My epistolatory sins multiply upon me at such a rate, I am almost ashamed to face a correspondent of any description, and quite so to appear before you. Where are my congratulatory replies to your Dublin letter, announcing your marriage? Literally in nubibus. I say literally, for scores of them passed through my brain in forms so airy, that they flew aloft before I could catch one to fix upon paper. The sober truth

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is, procrastination, that thief of comfort as well as time, took an early possession of me, and it is in vain now to attempt an ejectment. Let me tell you one thing, by the way, that when they flew up, they carried with them my best wishes for you and yours.

I most heartily wish well to the scheme you have in view, and shall use my best endeavours to promote it. I know but little of the locality of Dublin; but it is

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my intention to spend a good deal of the ensuing season at Cheltenham, where I shall probably see many Irish families of respectability; then, be assured, I shall think of you, and be enabled, I trust, to do something more than merely think. Don’t let me redden your cheeks beyond the point to which nature has brought them, but I must conscientiously say, that if your merits meet with their reward, your fingers’ ends will grow sore with professional exercise. Let me advise you to take up some scientific pursuit, which will admit of an exhibition—why not mineralogy? You are quite at home there. I have a medical friend who has long ranked as the first physician in one of the largest cities in these realms, and whose fossils were the stepping stones that led him into the wide fields of practice. If you can bear to write to such a correspondent, pray let me hear from you ere long, and believe me, with every friendly wish to you and yours

Vous voila aux abois ma chère dame!! You see I am not to be distanced; retreat as you will, I still pursue. When I am within a mile of you, you will not see me; when I write you will not answer; and still here I am at your feet, because I will not be rebutée, nor (throw me off as you may) will I ever give you up until I find something that resembles you, something to fill up the place you have so long occupied; the fact is, my dear Lady Stanley, it is pure selfishness that ties me to you. I do not like women, I cannot get on with them! and except the excessive tenderness which I have always felt for my sister be called friendship, you (and one or two more, par parenthèse!) are the only woman to whom I could ever lier myself for a week together. Devancer son sexe is as dangerous as devancer son siècle; it was no effort, no willing of mine that has given me a little the start of the major part of them; dear little souls! who, as Ninon says, “trouvent commode d’être jolie.” The principle was there; active and restless, the spur was given, and off I went, happy in the result that my comparative superiority obtained me one such friend as yourself—that is, as you were; but I fear you now cut me dead.

We have at last got into a home of our own; we

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found an old, dirty, dismantled house, and we have turned our piggery into a decent sort of hut enough; we have made it clean and comfortable, which is all our moderate circumstances will admit of, save one little bit of a room, which is a real bijou, and it is about four inches by three, and, therefore, one could afford to ornament it a little; it is fitted up in the gothic, and I have collected into it the best part of a very good cabinet of natural history of Sir Charles, eight or nine hundred volumes of choice books, in French, English, Italian, and German; some little miscellaneous curiosities, and a few scraps of old china, so that with muslin draperies, &c., &c., I have made no contemptible set out. I was thinking, that may be Susette could enrich my store in the old china way, if she has any refuse of that sort which you may have thrown her in with your cast-off wardrobe—a broken cup, a bottomless bowl, a spoutless teapot,—in a word, anything old and shattered, that is china, and of no value to you, will be of use and ornament to me, and Captain Skinner has promised to bring it over for me.

With respect to authorship, I fear it is over; I have been making chair-covers instead of periods; hanging curtains instead of raising systems, and cheapening pots and pans instead of selling sentiment and philosophy. Meantime, my husband is, as usual, deep in study, and if his popularity here may be deemed a favourable omen, will, I trust, soon be deep in practice. Well, always dear friend; any chance of a line in answer to my three pages of verbiage? Just make the effort of taking up the pen, and if you only write

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“Glorvina, I am well, and love you still,” I will be contented. Under all circumstances,

You will think me, as you have no doubt long ago thought me, a very miserable correspondent; but the fact is, that of late my time has, in a most unusual manner, been occupied. The History of Hampshire has not merely been at sixes and sevens, but at sixteens and seventeens. A certain flowery-named gentleman, as I conceive, has by no means fulfilled his engagements with me, which I intend very shortly to prove. I mean to call for a full investigation into my whole conduct relating to it, which I hope the trustees will not refuse to enter into. Lord Malmesbury was with me some time on the subject about three weeks ago, and I firmly believe is my friend; at all events, I shall not let the matter rest until I have a full arrangement of the business. My evidence on the subject is indisputable; and I have a letter promising a compensation in case of a failure in obtaining the

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requisite number of subscriptions. It is really too bad that I should be a loser by a work which I was positively invited, and, contrary to my own inclination, to undertake. If all at last goes on well, I hope to complete it in the course of about a year and a-half. This is no trifling concern to me, and has cost me much anxiety. When things go on somewhat more smoothly, I hope to become a better correspondent than I hitherto have been.

The new edition of the Animal Biography has been published about three months; and Longman and Co.

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have just written to request that I would prepare a new edition of the Welsh Tour. This is what I scarcely expected, as two or three years ago I had been informed that the copies were going off very slowly. It is my present intention to throw the work into a somewhat different form, and print it in one volume instead of two.

By the way, I have been employed, during the evenings, in preparing a little introductory work on Zoology, the first sheet of which is printed. This, at present, is unknown I believe to any except the bookseller and my family. The plan is nearly the same as that of Animal Biography, and it has been prepared chiefly for the purpose of affording a popular view of the Linnean system. I am very anxious for its success, although I have sold the copyright. It will be in one duodecimo volume, and it is my intention to follow it up with another on the subject of Botany and Mineralogy.

Mrs. Bingley unites with me in kindest remembrances to yourself and Lady Morgan.

You see that I do not lose a moment in obeying your orders, and be assured that you ought to give me some credit, as I am in general but a bad correspondent. Your inquiries as to whether you are to make Mr. Shee your hero, has amused me considerably. The Evening Post inserted a long list of lies upon his subject, at which I laughed heartily at the time. You certainly could not have applied to a better person than myself for information with respect to him, as I know his birth, parentage and adventures, perfectly. He is of a low family. One of his sisters was bound to a milliner, at Kilkenny, and used to bring ribbons, gauzes, &c., to the Miss Bensfords, when their father was Bishop of Ossory. Another of his

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sisters was married to a coachmaker. His brother was foreman to the said coachmaker, and is now elevated to the rank of ganger in the excise by Lord Cahir’s interest. The hero was in the Irish brigade at St. Domingo; but as to his prodigies of valour, I never heard anything of them. He came to London starving. Lord Cahir fed him with money till he was rather tired of so doing, and offered to get him a commission in the army, which he declined, unless the Duke of York would give him a majority at once. Lord Cahir was induced to present a memorial to this effect, and the answer was, that it was then unheard of in the service, but that a cornetcy was at Lord Cahir’s command. Shee declined it. He then married the daughter of a button maker, by whom he expected to get some cash. Being also disappointed in this, and fighting considerably with the lady and her buttons, he packed up his portmanteau and set off to France, where he entered the French service, and became aidde-camp to General Clark, who is a distant relation of his. He has since been made a lieutenant-colonel of a regiment, and was mentioned in some of the French generals’ despatches in Spain, as having eaten up the English army. By some extraordinary accident, however, Lord Wellington has “lived to fight another day;” and should the hero Shee be taken, which is by no means impossible, he will swing on Tyburn tree. Nothing, in my mind, can justify a man in fighting against his own country,—not even your seducing pen can make it palatable to my old English prejudices, particularly when he had a very reasonable sufficiency

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in this country; for I have forgotten to state that Lord Cahir gave him a farm near Cahir, out of which he at this moment receives a very handsome profit rent. Had he chosen to have gone into our service, Lord Cahir would have pushed him forward; as it is now fourteen years since he was offered a commission, he might have been as high in the English as he is now in the French service, without the stigma of being a traitor, and without the certainty of being hanged, if taken. Lord Cahir did push on another brother to the rank of major in our army, in which rank he died. So much for our hero. And now I have only to request you to burn this letter, as I have no inclination to be quoted in anything that concerns him.