the days of Charles the Second and the records of Antonio Hamilton,
without deviating into our barbarous language,--which you understand
and write, however, much better than it deserves.

"My 'approbation,' as you are pleased to term it, was very sincere,
but perhaps not very impartial; for, though I love my country, I do
not love my countrymen--at least, such as they now are. And, besides
the seduction of talent and wit in your work, I fear that to me there
was the attraction of vengeance. I have _seen_ and _felt_ much of
what you have described so well. I have known the persons, and the
re-unions so described,--(many of them, that is to say,) and the
portraits are so like that I cannot but admire the painter no less
than his performance.

"But I am sorry for you; for if you are so well acquainted with life
at your age, what will become of you when the illusion is still more
dissipated? But never mind--_en avant!_--live while you can; and that
you may have the full enjoyment of the many advantages of youth,
talent, and figure, which you possess, is the wish of
an--Englishman,--I suppose, but it is no treason; for my mother was
Scotch, and my name and my family are both Norman; and as for myself,
I am of no country. As for my 'Works,' which you are pleased to
mention, let them go to the Devil, from whence (if you believe many
persons) they came.

"I have the honour to be your obliged," &c. &c.

During this period a circumstance occurred which shows, most
favourably for the better tendencies of his nature, how much allayed
and softened down his once angry feeling, upon the subject of his