Mr. Herschel has travelled on the Continent. He was particularly pleased with the character of the Tyrolese—their national virtue founded on national piety. One morning, wakening in a cottage inn, he rose, and called in vain in kitchen and parlour: not a body was to be seen, not a creature in yard or stable. At last he heard a distant sound: listening more attentively, and following the sound, he came to a room remote from that in which he had slept, where he found all the inhabitants joining in a hymn, with beautiful voices.
You may remember having seen in the newspapers an account of a philosopher in Germany who made caterpillars manufacture for him a veil of cobweb. The caterpillars were enclosed in a glass case, and, by properly-disposed conveniences and impediments, were induced to work their web up the sides of the glass case. When completed it weighed four-fifths of a grain. Herschel saw it lying on a table, looking like the film of a bubble. When it collapsed a little, and was in that state wafted up into the air, it wreathed like fine smoke. Chantrey, who was present, after looking at it in silent admiration, exclaimed, "What a fool Bernini was to attempt transparent draperies in stone!"
Have you heard of the live camelopard, "twelve foot high, if he is an inch, ma'am?" Herschel is well acquainted with him, and was so fortunate as to see the first interview between him and a kangaroo: it stood and gazed for one instant, and the next leaped at once over the camelopard's head, and he and his great friend became hand and glove.
To MR. BANNATYNE.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Nov. 14, 1827.
I send the letter you wished for—not to Clery, who is dead, but to Louis Bousset, who was the Abbé Edgeworth's servant, and after his death was taken into Louis XVIII.'s household, accompanied the Royal family to Hartwell, returned with them to France, and now lives on a pension from the French Government and his wife's income; she was widow to the King's saddler. They showed much respect, my brother Sneyd says, to our pious cousin the Abbé Edgeworth's memory, and he was much edified by their manner of living together, Bousset and his wife—he a Catholic, and she a German Protestant, "perfect Christian happiness thoroughly existing between two persons of different Churches, but of the same faith."
Though I admire the instance and exception to general rules, I should not wish a similar experiment to be often repeated, being very much of Dr. Johnson's opinion, that there are so many causes naturally of disagreement between people yoked together, that there is no occasion to add another unnecessarily.
To MR. BANNATYNE.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Dec. 4, 1827.
I am very glad to hear that the author of Cyril Thornton is Mrs. Bannatyne's nephew. I have just finished reading it, and had made up my opinion of it, and so had all my family, before we knew that the author was any way connected with you. I am not weary of repeating that I think, and that we all think it the most interesting novel we have read for years; indeed, we could not believe it to be fiction. We read it with all the intense interest which the complete belief in reality commands. Officers of our acquaintance all speak to the reality and truth of the scenes described. Military men and gentlemen are delighted with Cyril Thornton, because he is a gentleman, ay, every inch a gentleman; and with the cut in his face, and all the hashing and mashing he met with in the wars, we are firmly and unanimously of opinion that he must be very engaging. We hope that the author is like his hero in all saving these scars and the loss of his arm; but were the likeness exact even in these, he would be sure of interesting at Edgeworthstown; and we hope that, if ever he comes to Ireland, you and Mrs. Bannatyne will do us the favour to persuade him to come to see us, and to bring his charming wife. We hear she is charming; and, from the good taste and good feeling of his writings, we can readily take it for granted that his choice must be charming, in the best sense of that hackneyed, but still comprehensive word. There is a peculiar delicacy in this book, which delights from being accompanied, as it is, with the strongest evidence of deep sensibility.