Thursday Evening, 10 Feb. 1820.

My dear Mrs. Pennington's prognostics are always wise, lucky, and fulfilled; and I doubt not but we shall lose our accomplished Chevalier,—after this Season,—for ever. Let us get him a good Benefit first, and send him down the wind, with fav'ring gales. I will leave, in the vulgar phrase, no stone unturned to serve him. Meanwhile he is in London, escaping our wise letters of good advice; of which, if now weary, he will on a future day be proud. The world is full of incident, and some good ones may illuminate his Drama.

Yesterday's post brought word that Lady Salusbury's Father was most alarmingly ill. To-day's post said he was dying. Yesterday at dinner Salusbury broke one of his fine teeth. To-day it was drawn, and they are gone to Shropshire. So runs the world away. Jealous of Aunt's favour, and glad to carry little Wifey far from that widely spreading influence which, as you say, throws an attractive halo round us all: which she feels among the rest, for who can 'scape? Sir John's chagrin won't kill him: and he says he will perhaps come again—by himself—but he will find enough to do at home.

Our Benefit will probably take place towards the end of this month. Conway comes back to open the Theatre with a swarthy face on the 18th, in a new Play written by Mr. Dimond;—St. Clara's Eve. That young man's brother, Charles Dimond, who I used to say resembled a Thames Smelt, and who has long been settled in London, marries a girl with £10,000, and pretty besides, a Miss Wood. Leoni Lee too has found a maid with the love-beaming eye; he took her to St. James's Church yesterday.

The King's calling to his bedside the Duke of Sussex is a pretty and a tender anecdote. "My Father and my Brother are lying dead now," said he, "your life, my dear Augustus, is very precarious, my own saved almost by a miracle. Let us not quarrel more with each other, while Death is at hand so to quarrel with us all." Everybody says that Prince's amiable son will marry a daughter of the Duke of Montrose.

I hope you will begin the next month with me, under St. Taffy's influence: and if you invite me early in the Spring, when our tall Beau is gone, or going, I will come to Clifton, and escape visitors. My door never rests here, and when once out of town, they may knock in vain. But till the Theatre is shut, or the great Light of it extinguished, the halo hangs round me, and I shall neither be willing nor able to stir. The less indeed, because persuaded that his return hither, (unless either the Gentleman or Lady is married,) is very unlikely, and would perhaps be imprudent. I mean his professional return, as now, in the character of principal performer.

Adieu, dear Mrs. Pennington, continue to him your regard; do not willingly lose sight of him; your value is by him duly appreciated, and I depend on living long in both your memories. You will often talk together of yours and his true friend and faithful servant

H. L. P.

The "amiable son" of the Duke of Sussex, Augustus Frederick, born 1794, who took the name of d'Este, died unmarried.

On February 15 Mrs. Pennington replies in two closely-written sheets, full of indignation at the girl who, she is convinced, could never have felt any real love for Conway, or she could not have dismissed him without "one word of sympathy, one token of pity, or sentence of consolation." ... "It was most silly and illiberal to tell him 'she could not support the idea of being sunk in her rank of life, and looked down, on,' etc." ... "I trust, as Dr. Johnson would have said, he will never think of hunting down a Kitten again."

She goes on to refer to the story of his being the son of William Conway, an old college friend of Sir Walter James, who had remarked on the likeness between them. His reputed father must therefore have been Lord William Seymour Conway, sixth son of Francis, first Marquess of Hertford.

Sir Walter "said of his acting, that he was the best Pierre he ever saw, though he had a perfect recollection of Holland, who was thought perfection in the character. That he would advise him by all means to keep clear of the London Theatres for two or three years, and then burst upon them, a finished actor. He said it was remarkable they never received an Actor as such, whatever his merits, so young, or so young-looking, as Conway, until more matured by experience and knowledge of the business; and instanced Mrs. Siddons's failure in early life, Mr. Young's, etc. It was some years before Kemble made his way to the popularity he at last attained.... Sir Walter says your verses are the best he has seen of modern verses, and like those sterling things of 50 years back....

"I wonder what the generality of people would think if they were to pick up our letters?"

16 Feb. 1820.

Thank you kindly, dear Mrs. Pennington, for your kind letters. Our Chevalier longed to see them whilst in London, and I disappointed him by not sending them forward. It was the first pain I ever put him to, and it shall be the last. Our business is to soothe and solace, not to chide him, or add a particle to what he suffers. If female friendship is worth anything, let us benefit and please him all we can. Your part must be to advise, mine to console; and both of us will try to get him a blazing night, when once the time is appointed.... Sir Walter James is very unwell, and I am sorry for it. He always instinctively loved our friend Conway; and the last time we changed a word about him, his expression to me was, "I think that young fellow is all that a man ought to be." ...

Sir Walter James Head, of Langley Hall, Berks, who assumed the name of James, and was created a Baronet 1791, was the great-grandfather of the present Lord Northbourne.