The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 369: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

336 THE COURT OF LONDON He wandered into a tavern near the foot of Westminster Bridge, and ordering some refreshments, sat down to reflect upon his position, and he already began to think that it were much better to have kept the five thousand guineas and re- mained in prison, than to have come forth penniless. For a moment it struck him that he would write to Lady Curzon and demand a few hundred pounds on the pretext that it was rendering him no service to release him from prison and leave him destitute. But to attempt any further extortion within a few hours after the display of such bounteous munificence on her part was an infamy even too great for Colonel Malpas to contemplate seriously, unscrupulous and heartless though he were. But still recurred the question, what was he to do? In the midst of his bewilderment his eye casually fell upon a paragraph in a newspaper that lay before him, and in which some court scribe had indulged in a flaming eulogium upon Lady Sackville, extolling her for so many charities, amenities, and estimable qualities, that if she had only possessed a tithe of them in reality she would have been a perfect angel. As the colonel read this panegyric, his thoughts were suddenly turned into a new channel. Venetia was assuredly generous-hearted, and, moreover, she had risen to so high an eminence that she could afford to be Magnanimous and forgiving. What if he were to write and implore her intervention in procuring for him the pardon of the prince regent for his past misconduct? If his Royal Highness could only be induced to take him by the hand, all his former friends would flock around him again, he might get back into society, and still find means of push- ing his way 1n the world. The hope was a desperate one, but the man’s position itself was desperate, and he could lose nothing by the trial. He accordingly proceeded to pen a most humble, contrite, and even grovelling letter to Lady Sackville, confessing him- self a reptile deserving only to be trodden beneath her heel, but appealing to her generosity for pardon and to her mag- nanimity for succour. He declared himself her slave, ready to lick the dust at her feet, and willing to go to the ends of the earth, if he could serve her. In fine, he wrote just such a letter as might be expected from a sneaking, paltry coward, reduced to his last shifts, and compelled to have Gomicbooks (E(0)