Bursledon Lodge, Nov., 1814.
I do indeed congratulate you on your having regained a title so dreaded by the vain and frivolous, so desired by the affectionate. You must know in the circle which calls itself the world, the word is nearly exploded, and grandchildren are taught to distinguish their parents in the first and second line as Mamma This and Mamma That, without using the terrific trisyllable.
My daughter, whose name has excited so much interest in your valuable circle, is Elizabeth Melesina. Her father affectionately wished she should bear my name, but I seduced him to suffer Elizabeth to be joined, which unites my mother’s name, that of the excellent Lady Hutchinson, and of her kind godmother. I had some objection to my own name, combined in my mind with many faults and many sorrows; and I also know by experience that an appellation which is more suited to the pages of fiction than to real life ministers to vanity and romance; besides its tempting coxcombs to ‘soften stanzas with her tuneful name,’ as is well expressed in some stanzas addressed to poor me; who can now and then be wise for others, not having expended much wisdom at home. So my daughter is now Bessy, under which domestic and social name I hope to see her good and contented, and to present her in time to my dear Mrs. Leadbeater.
TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.
Dec. 23, 1814.
Yesterday we dined at Miss Short’s. Mr. —— talked to me when he was a little drunk, just as Mr. —— did twenty years ago, and resembled him exactly. I barricaded myself in a seat on the sofa, putting M. on one side, Miss M. on the other, and a desk screen before me. But he talked away through all impediments; and you know my good nature never allows me to use the defensive armour Providence has given me against forwardness, unless I am more provoked than I can be by a mere determination to converse with and try to please me. He talked to me of his capital house in Portland-place, his having dined with Lord Spencer, his wife being cousin to Lady —— ——, of his being a book-fancier, and having offered £200 for Boccaccio; in short, he collected into one focus all that was to dazzle me, and offered to lend me the most curious French romance extant, &c. &c., which you may be sure I refused.
Miss O’Neill is said to be more natural than Mrs. Siddons was, but to gain no more by it than wax-work does by being a closer representation of nature than the Apollo Belvedere. Very few discriminate sufficiently in the arts between the merit of an exact representation and an ennobled one; and people are not fair enough in general to allow that something must be sacrificed of fidelity in order to reach that elevated imitation which alone gives strong and repeated pleasure.