Well, I am everything that by this you have said. I am “an idle, addle-pated, good-for-nothing thing,” who, at the end of three months’ absence, begins to remember there is somebody whose demands upon her grateful and affectionate recollection are undeniable; and who, in fact, she never ceases to love and respect, though she does not regularly tell her so by the week, “in a double letter from Northamptonshire;” and now, I dare say, a very clever letter you will expect. Alas! madam, that which in me “makes fat the ribs but bankrupts out the wits,” the morale, in its excellence, bears no proportion to the physique, and I am, at this moment, the best lodged, best fed and dullest author in his Majesty’s dominions. My memory comes surcharged with titles and pedigrees, and my fancy laden with stars and garters,—my deep study is pointed towards the red book, and my light reading to the French bill of fare which lies under my cover at dinner; but you will say, “hang your fancy, give me facts.” Hélas! ma belle, I have none to relate, that your philosophic mind would not turn up its nose at. What is it to you that I live in one of the largest palaces in England? and that the sound of a commoner’s name is refreshment to my organs, wearied out with

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the thrilling vibrations of “your Royal Highness,” “your Grace,” and “your Majesty!” Aye, now you open your big dark eyes, not knowing all the time (as how should you, poor soul!) that I am surrounded by ex-lord-lieutenants, unpopular princesses, and “deposed potentates,” (for in the present state of things, we here are in the wrong box); on either side of me I find chatting lords Westmorland and Hardwick (poor dears!) pop, then comes the Princess of Wales, with “quips and cranks and wreathed smiles,” and “anon stalks by in royal sadness,” the “exiled majesty of Sweden,” who certainly deserves to reign, because he boldly affichés himself as not deserving to reign and says tout bonnement, “that his people were the best judges, and they were of his opinion.” This is fact, not fancy. The truth is that the wonderful variety of distinguished and extraordinary characters who come here, make it to me a most delicious séjour,—and though I am now going on my fourth month it seems as if I was beginning my first day. It were in vain to tell you the names of our numerous and fluctuating visitors, as they include those of more than half the nobility of England, and of the first class; add to which, many of the wits, authors, and existing ministers (poor dears!) The house is no house at all, for it looks like a little town, which you will believe when I tell you that a hundred and twenty people slept under the roof during the Christmas holidays without including the under servants; and that Lords Abercorn and Hamilton have between them nine apartments de plain-pied, and Lady A. four. The Queen’s

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chamberlain told me, indeed, that there was nothing like the whole establishment in England, and, perhaps, for a subject, in Europe. I have seen a great deal of the Devonshire family; the daughters are charming, and I am told, Lady G. Morpeth very like her mother, whom they all say, actually died in consequence of the shock she received from the novel of The Winter in London. What will please you more than anything is that I have sold my book, The Missionary, famously. That I am now correcting the proof sheets, and that I have sat to the celebrated Sir Thomas Lawrence for my picture, from which an engraving is done for my work.

I was presented almost immediately on my arrival to the Princess of Wales, who received me most graciously, and with whom I have dined. The Duchess of Gordon has been particularly kind and attentive to me, and is here frequently. We have at present a very celebrated person, Payne Knight, and Lord Aberdeen, who has a farm at Athens. He is married to one of our daughters.

I swore like a trooper to Livy I would be back by the 1st of January, but as that is past, I will be back before the 1st of March, for these folk then move themselves for Ireland, and it will be then time to move off myself; so I propose myself to take a family dinner with you the 1st of March new style. Poor Mrs. Wallace! she held out wondrously. The last day I saw her I did not think she would live a week, and she lived twelve. I hear he is inconsolable (poor man!!) (do you perceive through all this a vein of

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tender pity!) I wish he would get a star or garter that I might smile on him, as it is “nothing under nobility approaches Mrs. Kitty.”) The majesty of the people!! Oh, how we laugh at such nonsense! My dear Mistress What-do-ye-call’em, can I do anything for you, or the good man, your husband? command me. As to the worthy person, your son, I have nothing interesting to communicate to him, but that we have had the Archbishops of York and Canterbury, and they have exorcised the evil spirit out of me, so that I shall go back to him a saint in grain. Have you seen Livy? Love to all in a lump, and pray write to me under cover to the Marquis, St. James’s Square, London.

I cannot tell you, my sweet friend, how much pleasure your letter has given me! not because you have been panegyrizing me to your great friends,—nor because I have any, the most remote fancy, that those panegyrics can ultimately produce benefits to your friend; but because the unsought, disinterested, spontaneous testimonies of friendship, are with me above all value! Even if they were not rare they would be precious,—but when one who has seen as much of mankind as myself, and knows, au fond, how seldom a heart or a head can be found that is not exclusively occupied with its own cares, or pleasures, or interests; when such a one meets an instance of gratuitous and friendly solicitude about the interests or reputation of an absent connection, he gets a new consciousness of the value of his existence, by finding there is something in his species better than he expected. I profess to you to feel a sentiment of that kind from this last instance of your recollection of me; for I am so far a misanthrope, that I should not have been much surprised if a volatile little girl like yourself, fond of the pleasure and of the admiration of society, should have forgotten such a thing as myself, when immersed in the various enjoyments of such a circle as you are now surrounded by; not that I doubted you had friendship for me,—for of that I would have been

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certain; but I would have been easily persuaded that present pleasure might, for a time, have superseded memory, and postponed a recollection of distant friends and past scenes till a more convenient season. I confess, however, my sweet friend, that I entertained some fear that your zeal may have carried you a little too far in the conversation you mention; for anything in the way of solicitation or canvass would certainly, my dear Sydney, be to me one of the most mortifying things on earth; it would be at war with all my feelings and outrage all my principles; for there is but one thing in this world of which I can be vain—and it is a source of pleasure which nothing would induce me to forego—a consciousness that whatever I am, or whatever little success I may have in life, it is the pure and unmixed result of my own labours, uncherished and unpatronised. One instance only occurred in the course of my life, in which any attempt was made to promote my interests by the solicitation of friendship, and that became a source of great vexation to me,—it was that Mr. C. adverted to when he spoke of Ponsonby. Grattan, meaning to do a kind thing for me without my knowledge, applied to T. when he became Chancellor for a silk gown for me, and having got what he considered an explicit promise, he then mentioned the thing publicly, and it was known to half the profession before I heard of it. T. afterwards falsified his promise—by pretending that the promise was not for the next creation of king’s counsel, but for the next but one. The consequence was the open declaration of war I made upon him—which most probably will for ever prevent

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me and Chancellors from being very good friends; for those fellows, like other classes of men, have a certain esprit de corps, and make common cause. Speak of me, therefore, dear Sydney, as your friend as much as you please, praise me in that character as far as you can, and you confer an honour on me of which I shall ever be most proud; but beware, my sweet girl, of patronage or solicitation. Here has been twenty times too much of myself; but you have made the subject valuable by the attention you have paid to it.

What is the meaning of your question, “What are you to do with the rest of your life?” Can it be possible that a mind like yours should prove itself so feeble, that the passing enjoyments of a few months in “splendour and comfort” would disgust you with the ordinary habits of the world? This would be neither reason, nor philosophy, nor good taste; for good taste is good sense directed in a particular way; and good sense has a very assimilating quality and always fits us for “existing circumstances.” I do hope, notwithstanding the horror with which you seem to look at your descent from the pedestal, that you will be capable of enjoying the circumscribed, social, laughing, wise, foolish, playful little suppers which Mrs. * * * has given us, and, I hope, will again. By the way, when will you return? Mrs. Lefanu told me, on Saturday, you mentioned to her that you would be here in a fortnight and go back; and yet Mrs. C. knows nothing of it—nor I. I cannot help recurring again to your question, What will you do with the rest of life? I put the interrogatory to myself when I read your

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letter,—indeed, I have often asked myself the question—and what do you think I am likely to do? Most probably I shall retire to some very remote spot, where a small income will be an independence—and what then? J. W.

I write to you with reluctance, in which my heart has no share; its natural impulses are always true to pity and affection; to solace the afflicted is in me no virtue, it is at once my nature and my habit, and if in prosperity and joy my feelings vary their direction

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and ebb and flow to the influence of peculiar circumstances, in sorrow and in sadness they become fixed and invariable, for, “laugh with those who rejoice,” is less natural to me than to “weep with those who weep;” yet respecting your grief (and the grief of a man is to me always awful), not knowing in what mood of mind my letter might find you, I waited till it could be naturally supposed the first strong impressions of scenes of suffering and of melancholy might be softened if not effaced, until nothing but a tender sadness not ungracious to the feelings remained. I know not how to use the common-place language of condolence; death has broken a tie which sometimes galled you; but it has also taken from you a friend, a sincere, an affectionate and faithful friend; for myself, young as I am, I have tried long enough to know and to feel the inconsequence of life. To act right according to those moral principles which nature has interwoven with our very constitution, and from which all the moral institutions of man are derived, is, I most sincerely and solemnly believe, the sole good, imperishable and lasting as long as we shall ourselves last, whether here or hereafter; that all the rest is subordinate and frail, I can assert upon my own experience. To-day, glancing my eyes over the Novice of St. Dominic, I was struck by the ardour, the enthusiasm, the fertility of invention, in short by all the brilliant illusions of untried youth, which gleamed in every line. I opposed them by the cold, tame nature of my present feelings;—my disappointed heart, my exhausted imagination, and I had the weakness to

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drop tears on the page as I read; but I dried them soon, and I could not help thinking, that while the pleasures of the senses and the fancy of youth and the world, left behind them but idle and transient regrets, the consciousness of having always acted right alone remained to comfort and support, to cheer and solace; it is a triumph purchased, indeed, by many temporary sacrifices; and many an imperious wish, and many a fond desire is trampled on to obtain it. This is a very triste style for me, you will say, but it is my prevailing tone at this moment, and, indeed, in spite of those states of vivacity to which I am subject, my susceptible spirits reflect back the trouble of gay and brilliant objects. My natural character is that of one who thinks deeply, and who naturally loves to repose in the tranquillity of meditation, who “sets loose to life,” and who is almost wearied out by the harrassing vicissitudes which “flesh is heir to.” This you will not believe; for it is among the things I have most to lament, that you have not had tact to come at the real character of your friend, nor the confidence to believe her own assertions on the subject; you would be surprised to see me here, stealing away from the dazzling multitude, and passing whole days in my own room, reading some grave philosophical work; thinking deeply—and feeling acutely—going to the source of some obscure subject—or giving myself up to tender and pensive memories, which have for their object those that are most dear and most distant. Yet this I do constantly . . . and yet I return to society—not its most undistinguished or least brilliant member.

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I hear of nothing but politics, and the manner in which things are considered, give me a most thorough contempt for the “rulers of the earth;” I am certain that the country, its welfare or prosperity, never, for a moment, make a part in their speculation; it is all a little miserable system of self-interests, paltry distinctions, of private pique, and personal ambition. I sometimes with difficulty keep in my indignation when I hear them talk of such a person and his eight men, and such an one and his five, and so on, for there is not one of the noted demagogues you read of, who do not carry with them a certain number of followers, who vote à tort et à travers, as their leader bids them; it is thus we are represented—the order of the day is

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as follows, Lord Grey, Premier, with the common consent of the nation, (except the particular party going out) Lord Erskine, Chancellor; Lord Moira, Commander of the Forces; Lord Lansdown, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Lord Manners resigns—they murmur something of Plunket succeeding him; Lord Holland nothing; notwithstanding what the papers say, nothing has been laid out for Ponsonby, he is looked on as the captain or ringleader of the House of Commons. Sheridan is held in contempt on all sides; but the Prince, who is cold to him, will make him, they say, Paymaster to the Navy. Such are the appointments the Prince has made out; but Lord Abercorn thinks they will not take place, as the King is mending fast. The anxiety and solicitude in all whom I see here, and who are interested for the issue of the business, have disgusted me for ever with those falsely called the great. Lord Abercorn, who always votes himself a King’s man, preserves an armed neutrality, and though, according to my principles and feelings, he is decidedly wrong, yet it is impossible not to respect his independence. All wonder at Erskine’s elevation, as he is deemed literally mad. Your future viceroy proposed, some time ago, for my sweet new friend, whom I believe I have mentioned to you—Lady Hamilton (don’t mention this to any one); but was refused by Papa. She has become a great tie to me now, and her obvious affection for me is my greatest pride. She is a most superior and charming woman, though cold in her general manner and rigid in her principles. She is, in her person, like Lord Abercorn more than any of his

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children; but her character is composed of firmer stuff. I hope, one day or other, to present her to you. She met lately, by chance, at Brighton, with the Grattans, and is an enthusiast in admiration of them, as they must be of her. She says she envies that middle rank of life, and would give up her own situation willingly for theirs.

Farewell; this is a dull epistle, but I am as little in the mood to write gay letters as you are probably to read them. I hope Clarke has made you the offer of his house till your own is made comfortable for your residence. How and where is your dear boy? How is Mr. Hande—and where? It was in a letter from Old Atkinson that I first heard of your loss. I was shocked and surprised, for I all along thought that, though perfect recovery was impossible, yet that years of life might be still enjoyed, or rather endured. To me death has little terrors. I always look to it as to a wished-for, and necessary repose; they alone know to estimate life who, like me, have known its great extremes, and, let me add, they alone can despise it.