26.--To the Hon. Augusta Byron.


[The Earl of Carlisle's, Grosvenor Place, London.]

[Harrow, Wednesday, June 5, 1805.]


My Dearest Augusta,--At last you have a _decent_ specimen of the
dowager's talents for epistles in the _furioso_ style. You are now
freed from the _shackles_ of her correspondence, and when I revisit
her, I shall be bored with long stories of your _ingratitude_, etc.,
etc. She is as I have before declared certainly mad (to say she was in
her senses, would be condemning her as a Criminal), her conduct is a
_happy_ compound of derangement and Folly. I had the other day an
epistle from her; not a word was mentioned about you, but I had some
of the usual _compliments_ on my own account. I am now about to answer
her letter, though I shall scarcely have patience, to treat her with
civility, far less with affection, that was almost over before, and
this has given the finishing stroke to _filial_, which now gives way
to _fraternal_ duty. Believe me, dearest Augusta, not ten thousand
_such_ mothers, or indeed any mothers, Could induce me to give you
up.--No, No, as the dowager says in that rare epistle which now lies
before me, "the time has been, but that is past long since," and
nothing now can influence your _pretty_ _sort of_ a _brother_ (bad as
he is) to forget that he is your _Brother_. Our first Speech day will
be over ere this reaches you, but against the 2d you shall have timely
notice.--I am glad to hear your illness is not of a Serious nature;
_young Ladies_ ought not to throw themselves in to the fidgets about a
trifling delay of 9 or 10 years; age brings experience and when you in