Charles's assistance at such a crisis, though but even for a few days. The newspapers, that in general magnify misfortunes, in the case of poor Mr. Mathews reduced them, by stating that a few hours after his accident all traces of it had disappeared; would to God it had been so, as I really feel more than all, save you, could imagine at finding how much more serious the misfortune has been. Yes, you are right, my beloved friend, in supposing that your silence can never by me be mistaken for want of affection or interest. I know your heart, and I rely on it, because I judge it by my own, which neither time, distance, nor circumstances can change toward you. I detest writing, but I do not love my friends less because I do not tell them so more frequently; the sentiment is engraved in indelible characters on my heart, and each impression is but as a new seal with the same legend. I like to hear often, very often, from those I love; but when they do not write, I conclude that, like me, they are silent, but not forgetful. My friend, Mr. John Fox Strangways, is third cousin to Lord Holland, being brother to the present Earl of Ilchester, who, with Lord Holland, descends in line direct from Sir Stephen Fox (of the reign of Charles the Second), whose eldest son was created Earl of Ilchester, and the second son was created Baron Holland.

"Your constant and attached friend, Alfred, paid a visit to the cottage five days ago; the cage was there, but, alas! the bird was flown; and he came back to tell me that, lovely as the day was, the cottage looked gloomy and melancholy without its owners.

"I like the Isle of Wight: it is endeared to me by the recollection of having passed a delightful fortnight there with my ever-to-be-lamented husband, the only tête-à-tête we ever enjoyed during our marriage, and which we both felt as children do their first vacation from school. How many souvenirs does M. BLESSINGTON."

each thought of it excite.

"To-morrow, Saturday, I have the nuisance of having some people to dinner, invited days ago; but I shall leave my sister and Count Alfred to entertain them, as I am too suffering to attempt it; indeed, my spirits are as low as my health, and my thoughts are much more with you and your house of mourning than with any thing passing around me. Conquer the feelings that the last sad event will excite by recollecting what I had to bear when all I most valued was torn from me, and I left with strangers in a foreign land.. "M. BLESSINGTON."

"Thursday, August 19th, 1835.

"Well can I understand, my dearest friend, the total break-up in your habits and hours. All that you are now undergoing I have undergone, with the additional misery of having him whose loss I must ever deplore snatched away from me in the midst of apparent health, without the preparation for such a fatal event by one day of illness, or the melancholy consolation of having cheered his bed of sickness, or soothed his last hours by a knowledge of how

he was valued. Time is the only consoler. Every day brings us nearer to those we have lost, and who have only preceded us by at most a few fleeting years. I shall call on you at four o'clock on Saturday next, unless I hear that you are engaged, and can not receive me. M. BLESSINGTON."

"Tuesday night, December 2d, 1835. "I can well enter into your feelings, every one of which finds an echo in my heart. Little do we think, when we are enlivening birth-days and anniversaries, that we are laying up cause for future sorrow, and that a day may come when, those who shared them with us being snatched away, the return of past seasons of enjoyment brings only bitterness and sorrow. All that you feel I felt and do feel, though years are gone by since the blow that destroyed my happiness took place. Without the constant occupation I have given myself, I should have sunk under it, when the memory of it comes back to me with all the bitterness of the past, though I try to chase it away. Lady Canterbury charges me to offer you her congratulations on Charles's success, and her affectionate regards. God be thanked that his efforts have been crowned with unequaled success: every one talks of his acting in raptures.

"M. BLESSINGTON."

"Monday night.

"It was only on Saturday that I first read of your intended voyage to America, and my knowledge of the delicacy of your health during the last year led me to think the statement totally destitute of truth, so that until your letter of yesterday reached me I disbelieved it. But what can not affection and a sense of duty effect in a mind like yours? I am not surprised at your determination, because I know you; but I believe there is not another woman in England, in your delicate health, that would have courage to undertake such a voyage, and such an absence from Charles. May God bless and reward you for it, and may you reap all the advantages from it that you deserve. I had wished much to see you, for I was anxious to tell you honestly, and in all sincerity, the real delight I experienced at seeing the performance of Mr. Mathews the last night. Never-no, not even the first year of his performance, was it more brilliant, more vigorous, or more successful, and I was enchanted to find that this was the sense of the whole house. I have thought all day of your departure, and mourned over it as though we were often together, instead of being, as we have lately been, almost as much separated as if different countries held us; but even though friends do not meet, it is always a comfort to know that they are within reach, and a pang shoots through the heart when a year of absence is contemplated. M. BLESSINGTON."

"Monday night.

"I had thought it very long, my dearest friend, since I heard from you; and dear Charles having told me that you had been ill and suffering did not

console me. I have been so constantly and fatiguingly occupied in copying and correcting since I saw you, that I have not had a moment to myself, and the only recreation I have enjoyed is the having gone to see ‘The Wolf and the Lamb,' which, I do assure you, delighted all our party, some of whom did not know the author. I should have sent you the Monthly,' but that I could not bear that you should read any thing of mine in the same book that unfavorably noticed Charles's production. I can not account for the editor's illjudged and ill-placed severity; but I believe that so high a report of Charles's talents has gone forth that miracles are expected of him, and that any thing short of a comedy of five acts would be considered as infra dig. for him.

"M. B."

"Tuesday night.

"Your agitated letter of this day has just reached me, and never did I feel the annoyance of indisposition so heavily as during the last two days that it has kept me from going to you, perhaps (and God in heaven grant it may be !) the last occasion on which I could be of use in consoling you, or, rather, let me say, in sharing your sorrow, for in cases like this there is no consoler but Time. But still, when one's feelings are understood-and who can understand yours like me, who have drunk the cup of bitterness to the very dregs? -though sorrow is not removed, it is lightened by being shared. Alas! I have too keenly, too deeply felt the want of friends to consider the rank or position of any one who had served or loved me or mine, and therefore well can I understand all that you feel at the loss of the amiable, the noble-minded creature who has gone before us to that kingdom where rank loses all its futile, its heartless distinctions, and we are judged of by our deeds and our hearts, and not by our names. Though I have not been with you in person, my mind, my soul has been with you, and my tears have flowed in sympathy with yours. M. BLESSINGTON."

"Gore House, July 1st, 1840.

"You do me but justice in thinking that you are not forgotten, though my not going to you would seem to imply it; but when I tell you that I have no less than three works passing through the press, and have to furnish the MS. to keep the printers at work for one of them, you may judge of my unceasing and overwhelming occupation, which leaves me time neither for pleasure, nor for taking air or exercise enough for health. I am literally worn out, and look for release from my literary toils more than ever slave did from bondage. I never get out any day before five o'clock-have offended every friend or acquaintance I have by never even calling at their doors-and am suffering in health from too much writing. M. BLESSINGTON."

From Lady Blessington to a friend of Mrs. Mathews:

"Paris, November 30th, 1829. "You are one of the few, dearest, who do not forget me. I have experienced such ingratitude and unkindness, that, added to the heavy blow that has fallen on me, I really dread becoming a misanthrope, and that my heart will shut itself up against all the world. If you knew the bitter feelings the treatment I have met with has excited in my breast, you would not wonder that it has frozen the genial current of life, and that I look, as I am, more of another world than this. Had God spared me my ever-dear and lamented husband, I could have borne up against the unkindness and ingratitude of friends estranged; but, as it is, the blow has been too heavy for me, and I look in vain on every side for consolation. I am wrong, my dearest, in writing to you in this gloomy mood, but if I waited until I became more cheerful, God alone knows when your letter would be answered. You are young, and life is all before you; take example by me, and conquer, while yet you may, tenderness of heart and susceptibility of feeling, which only tend to make the person who possesses them wretched; for, be assured, you will meet but few capable of understanding or appreciating such feelings, and you will become the dupe of the cold and heartless, who contemn what they can not understand, and repay with ingratitude the affection lavished on them. I would not thus advise you if I did not know that you have genius; and who ever had that fatal gift without its attendant malady, susceptibility and deep feeling? which, in spite of all mental endowments, render the person dependent on others for his happiness; for it may appear a paradox, but it is nevertheless true, those who are most endowed can the least suffice for their own happiness.

"The Princess Esterhazy has been a fortnight at Paris, and was scarcely a day away from Madame Crawford, whom she considers just as a mother. The poor lady has been ill, and still keeps her room, but is getting better. She inquires every post-day for you, as does the general.

"M. BLESSINGTON."

APPENDIX.

No. I.

CORRESPONDENCE OF COUNT D'ORSAY.

LETTERS FROM COUNT D'ORSAY TO W. 8. LANDOR, ESQ.

"Rome, 8th December, 1827. "MON CHER MR. LANDOR,-Nous avons tous été obligé d'aller à Naples, pour faire le mariage Protestant, car la première insinuation que l'on donna au Duc de Laval, fut qu'il était preferable que cela eut lieu avant la ceremonie Catholique, ainsi voila ce grand imbecille d'un ministre confondu. Son ignorant entêtement est prouvé. Je viens de lui écrire, pour lui dire que lorsqu'on est completement ignorant des devoirs de son ministère on doit alors en place d'entêtement s'en rapporter à l'opinion des autres, et que malgré tout l'embarras que nous avions eu à cause de lui, d'entreprendre ce voyage, nous avions été à même de juger de F, qui comprend tout aussi bien les devoirs de son ministère, que la manière de recevoir les personnes de distinction.

"J'espere qu'il prendra mal ma lettre, car j'aurais grand plaisir, de lui couper le bout de son Bec. Je vous écris ces details car je sais même par Hare, qu'en veritable ami, vous avez pris chaudement notre parti; je ne m'en etonne pas, car il suffit de vous connaitre, et de pouvoir vous apprecier, pour être convaincu que tout ce qui n'est pas sincère, n'a rien de commun avec vous. Toute la famille vous envoye mille amitiés, nous parlons et pensons souvent de vous. "Votre très affectionné D'ORSAY."

"74 Rue de Bourbon, 4th September, 1828. "J'ai reçu, mon cher Mr. Landor, votre lettre. Elle nous à fait le plus grand plaisir. Vous devriez être plus que convaincu, que j'apprecirais particulièrement une lettre de vous, mais il parait que notre intimité de Florence, ne compte pour rien à vos yeux, si vous doutez du plaisir que nos nouvelles doivent produire dans notre interieur. Si tôt que je recevrai les tableaux je ferai votre commission avec exactitude. Je desirerais bien que vous veniez à Paris, car nous avons de belles choses à vous montrer; surtout en fait de tableaux. A propos de cela, je vous envoye ci-joint le portrait du Prince Borghese que vous trouverez j'espere ressemblant. Vous savez que Francis Hare promene sa moitié sur le Continent, il ira probablement à Florence la laisser jouer sur le Theatre de Normanby. Car maintenant qu'elle a changé de vocation, Francis ne sera plus aussi strict.