"I have been told I have a cast of her in my character, with a total exception, I beg leave to be understood, as to her physical and constitutional propensities, (as also to her erudition,)—but that she was fair and gentle, with my stature and carriage;—often serious;—generally rather tender, interesting, and amusing, than brilliant, tho' sometimes gay and sprightly,—

'From grave to gay,—from lively to severe.'

I wonder how all this nonsense came into my head?... If our dear Chevalier mars what God has made so exquisitely well, and stamped so clearly an impress of the Divinity upon, it will be a great sin."

28 March, 1820.

My dear Mrs. Pennington's gratuitous letter gives me the best certainty of her returning health and spirits. This answer to it will cost no more.

My health has little to do, at 81 years old, with cramming or starving, and if I am to be blest, as you seem to think it, with "second childishness and mere oblivion;"[32] to sit, like old Elspet in her wicker-chair, turned over by kind inquirers, like a last year's Almanack:—why, be it so! This is a week of mortification and resignation, and I will endeavour to endure the degrading idea....

The loss of his company and talents will be a great privation to me, but on his account my heart feels no fears. Conway's virtues are not, I trust, what Johnson would call ambulatory, meaning dependant upon climate and company. He will come home to you I hope, in seven years time, two or three little children at his side, his own incomparable soul unsullied, his merits unmolested, his beauty unimpair'd....

Mr. Hunt's being elected into Parliament is another tub for the whale; so if old Britannia, like her daughters, must live to be sick and superannuated, why, Henry Hunt and Horace Twiss may hold the smelling bottle to her nose.

I have at last seen a man who profess'd himself happy. It was Captain Marshall. But as he left me, and dress'd for the Member's Dinner, to which he went in a Sedan, a wagon overset his little vehicle, ran over his Chairman, breaking both his thighs, and brought him to the Hall—too late for Dinner.

Those who converse with the Great expect our King to be crowned on his birthday, the 12th of August. My dividends will be come in by then, and Salusbury may have his promised £100, to see the Coronation. I hate being worse than my word. Our friend Fellie may not perhaps find her Grandees so scrupulous. But she has had many assurances of the Herb-woman's place in the Procession, which I have heard was £400 or £500 o' year for life. She is a sweet Lady, but ladies are charming creatures, of course; yours most particularly so surely, when they think it fit to fling so much flattery away upon your poor affectione Friend,

H. L. P.

[32] As You Like It, II. vi. 165.

Hunt was tried for his share in the Peterloo meeting this year, and sentenced to two years imprisonment. He was, however, actually returned to Parliament for Preston in 1830, in which capacity he presented the first petition in favour of Women's Rights.

The actual date of the coronation was 19th July 1821, when "Fellie," otherwise Miss Anne Fellowes, the sister of Mrs. Piozzi's friend and executor, Sir James Fellowes, did officiate as Herb-Woman.

MISS FELLOWES AS HERB-STREWER AT THE CORONATION OF GEO. IV

By M. Gauci after Mrs. Baker.