"I want to get away, but find difficulty in compassing a passage in
a ship of war. They had better let me go; if I cannot, patriotism
is the word--'nay, an' they'll mouth, I'll rant as well as they.'
Now, what are you doing?--writing, we all hope, for our own sakes.
Remember you must edite my posthumous works, with a Life of the
Author, for which I will send you Confessions, dated, 'Lazaretto,'
Smyrna, Malta, or Palermo--one can die any where.

"There is to be a thing on Tuesday ycleped a national fête. The
Regent and * * * are to be there, and every body else, who has
shillings enough for what was once a guinea. Vauxhall is the
scene--there are six tickets issued for the modest women, and it is
supposed there will be three to spare. The passports for the lax
are beyond my arithmetic.

"P.S.--The Staël last night attacked me most furiously--said that I
had 'no right to make love--that I had used * * barbarously--that I
had no feeling, and was totally insensible to _la belle passion_,
and _had_ been all my life.' I am very glad to hear it, but did not
know it before. Let me hear from you anon."

* * * * *

LETTER 126. TO MR. MOORE.

"July 25. 1813.

"I am not well versed enough in the ways of single woman to make
much matrimonial progress.