‘You are always a long time in answering; but always make ample amends for the delay, and I am almost afraid of saying how much pleasure I received from your last letter, for fear you should think delay a necessary ingredient and be confirmed in your bad habit. As for confidence, you contrive to make it—according to the most hackneyed of quotations—“more honoured in the breach than the observance”; this is the second breach, and I hardly know by which of the two I have been most honoured. I began to repent having sent you such a long dissertation on accent, quantity, &c., but am now quite cock-a-hoop.
‘. . . It gives me great pleasure to hear that at your
last visit to Dropmore you found Lord
Grenville in good spirits. They so generally rise and fall with
good and bad health that I hope his is gradually and steadily improving. I am
not a little pleased to find that he was occupied with my last letter on the
subject that so much occupies me, as you know to your cost; in one of his which
I had received not long before, he had expressed his doubts on various points,
and I thought the best way
| 396 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘The account you give of Lord Ashburnham is very pleasing and satisfactory. He always writes gaily and very agreeably; his frame of mind is naturally a cheerful one, and, as far as I have observed, he is not at all apt to see things en noir; but he left England with great reluctance under depressing circumstances and with the care of a large family and suite during a long journey. This must have been a weight on his spirits; it is now removed, and he can fully enjoy those interesting objects for which he has that keen relish and true feeling which is so often affected. I remember when I was at Florence (I dare say Lord Fitzwilliam would remember it, though it is not very far from sixty years since we were there) a young handsome French colonel, Français jusqu’à la moelle des os, arriving in his regimentals from Corsica. He did us English the honour of noticing us, and one day, when several of us were together in the Tribune, he advanced towards us with a true French air: “Messieurs,” said he, “je suis en extase! des bustes, des tableaux, des statues!” he never looked at any of them for two minutes together, or at anything but himself in the glass.
‘Lord
Aberdeen’s journey must be a very melancholy one; and with
little hope, I should fear, of his daughter’s recovery. The consumptive
taint from the first Lady Aberdeen seems
to have been uncommonly deep and virulent. I shall never forget my having seen,
some
| Lord Aberdeen's Family | 397 |
Λαμπρότατος
μεν οδʹ εστι,
κακον δέ τε
σημα
τέτυκται, Καί τε ϕέρει
πολλον
πυρετον
δειλοιοι
βροτοισιν. |
‘This πυρετον, this inward feverish heat, slowly undermined their constitutions; they dropped off one after another, and of all that sportive group of cherubs that I had gazed at with such delight in their infancy, not one remains.
‘This is a melancholy subject, and I must go to
another: poor Lady Oxford. I had heard with
great concern of her dangerous illness, but hoped she might get through it, and
was much, very much grieved to hear that it had ended fatally. I had, as you
know, lived a great deal with her from the time she came into this country,
immediately after her marriage, but for some years past, since she went abroad,
had scarcely had any correspondence or intercourse with her, till I met her in
town last spring. I then saw her twice, and both times
| 398 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
|
‘cui placet impares
Formas atque animos sub juga ahenea
Sævo mittere cum joco.
|
‘It has been said that she was, in some measure, forced into the match; had she been united to a man whom she had loved, esteemed, and respected, she herself might have been generally respected and esteemed as well as loved; but in her situation, to keep clear of all misconduct required a strong mind or a cold heart; perhaps both, and she had neither. Her failings were in no small degree the effect of circumstances; her amiable qualities all her own. There was something about her in spite of her errors remarkably attaching, and that something was not merely her beauty; “kindness has resistless charms,” and she was full of affectionate kindness to those she loved whether as friends or as lovers. As a friend, I always found her the same; never at all changeful or capricious; as I am not a very rigid moralist and am extremely open to kindness,
‘I could have better spared a better woman. |
‘Sir Thomas
Lawrence’s discourse I have not seen,
| VALPY, THE PRINTER | 399 |
‘With all our best regards, believe me ever most truly yours,
‘A few words in the cover about Valpy. As you do not give any direct
opinion respecting the degree in which I am engaged to him, I conclude that
you judge the case to be a doubtful one. Such, too, is my opinion; so I
think it both safest and best to decide in his favour. This I am the more
inclined to do from having lately heard some circumstances which shew that
he is not likely to take any slight or disappointment with the gentlest
patience, and he would, perhaps, be a not less formidable enemy than
Bloomfield, and much more sure
to become one. Were I completely disengaged I should, from your report,
prefer Mr. Taylor. As the matter
stands, I must try and manage Valpy as well as I can.
Your method is to return upon your printer sheet after sheet, at his own
cost, not yours, till justice is done you—all very natural if he
commits mistakes; but I should understand from your account, that if he
sends you a proof sheet correctly printed from your MS., and that you
should have any of what you call your whims and fancies and should make
alterations in it, he is obliged to make them on a fresh proof; and that if
in that again
| 400 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
|
‘Trebati,
Quid faciam præscribe.’
|
