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Untitled Article
themselves , nobly as they have been allied , and highly as they have terminated for the present in the sweet and wi $ e blood of Lord Holland , one of " God Almighty ' s nobility , " originated in a singing-boy
( Stephen Fox ); and who that loves the open nature of Charles Fox , or the indulgent paternity of his father , or any other real virtues in this or any family in high life , would willingly rake up whatsoever faults might be found mixed with them , to the
chance of being considered a hypocrite and a fop , if such a man as Horace Walpole would leave other people ' s virtues alone , and not take up a baton m m _ i ¦• - ¦
sinister to lay it over the shoulders of the untitled ? Why , his- own friends and relations , including his father and mother , were tattled of in their day in connexion with all sorts of moral offences , gallantry in
particular . Divorces and natural children , and open scandal , kare rife among them . It was doubted by some , whether Horace himself was his father ' s own son ! Yet we do not find the prince of gossips crying out against
these things with the grief and agitation that afflict him at an honest marriage with the greenroom . He makes pastime of them with his correspondents , —mere " fun and drollery . " But in an actress ! or in a
Duchess who has been an actress ! That he calls relapsing into her " Polly hood . " Swift , on the other hand , did not wait for Duchesses to have been actresses , in order to think
Untitled Article
they might rank among the lowest of the sex ; for he speaks in one of his letters , of having been at a party the night before , where there were my lady this and that , and the "Duchess " of something , " and other drabs f" Nay , Horace hi mself might have said this , when in another humour ; but here is one of the preposterous assumptions of the " great world / ' or
rather the very heart of its mystery ;—it is to be allowed to rail at itself , as much as it will , and for all sorts of basenesses , while simply to be the great world , gives it a virtue above virtue , which no plebeian goodness is to think of approaching .
Since Walpole ' s time , the spread of education , and the general rise of most ranks in knowledge ( for the highest , with sullen folly , seem to think any addition to their stock unnecessary ) , have rendered it almost as ridiculous to make this
sort of lamentation over a marriage with the green-room , as it would be to think of shewing anything but respect to one with the learned professions .
The Pepyses and Halfords have delivered " the faculty" from the " prohibited degrees ; " and nobody would be surprised # owa-days , at hearing that a Lawrence or a Carlisle had married
the daughter of a nobleman . Almost as little does any one think of the Lady Derbys and Cravens with a feeling of levity or surprise . The staid conduct , and previous elegance of a succession of coronetted ac-
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fflarriages from the Stage . 1 ft&
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 1, 1837, page 175, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1835/page/31/
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