Corinne is, of course, what all mothers
must be,--but will, I venture to prophesy, do what few mothers
could--write an Essay upon it. She cannot exist without a grievance--and
somebody to see, or read, how much grief becomes her. I have not seen
her since the event; but merely judge (not very charitably) from prior
observation.
In a "mail-coach copy" of the _Edinburgh_ [3] I perceive _The Giaour_ is
second article. The numbers are still in the Leith smack--_pray which
way is the wind?_ The said article is so very mild and sentimental, that
it must be written by Jeffrey _in love_ [4];--you know he is gone to
America to marry some fair one, of whom he has been, for several
_quarters, eperdument amoureux_. Seriously--as Winifred Jenkins [5]
says of Lismahago--Mr. Jeffrey (or his deputy) "has done the handsome
thing by me," and I say _nothing_. But this I will say, if you and I had
knocked one another on the head in this quarrel, how he would have
laughed, and what a mighty bad figure we should have cut in our
posthumous works. By the by, I was call'd _in_ the other day to mediate
between two gentlemen bent upon carnage, and--after a long struggle
between the natural desire of destroying one's fellow-creatures, and the
dislike of seeing men play the fool for nothing,--I got one to make an
apology, and the other to take it, and left them to live happy ever
after [6].
One was a peer, the other a friend untitled, and both fond of high
play;--and one, I can swear for, though very mild, "not fearful," and so
dead a shot, that, though the other is the thinnest of men, he would
have split him like a cane.
Pages:
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349