Last night a letter came from Lady Farnham, announcing Francis Fox's marriage, and naming next Monday for us to go to Farnham. We went last Monday to a play at Castle Forbes, or rather to three farces—"Bombastes Furioso," "Of Age To-morrow," and "The Village Lawyer," taken from the famous Avocat Patelin: the cunning servant-boy shamming simplicity was admirably acted by Lord Rancliffe.
Tell me whether you have seen Madame de Staël's Essai sur la Fiction, prefixed to Zulma, Adelaide, and Pauline—the essay is excellent: I shall be curious to know whether you think as I do of Pauline. Madame de Staël calls Blenheim "a magnificent tomb: splendour without, and the deathlike silence of ennui within." She says she is very proud of having made the Duke of Marlborough speak four words. At the moment she was announced he was distinctly heard to utter these words: "Let me go away." We have just got her Allemagne. We have had great delight in Mrs. Graham's India,—a charming woman, writing, speaking, thinking, or feeling.
Nov. 25.
A letter from Lady Romilly—so easy, so like her conversation. All agree that Madame de Staël is frankness itself, and has an excellent heart. During her brilliant fortnight at Bowood—where, besides Madame de Staël, her Albertine, M. de Staël, and Count Palmella, there were the Romillys, the Macintoshes, Mr. Ward, Mr. Rogers, and M. Dumont—if it had not been for chess-playing, music, and dancing between times, poor human nature never could have borne the strain of attention and admiration.
Jan. 1, 1814.
Hunter has sent a whole cargo of French translations—Popular Tales, with a title under which I should never have known them, Conseils à mon Fils! Manoeuvring: La Mère Intrigante; Ennui—what can they make of it in French? Leonora will translate better than a better thing. Emilie de Coulanges, I fear, will never stand alone. L'Absent, The Absentee,—it is impossible that a Parisian can make any sense of it from beginning to end. But these things teach authors what is merely local and temporary. Les deux Griseldis de Chaucer et Edgeworth; and, to crown all, two works surreptitiously printed in England under our name, and which are no better than they should be.
Pray read Letters to Sir James Macintosh on Madame de Staël's Allemagne. My mother says it is exactly what you would have written: we do not know who is the author.
Jan. 25.
To-day it began to thaw, and thawed so rapidly that we were in danger of being flooded, wet pouring in at all parts, and tubs, and jugs, and pails, and mops running about in all directions, and voices calling, and avalanches of snow thrown by arms of men from gutters and roofs on all sides, darkening windows, and falling with thundering noise.
We have been charmed with a little French play, Les deux Gendres. I wish you could get it, and get Mr. Knox to read it to you: he is still blocked up by the snow at Pakenham Hall.