Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/107

 detestable person he was. How many saw their prospects blasted by him for ever!"

Lady Hester continued: "Oh! when I think that I have heard a sultan" (meaning George IV.) "listen to a woman singing Hie diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon, and cry, 'Brava! charming!'—Good God! doctor, what would the Turks say to such a thing, if they knew it?

"There was Lord D., an old debauchee, who had lost the use of his lower extremities by a paralytic stroke—the way, by the by, in which all such men seem to finish; nay, I believe that men much addicted to sensuality even impair their intellects too—one day met me on the esplanade, and, in his usual way, began talking some very insipid stuff about his dining with the Prince, and the like; when James, who overheard the conversation, made an impromptu, which exactly described one of the Prince’s dinners; and, though I don’t recollect it word for word, it was something to this effect:—

"I remember the Prince’s saying to Lord Petersham, 'What can be the reason that Lady Hester, who likes all my brothers, does not like me?' Lord P.