Denbigh, Thursday, 11 Sept. 1794.
I had not a notion that our correspondence was grown languid, dear Friend, and am now rather disposed to think a letter has been lost....
Marquis Trotti has written, he forgets no one old Streatham acquaintance, but enquires very particularly for you. His own affairs at home go no better for these disturbances upon the Continent, yet will he not be drawn thither to see how they stand. The direction we are now using towards him is Hamburgh.
Kitty Beavor marries Dr. Gillies, and sets out for Scotland next week. I said to her once that all my single lady friends found husbands, and so I lost them. "Oh," says she, "you will keep Kitty Beavor tho', for I shall never change my condition." But so the world wags, and the old way is the best road too.
Meanwhile, as you say, love seems banished from the novels, where terror (as in the Convention,) becomes the order of the day. Miss (sic) Radcliffe however plays that game best which all are striving to play well. I am often weary of her descriptions, but she possesses great power over the fancy. Her tricks used to fright Mrs. Siddons and me very much; but when somebody said her book was like Macbeth, "Ay," replied H. L. P., "about as like as Peppermint Water is to good French Brandy."
I have written a Ballad for the Blackguards to bawl about the streets, imitated from Newberry's well known Chapter of Kings; written at first to teach Babies the English History, but lately set and sung at Catch Clubs, Bow Meetings, etc.
Here is the Chapter of King Killers.
The nine stanzas which follow, though doubtless good enough for the purpose which the writer suggests, are hardly worth preserving. One verse will probably satisfy the reader's curiosity.
"When France, mad for Freedom, her King controll'd,
At first she was awed by Fayette the bold,
Then came the Assemblée Nationale,
And then she was governed by nothing at all.
But after all pother of this, and t'other,
They all lose their heads in their turn."
Denbigh, 19 Sep. 1794.
Be not alarmed for me, kind Friend, I shall do as well as my neighbours, perhaps better, but nothing shall make me tell fibs,—I am not well....
Doubt not meantime that my old iron constitution will get thro' this business very stoutly. Think of your own affairs, and get thro' them, and we will be old friends twenty years hence. For look you, my dear, whether we think so or not, I, when my health shall be gone, and you, when your money shall be spent, are happier than half the human race collectively; and I know not how we have deserved the preference. We might have been born savages in America, condemned to hunt, and fish, and dress our game when caught, sick or well. Or we might have been some of those Begums, that Burke says were insulted and plundered by English Harpies in the East. Or we might have been African Blacks, stow'd in a slave ship. Or we might have been Mrs. Brown, or Lady Ann Fitzroy. I think we are very well off, with each of us a good husband, and safe in the only country where rational liberty prevails, true religion resides unmolested, and talents are valued according to desert.
What becomes of poor Helen Williams, I wonder! There is a strong rumour of Barrere's having followed his old colleague....
Marquis Trotti began travelling so early that he will now, perhaps, never leave it off. You may find some sage and grave reflexions upon that subject at the close of a famous fine book, called Piozzi's Observations made in Italy and Germany. I'm glad you like my Ballad. The worthy French are making the words of it good as fast as ever they can....
My maid fell from a horse two nights ago, scampering to see Brinbella, that at least was the excuse, and has disabled herself in a terrible manner; bruised and strained her wrist, etc....