my chaperonship. She is a pretty blooming Hebe of nineteen, modest and very sweet tempered-smiles with complacency, and dances admirably. What a rapid reverse in the tide of military conquest on the continent! The poignant joy inspired by events, of which there was so little rational expectation, in the minds of those who judged of the future by the past, must be extreme in the breast of all who love their country, and the common interests of Europe; but, alas! I perceive, from the papers, that it has rekindled the mania of coercing France into monarchy; of planting the standards of the allied powers in the centre of Paris; and it is deemed Jacobinism to doubt the possibility or wisdom of the attempt. If the status quo ante bellum is not to be the resting-mark of the sword, the war must prove, not a war of restoration, but of extermination; and the woes of Europe will be, to the present generation at least, interminable. Curious are the articles of impeachment which the French are bringing forward against their late rulers. Deeply humiliating is it to all the partizans of the baneful democratic system here, and in every other country, to see the tyranny and injustice, which it has produced, confessed at full by the nation with whom it originated. It must appal the unfortunate Bonaparte, when, in additional affliction to the blast of his hopes in Egypt, he sees the plan of that expedition, which, if not his, had his eager support and eager adoption, considered as treason to his country; to know that French philippics are thundered out against the baseness and impolicy of invading the neutral state of Switzerland, and of forcing the Ottoman empire to an alliance with the foes of France! Such denunciations reduce his destiny to that of perishing on the banks of the Nile; or, if he can return to his native conntry, there, probably, to bleed, by the mandate of a directory, on the borders of the Seine; or, at best," to gnaw his heart in the obscurity of exile." Thus wither his luxuriant laurels; thus perish the boundless hopes of giant ambition, which, in him, there is every probability, as in the great Charles of Sweden, "Will leave a name, at which the world grew pale, Adieu. LETTER XLIV. REV. T. S. WHALLEY. Lichfield, Oct. 7, 1799. I AM recently returned from my summer's tour. Its Cambrian interests were very lively, as they were wont to be, during my week's residence on Mr Roberts' sublime mountain, and my four days visit to the ladies, falsely called the Recluses of Langollen Vale. What a little court is the mansion of these ladies in that wondrous vale! Lords and ladies, gentlemen and ladies, poets, historians, painters, and musicians, introduced by the letters of their established friends, received, entertained, and retiring, to make way for other sets of company. They passed before my eyes like figures in a magic-lantern. This, with little interruption, is the habit of the whole year, from Langollen being the highroad between Holyhead and London, and its vale the first classic and scenic ground of Wales. The evenings were the only time in which, from these eternal demands upon their attention, I could en-` most ever met. joy that confidential conversation with them that is most delightful, from an higher degree of congeniality in our sentiments and tastes, than I alNumbers have considered themselves as affronted from being refused admittance. I have witnessed how distressingly their time is engrossed by the immense and daily accumulating influx of their acquaintance, and by the endless requests to see their curious and beautiful. place, and not seldom for admittance into their company. Beneath indiscriminate admission, they never could have a day-light hour for the society of their select friends. They have made an established rule not to admit visits to themselves from any persons, however high their rank, who do not bring letters of introduction from some of their own intimate friends. I have several times seen them reject the offered visits of such who either did not know this their rule, or, knowing, had neglected to observe it: and I always perceived such attempts at self-introduction pique that pride of birth and consequence, of which they have and acknowledge a great deal, eminently gracious as their manners are to those whom they do receive. When the sight of their house and gardens only is requested, they do not refuse, if they are alone, and can either walk abroad or retire up stairs; or, even if they have company, provided they can walk out with that company, and are not at meals; but it is certain those impediments to general curiosity often occur-nor has any person a right to think their existence, and the disappointment it occasions, an incivility. I am glad we agree so well on the subject of the Plays on the Passions. My literary friends now assert that they are not Mrs Radcliffe's; and, indeed, though the defects and merits of the plans and characters are each of her complexion, yet I always thought the masterly nature of several of the single speeches above her powers, as comparing them with her novels. There is one line poetically great and original as any thing in our language. Where De Montford, shuddering at the newly conceived idea of an impending marriage between his darling sister and hated rival, exclaims: "The morning-star mix'd with infernal fire!" Montford's soliloquy in the wood, is, as you observe, noble writing. It is in the same spirit with that of Narbonne, roaming through the aisles of the church at midnight, previous to the commission of that murder which proves parricidal. We find it hard to say which passage is the most sublime. |