Three Weeks at Fladong's, by a Late Visitant - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1817. Excerpt: ... THREE WEEKS FLADONG'S. CHAP. I. An introduction at the outset to some fashionable acquaintance.--A transient glance at the character of Lord Venal.--Lord Booby.--Captain Steeple and Sophia Squeamish.--The rubber at whist.--An interruption by the arrival of two travellers.--The Honorable Dowlas Kincat and his protegee.--Old friendship renewed A hasty portrait of Sally, and the effects produced by her appearance upon the whole of the party. Lord Venal was universally accounted the most gentlemanly looking lord in the British peerage. He was about thirty, and had come to the title only within the last few days; but for ten years past, there was scarcely a belle of taste and celebrity who had not sighed in secret for a more intimate acquaintance with an individual of such vast endowments; and who, whenever 6he met him in Bond-street or any other fashionable lounge, had not broke out into a studied ejaculation, just loud enough for him to catch the words en passant,--" What an angelic man!" It follows, as a natural effect, that his lordship was an object of envy to many a gay beau, who was compelled to hide his diminished head, and to shrink into temporary oblivion, whenever this sun of the mode was by; and who could only revenge himself by depreciating him when he was absent. As it frequently occurs that a gem of very little consideration is enclosed within a costly and high-wrought ca binet; so hath nature oftentimes created a body of her most exquisite workmanship to conceal a mind diminutive and deformed, coating over with a varnish of most imposing appearance an intellect of the narrowest capacity and the meanest properties. Thus had she dealt with my Lord Venal. Blessed with every exterior grace to win the heart of woman through the eye, he possessed no ...