I am tempted to put your good nature at rest, with respect to the refusal of the editorship. Your friend Crampton (whom I met at dinner yesterday) has offered to forward a note to you by his packet. So I am tempted to write. My opinion is, that it would be for the advantage of literature if periodical publications were put down for ever. Mr. Crampton and I agreed last night that we should be inclined to “put on the list of friends those whom you say have

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advised you not to publish your Life of Lord Edward, at this most mal à propos and inauspicious moment. Ireland is no more the country you left three months ago than it is Cochin China! To judge by the outline and aspect of things, a connoisseur in revolution (and I am pas mal in that species of virtú) all would say we were on the eve of the worst and most perilous political commotions one coming from below, and such elements! Imagine countless thousands of the lower classes pouring through the streets, silent, concentrated, worked by a nod, a sign; and this, the day after a proclamation from the government, forbidding all meetings.(!) All other classes are paralysed; government is without one organ to address to public opinion; not one newspaper in its service—terrorism the order of the day, and a parliament dispersed for six weeks at least, and the nation left to the prayers of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the black Pasto of Mr. Percival. It is clear that they know nothing about us in England; by this time, however, Lord Anglesey has probably given them a hint; his reception is a stain upon the country, which can never be effaced; peace or war (civil war and extending woes) now lies in the influence of O’Connell over the passions of the people; “to this complexion are we come at last”

January 26th.—I made a very agreeable sort of

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Donnybrook fair party on Friday last,—20th. My women were all pretty, and my men all pleasant, and pour comble we got up a proverb en action, in very good style, all à l’improviste, and though almost strangers to each other in this line, they were acted à merveille.

What shouts of laughter and fun!—our audience—Lord Douro, Lord Headford, Sir Guy and Lady Campbell, Sir E. and Lady Blakeney, Augustus Liddle, Colonel Bowater, Lord F. Paulet, Mrs. Caulfield, Miss Armitt, and Miss Crampton.

Had a letter to-day from David, the sculptor, sending me my own bust in marble, and that of Lafayette!

February 15th.—Sitting all alone to-day; just before dinner enter T. Moore! pardi! I could not believe my eyes. “Why, what on earth brings you here? is it to dine with me to-day?” “No, I’ll dine with you to-morrow.” “My mother was dying, I was sent for, she has seen me, and has revived.” Morgan came in. Moore sat all the time; I never before saw him sit for ten minutes together; he was cordial, and pleasant, and confidential. He told us many strange things. Poor fellow, he has never been able to get out of debt. He told us Rogers had expended three thousand pounds on the publication of his dandy book. Oh, these amateur authors who write for fashion, while we write for fame or famine! Moore says he thinks Murray would like to publish for me.

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February 17th.—I had a little dinner got up in a hurry for Moore, yesterday; it was got up thus. I threw up my windows, and asked the inmates of the cabs and carriages of my friends as they passed the windows, and sent out some penny porters, and lighted up my rooms. Moore was absolutely astounded when he saw my party! He sang some of his most beautiful songs in his most delightful manner, without stopping; some of them twice over, and all of them as if every word was applicable to the people around him. Many of his old friends were around him; I said, “if you stay a day or two longer, I’ll do better than this.” “No, no,” he said, “never again can such a thing be done. This is one of the few happy accidents which occur rarely; besides, I don’t want to efface the impression even by something better.’

I never saw him more natural or agreeable. He praised Murray to the skies, and said he was princely in his conduct to authors. Moore disliked me in my youth; he told me at Florence that he thought Byron did not wish to know me, and did wish to know Morgan.

April 1st.—Poor Molly! I went to see her, and the whole was too much for me—my dear Morgan just returned from her—we are with her every day! What a scene! her whole anxiety is about her funeral, her coffin, &c. I have promised her to do all, and now she is at peace, although her drunken sister (who is looking forward to a glorious wake) has brought her priest, who told her she could not be saved. My

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sister is all goodness to her, and nurses her like a mother!

Morgan and I have just had a battle royal! The subject was, as usual, one of my improvements in the house. All, however, of my improvements have been made at long intervals; the last I was five years working at. The present point at issue is, I want a little greenhouse to put my plants in on the open space at the back of the stairs; I want this done, and have offered to pay for it. Morgan vows I never shall have it, and is gone out in a passion; but I don’t despair. Upon this occasion I am a bore, and he is—a bear.

Mrs. Hemans presents her compliments to Lady Morgan, and returns the “Metropolitan,” with many thanks for all the pleasure it has afforded her. She trusts that her little messengers may be able to bring her an improved account of Lady Morgan’s health,

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and that the particulars of the Macaw’s débût in fashionable life will not be long withheld.

Your letter to me is most gratifying; it is another and a greener leaf in my parliamentary chapter, a thousand thanks to your good heart. Believe me you mistake me much if you try me by my observance of the rules of etiquette; I know how to value your faculties and your character. There is no one whose friendship and praise I prize more than yours and Sir Charles’s. I have received a series of kindnesses from both, which I cannot readily forget.

There is no news here in the political circles to which I can give implicit confidence. It is said that

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there are dissensions in the cabinet, and that the king has had a fit of apoplexy. Party runs so high that I can attach no credit to what I hear, even from the highest quarters on both sides. I believe that there has been a great defection among the Lords, but that it is quite possible that some of the ministers may ultimately become terrified at their own reform. Lord Melbourne was great. Charles Grant did not speak with the cordiality of strong conviction.

Lady Cork was last night making special inquiries about you; she asked me whether it was true that you were writing the adventures and observations of her Macaw. It lately bit off the toe of a countess, but on the calf of a minister it could make no impression.

I met Jeffery and Macaulay here at dinner; Jeffery has the most astounding volubility I ever witnessed; he will not do in the house, I fear. I witnessed at Sir J. Mackintosh’s his introduction to Wordsworth, for the first time. The latter grinned horribly, a ghastly smile.

Remember me to Sir Charles, and believe me,

August 13th.—We are invited to the regatta; but we shall go to Lucan instead [Lucan was a watering place near Dublin, fashionable, and much frequented at that time] to repose from country house dissipations, and then I shall set to work at my Irish histories. My dirty house is to be given up to workmen, and I

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am to have a French window at the head of the stairs, opening on the balcony; the greenhouse question is still laid on the table, but I will have that too before I die, but not long before, I fear.

I ought to have thanked you sooner for the Review you sent me, and for calling my attention to the well-written article in it by Sir Charles Morgan. I had already seen extracts from it, with which, to be honest, I was better pleased than with the whole, for it happens that I go the full length with him in what I had before met with, whereas, in part of that which was new to me, I differ. I am sorry—you, probably, glad—that I have not time to explain myself.

Lady Anglesea showed me your note regarding an Italian opera, in Dublin, during October and November. If the thing is likely to take, I shall be delighted to promote it, and all my family will join. I think every encouragement should be given to those who

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will render Dublin gay. We want a little dégourdissement, because too much entangled in sombre politics. We may be vastly good patriots, and yet be always lively and good humoured; but before Messrs. Calcraft and de Begnis embark in this undertaking, they should well calculate their means.

October 1st.—I thought the child’s ball, at the Stanley’s, a triste affair, or the contrast with Lady Emily’s child’s ball made it appear more so.

They were very civil; and Mr. Stanley seemed as if he wished to be as unlike a minister of state at a child’s ball as possible; he ran about and was even frisky, and at the ponderous supper (where there was a smoking sirloin of beef at the head, and a cold round at the foot, two turkeys and ducks at the side); he kept crying, “Why don’t you eat; pray eat,” as if he was feeding the poor Irish at a soup kitchen.

October 16th.—On my return from Lucan, I find mon bon ami the black volume, my journal white or blue, and unwritten still, on the writing desk in my dressing-room; there it has lain for a month, and it actually requires an effort of will to open and scribble in it. My life at Lucan was an odd one, I was placed in a set I never was in before, such a place is the mutual rendezvous of quizzeries of all sorts, and I should have died of it, but for my Dominican monk, Father

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Fitzgerald, of Carlow (of whom and our romance more hereafter), and his friend the head of the Dominicans, Father Harold, and our own odd, clever, paradoxical friend, Professor Macartney. We made a delightful little coterie, and all the mediocrities were frightened out of their stupid wits. Holy St. Francis! what a conclave in the midst of their sanctity! for they were all saints, and vulgar saints. My arrival caused universal dismay. Miss M——, the archbishop’s daughter, ran away, others were about to follow her, but I tamed them all. No Lady Huntingdon, had she dropped among them, could have been more in the odour of sanctified popularity than I was, after a while, and my life there was, in some respects, most delectable,—air, health temperance, and occupation. I wrote there my two most arduous Irish articles for the Metropolitan. Since our return, we have been in perpetual agitation about the Reform bill, but I picked one gay, light-hearted, agreeable evening out of the bustle,—a dinner and soirée for Paganini. I asked him, not as a miraculous fiddle-player, but as a study. He came into the drawing-room in a great coat, a clumsy walking stick, and his hat in his hand (quite a Penruddock figure), and, walking up to me, made a regular set speech in his Genoese Italian, which I am convinced was taught him by his secretario; it abounded in Donnas celebritissimas, and all the superlatives of Italian gallantry. At dinner, he seemed wonderfully occupied with the dishes in succession, and frequently said, “ho troppo, mangiato!” at each dish, exclaiming, “bravissimo! excellmtissimo!” The fact is, I had

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copied a Florentine dinner as closely as I could, having had a Florentine cook all the time we were in Italy; so, we had a minestra al vermicelli; maccaroni, in all forms, &c., &c. I asked him if he were not the happiest man in the world, every day acquiring so much fame and so much money. He sighed and said, he should be but for one thing “i Ragazzi” the little blackguards that ran after him in the streets. In the evening, I took him into the boudoir; we had a tête-a-tête of an hour, in which he told me his whole story; but in such an odd, simple, Italian, gossiping manner, half by signs, looks, and inflections of the voice, that though I can take him off to the life verbally, I can give no idea of him on paper;—still here is the outline. His father and mother in humble life in Genoa, fond of music—no more. At four years old, he played the guitar, and, untaught, attended all the churches to sing, and at seven years of age, composed something like a cantata; then he took up the violin and made such progress, that his father travelled about with him from one Italian town to another, till he attracted the attention and attained the patronage of Elise Bonaparte, then Grand Duchess of Tuscany. He was taken into her family, and played constantly at her brilliant little court; there he fell in love with one of her dames d’honneur, who turned his head, he said, and he became pazzo per amore, and found his violin expressed his passion better than he could. Mademoiselle B—— became his guide and inspiration; but they had a terrible fracas, they fought, fell out and separated. One day, in his despair, he was confi-

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ding his misery to his beloved violin, and made it repeat the quarrel just as it happened; he almost made it articulate the very words, and in the midst of this singular colloquy, Mademoiselle de B—— rushed into the room and threw her arms round his neck and said, “Paganini, your genius has conquered;” their reconciliation followed, and she begged he would note down those inspirations of love; he did so, and called it, Il Concerto d’Amore. Having left it by accident on the piano of the grand duchess, she saw, and commanded him to play it; he did so, and the dialogue of the two strings had a wonderful success. He married afterwards a chorus singer at Trieste, and she was the mother of his little Paganini, whom he doated on. The mother, he said, abandoned them both, and that he was now no longer susceptible of the charms of the “Belle Donne.” His violin was his mistress. While telling me all this, he rolled his eyes in a most extraordinary way, and assumed a look that it is impossible to define—really and truly something demoniacal. Still, he seems to me, to be a stupified and almost idiotic creature.

It is actually nine months since I received a letter from dear Lady Morgan. I immediately conceived a

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letter of thanks, but never had it in my power to bring it to light. Lucina is not at hand, nor any other friendly assistant.

I should not venture to intrude upon you to-day; but that I really am anxious to be regaled with one of your pretty greetings. Tommy Moore told me my macaw had spoke both witty and clever. Bulwer, &c., &c., said the same, and that they would send it to me. I have never seen it. When can I hear of it—answer this, and tell me, when you come to England. I don’t wish it till April, when I promise you constant, pleasant reunions. I am more chez moi, and go out less than ever. I collect pleasant people, and like this last act of the play as well as any part of my life. I am in good health, and have many kind friends, among whom I trust you’ll allow me to set you down in the first class.

This macaw, which has been several times alluded to, who spoke both witty and clever, was a bird of wisdom belonging to Lady Cork, and Lady Morgan wrote a charming paper entitled Memoirs of a Macaw

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of a Lady of Quality, which first appeared in the New Monthly, and afterwards was republished in The Book without a Name. It is a model for the kind of writing; it is full of good feeling, and has caustic, lively touches of society which give a pleasant sharpness; and there is a sketch of a poor “Younger Brother,” that is quite touching; altogether, it is one of Lady Morgan’s happiest efforts.