"A merry Christmas and a happy New Year" to you, my dear Sophy, and to
my aunt, and uncle, and Margaret. I have just risen from my bed, where I
had been a day and a half with a violent headache and pains, or as John
Langan calls them, _pins_ in my bones. We have been much entertained
with _Mansfield Park._ Pray read _Eugène et Guillaume_, a modern _Gil
Blas_; too much of opera intrigues, but on the whole it is a work of
admirable ability. Guillaume's character beautiful, and the gradual
deterioration of Eugène's character finely drawn; but the following it
out becomes at last as disgusting and horrible as it would be to see the
corruption of the body after the spirit had fled.
_January 1815._
I send you some beautiful lines to Lord Byron, by Miss Macpherson,
daughter of Sir James Macpherson. As soon as my father hears from the
Dublin Society we shall go to Dublin.
_To_ MISS RUXTON.