and say that she is very glad that the first enforcement of the rule of exclusion is such that hereafter no one can complain of its application. He cannot be admitted." This occurred in 1819. Lady Jersey is described in Disraeli's Sybil, under the name of Lady St. Julians, as one of the great political ladies who "think they can govern the world by what they call their social influences." Almack's made a very brilliant scene: the halls were large, beautifully lighted, and the music and the floor of the best. All the arrangements tended to ease and comfort, there was no ceremony, no regulations or managing—that is to say, once within the charmed circle, there were no hindrances to perfect enjoyment and perfect freedom within the limits of good breeding. It may be mentioned here that Lord Palmerston, considered to be something of a dandy in the second decade of the nineteenth century, was at that time one of the leading lights of Almack's, and a special favourite of Lady Jersey and Lady Cowper. Bulwer, the novelist, who as a young man was a frequenter of Almack's, wrote a poem entitled "Almack's,
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