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LETTER X.

Since that happy night, when we whisk'd through the air!

But don't you go laugh, now-there's nothing Let me see-
to quiz in't-

For grandeur of air and for grimness of feature,
He might be a King, DOLL, though, hang him,
he isn't.

At first, I felt hurt, for I wish'd it, I own,

If for no other cause but to vex Miss MALONE, -
(The great heiress, you know, of Shandangan,
who's here,

Showing off with such airs, and a real Cashmere,
While mine's but a paltry old rabbit-skin, dear!)
But Pa says, on deeply consid'ring the thing,
"I am just as well pleas'd it should not be the
King;

"As I think for my BIDDY, so gentille and jolie,
"Whose charms may their price in an honest
way fetch,

“That a Brandenburgh

"

yes

-'twas on Saturday-yes, Dolly,

When we both rattled off in that dear little car-
From that evening I date the first dawn of my bliss,
riage,

Whose journey, BOB says, is so like Love and
Marriage,

66

'Beginning gay, desperate, dashing, down-hilly, Well, scarcely a wink did I sleep the night "And ending as dull as a six-inside Dilly!" 2

through;

With a heart full of hope this sweet fellow to
And, next day, having scribbled my letter to you,

meet,

Make his bow to some half dozen women and boys, I set out with Papa, to see LoUIS DIX-HUIT Who get up a small concert of shrill Vive le Rois-(what is a Branden- And how vastly genteeler, my dear, even this is, The gardens seem'd full-so, of course, we walk'd Than vulgar Pall-Mall's oratorio of hisses! o'er 'em,

burgh, DOLLY?) — "Would be, after all, no such very great catch. "If the R-G-T indeed"-added he, looking sly

(You remember that comical squint of his eye) But I stopp'd him with "La, Pa, how can you say so, "When the R-G-T loves none but old women, you know!"

And daphnes, and vases, and many a statue, There staring, with not ev'n a stitch on them, at you!

Which is fact, my dear DOLLY-we, girls of The ponds, too, we view'd eighteen,

And so slim-Lord, he'd think us not fit to be

seen;

And would like us much better as old-ay, as old As that Countess of DESMOND, of whom I've been told

That she liv'd to much more than a hundred and ten,

And was kill'd by a fall from a cherry-tree then!

1 See Lady Morgan's "France" for the anecdote, told her by Madame de Genlis, of the young gentleman whose love was cured by finding that his mistress wore a shawl" peau de lapin."

2 The cars, on the return, are dragged up slowly by a chain.

3 Mr. Bob need not be ashamed of his cookery jokes, when he is kept in countenance by such men as Cicero, St. Augustine, and that jovial bishop, Venantius Fortunatus. The pun of the great orator upon the "jus Verrinum," which he calls bad hog-broth, from a play upon both the words, is well known; and the Saint's puns upon the conversion of Lot's wife into salt are equally ingenious: -"In salem conversa hominibus fidelibus quoddam præstitit condimentum, quo sapiant aliquid, unde illud caveatur exemplum." - De Civitat. Dei,

lib. xvi. cap. 30. The jokes of the pious favourite of Queen Radagunda, the convivial Bishop Venantius, may be found among his poems, in some lines against a cook who had robbed him. The following is similar to Cicero's pun:

Plus juscella Coci quam mea jura valent.

Of the same kind was Montmaur's joke, when a dish was spilt
See his poems, Corpus Poetar. Latin. tom. ii. p. 1732.-
celebrated parasite, in ordering a sole to be placed before him,
over him" summum jus, summa injuria;" and the same
said, -
Eligi cui dicas, tu mihi sola places.

erudition, the learned Lipsius's jokes on cutting up a capon
The reader may likewise see, among a good deal of kitchen
in his Saturnal. Sermon, kb. ií, cap. 2.

In vain did I wildly explore every chair

About singing and cookery- BOBBY, of course, Where a thing like a man was-no lover sat there! Standing up for the latter Fine Art in full force; 3

Thought of the words of T-м M-RE's Irish We enter'd-and, scarcely had BOB, with an air,

He join'd us-imagine, dear creature, my ecstasy-
Join'd by the man I'd have broken ten necks to see!
BOB wish'd to treat him with Punch à la glace,
But the sweet fellow swore that my beauté, my
grace,

Condescended, for once, to make one of the party; Of course, though but three, we had dinner for nine, And in spite of my grief, love, I own I ate hearty. Indeed, DOLL, I know not how 'tis, but, in grief, I have always found eating a wondrous relief; And Boв, who's in love, said he felt the same, And my je-ne-sais-quoi (then his whiskers he quite

twirl'd)

"My sighs," said he, "ceas'd with the first glass Were, to him, "on de top of all Ponch in de I drank you;

vorld.".

"The lamb made me tranquil, the puffs made me How pretty! - though oft (as of course, it must be) Both his French and his English are Greek, DOLL,

light,

And -now that all's o'er-why, I'm pretty well, thank you!"

To my great annoyance, we sat rather late;
For BOBBY and Pa had a furious debate

to me.

But, in short, I felt happy as ever fond heart did;
And happier still, when 'twas fix'd, ere we parted,
That, if the next day should be pastoral weather,
We all would set off, in French buggies, together,

1 For this scrap of knowledge "Pa" was, I suspect, indebted to a note upon Volney's ruins; a book which usually forms part of a Jacobin's library, and with which Mr. Fudge must have been well acquainted at the time when he wrote his "Down with Kings," &c. The note in Volney is as follows: "It is by this tuft of hair (on the crown of the head), worn by the majority of Mussulmans, that the Angel of the Tomb is to take the elect and carry them to Paradise."

2 The young lady, whose memory is not very correct, must

allude, I think, to the following lines:

Oh that fairy form is ne'er forgot,

Which First Love trac'd;

Still it ling'ring haunts the greenest spot

On Memory's waste!

3 Cookery has been dignified by the researches of a Bacon; see his Natural History, Receipts, &c.) and takes its station as one of the Fine Arts in the following passage of Mr. Dugald Stewart:" Agreeably to this view of the subject, sweet may be said to be intrinsically pleasing, and bitter to be relatively pleasing; which both are, in many cases, equally essential to those effects, which, in the art of cookery, correspond to that composite beauty, which it is the object of the painter and of the poet to create."- Philosophical Essays.

4 A fashionable café glacier on the Italian Boulevards. 5" You eat your ice at Tortoni's," says Mr. Scott, "under a Grecian group."

To see Montmorency—that place which, you know,
Is so famous for cherries and JEAN JACQUES
ROUSSEAU.

Such was the grand, the glorious cause that now
Hung trembling on NAPOLEON's single brow;
Such the sublime arbitrament, that pour'd,

His card then he gave us the name, rather In patriot eyes, a light around his sword,

A hallowing light, which never, since the day something -a Colonel at Of his young victories, had illum'd its way!

After which - sure there never was hero so civil Oh, 'twas not then the time for tame debates,

-he

Saw us safe home to our door in Rue Rivoli,
Where his last words, as, at parting, he threw
A soft look o'er his shoulders, were "How do
you do!" I

Ye men of Gaul, when chains were at your gates;
When he, who late had fled your Chieftain's eye,
As geese from eagles on Mount Taurus fly,2
Denounc'd against the land, that spurn'd his chain,
Myriads of swords to bind it fast again -
Myriads of fierce invading swords, to track
Through your best blood his path of vengeance back;
When Europe's Kings, that never yet combin'd
But (like those upper Stars, that, when conjoin'd,
Shed war and pestilence,) to scourge mankind,
Gather'd round, with hosts from every shore,
Hating NAPOLEON much, but Freedom more,
-(though Pa has by And, in that coming strife, appall'd to see
The world yet left one chance for liberty!
where we sat rather No, 'twas not then the time to weave a net

[vextBut, lord, there's Papa for the post-I'm so Montmorency must now, love, be kept for my next. That dear Sunday night!-I was charmingly drest, And so providential!—was looking my best; Such a sweet muslin gown, with a flounce - and my frills,

You've no notion how richthe bills)

And you'd smile had you seen,

Of bondage round your Chief; to curb and fret
Your veteran war-horse, pawing for the fight,
When every hope was in his speed and might —
To waste the hour of action in dispute,
And coolly plan how freedom's boughs should shoot,
When your Invader's axe was at the root!
No, sacred Liberty! that God, who throws,
Thy light around, like his own sunshine, knows
How well I love thee, and how deeply hate
All tyrants, upstart and Legitimate

Yet, in that hour, were France my native land,
I would have follow'd, with quick heart and hand,
NAPOLEON, NERO-ay, no matter whom-
To snatch my country from that damning doom,
That deadliest curse that on the conquer'd waits-
A Conqueror's satrap, thron'd within her gates!

LETTER XII.

FROM MISS BIDDY FUDGE TO MISS DOROTHY

At last, DOLLY, thanks to a potent emetic,
Which BOBBY and Pa, with grimace sympathetic,
Have swallow'd this morning to balance the bliss,
Of an eel matelote and a bisque d'écrevisses—
I've a morning at home to myself, and sit down
To describe you our heavenly trip out of town.
How agog you must be for this letter, my dear!
Lady JANE, in the novel, less languish'd to hear
If that elegant cornet she met at Lord NEVILLE'S
Was actually dying with love or -blue devils.
But Love, DOLLY, Love is the theme I pursue;
With Blue Devils, thank heav'n, I have nothing to
do-

Except, indeed, dear Colonel CALICOT spies
Any imps of that colour in certain blue eyes,
Which he stares at till I, DOLL, at his do the same;
Then he simpers- I blush—and would often ex-
claim,

But politics ne'er were the sweet fellow's trade; 'Twas for war and the ladies my Colonel was made. And, oh, had you heard, as together we walk'd If I knew but the French for it, "Lord, Sir, for Through that beautiful forest, how sweetly he shame!"

talk'd;

And how perfectly well he appear'd, DOLL, to know

Well, the morning was lovely-the trees in full All the life and adventures of JEAN JACQUES dress

ROUSSEAU!

""Twas there," said he- not that his words I can state

For the happy occasion- the sunshine express Had we order'd it, dear, of the best poet going, It scarce could be furnish'd more golden and glow- 'Twas a gibb'rish that Cupid alone could transing. late; Though late when we started, the scent of the air But "there," said he, (pointing where, small and Was like GATTIE's rose-water,—and, bright, here

and there,

On the grass an odd dew-drop was glittering yet,
Like my aunt's diamond pin on her green tabbinet!
While the birds seem'd to warble as blest on the

boughs,

As if each a plum'd Calicot had for her spouse;
And the grapes were all blushing and kissing in

rows,

And-in short, need I tell you, wherever one goes
With the creature one loves, 'tis all couleur de rose;
And, ah, I shall ne'er, liv'd I ever so long, see
A day such as that at divine Montmorency!

There was but one drawback at first when we started,

The Colonel and I were inhumanly parted;

1 The column in the Place Vendôme.

2 "Employant pour cela le plus beau papier doré, séchant l'écriture avec de la poudre d'azur et d'argent, et cousant mes cahiers avec de la nompareille bleue." - Les Confessions, part ii liv. 9.

3 This word, "exquisite," is evidently a favourite of Miss

remote,

The dear Hermitage rose,)" there his JULIE he
wrote,-

"Upon paper gilt-edg'd, without blot or erasure;
"Then sanded it over with silver and azure,
"And-oh, what will genius and fancy not do?—
"Tied the leaves up together with nompareille blue!"
What a trait of Rousseau! what a crowd of emo-

tions

From sand and blue ribbons are conjur'd up here!
Alas, that a man of such exquisite notions
Should send his poor brats to the Foundling, my

dear!

""Twas here, too, perhaps," Colonel CALICOT said

As down the small garden he pensively led -

Fudge's; and I understand she was not a little angry when her brother Bob committed a pun on the last two syllables of it in the following couplet:

"I'd fain praise your Poem-but tell me, how is it When I cry out "Exquisite," Echo cries "quiz it?"

(Though once I could see his sublime forehead But this cloud, though embarrassing, soon pass'd

Such, DOLL, were the sweet recollections we pon- Ah, DOLL! though I know you've a heart, 'tis in vain
der'd,
To a heart so unpractis'd these things to explain.
As, full of romance, through that valley we wan- They can only be felt, in their fulness divine,

But here I must finish-for BOB, my dear DOLLY, Whom physic, I find, always makes melancholy, Is seiz'd with a fancy for church-yard reflections; who made And, full of all yesterday's rich recollections,

Is just setting off for Montmartre—“ for there is,”

The question confus'd me- for, DOLL, you must Said he, looking solemn," The tomb of the VERYS !