Fine times! are they not. The retrospect may be entertaining to the century; but this, young as it is, will smart, I think, before

Pourriture avant maturité, as the great Frederick of Prussia used to deprecate for his own government. I have never had courage to look in "Thraliana" since my arrival; so little does looking backward delight me.

At eighty-one years old 't is time to begin reconnoitring, when we know that retreat is impossible. Twenty years, y mas, have elapsed, since my two quartos were sent out, like Hamblet's father, with all their imperfections on their head. Well! no

matter.

Do you remember the Name Book? it ended with Zenobia, and I must tell you a story of a Cornish gentlewoman hard by here, Zenobia Stevens, who held a lease under the Duke of Bolton by her own life only, ninety-nine years, and going at the term's end ten miles to give it up. She obtained kind permission to continue in the house as long as she lived, and was asked, of course, to drink a glass of wine. She did take one, but declined the second, saying, she had to ride home in the twilight upon a young colt, and was afraid to make herself giddy headed. Don't I hear you cry, bravo Zenobia?

's pretty wife is screaming, I believe; she has outlived two accoucheurs. No wonder; I do think a country practitioner (meaning a medical man of all work) should have an iron constitution. Our agreeable Dr. Forbes seems so endowed; a Scotchman, a competent scholar, full of country anecdote, and he told me the true tale of Zenobia, whose daughter died the other day, aged ninety-eight only. Those who said no snow was ever seen at Penzance, dealt in fiction and fable; here is a heavy snow this moment, and but that the sea is open enough, God knows, I should call it a polar winter. Dr. Parry's son will go again, it seems, for another £5,000; other inducement there can be none, and the most curious circumstance of the voyage is an account given by one of the officers, how his Irish setter, a tall, smooth

* In one of her marginal notes she quotes the saying of a distinguished lawyer, that a judge should have a face of brass, a constitution of iron, and a bottom of lead.

spaniel, attracted the attentions of a she wolf on Melville Island, who made love to the handsome dandy, and seduced him at length to end his days with her and her rough-haired family, refusing every invitation of return to the ship; a certain proof that dog, fox, jackall, &c., are only accidental varieties; while lupo is head of the house, penkennedil, as Welsh and Cornish people call it.

Adieu! I am going to eat a cod's-head, which you would be happy to give two guineas for when Lord Carnarvon dines with you. My servants have the rest for their dinner to-day and tomorrow. The whole fish cost half a crown. But there is a mermaid coming to England, I hear. That she ends in piscem, I partly believe, but mulier formosa I doubt. No room for more nonsense, scarce enough to say how many wishes for yours and your family's happiness are breathed in this distant region by, dear Sir, yours and their most obliged and grateful and faithful servant,

Sir James had a long letter from me some weeks ago, but I believe his toothache was so bad he never minded it. There has been a new attack made on my property, of which I gave him an account; but it will end in smoke before I can have time to tell you the tale, which relates to dividends left standing, unclaimed, an immense while, in the names of Thrale and Gifford. Some Mr. K I know not who, flies at me to ask what I did with them? God knows I did nothing with them, nor ever heard a breath concerning the matter, till his letter put me upon inquiry, and having written to Mrs. Merick Hoare, she consoles me by bearing testimony to my innocence of having ever touched this £600 which this gentleman believes himself heir to.

But this comes of too long life. My coadjutors and brethren

in the executorship were, it seems (but I knew it not), every one dead, when this stock was sold; and the name of poor H. L. Piozzi answers for all at the distance of fifteen years. If Mr. Kever crosses your way, do tell him I am an honest creature, incapable of wronging even a fly. My husband's illness, and my attendance on him who took up my whole heart and thought, did I suppose obliterate the transaction from my mind ; which certainly does retain no trace of it.

*

Your duty as Secretary to the Lord Great Chamberlain of England will now become less irksome, I hope, and friendship may have her share of your active beneficence; your dear sister is silent, but I am willing to believe pleasure helps detain her from her pen.

Conway is in high favor at Bath, the papers say; so indeed do private letters. That young man's value will be one day properly appreciated; and then you and I will be found to have been quite right all along.

Tell me about Miss Wilson meanwhile, and whether 't is somewhat in the Billington style, that she is excelling all the world so. My heart tells me 't is a long continued warble like hers which ever fascinates both skilful and unskilful critics; and which is more the gift of nature than of art.

But I hate reasoning down our own enjoyments; 't is like burning down rubies in a concave glass: the French never do it, and you will soon visit them, I dare say. En attendant je vous souhaite, Monsieur it was a bishop's wish know you - Paris en ce monde, Paradis en l'autre.

To Miss Willoughby.

No. 10 Sion Row, Clifton,

vanity I suppose

16 March, 1821. that dear Miss

SOMETHING tells me Willoughby will be glad to hear I am where I wish to be, on the sweet Gloucestershire Downs, numberless old acquaintance, and some new, kindly expressing pleasure at my return. Poor Mrs, Yorke, £10,000 richer than when we parted; ten years older, * Lord Gwydir.

and all in ten months' time; Mrs. Lambart's death, Sir Philip Jennings's sister, caused the alteration. Our friend Conway is not younger; he won't play Master Slender now; his enquiries after you were very kind indeed, and he rejoyced for my sake that Penzance was your chosen retreat. O, how he regrets his Lesserillo! But Mr. Green has secured £500 per annum, with an agreeable woman, and must not, for shame, lament the profession, which will not soon cease to lament him. The benefits are thin I hear, but that for which we are interested gives good hope. Monday, 26th, will be the day, and Mirandola, with the Chevalier de Moranges, the night's entertainment. I have seen the future footman; he will at worst be better than poor James, I suppose who is gone to Bath now on a frolic: Bessy tearing her hair, and Mrs. Pennington exhausting all her eloquence in expressions of wrath and anger.

It is almost time to tell you what a providence watched over your old friend at Exeter, after my letter was written, at three o'clock, Sunday morning. The bed was very high, and getting into it, I set my foot on a light chair, which flew from the pressure, and revenged it on my leg in a terrible manner.

The wonder is, no bones were broken; only a cruel bruise and slight tear, and we trotted on hither, after cathedral service, at which I hardly could kneel to thank God for my escape. So Sir John may look to my demise now at his leisure, and my legacy [leg I see].

"Not a mouse stirring," the French translators of Hamlet rendered, "Je n'ai pas entendu un souris trotter." Our mouse could not trot without your assistance; with it, he performed his journey beautifully; though I did feel a horrid pang about my own imprudence, running into a dirty cottage on the road, full of the small-pox. Long live vaccination, however, and Dr. Jenner who first devised it.

Sunday, 18.

Here is a storm worthy of Mount's Bay; your billows must roar finely this morning. Bessy would not trust me to church, I should have been blown down the hill, she says. So since Mr. Le Gris's blessing has helped bring me safe hither, I must not

press it further, but sit pretty and put my leg upon a chair, instead of my foot. Was not it a horrid accident? and in the dead of the night so! Dr. Forbes will be very sorry, for poor H. L. P., always a blue, now a black and blue, lady, bruised, say you, from top to toe?"My Lord, from head to foot."

The pet books, sent by waggon from Penzance (Pascoe's cart carried them), are not arrived yet. The ship things all came safe.

To Sir James Fellowes.

YOUR letter only came last night.

24 March, 1821, Sunday Morning.

My dear Sir James Fellowes, though a tardy correspondent, is always a kind one. True it is, that your sister has seduced me to dine with her on Tuesday next; and rejoyce in our friend Conway's success, which I hope to witness on Monday evening.

True it is, that I arrived at Clifton on the 12th March, escaping the stormy equinox, which must have shaken poor Penzance to the foundation. It is built upon the sand, so no wonder. True it is, that I hope to shew myself to you unimpaired, as to appearance; but my value will be lessened because I have broken my shin. Is not that the case now and then with a quick goer? Sleeping in Russel Street, however, would not do. I have asked Miss Williams to dine with Mrs. Pennington and me at the Elephant and Castle, where I will set up my repose, and keep my 1. e. g-my elegy in good repair. Mrs. Pennington is quite poetical, always eloquent on that, and every subject. Since my arrival at Sion Hill, for there I occupy a lodging till my house in the Crescent is ready, — two parcels directed by tying friends, have given me a mournful sensation: they are letters written by me to them in distant days, I know not how happy. You will have to look them over after my death, and I dare say they are better than those I write now. My intention, however, is not to be in haste: though Salusbury seemed to apprehend his journey would be long and expensive if I died at PenSo here is poor aunt at the embouchure of his favorite River Severn, and here he may come after (the 10th of July) to

zance.