moment of time to great-grandmotherhood. The stories about Ninon de
l'Enclos are French fables--speaking plainly, are falsehoods; and sorry
I am that a nation so amiable as the French should habitually disregard
truth, when coming into collision with their love for the extravagant.
But, if anything could reconcile me to these monstrous old fibs about
Ninon at ninety, it would be the remembrance of this English
enchantress on the high-road to seventy. Guess, reader, what she must
have been at twenty-eight to thirty-two, when she became the widow of
the Gerenian horseman, Harvey. How bewitching she must have looked in
her widow's caps! So had once thought Colonel Watson, who happened to
be in England at that period; and to the charming widow this man of war
propounded his hand in marriage. This hand, this martial hand, for
reason inexplicable to me, Mrs. Harvey declined; and the colonel
bounced off in a rage to Bengal. There were others who saw young Mrs.
Harvey, as well as Colonel Watson. And amongst them was an ancient
German gentleman, to what century belonging I do not know, who had
every possible bad quality known to European experience, and a solitary
good one, namely, eight hundred thousand pounds sterling. The man's
name was Schreiber. Schreiber was an aggregate resulting from the
conflux of all conceivable bad qualities. That was the elementary base
of Schreiber; and the superstructure, or Corinthian decoration of his
frontispiece, was, that Schreiber cultivated one sole science, namely,
the science of taking snuff. Here were two separate objects for
contemplation: one, bright as Aurora--that radiant Koh-i-noor, or
mountain of light--the eight hundred thousand pounds; the other, sad,
fuscous, begrimed with the snuff of ages, namely, the most ancient
Schreiber. Ah! if they _could_ have been divided--these twin yoke-
fellows--and that ladies might have the privilege of choosing between
them! For the moment there was no prudent course open to Mrs. Harvey,
but that of marrying Schreiber (which she did, and survived); and,