Aurelio has no desire more powerful than that of rivalling, perhaps excelling, Holland House. Alas! poor Aurelio! In our time at least Holland House will never know a competitor. It has all that London requires—an honourable name, entwined and illustrated with recollections of Charles Fox—delightful amenity, fine understanding, and a most benevolent and upright heart in the noble host—in our hostess, who always keeps her state, talents, caprice, some beauty, and infinite imperiousness, forming a spirited contrast with one or two points in her position—in short, the zest of many contrarieties, as piquant as the infinite variety of her cook, a man, ‘take him for all in all, we ne’er shall look upon his like again.’ To have him in our mind’s eye alone, would be the torment of Tantalus; therefore, when he departs, we can only hope to forget him; for alas! the cook, like the actor, lives but in the present; unless, indeed, he succeed in giving his name to some dish which may carry it down to the remotest posterity with that of Robert, Maintenon, Véry. While such a cook covers the table, and the flower of our wits and poets surround it, while more good things are eaten and said there than in any other circle of the same magnitude in the civilized world, Holland House must ever remain unrivalled.
Jan. 1, 1819.—I opened the Anti-Jacobin lately, and was shocked at Canning’s lines on Mad. de Staël. At the same time, I was pleased to see how twenty years have increased our refinement, and added to the rank and prerogative of woman. All parties blame Croker for his coarse and savage critique on Lady Morgan, under cover of reviewing her France; yet it is milk and water, both in mildness and purity, when compared with the lines on Mad. de Staël, which then lay on every young lady’s table; though now every man would reprobate, and every woman wish to disown having seen it. I see Canning always laughed at many subjects which were unfit subjects for a jest.
TO MRS. LEADBEATER.
Feb. 22, 1819.
I can well appreciate the kindness which leads you to communicate your sorrows to me; and I think myself highly honoured by the power of infusing any portion of that balm you so well deserve to receive from the hands of friendship. I am very much impressed in reading the annals of those whom you regard, by seeing how much the stroke of final separation is lightened both to the sufferer and survivors (who are often indeed the severest sufferers), by the blameless lives, close ties of family affection, and temperate habits, which are more frequently found among those of your persuasion than any other. I do not mean to draw any inference tending to flattery: you can understand an opinion in all its bearings; and to you explanation is unnecessary.
The stings of death arising from those errors and those crimes, from which the sobriety and staid simplicity of the Friends happily keep them at a distance; the indifference of relatives, who in their career of ambition have hardly time, if their aspiring pursuits left them inclination, to watch the couch of departing life; the complicated ailments produced by the madness of luxurious tables and studied refinements of indolence and ease,—from such your Society seem in general happily exempt, and fall, like the nipped blossom or the ripened fruit, by an end, ‘without sin, without shame, and as free from pain as may be.’ Such was the end prayed for by the good Bishop Wilson, and may such be ours.
I read Buxton On Prisons last Christmas. It interested me greatly; and I was happy to see another ray of light thrown on those abodes of wretchedness. The force and closeness of his reasoning are admirable. His introduction is a masterpiece: never, perhaps, was so much explained, and so many errors unanswerably confuted, in a few words. He gives a new idea of the duty of society towards prisoners. To me he was peculiarly gratifying; because I had always entertained the opinions he maintains, and had suffered myself to be persuaded that in me they arose from the weakness of my heart.