I have just been reading Carleton's _Memoirs_, and am in love with the
captain and with his general, Lord Peterborough; and I have also been
reading one of the worst-written books in the language, but it has both
instructed and entertained me--Sir John Hawkins's _Life of Johnson._ He
has thrown a heap of rubbish of his own over poor Johnson, which would
have smothered any less gigantic genius.
M. Dumont writes from Lord Henry Petty's: "Nous avons lu en société à
Bounds, _Tales of Fashionable Life._ Toute société est un petit théâtre.
'Ennui' et 'Manoeuvring' ont eu un succès marqué, il a été très vif.
Nous avons trouvé un grand nombre des dialogues du meilleur comique,
c'est à dire ceux où les personnages se developpent sans le vouloir, et
sont plaisants sans songer à l'être. Il y a des scènes charmantes dans
'Madame de Fleury.' Ne craignez pas les difficultés, c'est là où vous
brillez."
_To_ MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH.
_Nov 30._
We have had a bevy of wits here--Mr. Chenevix, Mr. Henry Hamilton,
Leslie Foster, and his particular friend Mr. Fitzgerald. Somebody asked
if Miss White [Footnote: The then well-known Miss Lydia White, for many
years a central figure in London literary society.] was a bluestocking.
"Oh yes, she is; I can't tell you how blue. What is bluer than
blue?"--"_Morbleu_," exclaimed Lord Norbury. Miss White herself comes
next week.
_Dec. 11._
Among other things Miss White entertained my father with was a method of
drawing the human figure, and putting it into any attitude you please:
she had just learned it from Lady Charleville--or rather not learned it.
A whole day was spent in drawing circles all over the human figure, and
I saw various skeletons in chains, and I was told the intersections of
these were to show where the centres of gravity were to be; but my
gravity could not stand the sight of these ineffectual conjuring tricks,
and my father was out of patience himself. He seized a sheet of paper
and wrote to Lady Charleville, and she answered in one of the most
polite letters I ever read, inviting him to go to Charleville Forest,
and he will go and see these magical incantations performed by the
enchantress herself.
_To_ MISS RUXTON.
_December 1809._
I have spent five delightful days at Sonna and Pakenham Hall. Mrs.
Tuite's kindness and Mr. Chenevix's various anecdotes, French and
Spanish, delighted us at Sonna; and you know the various charms both for
the head and heart at Pakenham Hall.
I have just been reading, for the fourth time, I believe, _The Simple
Story_, which I intended this time to read as a critic, that I might
write to Mrs. Inchbald about it; but I was so carried away by it that I
was totally incapable of thinking of Mrs. Inchbald or anything but Miss
Milner and Doriforth, who appeared to me real persons whom I saw and
heard, and who had such power to interest me, that I cried my eyes
almost out before I came to the end of the story: I think it the most
pathetic and the most powerfully interesting tale I ever read. I was
obliged to go from it to correct _Belinda_ for Mrs. Barbauld, who is
going to insert it in her collection of novels, with a preface; and I
really was so provoked with the cold tameness of that stick or stone
Belinda, that I could have torn the pages to pieces: and really, I have
not the heart or the patience to _correct_ her. As the hackney coachman
said, "Mend _you!_ better make a new one."
_To_ MRS. RUXTON.