Oh, my dear Honora, how melancholy to see places the same—persons, and such persons gone! Mrs. Watt, in deep mourning, coming forward to meet us alone in that gay trellice, the same books on his table, his picture, his bust, his image everywhere, himself nowhere upon this earth. Mrs. Watt has, in that poor little shattered frame, a prodigiously strong mind; indeed she could not have been so loved by such a man for such a length of time if she had not superior qualities. She was more kind than I can express, receiving Fanny and Harriet as if they had been of her own family.
In the morning I fell to penning this letter, as we were engaged to breakfast at Mr. James Watt's, at Aston Hall. You remember the fine old brick palace? Mr. Watt has fitted up half of it so as to make it superbly comfortable: fine hall, breakfast room, Flemish pictures, Boulton and Watt at either end. After breakfast, at which was Mr. Priestly, an American, son of Dr. Priestly, we went over all the habitable and uninhabitable parts of the house: the banqueting room, with a most costly, frightful ceiling, and a chimneypiece carved up to the cornice with monsters, one with a nose covered with scales, one with human face on a tarantula's body. Varieties of little staircases, and a garret gallery called Dick's haunted gallery; a blocked-up room called the King's room; then a modern dressing-room, with fine tables of Bullock's making, one of wood from Brazil—Zebra wood—and no more to be had of it for love or money.
But come on to the great gallery, longer than that at Sudbury,—about one hundred and thirty-six feet long,—and at the farthest end we came to a sort of oriel, separated from the gallery only by an arch, and there the white marble bust of the great Mr. Watt struck me almost breathless. What everybody went on saying I do not know, but my own thoughts, as I looked down the closing lines of this superb gallery, now in a half-ruined state, were very melancholy, on life and death, family pride, and the pride of wealth, and the pride of genius, all so perishable.
To MRS. EDGEWORTH.
CANTERBURY, April 21.
I wrote to your dear father the history of our visit to Mr. Wren's at Wroxall Abbey, and Kenilworth, and Warwick, and Stratford-upon-Avon, and our pleasant three hours at Oxford. When we were looking at the theatre, Mr. Biddulph told us, that when all the Emperors and Kings came with the Regent, the theatre was filled in every part; but such was the hush you could have heard a pin drop till the Prince put his foot upon the threshold, when the whole assembly rose with a tremendous shout of applause. The Prince was supremely gratified, and said to the Emperor of Russia, "You heard the London mob hoot me, but you see how I am received by the young gentlemen of England!"
When Lord Grenville was installed as chancellor, he was, the instant he look his seat, assailed with loud hisses and groans. Mr. Biddulph said he admired the dignity with which Lord Grenville behaved, and the presence of mind of the Bishop of Peterborough (Parsons), who said in Latin, "Either this disturbance must instantly cease, or I dismiss you from this assembly!" Dead silence ensued.
PARIS, PLACE DU PALAIS BOURBON,
April 29.
One moment of reward for two days of indescribable hurry I have at this quiet interval after breakfast, and I seize it to tell you that Fanny is quite well: so far for health. For beauty, I have only to say that I am told by everybody that my sisters are lovely in English, and charmantes in French. Last night was their début at Lady Granard's—a large assembly of all manner of lords, ladies, counts, countesses, princes, and princesses, French, Polish, and Italian: Marmont and Humboldt were there. I was told by several persons of rank and taste—Lady Rancliffe, the Countess de Salis, Lady Granard, Mrs. Sneyd Edgeworth, and a Polish Countess, that my sister's dress, the grand affair at Paris, was perfection, and I believed it! Humboldt is excessively agreeable, but I was twice taken from him to be introduced to grandeurs, just as we had reached the most interesting point of conversation.