CHAPTER XXI.
AN EVENT OF GREAT IMPORTANCE TO THE PRINCIPAL ACTORS IN THIS HISTORY .-- GODOLPHIN A SECOND TIME LEAVES ENGLAND.
Goldolphin was welcomed with enthusiasm by the London world.

His graces, his manners, his genius, his bon ton, and his bonnes fortunes, were the theme of every society.

Verses imputed to him,--some erroneously, some truly,--were mysteriously circulated from hand to hand; and every one envied the fair inspirers to whom they were supposed to be addressed.
It is not my intention to reiterate the wearisome echo of novelists, who descant on fashion and term it life.

No description of rose-coloured curtains and buhl cabinets--no miniature paintings of boudoirs and salons--no recital of conventional insipidities, interlarded with affected criticisms, and honoured by the name of dramatic dialogue, shall lend their fascination to these pages.

Far other and far deeper aims are mine in stooping to delineate the customs and springs of polite life.