I have spent five delightful days at Sonna and Pakenham Hall. Mrs.
Tuite's kindness and Mr. Chenevix's various anecdotes, French and
Spanish, delighted us at Sonna; and you know the various charms both for
the head and heart at Pakenham Hall.
I have just been reading, for the fourth time, I believe, The Simple Story, which I intended this time to read as a critic, that I might write to Mrs. Inchbald about it; but I was so carried away by it that I was totally incapable of thinking of Mrs. Inchbald or anything but Miss Milner and Doriforth, who appeared to me real persons whom I saw and heard, and who had such power to interest me, that I cried my eyes almost out before I came to the end of the story: I think it the most pathetic and the most powerfully interesting tale I ever read. I was obliged to go from it to correct Belinda for Mrs. Barbauld, who is going to insert it in her collection of novels, with a preface; and I really was so provoked with the cold tameness of that stick or stone Belinda, that I could have torn the pages to pieces: and really, I have not the heart or the patience to correct her. As the hackney coachman said, "Mend you! better make a new one."
To MRS. RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Jan. 1810.
I have had a very flattering and grateful letter from Lydia White; she has sent me a comedy of Kelly's—A Word to the Wise. She says the Heiress is taken from it. Just about the same time I had a letter from Mrs. Apreece: [Footnote: Afterwards Lady Davy.] she is at Edinburgh, and seems charmed with all the wits there; and, as I hear from Mr. Holland, [Footnote: Afterwards Sir Henry Holland.] the young physician who was here last summer, she is much admired by them. Mrs. Hamilton and she like one another particularly; they can never cross, for no two human beings are, body and mind, form and substance, more unlike. We thought Mr. Holland, when he was here, a young man of abilities—his letter has fully justified this opinion: it has excited my father's enthusiastic admiration. He says Walter Scott is going to publish a new poem; I do not augur well of the title, The Lady of the Lake. I hope this lady will not disgrace him. Mr. Stewart has not recovered, nor ever will recover, the loss of his son: Mr. Holland says the conclusion of his lectures this season was most pathetic and impressive—"placing before the view of his auditors a series of eight-and-thirty years, in which he had zealously devoted himself to the duties of his office; and giving the impression that this year would be the period of his public life."
I have had a most agreeable letter from my darling old Mrs. Clifford; she sent me a curiosity—a worked muslin cap, which cost sixpence, done in tambour stitch, by a steam-engine. Mrs. Clifford tells me that Mrs. Hannah More was lately at Dawlish, and excited more curiosity there, and engrossed more attention, than any of the distinguished personages who were there, not excepting the Prince of Orange. The gentleman from whom she drew Cælebs was there, but most of those who saw him did him the justice to declare that he was a much more agreeable man than Cælebs. If you have any curiosity to know his name, I can tell you that—young Mr. Harford, of Blaise Castle.
Feb. 1810.
My father has just had a letter from your good friend Sir Rupert George, who desires to be affectionately remembered to you and my uncle. His letter is in answer to one my father wrote to him about his clear and honourable evidence on this Walcheren business. Sir Rupert says: "I must confess I feel vain in receiving commendations from such a quarter. The situation in which I was placed was perfectly new to me, and I had no rule for the government of my conduct but the one which has, I trust, governed all my actions through life—to speak the truth, and fear not. Allow me on this occasion to repeat to you an expression of the late Mrs. Delany's to me a few years before she died: 'The Georges, I knew, would always prosper, from their integrity of conduct. Don't call this flattery: I am too old to flatter any one, particularly a grand-nephew; and to convince you of my sincerity, I will add—for which, perhaps, you will not thank me—that there is not an ounce of wit in the whole family.'"
"Oh how my sister would like to see this letter of Sir Rupert's!" said my father; and straightway he told, very much to Sophy and Lucy's edification, the history of his dividing with sister Peg the first peach he ever had in his life.
March 2.