sincerely believe she did, and my authority was from her having been reported to have said to a friend that she had paid me off well in The Edinburgh."' That she did say so I could, I think, satisfactorily prove, were not my authority (like all other mischievous ones) under the pledge of secresy; but the fact is, I cared very little whether she did or did not write the articles, though I confess that I fully believe she did.

"As for the attacks of petty-reviewers, I care nothing for them. 'I take it from wherever it comes, as the sailor said when the jackass kicked him ;' but I will not permit any influential work like The Edinburgh' to ride me roughshod any more than, when a boy, I would not take a blow from any man, however powerful, without returning it to the utmost of my power. But a review is a legion composed of many; to attack a review is of little use: like a bundle of sticks strong from union, you can not break them; but if I can get one stick out, I can put that one across my knee, and, if strong enough, succeed in smashing it; and in so doing I really do injure the review, as any contributor fancies that he may be the stick selected.

"The only method, therefore, by which you can retaliate upon a review like The Edinburgh,' is to select one of its known contributors, and make the reply personal to him. For instance, I have advised 'The Edinburgh' to put a better hand on next time. Suppose that it attacks me again, I shall assume that their best hand, Lord B-, is the writer of the article, and my reply will be most personal to him; and you must acknowledge that I shall be able to raise a laugh, which is all I care for. You may think that this is not fair; I reply that it is; I can not put my strength against a host: all I can do is to select one of the opponents in opinion and politics, and try my strength with him. This I am gratified in doing until the parties who write a review put their names to the article; as long as they preserve the anonymous, I select whom I please, and if I happen to take the wrong one, the fault is theirs and not mine. So recollect, that if I am attacked in 'The Edinburgh' (should I reply to the article when I publish my Diary of a Blasé' in June next), my reply will be to Lord B, and will be as bitter as gall, although I have the highest respect for his lordship's talents, and have a very good feeling toward him. Many thanks for the 'Governess,' which I have just read. My mother finished it last night, and pronounced it excellent. I prefer giving her opinion to my own, as none will ever accuse her of flattery, although you have me. I read it with some anxiety, owing to my having intended to have made the sister of Poor Jack' a governess for a short time, and I was afraid that you would have forestalled me altogether. As far as the serious goes, you have so; but you have left me a portion of the ludicrous. I think I shall portray a stout, well-formed girl of nineteen, kept up in the nursery by a vain mother, with dolls, pinbefores, and all other et ceteras—that is, if I do venture to come after you, which will be hardly fair to myself. Are you not tired of writing? I am most completely, and, could I give it up, I would to-morrow; but, as long as my poor mother lives, I must write, and therefore, although I detest it. I wish to write a long while yet.

“I have just returned from Norfolk, where I was wet through every day, and, to escape cold, filled myself with tobacco smoke and gin: these antagonistical properties have had the effect of deranging me all over, and I am miserably out of tune, and feel terribly ill-natured. I feel as if I could wring off the neck of a cock-robin who is staring in at my window.

"This is a long letter, but it is your own fault; you have sowed wind, and have reaped the whirlwind. If I have written myself down in your good opinion, I must, at all events, try to write myself up again.

66

"F. MARRYATT."

"Monday, Jan. 3d, 1842.

"I write you this shabby-looking note to thank you for your kind present. I intended to call upon you, but have been prevented, and must now defer it till my return from the country at the end of the week. I leave now directly. You will be surprised to hear that Mr. Howard is dead. He went out to dine with a friend on Christmas day, and after dinner was, I believe, well, but broke a blood-vessel. He could not be removed from the house, but lingered until Thursday evening, when he expired.

"That is all I have heard. Poor devil! perhaps it is all for the best, as his prospects were any thing but encouraging.

"Kind regards to Miss Power, and the count, par excellence.

"F. MARRYATT."

"Manchester Square, June 8th, 1841.

"If you can not command the services of your friends when you are unfortunate, they are of little value.

"I do not therefore think you are wrong in asking me again, and I assure you that if I can find any thing to help your book, I will do it with pleasure.

"The misfortune with me is, that I can not force ideas-they must be spontaneous; and the very knowledge that I am to do so and so by a certain time actually drives all ideas out of my head, and leaves me as empty as a drum. "If you do not have it, I can only say it will not be my fault.

"F. MARRYATT.”

"3 Spanish Place, Manchester Square, September 6th. "In reply to your kind inquiries, allow me first to observe that I have two most splendid grumbles on my list, so splendid that I hardly know how to part with them. Now for grumble the first: When Sir James Graham was at the Admiralty, he was pleased to consider that my professional services entitled me to some mark of his majesty's approbation, and accordingly he asked his majesty to give me the star of the Guelph, and knighthood. To this request his majesty, King William, was pleased to reply, in his usual frank, offhand way, Oh yes-Marryatt, I know-bring him here on Thursday' (the day of application having been Monday). But it appears that, while my

'greatness was ripening,' some. kind friend informed his majesty that I had once written a pamphlet on Impressment. And when Sir James saw his majesty on the Wednesday, the king said to him, By-the-by, Marryatt wrote a work on Impressment, I hear' (whether for or against, his majesty did not deign to inquire). I won't give him any thing;' adding, in his wonted free and easy style, I'll see him d―d first!' Now the request of a cabinet minister is supposed to confirm the claim, and it is not usual for the sovereign to refuse; indeed, his majesty seemed to be aware of that, for he said, 'The Guelph is my own order, and I will not give it unless I choose.' Sir James Graham, of course, did not press the matter after his majesty's opinion so frankly expressed. And there the matter dropped; so that, instead of the honor intended, I had the honor of being d-d by a sovereign, and have worn my traveling name ever since. You'll allow that that is a capital grumble. Now for grumble No. two:

"Twenty-six years ago, soon after the peace, I was requested by Lloyd's and the ship-owners to write a code of signals for the merchant service. I did so, and in the various annual reports of these societies, they have stated that the saving of lives and property by the means of these signals has been enormous. They were, at the request of Lloyd's, supplied to the British men of war, to enable merchant vessels to communicate their wants, &c.; and eventually they have been used in all the English colonies and dependencies by the government, to communicate with vessels, &c., along the coast. The French, perceiving their advantage, had them translated, and supplied to their men of war and merchantmen.

"Now, independent of the value they may be to the country in saving lives and property, and the claim which I have on that account, I have one also in a pecuniary way, for during the twenty-six years that they have been established they have always been supplied gratis to the British navy; and if it is considered how many vessels we have had in commission, had this been paid for, it would have amounted to a very large sum. For this service I have never received any remuneration whatever from our own government. When I was at Paris some years ago, Admiral de Rigny, the French first lord, sent for me, and, without any application on my part, informed me that, in consequence of the important advantages derived by the use of my signals, the King of the French had been pleased to give me the Gold Cross of the Legion of Honor (equivalent to the C.B. in England); so that I have been rewarded by a nation for whom the signals were not written, and from my own government have received nothing. I beg pardon, I did receive something—a letter from Lord Palmerston, forbidding me to wear the distinction granted to me by the King of the French. Now I call that also a capital grumble. I have asked Sir Robert Peel to give me employment, and I did so because I consider that I have done some service to the Conservative cause-at all events, I have worked hard, and suffered much in purse. The contest of the Tower Hamlets cost me between six and seven thousand pounds, which is a serious affair

to a man with seven children, all with very large ideas and very small fortunes; and I have felt the loss ever since. I have invariably labored very hard in the cause, never neglecting to infuse Conservative ideas in all my writings. I have written much in the newspapers, and never yet sent any article to the Times' which was not immediately inserted. One Conservative paper, which was dying a natural death, the 'Era,' weekly paper, I reestablished, and it now circulates upward of five thousand; I did this out of good will to the proprietor and zeal for the cause, for I never received a sixpence for many months' labor. The Era' is the Licensed Victualers' paper, and I argued that wherever that paper was taken in, the Weekly Dispatch' would not be; and that where the man who draws the beer is a Conservative, those who drink it will become the same. It is well known that it was chiefly through the exertions of the Licensed Victualers that Captain Rous was returned for Westminster.

"As to my professional services, it is to the Admiralty that I must look for remuneration; and as for my literary reputation, it is an affair between me and the public; but I think you must acknowledge that I have claims for omission and claims for commission; and when I see the Whigs giving away baronetcies to Easthope, &c., for literary services, and Clay, my opponent at the Tower Hamlets, for contesting elections, I do feel that the party which I have supported, now that I have decided claims upon the country, should not throw me away like a sucked orange; if they do, why-virtue must be its own reward. It will be all the same a hundred years hence. "I have now let it all out, and I feel a great deal better.

"F. MARRYATT.”

LETTER FROM SIR RP TO LADY BLESSINGTON, IN REFERENCE TO CAPTAIN MARRYATT.

"Whitehall, September 24th.

"I beg leave to return you the accompanying letter from Captain Marryatt. "The applications which I have received for employment in the public service from parties qualified for it in point of character and acquirements, and with claims on a Conservative government (which each party deems unquestionable in its own case), so far exceed any probable means on my part of meeting even a small portion of them, that I do not feel justified, by vague assurances of a disposition to oblige, in encouraging expectations which I have little hope of being able to realize.

"For the consideration of professional services, I must refer Captain Marryatt to the department to which he is attached.

"I can not say that I think foreign distinctions ought to be recognized in this country, except under very special circumstances.

"I have the honor to be, dear Lady Blessington, your faithful servant,

LETTER FROM LADY BLESSINGTON TO CAPTAIN MARRYATT. "Gore House, November 18th, 1840. I have "MY DEAR CAPTAIN MARRYATT,Many thanks for the 'Olla Podrida,' which I doubt not will afford me the same pleasure that all your books do. not seen Sir E. Bulwer for three weeks. He was then about a week returned from Germany, and I thought him looking ill. He has been staying at Knebworth with his mother.

"I send you a 'Keepsake,' not that I think you will take the trouble to read it, but that I believe you will like to offer it to your mother. Did you get Will you name to-morrow (Thursday), your copy of the Book of Beauty?' Friday, or Saturday to dine with me en famille? Alfred D'Orsay leaves town on Sunday, so I specify these days, that he may have the pleasure of meeting

My brother has returned from New Brunswick, and is now staying with
He sends you kind greetings.

Believe me, always your cordial friend,

M. BLESSINGTON."

From Captain Marryatt:

"February 1st, 1833.

"Split a cod's head, and put it with two haddocks, my dear countess, into a kettle containing two quarts of cold water, and an onion chopped fine. When it has boiled a quarter of an hour, take out all the fish, cut off the heads, trim and fillet the haddocks, pick out the best part of the cod's head-such as under jaw, tongue, &c., and lay them aside. Put back into the kettle the remains of the cod's head and trimmings of the haddocks, and let them boil until

the liquor is reduced to a pint and a half, and then strain off.

"Thicken the soup with the yolks of two eggs well beat up; add some chopped parsley and a little salt; then put in the fillets of haddock (each cut F. MARRYATT. into four pieces) with the portions of the cod's head; boil till sufficiently done, and you will have a capital soup à tres bonne marché.

46

I quite forgot to ask the count and B- A- to give a letter or two Do you renew the proposal for me, as I shall have for my brother Horace. very much, he is so frank and manly. Kind

I like Lord Ono peace. regards to Mademoiselles Marguerite and Ellen."

"February 4th, 1841.

I think not only that the title may "You are very right in what you say. be as you wish, but, moreover, that we may, throughout the whole, soften which you think down the word to unmentionables. If you think it necessary, I will do so, if you please, after it is in type, or you may alter it in any way F. MARRYATT." fit, as you have a nicer sense of what a lady will object to than a rough ani

mal like me.