You are perfectly right in enjoying the gay season of life. When time advances, we must be content to look on the world through “the loopholes of retirement,” as Cowper says. The delicate state of my health has, in a great degree, banished me from society; but I am not the less sensible to its charms, and do not yet despair, if it should please God, of enjoying them again.
Lady Worthington is an old friend, for whom I have
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Poor Mrs. Tighe! Still, however, I am not without hopes of her perfect recovery. Of Lady Moira’s illness I heard last Wednesday, with the deepest concern. I have since heard, with infinite pleasure, that she is recovering. Heaven, I trust, will yet spare her many years to her friends. I have no friend whose dissolution I should more deeply deplore.
I am rejoiced to find that you have another work in
contemplation. From you more than common success will be expected. Your name
(to use, perhaps, a vulgarism), is up; and I have no doubt that your future
productions will raise it still higher. As you visited a part of the country
where society is, in some degree, in a primitive state, you will, of course, be
minute with regard to customs and manners. You should also give all the
traditions that prevail, particularly those relating to the heroes and heroines
of the metrical tales of the Irish, some of whom, it is said, may be traced to
oriental tales. It is not improbable but you may have heard stories similar to
some of those which you have read in the Arabian Nights Entertainments. Keep
these hints in your mind when you are reflecting upon the days you spent on the
shores of the “Steep Atlantic” Allow me further to observe, that
you should look over the Irish historians (Keating, O’Hilloran, Leland, &c.), for such remarkable events as may have occurred
in any of the scenes
| A NEW FRIEND AND A BROTHER-IN-LAW | 315 |
I shall embrace an early opportunity of sending you the romances. In the meantime I would beg leave to recommend it to you. Borrow and read Mr. Ellis’s Specimens of Early English Romances, particularly the first volume. Mr. Ellis read your Wild Irish Girl, and was much pleased with it.
I have not seen any of the criticisms on your publication in the Freeman’s Journal. Permit me, as a friend, to recommend it to you not to disregard the critics. If they should point out any faults (for no human work is perfect), silently correct them in a second edition. Adieu, dear madam. Make my best compliments to your father, and believe (in haste),
I think you should look over the antiquity papers on the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. Any of the members could get you access to the library, where you might pass two or three hours with pleasure and advantage.
It is not, I am sure, necessary to recommend it to you to avoid all political reflections in your tour.
