11.--To the Hon. Augusta Byron.


Burgage Manor, August 18th, 1804.


MY DEAREST AUGUSTA,--I seize this interval of my _amiable_ mother's
absence this afternoon, again to inform you, or rather to desire to be
informed by you, of what is going on. For my own part I can send
nothing to amuse you, excepting a repetition of my complaints against
my tormentor, whose _diabolical_ disposition (pardon me for staining
my paper with so harsh a word) seems to increase with age, and to
acquire new force with Time. The more I see of her the more my dislike
augments; nor can I so entirely conquer the appearance of it, as to
prevent her from perceiving my opinion; this, so far from calming the
Gale, blows it into a _hurricane_, which threatens to destroy
everything, till exhausted by its own violence, it is lulled into a
sullen torpor, which, after a short period, is again roused into fresh
and revived phrenzy, to me most terrible, and to every other Spectator
astonishing. She then declares that she plainly sees I hate her, that
I am leagued with her bitter enemies, viz. Yourself, L'd C[arlisle]
and Mr. H[anson], and, as I never Dissemble or contradict her, we are
all _honoured_ with a multiplicity of epithets, too _numerous_, and
some of them too _gross_, to be repeated. In this society, and in this
amusing and instructive manner, have I dragged out a weary fortnight,
and am condemned to pass another or three weeks as happily as the
former. No captive Negro, or Prisoner of war, ever looked forward to
their emancipation, and return to Liberty with more Joy, and with more