The French packet that was said to be lost on Tuesday last, and which did hang out signals of distress, was saved, but did not bring any letters; but three Flemish mails that were due are arrived, and did bring letters, and, to my inexpressible joy, two from you of the 22d and 29th of the last month, telling Me that you have received as far as No. 4 and 5 of mine. Thank all the stars in Herschell's telescope, or beyond its reach, that our correspondence is out of the reach of France and all its ravages! Thank you a million of times for all your details about yourselves When even the apprehension of any danger disquiets me so much, judge whether I do not interest myself in every particular of your pleasures and amusements! Florence was my delight, as it is yours but, I don't know how, I wish you did not like it quite so much and, after the gallery. how will any silver-penny of a gallery look? Indeed, for your Boboli, which I thought horrible even fifty years ago, before shepherds had seen the star of taste in the west, and glad tidings were proclaimed to their flocks, I do think there is not an acre on the banks of the Thames that should vail the bonnet to it.
Of Mr. Burke's book, if I have not yet told you my opinion, I do now: that it is one of the finest compositions in print. There is reason, logic, wit, truth. eloquence, and enthusiasm in the brightest colours. That it has given a mortal stab to sedition, I believe and hope; because the fury of the Brabanters,-whom, however, as having been aggrieved, I pitied and distinguish totally from the savage Gauls, -and the unmitigated and execrable injustices of the latter, have made almost any state preferable to such anarchy and desolation, that increases every day. Admiring thus, as I do, I am very far from subscribing to the extent of almost all Mr. Burke's principles. The work, I have no doubt, will hereafter be applied to support very high doctrines; and to you I will say, that I think it an Apocrypha, that, in many a council of Bishops, will be added to the Old Testament. Still, such an Almanzor was wanting at this crisis; and his foes show how deeply they are wounded, by their abusive pamphlets. Their Amazonian allies, headed by Kate Macaulay(722) and the virago Barbauld, whom Mr. Burke calls our poissardes, spit their rage at eighteenpence a head, and will return to Fleet-ditch, more fortunate in being forgotten than their predecessors, immortalized in the Dunciad. I must now bid you good-night; and night it is, to the tune of morning. Adieu, all three!
(722) A pamphlet, entitled "Observations on the Reflections of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke on the Revolution in France; in a Letter to Earl Stanhope," was attributed to Mrs. Macaulay.-E.
Letter 364 To Miss Berry.
Berkeley Square, Saturday, Jan. 22, 1791. (page 466)
I have been most unwillingly forced to send you such bad accounts of myself by my two last letters; but, as I could not conceal all, it was best to tell you the whole truth. Though I do not know that there was any real danger, I could not be so blind to my own age and weakness as not to think that, with so much gout an fever, the conclusion might very probably be fatal: and therefore it was better you should be prepared for what might happen. The danger appears to be entirely over: there seems to be no more gout to come. I have no fever, have a very good appetite, and sleep well. Mr. Watson,(723) who is all tenderness and attention, is persuaded to-day that I shall recover the use of my left hand ; of which I despaired much more than of the right, as having been seized three weeks earlier. Emaciated and altered I am incredibly, as you would find were you ever to see me again. But this illness has dispelled all visions ; and, as I have little prospect of passing another happy autumn, I Must wean myself from whatever would embitter my remaining time by disappointments.
Your No. 15 came two days ago, and gives me the pleasure of knowing that you both are the better for riding, which I hope you will continue. I am glad, too, that you are pleased with your Duchess of Fleury and your Latin professor: but I own, except your climate and the six hundred camels, you seem to me to have met with no treasure which you might not have found here without going twenty miles: and even the camels, according to Soame Jenyns' spelling, were to be had from Carrick and other places.
I doubt you apply Tully de Amicitia too favourably: at least, I fear there is no paragraph that countenances 73 and 27.
Monday, the 24th.
I think I shall give you pleasure by telling you that I am very sure now of recovering from the present fit. It has almost always happened to me, in my considerable fits of the gout, to have one critical night that celebrates its departure: at the end of two different fits I each time slept eleven hours. Morpheus is not quite so young nor so generous now ; but, with the interruption of a few minutes, he presented me with eight hours last night: and thence I shall date my recovery. I shall now begin to let in a little company; and, as the Parliament will meet in a week, my letters will probably not be so dull as they have been; nor shall I have occasion, nor be obliged, to talk so much of myself, of which I am sure others must be tired, when I am so much tired myself.
Tuesday, the 25th.