Mrs. Hogan, excellent Mrs. Hogan, has grown much older, but in all other respects the same, and next to our own dear Mrs. Billamore the most active and attached person in her station I ever saw. But why waste my time on housekeepers, when I should tell you of Lord Burford and his sisters, Lady Maria and Lady Caroline Beauclerc, who arrived on Monday, and Lady Westmeath and Mr. Smith (Rejected Addresses), and Mr. Lock, son of Norbury Park Lock: all come to go to a ball at Dorking, of which Mr. Hope is one of the stewards.
The Lady Beauclercs are beautiful, in the Vandyke style, and Lord
Burford very handsome, and so is Mr. Lock, with a curly head.
Fanny danced a great deal, and Harriet two quadrilles and Sir Roger de Coverley, which ended at six in the morning. We met at this ball Mr. Greenough, and Mr. Angerstein, Sneyd's friend, very agreeable, and Mrs. Hibbert, of the beautiful cottage, and Lady Rothes. Mr. Smith excessively entertaining; he sings humorous songs of his own composition inimitably. Alas! he went away yesterday.
The evening after the ball they played at "the ring," a ring held on a string in a circle, and the fool in the middle seeks and challenges any suspected hand. This morning, the moment breakfast was over, they went into the hall of the marble table, and there played at petits pacquets (not time to describe), a great deal of running and laughing among pretty men and pretty maids.
As I stood at the window with Mr. Hope looking at a ring of company playing French blindman's-buff, we agreed we had never seen more beauty, male and female, collected in a circle of fourteen persons.
Mrs. Hogan has just announced the arrival of "Prince Cimitelli, and another name, ma'am, which I am ashamed to say I can never twist out rightly, is to come here to-day."
Mr. Smith told Fanny that he had intended to put me into the Rejected Addresses, and had written a part in the character of an Irish labourer, but it was so flat he threw it aside.
To MRS. EDGEWORTH.
FROGNEL, HAMPSTEAD, Dec. 29, 1821.
We read—I mean we have heard read by Mr. Carr, who reads admirably, half the first volume of the Pirate, stopped at the chapter ending with the description of Norma of the Fitful Head. We were much pleased and interested, especially with the beautiful description of Mordaunt's education and employments: the sea-monsters, etc., most poetical, in Scott's master style: the manner in which, by scarcely perceptible touches, he wakens the reader's interest for his hero, admirable, unequalled by all but Shakespear. Wonderful genius; who can raise an interest even on the barren rocks of Zetland. Aladdin could only raise palaces at will, but the mighty master Scott can transport us to the most remote desert corner of the earth, ay, and keep us there, and make us wish to stay among beings of his own creation. I send a sketch of the room, and how we all sat last night as happy as possible listening to Mr. Carr reading; show this ground-plan to Honora, who knows the room, and she will insense you.