TO MRS. TUITE.
London, April 20, 1823.
I am just embarked in Campan’s voluminous memoirs, and regret the time I must give to her sensible gossip—for such it is—not a lueur of genius; I know, too, she must be partial, and her volume contains as much as half Hume’s History. But every one is reading her; and as there are now few amusements, fewer invitations, and no spare money, all the world is occupied with books; and not to be qualified to talk of Mad. Campan is to abdicate your place in conversation. I saw a very fine performance of Esther by her élèves when I first went to Paris. I cannot imagine it to have been better performed at Saint Cyr.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.,
STOCKHOLM.
April 29, 1823.
We are all reading Mad. Campan and Las Casas. The embers of the old French Court, and the short-lived splendour of that which in all respects was unique, shine out in both these works in their different degrees. The lovers of minute gossip—and they are many—delight in knowing on which side Louis XVI. got out of bed, and with what étoffe Marie Antoinette lined her flannel bathing-dress; while others are gratified, after having read O’Meara’s book, by finding a new and deeper vein displayed in the mind of that wonderful man who has occupied us since his death more than all the living great ones he has left.
I have at last received Ariosto, and hope you will be pleased with it. It is a work I never did read through. As far as I can judge from the brilliant passages which everybody knows, Rose seems a spirited and faithful translator, except in the opening stanza. That beautiful and dignified enumeration, which keeps your attention in breathless suspense, while it goes on like a fine procession, and which falls so harmoniously on the ear, is sadly vulgarized by the commonplace
‘Of loves and ladies, knights and arms, I sing.’