The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, Volumes One and Two Written by Herself

By this time, my most gentle readers are growing, _tant soi peu_, tired of--what they presume to call---my consummate nonsense! and an indulgent public is, I must however say, s...

What do you think of Elliston the actor? I will tell you my opinion. He is one of the most mercenary, selfish creatures I ever met with. I once thought better of him; that was a...

Meyler was in the country, unacquainted with my arrival. Fanny declared it would be absolute madness, not to make the Duke do something for me before I wrote to Meyler, and, in...

I will not say in what particular year of his life the Duke of Argyle succeeded with me. Ladies scorn dates! Dates make ladies nervous and stories dry. Be it only known then, th...

A few days after his departure I was surprised by a visit from Sir William Abdy, with whom I was but very slightly acquainted. I thought it strange his paying any visits so imme...

Half the world was at Elliston's masquerade, given at his place, as he calls the Theatre Royal, Drury-lane; therefore all I shall say about it is, that I never saw anything of t...

"Hum!" said Alvanly, at a large dinner-party just as the soup was being handed round, in unusual but very dignified silence. "Hum! this company is growing dull--I'll tell you a...

The next day, the one fixed on by Colonel Berkeley for our trip to Richmond, Sophia and the Colonel called for me at twelve o'clock, accompanied by that young savage, Augustus B...

His Grace of Beaufort had passed his word, as to the regular quarterly payment of an allowance which Worcester stipulated should be paid me if he left England; yet four months h...

On the Thursday which was to be big with the fate of Livius's farce, I took a party of friends to Mr. Elliston's private box. Drury Lane was crowded. Livius had at least eight p...

One Tuesday night, as Julia was not ready nor had even begun to dress when I called for her, I went to the Opera alone. Judge my surprise on entering my box, to find the front f...

As the day of trial drew near, I expressed my astonishment to my legal advisers that they wished me to bring forward a case like this, which I must inevitably lose if Lord Worce...

I am indeed most inexcusably forgetful, I should otherwise have described, in its proper time and place, that famous masquerade which was given by the members of Wattier's club,...

By a little before eight on the following evening, the party I have before mentioned all sat down to dinner at Lord Lowther's in Pall Mall. Lord Yarmouth was at the bottom of th...

"How do you do? how do you do?" said Lord Fife, as he joined us near Cumberland Gate. "Who is your friend?" he continued, appearing to eye Miss Higgins with looks of admiration,...

"I beg you fifty thousand pardons," bawled Lord Petersham to me one morning from his or some other person's gay barouche, as I stood at my drawing-room balcony; "but, to save ti...

We sat down at least thirty at table, and I was the only lady in company. However, as I had my station near Colonel Palmer, and was not presented to any strangers, I enjoyed the...

I shall not say why and how I became, at the age of fifteen, the mistress of the Earl of Craven. Whether it was love, or the severity of my father, the depravity of my own heart...

Lord Ponsonby often rated me about Lord F. Beauclerc, his relation, whom he always called Fred Diamond Eye; and Fred Beauclerc was continually teasing me about Ponsonby. I assur...

Lord Ebrington came to see me in town on his return from Italy, and declared me so delightful that I reminded him of _les beaux vieux temps passés_. I nevertheless went hack to...

Viscount Berwick was a nervous, selfish, odd man, and afraid to drive his own horses. Lord William Somerset was an excellent whip; but he had no horses to whip. Lord Berwick, li...

At nine o'clock on the following evening, Ponsonby entered the room, an altered man. He was one of the very few persons I have met with in my life, who, from the natural extreme...

What I have stated and mean to state hereafter I will abide by and swear to; and let them deny it if they can. I allude to all such facts as might be likely to prejudice my read...

Very soon after this I left London for Paris, as I have already described, and I must now carry my readers back a few pages, to that part of my Memoirs where I have stated that...

"My lord," Will Haught would say through the keyhole of our bed-room, "my lord, the duchess desired me to tell you that she has a great deal of business to settle with you to-da...

In a few days after this event we were on our road to London, where I soon learned all the most minute particulars of my sister Sophia's marriage with Lord Berwick from Fanny, w...

"Not at all, my dear, wild young lady," answered Mrs. Porter; "but I am now come to inform you that you have made the conquest of a very fine, noble, unexceptionable man."

The next day, as we were riding together over the Downs, I saw a deserter taken; and was so affected with the poor wretch's look of distress as to have burst into tears; at whic...

The Duke of Beaufort at last sent a notorious swindler of his acquaintance, who has since been confined in chains for forgery, one Mr. Robinson, who, as I have heard, had long b...

Meyler was man of the world enough to subdue his feelings so far as to treat Ebrington with something like civility. Not that he feared fighting; ridicule alone was the bugbear,...

I had acted my part well, and satisfied my pride, but not my heart. No matter. It won't do to play the game of hearts in Paris, and, wherever we may be, we must take the world a...

One day as I was sitting at dinner with Rosabella, a poor Italian introduced himself to her, and had the art to impose himself upon her as a countryman of her own of very high r...

Another hero in a passion! Another lover threatens prosecution! No less a personage than that most prolific Plenipo, the Hon. Frederick Lamb, who yesterday called on Stockdale t...

Two days after I had despatched the foregoing long letter to Fanny, the little post-woman--for we had no post-man; but a good old soul, who used to trot à l'Esterhazy--came down...

The next day, Henry Brougham, M.P., engaged me to dine with him at Verié's in the Palais Royal. He had invited Nugent and Luttrell to join us, but not Amy. The shrewd observatio...

The next morning my maid brought me a little note from Argyle to say that he had been waiting about my door an hour, having learned my address from poor Sheridan, and that, seei...

When I returned from Leicestershire, Colonel Parker was arrived from Spain, and Worcester hourly expected with despatches. My father proposed separating himself from my mother,...

Now what am I next to amuse my readers with? No, that's vanity. I meant to ask what I should try to amuse them with? Worcester is gone to his papa's, at Badminton; and I, being...

"Indeed, if I had known that, I would have gone to see you. I thought you were gone to Brussels or Versailles, when I did not see you pass in your carriage."

The next day I dined with Julia, Fanny was of the party. Julia was raving about Sir Henry Mildmay, by whom she professed to be pregnant. The shy Julia gloried in this _faux pas_.

Viscount Berwick, in a magnificent equipage drawn by four milk white horses, or four of raven black, I forget which, led the way towards Brighton, followed by the more humble ve...

He abused his uncle, Lord Charles Somerset, for his malice in having written to His Grace of Beaufort on the subject of our connection, in a way to alarm him excessively. Worces...

_Harriette Wilson, the daughter of John and Amelia Dubochet, was born in London on February_ 22, 1786. _Her birth is recorded in the Parish Register of St. George, Hanover Squar...

It was some time previous to the death of my sister, that I was induced by the advice of Mr. Brougham and Mr. Treslove to commence proceedings against the Duke of Beaufort for t...