TO MRS. LEADBEATER.
London, Jan. 12, 1824.
I very much regret that sorrow should so often find its way to Ballitore; but where love extends, there extends the domain of joy and grief. Two of the fairest flowers of the garden have been lately nipped in the very bloom of life. Lady Caroline Pennant, the sole daughter of the Duchess of Marlborough, the only perennial spring of comfort she has known in an eventful and unfortunate life, died ten days after her confinement, last week; and Mad. de Stierneld, whom I have already mentioned to you as one who interested me most particularly, faded away in the south of France this autumn, in a decline. Both were excellent, amiable, and interesting, living for their virtues and their affections, without one atom of the pride, vanity, or fondness for display, from which so few of our sex are exempt.
‘A DREAM WHICH WAS NOT ALL A DREAM.’
Feb. 2, 1824.
‘What dost thou here, white woman, say?
To bed, to bed—away, away.
While music flings its charms around,