Mr. Cambray Serres is more—which here means no more. I suppose, by his name, that he is related to our royal family at home.
Do you know, Mr. Bull, that I have found out one very surprising thing, the French ridicule the English in everything; they have got a farce which they call "Anglase poor rear," which is quite scandalous, and every thing they have, they nick-name after us; they call a note Billy, and a book Tom; a pie they have christened Patty; they call the mob a fool; any thing that is very shameful they call Hunt, but whether they mean John, Henry, Joseph, or Leigh, I cannot discover—they call the winter a heaver—the autumn Old Tom, and the summer they call Letty.
I think the French must have been originally Irish, for they say crame for cream, and suprame for supreme, and so on: but I will endeavour to find out more about this.
I went to see a vealyard (that is, an old man), who had been a sort of anchor-wright or hermit many years ago; he had been put into the dungeons of the Inquisition in furs, and suffered what they call the piano-forte and door of that terrible place—if we go to Room we shall see the buildings in which he was confined, and I dare say we shall go there, and from that to Naples, and into the Gulp of Venus, and so to Cecily, which I shall very much like whoever she may be, because I knew a namesake of her's down in Dorsetshire.
I must, however, conclude my letter, for I am hurried for Tim—Lavy begs her best love, and says in case she is married you must write her epitaph. Why do you not call upon Mr. R.? he will be very glad to see you, and now that he is alone he lives, in compliment to me, entirely upon turtle.
Dorothea J. Ramsbottom.
VIII.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM BACK IN LONDON.
To John Bull.
Montague Place, Friday, April 23, 1824.