Chapter V · 1813-1816.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Bursledon Lodge, Feb. 7, 1813.

I am very happy to find you once more exerting your powers for our instruction and amusement. The second part of the Cottage Dialogues appears to me worthy of its predecessor; less humorous, perhaps, and less marked by a certain undescribable naïveté, but often pathetic, and always inculcating the purest morality. I could have wished the dialogue on Seduction, and the subsequent death of Thady’s victim, omitted, as it makes the volume less fit for children, to whom it might in so many respects be useful. Perhaps I am mistaken, but it appears to me that it is safest to keep all such events, with whatever purity they may be described, out of the view and the thoughts of children and very young people: and on this principle perhaps Pamela and Clarissa may be considered as highly dangerous works. How the former could ever have been mistaken for a novel of a moral tendency (though I fully believe the author intended it as such), is very surprising. As to Clarissa, a judicious selection from it, with slight alterations, would be a valuable present to the rising generation; one that should wholly conceal the blackest part of Lovelace’s conduct, and make her death proceed from remorse for her elopement, and grief for the implacability of her father, the sorrows of her mother, and the hastiness of her choice,—as she might be supposed to have discovered Lovelace to be unworthy of her in a variety of ways. In this Clarissa for Young Women, as it might be called, all the objectionable details should be omitted; and those parts of her character preserved, which are so well calculated to excite an enthusiastic sense of duty to parents, of charity, of religion, and particularly of the value of time. But all this is idle prate; and perhaps it is best the ‘Young Women’ should never open the book.

I could not but smile at the graceful naïveté and enthusiasm of friendship which sent one of my letters to Mr. Wilkinson, in order to be placed amongst those of ‘eminent persons.’ I feel obliged to make poor Mr. Wilkinson some amends for your thus imposing on him, however unintentionally on your part. I therefore asked Mrs. Barnard, who happened to be present when your letter arrived, to procure me one of the Mr. Windham’s; and I send you for him an Italian sonnet, in the fairy penmanship of Miss Ponsonby, of Llangollen. I believe the sonnet is unpublished.

TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.

Bath, March 12, 1813.

I have not passed four evenings from home since we parted. The false animation of acquaintances pretending to be friends, the slight gaiety of an assembly, and the satisfaction of hearing I look wonderfully well for my time, have done their duty, and divert me no more. My sweet children are my only real pleasures. —— has a depth of feeling very extraordinary. He began to question me upon one whom you and I speak of no more; and was very anxious to know why no other since that time had made me quite so happy. At last he said, as if he was satisfied at having found out the cause, and conceived it not to disparage my present love for him—‘I believe it is because he did die,’ with a certain solemnity of accent which I cannot describe. How much he must have felt and observed to arrive at this conclusion.

—— thought Miss K. handsome on the report of two or three people, but four or five have found her coarse, slouchy, red-armed, and somewhat like a housemaid; you know how much ‘love’s arrows go by hearsay.’ Moreover, she splashed through a bolero at an assembly where no one else danced but her and her partner; and with her large figure and strong countenance looked as if she was going to box. That is an improvement on the general expression of the dance, which always seems to say, ‘My name is Temptation; Touch me not.’ This ingenious dance is, you know, contrived to show how great a degree of assurance and airs de dragon can be united to pretty music and measured steps. Its gaiety and boldness will always recommend it to the majority; but there cannot be worse taste than making young ladies the performers.

M—— has written a kind letter to inform me of his intended marriage. I am delighted that people who love should marry; but when I know not the other party, and that it is my friend that has the worst of the worldly part of the contract, it is mere affectation and deceit to pretend to be quite satisfied, until one arrives at being a saint.

June 14, 1813.—The variations of the English climate may assist to increase the sensibility of the English character. Yesterday the sun shone resplendent on a country covered with the softest, deepest verdure, blushing with roses, and perfumed with honeysuckle; while a few fleecy clouds added pomp and richness and variety to the bright blue sky. The mind, enlivened by the scenery, expatiated on scenes of love and life and joy. To-day the whole horizon is enveloped in a thick fog; a chilling air distracts our thoughts by a slight sense of suffering from the objects around us, which, shrouded in mist, have lost half their beauty. The heart which but yesterday was filled with ideas of pleasure, is turned to-day to thoughts of privation, of fading glory, of decaying nature. In what variety of lights do these sudden changes present the same object, and what food do they furnish for meditation!

June 24.—The collection of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ pictures now offered to the public eye, is perhaps unique in its kind, as composed of more fine works by a single artist than have ever yet been seen together. They derive peculiar interest from this circumstance. The collection seems to be animated by one soul—the emanation of one powerful mind. Ugolino is probably the most pathetic picture extant, as exhibiting the highest degree of moral and physical suffering inflicted on those whose countenances bespeak exquisite sensibility, and accompanied with the utter extinction of hope—each individual agonizing at once by his own pains, and by the sufferings of those who are dearest to him. It is like a tragedy of Shakespeare on canvas.

TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.

London, June 27, 1813.

I got a Director’s ticket for Sir Joshua Reynolds’ on Friday evening. They were in great request, being no more in number than the three rooms would conveniently hold, and were bespoke for weeks before. The evening exhibitions, which were only once a week, closed that evening, and only the Directors had tickets. It is the order of the day to call these meetings ‘the best assembly in town.’ They began at nine, and ended nominally at eleven, but the Duchess of York did not come in till past eleven. What a ridiculous freak of fashion to be anxious to see pictures by candlelight, merely because money will not admit one, when people can admire them so much better by daylight on any morning they please to go; or was it set on foot by the superannuated beauties, who do themselves justice, and know they are not fit to be seen by daylight?

Ugolino is the most pathetic picture I ever saw (N.B. I went in the morning also)—unutterable, hopeless anguish, moral and physical, suffered in one’s own person, and in the persons of the dearest objects of one’s love—a suffering to which all human beings are exposed, and which none can ridicule as romantic, or despise as ignoble. If it was as old as the Laocoon, it would be as much, perhaps more, admired. It is delightful to see at once, transferred into so many works, the whole soul and genius of an artist so elevated as Sir Joshua.

Tell me about the babes; I long for their sweet musical clamour, and to see them circling me like the spheres, all in harmonious, beautiful, and perpetual motion.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

London, July 31, 1813.

The great object of curiosity now in London, is Mad. de Staël. The envy she excites in her own sex is painfully disclosed by their continual remarks on her total want of grace and beauty, in short, on her being a large, coarse, and homely woman. One is tempted to say—‘Who ever inquires what is the plumage of the nightingale?’ Mrs. Jones, a lively friend of mine, put an end to a discussion of the kind in three words, ‘In short, she is most consolingly ugly,’ thus by one happy phrase criticizing the critics with a light yet sharp touch. These critics would inveigh with more justice against the tiresome uses she often makes of her powers. One hates to see a drawing-room turned into a fencing school. I always wish somebody would say with Richard III.,

She has been received with all the honours due to her genius, sought for in every society; and the Prince Regent, with more appearance of taste than he now often displays, went to Lady Heathcote’s one evening purposely that she might be presented to him previously to her appearance at his fête, where she could not have gone without being introduced before it.

I suppose you know that Tommy Moore has lost all his prospects of advancement by publishing The Twopenny Post Bag;—Lord Moira refusing on this account to take him to India, where he had intended to provide for him. He has gained in fame what he has lost in profit; as, although his former works had many admirers, some disliked, and some despised them, how justly I will not pretend to say; but all acknowledge the wit and humour of this last production. It is not free from blemishes, but perhaps as much so as any work we know, entirely and professedly satirical.

Aug. 4, 1813.—Met Lord Lauderdale at dinner at Lady Lansdowne’s.—“I once saw Sheridan and Mad. de Staël together. She praised his morality, while he extolled her beauty. I sold a book at the highest price ever paid in England, Fox’s work.[49] Two booksellers offered me £4000; I told them it was impossible to decide between them. One refused to add to his first offer, the other offered £500 more. He lost by it. Robertson’s Charles the Fifth sold for £5000. The size of the book considered, it was not so much. No other has ever sold at so great a price. Mad. de Staël has received here £1500 for her work on Germany, suppressed at Paris. She publishes it with notes, marking the passages she supposes to have been obnoxious to the French Government.” He should have said to ‘Buonaparte,’ for despotism is an unit, and ‘Government’ to English ears implies plurality.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.

August 14, 1813.

Mr. Marsh dined here yesterday, supposed to be the author of the admired letters that appeared this year in the Times under the name of Vetus.[50] He did not talk so much or so well as usual, for we had a petrifying coxcomb of the party. He mentioned that Mad. de Staël, who was always clumsy, and had a peculiarly large foot, once exhibiting herself on a pedestal as an antique figure, one of the spectators whispered, ‘Voilà un vilain pied de Staël,’ a bon mot, though an ill-natured one. We had music in the evening. Miss M—— is a fine thundering player of the new Beethoven school; and Lady A——’s sweet little robin red-breast finger made a pretty contrast, pleasing to me who can admire merit in various styles. Indeed, I believe the less exclusive is one’s taste, and the more one can extend its limits, so as to like what is good in every direction, the more one will naturally enjoy, and perhaps animate, social life. Adieu. Honour me not with needless envelopes. ‘Ce petit garçon oublie que je suis dévote,’ said a ci-devant mistress of Louis XIV., when a servant offered her a glass of liqueur; so you sometimes forget that I have arrived at thinking all waste is blameable.

Oct., 1813.—The Giaour is a trial of skill how far picturesque, animated, and eloquent description will please, without dignity or delicacy of character, novelty of scene or manners, interesting narrative, or elevated sentiments. Events similar to those recorded in this tale have not only been thrice told, but three hundred times; and, in point of manners, every one who has read a book of Travels in Turkey, knows too well all of which he is here reminded, not to feel a certain disappointment at being carried so far and shown nothing new. When St. Pierre in Paul and Virginia leads us to the Isle of France, another world is opened to our view; a refreshing, invigorating clime enchants our senses, where we see the pure and simple sources of human happiness, the sparkling, living fountains of innocence, and love, and joy. It is an earthly paradise, worthy to succeed that where Milton has placed our first parents; and assimilated to our tenderest feelings by ties more numerous, if singly less powerful. The East also may have its ‘fresh fields and pasture new,’ but Lord Byron has not introduced us to them.

The story of The Giaour could hardly be comprehended by human ingenuity, if it did not turn on circumstances the most commonplace, as we are only presented with unconnected fragments from the lips of two nameless narrators, who ask a variety of questions, and whom we should be glad to question a little in our turn. Fragments of this uninteresting story are tricked out in gaudy colouring, and amidst a greater proportion of indifferent lines than are fairly admissible in so short a production, we meet occasional proofs of originality and genius. Still The Giaour ranks far below any former production of the same author. It contributes, as far as its mite goes, to injure the taste of the age, by reducing poetry merely to an amusement for a vacant hour, instead of employing it to elevate our minds, soften our hearts, and refine our pleasures. Whether these effects are produced by sentiments, by characters, by imagery, is immaterial. When they are not produced, when poetry addresses herself chiefly through the ear to the eye, she must be on the decline; and this decline works like The Giaour at once accelerate and proclaim.

Nov. 22.—How rapid is the fall of this ‘Lucifer, son of the morning,’ whose portentous splendour so long dazzled and misguided the nations of the earth. England, that citadel of the world, that guardian of civilization, the asylum of fallen royalty, of persecuted genius, and of proscribed virtue, now begins to reap the harvest of her generous toils.

Nov. 23.—Overcome to-day with joy at the intoxicating rapidity of our successes. I felt a throb of exultation and gratitude only to be tranquillized by raising one’s heart and one’s tearful eyes to Heaven. I am glad I left my retirement and am amongst a multitude on this occasion. The joy that is shared with numbers seems purified and exalted. I found Bath to-day in an effervescence of joy;—the waggoners and chimney-sweeps decorated with laurel in honour of Lord Wellington’s victories, and the hope that Holland will break her chains. It is pleasing to see the pulse of public feeling beat in the very extremities. I met Mrs. Bonnefée, the Dowager Lady Ely’s mother, also wearing her sprig of laurel—at eighty-four.

Nov. 24.—Je lis Mad. de Staël sur l’Allemagne. Il me paroit qu’un peintre d’un génie supérieur me montre les desseins qu’il a faits sur des lieux qui m’interessoient vivement, et que je ne reverrai plus. Elle donne une idée précise de cette philosophie de Kant que mon amie, la Comtesse Münster m’a tant pressée d’étudier.[51] C’est la morale du Christianisme dépourvue de l’amour, et de l’espoir, et mélée d’une espèce de stoicisme moins imposante que celui des anciens. Il est beau de voir que les recherches métaphysiques les plus sévères nous conduisent au même but moral que le Christianisme, quoique c’est par un chemin aride, loin des sources d’eau vivante—ou, dans les paroles de David, ‘dans un désert sec et stérile où l’eau ne coule pas.’

Dec. 3.—Saw the Indian Jugglers. They act on a small slightly elevated stage, surrounded by a blaze of lamps. Two are men between twenty and thirty, the other a youth of sixteen. Dressed in white, with turbans, the ease of their attitudes, and serenity of their countenances, where light and evanescent shades of melancholy and gaiety alone break the predominant expression of repose, strike a European eye as novel and pleasing. Deep thought has never contracted those brows; strong feeling has never quivered on those lips; that face is a waveless lake, sometimes gently swelling, sometimes sparkling in the sun, but never agitated with tempests, or chafing against its bounds.

In the tricks of jugglers I have small delight. I see without interest the ball under the cup, though I may have had reason to suppose it in the juggler’s hand; or the beads strung with his tongue, or the entire thread so adroitly substituted for that which has been reduced to fragments that my senses are completely deceived. I view with pain those exhibitions where skill is ever on the verge of danger; and I have a sensation of mingled disgust and horror when I see a man actually sheath in his throat a bar of steel twenty-two inches long, a quarter of an inch thick, and one broad. The prettiest part of the exhibition was a sportive manner of throwing about in all directions, with ease, grace, and skill, four bright brazen balls. It seemed like the coruscations of a firework, or as if a fallen spirit amused himself by flinging stars and meteors in the air.

All was accompanied by songs from the youngest performer, somewhat monotonous, but not unpleasing, and expressive of a sort of melancholy gaiety, if the expression may be tolerated.

TO WILLIAM LEFANU, ESQ.[52]

Dec. 15, 1813.

I have many apologies to offer for my long silence, having been occupied by arrangements relative to my son’s departure for the Hague. You know the dreary vacuity which succeeds the departure of one we love. It is rendered still more striking by the preceding bustle of preparation, and is a faint shadow of

which most of us have already experienced.

I have received no reply from the Duchess of Dorset. Retirement sadly clips one’s wings as to any power of being useful. For that purpose they certainly grow best ‘in the various bustle of resort.’ I had more influence when I less knew how to make a reasonable use of it.

Your idea that a considerable portion of eternal happiness may arise from seeing the full blow and ripe fruits of any good seed sown in this life, is extremely natural. The converse has presented itself to my imagination more than once as a just representation of ‘the worm that never dies.’

You did me the honour to ask what I thought of Kean. I saw him but once, and imperfectly, being shut up, like a mouse in a telescope, in one of the wretched private boxes, which savour more of self-denial, penance, and privation, than any views of pride or pleasure. The diminutive oval aperture at the end of our long and doleful den gave me no opportunity of seeing him well, as we were a large party, and I was too distant to judge of his countenance. Yet he delighted me in Richard the Third. He carries one’s views forwards and backwards as to the character, instead of confining them, like other actors, within the limits of the present hour; and he gives a breadth of colouring to his part that strongly excites the imagination. He showed me that Richard possessed a mine of humour and pleasantry, with all the grace of high breeding grafted on strong and brilliant intellect. He gave probability to the drama by throwing this favourable light on the character, particularly in the scene with Lady Anne; and he made it more consistent with the varied lot of ‘poor humanity.’ He reminded me constantly of Buonaparte—that restless quickness, that Catiline inquietude, that fearful somewhat resembling the impatience of a lion in his cage. Though I am not a lover of the drama (will you despise me for the avowal?), I could willingly have heard him repeat his part that same evening.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Bursledon Lodge, Dec. 15, 1813.

Both your letters reached me this evening on our return from a journey to Bath and London, which absorbed about a fortnight. I feel for the mother’s grief in losing her little blossom. ’Tis a more serious calamity than any one, except a mother, can imagine—I should have said, a parent, for I do believe with you, that a father often suffers quite as much. Do you remember Mrs. Grant’s stanza on the loss of her husband? What you say recalled it to my memory:—

There is something to me inexpressibly affecting in these lines. Pray tell me soon that your daughter continues to recover. Unless under very peculiar circumstances, the loss of an infant is much less injurious to a youthful mother than the sight of its sufferings. I cannot bear, however, to hear any one too decisive on what may or may not deeply wound the bosom of another. Mad. de Staël justly says, ‘Nul a le droit de contester à un autre sa douleur.’ There is much implied in this short sentence.

TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.

Bursledon Lodge, Dec. 20, 1813.

What meanness of mind it shows to fasten upon the plain person of a woman of genius, the imprudence of a wit, or the dulness of a beauty. I am very much displeased with the constant remarks on Mad. de Staël’s exterior. However, it consoles many for the thought that she will be admired when we are all forgotten. As to Canning’s conversation giving her more emotion than pleasure, it is easiest to be understood by supposing her to like him in some nuance of loverly feeling. In this light there is great honesty in the confession. All eloquence creates emotion, but that emotion is pleasure; while the emotion created by the conversation of a lover may be of every shade from Stygian darkness to the most dazzling brilliancy. I am surprised that Mad. de Staël, herself the wife of a diplomat, and having lived in good company at Paris, should have questioned the Regent. As you say, it is a breach of royal prerogative. But I think royalty itself readily forgives failures in etiquette, though its satellites are most indignant on the occasion. When poor Mel walked out before all the princesses of the German Empire, it almost threw some of the vieux routiers into convulsions; but the persons concerned looked on it as it was, a pardonable forgetfulness, and distinguished her just as kindly after as before.

I passed a pleasant day at Mrs. ——’s. We were nearly a female party; and the only blot on the conversation was the little, mean, detracting gossip against Lady —— (who has taken Mr. Baring’s for the honeymoon) and Mrs. ——, a ci-devant London belle come to settle for a time at Southampton. They do not forgive the former for having a ducal coronet in prospect, nor the latter her fading advantages of person and manner, and her grown-up daughters, fine girls whom she has brought to the overstocked balls at Southampton. Lady R—— is ‘very sorry for Miss B——,’ and says so as if she could Roast her. She cannot yet bring herself to call her Lady ——. It appears they were intimates at Bath.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Bursledon Lodge, Dec. 23, 1813.

I am a little angry with the lady who might have introduced me to your friends at Bath; but do you know I am the less surprised in proportion to the years I have passed in the world; for generally speaking, people have a strange dislike to introducing their friends to each other. This is very common, and, according to Hannah More, ‘much too common to be right.’ I suspect it proceeds from the consciousness of endeavouring to be, not in the best sense of the words, ‘all things to all men,’ of acting somewhat a part, and of appearing to different friends rather what the actor thinks will please, than what he really is.... All this is pitiful: how different is my dear Mrs. Leadbeater, who is uneasy till all her friends know and like each other. What a gem is simplicity of character, and how careful in educating ought we to be to weed out all finesse and management. I know children so educated will often fail in politeness, till their knowledge of what gives pain or pleasure becomes extensive; but their sincerity is often amusing, even when at the expense of civility. ‘——, my dear, pray read to yourself.’ ‘Yes, mamma, and I wish you would sing to yourself.’ There are many whom I hear, to whom I should make use of this phrase, if I were not restrained by feelings he cannot understand.

The following poems certainly do not belong to the later period of the writer’s life, and I therefore insert them here.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., THE HAGUE.

Bursledon Lodge, Jan. 3, 1814.

I am now reading Mad. de Staël’s Allemagne: I find it amusing to skim, but not to read attentively. The eternal comparison between France and Germany becomes tiresome, when pursued through three large octavos; and she is often unintelligible to me. Her being so, the Edinburgh Reviewers state to proceed from her superiority to her readers, alone. Dangerous doctrine for the guardians of literature to promulgate! I retain a strong prejudice in favour of those who write to be understood, as well as to be admired; and all who have stood the test of time unite clearness with eloquence. Fine writing may possess deep and refined beauties, only to be felt by superior minds, but in the same passages there is ever a plain meaning obvious to all who are fully acquainted with the language. In this it somewhat resembles true religion and the style of the sacred Volume.

Mad. de Staël’s well-bred determination never to see any but the beauties of the German authors whose works she describes, who are mostly cotemporaries, is graceful, conciliatory, and prudent; but lessens the value and interest of her discussions. The merits of an author are best understood and felt when contrasted with his defects. When his beauties alone are displayed, we have a Chinese picture, painted without shade, gaudy and obtrusive, without the softness of nature, or the mellowness of the best style of art.

TO THE SAME.

Bursledon Lodge, Jan. 16, 1814.

Zadig entertained me when I read it; but I know not any author who less improves or animates than Voltaire. And I have never known any man rise above mediocrity who habitually sought amusement from that voluminous but monotonous writer; for monotonous he is, except in his tragedies. He presents only the same trite and discouraging ideas in a variety of dress. The sauce is piquante, but the meat detestable. ‘Il a plus que tout le monde l’esprit que tout le monde a,’ describes his style very exactly; nothing original, but the general pleasantry and wit of Parisian society and Belles Lettres and Esprits Forts, concentrated and made up into packets of all sizes—compact little doses of poison in vendible and attractive forms.

I am reading Miss Seward’s Letters. Walter Scott, in reducing to six octavos the twelve folio volumes of her own Letters, which she left for publication,[53] has cruelly lopped her eloquent panegyric of your mother, who is dismissed with the laconic phrase of ‘lovely and accomplished.’ So there are no further hopes of immortality from that quarter.

TO THE SAME.

Bursledon Lodge, Jan. 29, 1814.

We are still snow-bound; and if we had been a quarrelsome pair, we have had a fine opportunity, as the bad weather found us tête-à-tête, and after its commencement all hopes of relief were at an end. We have nothing to do but wait patiently for its close, which, after near a month, seems rapidly approaching. Feb. 2.—The above was written a few days since. The snow is now nearly thawed, and I was delighted to see this beautiful country throw off its glaring white mask, and give us once more its own charming, varied, and expressive features.

As all the external changes of my life consist now in the books I read, I must talk to you of them. We have been amused by Colton’s Hypocrisy. It is a witty, entertaining production—a country cousin to The Pursuits of Literature—less courtly, less eloquent, less conversant with capitals and fine people, but still showing a strong family likeness.

Je relis actuellement Mad. de Sévigné, et La Fontaine. Je veux dire ses Fables; car on dit que ses Contes ne sont pas faits pour les yeux d’une femme. Pour Mad. de Sévigné, le reproche qu’on lui fait de montrer plus d’amour pour sa fille qu’elle n’en ressentait, ou que le cœur humain n’en pouvait ressentir, me paroit très ridicule, quand j’examine mes sentiments pour vous. Ecrivez-moi promptement, je vous prie; parlez-moi, premièrement, de vous, en second, et en troisième lieu, de vous, et de vous. Ainsi vous êtes sûr de me faire plaisir. Avez-vous dansé, chanté, dessiné? Enfin, comment vont les beaux arts? Avez-vous fait des vers? Patinez-vous? Avez-vous fait une course en traineau? et comment trouvez-vous cet amusement? Je n’ai été en traineau qu’une fois, à Brunswick. Il m’a paru fort agréable; mais dans tout ce qui se lie avec mes souvenirs de l’Allemagne, je me soupçonne d’un peu de prévention. Il est sûr que la langue n’est pas douce, et, malgré cela, quand je l’entends par hazard et subitement, elle me fait toujours l’effet d’une musique touchante et inattendue. Je suis fâchée de vous dire, malgré cela, que, faute d’étude, je l’ai presque oubliée. J’en ai eu la preuve l’autre jour, en cherchant à retrouver dans Werther une idée exprimée par Mad. de Staël.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

London, June 13, 1814.

Business has brought us to London; and the difficulty of procuring good apartments while the Great People were there, detained us till after their departure. My curiosity is not lively, and I made no effort to see them, except going one morning to Portsmouth to witness the entrée of Alexander; which enabled me to say I had seen the outside of a shabby coach containing an Emperor within. This is the ‘head and front’ of my knowledge of this last truly brilliant and heroic spectacle. I should have been pleased to see the King of Prussia, from my gratitude for the peculiar kindness with which I was distinguished by his charming Queen. She was the means of my taking a near view of so much Court parade as has entirely satiated my curiosity or interest on that subject.

June, 1814.—Lord Nelson’s Letters to Lady Hamilton, though disgraceful to his principles of morality on one subject, do not appear to me, as they do to most others, degrading to his understanding. They are pretty much what every man, deeply entangled, will express, when he supposes but one pair of fine eyes will read his letters: and his sentiments on subjects unconnected with his fatal attachment are elevated—looking to his hearth and his home for future happiness; liberal, charitable, candid, affectionate, indifferent to the common objects of pursuit, and clearsighted in his general view of politics and life.

July 3.—Saw the Duke of Wellington received at the opera with rapturous applause. Every eye beamed on him with delight, and cold must have been the heart which did not throb with an accelerated movement. The unanimous expression of that noble sentiment, admiration of great actions, is extremely affecting; and those indefinite sounds of exultation and applause used by men to express feelings for which words are inadequate, form part of that universal language more impressive than the speech of any individual nation.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., THE HAGUE.

Bursledon Lodge, July 12, 1814.

I have just passed a pleasant fortnight in London, and went to say my prayers at St. Paul’s on the day of the Thanksgiving, where certainly the assemblage of nearly all that was dignified by rank or station in England, collected for a solemn purpose in a magnificent building, formed a fine and imposing spectacle. I met an old friend, Sir J—— D——, on the steps of the cathedral, and was surprised to see him grown old, with grey hair, red face, and a large stomach. He must have seen greater changes in me; but I always think I am to find people where I left them. However, for what he has lost in the gifts of nature, there was some little compensation in those of fortune, for he was splendidly decorated with stars, ribbons, &c., and attended by smiling aide-de-camps and fierce grenadiers. He was really very glad to see me. I also met on the same spot Lady Frances Beresford, whom I had not seen since she was nearly as young as the daughter who then hung on her arm; and her I did not recollect, nor she me, till I spoke; and then we began to stare and wonder at each other. How few have honesty to say that such meetings are at first unpleasant.

Had you received my former letters, you would have known that your adding German to the list of your acquirements gives me great pleasure. En apprenant les langues on exerce et on fortifie son esprit. On élargit le cercle de ses idées, et on les rend plus nettes et plus précises. Rien n’est plus faux que l’opinion banale qu’en étudiant les langues on ne s’occupe que des mots. C’est une des phrases, inventée par l’envie, et mise en crédit par la paresse. D’ailleurs il y a des trésors dans la littérature allemande; et le peu que nous en connaissons en Angleterre, n’est précisément que ce qu’il faut pour nous en donner une idée très injuste.

Enfin vous avez vu l’Empereur. Rien dans les personnages impériaux et royaux qui nous ont visités, n’était si extraordinaire, que la curiosité qu’a témoignée toute l’Angleterre de les voir, de leur parler, de les toucher. Comme Shakespeare dans The Tempest a bien remarqué ce trait national! Cherchez le passage. L’Empereur a été, ou a paru, charmé de tout le monde, et tout le monde charmé de lui. Il s’est plu particulièrement dans la société de quelques membres de l’Opposition, et il a dit, ‘Ils sont les meilleurs hommes du monde, et je veux avoir une Opposition aussi, quand je serai de retour en Russie.’ J’aime bien cette phrase d’un Autocrat. C’est vraiment comique. Au reste, il s’est bien laissé voir, entendre, et toucher. Il a embrassé une trentaine de dames à Portsmouth, qui se promenaient la nuit pour voir les illuminations; j’ai vu le mari d’une de ces personnes favorisées, qui était aussi le frère de deux autres également distinguées, et il a dit:—‘Indeed, it was very condescending of the Emperor and the Regent. I am sure it was a thing we never could have expected.’ Au reste, le Régent est charmé de leur départ.

TO THE SAME.

Bursledon Lodge, July 28, 1814.

Votre dernière lettre m’a fait rire et pleurer. Il y a peu de personnes dans le monde qui possèdent le don d’exciter ou les ris ou les pleurs; encore moins qui ont le double talent que vous avez montré. Votre dessein d’étudier le Français dans toutes ses nuances me fait plaisir, et comme nous oublions rarement les fautes que nous avons commises nous-mêmes contre le génie d’une langue, si quelqu’un les relève, je vais chercher votre dernière lettre (qui est déjà serrée parmi les bijoux les plus précieux de Cornélie) pour voir si je puis en découvrir.

... To perfect yourself in French, I would advise you to read Bruyère and Mad. de Sévigné with great attention; because their style has something of life and vivacity; which fastens itself on the mind, and forces one in some measure to become intimate with the idioms of the language. It does more good to meditate a page of a good close writer than to run over a volume of an indifferent one. The common opinion is against me. Many think the more words they read in a given time, the more they will advance in a language; but I believe in this as in every other study, it is not the quantity, but the quality of what we read, and that meditation by which we make it our own, that improves. I am now skimming Mason’s Life of Gray; for you know late rising, the children, natural indolence, and the inclination for family chat, leave me no leisure for aught but skimming. I was pleased with Gray’s opinion of Rousseau’s Emile. It confirms my own, and gives me in one condensed paragraph the result of the opinions I had long formed on the subject of this singular book.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Bursledon Lodge, Aug. 3, 1814.

We are again alone, living like those ‘in the world before the flood’—gardening, admiring the flowers and the clouds, conversing, singing, playing with our children, hiding from the visits of our neighbours, and devising excuses to avoid their hot, ceremonious, long, and fine dinners, surrounded by people dressed out as for an assembly;—‘for, my dear ma’am, this is a delightful neighbourhood; we never dine at home except with company;’—something equivalent to this eulogium I have often heard pronounced here.

I am very far from despising either the fine arts or their effects in awakening the dormant seeds of genius; and I believe The Society of Friends profit in their manners and enjoyments by the insensible and general atmosphere of those arts they contemn. But I am sure, as individuals, your self-denial in this matter causes your expenses to flow in streams more conducive to the comfort and advantage of yourselves and others than ours do. In comparison with the greater number, we are peculiarly reasonable on this subject (am I not like the Pharisee?), yet I am often surprised to see how much we sacrifice at the shrine of frivolity, fancied pleasures, and beaux arts.

I saw not Mad. de Staël, who has left an unpleasing impression in London,—except on a few, worth all the rest. People expected her to be well dressed, well-looking, soft-mannered, refined; making no allowance for the effects of study, composition, energy, anxiety, and all the disturbances which must affect a woman whose life has been employed in the pursuit of literary fame.

TO CHARLES M. ST. GEORGE, ESQ., THE HAGUE.

Bursledon Lodge, Aug., 1814.

I believe my Baron Breteuil’s maxim is just for common minds, ‘il faut savoir s’ennuyer.’ This is necessary to them, because if they do not ennuyer themselves, they will often do worse. But it is, like most of his maxims, quite unfit for the uses of a superior character. Such ought not to ennuyer themselves. If they really find their resources fail, they should be satisfied something is wrong in them or the life they have adopted, and should struggle to release themselves from a state so foreign to their well-being. You possess a love of study, and the four golden keys which will introduce you to the most brilliant assembly of the dead—Greek, Latin, English, French. The first introduces you to those who have instructed, the next, to those who have conquered, mankind; the third, to her who has been the depository of true religion, pure morality, refined taste; and the fourth, to one who, among many striking advantages, may consider it as her proudest boast, that she is entitled in some things to be the rival of England herself.

I knew Lord Wellington in my youth; that is to say, he has often dined with me in Henrietta-street and at the Park, but I was so reserved at that time that we never exchanged six words, as he was also reserved, except to those who made the first advances. However, as he has passed some time as my guest in the country besides these casual meetings, I should not feel the least reluctance at any time in writing a letter of introduction for you to him.

I go on Tuesday next to Cheltenham. How much I shall miss you, and I shall often think of our lost friend, Mrs. ——, whom I could not but like, spite of the pains many people took to prove to me my liking was not built on a good foundation. How foolish, by the bye, are all such pains! There are two ways of considering everything and everybody (if we lay aside the grand questions of religion and morality). Even your friend, whom you have lately described as faisant les délices de la société by his musical talents and other accomplishments, I have just heard described as a most ridiculous, frivolous, tiresome coxcomb; ainsi va le monde. The mania for going to France is spreading rapidly. You know you have infected me by a touch of the pen. Has the last novel of Lady Morgan (née Miss Owenson) reached the Hague? Mr. Lefanu saw a letter from Miss Edgeworth to her ladyship, in which she says it is glorious for Ireland to have produced such a work. Strong language when applied to a novel. I should have thought it too forcible if addressed even to Fielding or Richardson.

I am very grateful to the Duchess of Brunswick for her recollection, and can never forget the kindness with which she honoured me at Brunswick. Tell her so, if a proper opportunity should offer. Her character and abilities rendered her kindness a real distinction. The more you see of her, the more you will value her esprit, and her natural, easy, and pleasing manners.

We are reading Miss Edgeworth’s diffuse and wire-drawn novel, called Patronage, which is much below her ability and literary place, but has been hurried off from a good family motive—that of assisting to provide for the fatherless infants of her late brother—such, at least, is the report.

The letter which follows is the first in date of a very few copies which I possess of letters, or parts of letters, addressed by my Mother to Miss Agar, sister of the late Lord Clifden, one of her oldest, and, beyond the circle of her own family, by far her dearest friend. Their correspondence, which was constant, had begun some twenty years earlier. The half of the correspondence which is of no service to me I possess; but the other half, I fear, has long since perished.

TO THE HONOURABLE MISS AGAR.

Cheltenham, Sept. 1, 1814.

We are packed into Pine Cottage. It abuses the cottage privilege of being small and simple. One says at first, ‘Dear, what a charming little spot,’ and enjoys one’s own good sense in being easily pleased. One remarks with how little space the real wants of man are contented, and one is tempted to criticize palaces. But in a few hours the philosophical fit subsides, and one wants more space and more convenience.

I think with you it was a cruel persiflage in Lord Byron to produce Jacky as an attendant foot-page on his lofty and vigorous production. The reviewers once placed him and Rogers on a level. This must have been his motive. ‘It was the smile that withered to a sneer.’ You have probably observed that one of the leading features in this tale seems suggested by Falkland’s revenge on one who had insulted him, and whom he suffered not to live to tell the tale. Lara’s merciless desire to wreak his cruelty (for he has not even the poor excuse of revenge) on a fallen enemy, ranks him in the worst class of bad men. It is extraordinary that Lord Byron should so often waste his admirable powers in celebrating the unnatural, and, thank Heaven, the unfrequent, union of guilt and genius; and should forget that the province of poetry is to elevate, soothe, or amend the heart.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Cheltenham, Sept. 8, 1814.

Your account of the resigned and ancient pair, who have borne affliction with so good a grace, is one of those tonics which strengthen the mind, and assist in repelling the contagious air of general society, where one of the great objects aimed at is the exclusion of all that can remind us of ‘the changes and chances of this mortal life.’

You are kind in wishing us in Ireland. A superior education for our children, the power of enjoying all the innocent pleasures of life without injuring their future prospects by expense, and my own health, all conspire to detain us here. We leave no gap, and interrupt no course of duty. No deserted mansion claims us within its ruined walls; no ancient followers look in vain for our protection. Had my husband been an elder brother, our case would have been different. As it is, we have acted from serious, and I hope conscientious, motives. Setting our own case aside, nothing has been more mistaken by the friends of Ireland than the effects of the occasional residence of some of her children in the sister country. Who are most anxious for her prosperity? With some brilliant exceptions, we must say, Those who have mixed with English society, who have visited England, witnessed the humanity of her landlords, the prosperity of her peasantry, the smiling neatness of her cottages. To improve a country by forbidding her inhabitants to know by experience what is done in those foremost in the race of virtue and civilization, is a solecism. Already has much been done by the infusion of English society. All seem aware of the benefits arising from the interchange of the militia. Is it amongst the lower ranks alone that acquaintance with a superior tone of morals, manners, and knowledge is to prove beneficial? Allowing that absentees are truants, will lecturing bring them home? All prudent wives know the inefficacy of the prescription. This does not apply to your kind wishes. You never lectured any one, yet I believe you have made many converts.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., THE HAGUE.

Cheltenham, Sept. 8, 1814.

This place is as full as possible—crowds of independent men, who seem to keep aloof from the women—of old ladies who, after a life of gallantry, come here to lose themselves in a crowd; and of young ones, many of whom seem eager in the pursuit of matrimony. You do not tell me whether you sing, draw, or write verses. I am idleness itself, in spite of my early rising, as to everything but books; and though I do not study, I contrive to read some hours every day. I have just read A World without Souls. The idea is well conceived, but the work is but indifferently executed; and contains an attack on the principles of the useful and venerable Paley, which I could wish spared. I have also read Montgomery’s World before the Flood, in which are some beautiful passages; but the dead weight of a dull and heavy story will, I fear, sink the whole into oblivion, in spite of the charms of the poetry. Lord Byron’s Lara, an interesting vaurien, and Mr. Rogers’s Jaqueline, an insipid shepherdess, who is bound up and introduced to the public with this discordant mate, have also formed part of my studies, relieved by the agreeable flippancy of Lady Morgan’s O’Donnell. Byron certainly persuaded Rogers to allow their poems to see the light together, in order to prove the immense distance between a pair whom the reviewers had lately bracketed together.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Bursledon Lodge, Sept. 29, 1814.

Your kind letter found me reposing at home after a pleasant visit of three weeks to Cheltenham—that delightful spot which unites all an invalid can desire, in pure air, beautiful scenery, fine climate, easy habits; and is ornamented by the most pleasing style of villa architecture, cheerful, light, and airy, something between the cottage and the maisonnette, sprinkled in all directions through one continued garden.

In our way home we passed a day at Gloucester, and heard a morning concert of sacred music, given for a charitable purpose, in the beautiful cathedral. These music meetings are the most thoroughly national amusement we have. Polished, pure, and dignified, they owe nothing to the glare of tapers, the false spirits of the evening hour, the splendour of ornaments, or any theatric illusion. Handel’s Dead March in Saul was singularly affecting. The soft sounds of wind instruments floating through the lofty roof with the most plaintive sweetness, interrupted at intervals by the double-drum, echoing, reverberating, and dying away along the aisles, like cannon among distant hills, were at once awful and pathetic. Braham’s performance of Jephtha’s Lamentation is one of the finest pieces of tragic singing in our time, and combines every excellency music can possess.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., BRUSSELS.

Bursledon Lodge, Oct., 1814.

If I did not speedily reply to a letter so full of anxiety for my good spirits, I should be a most undutiful mother. Some may contest the propriety of the epithet, but I maintain it. There is nothing for which I feel more obliged than a desire that I should enjoy that prime blessing, cheerfulness, so interwoven with my original character, that, when deprived of it, I appear in the eyes of those who love me to be not myself. Many friends are desirous we should enjoy the physical goods of life. It is only real affection and superior intelligence that look to one’s feelings; or, indeed, are fully aware of the spirit of Mrs. Sullen’s reply, when her husband reproaches her for being discontented amidst all the goods of fortune—‘What, sir, do you take me for a charity child, to sit down contented with meat, drink, and clothes? There are certain pretty things called pleasures.’ Mrs. Sullen not being a very correct person, we must reject her idea of pleasure, and adopt one more refined.

Do not you underrate The Corsair in not admiring the description it gives of strong and tender feelings? Except in Paradise Lost and Gertrude of Wyoming, I know not where conjugal affection is more beautifully described than in the character of the Corsair; and his sufferings in the dungeon are a most spirited Salvator Rosa sketch.

Pray have you ever read Nugæ Antiquæ, some preserved, others written, by Sir John Harrington, a godson and favourite of Queen Elizabeth’s? Much amusement may be culled from the second and third volumes. With your views and intentions you should read original papers, as well relative to the private characters as the remarkable actions of those who make a prominent appearance in history. The details respecting Queen Elizabeth are particularly amusing; and Harrington’s wit and humour throw considerable agrément on every subject. When you meet Mrs. More’s Hints for the Education of a Princess, read the Historical Reflections. Those respecting princes who have obtained the title of Great, are admirable. Voltaire throws so much glare on the character of Louis the Fourteenth, that it refreshes one’s sight to look at him through the spectacles of sober morality.

Jekyll is amusing as ever in point of wit and humour, though not of imagination. He has turned his mind so much to playing on words that he attends little to thoughts—a common error in professed wits, and one which accounts for their giving less pleasure in society than those who only hear their bon mots quoted are led to expect. We read in the papers of a brewer drowned in his own beer. ‘Yes,’ says Jekyll, ‘Unwept he floats upon his watery beer.’ Conversation at Paulton’s hardly consists in reciprocal communication. Jekyll talks; others applaud, excite, and listen.

TO THE SAME.

Bursledon Lodge, Oct. 14, 1814.

I send Lara. Here are all Lord Byron’s accustomed powers of language and description, his energetic seizure of our attention, his forceful manner of stamping images, so that we cannot erase them if we would, of identifying them with our thoughts, so that they pursue when we attempt to fly them; his verses have fangs. Here is also his accustomed celebration of the unnatural and unfrequent union between genius and crime. That it is an union not unfrequent, knaves endeavour to teach, and fools willingly believe. But experience denies the fact, and it suits not the higher walk of poetry, which, without giving direct lessons, should always elevate, soothe, or mend the heart.

... The sooner you tell us the day we may hope for you, the more on every account you will oblige your best friend, and perhaps the only one who considers you solely in all the opinions she gives. Vanity, prejudice, envy, self-interest, enter into almost all advice except from a parent. Therefore, consider what has been said as coming from a second self, but one who views your situation from the eminence of years and experience.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Bursledon Lodge, Nov., 1814.

I do indeed congratulate you on your having regained a title so dreaded by the vain and frivolous, so desired by the affectionate. You must know in the circle which calls itself the world, the word is nearly exploded, and grandchildren are taught to distinguish their parents in the first and second line as Mamma This and Mamma That, without using the terrific trisyllable.

My daughter, whose name has excited so much interest in your valuable circle, is Elizabeth Melesina. Her father affectionately wished she should bear my name, but I seduced him to suffer Elizabeth to be joined, which unites my mother’s name, that of the excellent Lady Hutchinson, and of her kind godmother. I had some objection to my own name, combined in my mind with many faults and many sorrows; and I also know by experience that an appellation which is more suited to the pages of fiction than to real life ministers to vanity and romance; besides its tempting coxcombs to ‘soften stanzas with her tuneful name,’ as is well expressed in some stanzas addressed to poor me; who can now and then be wise for others, not having expended much wisdom at home. So my daughter is now Bessy, under which domestic and social name I hope to see her good and contented, and to present her in time to my dear Mrs. Leadbeater.

TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.

Dec. 23, 1814.

Yesterday we dined at Miss Short’s. Mr. —— talked to me when he was a little drunk, just as Mr. —— did twenty years ago, and resembled him exactly. I barricaded myself in a seat on the sofa, putting M. on one side, Miss M. on the other, and a desk screen before me. But he talked away through all impediments; and you know my good nature never allows me to use the defensive armour Providence has given me against forwardness, unless I am more provoked than I can be by a mere determination to converse with and try to please me. He talked to me of his capital house in Portland-place, his having dined with Lord Spencer, his wife being cousin to Lady —— ——, of his being a book-fancier, and having offered £200 for Boccaccio; in short, he collected into one focus all that was to dazzle me, and offered to lend me the most curious French romance extant, &c. &c., which you may be sure I refused.

Miss O’Neill is said to be more natural than Mrs. Siddons was, but to gain no more by it than wax-work does by being a closer representation of nature than the Apollo Belvedere. Very few discriminate sufficiently in the arts between the merit of an exact representation and an ennobled one; and people are not fair enough in general to allow that something must be sacrificed of fidelity in order to reach that elevated imitation which alone gives strong and repeated pleasure.

TO THE COUNT DE LA GARDIE.

Bursledon Lodge, 1814.

J’ai appris avec plaisir, Monsieur le Comte, que le choix de votre Excellence pour être ambassadeur de sa M. le Roi de Suède auprès de la Cour de Naples vous a conduit dans ce pays. Le souvenir des heures, à la fois, animées, douces, et tranquilles, que j’ai passées dans votre hôtel à Vienne, et qui m’ont rendu cette ville si agréable, ne s’effacera jamais. J’ai vivement regretté que mon séjour forçé en France après mon mariage, mon mari ayant été fait prisonnier de guerre, quoiqu’il n’avoit jamais embrassé l’état militaire, a interrompu la correspondance dont j’ai joui pendant quelque temps. J’ai tâché de la renouer par l’entremise du Chevalier l’Amiral Bertie. Je ne vous exprimerai pas ce que j’ai senti quand il m’a rapporté, sans être décachetée, ma lettre, destinée pour la plus douce, la plus cherie des mortelles, mais écrite à un ange du ciel. Je ne me permets de suivre les idées que cet evenement m’inspire. Agréez, M. le Comte, l’expression du désir que je ressens de vous remercier ——[54]

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., VIENNA.

Bath, April, 1815.

Have you seen the late Maréchal Lacy’s country house? I thought the grounds extremely beautiful. He was one of the many who were kind to me, that have been removed to another existence since I left Vienna. Fifteen years’ absence from any place gives one a terrible lesson on the instability of life, when one seeks for the friends or even acquaintances one has left. Those I have lost there exceed in number those I have preserved, and were among my chief intimates, for I now know none there so well as I knew Mad. de Thun, Lady Guilford, Maréchal Lacy, and Mad. Colloredo. Are the great dinners still at two o’clock? We were very much interested by Lord Clancarty’s last despatch, describing the reception of Buonaparte’s propositions, which is certainly an admirable State paper, and written with a strength and terseness too often neglected in diplomatic composition. Its openness and manly directness are also to be admired; there is a stamp of truth and firmness about it, and no opening appears to be left for wavering or indecision.

Adieu. It is a rare thing for me not to fill a sheet, but I am not full of ideas, and am so conversant with trees and shrubs that, like one of Ovid’s heroines, I think my feet will soon take root, and my fingers germinate, only, however, with leaves and buds. Have you heard that both Mad. de Staël and her daughter have married since they left England? I suppose this country gave them a taste for domestic life, as it is certainly the spot on the globe where it is best understood.

The ——s are in London. He is exerting all his energies—to get into The Alfred. Pitiable that with so good abilities he should be reduced at sixty to anxiety for an object so frivolous. How wise are they who take advantage of the opening given by English laws and customs to rise above the every-day detail of mere society, and take their share in politics, literature, or great works of benevolence, which, if we add to them the learned professions, take in all the objects really worth attention.

Have you happened to see Alison’s Sermons? If not, bulky as they are, I must try to send them. One upon the fiftieth anniversary of our King’s reign is exquisite in feeling, taste, and style.

TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.

Bath, April 16, 1815.

You have no notion how much I enjoy my escape from the jaws of the hill—opening, just as if they designed to close on us again. I must never put myself dans la gorge des montagnes. With a thousand reasons for being in worse, I am in better spirits, and enjoy my loftiness and my airiness. In short, I hate to look up, except to people, and that is a pleasure I am used to, and have been particularly so during the last twelve years.

I was at Mr. Lemon’s last night, and was mistaken and talked to for Mrs. J. Hayes, which, as she is but four-and-twenty, I accepted for a great compliment. I personated her as long as I could, not to distress the speaker; but when, after inquiring for all Mrs. Hayes’ near friends and relations, she came to solicitude for our friend Mrs. Wiggins, I could not hold out or do the honours of four-and-twenty any longer. I returned Mrs. ——’s visit at her cottage on Saturday. It is one of those cottages described in a novel, where one finds a pair of runaway lovers or a fair unknown. The flame of friendship on her part burned and crackled immediately. It would have done so equally on mine (for I am not ungrateful, and her manners are charming), if my friendship did not flow with my love in so broad and deep a channel that I do not find it easy to divert it into any smaller streams. Formerly my heart could sincerely feed innumerable little streamlets of female friendships, platonic friendships, literary partnerships, serviceable warm good wills, and cheerful self-sacrificing intimacies; and though I have been sometimes blamed for this apparent diffusion, I had affection enough in my composition to answer all these demands; but ‘the seven heads of the Nile’ have now each their appropriate destination; even the little pleasure I had last year in the variety of mixed society is now quite absorbed in my superior happiness at home.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

May 4, 1815.

So I said in February last that I had not leisure for many works of fiction. Alas, poor human nature! since that time I have read Waverley, The Queen’s Wake, The Curse of Kehama, The Lord of the Isles, and skimmed over Guy Mannering, Discipline, and Charlemagne. The Lord of the Isles is a charming poem, as a full-length portrait of Bruce, whose dignity and sweetness are admirably portrayed; but the misses and masters of this work are too uninteresting. The Curse of Kehama is full of exquisite beauties, and I know nothing in the whole range of imaginative descriptive poetry that impresses me so much as the City under water. I was also charmed to meet my dear nursery friends, the Glumms and Gawries, who had so delighted me in Peter Wilkins.

May 11.—I wish I could tell you anything of the Queen of Prussia; but there are characters which defy description, and, if one attempts to give them colour, one falls into invention. She was beautiful; and well conducted in those points peculiarly exacted from women; in nothing distinguished. Dress and dancing she was fonder of than even the majority of her sex, and devoted to them to a later period. She was so uncommonly obliging to me that I feel as if I was ungrateful in mentioning these trifles; but I cannot resist your inquiry. Her beauty was not of a distinguished kind as to face, but her figure was fine and commanding.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., VIENNA.

May, 1815.

I am not surprised you admire the Prater. It is, I believe, the most beautiful public place in the world; and its first burst of spring, so prompt, so rapid, so rich, though not so delightful to a resident as a more gradual approach, is more splendid and striking. One would not wish it so always; but for once it is a beautiful coup de théâtre. And the great enjoyments of the labourer and artizan in their holiday summer evenings on this spot give a spectacle probably unique. The populace at Vienna seem the best and happiest I have seen. They are incomparably the best fed; and this forms no small praise of their superiors. Have you been presented to the Emperor? You ought; and there is no place where it is so little troublesome. It is a duperie not to be introduced to the most remarkable people, and particularly to those whose actions influence the destiny of thousands both existing and unborn. Never ‘lay the flattering unction to your soul’ of being presented, &c. &c., when you come back; for one hardly ever retraces one’s own path. Friends often say, ‘It is not worth the trouble—I am sure you would not like it;’ but one must cut this short, or may lose half what one travels for.

June 14, 1815.—One should be very cautious to prevent habitual politeness from degenerating into involuntary, or at least unintentional, dissimulation. The daughter of the landlady of the inn where I slept last night at Bagshot, at two years old, gave her sister of seven, without any provocation, so vigorous and well applied a slap, so perfectly aplomb, as proved the exercise habitual. The mother seemed delighted at this display of spirit before me; and instead of a timely word or hint of disapprobation, the vile habit of involuntary politeness led me to sanction it rather by a civil and approving smile.

TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.

London, June 23, 1815.

We are in all the triumph and tears of a dear-bought victory. The Prince was at dinner at Mrs. Boehm’s when the news was brought to him. Ministers and all wept in triumph among the bottles and glasses. The Regent fell into a sort of womanish hysteric. Water was flung in his face. No, that would never do. Wine was tried with better success, and he drowned his feelings in an ocean of claret. They seem to have been a little disturbed in their natural course, for he called Jekyll, and said, ‘Lady Gertrude Sloane’s brother is killed. Take my carriage and tell her so.’ Jekyll expostulated that Lady Gertrude was gone to bed—just ready to be confined, and the surprise might be fatal, if the news was announced in that way at that hour. The Regent persisted, and at last said, ‘Well, go to Lord Carlisle’s; for some of them must know it,’ which Jekyll also resisted.

He is made one of the Masters (in Chancery, I suppose), and gets between two and three thousand a-year. I wish his dear wife was living;—but I hope I wrong her much by so mean a wish.

Do not quote Jekyll in this account of the Regent. One of my Hanoverian friends is killed, a worthy man as ever fought—Omptéda his name; and one of my acquaintances in that quarter, Büssche, the fine-looking son of my beautiful friend, has lost an arm.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., VIENNA.

Cheltenham, July 3, 1815.

Mrs. —— was at Cheltenham six weeks, and went to an hotel, where she lived at the table-d’hôte. This was not the choice of very good taste; mais n’importe; it amused her, and no one ever thought of criticizing but those who had not kindliness of heart to take pleasure in her being amused. Among these critics were the Ladies B——, who told Mrs. —— their propriety would not allow them to visit her at a place where they might, would or could meet so many men on the stairs, &c. Did any one ever hear such trash? What strange points people choose for their propriety; and how few are there who may not go up and down stairs with perfect security.

There is a great influx of Petticoats, and Irish petticoats, in the place; but man is a rare bird, and, when he does come, very shy, to use a sportsman’s phrase.

TO THE LADY FANNY PROBY.

Bursledon Lodge, Sept. 2, 1815.

You ask me how I like The Pilgrims of the Sun. It abuses the privilege assumed by modern poets of setting aside all respect for le vrai or le vraisemblable. It is a reverie, a rhapsody, a long tour in an air-balloon—what you will; yet it has pretty lines, and shows some imagination; but these one finds everywhere. It is one of the distinctions of this age, that so many attempt to write verses, and so few fail of producing something which may be read, once at least, with pleasure. But I have read Roderick the Goth with reverence and admiration—a stately Gothic temple, in ornament rich and elaborate, yet losing nothing of its general effect from the beauty and high finish of its details; exciting in the mind a religious awe which composes and invigorates, at the same time awakening the tenderest affections. The application of the words of our Liturgy and Scripture is often very beautiful; and I am not so scrupulous on this head as the Edinburgh Reviewer, who (pious man) is shocked at the introduction of Catholic ceremonies, as indecorous and irreverent. They are highly picturesque, and suited to poetry; and I do not think Mr. Southey’s description of auricular confession will either make one convert to Popery, or excite the smallest sentiment of irreverence for Christianity. But these Reviewers seem to praise him with great regret, and, I believe, are a little angry that any one on this side the Tweed should have written so fine a poem. However, I grant that it is too universally sombre; the mixture of justified and avowed revenge with Christian feelings on other matters is incongruous; while the hinge on which the story turns is a crime which by no skill whatever can be divested of meanness and ferocity.

How could Lord Carysfort think I had forgot his reading? On the contrary, his reading not merely fixed in my memory what was good, but has also left an indelible impression of some of Lewis’s diableries, and Wordsworth’s inanity, which I wish to forget, and cannot, though I have in general a happy facility in that way; and I sometimes find myself involuntarily repeating—

and so on for three or four stanzas. The whole is in an Annual Register which was sent to Berlin, and I heard it but once read in the corner where Lady Carysfort’s sofa was placed, and where she sat with feminine work in her hands, and more than feminine eloquence on her lips; now discussing with prophetic spirit (as events have proved) the fate of Europe, and now consulting on the form of some simple ornament for her daughters. How much has been erased from memory of what has happened before and since; yet how well do I recollect those sweet evenings. Forgive me the Irish epithet; I cannot always do without it.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., DRESDEN.

Bursledon Lodge, Sept. 11, 1815.

I address this to Dresden in great hope of its missing you; as it is a pity the Gallery there, which every day will improve, should detain you from the treasures of art, now collected in Paris—but which will soon be crumbled away. Every hour some star is blotted from the constellation, some borrowed plume plucked from the daw. There, too, the materials of future history are forming. The great game of power is playing on a large scale. Paris is now the focus of the mind of the civilized world, and one may exist more there in a week than elsewhere in years. But all this is evanescent; while petty princes, warm baths, and waltzing misses, are always to be had.

The Polish women, whom you mention as nationally agreeable, have all the ease and adroitness acquired by living constantly in a crowd, and having no pursuit but dissipation, and very little restraint from principle. There is, however, much tinsel and frippery in their manners. The colours are gay, but roughly laid on; and in a short time those persons of good taste who have been accustomed to that beautiful union of refinement and simplicity (the perfection of female grace) which is found amongst English women, are annoyed by a certain mixture of coarseness and finesse. They please at first; for their gold is hammered into the most airy thinness, and all spread on the surface; and though they rarely excel in anything, they are tolerably advanced in a variety of languages, and other accomplishments, which they are ever anxious to display—their morning all rehearsal, their evening all performance.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Bursledon Lodge, Sept. 30, 1815.

Your amusing packets always diffuse cheerfulness over my horizon, or rather increase that which, I thank Heaven, does not often forsake me. Indeed, I do consider that moment as fortunate to me which made us acquainted; you know not of how much use you have been to my mind, nor what moral benefit is derived from intercourse with you and yours, including your excellent friend Mr. ——. I am sorry I mentioned those ‘eccentricities,’ to borrow your word, which I thought I perceived in his character. I am sure, however, I was right, since you have not contradicted me. Believe me, I do not esteem him less for knowing on what side lie those shades which are the inevitable lot of humanity. On the contrary, he is more interesting to me, as I am better acquainted with his individuality; and, knowing that every virtue verges on some defect, I am not the least surprised that a mind so active and energetic, should be in some degree positive and self-opinionated. We must not expect from eagles the gentleness of doves.

The next few entries contain the record of a short visit to Paris made at the conclusion of this year.

Nov. 3-5, 1815.—From London to Dover you are received at all the inns with a jerking empressement, that shows travellers to France are considered as the spoiled children of the travelling world, who are trying to get rid of themselves, and must be flattered and humoured. Elsewhere one meets an easy, quiet civility, as if one’s object might be one’s own business, and it was not necessary to incite and indulge one’s whims to keep up the spirit of change. But on this road the whole family pour out on all occasions, not excepting the young ladies en papillotes; there is a double portion of alacrity, and one is treated as if carrying despatches on which hung the fate of Europe.

Nov. 14, Hôtel Mont Blanc, Paris.—After an absence of eight years, I find that while the French have veered to every point of the compass as to morals, religion, and government, they have been constant to their milliners, opera-dancers, and restaurateurs, who are all the same I left. Madame Gardel still bears the palm for grace; Madame, or rather Monsieur, Le Roy, for millinery; and Véry and Beauvilliers are still the princes of restaurateurs. The gentleness, the smoothness of manners of the English, the harmony of their voices, and the repose and educated expression of their countenances, form a striking contrast to the harsh, sudden, angular, impatient appearance of the French. Sometimes these assume a veil of softness, but it is transparent, and suddenly thrown off when anything touches or even threatens their interest or their vanity in the most distant point.

I inhabit an apartment that affects to be luxurious. The suite of rooms are seven, and the walls ornamented with large looking-glasses; but my bedroom is without a carpet, and the curtains both of bed and window are of embroidered muslin, unlined, so I shiver in state. My bedroom also is without a bell, so that whenever I want my maid I must run or roar, which disagrees extremely with the dignified of coup-d’œil of my apartment.

Nov. 18.—My dear little —— has begun to take lessons in dancing from Mons. Reichard, who modestly says—‘Je suis le premier démonstrateur du monde;’ and who tells me that if —— attends to his dancing he will be a very handsome man—a whimsical connexion of cause and effect, recalling Molière’s Vous êtes orfèvre.

I had the pleasure of seeing in one evening, Corneille’s Menteur, and Les Plaideurs, by Racine. To see on the same night the first good French comedy (which, however, is an acknowledged translation from the Spanish), and the two best comic productions of the greatest tragic writers of this nation, was fortunate. But Les Plaideurs being founded on an alienation of mind, gives pain, in spite of all its humour and brilliancy. No superstructure can universally please on this foundation, which appears to me radically faulty, and equally an offence against good taste and good feeling.

When I saw the Comtesse de Pimbeche she immediately reminded me of my dear friend Mad. de Sévigné, who says, ‘Je suis une vraie Comtesse de Pimbeche;’ and I was glad to laugh at what had diverted her.

Nov. 20.—The poor dismantled Gallery! Here are the empty frames of the fine pictures, which have been restored to their rightful owners; a mournful memento, however just the act of restoration. Still, much is left. Albano’s Cupids still whet their arrows, and Cuyp’s soft light still beams from the walls.

The Hôtel des Invalides is one of the most glorious monuments of the reign of Louis XIV. The veterans are well fed and clothed. They lodge in a palace, and command a view spacious and magnificent, as far as regular plantations and wide alleys can make it so. Sixty years of age, or wounds that disable from service, are the titles of admission. They receive forty sous a month pocket-money.

The general idea of such a retreat for the veterans of war, flatters the imagination at a distance; but when we approach, it is in detail a melancholy sight. There is something so disproportioned between the grandeur of the building and the maimed, old, and debilitated figures who creep and shiver through its magnificent arcades; and also between the remuneration of a mere provision for the necessities of life, and those acts, always of self-devotion, sometimes of eminent heroism, connected with a military career, that one gladly escapes from so painful a contrast; and when one has said, This is the best that unlimited power can do for valour in the aggregate, one turns shuddering to the worst, and sees in their true light the calamities of war. A few priests and Sœurs de la Charité glide along among these feeble veterans, these remnants of themselves, adding to the solemnity of the picture. The day was bitterly cold; possibly the summer sun might have given it a different colouring.

Nov. 21.—Saw Les Ménechmes, and Crispin Rival de son Maître. In Les Ménechmes the hero turns off as a jest a written promise of marriage, for which it appears he had received a valuable consideration. This dishonourable action would not be tolerated in England. In Crispin the dishonesty of a servant who gives proof of ingenious and hardened roguery, is not only forgiven, but his master promises to try him again in the same situation.

Nov. 22.—Les Horaces is perhaps the chef-d’œuvre of Cimarosa. The music is worthy of the subject. Catalani, whose want of feminine softness always leaves something to be desired in a woman’s part, was a charming young Roman, uniting the soldier and the lover with admirable grace. In the first part of the piece, where spirit, love, and happiness were to be exprest, she was delightful; it was all sunshine trembling and glittering through roses, or fountains sparkling and playing in the beams of the moon. Curiatius advances like the spirit of happiness to receive the vows of his bride. The sacred flames are kindled, the priests pronounce the nuptial benediction, the bride has permitted her veil to be withdrawn, their hands advance to join, when the three Horatii, similar in dress, appearance, and expression, enter, like the Fates, and interrupt the rites, never to be renewed. Their number, their resemblance to one another, gives to their appearance somewhat supernatural and imposing. One trembles at the expression of one will in these three human forms, whom one cannot distinguish from each other. One loses all hope of softening by prayer those who seem divested of individuality. From this fatal moment all is tragic; and, finally, we see these victims to their patriotism go out to a combat which leaves no hope for the victors or the vanquished. The piece closes at this awful period. The sacrifice is consummated; Rome or Alba may be saved, but the happiness of those for whom our interest has been strongly excited, is for ever gone. I know no piece more animated, interesting, noble, and energetic. Touching it would surely be, in the hands of those who know how to strike the chords of the pathetic; but here Catalani’s genius forsakes her; she commands admiration and smiles, but never excites a tear. She is, therefore, much finer in the first part of this opera than in the second.

Nov. 30.—When an Englishwoman enters a milliner’s shop, every individual flies at her, like birds of prey on a tame dove. In the highest of these magazins a beau garçon is always to be found, who gives the cap its last arrangement when tried on, and decides on its being extremely becoming. He is an amphibious being, dressed in an effeminate and highly ornamented manner, who ‘now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.’ One of these creatures took the liberty of asking an English lady to let him see the English corset she wore that day, as they were always so becomingly made about la gorge. The presence of these supernumeraries prodigiously inflames a bill, on which Lady C. said she never went to shops where they are to be found, as ‘she had no idea of paying for the sight of a man.’

Talleyrand says of the Duke of Richelieu, his successor as prime minister, ‘He is well bred, well conducted, and no man in France knows so much—of the Crimea.’

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., FRANKFORT.

Paris, Dec. 2, 1815.

Your letter from Chalons was kind and seasonable, for it arrived on a day when I was very ill and very low. If I had not seen you well and happy, I should very much regret my visit to Paris, for, being unprovided with proper letters of introduction, and confined by my cold, I have had no pleasures of society, and we are so much embarrassed at this moment by failure of rents, that even the trifling sum which it will cost is a matter of some inconvenience. I shall regret nothing but the dancing-master, by far the best that I ever saw, and I have observed the art with some attention. When I announced to him that —— could take no more lessons from him, as we were on the point of leaving Paris, he looked at him with commiseration, lifted up his hands and eyes, and exclaiming, C’est un enfant perdu! hurried away.

I see the Diet at Frankfort is thickening. Pray present my compliments to Prince Hardenberg, whom I had the pleasure of knowing at Berlin in 1801; and if you ascertain that his wife is living, inquire for her in my name. Three of the persons whom I most esteemed and loved amongst those whose acquaintance I made in that well-remembered tour, are no more, Mad. de Büssche, Mad. de Walmöden, and Mad. de la Gardie. If you ever see any of their near relations, recall me to their remembrance. Sometimes I regret being forgotten and out of remembrance, and almost extinct as to all the purposes of social life, except within my own family circle; and at other times I say to myself, that sphere ought to content a woman. So it ought, but you, I know, will rejoice in seeing I have momentary aspirations after the living world, and am not always imbarked and rooted in my geraniums and myrtles.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Dec. 25, 1815.

You ask me of Mrs. Piozzi. She is a lively, animated woman, far advanced in years, and peculiarly agreeable in countenance, conversation, and manners. So she appeared to me, who have only met her in mixed company, and so I have heard her described by others. She is a woman of very high spirits, and only two years ago went to a masquerade in Bath disguised as a constable, Lady Belmore (the dowager) and Miss Caldwell attending her as watchmen; and they amused themselves throwing the whole assembly into consternation by pretending they had a warrant to disperse and imprison them as engaged in an illegal amusement.

Alas, and have I seen in the Farmers Journal Mr. Lefanu’s eulogium on boxing, and has he condescended to use the old hackneyed argument that boxing is better than the stiletto! In my youth I used also to hear that ‘cards were better than scandal,’ as if there were no third manner of passing the evening.

1815.—The following are some of the thoughts and observations which I have found scattered up and down in my Mother’s note-books and journals, often without a date. More of them seem to belong to this year and the preceding than to any other, and I have therefore grouped them together at this place.

Our friends may commend us above our deserts without corrupting our hearts, because we know their opinions must be attributed to partiality, and cannot be shared by any indifferent persons.

A witty man is a public benefactor. Every time one of his brilliant sayings is repeated a portion of pleasure is imparted, keen according to the susceptibility of the hearer; a smile is called into tearful eyes; severity relaxes her brow, and anxiety forgets her cares. Social enjoyments are increased, the hearers like each other the better for the pleasure they have shared together. What an amount of enjoyment Jekyll has given to the world, raised for how many the leaden mantle of ennui, and eased them for a moment of its weight.

To write daily in absence is an excellent habit in marriage. As daily prayer nourishes our soul, so does daily correspondence feed the religion of the heart.

Man seems to bear a strange resemblance to the planet he inhabits. His mind appears composed of layers, like the earth. There is the layer of education, and that of habit; the ideas he avows to the world; those within, which he avows to his friends; under those, what he acknowledges to himself; and yet deeper, what he really feels without daring even a self-avowal.

In the Macobar Islands everything a man possesses is buried with him, and the dead are spoken of no more. In highly polished and dissipated society this practice seems gaining ground.

A jesting account of women by a woman.—Women are kind to men, unkind to one another. The best point in their character is that they are good nurse-tenders; the worst, that they seldom speak a word of absolute truth. They are envious of beauty, singing, dancing, dress, wealth, and rank, in their own sex, but not the least so of goodness, sense, or domestic happiness.

To have too clear an insight into one’s own mind is sometimes a misfortune, for one magnifies one’s own meditations and chimeras, till they assume ‘a local habitation and a name,’ and then one acts upon them as if they were realities.

There are few more effectual ways of displeasing, than dwelling on our own happiness, except to those who consider themselves as the authors of it. Artful and designing women are so aware of the converse of this principle, that an interesting and melancholy story of which self is the heroine, is one of their most common and yet most successful means of seduction.

An enthusiastic manner generally denotes either mediocrity, or affectation, or both. Those who possess a deep knowledge of the fine arts, never converse on the subject but most reluctantly, and by a sort of force. Such, I recollect, was the case with Sir William Hamilton. Smatterers cannot see a parish church without a comparison between Gothic and Grecian architecture, nor a Turk’s head on a sign-post without referring to ‘classical contours’ and ‘the Apollo Belvedere.’

A charity sermon is a satire on man. That he should require to be adjured by every motive spiritual and temporal, and courted by every form of eloquence, to grant a small portion of his superfluity for the relief of human misery, is most wonderful.

The affectation of sensibility seldom imposes on those who possess the reality. The performer may have learned the tune, but will be out of time. The poco piu or the poco meno will expose him.

In the Alps you sometimes find yourself under a clear blue sky on a bright sunny throne above the clouds—the top of the mountain being divided from the lower world by this magnificent boundary, which, occasionally unfolding, presents partial views of the earth beneath. A just emblem of the state of those who truly love.[55]

The sense of shame is so fine a weapon, it is a pity to risk its edge, or even its polish.

Happiness! a fearful word, seldom uttered but as the forerunner of calamity. It seems as if happiness, like the lamps in the ancient sepulchres, is of a nature to burn only while unnoticed and unknown.

There is no subject on which people betray more of their character than in their unprepared opinions on the marriages of others. How much sordid littleness and pitiful calculation breaks out on these occasions.

The fine taste in music prevalent in some Roman Catholic countries, is accounted for by the excellence of their Church Music. Perhaps the universal good style of writing in England may be owing in part to the beauty of the language of our liturgy. Any person who will take the trouble of comparing the epistolary style of the middle classes in other countries of modern Europe may perceive our superiority.

There is no virtue which is not caricatured by some defect. Christian charity is caricatured by that worldly-minded prudence which receives contumely and neglect, at least from equals or superiors, with a sort of awe approaching to admiration; and which more willingly renders its tribute of praise or favours to fear than love, alive to apprehension and dead to gratitude.

One may cut down one’s own ambition, but the shoots will spring up for one’s children.

To be in a passion with one’s superior is dangerous; with an equal, imprudent; with an inferior, cowardly.

Travelling gives weak minds an exaggerated idea of the value of those personal advantages which, in a country where the character and connexions of strangers and the gradations of English rank are unknown, obtain distinctions, attention, and flattery, far beyond what they would obtain at home.

Travelling is the most selfish of all pleasures, whether we consider the number of painful scenes we avoid, or of duties we elude, by absence from the natural sphere of our duties.

Shakespeare should never be mentioned with an epithet.

Perhaps few have ever written thoroughly good and musical prose, who did not at one time or other exercise their pens in verse. Experience seems to corroborate this, and it is a strong motive for encouraging all poetical attempts.

Things to be avoided in society:—

Excessive laughter on any subject.

All jests on poverty, infirmity, plainness of person, sickness, debility, or whatever else may be felt as a misfortune.

Story-telling, or mimicry, repeated in the same circle.

Discussion of ages or incomes.

Superlatives and enthusiasm.

Any quotations exceeding a line, or generally known.

Any discussion on the fine arts, unless we can produce new observations of our own.

Any account of our travels, except the subject is introduced by others.

It is singular how ill, in general, men bear little talents and accomplishments, and how much more overweening they are made by them than by great ones. This seems to justify what one considers at first an English prejudice—the sort of contempt that excelling in ornamental branches of education is so apt to bring on a man, unless managed with great address and apparent indifference to them; and, indeed, even then I believe they rather take from his dignity.

The moral uses of pain and sickness. Humility, patience, courage, sympathy, and compassion. A just appreciation of beauty, strength, rank, talents, and riches. A willingness to think no assistance to our fellow-creatures too considerable to be given, or too small to be received. An extraordinary increase and development of the social affections. Besides these general uses, sickness has often the particular advantage of breaking vicious or dangerous connexions, and arresting us in the career of guilt and folly.

Why should a ready laugh, a general shake of the hand, and that difficulty of living alone or in a family circle which makes all new comers equally welcome, constitute a good-natured man? Good nature is no great laugher. Nine laughs out of ten spring from a contemptuous feeling toward their object, or a triumphant consciousness of superiority. Good nature is too affectionate to shake hands with every new comer in the same cordial manner; and above all, good nature can cheerfully pass her time alone; for her hours, always sweetened by the kindliness of her feelings, cannot be tinctured with ennui, while she can either serve or gratify another.

The liberty of the press acts like a perpetual alterative, curing, or lessening by imperceptible degrees, the ailments of the body politic.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., FRANKFORT.

Bursledon Lodge, Feb. 18, 1816.

I am distressed at finding you do not receive my letters. This I am assured of, you will take it for granted I have written, as I never claimed from your duty those kind attentions you have always shown me from friendship and affection; and therefore could not be guilty of enjoying your entertaining letters without offering my thanks. Lady Rumbold gives a ball to-night. Mrs. Dott and Mrs. —— have already done so. The latter gave hers on the christening of her little boy. The tenants dined with them next day, and Mr. —— made a speech of extraordinary length, in which he talked of his tenantry and his ancestry in as pompous a style as if he were of the line of Plantagenet, and possessed of half a province. It is curious to observe how much more flattered people seem to be by standing on the lower steps of the pyramid than by perching near the pinnacle. A little height above our fellows seems to give more pleasure than a great elevation.