“Dear Patmore,—Welcome
back to England, for back you are come, if there is faith in the greatest of
publishers, though a little man. But if you liked Wiesbaden as well as I did,
you will soon wish yourself back again. Could I have got that pretty house on
the hill called the Palais, which the duchess, I am told, has bought, I believe
I should be there still. The owner asked 2400 florins a-year for it, only a
fourth part
| 124 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
“I wish I was in town to have a gossip with you about this pretty town and patriarchal government. I suppose you walked, as I did, to Sonenberg every day. But if I go on about Wiesbaden I shall have no room for Mr. De Clifford, who leaves this for London next Tuesday, and whom I beg to introduce to your best civilities in Colburn’s name and mine.
“I am quite glad to have agreed with that modern Lintot, for I should have been sorry to have gone to anybody else. In truth, I think him friendly, fair, and straightforward. He gives me —— for 1250 copies, and —— more for a second edition.
“You see I have taken your advice about Bardolfe, as to which name I had as many scruples as
you, and for the same reason, the hell-fire nose, and the flea frying on it,
the only thing which ever put Falstaff in
mind
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 125 |
“What you will say to it I know not. Judging from your too kind partiality displayed in your letter, I ought not to be afraid, and there are things in it which I am myself much pleased with (the whole work no doubt, you will say); but I can be no judge.
“I have submitted my refined lady to another lady of quality, Lady ——, who has been passing a fortnight with us, and she has set her seal to it, particularly an interesting discussion upon the real nature of fashion and vulgarity, introduced by way of instructing the hero, while in his novitiate, on that difficult and puzzling question.
| 126 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
“There are some situations which I am not without the hope will interest you. The didactics, however, are most interesting to myself, though I shall be very glad if you do not think them too long.
“I am willing to hope, on the other hand, that the story is rather original, certainly not common place.
“There is one part for which I will beg your particular attention. It is a dissertation (far from compromising) upon the jobbing of the modern system of reviewing— what I call the criticism of the shop. Pray do you know anything of a Mr. Reid, who attacked it boldly and cleverly in a short tract, called ‘Reviewers Reviewed’?
“I fear to bore you, or rather rob you of your
valuable time, or I could say many things; but this I feel to be more than
quantum suff. I will only
therefore revert a little to your letter, which was very agreeable both to
Mrs. P. W. and me, particularly for
liking Wiesbaden so well. We wondered, by the way, whether you ever met with
some friends we were very fond of—Comtesse Mathilde
Dumontz, dame d’honneur to Princess
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 127 |
“I am afraid you will think, if you don’t say, what a coxcomb! Yet it is not surely mere vanity that makes me take pleasure in having pleased persons I so very much liked and respected.
“Well,—pour revenir à nos moutons,—though now an old stager, I shall be tremblingly alive to what you will say of me; so have mercy upon my youthful sensibility!
“I will only add my hope that your pleasant excursion
has had the effect which all your friends must wish upon your health, which
must be valuable to them and your family, whatever it may be to yourself. For I
must again scold you for your way of life, which you seem to consider, as Mr.
| 128 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
“Pray copy me, who think the world still worth living for, and who, not very far from seventy-six, feel freer from illness than ever I did in my life; and so no more at present from your loving friend,
