TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.,
STOCKHOLM.
Elm Lodge, July 19, 1822.
Like you, I have been reading The Fortunes of Nigel. It is a clever book, more so than most of the last Walter Scotts; but it does seem written, like Hodge’s razors, solely to sell; for the author is not affectionately attached to any of his characters, as if he had interested himself in the composition. The fine Rembrandt painting of the miser and his daughter, and the adventures connected with them, dignify the whole book. Martha’s character beautifully marks the force of plain sense and strict principle in exciting intense interest under a variety of disadvantages of person and situation. The miser stealing in at night, and putting forth his withered finger for the piece of money on the table of one peculiarly under his protection, would be a fine subject for Wilkie. The danger Nigel and Martha incur of being themselves suspected and seized as authors or accomplices of the murder, is well indicated, and we are fully impressed with it, though it is never once mentioned.
What can we say of the misery of Ireland? At first it created watchful nights, cheerless days, and a sort of reluctant shame at sitting down to a table amply spread. But the awful continuance of famine, which ought to make it more appalling, has blunted the edge of these feelings.
TO THE LADY FANNY PROBY.
Elm Lodge, Sept., 1822.
Were you not electrified by the frightful news of Lord Londonderry having so concluded his eventful life? It was more painful to me than I could have supposed possible. The intervening years, during which I only heard of him, seemed to vanish, and I saw him the calm, engaging, mild, dignified person I once knew, and could hardly believe what had occurred. ‘O Time, thou beautifier of the dead!’ may be true, but I think, ‘O Death, thou beautifier of the departed!’ is far more just; for time sometimes wears away the sudden beauty with which those are invested in our minds, who have just passed away from this state of existence.