There is yet much
behind. You may add to the catalogue Melton and Newmarket; and if to
hunt without an appetite and to bet without an object will not sicken
you, why, build a yacht!
The Duke of St. James gave his first grand entertainment for the season.
It was like the assembly of the immortals at the first levee of Jove.
All hurried to pay their devoirs to the young king of fashion; and each
who succeeded in becoming a member of the Court felt as proud as a
peer with a new title, or a baronet with an old one. An air of
regal splendour, an almost imperial assumption, was observed in the
arrangements of the fete. A troop of servants in rich liveries filled
the hall; grooms lined the staircase; Spiridion, the Greek page, lounged
on an ottoman in an ante-chamber, and, with the assistance of six young
gentlemen in crimson-and-silver uniforms, announced the coming of
the cherished guests. Cartloads of pine-apples were sent up from the
Yorkshire Castle, and waggons of orange-trees from the Twickenham Villa.
A brilliant coterie, of which his Grace was a member, had amused
themselves a few nights before by representing in costume the Court of
Charles the First.
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