EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Aug. 22, 1809.
I have just been reading Carleton's Memoirs, and am in love with the captain and with his general, Lord Peterborough; and I have also been reading one of the worst-written books in the language, but it has both instructed and entertained me—Sir John Hawkins's Life of Johnson. He has thrown a heap of rubbish of his own over poor Johnson, which would have smothered any less gigantic genius.
M. Dumont writes from Lord Henry Petty's: "Nous avons lu en société à Bounds, Tales of Fashionable Life. Toute société est un petit théâtre. 'Ennui' et 'Manoeuvring' ont eu un succès marqué, il a été très vif. Nous avons trouvé un grand nombre des dialogues du meilleur comique, c'est à dire ceux où les personnages se developpent sans le vouloir, et sont plaisants sans songer à l'être. Il y a des scènes charmantes dans 'Madame de Fleury.' Ne craignez pas les difficultés, c'est là où vous brillez."
To MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH.
Nov 30.
We have had a bevy of wits here—Mr. Chenevix, Mr. Henry Hamilton, Leslie Foster, and his particular friend Mr. Fitzgerald. Somebody asked if Miss White [Footnote: The then well-known Miss Lydia White, for many years a central figure in London literary society.] was a bluestocking. "Oh yes, she is; I can't tell you how blue. What is bluer than blue?"—"Morbleu," exclaimed Lord Norbury. Miss White herself comes next week.
Dec. 11.
Among other things Miss White entertained my father with was a method of drawing the human figure, and putting it into any attitude you please: she had just learned it from Lady Charleville—or rather not learned it. A whole day was spent in drawing circles all over the human figure, and I saw various skeletons in chains, and I was told the intersections of these were to show where the centres of gravity were to be; but my gravity could not stand the sight of these ineffectual conjuring tricks, and my father was out of patience himself. He seized a sheet of paper and wrote to Lady Charleville, and she answered in one of the most polite letters I ever read, inviting him to go to Charleville Forest, and he will go and see these magical incantations performed by the enchantress herself.
To MISS RUXTON.
December 1809.