Chapter IV (2)

I am glad you like Mrs. Carter’s _Letters_. I know they are heavy, yet I _do_ like them, and read them with great pleasure, and am angry when I hear them called dull, which has happened to me very often. I love the turn of her mind; and though she may be a little tedious, it is to me like the tediousness of a friend. If you have a mind for brilliancy and flippancy, and some sense and wit, mixed up with a certain hardness and insensibility and vanity very unpleasing in a youthful female, turn to Mrs. Montagu’s _Letters_. They are vastly more entertaining for once reading, but you do not love the writer half so well, nor am I sure you would be so apt to _return_ to the volume. Besides, there are a few great truths which Mrs. Carter places in so many lights, and impresses so strongly, that I think her _Letters_ are highly useful in a moral view, and an excellent book for the library of a young girl.

TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.

London, May, 1811.

I have _guttered_ about through the rain, shut up in a long shawl and thick veil, and have seen West’s picture. Beautiful it certainly is, though we are perhaps a little too national if we prefer it to the ‘Descent from the Cross,’ and the ‘Transfiguration.’ Our Saviour’s face disappointed me extremely; it is not nature, and it does not strike me as sufficiently noble for Divinity. But we cannot too much admire his figure, drapery, and hands. As a composition, it seems to be admirable; and its _clearness_ and _distinctness_, those great charms to an unlearned eye, do not seem to injure its effect as a whole. The expression of sensibility in the principal female faces is beautiful, and does not disturb the harmony of their countenances; but they are all three too much alike.

The —— always leave me in doubt by their manner, whether I have not done something to offend them, and really have an expression between distracted and _distrait_, that one knows not how to comprehend. In general, it is a great misfortune to be rich without being well educated. People expect from fortune they know not what, and are angry if it does not command _all_ the different kinds of respect and attention, which are due to such a variety of circumstances. In a small circle it will have its weight; but when people step into general society, the effect of mere money is immediately neutralized, and ‘Nabob’ or ‘Nay, Bob’ comes to much the same thing.

I am glad Mrs. C. is so cross, as I like you should now and then see that the innocents who never have seen the world, nor heard a civil thing, are worse than us poor decayed toasts, against whom you wise ones so often declaim as unfit for domestic life. A race-horse draws as well in the family coach as if he had never been on the turf.

TO THE SAME.

London, May, 1811.

I heard excellent music last night, and the last public notes of the sweetest singer I have ever heard, or probably shall ever hear—I mean combined with so much power; for I have heard many moderately strong voices _still_ sweeter, according to the usual equalization of Heaven’s gifts. Mrs. Billington professedly sang for the last time; but as I saw Mara’s resurrection about six different times in ten years, I am not without hope of hearing her again. Her last Italian air was that which Tarchi taught me, _Sarah’s Lamentation_; it was marked MS., and everyone is wishing for it. Harrison, Catalani, a delightful ballad singer, Mrs. Ashe, and almost everything else that was good, sang there. Harrison’s singing was like a lover’s whisper by moonlight.

Mr. A—— has inflicted on me the task of reading his _Journey through France_—on lazy _me_, who would not read the admired poem of _Psyche_, because it was in manuscript. I catch a word now and then about a ‘church and altarpiece,’ a ‘capital picture,’ ‘charges _moderate_ in the _extreme_’ (is not that a bull?), ‘the lively chit-chat of a beautiful _petite_ brunette,’ &c. &c., and so I hope to persuade myself I have read it. Mr. Hastings, in a note which accompanied the book, gets out of the scrape of giving an opinion with admirable dexterity; for he says it ‘is _as_ interesting from the authority from which it proceeds, as from its own intrinsic merit.’ There are not so many _froms_ in his phrase, but this is the idea.... I have finished Mr. A——’s book. He talks of the mildness of the present French Government, and is enchanted with everything Parisian; makes Mad. Frémont a fourth Grace; the _Hôtel du Cercle_ the Palace of Armida; and, finally, he makes me sick.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Bursledon Lodge, July 30, 1811.

Pray indulge me with the characters of the youthful part of your family. I once heard Lady Yarmouth say, to justify herself for liking a disagreeable young man better than a sensible old one—‘I have a decided taste for youth.’ Now, though this is not my case, in her sense of the phrase, yet I certainly have particular pleasure in contemplating the characters and actions of those who are fresh from the hand of nature, and alive to all the enjoyments she so liberally bestows: ‘Hope waits upon the flowery prime.’

Your _Good Nature_ appears to me a beautiful poem, and I strongly recommend its publication. It will be a valuable addition to the small number of those one may put into the hands of youth, without feeling any secret wish to expunge even a line. Thanks for your eulogium on Clarkson. He is not enough praised by the world. The _first_ promoter of every good work is always less valued than he ought. Like the foundation stone, like the precious seed, his fame too often lies buried.

The opening of your book on old age, reminds me of an anecdote of the late Duke of Queensberry, which I had from an earwitness. Leaning over the balcony of his beautiful villa near Richmond, where every pleasure was collected which wealth could purchase or luxury devise, he followed with his eyes the majestic Thames, winding through groves and buildings of various loveliness, and exclaimed, ‘Oh, that wearisome river, will it never cease running, running, and I so tired of it!’ To me this anecdote conveys a strong moral lesson, connected with the well-known character of the speaker, a professed voluptuary, who passed his youth in pursuit of selfish pleasures, and his age in vain attempts to elude the relentless grasp of _ennui_.

* * * * *

I gather from the following, evidently the sketch of a preface,
that it was my Mother’s intention to edit a selection from the
correspondence of the two honoured friends of her youth, one a
connexion by her first marriage, whose names are mentioned at
its close. It has a further value to me, as expressive of her
sentiments in respect of the posthumous publication of letters.

_Sept. 1811._—Many letters and fragments never intended for publication, have lately been drawn from the shade, and exhibited in the glare of day, without any prominent merit to entitle them to notice; yet all have been widely read; and the fastidious critic, who exclaims against the vanity of editors, and the folly of obtruding private letters on the public, is not always the last to peruse the decried volume. Is it not unfair that works which contribute so largely to general entertainment, should meet with general censure? Where nothing is published that the dead would have wished to conceal, or that can hurt the feelings of the living, it is a blameless gratification to diffuse and prolong the remembrance of those we have loved, to place all that remains of them on earth beyond the reach of those accidents to which MSS. are liable, and to enlarge through their means the stock of innocent amusement. It may even be added, that the curiosity excited by anecdote and private letters turns to general good, by substituting sketches from nature for the monstrous fictions and insipid ravings of modern novels.

Will the editor be excused for adding another volume to the class in question? The characters of those who wrote the following letters were of no common order. Many will recollect having been exhilarated by the wit and humour of Edward Tighe; some, too, will read with interest the ardent expressions of the eccentric but highly gifted Mansergh St. George, whose talents, sensibility, quick sense of honour, and high courage, commanded admiration; though by some strange fatality they never reached the end for which they seemed designed by Providence, and were buried in an untimely grave.

Of the latter of those named above, I find another and fuller
portrait; see also in the later part of this volume, a letter
of date Nov. 9, 1826.

Few men were more highly endowed by nature than Mansergh St. George—rich in the elementary qualities most essential to the formation of the poet, the painter, or the hero; warm affections, a lively imagination, powers of conception equally quick and strong, deep sensibility, undaunted courage, unaffected indifference to the common objects of ambition, and exquisite skill in the transmitting his impressions, either by the pen or pencil. Shakespeare has said that ‘spirits are not finely touched but to fine issues;’ and he is surely right, if we take a future existence into calculation. Did we look to this world alone, we should say the talents of Mansergh St. George were splendid and useless gifts;—‘their memorial is perished with them.’ In fulfilling the duties of his profession as a soldier, he received in the American war a frightful wound, which carried away a portion of the skull; and, though it clouded not the brightness of his intellect, it deprived him of health and vigour, except in those moments of enthusiasm when his body seemed to borrow strength from his mind, moments ever followed by increased debility and depression. He was eccentric, but his singularities were not such as derogated from the respect and affection claimed by his sensibility and genius. He was conscious of them, and sometimes attributed them to a defective system of education, but they were certainly increased by the sedentary and retired life to which ill-health condemned him, and by the attention to his own sensations it enforced.

I find only two or three letters of him who is thus praised
among my Mother’s papers; though, doubtless, she must have
possessed many more, when meditating this publication. In
one, of date Aug. 1792, written soon after the loss of his
wife at Clifton, there is a passage which I am well pleased
to preserve. ‘I would shake hands with Sir —— ——, but grief
communicates with grief like madness, and we are both too apt
to dress our sorrows in idle weeds and fumitory. Affliction is
a curious thing. Her threatening aspect becomes mild on a near
approach. Her snakes become lambent, and lick our wounds. She
has an _agreeable_ ugliness. But perhaps I am partial; for we
have long been playfellows.... I have suffered the _worst_; in
due time, my present agony will be mellowed into those sweet
regrets, that delicious _desiderium_, the balm which the mind
naturally produces for its own cure.’

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Oct. 12, 1811.

I am sorry I cannot answer your query about the Duchess of York. I know she has several dogs, but I suspect the number of 170 to be an exaggeration. I remember ten years since hearing Col. ——, a man nicely attentive to his own convenience, lament that eight or ten of them usurped every good place near the fire, and made the drawing-room extremely offensive. She passes for being what is called ‘a good sort of woman;’ person of whom nothing can be cited remarkable enough to merit praise or blame. I was presented to her at her first drawing-room, when her manner was uncommonly gentle, and her appearance pleasing.

How often I have thought of the affecting circumstances of Miss Keatinge’s bequest. It is a most beneficent dispensation of Providence that sickness and sorrow so often prove the seeds of charity and sympathy. In consequence of _one_ pang felt, how often are a thousand relieved or prevented. And as to the sufferers, I believe there is none of us who cannot say, ‘It is good for me that I was in trouble.’ If we perceive _that_ now, how much more clearly shall we see it when in another state of existence, if we are then endowed with a faculty of looking back on those springs of action which gave an impulse to our earthly life.

TO THE SAME.

Nov., 1811.

I have been much interested by your _Tobit_; and, as you desired, have not yet read the original, which I have nearly forgot. This, however, is not a work which would have much chance of pleasing the public; as a Scripture story is a millstone which, I believe, would now sink any poem. Strange it is, and unaccountable. Mr. Sotheby has struggled nobly against this prejudice in his _Saul_; but scarcely anyone has read this charming poem. In the whole circle of my acquaintance I never met one who had; nor could I ever prevail on any person, even among Mr. Sotheby’s friends and relations, to do so, except my second self; yet it had the advantage of being introduced, in an extract of considerable length, in the _Annual Register_ ten or a dozen years since. I think Johnson did some injury in declaring religious subjects unfit for poetry.

You will have great pleasure in conversing with Lancaster, who is communicative and fluent. He has given a great stimulus to the public mind, and awakened those to a sense of duty who were too long dormant on the great subject of education. That he appears not to have been able to resist that temptation ‘by which angels fell,’ and that he has been so far intoxicated by praise as to claim the _entire_ merit of an invention, which certainly he adopted and published and fostered with more energy and success than the real parent, is to me a matter of regret rather than surprise—perfection and human nature being incompatible. The _bitterness_ of the controversy is indeed to be deplored; it is clear that the controversy itself has already been of use.

* * * * *

The following was written as a contribution to a miscellaneous
volume projected by a literary friend. I am ignorant whether
the volume was ever published; or, if so, under what name.

THE ENVIOUS MAN: IN IMITATION OF THE PICTURES IN ‘THE MICROCOSM.’[45]

The next picture is distinguished by the peculiar expression of the countenance. Mark that painful smile. It inflicts on the spectator a slight tincture of the uneasiness it bespeaks. This is an Envious Man—sworn foe to Excellence, Eminence, Enjoyment. United, these form a triple cord, in which he would willingly hang himself; and separate, any one of the three suffices to wring his heart.

The man who rejoices in the success of those who tread the same path to distinction with himself, has conquered some of the strongest foes to happiness and virtue. He who feels a slight difficulty in doing justice to a competitor is touched by human infirmity. But what shall we say of this man, who is Envious _in the abstract_; to whom all happiness is baneful, all beauty deformity, all music discord, all virtue hypocrisy or weakness? In vain you think yourself safe, because you can never be his competitor; your ages are dissimilar, your pursuits opposite, your situations remote. Mistaken man! In your life ‘if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise,’ there will he cross you, like a basilisk, in your path. Even though you possess no splendid gifts, no social charm, nor riches, nor honours, nor domestic joys,—still, if content be yours, there you sin against his creed, and incur his anathema.

A youth speaks of a lovely woman with admiration. The Original of this portrait points out, as a counterpoise to all her graces, that slight blemish in person or manners, which is but the stamp of humanity. Tell him a witticism, he has heard it before: a splendid act of beneficence, ’tis ostentation: an instance of family affection, ‘Dear Sir, this may be so, but who can peep behind the curtain?’ When the length of a young lady’s raven tresses was pointed out to him as remarkable, he whispered, ‘False, depend on it; I know where they are sold.’ ‘Sir,’ said a friend of the young lady’s, ‘the hair must have grown on some human head, why not where we see it?’ ‘No, no,’ says the sceptic; ‘be assured, hair of such a length never grew from any head whatever. False, false, depend on it.’

This is the only man whose wishes are ever crowned with final success. Vigour declines, beauty decays, wit is extinguished, the tenderest ties at last are broken, the noblest monument crumbles to dust. So far, time alone insures the accomplishment of his desires. Folly, vice, and natural evils, accelerate the work. All the ministers of darkness are his allies. ‘Shadow him with laurel,’ ye spirits at enmity with man. He is already one of your fraternity; he has enlisted in the service of your master, _without a bribe_.

TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.

Bath, Feb., 1812.

Your gleanings are very entertaining. Why is it that one appears to hear more odd and comical sayings in the first twenty-four hours after an Irish arrival, than in many following days? I suppose the novelty of the accent excites attention in the beginning.

I was last night at Lady Newcomen’s. I cannot tell you how kind people are. I meet more _bienveillance_ than when I was younger; and to _me_ this more than compensates for that mixture of flattery, nonsense, and spite, of which what is foolishly called admiration is compounded. No one affronted me by saying I looked as well as ever, or even simply well.

Your friend seems quite uneasy under the present fashion of not flirting, and looks as if he was saying ‘Othello’s occupation’s gone.’ For my part, I think the present ‘sabbath’ much pleasanter than the former ‘laborious idleness.’ If everyone told the truth, they would own that fishing for _agreeable_ chat often tired them as much as more strenuous employment; and to some the double duty of talking well, and looking well, in all humours and under all circumstances, was really fatiguing.

This is my day of moving. The servants are very angry at my leaving this house, and the domestic machinery creaks in every wheel.

TO THE SAME.

Bath, Feb. 20, 1812.

I am just returned from seeing Betty, and greatly disappointed. His figure and face are ignoble, his voice not pleasing, his gesticulations vulgar, and his manner in general high rant. Yet in the last act of _The Earl of Essex_ he showed feeling and a just conception of his part. I know not how he pleased others; as to me, he made no impression, and I never desire to see him again. _The pair_ by my side were as much in a state of performance as he was. There is no love on either part. She wishes to marry him as a _bon parti_; and he wishes, whether he intends to marry her or not, to make her violently in love with him. In this he fancies he has in part succeeded, and so did I till this evening; but he is much mistaken. I could almost fancy she will carry her point; one is generally safe in deciding for the woman. As we were a _quartetto_, I thought it right, on quitting the box half an hour before the play was over, to offer to take her home, as it appeared to me unfeminine to leave her shut up in a little cage with him; but she refused me under a very ingenious pretence, and much will depend on the use she makes of that time. She was in a state of high romance and affected suffering; and it was painful to hear on each side the language of high-wrought affection used for selfish or worldly purposes and in a theatrical tone; and also to see love played at like a game of chess, each party advancing and retreating according to a premeditated scheme. She has a thoroughly foreign manner, and admirable French accent, having past much of her life in France; shows great _sharpness_ both of intellect and temper; but patches it over now and then with a sentiment of softness and self-devotion, borrowed from Claire d’Albe, or Malvina, or Corinne. Heaven help him and his daughter, if he marries her!

TO THE SAME.

Bath, Feb. 22, 1812.

No letter from you yet, and it is now a week since I have heard; but I will continue to write, and heap coals of fire on your head. All Bath is much more interested at present in Mrs. Williams’, late Mrs. Bristow’s, dancing than in the change of Ministry. She announced her intention of making up a French country-dance last Thursday, and it attracted several hundreds—partly from the reputation of her beauty and dancing, partly from the singularity of seeing a woman past fifty, and a grandmother, still so handsome, and able to perform in a _cotillon_. She danced, I hear, not in the theatrical indelicate manner of the present day, but with the flowing gracefulness of the preceding, and is to perform again next Thursday, when a much greater crowd is expected, as those who came to ridicule her stayed to admire, except a few inflexible Bath Cats. I fear I must not venture that evening, as, without going very early, no art or good luck could secure a place where I could see her. Her husband danced in the same dance as her _vis-à-vis_ (which, you know, is not her partner), and performed also remarkably well; but he is a youngish man.

I have wanted you to protect me from a person who has taken possession of me—not a man. She began by humility and falling in love with me and mine—not by admiration, which I know how to resist, but by affection, which I shall never resist; and she ends by _exigeance_ and assumption, and, without being distinguished in any way, by an extraordinary display of vanity, which is always interrupting the common course of things.

I am giving —— —— something very like regular lessons in singing; and I have the vanity to think I have improved her. She has powers, and has had an immensity of instruction; but I think her instructors have made a job of her, and have hid from her, or at least not shown her, some of the simplest principles in singing.

TO THE SAME.

Bath, Feb. 26, 1812.

I heard so often that Betty acted ill the first night from _mauvaise honte_, that I was seduced to see him again to-night, and fell upon _Alexander the Great_, fancying I was going to see _Tancred and Sigismunda_. He certainly pleased me much better; and I shall not be surprised if the strength of his genius and intelligence conquers the impression made by his physical defects. At the same time, I shall regret it, for the ‘stock of harmless pleasure’ is much diminished when external grace is not united on the stage to superior talent: and if he is borne to the head of his profession, _manœuvring_ will keep down all his competitors as long as my life lasts; and I shall be compelled to see as Hamlet, Romeo, and Coriolanus, a clumsy, short-necked, large-stomached hero, with a red dumpling as a face, an obstructed articulation, and an audible manner of recovering breath, like what one hears on board the packets. I foresee this is likely to be our fate, for he has great energy, pathos, and a complete conception of his part. In short, he _has_ every mental, and _wants_ every physical requisite. Lady —— is his great patroness, and I hope I never shall forget her manner of applauding, for it makes me laugh whenever it rises to my mind. It was not with her eyes, it was not with her hands; it was an undulating motion of her whole person, and all its appendages. In a pathetic part, the only time when a tear was forced from me, it was instantly dried as I turned my eye on her (it was ‘Said a tear to a smile’). I have tried to do it, but I want her activity.

At Lady Cosby’s affectionate request I sang at her house last Monday, and her thanks and praises were far above what my performance could deserve. I heard a lady behind me to-night say I sang quite in the style of Braham. It is of all others the style of which I should like to catch the least shadow. When I hear a lady sings like Catalani, I am always alarmed, for I dread anything approaching to her _powers_ being let loose upon me without an equal proportion of her science and skill; and if it is a young untaught lady, who is ‘quite a natural genius,’ I am very anxious to run out of the room.

I hope you remember me affectionately to the kind friends you are surrounded with. You know how much I love many amongst them, and how completely the _second_ circle in my heart (for the first contains but six souls) is filled by the friends and relations you have given me;—I will not say _relatives_; ‘relations’ was good enough for Milton and Thomson, and shall be good enough for me, spite of modern refinement. It is a word _set_ in the gold of two of their best passages, and therefore I will not change it.

TO THE SAME.

Bath, March 1, 1812.

I passed Monday evening with an old friend, Mrs. Morgan, who has known me from the time I was six years old. She has a mind most pregnant and original, and a superior flow of conversation, but is not generally liked. She is so indifferent to common forms, visits only those she prefers and approves, never goes to assemblies, and is perhaps _a little_ more candid than is necessary. Her lamentations over me at my having lost what, as Clarissa always says, ‘she was pleased to call’ ‘the prettiest and lightest figure she ever saw,’ were really entertaining, from their contrast to the fibs one is in the habit of hearing; adding, ‘Ah, my dear’ (for she has some Irish phraseology), ‘what a beautiful creature I remember you, and now, even your face is grown fat and broad. Well, you will always be delightful _to listen to_.’ I am very much obliged to her for remembering what she once thought me, but I had the weakness to feel a little involuntary melancholy. In spite of _broad_, Mrs. Morgan is a delightful woman, so delightful, that, though dressed to go to Mrs. Lemon’s, I sent an excuse, and spent the whole evening _tête-à-tête_ with her. She illuminated the past for me, and gave me an infinity of anecdotes from the fountain-head, relative to Mrs. Bowdler (her intimate friend), that prodigy, Miss Smith, the Edgeworths, who live near her daughter, and other equally interesting people. Mr. Edgeworth’s present wife goes with all her children to the parish church, has introduced the Bible, and has added to the whole family the charm of religious feelings and principles.

Mrs. Williams will put some hundreds into King’s pocket, such crowds attend the rooms to see her dance. I have not ventured to go since she has performed; for you cannot get a place near enough to see her without going at eight o’clock. She has taught her husband to dance; he is always her _vis-à-vis_; and he said to an old maid whom he heard abusing her for _exhibiting_, as they call everything they cannot do themselves, ‘Ma’am, _if you had a husband_ that liked you should dance as well as I do that Mrs. Williams should dance, I dare say you would do it too. She is my wife, and I hope she will dance as long as she is able.’ The consternation of the old maid was great. Certainly it is a foolish thing to be so anxious to see a woman perform, because she is a grandmother, whom nobody came particularly to see when she was sixteen years younger and a good many more pounds lighter; for she is very large; but the folly is in the spectators, not in her.

* * * * *

_August, 1812._—The paucity of French works fit for young women is remarkable. From Mad. de Genlis they learn to overrate worldly pursuits, externals, accomplishments, and all the frippery of life; for though there are charming passages and delightful stories, and she disavows this doctrine, yet such is _the general impression_ her writings leave. Besides, they have a tendency to foster duplicity, and a species of address which requires to be discouraged in females, as experience proves that most of us have too much of it without any superadded cultivation. A mother, as in _Adèle et Théodore_, is to form her daughter’s heart by a series of little _plots_ and _falsehoods_, which she calls _scenes_; and all these are to be acknowledged to the daughter on her day of marriage, in order to increase the respect for truth necessary for the happiness of that connexion. From _Télémaque_ girls may learn abstract principles of politics and the art of governing kingdoms; or rather, as they cannot understand these topics, they learn to be unable ever to read with pleasure a very fine work, from the recollection of the _ennui_ it inspired as an exercise. From _Gil Blas_, which was once at least a school book (perhaps it may be so no longer), they will learn what are the habits and manners of gamesters, pickpockets, kept mistresses, robbers, &c., and they _only lose_ the attic salt and exquisite humour that form the whole merit of the book; as, to relish these, some knowledge of the world is absolutely necessary. Mad. de Sévigné is delightful to a cultivated mind, well read in the anecdotes and history of her period, and versed in the conversation-idiom of the French language; but she is so full of allusions, so like a speaker, and so sure her daughter has read the same books and knows the same people as herself, that a poor girl is quite in the dark, who has no store of information about Louis XIV. and his Court, who has never heard of Racine or Descartes, who knows nothing of the tenets of the Roman Catholic religion, &c. Besides, as Mad. de Sévigné writes to a married daughter, whom she endeavours to amuse by all the anecdotes of Versailles without selection, her _Letters_ are more suitable to female maturity than to early youth. When a very young girl has professed to me great pleasure in this work, I have usually found she talked from _hearsay_.

TO MAD. DE LA GARDIE, SWEDEN.

By favour of Admiral Bertie.[46]

Bursledon Lodge, Sept., 1812.

L’interressante, l’aimable Comtesse de la Cardie, a-t-elle oublieé une amie dont le séjour à Vienne a été embelli par des prouves continuelles de son amitié,—Melesina, qui a changé son nom de _St. George_ pour celui de _Trench_, par un mariage des plus heureux, n’oubliera jamais les heures qui ont coulées dans la société d’une famille où tout se réunissoit pour plaire à l’esprit et le cœur. Je ne puis pas exprimer les sensations avec lesquelles j’ai trouvé hier dans le portefeuille de l’Amiral Bertie, une gravure qui avoit sur l’envelope deux lignes qui prouvoient que cela venoit de votre main. Il me donne de vos nouvelles avec tout l’empressement de son caractère, animé par le plaisir qu’il trouvoit à rendre justice aux qualités de ses amis. Il parle avec beaucoup de reconnoissance de vos bontés, et de celles de Monsieur le Comte de la Gardie, et il m’a dépeint le château hospitalier où vous m’avez invité avec tant de grâce; et dont j’ai tant desiré de voir les beautés pittoresques. C’est avec un plaisir trés-vif que j’ai su par lui que votre santé, et celle de ceux qui vous sont chers, est telle que vous pourriez la désirer, et que l’enfant que vous attendiez quand je suis partie de Vienne est actuellement à cette époque, où une mère commence de trouver dans son fils, un ami aussi sûr que tendre.

Je possède à present _cinq_ amis de cette espèce. Mon fils ainé fait ses études à Cambridge; les autres animent la retraite charmante où nous nous consacrons à leur education pour la plus grande partie de l’année; et je possède aussi une fille de quatre mois, qui promet de jouir d’une santé et d’une vivacité pareille à celles de ses frères.

Puis-je me flatter que votre réponse m’assurera que vous me continuez vos bontés, et me parlera en détail d’une amie qui me sera toujours chère. Veuillez bien assurer Monsieur le Comte des sentiments d’amitié et d’estime qu’il m’a inspiré.

TO A FRIEND.

Cheltenham, Sept. 20, 1812.

Before you can read this letter, I earnestly hope the stream of your domestic happiness will have returned to its own clear and unruffled course. That any circumstance has disturbed it, I much lament; but I am sure it is not necessary to remind you how often an event which has approached us under an unpleasing form, has become afterwards one of the primary sources of our happiness; and it is only to the _form_, to the _dress_, if I may so express myself, of what has occurred, that your maternal heart can object. Virtuous love, that great blessing of human existence—I should say great_est_, if I were not a mother—always appears in my eyes still more virtuous when it is founded on an intimacy and knowledge of each other commenced in childhood or early youth. One is sure in this case that intellectual and moral qualities have had the principal share in producing it; for such an intercourse precludes all illusion, all deception from the imagination; and none but the truly amiable and excellent are likely in this situation to feel a mutual passion. Allow me, then, my dear friend, to offer you my congratulations. I am not surprised that —— should feel herself pained, because every point in the manner of ——’s marriage is not exactly what you could desire. At that age one expects all the occurrences of life to accord _perfectly_ with one’s wishes, and the lightest deviation from these discomposes the youthful mind; but when experience has shown that there is no light without shade, that the brightest summer has its passing clouds, one scarcely bestows a thought on slight and transient mortifications, which only remind one that earth is not heaven.

TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.

Cheltenham, Sept. 22, 1812.

I pay nine guineas a week, which I see is three too much; but I must submit to the law of necessity, and the inconvenience attendant on having been taught, for more than the first half of my life, that it was a disgrace to know how to make a bargain—as silly an idea as can be grafted on the mind of youth, and one I will take care my children shall not be encumbered with. Indeed, they will see that one of the most liberal and dignified of men is perfectly well qualified to do himself the same justice he would do to another, which is all that is necessary. It is not generosity that ever prevented any sensible person from making a bargain, but timidity, want of _aplomb_, false shame, and a desire to please by facility and yielding.

There are much the same set of people here as last year—Mrs. Fitzherbert among them, who was _judiciously_ invited to a _fête_ by Col. —— in honour of the Princess Charlotte’s birthday. He first treated Mrs. F. as Regentess, by leading her into the supper-room before all the women of rank, and then gave toasts and made orations upon the merits of the Prince and Princess, _and the lovely fruit of their union_. Was ever such folly, inconsistency, and want of feeling? On the whole, the society here is bad, but the walks, air, and water are delightful. I long to see my own coronet of jewels once more on its emerald ground; above all, to assure myself that the last little pearl is as round and perfect as when I left her.

TO THE SAME.

Cheltenham, Sept. 24, 1812.

I passed yesterday evening at Col. ——’s. Under the _régime_ of _Madame_, he is far less ridiculous than when allowed to go alone. A map or survey of his Jamaica estate was ostentatiously displayed on a flower-stand. After having so lately read John Woolman,[47] I felt a little awkward in sharing a _recherché_ supper, and seeing so plainly the source whence it flowed. ‘Negroes-land,’ ‘Sugar canes,’ were marked in different parts of this melancholy map. John Woolman, you know, was ‘_not free_ to share in even the necessaries of life,’ when obtained by the labour of slaves. How would his mild spirit have been afflicted by seeing this ostentatious display of our shame! Yet I supped upon turkey _piqué au lard_, as if I never had read John Woolman.

ON A REPORT OF THE DEATH OF BUONAPARTE.

_Nov., 1812._

Quenched is thy light
In endless night,
Thou flaming minister of wrath;
Struck from thy lofty and eccentric path;
Where, like a comet, through the troubled air,
Impelled by some unknown mysterious law,
Shining with lurid wild disastrous glare,
Thou didst impress intolerable awe:
And though thy light, as the volcanic fire,
Brought death, brought terror,—who but must admire
(E’en while they fear, condemn, or hate,)
Thy steadfast mind, as fixed as fate,
Thy keen and penetrating soul,
Tempered to conquer and control,
Thy powerful glance, that measured earth
As thine inheritance by birth.
Thy scornful smile,—thy searching eyes,—
We might detest, but not despise.

Thou prodigal of human life!
Nor only in the battle’s strife:—
Behold a captive Turkish band;
Indignant, pale, and mute they stand.
Inclosed by living walls, they view
The features of thy dreadful crew,
And see the mark of Cain imprest—
Clouds and darkness shroud the rest.

Appalling scene—but not the worst!
Another rises more accurst;
For thine, in every danger tried,
(Thou most ungrateful homicide!)
Feeble and wounded as they lie,
But taste thy venomed cup—and die!

Why glare these torches in the rifted earth,
Deepening the midnight gloom of upper air?
Does Nature teem with some disastrous birth,
Or fiends abhorred their secret rites prepare?
No! ’tis thy death-winged thunder flies,
Speeds its detested course, and D’Enghien dies!

Successive phantoms fill the mind,
Dark, terrific, undefined;
Torture in a dungeon’s gloom—
A noble captive!—secret doom!
And starting, vengeful, from her sleep,
The offended Genius of the deep;
Who vows to thee relentless hate,
Deploring Wright’s mysterious fate.

But dimly seen, these visions fade,
Like flitting shadows of a shade.

Thy stubborn will, when once impelled,
Its onward impulse keenly held.
Like the Eastern idol’s car it rushed,
Heedless what victims may be crushed:
Or, writhing underneath the wheel,
What tortures may those victims feel.
Ages of penitence in vain
Would struggle to efface that stain.—
Yet shall thy story loudly preach
An awful lesson to mankind:
Through future ages it shall teach
The great supremacy of mind.

’Twas not, as modern sages tell,
A compact with the powers of Hell:
Nor yet a soldier’s happy chance,
Due to the faulchion or the lance;
Nor chain of circumstance alone,
That placed thee on the imperial throne.
No! it was courage, promptness, skill,
The soul resolved, the steadfast will,
Nor sensual bliss, nor trivial aim,
Could e’er seduce, could e’er inflame:
Ardour that glowed in polar snows,
And energy that feared repose.
Had these not mingled with thy crimes,
The tragic theme of future times,
Nor diadem had bound thy brows,
Nor Austria’s daughter heard thy vows,
Nor had thy hand that sceptre swayed,
Which half the astonished world obeyed.

A MOTHER TO HER INFANT DAUGHTER.

Silent pleader! living flower!
Shining proof of beauty’s power!
Little gem of brightest ray!
My Child, how poorly words essay
The mixed emotions to define
That spring from loveliness like thine.
Mysterious are the charms we trace
In a beauteous infant’s face;
Celestial secrets seem to lie
Within thy dark and dazzling eye;
The flame of pure affection glows
In thy refreshing cheek of rose;
And on that polished lip of thine
Love, and hope, and pleasure shine;
There, in fragrant coral cell,
Enamoured silence loves to dwell;
No articulated sound
Has ever passed that ruby bound:
But in thy sweet and Sybil face
Each rising thought I clearly trace;
Language may blush, when looks so well
Can every shade of feeling tell.
In the clear mirror of thine eye
To read thy fate I sometimes try;
And musing o’er thy future years,
Dim the fantastic scene with tears.

Thou wilt be Woman! that alone
Echoes to Compassion’s throne;
Man may his destiny create,
Woman is the slave of fate.
Thou mayst be lovely!—in that word
Ten thousand sorrows are inferred;
Adored when young, neglected old,
By passion bought, by parents sold!
Seduction masked in friendship’s guise,
Envy with sharp malignant eyes,
Satire with poisoned poignant dart,
Shall all conspire to pierce thine heart;
And, in thy short and brilliant reign,
These fiends may give thee bitter pain:
Yet when the sober evening grey
Of life steals on, and charms decay,
When Time detaches, one by one,
The blossoms of thy floral crown,
Oft shalt thou sigh for youth again
With all its peril, all its pain.

But hark! a long-lost voice[48] I hear,
Like distant music, soft and clear;
It bears the tone of mild rebuke,
Yet such as pride itself might brook:
‘Cease, wayward mourner, to complain,
And learn a wiser, purer strain;
Weave not the web of fancied woes,
But bless the gift high Heaven bestows:
Thy Cherub, in a woman’s form,
Shall sheltered rest from many a storm,
By which the bark of man is tost,
Till virtue, peace, and heaven are lost.
Act rightly thou the mother’s part,
From vanity preserve her heart—
Small creeping weed, yet strong in power
To check the fruit and blast the flower.
Then will she see her charms decay,
As calmly as she views the ray
Of summer’s suns whose soft decline
Inspires tranquillity divine.’