To Sir James Fellowes. Monday, 28th August, 1815. Messrs. Flint and RETROSPECTION, too much crowded with figures; anticipation, in every sense, a blank! and thus it is, Dear Sir, that the world runs away. Dun (where you bought the bitter horehound,) hard as one of their names, and dreadful as the other, told me our lost fortune on Saturday night; I send it you, enclosed to Miss Fellowes, who will accompany it with pleasanter tydings I hope. Do the friends, for whom you are sacrificing health, make you large compensation by trying to be happy themselves? I hope they do. If more inducements are wanting, they will surely think on that. I have been plagued with a gumboil, a mouth abscess. Punishment upon the peccant part for all that rattling nonsense it poured out on Fryday morning, when you met Miss Williams here; but we had been talking gravely before, and my mother used to repeat a Spanish refrain, which you know, I dare say, but I do not, expressing from a companion that knows but one book, and can relate but one story, Good Lord deliver me; and sure enough monotony will always tire, whether the talk be of mutton or of metaphysics. : "One charm display'd, another strike our view, In quick variety for ever new," as some among our Streatham wits used to say, was her forte. To Sir James Fellowes. Bath, Wednesday, 27th September, 1815. I HAVE lived to witness very great wonders, and am told that Bramah the great mechanic is in expectation of perfecting the guidance of an air balloon, so as to exhibit in an almost miraculous manner upon Westminster Bridge next Spring. I saw one of the firstthe very first, Mongolfier, I believe,- go up from the Luxembourg Gardens at Paris; and in about an hour after, expressing my anxiety whither Pilâtre de Rosier and his friend Charles were gone, meaning of course to what part of France they would be carried, a grave man made reply: "Je crois, Madame, qu'ils sont allés, ces Messieurs-là, pour voir le lieu où les vents se forment." What fellows Frenchmen are! and always have been. I long for your brother's new account of them, and if I could turn the figures from seventy-four to forty-seven, I would certainly go and see them myself: in a less hazardous vehicle than an air balloon. Abate Parini made a pretty impromptu on that we saw go up at Paris, and I translated it: here it is "E LA MACCHINA CHE PARLA. "Eccomi dal Mondo e Meraviglia e Gioco, "E mentre aprir nuovo cammino io tento, "Oh Madre delle cose! arbitrio prenda THE MACHINE SPEAKS. In empty space behold me hurl'd, And since man's selfish race demands Mother of all! if thus refin'd My flights can benefit mankind, Let them by me new realms prepare, But if to ills alone I lead, To Sir James Fellowes. Bath, Tuesday night, 3rd Oct. 1815. WITH regard to public matters, I think Maximilian, the witty Emperor of Germany, was not far from right when he said that he, like Agamemnon of old, was Rex Regum (King of Kings); the King of France, Rex Asinorum (King of Asses); the King of England, Rex Diabolorum (King of Devils)-though he had not heard of the Irish mutineers of our day: the King of Spain, Rex Hominum (King of Men). I hope they will verify the appellation and behave like men and gentlemen. Of dear Cervantes' merit, you must know most, and those who do so, must most value him. I believe there is no writer in Europe as popular, no not Shakespear himself, who is justly the idol of his own country: while the Spanish hero is hero of every country: no nation that does not swarm with prints, and resound with stories of Don Quixote; and 'tis very likely I am quoting my own book when I say so, but there is no remembering the crowded figures clustered together in "Retrospection." We will talk of the name-book when I am grown rich; it will do nothing for me till I don't want it, and that day I purpose to see on the 25th of next July, if not hindered by Los Hatos, and cramped in my noble exertions. Nine months, is it not, to July? Well! I have carried many a heavy burden for nine months, and why not a load of debt? 'tis a new sort of burthen, but Leak writes me word that Gillow's bill has many charges in it that cannot be supported, so if he can heave off a hundred weight, things will run better, and 'tis only following your example about the vexatious tooth-bearing, and forbearing, and wearing the misery out. Our theatre is open, and I saw the new opera dancers from Mrs. Dimond's box. La Prima Donna is the smallest creature I ever saw, that was not a dwarf; her husband a Colossus of a fellow, and the waltz they dance together, just the very oddest thing I ever saw in my life. We were talking here one morning, if you recollect, with Miss Williams, of these Ballerinas, and the ideas they intended to excite. The present set excite no ideas except of dry admiration for the astonishing difficulties they perform, and some serious fears lest they should break their slender limbs in the performance. Holding out one leg and one arm in a parallel line, is destructive of all grace; and when, after springing up to a prodigious height, they come down on the point of one toe - nothing can exceed our wonder at its possibility, except one's joy that they escape in safety. Music and dancing are no longer what they were, and I grow less pleased with both every hour "Year chases year, decay pursues decay, Still drops some joy from with'ring life away." But do not let us teize dear Miss Fellowes to write; it only worries her, and, whilst I am conscious of it, cannot delight me. While secure of a friend's affec |