There is more of the patter and fun of fashion in Lady Morgan's books
than in any other chronicles of the _ton_. Her last work, the _Book of
the Boudoir_, to use an Hibernicism, is not yet published; but from one
of its scenes shifted into the _Court Journal_, we pick the following
anecdote of John Kemble and her ladyship, (then Miss Owenson), about
twenty years since. All the town were then running mad after her "wild
Irish girl," and Miss O. was invited to a blue-stocking party, at the
mansion of the Dowager Countess of Cork, in New Burlington Street.

"Mr. Kemble was announced. Lady C----k reproached him as 'the late Mr.
Kemble;' and then, looking significantly at me, told him who I was.
Kemble, to whom I had been already presented by Mrs. Lefanu,
acknowledged me by a kindly nod; but the intense stare which succeeded,
was not one of mere recognition. It was the glazed, fixed look, so
common to those who have been making libations to altars which rarely
qualify them for ladies' society. Mr. Kemble was evidently much
pre-occupied, and a little exalted; and he appeared actuated by some
intention, which he had the will, but not the power, to execute. He was
seated _vis-à-vis_, and had repeatedly raised his arm, and stretched it
across the table, for the purpose, as I supposed, of helping himself to
some boar's head in jelly. Alas, no!--the _bore_ was, that my head
happened to be the object which fixed his tenacious attention; and which
being a true Irish _cathah_ head, dark, cropped, and curly, and struck
him as a particularly well organized Brutus, and better than any in his
_repertoire_ of theatrical perukes. Succeeding at last in his feline and
fixed purpose, he actually struck his claws in my locks, and addressing
me in the deepest sepulchral tones, asked--"Little girl, where did you
buy your wig?"