we must lose or be lost. Her death would have broken his heart. The most painful sight of all is a sick baby, for there is such a vegetating power, such a disposition in the habit to drive that death away which grown people often seem half to invite, that it shocks one; and I hoped poor Angelo would have been the staff of my age. You can scarce think how low-spirited all these things make me. I am glad the sea is at hand to wash care away. 1819.- Llewenney Hall pulled down too! and its forests: Alta cadit quercus; but schools are made of the bricks, and Teachery, as I call it in a word of my own inventing, goes on at a famous rate; yet one does not remember it is ever said in the Old or New Testament, "If you study My ways, and learn My commandment;" but "if you walk in My ways, and observe My commandments to do them," which was surely never so little practised as now. Well, the work of reformation runs forward apace. Female associations are forming every day and everywhere. They come into your kitchens, instruct your servants, tell them how their masters and ladies run to perdition, give them books against tyranny, and tell them they are all slaves. Your vraie amie octogenaire, H. L. P. 1820. I certainly feel sorry for his death; and if I do not feel alarmed, who am three or four years older, it is because even the grim Lion Death may be rendered familiar by stroking, and never suffering him long out of Will sight. you hear the story of my present neighbour? Zenobia Stevens, of a good family not far off, had a lease of ninety-nine years under the Duke of Bolton, and lived it out. When she went herself and gave it up, her kind landlord begged her to keep the house during her life, and offering her a glass of wine, "One if your Grace pleases," was her prudent reply, "but as I am to ride twelve miles on a young colt these short evenings, I am afraid of being giddy headed." MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. MOSTLY ΤΟ SIR JAMES FELLOWES. To Sir James Fellowes. Bath, 17th January, 1815. ACCEPT a thousand compliments; I found the pasquinade after a long search as it was given me on the inauguration of Buonaparte. "Romani! vi mostro un bel Quadro, Il santo Padre và coronar un Ladro; Un Pio per conservar la Fede Lascia la Sede, Un altro Pio per serbar la Sede Lascia la Fede." Pius the Sixth his seat could leave The sense is kept, and the point blunted in the translation, but so it is in all translations. To Sir James Fellowes. Bath, 10th April, 1815. MY DEAR SIR, -This is a copy of the memorandum I took when the Bishop of Killala (Stock) showed me the fact in Mezeray's History of France. "When Hugh Capet was first set in the seat of power, he consulted an 'astrologer, who told him his descendants would scarcely wear the crown above 800 years. Will it' (says the King), 'make any difference to the dynasty, if I consent, not to be crown'd at all?' 'Oh yes!' was the reply. They will then sit at least 806 years."" and so they did: for if you add 806 to 6 the year 987 when Hugh Capet was inaugurated, it gives you the year 1793 when his descendant Louis XVII. was murdered in prison. Les Horoscopes étoient fort à la mode en ces Tems là. I remember, and I took the memorandum in haste: if it was really so, their time was not expired till two years ago. 'Tis an odd circumstance at any rate: an odder still, that you should prefer my version of Hadrian's lines to those of better poets. The bishop said it was 816, Gentle soul! a moment stay, Whither wouldst thou wing thy way ? See, thy fluttering pinions play; The conversation we had that serious evening last week on the most serious of all subjects, put the verses in my head which you will read over leaf, with your accustomed partiality. I had some of the lines lying unremembered in my mind ever since the year 1809, but I believe never written out. Heart! where heav'd my earliest sigh, Fortress of receding life, Why maintain this useless strife? Weary of their long delay Time and Death demand their prey: Worn with cares, and wearied, thou; Willingly their claim allow : Soon shall Time and Death destroy'd * Thus translated by Pope, whose "Dying Christian to His Soul" was confessedly suggested by it :— "Oh, fleeting spirit, wandering fire, That long has warm'd my tender breast, Whither, ah! whither art thou flying, To what dark, undiscover'd shore ? |