This journal, being solely devoted to the illustration
of the life of a single and a private individual, was appropriately
entitled 'The Universe.' Its contributors were eminently successful.
Their pure inventions and impure details were accepted as delicate
truth; and their ferocious familiarity with persons with whom they were
totally unacquainted demonstrated at the same time their knowledge both
of the forms and the personages of polite society.
At the first announcement of this hebdomadal his Grace was a little
annoyed, and 'Noctes Hautevillienses' made him fear treason; but when
he had read a number, he entirely acquitted any person of a breach of
confidence. On the whole he was amused. A variety of ladies in time were
introduced, with many of whom the Duke had scarcely interchanged a bow;
but the respectable editor was not up to Lady Afy.
If his Grace, however, were soon reconciled to this not very agreeable
notoriety, and consoled himself under the activity of his libellers
by the conviction that their prolusions did not even amount to a
caricature, he was less easily satisfied with another performance which
speedily advanced its claims to public notice.
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