coach to Mrs. Betham’s, to have my profile taken, and thence we drove to Marlborough Street. I found Mrs. Siddons engaged in nursing her little baby, and as handsome and charming as ever. She played last Wednesday before her month was up, and is now confined to her room with the cold she caught behind the scenes. There too, I saw Charles Kemble, as I passed through his sister’s dressing room, and thought him so like Kemble, Mrs. Twiss, and Mrs. Siddons, that it was some time before I could recollect myself enough to know whether he was a man or a woman. Sally and Maria, tell my father, are quite well, and inquired much concerning him. The baby is all a baby can be, but Mrs. S. laughs, and says it is a wit and a beauty already in her eyes; she leaves town to-day, or she would have invited me for a longer visit. From Marlborough Street, we drove to Mrs. Inchbald’s, who is as pretty as ever, and much more easy and unreserved in her manner, than when I last saw her. With her we passed an hour, and when I took my leave, she begged I would call on her again. She is in charming lodgings, and has just received two hundred pounds from Sheridan, for a farce containing sixty pages only. From her house we drove into the city. You will wonder, perhaps, where we dined. Be it known unto you, that we never dine when we visit London. Ives Hurry, as soon as we arrive at his house, always treats us with as much ice and biscuits as we can eat; we then sally forth, and eat ice again when we want it; so we did yesterday, and Mrs. Siddons’ roast beef had no temptations for us. As we returned to I. H.’s, we went to Daniel Isaac Eaton’s shop; we had scarcely entered it, when a very genteel-looking young man came in. He examined us, and we him; and suspicion being the order of the day, I dared not talk to Mrs. Eaton till the stranger was engaged in conversation with Boddington. I then told her that curiosity led me to her shop, and that I came from that city of sedition, Norwich. Her eyes sparkled, and she asked me if I knew Charles Marsh? “You come from Norwich, (cried the stranger,) allow me to ask you some questions,” &c., &c. He put questions, I answered them, and in a short time Mr. J. B. and myself were both so charmed with his manners and conversation, that we almost fancied we had known him before. We saw that he was intimate with Mrs. E. and her sweet girl, and seemed to be as much at home in the shop as the counter itself. So we had no fears of him; at last we became so fraternized, that Mrs. E. shut the shop door and gave us chairs. I will not relate the information I heard, but I could have talked with him all night. “Well, but who was he?” Have patience and you shall hear. Finding that he was just returned from Scotland, and was au fait of all the proceedings there, and that his connexions were those of high life; I asked where Lord Daer was, and lamented that he was not one of the arrested members. He smiled, and said that Lord D. wanted nerve then, and fortitude to resist the anxieties of his mother, and sisters, the most accomplished women in England; that the very day of the arrest he had received a letter from Lord Daer, promising to be with them if possible; and in the evening another note to say Lady Selkirk was ill, and that he could not leave her. “Indeed! I thought he bailed you,” said Mrs. Eaton. “Oh! no,” replied the other. Mr. B. and I looked at each other, wondering who “you,” was; but I began to suspect, and went on questioning him. He said they dared not hurt Lord D.; that they dared not attack any man of connexions and estate in Scotland: that had he himself been condemned, or sent to Botany Bay, his connexions would have risen to a man. I ventured to say, that however amiable Lord D.’s family might be, he ought to have disregarded their influence. He replied that I was quite right, and that he himself had disregarded them;—that democratic women were rare, and that he heartily wished he could introduce me to two charming patriots at Edinburgh, who were, though women, up to circumstances—and a great deal more, that raised my curiosity to a most painful height; at last, having said that he had laid it down as a rule for his conduct, that a patriot should be without the hope of living, or the fear of dying, he took his leave, leaving our minds elevated and delighted. Mrs. E. told us it was Mr. Sinclair, Sir John’s nephew, he who was tried, and acquitted. He says Lord D. is supposed to be dying, and he himself looks in bad health, but his countenance is fine, and his manners elegant.—“What think you of Mr. Windham?” said I, “Oh! the poor creature is out of his element; he might have done very well for a college disputant or a Greek professor, perhaps, but that’s all.” “Why do the Norwich patriots espouse Mingay? what can they expect? (said he,) he might be a very good implement of resentment against Windham, but, though the friend of their necessity, not of their choice.” Is he not right? * * * *
The following letter begins quite abruptly, and is without date.
* * * How strange it is, my dear friend, that I should have suffered your kind letter to remain so long unanswered, but, as I am certain that you will not impute my silence to any diminution of affection towards you, I will not fret about my oddity, but endeavour to make amends for it, by writing as good a letter as I can, and that will be, alas! very stupid; for the state of the times and other things press upon my mind continually, and unfit me for everything but conversation. My father will have told you a great deal; he will have told you too how much we are interested and agitated by the probable event of the approaching trials. Would to God, you and your husband were equally so, for then would one of my cares be removed; as you would, like us, perhaps turn a longing eye towards America as a place of refuge; and one of the strongest ties that binds me to Norwich would be converted into an attraction to lure me to the new world. On this, at least, I hope we are at all events resolved; to emigrate, if the event of the trial be fatal; that is, provided the Morgans do not give up their present resolution, and that we can carry a little society along with us, in which we can be happy, should Philadelphia disappoint our expectations. I write to you on this subject in confidence; as we do not wish our intention to be much known at present. How changed I am! How I sicken at the recollection of past follies and past connexions, and wish from the bottom of my soul, that I had never associated but with you and others like you. But it is folly to dwell on the past; it only incapacitates one for enjoying the present; it shall now be my care to anchor on the future, and I trust in God that it will not disappoint me.
You see I am not in high spirits; but then I am the more natural; and my flighty hours are long gone by, and my time for serious exertion is, I hope, arrived; but why should I write thus? I shall perhaps infect you with this seeming gloom; for, after all, if I carefully examine my heart, it will tell me, that I am happy. My usual spirits have been lowered this morning, by hearing Mr. Boddington and Mr. Morgan mark the printed list of the jury. Every one almost is marked by them as unfit to be trusted; for almost every man is a rascal, and a contractor, and in the pay of government some way or another.
What hope is there then for these objects of ministerial rancour? Mr. B. objects even to his own uncle, whom he thinks honest, because he is so prejudiced an aristocrat, that he looks upon rigour, in such cases, to be justice only. What a pass are things come to, when even dissenters lick the hand that oppresses them! Hang these politics! how they haunt me. Would it not be better, think you, to hang the framers of them?
What is a woman made of, think you, that can sue a man for inconstancy? Truly of very coarse materials; yet I really believe Miss Mann’s trial would have attracted me more than that for sedition. It would have given me so many new ideas. * * * * I wish my father could have remained with us, but he was very good to stay so long as he did; and I have the satisfaction of knowing he was happy while he did stay. He will tell you enough about Mrs. Inchbald, for he is quite smitten with her. Nay, I rather suspect he paid her a farewell visit. Pray tell him to write to me soon.
What a pity it is that The Cabinet is dangerous. I should have enjoyed it else so much. I admire what is already written. We are going to-night, as usual, to W. Morgan’s, where I shall sing as usual, your husband’s song. How I wish he was here to sing it instead of me. Farewell. Pray write to me soon.
A. A.
Although, as we have said, the letters describing what she saw at the Old Bailey were destroyed, she has fortunately preserved an anecdote of much interest relative to them, which was recalled to her recollection many years subsequently, on occasion of a visit she paid to Madame de Staël; she says:—
With this woman of excelling genius and winning manners, I had the pleasure of being acquainted in the year 1813; when, with her daughter, then of the age of sixteen, who afterwards became Duchess de Broglie, and Mr. Rocca, to whom she was then privately married, she was residing for some months in London, when exiled by Napoleon from France. One morning I went to call on her by appointment,
