"August 13. 1814.
"I wrote yesterday to Mayfield, and have just now enfranked your
letter to mamma. My stay in town is so uncertain (not later than
next week) that your packets for the north may not reach me; and as
I know not exactly where I am going--however, _Newstead_ is my most
probable destination, and if you send your despatches before
Tuesday, I can forward them to our new ally. But, after that day,
you had better not trust to their arrival in time.
"* * has been exiled from Paris, _on dit_, for saying the Bourbons
were old women. The Bourbons might have been content, I think, with
returning the compliment.
"I told you all about Jacky and Larry yesterday;--they are to be
separated,--at least, so says the grand M., and I know no more of
the matter. Jeffrey has done me more than 'justice;' but as to
tragedy--um!--I have no time for fiction at present. A man cannot
paint a storm with the vessel under bare poles on a lee-shore. When
I get to land, I will try what is to be done, and, if I founder,
there be plenty of mine elders and betters to console Melpomene.
"When at Newstead, you must come over, if only for a day--should
Mrs. M. be _exigeante_ of your presence. The place is worth seeing,
as a ruin, and I can assure you there _was_ some fun there, even
in my time; but that is past. The ghosts [46], however, and the
gothics, and the waters, and the desolation, make it very lively
still.
"Ever, dear Tom, yours," &c.
[Footnote 46: It was, if I mistake not, during his recent visit to
Newstead, that he himself actually fancied he saw the ghost of the Black
Friar, which was supposed to have haunted the Abbey from the time of the
dissolution of the monasteries, and which he thus describes, from the
recollection perhaps of his own fantasy, in Don Juan:--
"It was no mouse, but, lo! a monk, array'd
In cowl and beads and dusky garb, appear'd,
Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade,
With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard:
His garments only a slight murmur made:
He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird,
But slowly; and as he pass'd Juan by,
Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye."
It is said, that the Newstead ghost appeared, also, to Lord Byron's
cousin, Miss Fanny Parkins, and that she made a sketch of him from
memory.]
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