MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 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; The sense is kept, and the point blunted in the translation, but so it is in all translations. To Sir James Fellowes. Bath, April 10, 1815. I RETURN your paper, dear Sir, and thank you for the additional conviction it has given me, that argument and eloquence can be found in Free States only, — decision and promptitude in Despotic Governments alone. While we are talking, they will act however, and our pelf will put the puppets in motion. Do you remember the French Fable of Dragon à plusieurs Testes, and Dragon a plusieurs Queues? I will look for it. Meanwhile I wish Buonaparte was pulled down. Too long he has made the world his pedestal, mankind the gazers, the sole figure, he! Mrs. Dimond is just come in, and invites me to her box to see Mr. Betty. The Star containing Lord Liverpool's and Castlereagh's speeches on the Prince's message. 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. 6 6 "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 crowned at all?' 'O yes!' was the reply. They will then sit at least 806 years.' .. and so they did; for if you add 806 to 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. The bishop said it was 816 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 Adrian's lines, to those of better poets. Cheer once more thy house of clay, 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 to, Dear Sir, Your very much obliged, I had some of the lines lying unremembered in my since the year 1809, but I believe never written out. Heart! where heaved my earliest sigh, First to live, and last to die; Fortress of receding life, Why maintain this useless strife? Weary of their long delay, Time and Death demand their prey; Worne with cares, and wearied, thou; Willingly their claim allow: Soon shall Time and Death destroyed Whilst thou thy petty powers shalt ply, For when the trumpet's lofty sound When, with revivifying heat, All nature's numerous pulses beat, Thy unforgotten pendulum; No longer feeble, cold, and slow; Thus translated by Pope: "O fleeting spirit, wandering fire, That long has warmed my tender breast, H. L. P. mind ever To Miss Fellowes. Monday Night, 24 April, 1815. MY DEAR MISS FELLOWES, I send you the strangest thing I ever saw; an adaptation of the mystical beast described in the thirteenth chapter of St. John's Apocalypse, to the name of Napoleon Buonaparte, in Spanish. It has been done in England various times, and in various manners; but that it should be done as it is here in a country of bigoted Romanists, is indeed surprising. If you send it to Sir James, send it very carefully, for it cannot be got again, and he alone deserves it; perhaps 't is better, keep it for him. My letter contains nothing but some verses he liked when he heard them read last night: I send it open that you may read the lines if you please, and say you like them too. Farewell! If I find I can go to Sidmouth this year, it must be for the two months, September and October; and I must be here again to begin November. What folly and madness, at my age, to be talking of pleasure I am to receive six months hence!! But I must talk what the Spaniards call disparates while A FABLE FOR APRIL, 1815. A modern traveller, they say, Crossing the wilds of Africa, Saw a strange serpent at a distance, With fifty heads at least in show, As if to yield assistance; But here and there, and up and down, Foaming with rage and grinning with vexation His lofty head disdained the ground, H. L. P. Of ugly tails a tortuous train Still twisted in his rear; But whilst to follow they were fain, To watch these mighty monsters greeting But whilst the various heads combined, Till hope's grown fat and anger cooling Slipt his long body through the brake. And tucked his servile tails behind him. To Sir James Fellowes. Blake's Hotel, Monday, July 31st, 1815. My dear Sir James Fellowes's friendly heart will feel pleased that the spasms he drove away returned no more; altho' you were really scarce out of the street before I received a cold, short note from Mr. Merrik Hoare, who married one of the sisters, to say that Lord Keith, who married the other, wished to decline purchasing: so here I am no whit nearer disposing of Streatham Park than when I sat still in Bath. Money spent and nothing done but bills thronging in every hour. Mr Ward, the solicitor, has sent his demand of £ 116 18s. 3d. I think, for expenses concerning Salusbury's marriage. I call that the felicity bill: those which produce nothing but infelicity, all refer to Streatham of course. But you ran away without your epigram translated so much apropos: — "Créanciers! maudite canaille, Commissaire, huissiers et recors: ; |