CHAPTER XIX.
A RARE AND EXQUISITE OF THE BEST (WORST) SCHOOL .-- A CONVERSATION ON A THOUSAND MATTERS .-- THE DECLENSION OF THE "SUI PROFUSUS" INTO THE "ALIENI APPETENS." There was, in the day I now refer to, a certain house in Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, which few young men anxious for the eclat of society passed without a wish for the acquaintance of the inmate.

To that small and dingy mansion, with its verandahs of dusky green, and its blinds perpetually drawn, there attached an interest, a consideration, and a mystery.

Thither, at the dusk of night, were the hired carriages of intrigue wont to repair, and dames to alight, careful seemingly of concealment, yet wanting, perhaps, even a reputation to conceal.

Few, at the early hours of morn, passed that street on their way home from some glittering revel without noticing some three or four chariots in waiting;--or without hearing from within the walls the sounds of protracted festivity.

That house was the residence of a man who had never done anything in public, and yet was the most noted personage in Society in early life, the all-accomplished Lovelace! in later years mingling the graces with the decayed heart and the want of principle of a Grammont.