I wish that complaining of people for abandoning me were an infallible receipt for bringing them back! but I doubt it will not do in acute cases. To-day, a few hours after %writing the latter part of this, appeared Mr. Batt. He asked many pardons, and I easily forgave him; for the mortification was not begun. He asked much after you both. I had a crowd of visits besides; but they all come past two o'clock, and sweep one another away before any can take root. My evenings are solitary enough, for I ask nobody to come; nor, indeed, does any body's evening begin till I am going to bed. I have Outlived daylight, as well as my contemporaries. What have I not survived? The Jesuits and the monarchy of France! and both without a struggle! Semiramis seems to intend to add Constantinople to the mass of revolutions ; but is not her permanence almost as wonderful as the contrary explosions! I wish—I wish we may not be actually flippancying ourselves into an embroil with that Ursa-major of the North Pole. What a vixen little island are we, if we fight wit the Aurora Borealis and Tippo Saib at the end of Asia at the same time! You, damsels, will be like the end of the conundrum, "You've seen the man who saw the wondrous sights."
Monday evening.
I cannot finish this with my own hand, for the gout has returned a little into my right arm and wrist, and I am not quite so well as I was yesterday; but I had said my say, and had little to add. The Duchess of Gordon, t'other night, coming out of an assembly, said to Dundas, "Mr. Dundas, you are used to speak in public; will you call my servant?"
Here I receive your long letter of the 7th, 9th, and 10th, which it is impossible for me to answer now; there is one part to which I wish to reply, but must defer till next post, by which time I hope to have recovered my own pen. You ask about the house of Argyll. You know I have no connexion with them, nor any curiosity about them. Their relations and mine have been in town but four days, so I know little from them: Mrs. Grenville, to-day, told me the Duke proposes to continue the same life he used to lead, with a cribbage-table and his family. Every body admires the youngest daughter's(729) person and understanding. Adieu! I will begin to write again myself as soon as I can.
(725) This celebrated wit and amiable man died on the 25th of January, in his seventy-second year. He was member for Luggershall, surveyor-general of the crown lands, surveyor of the meltings and clerk of the irons in the Mint; "and," add the newspapers of the day, "receiver-general of wit and stray jokes." The following tribute to his memory appeared at the time:—
"If this gay Fav'rite lost, they yet can live,
A tear to Selwyn let the Graces give!
With rapid kindness teach Oblivion's pall
O'er the sunk foibles of the man to fall
And fondly dictate to a faithful Muse
The prime distinction of the Friend they lose:—
'Twas Social Wit; which, never kindling strife,
Blazed in the small, sweet courtesies of life;
Those little sapphires round the diamond shone,
Lending soft radiance to the richer stone."-E.
(726) Married in 1798, to the Earl of Yarmouth; who, in 1822, succeeded his father as third Marquis of Hertford.-E.
(727) Meaning the strange, imagined history Of a marriage supposed to have been likely to take place between Miss Gunning and the Marquis of Blandford.
(728) Mrs. Gunning was a Miss Minifie, of Fairwater, Somersetshire, and, before her marriage, had published several popular novels.-E.
(729) Lady Charlotte-Susan-Maria; married, first to Colonel John Campbell of Islay and, secondly to the Rev. Mr. Bury.-E.