*I hardly know how to take up the pen. I talked in my last pen
of two or three posts, and I am almost ashamed to calculate
how many have elapsed. I will endeavour for the future to be
less scandalous. Only believe that my heart is innocent of
the lazyness of my hand. I do not mean to have recourse to the
stale and absurd excuse of business, though I have really had
a very considerable hurry of new Parliamentary business: one
day, for instance, of seventeen hours, from ten in the morning
till between three and four the next morning. It is, upon the
whole, an agreeable improvement in my life, and forms just the
mixture of business, of study, and of society, which I always
imagined I should, and now find I do, like. Whether the House of
Commons may ever prove of benefit to myself or Country is another
question. As yet I have been mute. In the course of our American
affairs, I have sometimes had a wish to speak, but though I felt
tolerably prepared as to the matter, I dreaded exposing myself in
the manner, and remained in my seat safe, but inglorious. Upon
the whole (though I still believe I shall try), I doubt whether
Nature, not that in some instances I am ungrateful, has given me
the talents of an Orator, and I feel that I come into Parliament
much too late to exert them.*
The H.'s have passed a fortnight with me and went away yesterday.
I regret them much. We often thought and talked of you, and
the more so, as we stumbled on your friend Mrs. Ashby. She is
an agreable Woman, though we cannot think her either handsome,
or proper for your daughter-in-law. *Do you hear of Port
Eliot coming to Bath? and, above all, do you hear of Charles
Street[290] coming to Bentinck Street, in its way to Essex, &c.
Adieu.
Dear Madam,
I am most truly yours,
E. GIBBON.*
[290] Mrs. Gibbon's residence at Bath.
245.
_To J. B. Holroyd, Esq._
Saturday Night, 8th April, 1775. Atwood's as usual.
_A Letter from Aunt._ She supposes me too much taken up with Public
business to write. And yet, alas! throughout that public business I
have remained silent, and notwithstanding all my efforts chained down
to my place by some invisible--unknown invisible power. Now America
and almost Parliament are at an end. I have _resumed my History_ with
vigour and adjourned Politicks to next Winter. Deyverdun will render
account of his own Commissions. Lord Stamford and Booth Gray _hunt_
Brown for your service. He is difficult to catch. I embrace My Lady
and Maria. _She_ (I mean My Lady) is good and grateful. Adieu.
Lovegrove still shuffles: I know not what to do.
246.
_To his Stepmother._
April 11th, 1775.