affairs go too ill for us to bear French criticisms, and I do not see much prospect of their mending. It gave me great concern to hear that you were in doubt whether you should obtain the consent of the little Marquise de Fagniani's friends to bring her over to England this summer. This disappointment, I fear, will prevent you from returning so soon as we expected, and I had hoped to renew my acquaintance with her. Be so kind as to assure her that I flatter myself she has not forgotten me. As her relations had trusted her so far from home, I do not see any reasons for their scruples. You must feel great anxiety on her account; and have given sufficient proofs of your affection for her, to have assured them that they could not leave her in safer hands than in yours. Mrs. Townshend and my nieces dined with me to-day, and desired me to present their love to you. They are as little tired of Ranelagh as my . brother is of the House of Commons, and are in no hurry to go into the country. I am, dear Sir, Yours most affectionately, CHA. TOWNSHEND. [Ranelagh, a spot associated in our minds with so many scenes of gaiety and splendour belonging to the past age, as to render its site classical ground, was opened on the 24th of May, 1742. to the public Horace Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann, on the 22nd of April in that year," I have been breakfasting this morning at Ranelagh Garden: they have built an immense amphitheatre, with balconies full of little ale-houses; it is in rivalry of Vauxhall, and costs above twelve thousand pounds. The building is not finished; but they get great sums by people going to see it, and breakfasting in the house. There were yesterday no less than three hundred and eighty persons, at eighteen pence a-piece. You see how poor we are, when, with a tax of four shillings in the pound, we are laying out such sums for cakes and ale." Again, Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann, on the 26th of May following:-"Two nights ago Ranelagh Gardens were opened at Chelsea; the Prince, Princess, Duke, much nobility, and much mob besides, were there. There is a vast amphitheatre, finely gilt, painted, and illuminated, into which everybody that loves eating, drinking, staring, or crowding, is admitted for twelve pence. The building and disposition of the gardens cost sixteen thousand pounds. Twice a-week there are to be ridottos, at guinea tickets, for which you are to have a supper and music. I was there last night, but did not find the joy of it. Vauxhall is a little better; for the garden is pleasanter, and one goes by water." The vast amphitheatre of Ranelagh has long since been razed to the ground; and those who, like the editor, may take an interest in local associations, and may prefer to the dull realities of life the opportunity of identifying themselves with the gaiety and gallantry of a former age, will find in a pilgrimage to Ranelagh but little in the realities of the present to remind them of the romance of the past. Ranelagh Gardens stood on the site of what had formerly been a villa of Lord Ranelagh, but which now form part of the gardens of Chelsea Hospital. An avenue of trees, which were formerly seen illuminated by a thousand lamps, and beneath which sauntered the wit, the rank, and the beauty of the last century, now forms an almost solitary memento of the departed glories of Ranelagh. Attached to the trees may still be seen a solitary iron fixture from which the lamps formerly hung. "When I first entered Ranelagh," says Dr. Johnson, "it gave an expansion and gay sensation to my mind, such as I never experienced anywhere else. But as Xerxes wept when he viewed his immense army, and considered that not one of that great multitude would be alive a hundred years afterwards, so it went to my heart to consider that there was not one in all that brilliant circle that was not afraid to go home and think; but that the thoughts of each individual there would be distressing when alone." The last entertainment given at Ranelagh was at the installation of the Knights of the Bath in 1802.] THE REV. DR. WARNER TO GEORGE SELWYN. DEAR SIR, June 1st [1779]. WHAT on earth to say, to do, or to advise, or how to begin, I know not. I do nothing alone but curse, and fling, and stamp, and gnash; I am so ashamed of being so taken in. I was the "good easy man" who "believed full surely," as I forget who talks of Shakespeare, I believe, in Wolsey; *—and to be thus deceived! thus disappointed! thus mortified! I did believe full surely everything I said to you. I could not conceive such duplicity, such uncertainty, such capriciousness, such insolence. I always spoke honestly: witness what I had the hardiness to say of Mie Mie's sensibility, in which I am happy to be mistaken. I must continue the strain; I am now wretched for you; I see no hope. I may be mistaken again; but, overwhelmed by the two letters I received yesterday, I see everything at present in black: and the more so from so from your letter * This is the state of man: To-day he puts forth And then he falls, as I do. KING HENRY VIII., Act iii., Scene 2. to his Grace [the Duke of Queensberry], with the account of the valet's letter from Turin, for such things are not without their meaning; and, again, from a cursed report the old Duchess has from Lady Townshend, who says she has it from Tommy [Townshend] of Cleveland Court, that you will never be suffered to bring the child to England. Heaven knows what the foundation for it is. I tried to speak to Tommy in vain. I saw Charles [Townshend] to-day in Lincoln's Inn, as I was coming out of Woodcock's staircase, and asked him about it; he knows nothing of it, but says he shall write to you to-night. I was with his Grace for an hour and a half this morning. I found him at breakfast with your letter in his hand; and upon seeing it, as it was dated a post after mine, I supposed you had suggested the idea of his writing to Madame Fagniani, and introduced it without any management, especially as in your letters to me of yesterday you had mentioned it twice. But he treated it directly with derision: she was a neglected beauty, as she would think herself; and, if there was a thing in the world which would hurt your interest, it would be his interfering. She was such a violent, capricious, mortified, creature, that she would rejoice in having a request from him to run counter to. How can I— how dare I tell you all we said? worst. Suppose we wished that it Suppose the would please |