P.S. Alex. will venture to write for himself. My married nieces, with all their charms, and all their merits, and all their bambinos, are most unnatural little chits never to ask my consent first, nor my benediction afterwards. Will they wait till their little ones give them a better example?

Madame d'Arblay to Mrs. Lock.

No. 13, Rue d'Anjou, Paris, 16 Sept. 1810.

SHOULD this reach you, my ever dearest friend, may it urge you to prepare me at least a similar slip, and my Amine another, for the first possible opportunity to be left at my dear father's. It is so long, so dreadfully long, since I have had the blessing to see your beloved handwritings, that methinks if your names only arrived I should feel a joy past descrip

tion.

When, when, may I embrace you again! I think of late of nothing else. I form projects, and dream dreams. Oh, dearest friends, give me your prayers I may not dream only always!

My excellent mate, toujours the same, has not less desire, but is still wider from probability. His health is not all I could wish-it is preserved with watchfulness, but cannot bear neglect. Alex. is thin and pale, but strong and without complaint. He is terribly singular, and more what they here call sauvage than any creature I ever beheld. He is untameably wild, and averse to all the forms of society. Where he can have got such a rebel humour we conceive not; but it costs him more to make a bow than to resolve six difficult

problems of algebra, or to repeat twelve pages from Euripides; and as to making a civil speech, he would sooner renounce the world.

How should I delight to see my dearest friends encircled by all their lovely tribes! Two letters I have received, but long, long since, from my indulgent Amine; so sweetly satisfactory, so dwelling on interesting details, so descriptive of all I most wish to see and know, that for many months even, after reading them, I thought and felt myself au fait with all that passed, and no longer a stranger to all your proceedings, your interests, your affairs, and your bosom-feelings. But why have I not my dear Augusta's letter? I beseech that it may be sent to Chelsea; occasions there present themselves sometimes; rarely, indeed, but yet sometimes. How kind of her to have written! No matter for the date; all will still, alas! to me be new; for I hear so seldom, and after such chasms, that a letter of six years ago will stand a chance to give me as much intelligence as one written last week.

F. D'A.

Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.

No. 13, Rue d'Anjou, 14th April, 1811.

MANY, or rather countless, as are the times that the sight of the handwriting of my dearest father has brought joy to my heart, it never yet, methinks, proved so truly a balsam as this last time of its blessing me.

Seated round our wood fire by one, by two, by three, we gave to it a whole evening, stopping upon every phrase, commenting upon every paragraph, and I, the

reader, indulging them and myself by expounding and dilating upon every allusion, quotation, and family story or saying. It was therefore a long and delicious banquet; and we have agreed to lock it up, and take it out again once in every three months for another family reading, till another arrives.

I yield, dearest Sir, implicitly to your decision, and my dear sisters and brothers, with respect to the worthy Letty, upon one condition—that you do not let a too delicate consideration for us deprive the good soul of our little assistance should any change of circumstances, or any unfortunate increase of infirmity or ill health, make the mite of more consequence. I beg, through your means, to put the management of this solution, as Mr. Tyers called every doubt, into the hands of our just and feeling Esther, who sees her the oftenest, and will soon find if the small addition, eventually, may become more important; and pray tell my dear Esther that we graciously forgive her "worldly and grovelling" spirit for us, if we may depend upon her accepting carte blanche for amending it, should occasion invite any change.

Have you received the letter in which I related that your diploma has been brought to me by the perpetual secretary of the class of the Fine Arts of the Institute of France? I shall not have it conveyed but by some very certain hand, and that, now, is most difficult to find. M. le Breton has given me, also, a book of the list of your camarades, in which he has written your name. He says it will be printed in next year's register. He has delivered to me, moreover, a medal, which is a mark of distinction reserved for peculiar honour to peculiar select personages. Do you suppose

I do not often-often-often think who would like, and be fittest to be the bearer to you of these honours?

I am heartily glad Mrs. Hawkins has recovered her property, though I had never heard it had been lost or disputed. So many letters have failed to reach me, that some seem like the second volume of a book which comes to hand before the first. Lady Keith - is it Miss Thrale, or one of her sisters? Whichever it is, I am glad of her kind remembrance, and most cordially hope she is happy. If she would write, and leave a letter with you, some favourable packet might enclose it.

I have not met M. Suard for many months, but I have sent him and his lady your kind words by M. Lally Tolendal, and they have both expressed themselves highly gratified by your remembrance. The Abbé Morellet, now 85 or 86, walks about Paris like a young man, and preserves his spirits, memory, and pleasure in existence, and has a bookery in such elegant order that people beg to go and see it, as they do to visit that of a certain other member of les beaux arts of our Institute.

How kind was the collection of letters you made more precious by endorsing! I beseech you to thank all my dear correspondents, and to bespeak their patience for answers, which shall arrive by every wind that I can make blow their way; but yet more, beseech their generous attention to my impatience for more, should the wind blow fair for me before it will let me hail them in return. Difficultly can they figure to themselves my joy-my emotion at receiving letters from such dates as they can give me!

1811.

[DURING this year Madame d'Arblay's correspondence with her English connexions was interrupted not only by the difficulty of conveying letters, but also by a dangerous illness and the menace of a cancer, from which she could only be relieved by submitting to a painful and hazardous operation. The fortitude with which she bore this suffering, and her generous solicitude for Monsieur d'Arblay and those around her, excited the warmest sympathy in all who heard of her trial, and her French friends universally gave her the name of L'Ange; so touched were they by her tenderness and magnanimity.]

Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney, Chelsea.

Rue d'Anjou, No. 8, Paris, May 29, 1812. A FRIEND of Maria's has just promised me to convey to her a letter which I may direct. I snatch the happy opportunity to enclose it in a few lines to my dearest father, who will forward it to Bath Easton with my best love.

Immense as is the distance between a letter and an interview, where the dearer is unattainable, its succedaneum becomes more precious than those who enjoy both can believe, or even conceive. O my dearest father, let no possible conveyance pass without giving me the sight of your hand, if it be but by your sig

nature.

We are well, and Alex., latterly, has taken the good turn of approaching nearer in personal resemblance to his father; for, from being extremely little of his age, he is now suddenly grown to a goodly size.