known to occupy apartments in the same
house."

The earliest distinguished name of an
inhabitant of this spot in the parish-books is
that of the Duchess of Mazarin, in the year
one thousand six hundred and ninety-two.
We know not which house she lived in; but
the reader must imagine her, after the good
French fashion, taking her evening walk in
the square, the envy of surrounding petticoats,
accompanied by a set of English and French
gallants, Villiers, Godolphins, Ruvignys, &c.,
among whom is her daily visitor and constant
admiring old friend, St. Evremond, with his
white locks, little scull-cap, and the great wen
on his forehead. He idolises her to the very
tips of her fingers, though she borrowed his
money, which he could ill afford, and gambled
it away besides, which he could not but pray
her not to do. He also begged her to resist
the approaches of usquebaugh.

The Duchess was then six-and-forty, an
Italian, with black hair; and, according to his
description of her, still a perfect beauty.
Fielding thought her so when she was
younger, for he likens her portrait to Sophia
Western.

Hortensia Mancini was niece of Cardinal
Mazarin, at whose death (to use her own
words, in the Memoirs which she dictated to
Saint Real) she became " the richest heiress,
and the unhappiest woman in Christendom;"
that is to say, she found she had got a jealous,
mean bigot for her husband, who grudged
her a handsome participation of the money
he obtained with her; and, as this was
touching her on the tenderest point, she ran
away from him in pure desperation, to see
how she could enjoy herself elsewhere, and
what funds to pay for it she would get out of
him, by disclosing their quarrels to the world.
The Duke (his name was Meilleraye, but he
took the name of Mazarin when he married
her) was inexorable, and not to be scandalised
out of his meanness; so his wife, after divers
'spanderings which got her scandalised in her
turn, came into England on pretence of visiting
her cousin Mary of Este, Duchess of York,
but in reality to get a pension from Charles
the Second. This she did, to the amount of
four thousand a year; every penny of which
was probably grudged her by the lavish king
himself, who could not afford it, and who is
said to have been disgusted by her falling in
love with another man the moment she got
it. Charles, when in exile, had sued for
Hortensia's hand in vain from her uncle the
Cardinal, who thought the royal prospects
hopeless, and who was in fear of the Protector.
Madame de Mazarin, however, continued to
flourish among the ladies at Whitehall during
Charles's reign; she had half her pension
confirmed to her by King William; did
nothing from first to last but keep company
and gamble it away; and six years after her
residence at Kingston, died so poor, at a
small house in Chelsea (the last, as you go

from London, in Paradise Row), that her
body was detained by her creditors till her
husband redeemed it. The husband
embalmed it; and surviving her many years, is
said (which is hardly credible) to have
carried it about with him all that time, wherever
he went, as if determined on having the
woman with him, dead, who would not
"abide " him while she was living.

Madame de Mazarin was praised by Saint
Evremond for every kind of good quality
except prudence in money matters. When
she was a girl, she tells us that she and her
sisters one day threw upwards of three
hundred louis out of window, for the pleasure of
seeing a parcel of footmen scramble and fight
for them. They must have been louis d'ors,
or so many pound sterling; a sum worth
two or three times the amount at present.
She says that the amusement was thought to
have hastened her uncle's death. She was
afterwards accused, while in a convent, where
her husband succeeded in "stowing" her for
a time, of putting ink into the holy water box
(to blacken the nuns' faces), and of frightening
them out of their sleep at night, by running
through the dormitory with a parcel of little
dogs, yelping and howling. She says that
these stories were either inventions or
exaggerations; but we are strongly disposed to
believe them.

NUMBER FORTY-TWO.

The true original Number Forty-two — of
which a copy may be seen in any of the
thousands of towns and cities between Nepau
and Ceylon — is situated in the very heart of
the black town of Colombo, amidst the streets
in which dwell natives, half-castes, and
Eurasians, or country-born descendants of
Europeans. It is to be found in the chief
thoroughfare of the town, if such a term as
thoroughfare can properly be applied to the
narrow choked-up passage boiling over with
hot coolies, enraged bullock-drivers, furious
horsekeepers, dusty hackeries, and ricketty
palanquins.

This state of tropical conglomeration will
be more readily understood when I mention
that the carriage-way or street is the only
passage available for pedestrians and eques
trians, for bipeds and quadrupeds. The
Dutch, when masters of the place, had
provided every house with broad
luxuriant verandahs, covered in and nicely
paved; so that the dwellers in the town
might not only sit out under shade in the
open air of an evening; but during the furious
heat of the day, could walk from one end of
the street to the other under these broad
and pleasant covered ways. Now, however,
these verandahs have been appropriated
and railed off, as open receptacles of all
sorts of merchandise. Where in former
jolly days radiant Dutchmen sat and smoked
their pipes, and quaffed Schiedam, are now