DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0374
320
MISS JENNINGS.
therefore; first half seriously; and then in very resolute earnest; to
study Miss Jennings’s fortifications. What might have been the
event; history does not presume to guess; but; apparently; his
progress was not encouraging; and Miss Stewart; who was then
at the height of her power, was not inclined to give way to this
new rival. She was seized with a fit of pouting and penitence;—
dropped some hints about the Duke of Richmond; or a convent;
which brought the volatile monarch back to his allegiance; and
all the honours of his supposed discomfiture rested with Miss
Jennings. Scandal was silenced by a triumph which confounded
all the calculations of the most knowing* in these matters. Those
who had ever entertained hopes or designs unworthy of their
object now shrunk aloof, despairing to succeed where a King and
a Prince had failed; and honourable suitors flocked around her.
Just at this crisis; Richard Talbot returned from Ireland;
whither he had gone to forget Miss Hamilton’s charms and
cruelty; but apparently without success. On his arrival in the
court; he found Miss Jennings the last new topic of discourse.
All voices were raised in admiration of her charms; and wonder at
her prudence;—a prudence which so little accorded with the lively
and almost too unguarded frankness of her manner.
Dick Talbot, for so he was familiarly designated; was descended
from a younger branch of the Talbots of Malahide; who had been
settled in Ireland since the days of Henry II. He had attended
on the royal brothers in their exile; and to the Duke of York he
was devotedly and blindly attached; partly from a principle of
loyalty; and partly from a feeling of gratitude.
He was accounted the finest figure and the tallest man in the
kingdom; and set off his noble form by a peculiar loftiness in his
deportment. For his character; it seems to have combined
extremes of good and ill. He was dissipated; rapacious; boastful;
overbearing; loving bold ends for the sake of their boldnessj
MISS JENNINGS.
therefore; first half seriously; and then in very resolute earnest; to
study Miss Jennings’s fortifications. What might have been the
event; history does not presume to guess; but; apparently; his
progress was not encouraging; and Miss Stewart; who was then
at the height of her power, was not inclined to give way to this
new rival. She was seized with a fit of pouting and penitence;—
dropped some hints about the Duke of Richmond; or a convent;
which brought the volatile monarch back to his allegiance; and
all the honours of his supposed discomfiture rested with Miss
Jennings. Scandal was silenced by a triumph which confounded
all the calculations of the most knowing* in these matters. Those
who had ever entertained hopes or designs unworthy of their
object now shrunk aloof, despairing to succeed where a King and
a Prince had failed; and honourable suitors flocked around her.
Just at this crisis; Richard Talbot returned from Ireland;
whither he had gone to forget Miss Hamilton’s charms and
cruelty; but apparently without success. On his arrival in the
court; he found Miss Jennings the last new topic of discourse.
All voices were raised in admiration of her charms; and wonder at
her prudence;—a prudence which so little accorded with the lively
and almost too unguarded frankness of her manner.
Dick Talbot, for so he was familiarly designated; was descended
from a younger branch of the Talbots of Malahide; who had been
settled in Ireland since the days of Henry II. He had attended
on the royal brothers in their exile; and to the Duke of York he
was devotedly and blindly attached; partly from a principle of
loyalty; and partly from a feeling of gratitude.
He was accounted the finest figure and the tallest man in the
kingdom; and set off his noble form by a peculiar loftiness in his
deportment. For his character; it seems to have combined
extremes of good and ill. He was dissipated; rapacious; boastful;
overbearing; loving bold ends for the sake of their boldnessj