OF ENGLISH SOCIETY. 27 But this eloquent panegyfist of alai. mated conversation seems to be a little mistaken in some of the causes to which Ghe ascribes the heaviness ofLondon par- ties. She laments with deeper concern than the occasion, even bad it been real, seems to require, that the great English gentlemen regularly retire, and spend nine months in the year on their estates in the country ! We wish she had hap- pened to mention in what quarter of the kingdom this annual retreat is made, where this voluntary exile to the native homeis to be found. We say voluntary, Tor British gentle- men are not relegues from our ,capital, as ex-ministers and discarded favourites used to be-from Paris. Neither the fate, nor the credit, nor the liberty, nor the choice of habitation of a man of rank in this country, depends on the favour of an arbitrary king ; nor does his hap- piness, his general acceptance, nor his respectability, hang on the smiles ofa (les- c
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