In this letter he mentions that as soon as he has an opportunity he means to send her—
A letter, with a volume of poems, by Henry Kirke White, a “visionary boy,” of seventeen, who, with all becoming diffidence, presumes to lay his youthful productions at the feet of one, “who so eminently enjoys the holy impulse” as yourself. He was “struck with the resemblance of one of his poems to one of yours, though to compare the former to the latter, is like comparing O’Keefe to Shakespeare”—there! I hope this will give you pleasure. Let me hear on Wednesday how you are. The cat and parrot are both well, and the kitten[[12]] beautiful and merry. The guns have been firing to-day, but on what account I am ignorant yet.
Adieu, my only love.
Again, probably shortly after this, her husband writes to her, enclosing a letter containing some complimentary verses on her “Elegy to the memory of the late Earl of Bedford,” and adding, by way of postscript,
This came to me in a cover on Monday, so I thought it too delicious not to be sent immediately; who is the author? Your letter is arrived; and I am very sorry to find this cursed election lasting so long, and I wish you would not appear so prominent in it. I asked Mrs. N. about the box, and she says it was not to go till I went; however, I shall now have it sent as soon as possible. I have seen nothing of Erskine or Reynolds for some time. The cloak I am afraid is lost, for Mr. Bunn wrote me that he had made every inquiry in vain. Dr. Haweis has been sitting two or three times, and makes a good head. I shall write to you to-morrow or next day, so, God bless you, yours ever. J. O.
Let me hear again, Friday or Saturday at furthest; I feel desirous enough of seeing you, but I have not much more to say at present, unless I begin scolding you about the election. What business had you to get mounted up somewhere so conspicuously? But there is no more room; I am going now to dine with Thomson, to meet little J. A Mr. Best called on Saturday, and said he meant to be or to have somebody painted, but I have heard no more.
In 1804, Mrs. O. published “Adeline Mowbray,” or “Mother and Daughter,” a Tale, in three volumes, the object of this work is to pourtray the lamentable consequences which would result from the adoption of lax principles on the subject of matrimony. “The second volume of this beautiful story is perhaps the most pathetic and the most natural in its pathos, of any fictitious narrative in the language,” says the writer of the 19th Art. in “The Edinburgh Review” of 1806.
The following letter to Mrs. Taylor was probably written about this time:—
(without date.)
My dear Friend,