Harriette Wilson

The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson Written By Herself

1825. The Navarre Society, 1924. 2 vols.

In a fit of folly I wrote a letter to Lord G. [Granville] L. [Leveson] Gower, requesting him to come and meet me in the Regent's Park at eleven o'clock on a Sunday morning; at the same time assuring him, that desirous as I was, from all I had heard of his perfections, to make his acquaintance, yet, if he expected to please me, he must show me just as much respect and humble deference, as though I had not ordered him up to Marylebone Fields to be looked at.

The most celebrated courtesan of the Regency period, Harriette was described by Sir Walter Scott as 'far from beautiful...but a smart saucy girl with good eyes and dark hair, and the manners of a wild schoolboy'. Bored with her current liaison and feeling 'le besoin d'aimer', she had asked 'my young admirer, the Duke of Leinster...who was best worth having'.

Arrived at the park, she realizes that she has no idea what he looks like. However it's not difficult to distinguish the only 'gentleman' from those in their 'Sunday new coats and bran new yellow leather gloves'; the problem rather is that 'I felt at once that he was not in any respect cut out for the honour of filling up the void in my heart...I conceived that, having brought a man up to Marylebone Fields on such a terribly hot morning, it would not have been fair or lady-like to have dismissed him, until I had given his talents and powers of pleasing a fair trial. I walked him up to the tip-top of Primrose Hill, and then towards Hampstead, and then back again to Great Portland Street.'

Exhausted, his lordship declares he can go no further. Harriette hopes that no fatal consequences will follow 'our little rural bit of pleasure', then 'frankly declared to him that he was not in the least the sort of person I wanted'. He seems to have taken it in good part.