“. . . I have nothing to tell you, except that
Mother P. certainly goes to the Tea Garden to-morrow night, to meet her husband. It was
her own idea, but I highly approve of it on his account;
and as the Dss. of York goes, it is fit
Mrs. P. should go too, if it were only for 5 minutes.
The consternation of Prinnie is wonderful.
I’ll bet a little money he don’t go himself, so that the whole
thing will have gone off as well as possible. Young
P. and her father have had frequent rows of late, but one pretty
serious one. He was angry at her for flirting with the D. of Devonshire, and suspected she was talking politics. This
began it. It signifies nothing how they go on this day or that—in the
long run, quarrel they must. He has not equality of
temper, or any other kind of sense, to keep well with her, and she has a spice
of her mother’s spirit: so interfere they must at every turn. . . . I
suspect they will befool the above duke. He is giving in to it, I hear, and
P. will turn short-about, in all likelihood, after
making him dance and dangle about, and perhaps break with his friends, and
| 1813-14.] | PARTISANS. | 183 |
“I may be wronging the young man after all, for I am out of the way of hearing anything. Since the last time I saw you, I have only been twice to the westward of Charing Cross. Once was to see Lord Thanet. He is quite well again, and in high force—particularly abusive of Prinney, whom he objects to on account of his vulgarity, and compares to the Bourgeois Gentilhomme in Moliere—a name which has got about, and must inevitably annoy P. more than even ‘our fat friend.’ . . .”
