My Dear Betsey: I [Inclosure to her niece] BELIEVE I once promised to give you an account of that kind of visiting called a ladies' rout. There are two kinds; one where a lady sets apart a particular day in the week to see company. These are held only five months in the year, it being quite out of fashion to be seen in London during the summer. When a lady returns from the country she goes round and leaves a card with all her acquaintance, and then sends them an invitation to attend her routs during the season. The other kind is where a lady sends to you for certain evenings, and the cards are always addressed in her own name, both to gentlemen and ladies. The rooms are all set open, and card tables set in each room, the lady of the house receiving her company at the door of the drawing-room, where a set number of courtesies are given and received, with as much order as is necessary for a soldier who goes through the different evolutions of his exercise. The visitor then proceeds into the room without appearing to notice any other person, and takes her seat at the card table. "Nor can the muse her aid impart, At these parties it is usual for each lady to play a rubber, as it is termed, when you must lose or win a few guineas. To give each a fair chance, the lady then rises and gives her seat to another set. It is no unusual thing to have your rooms SO crowded that not more than half the company can sit at once, yet this is called society and polite life. They treat their company with coffee, tea, lemonade, orgeat, and cake. I know of but one agreeable circumstance attending these parties, which is, that you may go away when you please without disturbing anybody. I was early in the winter invited to Madame de Pinto's, the Portuguese Minister's. I went accordingly. There were about two hundred persons present. I knew not a single lady but by sight, having met them at Court; and it is an established rule, though you were to meet as often as three nights in the week, never to speak together, or know each other unless particularly introduced. I was, however, at no loss for conversation, Madame de Pinto being very polite, and the foreign ministers being the most of them present, who had dined with us, and to whom I had been early introduced. It being Sunday evening, I declined playing cards; indeed, I always get excused when I can. And Heaven forbid I should "Catch the manners living as they rise." Yet I must submit to a party or two of this kind. Having attended several, I must return the compliment in the same way. Yesterday we dined at Mrs. Paradice's. I refer you to Mr. Storer for an account of this family. Mr. Jefferson, Colonel Smith, the Prussian and Venetian ministers, were of the company, and several other persons who were strangers. At eight o'clock we returned home in order to dress ourselves for the ball at the French Ambassador's, to which we had received an invitation a fortnight before. He has been absent ever since our arrival here, till three weeks ago. He has a levee every Sunday evening, at which there are usually several hundred persons. The Hotel de France is beautifully situated, fronting St. James's Park, one end of the house standing upon Hyde Park. It is a most superb building. About half-past nine we went, and found some company collected. Many very brilliant ladies of the first distinction were present. The dancing commenced about ten, and the rooms soon filled. The room which he had built for this purpose is large enough for five or six hundred persons. It is most elegantly decorated, hung with a gold tissue, ornamented with twelve brilliant cut lustres, each containing twenty-four candles. At one end there are two large arches; these were adorned with wreaths and bunches of artificial flowers upon the walls; in the alcoves were cornucopiæ loaded with oranges, sweetmeats, and other trifles. Coffee, tea, lemonade, orgeat, and so forth, were taken here by every person who chose to go for them. There were covered seats all around the room for those who chose to dance. In the other rooms, card tables, and a large faro table, were set; this is a new kind of game, which is much practiced here. Many of the company who did not dance retired here to amuse themselves. The whole style of the house and furniture is such as becomes the ambassador from one of the first monarchies in Europe. He had twenty thousand guineas allowed him in the first instance to furnish his house, and an 109 annual salary of ten thousand more. He has agreeably blended the magnificence and splendor of France with the neatness and elegance of England. Your cousin had unfortunately taken a cold a few days before, and was very unfit to go out. She appeared so unwell that about one we retired without staying for supper, the sight of which only I regretted, as it was, in style, no doubt, superior to anything I have seen. The Prince of Wales came about eleven o'clock. Mrs. Fitzherbert was also present, but I could not distinguish her. But who is this lady? methinks I hear you say. She is a lady to whom, against the laws of the realm, the Prince of Wales is privately married, as is universally believed. She appears with him in all public parties, and he avows his marriage wherever he dares. They have been the topic of conversation in all companies for a long time, and it is now said that a young George may be expected in the course of the summer. She was a widow of about thirty-two years of age, whom he a long time persecuted in order to get her upon his own terms; but finding he could not succeed, he quieted her conscience by matrimony, which, however valid in the eye of heaven, is set aside by the laws of the land, which forbids a prince of the blood to marry a subject. As to dresses, I believe I must leave them to be described to your sister. I am sorry I have nothing better to send you than a sash and a Vandyke ribbon. The narrow is to put round the edge of a hat, or you may trim whatever you please with it. T HENRY ADAMS (1838-) HE gifts of expression and literary taste which have always characterized the Adams family are most prominently represented by this historian. He has also its great memory, power of acquisition, intellectual independence, and energy of nature. The latter is tempered in him with inherited self-control, the moderation of judgment bred by wide historical knowledge, and a pervasive atmosphere of literary good-breeding which constantly substitutes allusive irony for crude statement, the rapier for the tomahawk. Henry Adams is the third son of Charles Francis Adams, Sr., the able Minister to England during the Civil War, and grandson of John Quincy Adams. He was born in Boston, February 16th, 1838, graduated from Harvard in 1858, and served as private secretary to his father in England. In 1870 he became editor of the North American Review and Professor of History at Harvard, in which place he won wide repute for originality and power of inspiring enthusiasm for research in his pupils. He has written several essays and books on historical subjects, and edited others, 'Essays on Anglo-Saxon Law' (1876), 'Documents Relating to New England Federalism' (1877), 'Albert Gallatin' (1879), 'Writings of Albert Gallatin' (1879), John Randolph' (1882) in the American Statesmen' Series, and 'Historical Essays'; but his great life-work and monument is his "History of the United States, 1801-17' (the Jefferson and Madison administrations), to write which he left his professorship in 1877, and after passing many years in London, in other foreign capitals, in Washington, and elsewhere, studying archives, family papers, published works, shipyards, and many other things, in preparation for it, published the first volume in 1889, and the last in 1891. It is in nine volumes, of which the introductory chapters and the index make up one. The work in its inception (though not in its execution) is a polemic tracta family vindication, an act of pious duty; its subtitle might be, 'A Justification of John Quincy Adams for Breaking with the Federalist Party.' So taken, the reader who loves historical fights and seriously desires truth should read the chapters on the Hartford Convention and its preliminaries side by side with the corresponding pages in Henry Cabot Lodge's 'Life of George Cabot.' If he cannot judge from the pleadings of these two able advocates with briefs for different sides, it is not for lack of full exposition. But the History' is far more and higher than a piece of special pleading. It is in the main, both as to domestic and international matters, a resolutely cool and impartial presentation of facts and judgments on all sides of a period where passionate partisanship lies almost in the very essence of the questions a tone contrasting oddly with the political action and feeling of the two Presidents. Even where, as toward the New England Federalists, many readers will consider him unfair in his deductions, he never tampers with or unfairly proportions the facts. The work is a model of patient study, not alone of what is conventionally accepted as historic material, but of all subsidiary matter necessary to expert discussion of the problems involved. He goes deeply into economic and social facts; he has instructed himself in military science like a West Point student, in army needs like a quartermaster, in naval construction, equipment, and management like a naval officer. Of purely literary qualities, the history presents a high order of constructive art in amassing minute details without obscuring the main outlines; luminous statement; and the results of a very powerful memory, which enables him to keep before his vision every incident of the long chronicle with its involved groupings, so that an armory of instructive comparisons, as well as of polemic missiles, is constantly ready to his hand. He follows the latest historical canons as to giving authorities. The history advances many novel views, and controverts many accepted facts. The relation of Napoleon's warfare against Hayti and Toussaint to the great Continental struggle, and the position he assigns it as the turning point of that greater contest, is perhaps the most important of these. But almost as striking are his views on the impressment problem and the provocations to the War of 1812; wherein he leads to the most unexpected deduction,- namely, that the grievances on both sides were much greater than is generally supposed. He shows that the profit and security of the American merchant service drew thousands of English seamen into it, where they changed their names and passed for American citizens, greatly embarrassing English naval operations. On the other hand, he shows that English outrages and insults were so gross that no nation with spirit enough to be entitled to separate existence ought to have endured them. He reverses the severe popular judgment on Madison for consenting to the war-on the assumed ground of coveting another term as President - which every other historian and biographer from Hildreth to Sydney Howard Gay has pronounced, and which has become a stock historical convention; holds Jackson's campaign ending at New Orleans an imbecile undertaking redeemed only by an act of instinctive pugnacity at the end; gives Scott and Jacob Brown the honor they have never before received in fair measure; and in many other points redistributes praise and blame with entire independence, and with curious effect on many popular ideas. His views on the Hartford Convention of 1814 are part of the Federalist controversy already referred to. THE THE AUSPICES OF THE WAR OF 1812 From the History of the United States,' Vol. vii., Chap. 1 HE American declaration of war against England, July 18th, 1812, annoyed those European nations that were gathering their utmost resources for resistance to Napoleon's attack. Russia could not but regard it as an unfriendly act, equally bad for political and commercial interests. Spain and Portugal, whose armies were fed largely if not chiefly on American grain imported |