rack, and never of course was she made to tell so many lies. The thing Fourcroy says which best pleases me is, that of all our human anatomy, the brain holds out longest from decay. Ainsi soit-il." “Bath, 27th Nov. 1814. "Streatham Park was worth anyone's seeing six months ago. Upon some threats concerning dilapidation, I set heartily to work, new fronted the house, new fenced the whole of the 100 acres completely round; repaired stables, out-buildings, barns which I had no use for; and hothouses which are a scourge to my purse, a millstone round my neck. 6500l. sterling just covers my expenses, of which 4000l. are paid; but poor old dowager as I am, the remainder kept me marvellous low in pocket, and drives me into a nutshell here at Bath, where I used to live gay and grand in Pultney Street. Direct, however, Post Office, when you are kind enough to write, and I shall get your letter. Count Lieven is my tenant, and pays me liberally, but so he should; for his dependants smoke their tobacco in my nice new beds, and play a thousand tricks that keep my steward, who I have left there, in perpetual agony. I am famous for tenants you know. So much for self. "Lord Byron was such a favourite with the women. We all agreed that he might throw his handkerchief; and I rejoyce so pretty and pleasing a lady picks it up. I knew his grandmother most intimately, Sophia Trevanion, Admiral Byron's lady; and she was a favourite with Doctor Johnson. He would have been glad that her grandson was a poet, and a poet he is, in every sense of the word: 'Au moins il ne manque que la pauvreté pour l'être,' as some one said of a gentleman painter in France many years ago." "Brynbella, 19th Aug. 1816. "An intelligent gentleman in the neighbourhood has set my mind easy concerning the abolition of tithes notwithstanding. He says the lay impropriations will save the church, just as the rotten boroughs so complained of in the years 93 and 94, when we were trying to imitate the French Revolution. I showed him the ivy twisting among the stones of his old summer house in the park; and asked if he did not remember the people teizing him (and wisely enough then) to cut it away. He neglected it, however, and now it holds the little building together; if he cut it out, the whole would fall.” "No. 8. Gay Street, Bath, "Well! now am I returned to the living world again. What do I hear? and what do I see? I hear of dear Doctor Gray's new book* from every creature that can hold one; and I see Buonaparte's fine carriage driven up my street by a surly-looking coachman preceded by a showy cuirrassier, in the armour he wore at Waterloo. First of the book however, because that * His "Connexion, &c." captivates all hearts: the other appanage is itself a captive. The chapter treating of Josephus is the general favourite; how much more must it be mine, who have been myself upon the ground trodden by St. Paul and him. Will you laugh at me for fretting that the Old Prediction of Ocyrrhoe the Centauress is omitted? The expressions are so strong. "Aspicit infantem, totique salutifer orbi Corpora debebunt animas, tibi reddere ademptas “And again, "Eque Deo Corpus fies exangue Deusque, Qui modo corpus eras; et bis tua fata novabis.' "Poets do oft prove prophets, as Shakespeare says of jesters. I have, however, passed my last quarter in a region where neither poesy nor prophecy were thought on, except Nixon the Chesshire fool's prediction that 66 'When kings are dismay'd and princes betray'd, Our landlords shall stand with their hats in their hand My affairs here being all settled, Streatham Park disposed of, and my poor steward, Leak, being dead, I have got a pretty neat house and decent establishment for a widowed lady, and shall exist a true Bath Cat for the short remainder of my life, hearing from Salusbury of his increasing family, and learning from the libraries in this town all the popular topics - Turks, Jews, and Ex-Emperor Buonaparte, remembering still that now my debts are all paid, and my income set free, which was so long sequestered to pay repairs of a house I was not rich enough to inhabit, and could not persuade my daughters to take from me "Malice domestic, foreign levy, — nothing Can touch me further;' as Macbeth says of Duncan when he is dead. Things will at worst last my time I suppose." 66 "Bath, 11th Nov. 1817. My dear Doctor Gray's kind letter arrived the same day as the Queen*; and such a day of gayety and triumph Bath certainly never did witness. Now, Lord be praised, and let us keep our wits! was my exclamation; the delight of the people was boundless. Everybody was on the alerte; numbers of women (who had been presented) left their names, and some had a notion she would send for others who did not. Madame D'Arblaye, ci-devant Miss Burney, was believed by many to have a claim on her remembrance; and some prepared to sing, and some to read, and some to talk. The illumination was more gaudy than I ever saw London exhibit; and a prodigious expense was incurred by subscription to pillars, arches, and I know not what beside. The mayor and corporation put on new dresses, the cooks prepared a magnificent repast, and Death † uninvited came to the dinner. The Duke of * Queen Charlotte. †The death of the Princess Charlotte. Clarence really could not articulate the fatal words that extinguished hope and merriment; he threw the paper to Lord Camden and left the room, it was empty in five minutes. All this in one short week! "This is Monday; and no news comes to Bath, so we invent ad libitum. The favourite fable of the day is that Prince Leopold has shot himself; and truly if any man is to be driven distracted by the occurrences of this life, forgetting for a moment that it is merely a passage to the other, his wits may unsettle surrounded by such irritating circumstances." "Bath, 29th Dec. 1817. "My dear Doctor Gray speaks so kindly of my youthful energies, I must really take out a new pen to tell him - what alone we all tell to each other - that the Queen is gone. I took some little pains to find out who she spoke freely with and in private; and have reason to think it was Madame D'Arblaye, daughter to old Dr. Burney, and wife of the Republican general, who ran hither, sdeigning submission *, as Satan says in the Paradise Lost, either to Louis dixhuit, or to Buonaparte. That lady, although we are on visiting terms, was not likely, you know, to forward the reception of H. L. P., against whom she raised the grand cry for marrying a foreigner; and delicacy would not permit me to squeeze among the crowds-I must not call them rabble-who molested Her Majesty in the Pump Room. The pressure there was, I am told, very offensive indeed; VOL. II. * "Lifted up so high I sdeign'd subjection."-Milton. T |